2019-10-03 - Totally Not A Robbery

"...and just look at this thing! I need to get it rebound. Repairing it isn't going to take away from its authenticity, Mads. It'll be like... giving it a facelift!"

This bit of commentary is brought to you by one Cameron Cambridge as the little bell above the door jingles when she pushes her way in. The brunette wears her brown leather jacket, a halter top beneath it visible as the coat is left open. Her low-riding jeans leave enough hip exposed to see the top of her high-cut thong. All in all, it's pretty conservative wear for a woman who takes her clothes off for a living.

The brunette holds the door open for the goth coming in right behind her. Tucked under one arm, or rather held up in the light, is a rough-bound book with pages askew inside of it. Some of them look old, some new, a ratchety mix-mash of all sorts of things, from hand-written parchments so faded with age as to be barely visible, to a few pieces of printed pages taped in there.

"I'm just going to get it rebound so it's not falling apart. And maybe scanned. And while we're here, we can look for some other stuff. I want to see if there's any books on the local Astral Realm. I think there's something seriously messed up in the Spirit World here. I mean, even more messed up than usual. Cataclysmic!"

So declaring, the vlogger witch's heeled boots belt out a noise against the floor as she takes a slow pace down the center aisle, looking around glancing around the store for anything new that might have been added since she was last here. It's her favorite store in Gray Harbor, after all! Next to that one smooth shop with the mango-peach flavor.

"Can you see if there's anything interesting while I go drop this off?"

Madison walks in while still tapping something on the phone, scheduling things for the Amulet and overall giving her opinion on social media, spreading her wisdom like a virus on the internet. Tap tapping on her phone, the woman talks to the other witch without looking at the store.

"Look, I don't know what is up with you, but I told you many times before: written tradition isn't a good conduit to magic. Magic dies if made static, that is just plain facts, that is why most non-LA traditions, which are the legit ones, mind you, don't do it. Magic is a living thing, you need to feed it and change it everytime you pass on."

That is just Wicca fact, you know? Madison happens to know a lot. An old dude in summer camp spent a lot of time with her in the woods teaching her about magic.

He got arrested a few years later, but we don't talk about that.

"Look, of course this fucking town's astral plane is all messed up, every other person here has come straight out of Stranger Things, but an R-Rated version of it. We are like... Adult Stranger Things That Fucks. The Astral Plane here must be stickier than most motel bedsheets. Like, don't go there without a hazmat su-"

And then she stares at the store, arching a brow. "Huh. I dig this. I dig this a lot. Okay, this is now my favorite store. Pick another. Looks like we are about to find a cadaver or something." Madison isn't joking. Cellphone POCKETED, she has found something awesome to poke at, and she does. Straight towards a pile of "Aliens and Witches: The Unspoken Connection" books.

"Fuck, I love these."

There wasn't any sort of confidence in Nasir in the way he walked, to contrast the surefooted crones. He was lost, or was he? Perhaps he was simply made to wander, and fate had aligned him with the strange entrance of the bookstore. It was an oddity, that, to see the sign so subtly announcing it 'closed'. He lingered on that; on the notion of it being simply closed for the day. It was Sunday, after all.

But he was too stubborn for that. Slowly, a hawkish man-made way to the entrance wearing a long, thick shearling jacket of the bomber type, zipped up to the neck. It hung on him loosely on that militarized discoloration - olive - and its neck showed the pronunciation of his collarbone while framed by that felt collar. Hints of a white shirt peaked from his chest's rise, and it was matched with dark brown chinos and olive faux thigh-high boots, laced tightly to their upper flaps.

His soles made a crunching sound with every step, and he'd be halted on his way to the entrance by a pack of children that ran by while under whiny chatter and laughter. He eyed them warily on their departure, and reached instinctively for a back-pocket to ensure his wallet still remained. It did.

.... And with that, he approached. A lazy right hand dug through the uneven center of his long-buttoned front, for the smoothness of the jacket's shearling outside lacked pockets, but the inside was a whole different thing. A cigarette packet manifested, and he tapped it effortlessly on its bottom to produce the promised product caught deftly between his lips.

The shop was quiet, certainly, and it was perhaps obvious the moment he entered- too tall to hide beneath the shelves, and just about wide enough to clumsily shoulder a dusty coathanger whom's feet rattled noisly against the floor. He didn't care, however- his focus was on that zippo between his fingers, one he reeled and reeled for flint and snap, struggling flame to light his cigarette.. Until he saw;

Until he witnessed, the state of the shop. His lips went ajar, and his gaze - for now unaware of the enchantresses, divagated loosely on the building. Comically, his cigarette fell off his lips and between his boots' flanks, heralding his question to no one in particular;

"What the fuck."

"And I'm telling you that I'm not a computer and my Book of Shadows is falling apart here! Oral traditions are amazing, but if I'm going to remember all of the spells, rituals, and lore that I have collected, it's got to get written down. And, unless you want to drive around the entire country to try and talk to elders, you're gonna have to read something sometime in your life! Learn to be flexible, Mads. Like..." She slows down as the store's state slowly bypasses her ability to remain oblivious. "...me."

"Well this... isn't... weird." Cameron kind of stops in the middle of the store, noticing for the first time that the lights aren't on, except that coming from the windows. It's getting progressively darker the further in she walks. A slim hand reaches out, running along a bookshelf, coming away with a coating of dust on the pad of her index finger. She frowns, wiping it away on her jeans.

"Hello?" She steps forward once more, this time walking slower, more cautiously, as if expecting a horror movie monster to rush out at her, heading for the counter like a horror movie trope waiting for a little SAW doll on a tricycle to scoot forward and play an audio casette. "Anyone... here? Open today?"

Cameron reaches the counter, putting a hand on it, grimacing when she finds it, too, contains a fine layer of dust. She leans over and tries to peer up the stairs. Maybe they closed permanently? But then why is all the merchandise still here, left to rot? Vacation?

"Madison! No looting!" Hisses the brunette as she glares in the direction the goth vanished off to. Then comes a male voice, and it makes her whirl around, a short, sharp shriek escaping from her lips as she about jumps out of her skin. Even standing at six feet with her heels on, the man is still taller. A hand is placed to her racing heart. She doesn't quite relax as she sets her compiled Book of Shadows on top of the counter.

He definitely looks pretty murder-hobo right now, after all.

"Um, yeah. That was my question. Do you know where the lady who works here is? Did they... close?"

"Look, do you think witches, real witches, had spell books back when the Englishmen first dropped off by the shore? Real witches have great memory and understand magic is more about feeling thant knowing. Written form isn't flexible, written form is about calcifying things!"

Madison really thinks this look is a great one for the store, and has yet to realize it isn't intentional. She eyes around when Cameron talks, and waggles her head side to side, but doesn't say anything.

The goth vanishes, just long enough to suddenly YELL by Cameron's side, her fingertips DIGGING into those hips. "RWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!" Is she an asshole for spooking her friend? In most states she would be considered so. "LOOoook at you~ All spooked." She grins, and then she finally notices the man.

Madison gives him a lopsided grin. "Well, is this getting rapier by the second, or is it just my GeeTeeEffO Sense just not working right?" Despite thinking aloud, Madison still aproaches the man and extends her hand, "Name is Madison. If you want money, I have none of it, but I will have you know that I bleed a -lot-. I get everywhere, and it is just a mess. Its my pleasure!"

The goth keeps her hand extended, maybe showing she is not all that worried about stabbings right now. Her handshake, if that is a thing Nasir takes, is absolutely harmless and without any pressure at all. I is not that she doesn't try, but there is no strength in those arms.

"I don't know why you guys are so shocked about this store! I think it looks awesome. I just wish they didn't do the dust thing on every seat too. I don't want to sit down and get it all over my clothes."

Madison saunters over to the counter, "HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! IF YOU ARE DOING IT ALL THE WAY THERE IN THE BACK, GET DECENT AND COME HITHER! YOU HAVE DOLLARS WAITING FOR YOU!" Madison is the first one to die on any horror movie, yeah.

And indeed, all signs where there for Cameron's presumptions. The scraggly, tangled beard that hadn't known a brush in years; the equally messy, grown descend of hair tittering on neglect. All traits which held a healthy amount of gingered hairs that cut the otherwise harmonious brown of his locks, but helped him not in appearing any less a homeless menace.

At first, the woman's question received not a verbal response, but a rather subtle rise of a brow higher than its other, his right. It rose, and lifted, wrinkling his forehead much and joining the crunch his crooked - probably done so in some kind of violent endeavor - nose to better splay how disgusted he felt with the shop at hand, and its state.

And then Madison's best attempt at a T-Rex's clamor of love snapped him out of his daze, forcing his chin to drop and shoulders to align. They had gotten into a hunch then- it was obvious he struggled not to, probably from sitting on the back of a humvee's gun for enough a time to ruin anyone's spine, and made to straighten his torso to meet the girl's approach. He asserted his somewhat squinted eyes on the girl, and looked over her with ease to divide his attention between the two, sharing equal attention.

"I don't know," was his admittance, and with it rose his right hand, catching Madison's own. His fingers were like fine-grit sandpaper; brutish and battered, the kind sturdied by labour yet dexterous in the way they encompassed her much smaller appendage with trained softness. A singular shake ensued, and he let go.

"I came here hoping to buy the Silmarillion, but fuck that now, I guess," Nasir mused, stepping past Madison and her screaming - which forced somewhat of a strained grimace from him - on the way towards the counter. He dug through a messy stack of books, pushing them aside, and fished the bell from below its forgotten depths. A forlorn, dusty thing whom's golden sheen had bronzed and grew grey with soot the last month it was forgotten. Still, when he clapped it twice with his palm it jingled a broken rattle no less.

Suddenly, while she's still eyeballing the man who intentionally scared the pee out of her, Madison happens. Happens unexpectedly, and from the side, just like a raptor. Maddieraptors. You have to watch for them in bookstores with narrow aisles.

Instead of calmly calling the goth a 'Clever girl.', Cameron instead erupts to the side in a stumble-jump that has her swinging her purse off of her arm and towards the guitarist's face. Luckily she's diving away a she does it, so she misses by a mile. There may also have been a second scream, as if she thought Madison was a murder-hobo-accomplice. When all she finds is the goth grinning at her, she storms closer with a scowl.

"You're a bitch!" She declares, socking her fellow witch in the shoulder with a skinny arm. But she got those bony knuckles, so it might still pinch some. "God, I can't believe you! I almost peed!"

The stripper is happy to be behind the Overlord of the Amulet, way behind, keeping Madison between herself and danger at all times, just like a real brave person would. The goth might not fear stabbings, but the dancer is pretty damned sure it would affect her tips. But as Nasir walks past her and towards the counter, where Cameron herself stands, she ever-so-subtley sliiiiiiides herself out of the way, towards the opposite end of the small thing, taking her dilapidated mess of a book with her.

"Hi. Um," She points at herself. "I'm Cam." The bell rings hollowly through the room... and only silence answers. Once again, the brunette looks towards the stairs. "Should... someone go up and check on her? I mean," A glance has her brown eyes flicking between Madison and Nasir. "She could be hurt or something." Given the dust, she'd have been a corpse a week ago if that were the case. "Maybe someone should check."

That 'someone' leans back against the counter, placing her palms on the flat surface to lift herself up and onto it. Seated on the edge, the leggy Wiccan tucks her knees and swings around, letting herself down on the other side. A hand reaches to unattach the rope that blocks the stairs as she sets a foot on the base of them. "Helloooooooo? I'm coming up! Don't- Don't shoot or anything."

A playful breeze accompanies Marion's entrance into the bookstore, setting loose papers fluttering and tossing long-undisturbed dust up into the air. "Hey," they call out, unworriedly. "You forgot to change your sign to Open..."

"HAH! Silmarillion!?"

Madison curves her hands into shells on either side of her mouth, and fake screams, "Hearhear! We got a neeeerd!" Weird how her voice lowers when she is pretending to scream, as opposed to always being loud as she is. Madison walks over to Cameron, then, and places both hands on the woman's shoulders.

"Cam. Cammie. C-Dawg. Camerooney. Hon. Destiny-chan. Why do you need to treat everything like it is a mystery of the universe that is our problem? Sometimes people forget to clean their stores and there is nothing you can do about it, mm?" And then she peeks at the store's interior, brow arched.

"Also, if she was hurt, she is for -sure- rat food at this point, and I just had an awesome lunch. Do you want to see the body of some Kris Kringle-looking angel of an old man rotten with a rat popping out of his eyesocket, his legs stuck under a huge bookstand that fell on them, the last thing he did on this Earth being writing a love letter for his wife at home, saying sorry for how he never managed to say goodbye?"

Madison is not even looking at Cameron now. She is just looking ahead, her eyes watering some. She puts her forehead on Cameron's chest, whining, "Oh god, Mr. Kringle, I am so sorry! We will tell your wife your last thoughts were of her!"

Madison wipes her eyes on the back of her hand jumps over the counter, going over to the back.

Fails.

Tries again, with more impulse, and she does it. "Lets go, gang! Lets help his ghost find peace, or something!" There she goes unreservedly to find an imaginary character.

Nasir has joined The Gang.

It was a difficult thing, to witness the carefree camgirl swing over the counter and illegally assert herself on the other side. His nostrils flared some, and he tried to focus his eyes on the counter's banister covered in dust still. Clumsily, he had made the unintended mistake of laying both of his palms flat across it, a subconscious - almost instinctual - desire to see himself vault over just the same.

But not though. The brief moment of insanity passed however, and it was beneath Madison's announcement of his literary favorites and dweeb ways that he abused his height, leaned forward and dug a hand behind the checkout, fiddling around handily upon gold was struck.

Or brass. At least that's what it was made out of, and it was a strange thing that he'd find that correct conclusion from simply touching the chain from the locking mechanism. Some tugging, some clumsy back and forth and with a rise, he unlocked the lid. He lifted it and proved civilization had hopes still by simply walking through the intended channels behind the counter. A rebel without cause, this one;

Strangely, names were shared and Nasir showed little desire to disclose his, instead following with a; "You're a bit fucked in the head, aren't you?" he reasoned, giving Madison a brief, side look. And in that tilt, he saw the Mairon that came in through the entrace. "Oh shit, someone else came in," the gruff thing for a man announced, motioning half-blind towards the presumed stranger before reeling his gaze back at the stairs, and up.

"Witch's Oath, Mads!" Cameron declares, like Freddy declaring to The Gang that they have a mystery to solve. "If someone's in trouble, I have to help." It's all said by the dark-haired dancer as if the goth should already know this. Because obviously. "I'm just gonna go see if there's someone up there who might be hurt..."

But would almost definitely be dead. Even so, she makes a face as Madison gives voice to that possibility, shrugging her shoulders away from those hands and giving her fellow Skinny White Girl a swat to her hip. "D-Don't- Just- Shhhhhhhhhhhh!" The brunette reprimands, hissing the noise out like she suddenly became part snake, through her teeth in frustration.

The very LAST thing she needs right now is to step in Dead Person while wearing her favorite pair of boots. Not only do they make her legs look long and delightful, but they are comfortable and KICK ASS. While Madison tries to surmount the first obstacle in their quest, a basic counter, Cameron picks up a little statue of the Virgin Mary off a nearby shelf, hefting it a few times, before holding it by the head and upper torso in both hands like a club.

She's up to the second step when a noise makes her frown, turn, and gesture towards Nasir with her statue. "Hey, don't talk to her that way. She's just..." Glance at Madison. Fucked in the head. "...unique."

The announcement that someone else has entered the store, along with the voice of a NEW new stranger, has the brunette witch freezing in place. "...Hi!" She says, wide-eyed staring towards Marion over in the entrance. "Uh. I know this looks weird." Three people who don't work here going upstairs, one brandishing an improvised club. "But we're not here to murder anyone. ...Yeah."

And with that, Cameron mounts the stairs and heads up them, boots making a helluva racket as she takes them two at a time on long, skinny legs, to poke and prod and hopefully not find any corpses!

The loft above the Memento Mori is a small, single-roomed space, about 900 square feet in total. It is neatly divided into separate rooms by antique carved wooden panels. The space is small and cramped, but carries with it a kitschy, homey sort of feel to it.

Immediately off the stairs is a living area, featuring a curve-backed chaise couch in ivory and two armchairs in gold brocade along with a coffee table and two end tables that house mismatching Tiffany lamps. There is a small flat screen TV on the wall, positioned so that it can be easily angled to be seen from the bedroom, assuming the divider screen is closed. The 'bedroom' is just a place for a queen-sized bed dressed with several comfortable quilts and multiple pillows, along with another hilariously oversized armchair that sits beside the window. There's a tiny kitchenette to complete the space, but no table. All around the space are several low-lying bookshelves that are stuffed full with books.

Crammed in between the living room and the bedroom is an upright piano with a padded bench.

This autumn morning starts out a comfortable temperature, promising a warm afternoon. A few stray clouds dance across an otherwise clear sky, chased by light breezes.

Marion looks around. Looks at Nasir and an unknown woman behind the counter. Looks at Cameron ascending the stairs, right after they announce that no murder is planned.

Marion turns around and walks back outside.

A few moments later, they return, closing the door firmly behind them and lugging a heavy bit of furniture over to block it. One of the shades is not fully lowered, and that is also remedied. They look around for a lightswitch and find it. "Don't freak," they say, before they flick the switch and plunge the building into darkness--except, of course, for where the Tiffany glamp still glows at the back counter. Marion raises their hand, and a piercing glow of light appears, radiance spilling forth from their palm.

More specifically, from the ancient Nokia held within their palm. "I'm going to assume there's a reason for all of this besides what appears to be the worst robbery ever," Marion says. "Because man. You guys are the worst robbers ever."

"Yeah! I'm not fucked in the head! Tell him, Cam! You are not my dad!" Madison snaps her fingers in the space aroun her face, eyebrows high as if she just shown Nasir what is what. "Not that I would know, because that asshole never bothered to call me after moving to Montana. And it is not like I would care if he did! Life is disappointment anyways!" She eyes Cameron, a small bit of Madison's brain begging for help so she can be assisted in shutting up.

Thankfully, Cameron is already testing her weapon, which being a saint, makes it instantly holy. Very smart in case they find ghosts and/or The Undead. It is as Marion joins in that Madison finally stops on her way up. Why is she always being caught on act when she is so subtle!?

Look, I will have you know I am an excellent burglar when I am burglaring. I just didn't bring my stealth boots today!" She looks at Cameron and Nasir for some backup.

Finding none, Madison continues at Marion, "Look, there is probably a cadaver upstairs, and we thought we might check out, see if there are spirits about, maybe perform a light-to-medium exorcism! Wanna join?" Hey, she is not about to deny the magical world of easily-accessible witchcraft to someone random she just found on a random store!

Hustlin' 24/7!

With that being said, Madison climbs the stairs to find the room abov, and while she has a wide smile on her face when arriving, the smile soon vanishes. "There are NO bodies here, Cam... What the hell." She is disappointed.

Nasir gave no backup, or any encouragement in words, for Madison's dilemma. He gave very little in response, in fact- all of Madison's queer mannerism fell on an expressionless face and a far from engaged man. He didn't even deign to give Marion a response, in truth, he visibly felt like things had escalated to a more serious level none had chosen to admit to. Still, there was that subtle smile of greeting for his old friend, before looking back up to the top of the stairs.

If Cameron's bravery wavered, he'd take the lead without shame. He'd even take that makeshift club of a statue off her hands if her grip loosened, and she caught herself somewhat overwhelmed by the dark vistas of the upstairs room and the stories told by empty shelves and dusty wardrobes.

In the end, it didn't matter, he'd make it to the top no less. His weight make the planks creak as he moved, and it appeared almost as if a single month of being abandoned was enough to turn the local whole into a dingy mess. Still, there was a certain kind of spark to his features, one that shone with interest at the view of cogwebs and abandonment. "If I didn't have a shitty trailer I'd definitively crash here," he'd murmur, lifting his jacket some to let it loosen and hang from his back, revealing the tattoo'd name 'Pagan' marked some fingers off his nape before adjusting the felt collar around, and straightening the attire while delving further into the kitchenette.

A stray spoon found itself in his curious grip, and he'd stare into it silently, almost forebodingly. "Maybe the place was sold, and we're just vandalizing property at this point."

"We're not robbing anything!" Cameron declares, yelling over her shoulder back down the stairs as she creeps up onto the landing of the second floor. All looks... eeriely calm and quiet. Not even the signs of a struggle. Everything neatly in its place like someone had just walked out one day and never walked back in.

The dancer lowers the statue/weapon, holding it down by her hip, looking almost disappointed that she has not yet had a cause to swing it at anyone. "Why were you HOPING for a body?" She doesn't add on 'you psycho', but the it's right there in the tone of her voice and the way she roooooolls her eyes to give the goth a LOOK at the end of her question.

First, the Wiccan moves towards the bed, dropping down onto her hands and knees, long hair brushing the floor clean as she peers under it. No bodies there. She pushes herself back up to her knees, glancing around with a mild frown, eyes searching the room, head not moving. She leaves the statue on the floor where she put it as she stands back up.

"Huh." She eyeballs Nasir a little warily as he loosens his jacket. They are still two skinny girls with a very wild-looking guy they don't know. Something he says makes her eyebrows raise. "You live at Huckleberry?" She tries to remember if she's seen him around the trailer park.

"Okay, yeah, could be... I mean... I guess, yeah, that makes sense. But we can find out!" With a brightening of her expression, the singer turns to the guitarist. "Retro-cog!"

"Okay, we need five objects! One from each corner of the building, and one from the center. Maddie, baby," The brunette approaches the goth, cupping her face to make her focus and look her in the eye. "You remember the spell? Because you don't write stuff down. You need me to look it up?"

The lights flick back on as Marion un-blocks the door and sighs. "Look, I'm sure you're both nice girls, uh, Maddie and... Cam," they say, as they make their way upstairs. "But couldn't you do this sort of thing in a graveyard or something? This is someone's property, you know. Nasir is right--this shop got sold, and now we're ransacking it. And I expect the police are on edge after the murders."

"Maybe, MAYBE the place got sold, sure. BUT I am also a local, been here all my fucking life, and if there is one thing I can tell you for sure is this: this looks fishy as fuck, and anything that looks fishy, in Gray Harbor, is probably satanic. And cops will -not- help. They cannot help. They almost never do!"

Madison goes back to staring at the room, and then at Cameron when she is asked about rituals, "Yeah, of course I know a thing or two. We can do that. But lets take the stuff and leave. Our friend over there is right, police might show up sometime, and I don't need them finding me here. I have a long rep sheet! IT is easier to explain to a friend of mine I walked in here, saw the store empty, and grabbed five trinkets for sorcery!"

The eyes Marion and Nasir. "What? It is REAL, okay?"

Hands on her hips, she shakes her head, "I always get creeped out by the disappearances way more than the murders. Murders are like, boom, there, over. WHo knows where the people who are taken get taken to? I mean... come on now. We were all thinking it."

Madison sighs, and frowns. "Okay, Cam, gets the thingies! We rolling, and you guys should too! By the way, if I need people to lie for me to the police, where can I find you both?" She eyes Nasir and Marion, expectantly.

Very carefully, Nasir slowly laid the spoon back on the spread of cutlery on the kitchen top. The rumor of sorcery and spell brought forth palpable skepticism from him, and despite that, the very process of putting down the utensil was more of a ritual than it should, almost as if he feared to spring a trap right there and then.

"Just for now," was his response for Cameron, brief and to the point, yet there was some sense of reassurance in it. Was it for her, for him- for both? It didn't matter, he didn't appear at all convinced with his own idea of the would-be future, and chose instead to deflate his rigidness with sardonic mirth, one that mocked the twiggy little pair of girls with a smile that betrayed an unevenly long pair of canines, heralding the tease at their expense; "Ritual, spells, magic? Alright, that's my cue. You two are fucking nuts," he announced, and turned, to see the small silhouette of Marion by the stair's steps.

With a more than apprehensive look, one that conveyed more than a million words could, he quickly trod down and towards them, giving them an earnest shake of the shoulder and a much more dwindled, eased smile; "Hey. Lets bounce, and don't tell them where they can find us, it'll backfire," Nasir soon shared, eyeing Madison warily. However short, however skittish, he looked beyond the physical. And by how his eyes stared tense, he must've found something dark in her own visage; something unsaid of him.

"If that's how it is, we just leave! No harm, no foul." Except all of their fingerprints all over the place if anything goes missing. But they're not looters! Even if there ARE quite a few books in here she wouldn't mind pilfering, but upstairs and down... "We're not here specimen-collecting, but if this is another disappearance related to the Spirit World, I want to know if it's started abducting people in the middle of their day at their places of business!"

Because that is some The Grudge shit.

Still, the stripper frowns at the guitarist for a moment, especially at the mention of her rap sheet. Sigh! She's almost forgotten about the woman's ever-growing list of 'instances' involving the cops in this town. With a weary sigh, the taller brunette leans down to kiss the shorter one's cheek, pat her shoulder, and slip past her.

"Right, right. I'll get the things. Don't steal anything, Mads!"

Nasir's dismissal of their claims of sorcery and ritual spellcasting doesn't phase Cam in the slightest. She is MORE than used to being dismissive to her. Even people who could do the same damned things she could! Denial is an incredibly powerful thing, and needing to believe the world isn't magic somehow helped these people.

Cameron just kind of shrugs her shoulders in a 'whaddaya gonna do' sort of fashion and makes for the stairs herself, descending them after Nasir. But unlike the man, she isn't moving to leave. Instead, she's picking up her purse from where she left it on the countertop, the giant over-sized thing finally coming in handy. In one corner of the building she pulls down a small, carved wooden elephant from India.

She quickly walks to a second corner, selectively eyeballing a bookshelf and pulling out an old, but not first, edition of Don Quixote. This, too, is slid into her bag, though with just a tiiiiiiny pang of guilt. Should she only take things she wouldn't enjoy!? ...Naaaaaah.

"They're young, Nasir," Marion murmurs. "But..." They frown. "It would be nice to know for sure," they say, to nobody in particular. "Why don't we just follow them at a distance and make sure they keep out of trouble?" The nature of the trouble goes unspoken. Then they raise their voice a bit more.

"You know that you're planning to commit burglary, right?" But they look at the two young women and stick their hands in their back pockets. "Not my cow, not my farm. But I'll bite on the explanation of how magic is real." Marion gives Nasir an apologetic look and a shrug.

Cameron is already picking what they need for the ritual and Madison folds her arms watching it for a brief moment, before she goes about investigating the place. She speaks lowly, "Sometimes we feel so much that it gets stuck in walls and objects. We imprint into other things, but humans can't feel it unless they are attuned. This is why dogs hate places where a lot of people have died. They can sense it."

Science has no power here.

The witch eyes Nasir as he suggests they go, and she nods, a friendly smile on he rface. "Yeah, relaaax. We are going. Nobody is going to jail over this. Hell, with all the murders going on, I am sure they will hear my name and skip it all together. I am always hanging around with the boys in blue!" Career troublemaker! Even if she doesn't look -a thing- like it.

When Marion talks about magic, the goth grins wickedly, and speaks up, while they leave the premises, "You see, Jane, from where I come from, science and magic are the same, but to you, it is just something you haven't figured out yet. Magic is something you awaken deep within, and for just twenty nine ninety nine I can teach you how."

She also talks with some weird trying-to-be-English accent but soon the masquerade drops, as Madison smiles, "I am just joking! I don't charge for magic. Magic is holy. And so are the lives of the people it saves. Don't believe me? Check how hard the GHPD tries to hide their disappearance case solving record and why it is so bellow the average!"

Madison holds her hands up. "Just dealing with facts here, people. Reasonable, fact-based discussions only in Madison Central, the True No Spin Zone!" And speaking of which, she pockets an edition of Aliens and Witches: The Unseen Connection on her way out. What? Brainfood!

There was nothing Nasir could do, no; he was flabbergasted, yes, but how could show of shock appear on a man so cold and dry of looks as him? For anyone that didn't know any better, he was simply staring at Madison. Yes, deadpan; lazy and aloof, perhaps the two best words that could describe his disconnected visage. Still, for the more perceptive lot, there a twitch of the brow; before you a strain to the line of his upper lip, digging towards his nostrils like an affronted dog. Magic and arcana, all topics that eroded away at the gripping seriousness of the situation and visibly dwindled what already strained image and presumptions he had made of Madison.

"They're young indeed," was the singular echo from Nasir that saw response to Marion's words; words he returned with something only describeable as a fully-faced frown. Indeed, everything on that face of his made a turn for the worse once Marion dug deeper into the stretches of the cultist's prattle, and something-something about being friends somehow made him stand there, and listen to it all askance.

"Fuck," the soldier finally murmured, exasperated with the topic. It wasn't just disbelief, no- disbelief was the fácade. The excuse. There was something there, then; something deeper that pushed his denial as a cover, a thing that made sweat bud and align across the crooked length of his nosebridge and some greased lines of wrinkle on his forehead.

With a double-take to Madison's departure, he looked at Cameron next and announced; "Cops come your way, wondering why you've got stolen shit, I better not have them knocking on my trailer, you hear?" he warned, with little room for error, with a hand outstretched and pointing a casual motion towards her. His wasn't a grave stare, but an austere look that sought to get his point across. "It wouldn't be the first time some crazy, neighborhood menaces get me in trouble. Either way, Marion, lets get the hell out. Catch something to eat, shoot the shit at my place - or yours, if its closer - so you can help me figure some shit out," he'd take a step to the exit next, laying a palm against its side to push it briefly open, letting a drought push in and make a mess of papers.

Marion nods. "Yeah. We're out of here. Don't worry, Nasir." They pause, then get a handkerchief out of a pocket and wipe the lightswitch with it. Then the doorhandle. "I'd say nice to meet you," they say to Cameron, "but given that it was in the middle of a burglary..."