2019-10-30 - Finding the Lion

The jeep has barely stopped before Alexander is piling out of the car. He's shed the silvered half-mask and the cape, but kept the cane. It's a weapon, after all. But it does mean that he is one damned debonair tux-wearing grumpy investigator. And the first thing he does is focus on the house and try to feel Byron's presence inside of it.

Somewhere on the ride, Sutton performed the all-important task of swapping shoes with Erin. Though the vintage-style stilettos may look a little unusual with the brunette's darker ensemble, they're still hot shoes. The paramedic sighs with relief when she's finally out of those and into something a little more comfortable. Sure, the boots may be a little more clunky, but with garters and stockings showing, who's going to fashion police? We're here for srs bsnss. Her rent is a stake — a life is potentially at stake!

The cherry red Jeep squeals to a stop in front of the old Thorne house and when Isabella and Alexander climb out of it, the former reaches into her vehicle to pull out her baseball bat. She has a license to conceal carry, there's a gun in her glove compartment, but considering what her investigator beau says about how those inside might not be in their right minds, she decides to take this instead of the alternative. There's a wave to the rest when she sees the other vehicles pull up. Like her companion, she has de-masked along the way.

As Alexander tries to feel around for Byron's presence, she undoes the latch of the gate, and starts moving for the front door. Is it locked?

August has left his jacket, vest, and tie in the car. At least those can stay safe; the shirt and pants are easily replaceable. But if h has to redo his nails he's going to be annoyed as hell. This leaves him looking a little dressed up, like he just got out of a party and is looking for the after party.

He parks his Outback near Isabella's Jeep, moves to stand a bit behind Alexander, waiting to see what he reports.

Ruiz pulls up behind Isabella's jeep, and kills the ignition on the truck. His hat is removed and tossed onto the centre console, fingers rifled through his hair as he cracks open his door and climbs out. Amelia can wait in the truck. Though on second thought, he liberates the handgun he keeps in the glove compartment, before he slams the door shut.

Alexander's eyes narrow. "He's here, but not conscious," he informs the others, quietly. He points in the direction of the house, doing his best to pinpoint the direction of the presence he senses. "That may be for the best, all things considered." He takes a deep breath, himself, his eyes going to a specific place on the wrap-around porch. His expression is pinched, and he shakes his head slightly before gripping his cane and moving behind Isabella, through the gate.

Erin had changed over shoes as well and once they were set to go in, she smirks down at the heels with her darker outfit. Climbing out, she waits for Sutton in case she gets out the passenger side or the drivers side after Ruiz. She doesn't rush in on her own, but she does watch the house and the creepy pumpkin.

Ruiz doesn't offer anything further, since his mental 'feelers' are telling him the same thing as Alexander. Once he's sure Sutton and Erin are following, he trails off after the man, sidearm tucked into his belt.

Sutton pops out of the truck, glancing back at Amelia once. She hops out and shoves the door shut. She stands with Erin for a moment, watching the others choose how to deal with the house, the locks. Never B&E in front of a cop unless you have no other choice is her personal motto. Kinda like don't steal donuts in front of a room full of cops. Heh. Psych. "No time like the present." Sutton's behind Ruiz, crossing the gate just after him. "Erin, thanks for the loaner. These are way better."

August follows behind Alexander and Isabella to the gate, rolling up his shirt sleeves as he goes.

A hand reaches for the door to jiggle it once. Isabella looks over her shoulder at the rest of the group and as the fog rolls in, she doesn't seem to attach much danger to it despite the strangeness. "It's locked," she tells them softly - it's expected, really. But then she turns her eyes towards the door, takes a breath and lets her mind feel for the mechanisms surrounding the doorframe, to try and grasp them with her mind in an attempt to unlock them.

"Got movement to the side," Alexander calls out to the others, pointing at the shadow he can pick out from the fog. And, well - when he points, there's a crackle of electricity and the scent of ozone grows strong around him. He tries to fire a bolt of electricity at the thing's central mass while Isabella works on the lock. His only deference to the idea that this might be a human being is that it's not a voltage meant to kill, but an attempt to taser it.

Erin smiles at Sutton, "Anytime." Her steps are light in the heels and she remains just back from Ruiz, or Sutton, whichever. Both? SHe doesn't sense anything weird or hear anything really, the fog is too thick for her to see anything.

August tenses when Alexander says that, even more so when he zaps something out in the fog. "Starting to wonder if this fog isn't a town-wide danger right now."

Ruiz didn't see anything in the fog, much less have any idea why Alexander is zapping it. But when Isabella seems to get the door unlocked, he moves in to help her with it.

Sutton touches the gunslinger-cop's shoulder. "Ten o'clock." She doesn't have a weapon, but he does, a selection, even. "Can't tell who it is." She's not even sure there's something there. Better safe than shish-kabobbed. When Alexander crackles his electro zappy, the blonde murmurs, "Never mind, love." Apparently the anti-hugs, unlicensed PI isn't fucking around with slinking shadows tonight. "You have the funnest friends," is said more quietly. Perhaps only Erin and Ruiz can hear her say that.

The house is resisting her, but Isabella is determined - she hasn't lost her touch here at least but even the smallest use of it while things are so serious - when it matters - has her pulse ticking rapidly at the side of her throat, her fingers rippling with the smallest tremors. She hears Alexander's warning somewhere behind her, but she doesn't look back, trusting him to do what he has to while she concentrates. Meanwhile, she grips the door latch tightly and pushes the door open. As Ruiz's shadow moves to flank her, she looks up at him and nods, and steps sideways to let him go first - he's a police captain, after all. But a hand reaches out to touch Alexander's lightly to alert him to their success before slipping in after de la Vega.

Alexander drops his hand once the strike connects. It felt like a good hit, and the shadow fades, so he doesn't even look at it anymore, and he certainly doesn't do anything like...stop to see if he accidentally electrocuted an actual person. Should anyone look, his face is utterly expressionless, except for his eyes, which are black and calculating. He turns at Isabella's touch, and follows the others inside the house, silent and grim.

The you have the funnest friends quip earns little more than a grunt from the captain, and a sidelong look sent Alexander's way at the residual ozone left behind by his zapping of.. whatever that was. "Stay close," he tells Erin, and waits for the all clear from Isabella before drawing his weapon (the real gun, not the S&W replica, which he left in the truck) and shouldering the door open with a soft creak.

Erin is armed all the time, just not with a firearm (thank GOD). She watches where Sutton gestures, then winces at the mention of Alexander taking care of it. Maybe. She does stay close to the both of them, sneaky sneaky.

August sighs at the darkness inside the house, pulls out the small LED flashlight he fetched from the glove box. "Great. Don't suppose any of you know that light-making trick? Because I don't think I can hold fire long enough with burning myself." He clicks the flashlight on, shines it over Isabella's shoulder.

"Fog is a beautiful in the PNW." Sutton murmurs, making her way up to the doorway, though she waits for most of the others to go through before she does. "Why you gotta make it creepy, Gray Harbor." Sutton walks on in once a few others go, though. She's done many a naked scamper through a strange abode, so a dark interior does not deter her. She pulls her phone out of her bra and flips on the flashlight. She has 35% battery. Oh yeah. Shit, she turns off the Friendbook app, because it's a battery hog.

With August shining the light around and muttering about the lack of illumination, isabella shakes her head. "I can't," she tells him quietly. "Not without a boost." And she won't use unless she absolutely has to anyway, so she withdraws her smartphone and uses the flashlight option that comes with most Android devices. She lifts it up to cast it around. To Alexander and Ruiz, she murmurs. "Can the two of you determine where in the house Byron is?" she asks softly.

She's already moving though - she relies on the light she carries, but not just that. Movers tend to be inherently and keenly aware of physical space, so she doesn't bump into things as much as the others might, but she freezes when her senses twig on noises. She lifts her fingers to signal the others that she hears something.

Alexander shakes his head at August. "Not a drop of that ability. But, here. I've been here before." He raises a hand to his temple, rubbing idly at it as he creates a projective illusion in the middle of it. He has good visualization skills, and the blueprint of the house is suddenly stark in their minds, unless they resist it, looking like a very neat 3D projection. There's even little dots to represent them. Some areas aren't as well filled in - it's obvious where Alexander has and hasn't been in the house. "I'm hearing something from somewhere around here," he adds, and suddenly a portion of what might be a back porch is stained a slowly throbbing red color. "Javier, can you pick up Thorne?"

Erin also uses her cell phone, she had plenty of pockets in this outfit. She walks more on the balls of her feet to keep the heels from clicking and announcing her presence, though they make enough noise as a unit anyway. Listening to the questions, she glances between the others, but she looks curious. Then suddenly she sees the blueprint and gasps finding it odd for someone else to be in her mind. Her hand clenches on her phone but she doesn't do what her first instinct is and shut it out. She just uses the picture to carefully traverse her way after the others.

Ruiz squints slightly, casting his eyes about the shadows, illuminated with the funnel of haze generated by August's little LED flashlight. He shakes his head eventually to Isabella, after what seems like a moment spent contemplating her question. He's about to suggest they split into groups and search the place, when Alexander brings up that neat little projection of his memory of the house's layout. "You think he's out there, on the porch?" he wonders. Then a beat later, "Si. I think so. He's got to weigh, what, one eighty? Let's go."

"I hear it too," August says of the chanting. He studies the blueprint Alexander gives them, then looks off to one side. "Someone's drugged. Probably him. And there's someone hurt outside--maybe whoever you lit up." He prepares to follow everyone else, flashlight lighting the way as best it can.

Sutton idly brings up her texts and typey types out a little texty text for her landlord. "This costume is a rental." She says this idly, glancing around briefly, watching the battery of her phone drain slowly. Why she said that is anyone's guess. "Stop creepy whispering."

"Okay..." Isabella whispers, glancing over at Sutton as she texts, nodding in approval at the idea behind it, and the other woman who is starting to become more and more familiar as time goes on - the costume is very good. With the direction pointed out, she hefts her bat and proceeds, though once again, she lets Ruiz take point, because he has a gun and he's trained to do this. But with the blueprint in her head and everyone else hearing chanting and so forth, she's definitely becoming more and more anxious to grab the missing Thorne and get him out of the house that wants him.

Sutton's gamble works, and she flashes the blonde a thumbs-up because that was clever as fuck, before she starts moving towards where she hears Byron's text ding.

Alexander also shoots Sutton an impressed look when he hears the distinctive beep. "It's coming from the back of the house, too." And then he's following Isabella closely - the house doesn't get to eat his girlfriend.

August watches Sutton type the text with a frown, but his expression clears a second later. Then there's the tell-tale sound. He nods at Alexander, follows him and Isabella. Here goes nothing.

Erin can hear the beep but it seems to be coming from.. somewhere, she's not exactly sure. But she did hear it. "Nicely done, Sutton." A grin for her for even coming up with that idea. "Now see if he answers the text while we look for him." Oh ew. She hears the sounds, unmistakably this time. The footsteps towards the stairs. Damn. Damn. Damn.

Ruiz must be having an off night, as he hasn't been picking up on much of anything thus far. Distracted? Maybe. Or maybe his costume's uncomfortable. Or that day old donut he snagged on his way out of the office was more than a day old.

Once Alexander gives some direction though, he thumbs the safety off on his pistol and angles in the direction of the back door. He draws up short though at the sound of footsteps on floorboards, and indicates for the others to take cover with a jerk of his head. He drops his shoulder to the wall, weapon braced in both hands, and waits.

Sutton's texting skills are highly evolved. She's good at it even when she's drunk in the men's room at Pourhouse. Sure, sometimes she mistakenly texts the wrong person, but in this way she knows which two people in this house don't have a secret teenaged daughter. Um. That they know about. "No answer, but..." She smiles. Apparently Erin and some others heard the phone ping. She keeps typing. Tappy tappy. She glances up at the footsteps.

Erin has no secret teenaged daughter! Knows nothing about secret teenaged daughters! Does that make her the winner or the loser? With a blueprint of the house in her head, she draws back, turns off her flashlight and ducks behind or beneath or inside something. Maybe the cupboard under the stairs. It's dark, probably even Sutton and Ruiz don't even know where she went and she was closest to them.

August clicks off his flashlight and shoves it back in his pocket, sticking with Alexander and Isabella. Here's hoping whatever's coming isn't a huge problem; they need to get to Thorne and get the fuck out of this place.

She hears footsteps and with the direction pointed out, she slips further into the shadows, snuffing out the light on her phone. Watching Ruiz take to the corner with his gun out, Isabella proceeds to head down the hall where she hears the pinging, trusting the man to obliterate whatever it is that might try to sandwich them from behind while they try to find Byron. There's a small quiet breath, heard by Alexander and August, and she lifts her bat until she gets to the very end to the door. She closes her fingers around it and opens it slowly, and as quietly as she can.

At Ruiz's words, Alexander also presses himself against the hallway wall. It's not great for cover, but it's the best he can manage. He briefly turns his head to look at Ruiz, momentarily torn. But Ruiz is conscious and with a gun, and God only knows what's going on with Byron, so he continues to slink after Isabella, carefully.

Ruiz keeps his sturdy shoulder to the wall, gun pointed 45 degrees toward the ground, lazy tension stitched through his frame. He breathes steadily, listens to the others moving about in the house and waits for a shift in the shadows along the stairwell indicating that whomever it is, is in his sight line. He'll have to trust that Erin's either hidden away somewhere safe, or with the others, as he doesn't have time to check on her now.

Sutton creeps along behind Isabella, quiet like a mouse in boots. She adjusts her corset a few times, but doesn't complain about it. She peers to her left. The blonde hasn't been in enough of these scenarios to be too worried. Silly rabbit.

Awesome! More fog. For someone who grew up in the Pacific Northwest and spent 80% of his life in it, August is really fucking over all this fog. Well, the magical kind, anyways. He glances to the left, eyes narrowed, but lets Alexander and Isabella lead on.

Erin had ducked into a closet or something, anything she could find as soon as she had heard the footsteps. Her flashlight is decidedly off and she listens to any sounds she can hear nearby.

When a more slender shadow appears to her right, Isabella flashes Sutton a quick wink, as she's still texting Byron - and the beep beckons at them from somewhere in the darkness. With the door open and nothing but the oppressive shroud attempting to crush the lights out of their hands, she stows her phone away and hefts her baseball bat upwards, eyes narrowing. It's daunting, definitely, but she shoves down whatever apprehension she feels and takes a step forward towards where she last heard the phone beep.

"Hold up. There's a group of creepy mask fuckers right in front of us. And one to the left," Alexander says, abruptly. His voice is a little distracted, because he's reaching out his mind back to Ruiz in the hallway and giving a sharp rap on his mental door. This isn't Alexander's usual, tentative manner of establishing contact, and he pushes until he can establish some sort of contact with the man, whether he likes it or not. <<We've got multiple hostiles out here. Don't die there.>>

"Identify yourself," barks the captain, holding his semi-defensible position rather than venturing closer to the stairs. His gun is hoisted in his right hand, muzzle up, cell phone's light flicked on to provide a little illumination, and aimed up the stairs at the shadowy figure that's descending.

Meanwhile, Alexander's not just knocking on his mental door, but barging his way in in a completely rude manner. He grits his teeth, but allows the door to open, thoroughly focused on the guy coming down the stairs.

Ruiz doesn't even wait for confirmation. There's a dull click of a round dropping into the chamber, before he fires.

August swallows a curse at Alexander's report of their friends. He pulls out something from his pocket: a small feather, from a blue ruffed grouse. Somehow it feels like a bad idea to talk. He's not sure why; certainly their enemies know they're here. Yet he still reaches out with his mind to tap Alexander once for his attention, then say, <<Deal with these assholes.>> He runs his fingers along the feather, and a jolt follows that suggestion, making Alexander's Glimmer brighter and stronger.

Apparently Sutton doesn't have anything else to tell Byron right now, because she uses her phone light, backing up Isabella. She's behind her, not within backswing range (she saw someone make that mistake in high school), staying low. She slides to one side after moving through that doorway. She does flash Bella a thumbs up before they move in. All good, let's gettem! would be the subtext. Nope, wait, she thought of something else.

There's a loud report of what sounds like a gunshot from somewhere inside the house. Everyone outside probably heard that.

Being in the dark helps to focus and listen to the sounds around her. Erin had gone into hiding for just this reason. No, she hadn't known Ruiz would hang back, but while the others were seeking Byron maybe she could give a hand in helping give them time.

With Sutton backing her up, Isabella smiles faintly, and glances over at August and Alexander as they shift - and do, in the end, what they do best. She has no such option; the darkness is such that she can barely see anything, can barely sense anything due to the fog. But she is worried about Byron and what will happen to everyone else if they stay here for too long. She doesn't know how many of them are there, but she knows a general direction where to go - Alexander said they were right in front of them, so that is where she will go.

"Well...nothing for it," she murmurs and girds herself, before she suddenly launches herself into the darkness, barreling forward with the baseball bat crossed defensively in front of her, acting very much like a bowling ball thrown hard and suddenly down the alley in an effort to knock down the pins by homing in on the masks they're wearing instead of their actual minds. It is less to attack and more to throw herself in as distraction to make it easier for August and Alexander and Sutton to do what they have to.

Alexander doesn't try to dominate Ruiz's attention - his presence is just there, mostly making sure the Captain doesn't start dying on them. A cold glitter of distant stars observing from afar. And then August's ability wraps around him, and there's a spark, a lightning storm within that distant starscape.

In the real world, this is hardly noticeable. Alexander just nods at August. He doesn't even flinch at the gunshot inside the house, but he lifts his hands, and concentrates on the group of masked assistants (that only he can apparently see) on the porch steps. Electricity flashes, and he starts to try and rain electric horror on the enemy - only to curse under his breath as Isabella launches herself forward. He compensates - targeting instead anyone and everyone who even LOOKS like they may be about to try and fight back against her.

Ruiz pulls away from the wall and takes three steps toward the zombie formerly known as Stephen Thorne, whom he does vaguely recognise from some pictures up at the precinct. Not that this is really him, of course. He stops at the foot of the stairs just as the thing slides down and comes to rest there.. and starts to teeter back to its feet again. His booted foot comes up to shove what's left of the creature back down again, and his pistol's pointed at its head like he's going to empty what's left of his clip into the gaping hole left by his own gun.

But then Erin comes out of nowhere with her own attack, ripping into the undead creature and tearing its head clean off its body. His head whips around, his whole body going rigid, like he's wondering where the fuck that came from. And a beat later, recognition hits him in the form of her glimmer's signature. He steps around into the kitchen to try to find her. Once he manages to spot her, "Nice work. We should go and find the others."

August blanches as Isabella...sure as hell runs on in there. Where Alexander is probably about to zap the fuck out of six people. "Wait--"

Sutton was about to follow Isabella into the fray, but the crackling chain lightning stops her. She's not used to all this glimmer going off near constantly for several minutes, like a caffeine buzz trying to vibrate her brain out of the back of her skull. She may not be able to tell where it's coming from, but the effects are fairly obvious. She squints and pushes back toward the nearest landmark. "Jesus..."

Erin doesn't go far, but she knows what she did with the whole head thing. The man was somewhat familiar to her too, she went to school with Byron, way back when. She nods mutely to Ruiz and hurries through the house to the backyward where she'd heard them all go, rushing, not sure what they would find when they got there. SHe notices Sutton on her feet and breathes a sigh of relief, now she's counting everyone else, trying to see how they all are faring. "What happened, Sutton?" It's still dark out though, she squints into the fogginess.

She's swinging the bat around wildly when she gets there as lightning flashes from somewhere behind her - the scent of ozone thickens the air and that's when she realizes that she's miscalculated. Isabella's actually never seen Alexander use lightning before and he certainly didn't try at the park, he had used a subtler approach. She had thought that he would try to do the same here - to overtake people's minds and simply tell them not to be here anymore.

She was wrong - her perception twigs her to the fact that something massive is coming and she instinctively seizes what's in her to protect her, but Alexander hopped up on August's influence is simply too powerful for her to stop and a vein of lightning cracks into the back of her hand, thrumming through her knuckles and forcing her to drop her baseball bat. There's an "OW!" from the darkness, followed by a clench of gritted teeth. Adrenaline courses through her system, though, her heart racing in her ribs when the danger is suddenly gone from around her.

"...holy shit, what a rush," she breathes. She has absolutely no idea that her hair is super poofy right now.

There is a point at which Alexander is going to feel absolutely horrible about the fact that he hurt Isabella. Right now is not that point. His mind is clear and cold, seeing only threats and the elimination thereof. He barely even flinches at Isabella's cry, but any other shadows that haven't been disbanded are going to get another burst of electricity. "Will someone please grab Thorne?" he says, gesturing towards the beeping. "The house is fucking watching us, and we need to leave." He echoes the sentiment down the mental link with Ruiz. <<You and Erin need to get out of that house, and we need to get the hell out of here.>>

<<Already on it, hold your goddamned horses>> echoes almost immediately across the connection shared between Alexander and the captain. He catches Erin's arm if she permits, and draws her along with him. His gun is held loosely in his other hand as they step through the door leading into the back yard.

August flinches against Isabella getting struck with the lightning, in addition to everyone else Alexander hits. He's far less concerned about them, though; he doesn't know them, and anyways, they're the problem. She's not seriously hurt, though, which is a relief. And hey, there's Byron. August moves forward and hauls him into a fireman carry, though he moves like Byron weighs no more than a scarf. "Let's get the fuck out of here. We can heal the drugs off him once we're clear."

Sutton shakes her head. "I'm not..." she shakes her head. "Not really sure." It's gonna take the blonde a while to adjust to this much glimmer. Two months ago, she was still in denial about the existence of it, after all. She doesn't need to be told twice the house is watching them. Nope. Peace out, Sutton makes her way around and off the deck, insofar as she can find her way through the fog. She's dressed in white, and might even blend in a little. "Let him enjoy the ride. He's probably fine." Says the paramedic who hasn't touched the unconscious lion. "Somebody hit the drive thru."