20275/On the Trail of a Killer...!

On the Trail of a Killer...!
Date of Scene:	12 April 2025
Location:	Monkey Heaven Records
Synopsis:	Raven and Detective Chimp both decide to investigate the same mystery, and find more than they planned...
Cast of Characters:	Rachel Roth, Detective Chimp

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Rachel Roth has posed:
    How this place managed to survive in a land of streaming - Raven had no idea.

    What she did know was that this was an out of the way place. And a certain... trail was leading her here.

    Fear. It floated around the alleyway that led to this shop out of time. And Rachel Roth was in... disguise. Disguise, meaning, not wrapped in the blue cape that she was known for. Disguise, meaning that she was wearing a black twist front top, outlines of white ravens along the sleeves, and distressed jeans, tucked into calf-high boots with a big, chunky heel. The pentagram on a silver chain around her neck completed the outfit, the red gem in her forehead a contrast with her dark hair and grey skin.

    Head was bowed as she follows the traces of that emotion here.

    And once inside the door, things get muddier. Excitement, joy, enthusiasm...

    The emotional trail goes cold.

    Raven frowns, lifting her chin as she glances up towards the logo of the place, narrowing her eyes, the owner busy with another customer at this moment.

Detective Chimp has posed:
"So let me get this straight..."

The pen in the detective's hand is a throwback to a simpler time, much like the record store in which he's taking his notes. A Parker 51, in this case, and a very well-used example of the model. It would be almost accurate to say that it had been 'battered', but then such is the life of a paranormal investigator's fountain pen. As the detective finishes his hastily-written note, he lets the ink on his leather-bound notebook dry for a bit before closing, using the time to finish his hanging sentence.

"You're telling me that this place costs seventy six thousand US dollars per month in rent and utilities. But the business itself brings in only eighty four thousand dollars per month, gross."

As the detective closes his notebook, the young man that he is interviewing rubs his moustache periodically as he tries to run through the math in his head. Even without a degree in accounting, it certainly sounds dismal.

"Yeah... but that's like... an average though, man."

The detective slides his notebook into the pocket of his tweed jacket, and adjusts his tie reflexively before leaping down from the table upon which multiple copies of Jewel's third album have been displayed.

"Well then... I'm not sure that we should immediately rule this as a murder, despite its... unusual nature. If I worked at this dump, I'd probably want to off myself."

Rachel Roth has posed:
In a world of mutants, half-demons, literal aliens, and multiversal creatures - seeing a talking ape might be normal enough to some. But... flickering in Raven's gaze was something unusual. Surprise. The edges of her eyes twitch and her lips turn down subtlely. But to those that knew her, that was close enough to a gasp of shock.

Raven had the temptation to float over there, but realized how silly that tended to look without her swoopy cape.

So she walks, rounding a shelf to stare at the owner and the chimp that was interrogating him.

Her eyes narrow, strictly.

"Did you say... murder?" she asks.

Her eyes narrow further on the great detective. "We may have goals in common," she says. A dart of the eyes towards the owner, and back again. "If... you are done with your interrogation."

Detective Chimp has posed:
"Dude... that's harsh. No wonder your detective agency has a two star review on Gripe."

Despite the complaints from the store manager, the detective is here to accumulate as many facts as possible, not as many friends as possible. And with his trusty magnifying glass in hand, he seems prepared to do just that, though not before breathing onto the glass long enough to fog it up, and then rubbing the glass on the sleeve of his tweed jacket.

Which is right around when he locks eyes with the young woman who just bumped him down to 'Second Creepiest' in this particular record store. With his mouth temporarily greatly enlarged by the magnifying glass, one could probably get a good view of Detective Chimp's tonsils if one were so inclined, or even a look at his many cavities.

He's saving up for a gold tooth, though.

"Did I say murder? That doesn't sound like something that I would say... I'm just a simple ape from the country."

Wipe wipe wipe. The magnifying glass is clean.

"But if I DID happen to mention a theoretical murder, in passing... I'd be very curious what makes you so interested in it there, Amy Lee. And... what you were doing around this time on the 17th of March?"

Rachel Roth has posed:
If it wasn't overly joyful towermates trying to get her to 'cheer up a little bit'... it was jokesters. The lack of patience Raven might have for goofiness might be seen in the hardening of her expression, her eyes levelling on the chimpanzee. He wasn't green.

So it wasn't one of Garfield's tricks.

Monkey tonsils aside, Raven starts to approach the counter where the manager lurked behind, her hands at her sides, fitted with arm warmers that left her fingers bare. Black polish, of course. Long nails.

She didn't know him. That hardness from her earlier expression might fade a little bit. Best to be neutral - diplomatic - with someone unknown. Raven stands, ramrod straight, her intense eyes flicking from a momentary inspection of the manager... to settle upon the Detective.

"Raven," she corrects, with a firmness underlying her tone. Her face pinches. "I was probably in my room. I felt what happened here, though," she says, not quite explaining her empathy at the moment. She lifts her chin, letting her eyes drift around the room, searching the corners, the ceiling, the Monkey Heaven Logo, as if it may hold secrets.

    "Or... around here," she says.

    "The terror, the fear, that steals the breath out of a soul's spirit," says the woman.

    Her eyes level back on the Chimp.

    "I felt the death."

    People died all the time. Raven didn't feel the emotional pull around all of them, or even most of them. But she felt this one. The secret question she had was... why?

Detective Chimp has posed:
"Interesting..."

There's a sinister undertone to Detective Chimp's words, a byproduct perhaps of a general suspicion of his distant cousins and all of their comparative smoothness. But the line between 'suspicion' and 'curiosity' is not always especially well-defined, and it seems that the young woman from Spencer's Gifts has piqued both of these interests from the hard-boiled paranormal investigator.

Holding up his magnifying glass, the chimp gets a bit closer, and begins moving the glass back and forth from his face to her body, as he walks around in a way that suggests he'd much rather keep at least an arms length between the two of them. He has very long arms, for a man of his height.

"You FELT the death..."

Up and down the glass goes, though what the chimp detective might be looking for is anyone's guess.

"You felt it where? Your noggin? Your fingertips? Inside your... uh... inside meats?"

Putting away magnifying glass, he gives the young woman a long, appraising stare beneath the brim of his deerstalker cap. It would be a cruel joke to dress an ape named 'Detective Chimp' in an outfit that was such a blatant ripoff of Sherlock Holmes. But all indications lead to the conclusion that he probably dressed himself this way.

"But the most important question, I suppose, since we're on the subject... Do you feel any other deaths right now?"

Rachel Roth has posed:
Raven took everything deathly seriously.

Even a chimpanzee in a deerstalker cap. Even if she does narrow her eyes, keeping her level gaze on the man as he circles around her, short hair perfectly framing her face as her eyes cut around to see him.

"It depends on the feeling," she says. "But the death is felt in pieces. The boiling suspicion that blossoms into fear, then the fear into terror. What makes it a death is not that feeling, but how quickly it ends. A prank bleeds away into relief, and joy. But when terror just... ends..."

Raven turns her eyes away from the detective, towards the back room of the place, towards the back door, as a splinter of her mind twists like a dagger in her senses.

Until his last question, which struck her as a little rude. And probably got to the heart of her secret question. Her eyes narrow on the Chimp. He struck a nerve. "I might be about to." A casual threat.

But probably best to not say such things so casually with people that aren't familiar with her.

"Back there," she says, to gesture towards the back door. Towards the alleyway behind.

"So. How did a Chimpanzee end up investigating this?" she says. Raven didn't know it yet, but they were talking about Dottie Buckles, a fourty-something year old single woman who really loved this store.

And secretely was into the occult. She may have been trying to cut a deal with...

    ...

         ...

    ...that might be part of the mystery, won't it?

Detective Chimp has posed:
"Swear to Baphomet, if you don't actually have magical death-sensing powers..."

Leaving his threat unfinished, Detective Chimp lets his eyes follow her gesture, peering toward the back door where a normal alleyway seems almost preternaturally ominous. Whether he gets a sense of her earnestness, or whether the mystical energy coming off her is simply too strong to ignore, the detective knows to follow a potential break in the case when it presents itself. Paranormal investigation has a tendency to take meandering paths toward the weird and unpredictable, two adjectives that he would certainly apply to this particular woman, despite having only just met her.

There's an almost world-weary sigh, and for a split second it might be possible to imagine that this is a detective from any of several thousand pulp novels. He's got the energy of someone who has seen too much for one lifetime, or has simply been through a particularly nasty divorce.

As he waddles a bit unsteadily on his legs, the detective takes a cigarette from the slightly crushed pack in his pocket, and lets it dangle from his lower lip. Even a nicotine fiend like himself seems to have at least a modicum of respect for a struggling record store where an alleged murder has occurred. But it remains unclear at first if he's heading toward the alley to follow up on his new partner's feeling, or simply to light his cancer stick with impunity.

"You're asking the wrong question, kiddo. The question isn't why a chimpanzee is investigating this alleged murder."

"The question is why do I only have a two star review on Gripe?"

Rachel Roth has posed:
Raven's brief triggering by jokesters might be seen as the last thing that the detective says causes her to glance over her shoulder and stare ominously at him. "Customer service, probably," she says, dryly.

Weird and unpredictable was in the future, that was for certain. Raven leads the way to the back alley, past the odd-smelling boxes of old vinyl, to the more offensive smelling alleyway that lingered behind the place, smelling of rot and old garbage. Probably from a dumpster that was against the side of the alley, that hadn't been emptied since time immortal.

This was where Dottie was found. The police report said she had died of a heart attack, but Raven knew... or felt the truth.

And perhaps the chimpanzee knew there was something more to all this, anyways.

It was murder. But mundane, or mystical? The, and smell, of the chimp lighting up brings Raven's attention towards him again.

"I just have one thing to ask. Are you actually there, or am I having a psychotic break?" she says.

If she died of a heart attack, Dottie may have been alone out here.

But there were signs that she was not. Nothing that Raven could find, mind, but clues to the presence of another. A homeless person? A killer? A passerby?!

Or something much, much worse.

Detective Chimp has posed:
With a cigarette dangling from his large, protruding lower lip, the World's Greatest Detective holds his trusty magnifying glass next to a piece of trash in the alleyway. The rest of the world almost melts away behind him as he studies this potential piece of evidence, only to ultimately disregarded it as unimportant. IT's an alleyway in New York, there's bound to be plenty of trash, but nothing that he does seems to be random. The magnifying glass looks pretty ancient upon closer inspection, though overall pretty plain. If he were a more ordinary-looking detective, there'd be no reason to assume it was anything but a hipsterish preference for vintage items that caused Detective Chimp to use such old junk when smartphones have been a thing for almost as long as his new goth partner has been alive.

But when dealing with a talking chimp detective, it's best not to take everything at face value.

"Oh, I'm definitely here, kid. Got the throbbing pain in my hemorrhoid to prove it."

He seems to be looking through the magnifying glass at things in the distance, sweeping his gaze around the alleyway, with the glass always before his face, making his eye look enormous. This is not how people typically use magnifying glasses. Perhaps everyone else has it wrong.

"I'm not seeing anything with the Eye of Nephthys that would indicate anything other than..."

His voice trails off, and he looks back over his shoulder. His wandering has taken him over near the dumpster, where small bits of garbage radiate in all directions, some of which has probably been in this alleyway for years, or even decades.

"What do YOU sense?"

Rachel Roth has posed:
    To Raven, it did seem random. Terribly random. But that was a chimpanzee. With a magnifying glass. In a New York alleyway. The frown on her dark lips deepen as she watches after him, watching him scuttling back and forth, her nose crinkling when that enlarged eye passes her way.

    The dumpster stood out. Not for the sight, because it looked like most dumpsters in New York.

    But for the smell. There was a layer of trash on top, of course, where unknowing people had thrown things on top of it, but for a dumpster, it smelled... surprisingly clean. Beyond that surface layer, there was... nothing.

    And a keen eye might notice a handle beside the dumpster, and scrape marks, very subtle against the pavement.

    The dumpster was sitting over a small stairway, leading to a basement door. And once the dumpster was out of the way... the few specks of blood might be seen on the staircase.

    Raven was oblivious to these details, of course.

    "It... doesn't leave here. The feelings of the missing woman," she says. "It's just..." her eyes flicker towards the dumpster, and away again.

    "Vague. It's all vague," she says.

    But there was a creeping sense of something more, and the chimp might be able to sense that in her expression. The wary, suspicious glance she had. There was that tingle of something that might be dark magic, might be demonic, might not be.

    It just... was bothering the gothic woman.

    "Nothing weird, though."

    She turns her eyes, to level her gaze on Detective Chimp.

    "Except for you."

Detective Chimp has posed:
"Hm..."

There's nothing hurried about the Detective Chimp's manner. The victim is already dead, after all, and rushing doesn't really help with the accurate accumulation of data. There was something about the way the garbage was distributed. Little bits of trash tend to radiate outward from any dumpster given sufficient time. The general distribution will inevitably come primarily from the direction in which the bags are brought to the dumpster. Looking back toward the door, Detective Chimp mentally traces the route that the average person would have walked when disposing of bags. He can almost visualize the victim, carrying out a chore that she had probably done hundreds of times before.

But the pathway didn't match.

"Hm..."

Though Detective Chimp was often the strangest thing about any crime that he investigated, he had long since grown accustomed to the reactions he provoked in others. Pausing to take a drag from his cigarette, he traces the path that the victim 'should' have been walking, and walks around to the other side of the dumpster on his stubby chimpanzee's legs. The feeling of the alleyway is all kinds of gross beneath his bare feet, but just try and get a pair of sneakers in a chimp's size sometime.

Besides, it sometimes gives him clues that he wouldn't have stumbled upon any other way. Literally, in this case.

After his foot gets caught in something sticky, almost causing him to trip, the chimp pauses, and looks at the scrape marks on the pavement. The ancient magnifying glass goes back into a pocket of his tweed jacket, and he pushes the dumpster forward!

Revealing the stairway, the chimp takes another drag from his cigarette, exhaling twin plumes of smoke through his nostrils. For the first time, he looks a bit concerned, as the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stick up.

There are a bunch of them.

"Might want to stay back. Could get dangerous..."

The idea of a chimpanzee warning off a seasoned spellcaster might seem ridiculous, but as Detective Chimp descends the stairs, now with his trusty old Maglite in hand, he finds the specks of blood. He doesn't need to taste them to know what they are.

Rachel Roth has posed:
On the outside, the intense calculations going on inside of the chimp's head couldn't be read. She was an empath, not a mind-reader, after all, so she just was picking up waves of his focus, his dedication.

Raven narrows her eyes, tracking after the detective. She fought the urge to ask 'what' with that understanding of his focus, and instead turns, folding her arms over her front as she watches him intently. Even if on the outside, the whole vibe might be a little judgmental.

Raven had a hard time not seeming judgemental, after all.

...only for her brow to curl as he pushes the dumpster out of the way, a prickle of respect tickling at the back of her mind as he had figured it out.

She'd, of course, take that to her grave.

"I'll be fine," is what she says, even if she allows him to be the first to step into the darkness, the basement door creaking as he pushes it open. The blood would trail into the darkness, down a dilapitated hall and through a door.

A pentagram drawn in dried blood would be present as he steps over it, the runes carved into the empty spaces displaying how this person might have gone so long without being noticed. It would hide the grounds from magic scrying and other ways of detection.

But there was something else, if the Chimp had ever encountered it before. Vampires had a particular scent about them, all grave dirt and death wrapped up in an iron tang of blood, usually covered by whatever cologne or perfume they could find.

If he hadn't experienced that scent before, he would be now.

Detective Chimp has posed:
Keeping himself low as he walks, the apparently fearless Detective Chimp sweeps the beam of his Maglite across the floor before him. A trail of blood, far more blood than he was expecting to find for certain. Only belatedly does he have the idea to take the cigarette from his mouth, and flick out the remains of the glowing red cherry. The odds of them not smelling him at this point are practically zero, but he already waved a flashlight around inside the creepy lair.

If only he could find the lightswitch...

"The marks are too expert for it to be some random psychopath. You really probably should have waited back up top..."

Whether he admits it or not, he seems glad for the company. For the night is dark and full of terrors.

The small sliver of light traces the walls, as he attempts to find the switch. He finds it pretty quickly, but when he flicks it up and down a couple of times nothing happens. Predictable.

"If there's anyone down here... you should know that we're armed and have backup. Police backup. We are police officers as well..."

The beam of the Maglite is pretty bright, but doesn't provide the sort of illumination available with some of these newer LED models. And it goes through D batteries like nobody's business. Not for the first time, Detective Chimp wishes that he had a brighter flashlight, and less of an aversion to guns. It's hard to get a concealed carry permit when you're a chimpanzee though.

The light scans along the walls, revealing more runes, scratched into the walls by what Detective Chimp knows were probably claws. And more artwork created from the blood of victims, magic sigils that he is familiar with, and some that he isn't.

And then... his ray of light falls upon the body near the center of the room, on a dirty makeshift altar surrounded by unlit candles that have mostly melted down to little more than puddles of wax on the concrete floor.

Rachel Roth has posed:
Only one thing worse than a vampire. And that was spellcasting vampires.

Raven didn't seem to mind the dark, the shadows. Where the beam of the Maglite illuminates, she was glancing elsewhere, narrowing her eyes into the darkness.

She should have waited up top?

"You should have. This is no place for a..."

Civilian? Did he count as one? Raven just decides to let that thought die without completing it, instead stepping into the inky gloom. Although she was more at home in the dark, the cambion did feel an elevated level of tension. There was something... here.

And it felt like her magic was muted.

Her step was silent as she follows along behind the ape, although when he gives his bluff? Raven just pinches her face up and looks down at him.

"I don't think whatever is down here is afraid of the police," she says. "They know magic," she says, sharing just the barest minimum of information there.

Raven releases a sigh when the body was illuminated by the Maglite.

"... and there's Dottie," she says, her morose tone only going moreso.

"The latest star of the Book," she says, putting gravitas in her tone on the last word to really make people realize it was capitalized. Her lips purse as she steps around the Chimpanzee, stepping to kneel beside her, and check a pulse, breaking all of the crime rules when she was obviously dead.

But she had to check.

She looks back towards the Detective, and gives her head a shake.

Something falls, further into the basement, sounding like a can falling off of a shelf or something.

Detective Chimp has posed:
"Shit."

The odds of finding something good were always close to zero. But still, one can't blame an ape for remaining optimistic until the end. With the gothic woman's attention focused on the body, the chimp turns his back toward her, as if covering her six. Covering it with what? Perhaps an especially cutting quip, if the situation calls for it. He finds himself absentmindedly reaching for a cigarette, before restraining his hand. There will be time for that later.

As the can falls behind him, he whips around so quickly that it makes his skittishness obvious. For all his bluster as a hard boiled paranormal detective, Detective Chimp is still just a chimpanzee in a world that's too big and dangerous for someone like him. Perhaps it's endearing then, that his first instinct seems to be to put himself between this young woman that he knows nothing about, and whatever danger there might be further into the basement.

The light of his Maglite shines on the source of the noise. A mostly empty paint can, now on the concrete floor. And in the spot above it...

A harmless rat looks back before scurrying away.

Detective Chimp breathes an audible sigh of relief, a bit embarrassed to have overreacted so much at a crime scene.

But then he feels the presence behind him, before he has any reason to suspect there might be anything there. The hairs on the back of his neck are sticking up, and he feels a cold sweat beginning to form down his back.

Chimpanzees can sweat, they just prefer not to.

He spins back around, and the Maglite goes flying away, clattering to the ground well out of reach!

Rachel Roth has posed:
To that end, Raven was a little more calm and controlled - she always was, though, with the edges of Trigon's possession always, eternally - clawing at the edges of her soul and spirit.

A lot of what seemed scary always paled in comparison to that.

But jumpiness was contagious, and Raven cuts her eyes towards the Detective as he whirls around. A rat. Raven closes her eyes, taking a steadying breath when...

Raven could see reasonably well in the dark. So she may see the humanoid shape far better than the Chimpanzee could.

But the Chimp would realize the smell. Anyone could, up close like this. That dead grave dirt stench, covered with a scent bouquet of pine, sandalwood, neroli and lavender, with a bit of ambergris to brighten the woodsy and floral scents with a marine undertone.

But no amount of cologne could chase away the scent of blood, too.

The chimpanzee could see the two eyes, in the darkness, reflecting what ambient light there was in a shine.

"Are you lost?" the man asks, her eyes going towards Raven. "You and your pet... monkey?"

The voice continues, his reflecting eyes drawn down to Detective Chimp. "I heard a man speak too. Where is he?"

Detective Chimp has posed:
"Nobody here but us police officers..."

Moving his lips as little as possible, Detective Chimp tries to approximate the voice of a much more imposing man. He succeeds only in producing the voice of slightly more imposing man. A limited success, particularly since he doesn't have human vocal cords. It's one of the many mysterious things about the ape.

"... and that's not a monkey, it's an ape. Our trained... tactical police ape."

Standing in front of Raven in a way that could be considered protective, the chimp does his best to get into what he assumes to be a fighting stance. It looks suspiciously like the flying crane move from Karate Kid.

There's no disguising the fear on the ape's face, or in his voice, no matter how hard he tries to throw his voice. The vampire would almost certainly be able to smell the fear on him as well, and know that although chimpanzees are capable of ripping off a person's face, this particular one probably isn't an especially credible threat.

He's also doing the flying crane move wrong. Not that it would matter if he was doing it right, as it's a fictional move.

He realizes almost immediately how ridiculous he looks, and begins lowering his arms. If he's going to die, he's not going to do it without a cigarette in his mouth.

"Look pal... I'm gonna level with you."

There's a click, click, click as he attempts to light his cigarette.

"You aren't my first vampire. And judging by these digs... you're not a very good one."

Rachel Roth has posed:
Raven stands tall, somber, her pale skin not standing out well in the night. She didn't look like a police officer, not with the gem shining in the center of her forehead.

Her right hand twists, dark power flooding over her hand... and one of the runes on the wall shines a little bit, drawing Raven's eyes subtlely that way.

Anti-demon runes. Specifically - anti-Trigon.

Her power - not gone, but muted.

"He knew I was coming," she says, her voice low, trying to send it just to her Chimpanzee partner - but with the quiet of the dark basement, they'd both know. Raven was not the type to get fearful. Instead - she got serious, and one could almost sense the intention radiating off of the cambion.

The target of the vampire's intention was Raven, but it was easy to be distracted by an ape that was performing karate moves. As the vampire's attention levels on Chimp, Raven subtlely sidesteps, towards one of the walls.

The 'holy shit is that a talking ape!?' reaction was obvious on the undead man's face, but swiftly broils away. This was a strange, strange world, after all.

"And what leads you to say that?" he says.

"I managed to lure the daughter of Trigon here with a few obvious murders - and soon - very soon - I'll use her to bring my lord into this realm, and I will be greatly, *greatly* rewarded," he says.

"And it may take more than a 'tactical police ape' to stop *that*," he says.

Raven moves. There was a toolbox on the shelf, and she tosses it towards Chimp, all sorts of tools spilling on the floor. Raven herself finds a flathead screwdriver, and lunges herself at one of the runes on the wall, starting to try to chip it away.

Detective Chimp has posed:
There's one last click of the lighter, and the flame finally erupts. But the flame from the strange-looking lighter is unlike any the vampire has ever seen.

Green flame fires from the lighter, almost flamethrower-like, with an intensity of brightness strong enough to make anyone whose eyes were adjusted to the darkness temporarily blind if they happened to look directly into it. The vampire barely has time to hiss menacingly before he must move away from the sweeping green flames, illuminating the outline of a hard boiled chimp detective who has an active hatred of the undead.

"That's it, run vampire scum! Or better yet... BURN!"

The vampire is too fast to be caught in the flames so easily, but the sweeping passes of flame are enough to create a sort of barrier between himself and the vampire as he backs toward Raven, and picks up...

A paintbrush? Hardly the most effective choice.

Keeping the flame up, he makes his way to another of the runes, careful to keep the flame between the vampire and Raven. They'll only have seconds, if that, but fortunately Detective Chimp is quick on the upshot.

The paint can that fell earlier is still within easy reach. The lid was knocked loose by the fall, leaking paint onto the floor.

As the flames of his lighter begin to flicker and die out, he dabs his brush in the paint, and begins quickly covering over the blood runes with paint, like some sort of demented Jackson Pollack impersonator!

Rachel Roth has posed:
In the green flame, the vampire was revealed in those sickly tinges. The modern outfit of a button-up shirt, denim jeans, and a blazer. He'd be able to blend into just about every hipster bar up and down new york, just add a pair of thick-framed glasses and the slickback undercut he was sporting.

And there was surprise, honest surprise on Raven's face for a moment before she knocks that back down into the void that was her emotional soul.

With a push forward of her hand, she chips the important piece out of the sigil, while Chimp manages to modify one of the others.

Raven twists afterwards, seeing in the dark the vampire approaching. Reaching out her hand, she seizes the shoulder (or the head) of Detective Chimp, and leans backwards...

    ...falling...
         ...into...




The void. Nothing but the darkness surrounds Detective Chimp. It would last a second - a half second, at best. But in that second he was surrounded by darkness, the beating wings of a corvid heard at the back of his mind's eye. And clutching his head...

A creature of darkness, with a burning light from within, an eldritch thing. An inhuman thing, and...



They were in the basement again. But in a different part. They had gone through the wall, travelling along the shadow. Above them, the light of the dying day passed through the door where the dumpster had been pushed out of the way.

"We can get out. And come back, with friends," Raven says to Detective Chimp.

Although if the vampire had any sense, he'd be long gone as soon as moonrise hit.

Detective Chimp has posed:
When he finally gets a glimpse of light again, Detective Chimp realizes that he's shivering. It's almost uncontrollable, as if something was drained from him. As he adjusts his cap, his tie, the lapels of his coat, he finds that he's okay, and has survived another encounter with the darkness. He might wish that he had some luck left over for betting on the ponies, but he seems to use up quite a bit of fortune just making it through these excursions into the unknown.

There's nothing wrong with him that a cigarette won't fix. This time he uses the other lighter to ignite the tip. A long, quavering inhale, and then he seems to be right as rain as the plumes of smoke exit his nostrils.

Looking up at the much taller woman, he seems to be every bit as curious and suspicious as he was at first, but those feelings have been joined by something much more cautious. The caution is clearly warranted. Not only is there still a vampire on the loose, but he's just shared some sort of space with something far more dangerous than that.

And she shops at Hot Topic.

"That might be more your department, kid. My list of friends is damn near nonexistent."

Puffing on his cigarette, he walks awkwardly on short chimpanzee's legs, in defiance of nature's plan for his life. For walking on all fours might freak this girl out.

"But if you've got an older sister though..."

Rachel Roth has posed:
"Well," says Raven.

Inwardly, she gets a sick feeling flipping up her stomach. The next phrase would sound just a little too Starfirey for her comfort.

"You have one friend, at least," she says, her dour tone sounding more like a condolence than any offer of friendship.

"I think... we should get into daylight," she says, glancing towards the basement door again. Rather than trying to go toe to toe with someone who apparently knew what she was, and how to shut it down.

Or worse. Wake it up.

Does she have an older sister?

"I hope not," she says. "But... I do have friends. If you want to come by and... say hi, sometime."

A pause, and she heads towards the stairway.

"... might be better to go to your place, though," she says.