4469/Officer Being Pursued

Officer Being Pursued
Date of Scene:	23 December 2020
Location:	Midtown
Synopsis:	Pezzini's being chased by dark assailants; John Constantine intervenes. It's not much of an improvement.
Cast of Characters:	Sara Pezzini, John Constantine

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Sara Pezzini has posed:
It's an urban trope being surrounded by people yet feeling devastatingly alone and vulnerable. The dark-haired woman doesn't stand out in the rush of winter shoppers. Elves work in Santa's workshop at a frenetic speed as children accompanied by their parents take turns gluing themselves to the windows. Music cascades over the crowds, Salvation Army Santa's ring their bells adding to taxis' cacophony and a thousand feet.

Sara stops at one of the Macy's displays using the reflection in the window to look behind her. She desperately wants to look behind her, but the Witchblade pulses on her wrist warning her not to do it. A child practically insinuates herself into the front of her long camel hair coat and plants herself between her booted feet. It would be a sweet moment, was it not for the danger following her. Taking the child by the shoulders, she pushes her to a woman too busy taking pictures with her phone to realize her child is too close to a stranger.

<Move!> the Witchblade orders her. Down 34th at a crawl Sara pushes toward St. Patrick's.

John Constantine has posed:
Sara's being followed by something. That something is being followed by one John Constantine. Except the magus has no idea what, precisely, is tailing the detective-- just that something is absoutely in her wake, and he can't yet tell what it is.

Even if it wasn't for the instincts screaming in his ear of Something Amiss in New York's shopping crowd, Sara's behaviour would suggest the distress she's in. Moving a little too fast; a little too directly. Covert glances to inspect her wake. The way the detective pushes children away from her and swiftly clears crowds that she finds herself in.

'Alarmed Interest' is the best way to characterized Constantine's attention, and he keeps up in Pez's wake from a dozen yards away. Far enough back that he won't be easily spotted, and his attention always focused on something nearby rather than boring his gaze into the back of Pezzini's head.

The magus picks up his step a bit when Pezzini cuts towards St. Patrick's, not slowing his pace even to dig a fresh cigarette and his lighter from the depths of his overcoat.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Super hearing, if only I had super hearing like Spider-Woman, Sara wishes. She has another kind of hearing, something akin to discovering a new sense of taste or seeing infrared along with all the other colors. She has begun to see magic as the Witchblade integrates itself more and more into her senses, using them. It's a two-way street.

How many follow her? Her first inspection only showed her one but this new sense tells her that there is more than one following her. There is no question of who sent them. That is the only clarity that the young detective has right now as she tries to avoid a confrontation on this cold New York City afternoon right before Christmas.

John Constantine has posed:
Constantine glances around to gauge the pedestrian movement around him. He risks a break in the crowd and jogs across the intersection behind Sara before the lights turn and some irritated New Yorker guns it. The magus breaks left and ducks behind a colonnade for a few beats just in case the motion was spotted. He counts his breaths with an inhale of his cigarette and blasts smoke out his nose. A passing child coughs and his parent glares. John shrugs at them both.

The tension is winding up. John can feel it. But he can't yet /see/ it. Whatever's chasing Sara hasn't made itself visible to the magus yet. Fingers dig in his voluminous coat pockets to look for some trinket or geegaw that'll help him identify her pursuers... hopefully without giving his own position away.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Sara is known for her sang-froid among the detectives at the precinct. She has the questionable accolade among them of having a 'good pair'. A pearl of sweat runs down one side of her face getting cold as she has an infuriating shuffle with a couple of tourists that move to the right as she does, then to the left. The couple smiles until they see the snarl on Sara's face. Sara's expression will give them something to talk about when they leave the Big Bad Apple.

There are blocks to go as she angles northeast toward the Cathedral. Behind her, a nondescript man in a motorcycle jacket carrying a paper-wrapped package, a long narrow one, catches sight of her and slides by a Santa Claus. Ian catches sight of Sara's head bobbing as she dances with the tourists. He enjoys the chase; the proximity to the Witchblade is intoxicating, a delicious perfume that nourishes him. Years of training have taught him how to put pressure on a subject and scare them into making a wrong move.

John Constantine has posed:
John's hands rise with a clear crystal lens in them. Perhaps taken from an old magnifying glass? He marks it with a little red ink and blows smoke from his cigarette over the surface. It fogs in a peculiar way as if responding not just to his breath but the smoke itself.

"Aadamee ke dil mein buraee," he intones, and holds it aloft for a few moments. To the average New Yorker it just looks like a crazy New Yorker, being crazy in New York. No one pays him any attention.

John, however, gets a unique view of the city. There's a man, clearly pursuing Sara, and with clearly malevolent intent in his heart. The link between hunter and hunted is even more apparent now.

John picks up the pace now that he's got a target of his own. Ian's intent pursuit of Sara gives Constantine an advantage on the man; he can follow the hunter with ease, rather than trying to duck Sara's penetrating gaze. The human instinct for knowing when someone's following you is pretty strong, after all, and Sara's perceptiveness is evident in the way she seems to be watching everything and everyone around her, all the time.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
The pressure builds. Sara's fear of involving innocents in what she is certain will be a bloody encounter distracts her. The Witchblade's cool voice tells her to calm herself as they head to holy ground. What follows them on an abstract plane is a many-layered thing, and though he is human, his master has succeeded in corrupting him so that his core is an inky black that shifts, snuffing out the human instincts of empathy and what is right.

The sound of brakes screeching turns heads as Sara darts into traffic. Behind her, voices and horns blare as Ian keeps up with her. The crowds thin. A blessing on one hand but making Sara all that much easier to follow and waylay

John Constantine has posed:
Well, when opportunity knocks...

Constantine takes two moments to get his timing just right and quicksteps after Ian. He cuts across the street at a sharper angle, set on intercepting the man. The last ten strides are taken at greater speed, just shy of a run. The cross-traffic blares and honks and Ian presses on like a good New Yorker playing Frogger through moving traffic. Cars weave and honk. A cab passes another vehicle and shoots forward a little aggressively. Ian probably would have walked behind it with little issue.

Which is why John kicks the hunter's left foot behind his right ankle, mid-stride. It almost looks accidental, even. Ian stumbles and goes down in the street right in the cabby's blind spot.

There's a whump-WHUMP of tires going over a pedestrian. The cabby almost slows for a second, then guns it with a squeal of tires and darts down a side alley.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
The police woman and detective in Sara scream for her to stop in dead opposition to the Witchblade. Someone has been hit by a car, a taxi most likely, it being New York City and it is her duty to help them. The Blade wishes to avoid a confrontation. Ian's master has branded the man with something that saps its power, the Blade has not found the counter to this new magic.

Yet.

Sara looks like she walked into a wall, stopping so suddenly that a man ambling behind her wacks straight into her back. A wolverine would likely match the snarl that erupts from Sara, turning on him with New York invective. "Watch where you're going, you idiot!"

She can see the street where the traffic has snarled around a man picking himself up off the pavement. The package still in his hand. With a slight limp he heads straight for Sara, tearing the paper from the package. A black tassel appears, hung from the laced grip of a katana.

John Constantine has posed:
John blinks. He'd expected something a little redoubtable, but getting up and walking off a two-tire impact with a Yellow Cab moved this from 'predatory pursuit' to 'mystical intervention'.

"Huh." John sounds actually surprised by the change in circumstances. Sara's aware of the incident now, and there's no hiding in open sight for Constantine at this point. He's made his play, and been made in the process.

"Oye!" Constantine raises his voice at the man, and when the fellow turns the magus whips a fragile glass sphere at the hunter. It breaks and a scent of oil and incense fills the air. "Fancy a fag, eh?" he asks-- and flicks the cigarette at the fellow. It bursts into flame midair like a matchstick's gone alight inside the wrapping paper, and when it contacts the oil a pyroclastic eruption follows!

Sara Pezzini has posed:
"Holy shit!" Right in the middle of New York traffic. In the second that Sara launches herself towards the katana carrying man, a face she has seen in dreams and glimpsed once in Kenneth Iron's entourage, she sees the other man that has been following, literally and through the Witchblade's eyes on the magic plane. He has a nimbus of power around him akin to Dr. Strange's aura and a few of the people that frequent the Sanctum. John. Of course - the chain smoking enigma that smells like an itinerant private eye.

The Blade begins to unfurl but not into its signature blade. Even the Witchblade is conscious of discovery. A blue blur fills Sara's hand. Ian's clothing catch like dry tinder. Screams erupt, horns scream, a babble of voices fill the air as she runs back toward her pursuer.

John Constantine has posed:
"If you're going to do something with that bloody poker, do it!" John shouts at Sara. Ian's not going down quite as readily as John might have hoped, and he dances sideways to avoid a clumsy, blind slash from the katana. The immolation spell is working properly but there's dark magic to contend with that's reinforcing Ian's will and his tolerance of pain. Past a certain point, the burning doesn't even hurt anymore; the stink of burning fat and hair attacks the nostrils.

"Or you know-- bloody SHOOT HIM!" John adds, and stumbles backwards several fast steps as Ian whips the blade once more in the direction of Constantine's voice.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
A taxi runs up over the tall curb into the sidewalk. Another yellow cab hits it from behind. What was going to be a desperate but quiet run through the city to safe ground has become a snafu that will bring every policeman in three boroughs down on them. Sirens wail in the far distance behind the twisting mass of taxis, buses and cars now stopped behind the burning man. Overhead the whumf whumf of a helicopter adds itself to the noise.

Sara underhands the blue ball of energy in her palm like a softball pitch. She was varsity at Brooklyn High School. It hits the human torch and simultaneously douses the flames and knocks him down on the sidewalk where she stands as he manically persists in his pursuit.

John Constantine has posed:
There's the opening John was looking for. His hand overhead with a fistful of what looks like glitter in it. The glittering arc erupts like a flashbulb, forcing eyes away and blinding onlookers nearby. With cameras already coming out it seems a prudent preventative measure.

Constantine puts a foot atop the man's wrist to pin the katana and drops to his knees near the prone fellow. A white cloth engraved with gold thread appears in his fingers and Constantine slaps it against the man's face, palming it.

"Redige est sordium!" he thunders. Magic tweaks against Sara's supernatural senses. Reality convulses, rearranges itself around John, and then a flash of golden light flares out from under the cloth. The shadowy spectre of whatever's bured in Ian's psyche screeches and writhes as John pulls it from the man's twisting, screaming body. The cries of agony from the maleficient force and the pain from the man become a strange and twisted harmony.

And then the shadow form is ripped clear and burned away in midair by the golden light, vanishing like so much dust.

Constantine gets to his feet, shielding his eyes from the glitterdust overhead, and moves towards Sara with a smart step. "C'mon, best we're gone before anyone makes us," he suggests, and urges her into motion with a tug at her arm.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Blinking from the afterimages on her retina, Sara gulps air, trying to decide what to do. That strong urge to help wars with self-interest and the need to protect the Witchblade. The Blade urges her to leave. Responding belatedly to the tug on her arm, she nods, saying under the cover of a hysterical woman's shrieks, "Let's go. Go before his people show. They will and they will make this look like a small incident. The Sanctum."

John Constantine has posed:
Constantine groaaaans in protest, but-- Sara's the one in distress, here. "Fine. Fuck," he snarls. "Bloody Stephen bloody Strange, that gobprattling twat," he grouses. A lively and creative amount of invective persists for quite a goodly distance as Constantine and Sara quit the scene of the attack and make good time towards the Sanctum Sanctorum, even via the shadow of back alleys and dead side streets the whole way.