Open to one or two Order members. This takes place on your street.

(Continued from Ink and Departure.)

Jocelyn, or Lupe as she was now called, was dressed for hunting. She wore a red halter topped dress that showed off the wolf tattoo on her shoulder. It also showed off quite a bit of her legs, since it was almost short enough to be classified as a shirt. It was not something she would ever wear to her son's band concert, that was for sure. She wore her hair loose, but kept a ponytail holder around her wrist in case she needed. To complete the ensemble she had added tall lace up boots up to her calves, loose enough at the top to store things inside that she didn't want anyone to notice right away. Like a bowie knife. And a handgun.

Both were purchased from a green haired man who owned a shop off of seventh who didn't always require a license for his firearms. Six months ago she would have arrested him. Now she just smiled when he told her to come again soon. She missed her own gun, with the smiley face sticker that Felix had put on the bottom when he was younger. The new one would have to do for now, though.

She glanced at a photo from her wallet. Her prey. One Jonathan Roth. Owner of Panty-See Adult Bookstore. She remembered his scent better than she remembered his face. His face was generic. Brown hair, stubble on his chin, decent looks, the kind of guy who would have been second string on the high school football team back in his day.

His scent, on the other hand, she would never forget. It was dirty in a way that mud never was. He smelled like blood and fear and young girls and lust. She first caught his scent at the murder scene of little Emily Chamberlain, a fourteen year old psychic girl. Jonathan had been very thorough in cleaning up after himself. The only evidence he'd left linking himself to the crime was his scent, and that wasn't enough to convict him. It wasn't even enough to arrest him.

It was enough for Lupe, though.

Panty-See closed at 11. Lupe was waiting at the corner, by Jonathan's pickup truck.

"Hey handsome," she crooned. "Looking for a good time?"

His grin flashed white in the lamplight. Before he reached her, though, Lupe put out her hand, one finger raised.

"I know a place where we can have a little fun. You got a lift that can get us there?"

The drive didn't take long. He didn't pay much attention to where she was directing him to go. Not with her finger tracing patterns up and down his thigh.

"You can stop here, handsome."

"Where are we?" He must have been expecting brightly lit signs that proclaimed they had vacant rooms available. Instead, they were on a dark street.

Lupe didn't answer his question, instead she asked one of her own. "Tell me. Do you like to play games?" A silver glint in the darkness caught his eye.

"What do you mean?"

"You know, like hide and seek. Tag. That kind of thing. I thought that since you liked to play with little mutie girls you might be a fan of games like that."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jonathan protested.

"Don't you?" The knife flashed as she embedded it in the seat next to his leg. "I'll give you to the count of twenty to get away. After that, I'm coming to get you."

He opened the car door and ran.

True to her word, she gave him to the count of twenty before following after him.

"One one-thousand..."

Calley had tried so, so hard to get a cabbie. Even with the Mansion's comparatively good rep, there still just weren't that many willing to come over at this time of night.

"Two one-thousand..."

Solution: give them an address three doors down, and wait outside. Getting them to drive to the Sanctuary... that was even trickier.

"Three one-thousand..."

The trick there, of course, was to have them go to his old apartment. But wait, sorry, that's the wrong address--silly him. No, just keep driving. Yep. Straight, a few more blocks. Just a few. Turn left. Looks like a familiar area? Can't imagine why. Yes, stop here. How did you ever guess.

Calley counted out money, plus a generous tip.

"Four one-thousand..."

Trade secret: don't actually pay up until you get everything out of the back seat. Just keep that tip idly between your fingers as you pull your secondhand backpack out. And your lobster. Who happens to be a red toad at the moment, in a little betta bowl secured with seran wrap and a rubber band. Lobentoad angrily waved his forefeet as Calley tucked him under one arm. And fell over. Toads: they didn't have eight legs to spare.

"Five one-thousand..."

"You gonna pay up, buddy, or--?"

A man ran past. A man with brown hair. Take out the slightly worn athletic edge, and he might have been Calley in a few years. They shared a certain generic quality to their features.

The young Italian watched him go by, readjusting his toad-bowl in one hand.

"--what...?" The cabbie finished.

"Six one-thousand..."

That run. It hadn't been the run of a man getting in his nightly exercise. Calley was left holding fare and tip as the cabbie squealed off, a few choice words peppering the night air through his open window. The AC had been broken.

"Seventeen one-thousand..."

Calley strolled leisurely up the street, backpack over one shoulder and toad bowl balanced on his head (that being where grumpy toads went). He leaned casually against the side, a companionable distance from the driver's side door.

"Last I heard," the twenty-something Italian said, "the Boss Lady was trying to ix-nay the doorstep slaughters. Something change while I was gone?"

He didn't recognize the woman in the truck. But then, this was the Order, and he'd been gone since February. Changes in leaders, changes in peeps: they happened.

One generic brown haired male was replaced by another, younger and more confident one that leaned against the driver's side of the truck. Jocelyn stopped her count at, "Eighteen one-thousand," and gave a good glare out at the snarky boy that had interrupted her.

"I don't know this boss-lady you are referring to, but I hope that she, and you, have a good reason for interrupting." She pulled the knife out of the seat with her left hand and opened the passenger side door with her right before switching the knife to her main hand and swinging herself down from the tall truck.

"Here I come, ready or not," she stated softly as she started walking briskly after her prey. She couldn't see him anymore, but that didn't mean she couldn't still smell him. She didn't run, not because it wasn't possible in three inch heels, but because she didn't have to. She knew she would catch up.

She was taller than him. Because girls wore cheater heels.

"Hey. Hey!" The younger, more confident generic boy hurried to catch up, in a jog-a-few-steps manner. He settled down to a walk in the general vicinity of her side. Slightly behind, and about a grabbing-arm-and-a-half away on her left. Getting in the way: not exactly his first priority. But still. The toad bounced and attempted to claw-clack on his head, to minimal effect.

"Umm. So. Let me take a pot shot, here: you're a violent vigilante, with a," the tattoo. It was black. And canine. And very much in front of his face. "Doggie--wolfie! I meant wolfie--a wolfie mutation, and he's your not-long-for-this-world-prey?" Just guessing. Based upon anthropological studies centered around the geographic region known as 'the Sanctuary's front door.' And the dog noble lupine proudly inked into her flesh.

" 'Cause yeah. The killing him? You're on our doorstep. And we're bigger and badder than you are."

Generic boy took a moment to casually back off a step further. "In the collective sense, more so than the present representation."

Just to be clear. In a non-confrontational manner.

Arriving at the front step of the Sanctuary in a cab. Check.

Reference to a boss-lady. Check.

>>"You're on our doorstep. And we're bigger and badder than you are. "

Double check.

This was definitely an Order boy, Jocelyn concluded. Not that Lupe knew anything about that.

And he was calling her a doggie-wolfie while wearing a toad as a hat. A very strange Order boy. She had been expecting someone who would sit back and watch, laugh, or possibly join in on this little hunt. Not someone who was actively trying to keep her from murdering the guy.

Maybe not all Order members were bloodthirsty murderers after all.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she snipped and turned around to glare at him, as if she was trying to get his to stop following her. A small puff of a breeze chose that moment to waft his scent in her direction.

She hadn't expected to recognize him by it.

He was the cat owning male she'd smelled in the sewers. Right after she'd found his murder victim. Which actually helped him fit in her mind with the Order's crowd of blood thirsty murderers a little better than before. Honestly, the Sanctuary should have been the first place she looked back then.

Her stare was getting a bit longer than she had originally intended, which hopefully only added to the intimidation factor.

"And I don't know why you're so concerned about the welfare of a child molester and murderer with a taste for little mutant girls." She turned on her heel and started walking again without waiting for him to answer.

“I,” he proceeded to educate her, “am talking about a whole group of lovely attack dog—wolves like yourself. A fine and nefarious crew. If you’d be so kind as to step this way and meet them, rather than making with the mayhem—”

This was clearly too much to ask for. His idea was stamped with time, date, and reason of rejection: child molester and murderer. Of mutant girls. Of course mutant girls: because it wouldn’t be just as bad if he was going after human girls.

Insert glare-stare. Calley backed down: then Calley trot-sprung to keep up (demonstrating, ladies and gentlemen, a fine sense of toad-hatted balance).

“So, what’s your name? ‘Cause Lori doesn’t want any more police calls down here, last I heard. Tends to end up with officers down, given most of our residents, and she says that’s bad publicity. I’m Calley. And officers tend to feed me donuts. So if you wanted to keep trying to kill the guy right here and now, I might have to try and stop you.”

His reasoning was based more on the donuts than on Lori. He might have leaned things in the opposite direction, if an actual Order member had been around to hear.

The whole murdering thing? A side-point, really.

Jocelyn sniffed the air when they reached the corner. Decisively, she turned left and kept walking. The click of her heels echoed as they entered a much narrower street.

Her little toad hatted friend kept following and kept talking. He proceeded to describe the Order as some kind of wolf pack that she was invited to come meet if she wanted to. Also, she shouldn't make a mess on their doorstep because they wouldn't want any cops to be called. Also, also, cops were his friends and fed him doughnuts.

What?

"Doughnuts?" She snorted her disbelief. "Cops feed you doughnuts?" Somehow she was pretty sure cops didn't go handing out doughnuts to every overgrown urchin they found on the street corner.

Somewhere in all the garbled nonsense about why she shouldn't kill the man she was chasing he supplied his name and asked for hers.

"You can call me Lupe."

And he kept talking. Threatening to stop her and all that. Stop her, with his amazing toad balancing mutation, or whatever it was.

She snorted again.

“They do.” It was perhaps a bit defensive, for a retort concerning donuts. But her reply had just been so... snorty. And after all that awkwardly long glaring, too. “I don’t know what you know about New York City, and about this area in New York City, but cops don’t walk out of here alive. So don’t give anyone a reason to call them. Okay, Lupe?”

Lupe. Definitely a wolf. What was it with the wolf mutants, and hunting people down solo? Shouldn’t they be more pack-oriented? Honestly, he could have vomited better wolves than the ones he’d met.

“Come on. Get him when he’s at home, or something. Not right here. Not right in front of me. Please?”

Pretty please, with red toads on top?

It almost sounded like Calley was against the idea of cops being killed just for stepping onto Order territory. Jocelyn couldn't help but appreciate that at least a little bit. Not that she could ever let on that she appreciated it.

She just wondered if it was because he honestly cared about the cops' well-being or if he was simply squeamish. Judging based on what she had found in the sewers, she had to suspect the former. Based on his reluctance to let her kill someone right in front of him she had to suspect the latter. Unless his prior experience had left him with a sour taste in his mouth when it came to killing. So, the former?

Either way it seemed he wasn't going to leave it alone.

"Fine, I won't kill him if you are so concerned. I'll just make sure he doesn't do it again."

The scent brought them around another corner. This time into an alley way. It didn't appear at first glance to have any exits, it also didn't appear at first glance to have anyone in it.

Alleyways. Yeah. Calley stopped short.

It was dark. Go figure—it was night, idiot.

At first glance, it didn’t appear to have anyone in it. That had been the plan.

It wasn’t raining, though. Shouldn’t it be? It had been— Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut—

“Like I said,” the twenty-something said, stepping up to stand evenly at her side for the first time that night. “I’d really prefer if you left things alone, just now.”

He tried to edge himself between her and the alley’s mouth. He casually held out his hand.

Toad hat’s party trick: making a Bengal tiger appear. Its ears were laid back under his palm; a low growl vibrated just below hearing.

“So,” he smiled, with his generic habitual smile, “If it’s all the same. How about I give you a tour of the Sanctuary?”

Because no one else was dying in alleyways.

Jocelyn blinked.

A tiger blinked back at her.

Apparently Calley had an ace up his sleeve. Or a Bengal, as the case may be. The tiger had a new smell to him. It was absolutely clean; it hadn't eaten anything, it hadn't brushed past anything, it simply smelled of itself and only of itself.

Also apparent: Calley really did not want her to go after the book store owner.

That suited her perfectly.

It was just as well if she didn't have to murder someone to get a foot in the door at the Sanctuary. Even better that it still looked like she was capable of doing so.

She took a step back from the tiger and smiled a little half-uncertain smile, "A tour. Sounds great."

Before turning to go, she looked upwards, directly at an extra dark shadow that cowered above them on the fire escape. You got off lucky this time, hope you learned something.­

She backed off. Without the usual associated posturing. Which meant she either had no pride, or whatever her mutation was, it didn’t match up well with standard zoo animals, and she wasn’t willing to risk it. Given her loud barking up until this point, Calley was willing to bet she had at least some back bone. And probably some bite. But probably just the kind that was good against humans, as opposed to other mutants. Freaking weak. Or a freaking good actor. One of those options always brought in creepier folks than the other.

“It is great,” Calley agreed amiably, rejoining her in his customary out-of-reach position. “Great, great tour. Coming up.”

The tiger sat down in the alleyway’s mouth, watching the man inside. It didn’t need to watch Lupe for any change of heart: its Calley-half had that quite under control.

“You hungry? ‘Cause there’s always food in the kitchen. The cooks are good at feeding me, too, as long as I don’t get cat hair under the sneeze guards.”

Not to say that all of Calley’s relationships could be boiled down to people who fed him. That would be a gross oversimplification, surely.

As soon as she stepped back, the newly created tiger quit his growling and turned to sit down and ignore her, or perhaps to watch the shadow of the man on the fire escape, she couldn't quite tell. She put her knife away, since she wouldn't be needing it now.

Calley seemed perfectly content to go back to his cheerful chattering about innocuous things. As if he didn't have any strong opinions. As if he didn't have the firepower to back himself up. He was just harmless little Calley talking about harmless little things.

Heh.

She walked back out of the alley with Calley back in his submissive position at her left shoulder. She turned back the way they had come, but stopped at the street corner to look around, as if unsure about exactly where they were going.

“You know, usually on a tour, the tour guide goes first. I don't even know where we're going.”

“Back to the building. With the shiny doors. They’re rather hard to miss, once you know they’re there.” They really were. As to going first: Calley did so. With about three big steps in front, and an about-face to walk backwards, his hands cheerfully clasped behind his back as he made with the not-tripping. This was helped along by tigger eyes, and their cheating glances away from the fire escape and towards where the rest of him was walking. He hopped up on the curb, balanced on one foot for a sec, then raised a hand to lightly knuckle-rap the boldly hued doors behind him.

“Twenty-four carat. Our last-last leader had styling dreams of grandeur,” he confided. And then their last leader had built that lovely cathedral, as if to take those dreams of grandeur and expel them from every orifice onto the skyline. And then their current leader had torn it down. Lori: she really was a boss he could stand behind.

The young Italian opened the doors with all due dramatic flourish, and a slight bow. “Ladies first.”

“So. New in town, I’m guessing? Where are you from, and what brings you hither?”

Besides the murders in the night. He was talking in a more general sense, really.

The toad on his head glowered at any and all answers she might make.

Jocelyn had heard the doors were gold. She had thought that meant the color gold. Not so, apparently. These things were straight up, would dent if you bit it, 24 carat gold. Who, besides ancient Italian popes, would want gold doors?

“Wouldn't they be too easy to steal?” Lupe wondered out loud. They couldn't exactly be locked up, since they were right out in the open. Maybe that was the statement they were going for: we dare you to even try it.

Behind the doors, the entryway was gleaming. Floor tiles, front desk, even filing cabinets, all were polished to a shine. Not quite shiny enough for a reflection on the floor, thankfully. There was a secretary, also shining, or at least her nails were. And an old fashioned elevator, not shining; actually kind of rusty looking.

“New, in a sense. I grew up in New York, but lived in L.A. for quite awhile. Now I'm back.”

She had more of a back story than that, but Lupe wasn't the type to spew her entire life out in the first five minutes that she knew someone.

“So, what exactly is the point of...” she waved her hand to indicate their surroundings, “all this?”