(Finding Francesco) Who's on First

[Wolven Pryde]

If reflexes hadn't been what they were, spending vitae to heal the damage caused by his fall, the stab and wrenching twist of Claire's knife would likely have put Francesco into Torpor. The depth of the blade punching into his chest cavity ceases his protesting involuntarily. His mouth opens, and works at words, but no sound emerges.

"Stop that incessant babbling," Martin hisses in his ear, "I don't want to carry your heavy ass out of here after she puts you down."

Emma comes in here, somewhere around this, or a few moments later. Having found her way back to an exit and running around the building the same way that Claire and Martin had come. She'll be spattered with blood. Not horrifically, but it was quite impossible to force her way past all of that mutilation and emerge clean.

It's the smell of that blood that alerts the others to her presence, and then the Beast, before actually hearing her run upon them. Fortunately, none of the others are hungry enough to risk losing their shit, in this most delicate of moments.

"The hell happened to you!?" Kacey blurts. To her credit, it's legitimate worry for Emma in her voice, despite having only just met the woman.

[Claire Edmonton]

"Cooperation is not optional. You will immediately obey, or you will continue to suffer."

At this point, she was beginning to feel rather tired of having to state the obvious.

"Doctor, are you prepared to take control of this situation?" she asks Emma, and it seems entirely likely that she intends to stab the man again if any of the answers do not provide satisfaction.

[Emma French]

Emma ran over to the group. She glances at Kacey and smiles. "I'll explain later." She looks at Francesco with a mixture of anger, frustration, relief, and god knows what else. She grabs his shirt lifting him enough to punch him in the face. "I got this," she replies to Claire. "I'm taking him in there." Emma looks at the door to the stairwell she just left. "Kacey come with me. Maybe you two can keep anyone from bothering us?" Emma starts to drag Francesco towards the blood bath. Perhaps not her best idea ever but she really wanted to contain the issues the best she could. "Kacey, can you grab my phone from my front pocket and text Dillon that I need help and where I am? Thanks."

[Claire Edmonton]

Claire will quietly stick around to assure the process continues to move forward, but takes no further active role in the scene.

[Wolven Pryde]

Again, it's due only to the fact that no one's told him he can't heal his wounds that Francesco doesn't drop straight into Torpor from Emma's love-tap. The stab Claire had given him nearly felled the poor bastard. He has all but given up physically struggling. Allowing himself to be manhandled only because if he's a torpid heap, he can't possibly help himself.

Let alone anyone else.

Trading Francesco to Emma's grip, Kacey fumbles for the phone in Emma's jeans. Martin, however, seems reluctant to release the man to Emma alone. After a moment of deliberation, however, he relents.

"Just be careful," he offers, with a nod. "That one bucks like a bull."

"We got this!" Kacey holds up an arm and glances back to Martin over her shoulder. She flexes for him, the impressive tone of her Vitae-enhanced form pulling tight. "Just keep the people off our backs!"

Martin looks as though he is very carefully schooling his thoughts in front of the Domain members. Though he grants Claire a droll expression that suggests he is bored with being relegated to damage control. Again.

It's a brief, nervous shuffle back to the stairwell during the moment where they are exposed to the rest of the stadium. By now, some professionals have gathered to assess the damage and begin picking the wreckage apart. Some of the crowd have given up on any prospect of more music and have left. But most have stuck around in fascination at the mild disaster, all thankful that no one seems to have been hurt.

And yet, as Emma hauls Francesco near enough to the bloody mess to see the true amount of carnage, it becomes clear even in the dark just how hurt people have been, tonight.

Francesco's only comment is a whimpered, "We should leave now..."

Kacey hadn't even been paying real attention, walking along and fiddling with Emma's phone. Murmuring the name Emma mentioned over and over. "Oh!" she says once, searching through the contact list, "D-I-L-L-O-N, not D-Y-L-A-N... got it."

More beeping and booping follows, until they are confronted with the mess. And the smell.

"Oh God," Kacey grunts in absolute revulsion. One hand lifts from the phone to clutch at her own throat. "Part of me wants to get down on hands and knees and start lapping that like a dog. That's fucking gross!"

It's pretty clear she hasn't been acquainted with quite this type of horror in her young Requiem, yet. Though it is very dark, and the phone's light is not being directed straight at the bodies, it's impossible to miss. The scope of slaughtering that many people in one night, so brutally, mere yards away from a gathering of kine, and remaining undetected! It's staggering.

At least, it seems to be, to the Daeva who can't tear her orange-tinted contacts away from the scene long enough to finish the message she's supposed to be sending.

[Emma French]

"Damn it Kacey if you can't get a grip then go outside." Emma growls at her. Looking at Francesco she says, "Why? Who's coming? What the FUCK is this all about and what does it have to do with Julianne or whatever her fucking name is? And where the hell did you go you fucking idiot?" Emma's tone was angry with concern dripping from the edges. Not unlike a mother whose child ran into traffic only to come back in one piece.

[Wolven Pryde]

Emma's growl seems to awaken something in Kacey obstinate enough to shake her free and redouble her resolve. She shoots the Gangrel an angry scowl which is clearly not genuine, and instantly protests, "I'm fine!"

But body language betrays her discomfort with the proximity to the gore. Her hands grip at opposite elbows and rub slightly at the exposed flesh of her arms. As though she is suddenly self-conscious about her attire, or lack thereof. But more likely that she's feeling true bloodlust for the first time in a while. Her humanity is all that keeps her from flopping into the fresh kills and bathing in it, and that makes her feel dirty.

"What the fuck happened to their heads?" She whispers in morbid fascination, in spite of her unease.

Suddenly remembering her task, she hurriedly finishes the message to Dillon and hits send.

"Not who," Francesco protests weakly. "What. I saw it, pulling people into the dark that strayed too far from the others... biting their scalps and faces off and feeding with one messy gulp... please, please, we have to go. I have to warn my mistress! She must know of this monster!"

Hunched over, Francesco grips tightly at the lower hem of Emma's shirt with both hands, to add urgency to his plea.

[Emma French]

Emma grinds her teeth as she struggles for control. The blood, the anguish, everything comes to a head in her mind and body. Beast begins to try and break through her over whelming thoughts and perhaps her emotions. Funny how she still has so many human emotions that she clings to like a life line. "Ha." a sarcastic sound escapes her. She pulls herself together as her eyes darken to an almost black. "Where is your mistress? Let's go find her." Emma says to Francesco. "You want in?" She asks Kacey as a way of apology for upsetting her.

[Wolven Pryde]

"I..." Kacey hesitates, as though torn. "I don't know... maybe. Don't get me wrong, you seem like a cool chick and I'd like to help you! But I really need to find out what happened to the rest of the band..."

Her normaly rapid-fire speech slows, churning as she processes her thoughts and realization begins to dawn.

"... and... and our... crew..." It's as if the two events had to remain separate in her mind until now, unable to process the likely scenario. Her people missing, a pile of dumped bodies... "Oh no! Fuck!"

Kacey forces the stairwell door wider and holds Emma's phone up high to cast better light on the massacre. Suddenly much less squeamish, or having rationalized her darker desires to be near the blood, the woman squats over the heap and begins to paw through the corpses. Occasionally, she lowers the phone just low enough to inspect some detail before moving on. She's quickly becoming a mess herself, in her urgency and utter disregard for anything but trying to identify the bodies.

"No!" There is a pause in her bloody rummaging. "No! Fuck! No!

"Casey!" The boy from the sticker table, with the same name as she. She turns a horrified look back to Emma, before the logic in her brain automatically fills in the blanks for her new friend. "Herd. He was our Herd. Along with the rest of our road crew. What if... what if this thing got the others?"

"It likes Kindred," supplies Francesco with some absurd sense of helpfulness. "'Cuz of the Vitae."

Somewhere further in the bowels of the building, a voice cries out in abject terror, before being violently terminated.

The tense moment is broken by Emma's phone signaling Dillon's reply. Kacey shrieks at the surprise of it, and fumbles the device.

Dropping it right into the pile of bodies, and plunging the three of them into darkness.

Whatever the killer on the loose is, it seems to have just claimed another victim. Of course, it will probably take the body to stash with the others.

"Now can we go?"

[Emma French]

"HELL Yes." Ema's voice grew a hard edge as she realized who the bodies were. "Kacey, you have to get out of here now. If you don't come with us then run someplace...." Emma wanted to say safe. But was there such a place? "Just run as fast a you can away from here. Do you have someplace you can go? If not I can have someone take you back to town." She was still holding Francesco. Calmly she added, "Please grab my phone and hand it back." (once she has her phone back she drags Francesco up, "Which way?") (When she can she will check the message sent by Dillon.)