T-15 to meeting time. Henry pushes open the door to the coffee shop and, without looking particularly closely at those around him, heads to the counter to order two bottles of water. A small exchange of money later, he's sitting at a two-person table, one bottle open and in his hand, the other waiting for his... what would the word be? Contact? Yes, contact seemed like a fine word for this. It's only then that he leans back in his chair, and takes an inconspicuous look around. He was glad he hadn't picked a suit to come here, instead settling on 'casual week-end wear', including faded blue jeans, a wind-breaker and baseball cap. All the btetter to not stand out too much.

Out in the parking lot, Joshua gets out of a tan Plymouth Duster that's been sitting there for about twenty minutes. With jeans, tee, and a light jacket, he seems to have the same "refuge in casualness" look that Henry does. He enters the shop and heads straight for the table without looking around; he must have been watching through the window. Joshua takes a seat, hands flat on the table near his bottle, and asks, "Henry?"

Henry's eyes dart to the door when Joshua enters, although he doesn't even budge from his seat. Once the Sentinel gets closer, Henry looks at him, the way anyone would when someone approaches their table in the middle of a public place. He takes off his baseball cap while Joshua is sitting down, setting it on his lap. "Joshua,"he answers in a voice that has just a little hint of 'hey we know each other, glad to see you', for the benefit of other potential listeners. "Glad you culd make it."


Joshua takes a moment to uncap his water bottle and pull it closer to him. "So," he starts, and pauses, wondering how best to handle this. "What's up?" he finishes, feeling a bit lame.

Henry takes a small swig of his own water, keeping up appearances. He leans in just a that little bit closer, however, feeling ready to get down to brass tacks. Tacks noone else should hear. "Our mutual friend told me you met a man, goes by Vector. Asian, not really from the same boat you and me are from..." He turns his free hand around very slowly, as though trying to jog Joshua's memory. "Ring any bells?"

Joshua has to think for a moment, because that description doesn't really help. Sure, there's a particular Asian thorn in his side, but this is California: there's a lot of Asians. He can't assume this is the same one. "Smug? Seems to be a step ahead?"

Henry almost smiles. Almost. Sure, half his mouth curls up, but the rest of his face barely moves. "Heh. Yeah, that sounds about right." In fact, it sounds exactly right. "Where did you meet him?"

"Vector," Joshua says, savoring it. So the bastard does have a name. He leans forward on the table and lowers his voice. "Not too far from here is a place called Hostel HI, it's the Council's. I met him there--he'd tried to electrocute the Council's head at the time. We kept the guy from dying but Vector got away clean. He tends to lay low--likes to make himself known, be enigmatic and intimidating, and then take off."

Henry listens to Joshua, not letting his reaction show. "Sounds like what I know of him to a T." He frowns, making a short Hmm sound. Something here isn't right. "He do anything against you when you met him? Aside from running off?"There wasn't much to expect from that kind of encounter, but a little was better than nothing.

The Sentinel shrugs. "He was busy trying to get away. He... prevented me... from shooting him, though," he says, leaving Henry to puzzle out exactly how the prevention occurred. "And I have heard from another who met him, who says that..." Joshua looks around, just to be sure they aren't being eavesdropped on, and speaks with his voice even lower. "He might have the ability to create paradoxes where they shouldn't be."

Henry doesn't speak while Joshua looks around, though he does his own small part to look over his shoulder out the corner of his eye. "Paradox where it shouldn't be? As in... from nothing?"The more he heard about this guy, the more he wanted to get rid of him. "This guy has a plan, and I don't like it one bit."After all, if he was strong enough to try to assassinate an Order head, he probably could have left Henry a stain on the tarmac. The metaphorical gears in Henry's head go spinning, trying to figure it out.

"Me neither. So what do you know about him?"

"Precious little. He was at McClellan air base at the same time I was. I was looking into a few recent thefts there. He just showed up out of nowhere, said a few sentences, then left." Henry hesitates, not sure exactly how far he should go in what he knows. Screw it, he decides. "I know he has a history with our mutual friend. And he seems to think we keep sub-par company."Though that was more mysterious than even Henry would like, the word 'Pentacle' wasn't exactly made for use in mall coffee shops. "Know any more about this Paradox thing of his?"

Joshua shakes his head. "No... just hearsay, and it's not something I've ever heard of before. The only thing I know is, he may have been an Arrow before moving to his current affiliation. Or at least had some training from them."

Henry nods, mulling over everything that's said as it's being said. "Nothing I ever heard of either. And the training fits. He said something about, you know, us,"he points to Joshua with his pinky finger while he points to himself with his thumb, "not being Marines. It's probably nothing,"he adds, not being entirely truthful about the what he thinks of the importance of that remark. "Any plans to track him down?"

Joshua shrugs. "No one can get a bead with him, I think. Best chance I have right now is if he pokes his head up somewhere--I've been spreading the word around to some of the newbies, to contact me if he shows up. Right now, I can't really track him down, so I just have to hope he slips up."

Henry's expression is slightly quizzical for a moment, before going back to standard impassive. "Spreading the word, quietly, can be a good idea. But he seems to always be one step ahead. I think we should try to make him screw up." Henry's voice dips even lower into the whisper spectrum. "We figure out what he wants, what he does, and from there, see how we can make him fall."


"Easier said than done," Joshua says. "What does he want? How do we find out?"

Henry actually shows a hint of amusemt here, this time actually letting his eyes lighten up somewhat. "I never said it would be easy. We use what we have. He wanted something at McClellan, days after the main events happened. He wanted something at Hostel... Is that Councilor he attacked still around?" However much it galled Henry to ask the Council for information, it was a lead.

Joshua shakes his head. "No. He died not long after--a separate situation," he adds, "Not involved with Vector. So, he wanted something at the Hostel, something at McClellan. He makes his presence known to those who are working around the city, with ley lines as an example, and threatens them. Not a lot to go on."


"I've gone on less before. Wait, ley lines?"He starts listing items, counting them off on his fingers, keeping his voice to a low whisper."McClellan Air Force base, corpses, weapons, ley lines, Free Council. There has to be a link there somewhere." Keeping the fingers raised close to his face, as though his palm might hold the answer, he adds. "And threatening willworkers isn't very productive use of his time. So he's not trying to kill us. Which means..." His voice trails off, knowing what he's thinking is probably not what any Pentacle mage would want to hear.

Joshua shakes his head. "He's distracting us from someone else? He's using us to get what he wants?"

Henry's voice fades back in, as though he were voicing his thoughts again. "... Manipulating the whole lot of us. Trying to run us like mice through a labyrinth. Once we figure out what his game is, we stop playing it, and put him into ours." There's a tinge of anger to his tone. Noone runs Henry around like a mouse.

"A good idea, but there's a lot of elements there to try and figure out what his plan is. And although I hear he can be mouthy, he knows enough to keep his cards close to his chest."

"Then we keep our eyes open, and we keep each other up to date. He'll tip his hand sometime." Henry had a feeling the SOB already had, but saying that here and now would be foolish. "When you saw him at the Hostel, did you ever catch a glimpse of what he was, what he could do? His Nimbus?" Anything to not make this the proverbial needle in a haystack.

"Nnnnooooo," Joshua says as he thinks. "Not his Nimbus. A lot of Forces, though. He turned my bullets, and he used it to float around--he walked from the second-story window to his motorcycle, and once when my partner messed up his bike he seemed to TK himself off the bike and floated in the air for a second." He's quiet for a moment as an insight comes to him. "He uses vulgar magic to spread the Abyss and encourage us to react likewise."

Henry hmms for a few moments, thinking about exactly what should be done. "Does he give you the impression he wants us to set the whole Consilium onto him?" It certainly looked that way to Henry, but his encounter with Vector was shorter, less definite. "Seems to me he wants to draw us into open war, be as careless as him. Either we spread the word, and trust people to not play into his hands." his voice shows distaste at that option, "Or we keep it quiet and solve the problem while noone knows."

"Well.... We still have to find him, first," Joshua says, thinking--and then he sits up a little straighter. "I don't suppose you have friends who can look up vehicle registries?" he asks Henry. "Every time he's been spotted, he's been on a red Ducati. I can't imagine there are too many of them in the Sacramento area; it'll be hard to track him down with just that, but it's something."

"Red Ducati? I agree, anything's better than nothing. The DMV's not my usual hunting ground, but I might be able to work with that." He puts the cap back onto his bottle, before responding with, "You almost sound a like a pro on this guy. Do you have a name for that Council head he tried to kill?" As he talks, he fishes a small black book and pen out of his pocket, and scribbles a few notes.

Joshua smiles, humorless. "Let's just say I'm very interested in him," he says. "Calligan Wellmer, that was his target. Died a couple of weeks later and since then the Free Council has been circling the drain."

Henry mirrors Joshua's smile. Mages getting killed? Not good. The Council in trouble? Every cloud has a silver lining. "I think I'm starting to pick up that hobby too." He jots down a few more symbols. "Look, you see him again, you give a me call. I'll do the same." He starts to scribble his number on a napkin. "But we both keep it on the low-down for now. Don't let him know we're pulling together against him. Work for you?"

Joshua nods. "Yeah, absolutely. So long as he doesn't think we're working together, that's a strength on our side, and I'm more than willing to take advantage of any advantages we have." He takes a pull on his water bottle, waiting for Henry to finish the number on the napkin. "You been to the Circle? I figure you've got access, with you knowing Zilker. If we have to meet up again it might be the safest place. Wards. No public."

"Best place to ambush Arrows and Guardians alike," Henry replies in an almost-whisper, as though he were completing Joshua's list. He finishes writing his phone number, writes a capital 'H' above it, and slides the napkin to Joshua. "Leave a message," he adds in a tone that is clearly 'off-topic'. "I'd just rather not rely on any order's most common meeting place." Most common Guardian meeting place. 5 words that have no business being together. In Henry's mind at least. "Semi-private locations, decided half an hour in advance. If he's two steps ahead, we start by making sure our steps can't be predicted." He recites it like it's standard operating procedure.

Joshua raises an eyebrow at this; a look that seems to suggest that hitting the Arrows' major meeting place would be a sublimely stupid move on anyone's part. But he says nothing, just carefully puts the napkin in his pocket. "I'll give you a call if I see him," he says once that's done. He moves his chair back half a foot then waits, looking at Henry to see if he has anything else to add, or if the meeting is truly over.

Seeing Joshua almost ready to leave, Henry takes a brief look at his watch while pushing back his own chair. "I'll do the same. Stay on your toes, this smells worse every time I put my nose in deeper." He stands up, putting the baseball cap back on. "I'll talk to you later." He leaves one more chance for Joshua to speak, before fading into the crowd (taking a competely different direction from Joshua, should they leave at the same time). He had letters to write.

Joshua has nothing to add; he nods as Henry leaves, and keeps his seat for a few minutes... thinking, contemplating. After finishing his water, he goes back to his car and leaves.