Trooper Station, Friday

[firstofitskind]

Liam was somewhat subdued as he got settled in his office. He and Verity had made vague plans over the weekend to go dancing at a club on the mainland sometime soon, and those vague plans had solidified as of this morning in to an actual outing later this evening. Which you'd think would have him in a good mood, but fun wasn't really going to be the purpose of this particular trip.

So if you needed him, Liam would be frowning over paperwork even more than usual today.

[ooc: open! with bouts of SP as i'm in the appliance mines once again today.]

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[arboreal_priestess]

"Hey," Verity sounded as subdued as Liam looked as she flopped into a chair by his desk. "You know those harpies I deliver mail for? They passed along some additional info. Put that together with everything else I managed to dig up over the week and I'm pretty sure we have the next club in line for where the ghoul will be."

[spectre_alenko]

Having decided to do a beach thing, Kaidan took the long way home on his run so he could go by the trooper station and see if Liam was there. He was, and he looked like he wasn't in the greatest mood.

"Liam," Kaidan greeted, "What are you doing around sunset?"

[firstofitskind]

“Hey,” Liam greeted, giving Verity a brief, if tense, smile as he pushed aside his pile of paperwork. “Good. Saves us making a wild guess tonight at least.”

[firstofitskind]

Liam glanced up as Kaidan entered. “A stakeout, actually,” he admitted. “Why?” he asked, curiously.

[spectre_alenko]

"Damn," Kaidan said with regret, "It's too hot to live, outside, so I thought a beach party was in order. Thought I'd see if you were interested."

[firstofitskind]

“It is hellishly hot out there,” Liam had to agree. “If I weren’t heading to the mainland, I’d probably take you up on that invite.”

[arboreal_priestess]

"Yeah," she said, looking down at her hands. "Total comes out to four girls, though the last was the only one to be found by human police."

There were a lot of things, cryptid and not, who would be happy to eat a dead human, including at least one flock of ahools that Verity knew about. "Stheno--the harpy matriarch--says that there were reports of a lindwurm near one of the clubs last month. That'll happily eat a body in minutes flat."

[spectre_alenko]

"Next time, maybe I'll have the good idea with more than a few hours' notice," Kaidan apologized.

"It's a crime on the mainland?" Kaidan asked, blinking a little, "You have jurisdiction there?"

[firstofitskind]

"Not anymore... at least, not offically," Liam admitted. His name probably did still pull some weight back in his version of DC... assuming people looked past that whole 'legally dead' thing. "This is more of a favor to a friend." He didn't know if Verity and Kaidan knew each other, and felt it best to play it safe and not mention who said favor was for.

[firstofitskind]

"Convenient, if one's the kind of person that might leave most of a body behind after they'd eaten their fill," Liam said with a sigh.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Exactly," Verity said, pushing her hair away from her face. "I'm going to ask Sarah to come along, too. See if she can spot anything."

With her brain, while Verity and Liam used their eyes.

"How did I miss this?"

[firstofitskind]

This was not exactly the conditions under which Liam had been hoping to meet anyone from Verity's family.

"Because Baltimore's a big city, and you're one person," Liam said logically. "Which I know, isn't going to make you feel any better, but it's the truth."

[arboreal_priestess]

It really didn't.

"Cryptids knew," Verity said quietly. "Or they knew something was up. But nobody told me. I guess they just don't trust me that much."

Not enough to involve her in a case where humans were dying at their hands.

[firstofitskind]

"And that stings," Liam said knowingly. It was a feeling he was rather intimately familiar with. "There'll always be those who won't trust you because of who- or what- you are." Sometimes it was possible to change their minds. And then sometimes it wasn't.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Yeah," Verity said. "It's different out West and even in O--even where the family used to live." She trusted Liam, but old habits--like obscuring the location of the old homestead--were hard to break. "The Prices and Healys have been there for years. Generations. We've had time to earn some trust. Out here--not so much."

[firstofitskind]

"Maybe figuring out who's going after these clubbers will help," Liam said. The victims might not be cryptids themselves, but if their killer was starting to get sloppy, the increased scrutiny could be dangerous for anyone trying to fly under the radar.

[arboreal_priestess]

"It's exactly the kind of thing that attracts the Covenant's attention, too," Verity said flatly. "Especially if it keeps happening. One weird murder could get overlooked, but if there were started to be more, there'd be no way we could keep this under wraps."

[firstofitskind]

"Yeah," Liam nodded. "Hopefully the cryptid communities in Baltimore will realize that sooner rather than later."

[arboreal_priestess]

"Oh, I'm sure they'll realize it," Verity said bitterly. "I just don't know if they'll take it as enough to come see me."

She'd have to go see Dave more often, probably. Ugh.

"But maybe you're right," she said. "Maybe putting a stop to this will let them know that I'm not a Covenant thug in too-high heels."

[firstofitskind]

"It's been known to happen sometimes, me being right," Liam said solemnly. "And besides, you do have some allies out there, don't you?" Like the harpies that had passed on what they knew.

[arboreal_priestess]

"A few," Verity said. "The harpies I get the mail for. James, my tango partner. Ryan, a bartender at this place I know. Carol, who's a waitress at the same place. A few more professional contacts."

Like the aforesaid Dave, an information broker.

"I do my rounds, I dance, I come home. Not a lot of time to make friends." She didn't really have many on the island, either, especially with Jenkins gone.

This whole talk was depressing.

[firstofitskind]

"It's a place to start," Liam said. He wasn't exactly Mr. Popularity himself, most of the people he associated with were the ones he lived with.

[arboreal_priestess]

Ugh. They should...be more social. Or something.

But Verity hadn't ever really had a lot of friends, outside of her family. That was what happened when you grew up keeping secrets and lying to everyone you met. Valerie, on the other hand, was extremely popular, when she got to come out. But then, Valerie didn't lie to everyone with every word she said. She was a lie, but the character was honest. All she wanted to do was dance.

"Maybe if I'd tried harder to make friends, I could have stopped more girls from dying," she murmured.

[firstofitskind]

"It's not your fault," Liam said, shaking his head. "It's the fault of whoever decided to start going after live prey."

[arboreal_priestess]

It was going to feel like her fault for a very long time, even if later that night she was going to be too hopped up on bass and adrenaline to show it much.

The perils of her two favorite loves combining.

"So, you ready for your first night out in the club?" Verity asked brightly in what wasn't a transparent attempt to change the subject how dare you.