Verity Alice Price

An hour later, Verity, Liam, Rose and Jermaine staggered out of the bar and onto the suddenly silent sidewalk. Verity could dimly hear the parties still raging in the bars to either side of them, and there were people on the other side of the street, happy, laughing, living people with drinks in their hands and smiles on their happily drunken faces. There was no one else on their stretch of sidewalk. ( A black coach, drawn by two equally black horses, was parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant. )

[And we're done! Adapted once more from Seanan McGuire's "The Ghosts of Bourbon Street" with the help and patience of firstofitskind, who I could NOT have done all of this without. NFI, NFB, and Verity and Liam are on their way back home, woo!]

The sound of footsteps woke her from her doze. She cracked her eyes open just far enough to test the quality of the light. It hadn't changed. There were no windows in her little room, so the passage of time wouldn't affect things, but they also hadn't turned off the lights, or tried setting up an interrogation rig. That was good. ( She stayed comfortably limp, waiting to see who was approaching and what they wanted. )

( cut for explicit interrogation )
( And now, escape )
[CONTENT WARNING FOR TORTURE. Adapted from Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire . NFB, NFI. Previous entry.]

Convincing Sarah to stay behind wasn't nearly as hard as it would usually have been. She'd been scared, and that was something she wasn't used to. Uncle Mike got her set up in one corner of the main room with a pile of computer pieces Verity didn't recognize. She settled in to connecting wires and configuring settings, looking happy as a clam. Everybody had their comfort zones.

Uncle Mike, however, refused to stay behind. Not that Verity complained much; with him along, they could take the car. They rode in his sedan, blending smoothly into the traffic. If the Covenant was watching for them suspiciously, they'd know to be watching the high ground. Hopefully, being on the roads would keep her and Liam under their radar.

( They drove down the streets in silence )

Sunil never returned to the counter, going upstairs to pack as soon as Verity came back downstairs. Then they left their (fully human) staff to clean and close up behind them, the five of them leaving with the last crowd about five minutes before lunchtime closing. Neither brother liked that very much, but Verity was going to use every trick at their disposal to keep them safe and that included taking advantage of the Covenant's refusal to involve ordinary humans in their 'holy work.'

It took almost two hours to get back to the Nest, thanks to Uncle Mike's evasive driving techniques, which included a trip over the Key Bridge. Verity and Liam spent most of the drive watching the mirrors for signs of pursuit. They never came.

Sunil and Rochak goggled shamelessly as they entered the Nest. Each of them had a suitcase, and Rochak was dragging a cooler filled with gingerbread, cookies, and jars of assorted types of sugar in both liquid and granular forms. Verity had never realized there were so many kinds of natural sweetener. ( Watching a Madhura pack his kitchen was definitely an education. )

[Adapted from Midnight, Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire and preplayed (and coded!) by firstofitskind. Up late because conventions are delightful but exhausting. NFI, NFB.]

Dominic left the roof and Verity stood there blinking after him for far longer than she really would have liked. She was in a daze, a thousand thoughts crashing through her brain at once while her brain tried to sort through the options she had besides 'panic.' It felt like she was moving in slow motion as she walked across the rooftop to where she'd dropped her bag. Her cell phone was tucked safely into the front pocket. It took her three tries to make the zipper work, and another five tries before she could successfully access her contact list and call ( the one number that had a prayer of helping her find her emotional footing: Liam. )

Liam was right; keeping Dominic close was a better idea than cutting him loose. Only one small problem with that: Dominic didn't pick up when Verity called his cell phone. She didn't have his home number, assuming he even had one; she'd never seen the place where he lived. He could have been emulating Sarah, and just moving from hotel to hotel, keeping a roof over his head without tying himself to a permanent address. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like she'd been deluding herself all along. There was no way he'd ever really trusted her.

Still, she needed to put that aside, at least for right now, and figure out how she was going to deal with the very real threat of a Covenant purge. Verity broke into a run, pushing her phone deep into the front pocket of her jeans, building to a full-out sprint. She needed to find Dominic. She needed to start warning people. And there was nothing saying she couldn't combine the two.

Gravity took over once she stepped off the edge of the roof, and she was able to push other concerns aside in favor of the pressing need to keep herself from splashing on the pavement. That was one of the nice things about free-running; it was very distracting when she needed it to be. She was focused enough on her surroundings that she could usually avoid things that present an actual danger, like pissed-off cryptids or booby-traps (like snares, for example), but she didn't need to think about her faltering dance career, or the fact that the man she'd been starting to think about as maybe being a real friend wasn't really real friend material, or the upcoming Covenant purge. All she had to think about was the run.

Her first destination was a little café called Gingerbread Pudding. Going there wouldn't help her find Dominic, but it would help her begin the process of warning the city's cryptids that they needed to keep their heads down and maybe consider taking that California vacation they'd been dreaming about. She'd been telling the truth when she'd told Dominic that there was no way she could evacuate the entire city. That didn't mean she had to leave the people she considered friends unprepared for what was coming.

Letting go of the last rooftop between her and her destination, ( she dropped down, into the dark beyond. )

[And thus we continue! Taken from Chapters 4 and 5 of Seanan McGuire's Midnight, Blue-Light Special and preplayed (and coded by) genuine lifesaver firstofitskind. NFI/NFB. Previous post. Next post.]

Yet another long day without a nap and Verity's wasn't over yet. She had a jar full of gold dust that needed ingesting, a whole load of information that needed processing, a phone full of strange runes that needed identifying--and Piyusha's body was still in the sewers, waiting to be brought home. Sunil and Rochak were still waiting at home, hoping to hear some word, hoping to discover their little sister was safe.

( Of all the jobs that being a cryptozoologist entailed, breaking the hearts of friends and family members was the worst. )

[Adapted from Chapter 21 of Seanan McGuire's Discount Armageddon, preplayed with and coded by absolute dreamboat firstofitskind. First post | Previous post | Next Post. NFI, NFB, OOC is love]

The first out-of-the-way manhole cover they could find was located on the edge of a small park, about a block and a half away from Sarah's hotel. It was mostly hidden in the middle of one of those little seating areas that spring up around the city like mushrooms after a hard rain. The few people who did walk by pretty much ignored them. "I love big city life," Verity said quietly, looking around.

Liam had removed his jacket and shirt before taking the crowbar Sarah somehow managed to wheedle out of the hotel manager--when a cuckoo got involved, it was better not to ask exactly how they accomplished things--and setting to work. Sarah was back at the hotel, gulping Tylenol and keeping a telepathic 'eye' on the area. She would let them know if she saw trouble coming.

In the meanwhile, Verity was absorbed with the all-important task of checking her weapons, including the emergency throwing knives and smoke grenades she'd retrieved from Sarah's closet. Well, that, and watching the way the muscles of Liam's back moved every time he strained to get a better degree of leverage on the manhole cover.

Look, they were about to descend into a sewer and possibly discover a dragon. Verity felt no shame in ogling Liam a bit.

( At least until he shoved the manhole cover off to one side, releasing an unpleasant gust of sewer smell. )

[Adapted from Chapter 12 of Seanan McGuire's Discount Armageddon with amazing preplay AND coding help from firstofitskind, who wins at everything forever. First post is here, the previous post is here, and the next post is here. NFI, NFB, OOC is love]

It was nine-thirty in the morning and Verity--or, rather, the red-haired Valerie Pryor, who had never lived on a crazy island and couldn't even fathom the idea that monsters existed--was trying not to freeze to death in a dress consisting entirely of fringe, sequins, strategically-placed strips of lace, and even more strategically-placed pieces of double-sided tape. The hall rented for the Maryland State Argentinian Tango Open was packed to the point of comedy, but even all the bodies jostling together weren't enough to keep it warm, especially up here on the stage where the crowds of the hall itself had given way to just the ten couples of group seventeen.

Well, nine couples and 'Valerie'. Her partner, James, was nowhere to be seen. She had seen him earlier in the hall, talking to his boyfriend, but that had been soon after he'd arrived and checked in, so well over two hours ago. After that, he'd been swallowed up by the crowds, not that Verity had been worried. This event had a two hundred dollar non-refundable buy-in and the top twenty would be going to regionals and she trusted James to have his priorities in order.

But now with the judges saying, "Positions, please," through the speakers, Verity was starting to worry. Couples entered as couples, and there were no substitutions allowed once the event program had been printed. There definitely weren't any substitutions allowed after you were on the floor.

The other nine couples had fallen into ready position, leaving her all-too-visibly alone in the middle of the floor. She barely managed to keep from wincing as the speakers clicked on again. ( Number one hundred eighty-four, please join your partner. )


[Adapted from Chapters 9 & 10 of Seanan McGuire's Discount Armageddon with amazing preplay AND coding help from the adoration-worthy firstofitskind. Parts one, two, three, four, and five, along with post seven. NFI, NFB, OOC is love]