9438/Details in the Blood

Details in the Blood
Date of Scene:	05 October 2019
Location:	West Chelsea Hill, Old Gotham
Synopsis:	Jamie and Selene cross paths at a crime scene. Jamie keeps his blood and Selene gets some extra hands for a Lycan hunt in the making.
Cast of Characters:	Multiple Man, Selene (Underworld)

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Multiple Man has posed:
It's raining again. Isn't it always around this time of year? Summer heat is an afterthought. Carved pumpkins have taken up places on stoops and steps. Merely place holders as the holiday season ramps up toward the end of the year. It's usually quieter this time of year. Cooler. Less active. Preparations for travel or time with the family. These kind of things don't come to mind when walking into 2634 W. Gardenview.

The wealthy, lower-upper class neighborhood has seen violence before. Police and ambulances, firetrucks and the like. But never like this. The day prior had been one of turmoil, fear and unanswered questions. Why would someone release wild animals into a home and murder a small family? Why here? The Baumgartners are no more. All that remains is a house cordoned off with crime scene tape and neighbors too scared to even look out their windows.

The crime scene techs have come and gone. Taped outlines and bloody carpets. Jamie Madrox stands in the kitchen aftr having just broken in. He had questions. This place had answers... and as the smell of old blood, wet dog and terror wash over him, he wonders if the money is even good enough. It isn't. Curiousity will hold him to contract regardless.

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene was aware of this attack, though she didn't know the details of it. Gotham has a lot of strange things happen in it, but she needed to make sure this was or wasn't related to the Lycans that she's hunting. Its a little odd for them to tear apart a family that wasn't involved in their age-old war, but its not out of their realm of possibilities... look at her family from 600 years ago after all (She doesn't know yet know it was the Vampires who killed her family, not the Lycans).

Selene's black sport motorcycle is parked at the far end of this city block. She'd made her way here to this home on foot via the use of the back alleys. Drenched wet from the rain, she doesn't seem to mind, the chill in the air doesn't slow her down one bit either. She just looks extra pale tonight in the darkness of Gotham's dreary atmosphere. Her black hair hangs against her face in wet strands as she watches a man breaking into the home.

She draws a single handgun from beneath her leather trenchcoat and then sets forward to sneak her way to join him...

What Jamie will find next is the sound of a gun clicking behind him, and then the sultry voice of a woman speaking out. "What business do you have here?" She'd tracked him inside and clearly intends to find out who he is... with her right hand clutching her handgun by its grip, aimed right at him.

Multiple Man has posed:
Details. It's all in the blood. The attack the day before was particularly savage. The facts had been muddied and obscured by both authorities 'in the know' and perhaps even a Vampire or two from Selene's own coven. What the public knows is that a family of four is dead. Some kind of exotic animal attack. These newly wealthy sorts buy dangerous animals all the time, right? Peter Baumgartner was a lawyer. One who worked closely with a certain Vampire... This was, no doubt, a Lycan hit. But why such force for a mortal servant and his family?

He'd broken in with little time or hesitation. He knew what he was doing. Thief? Gore seeker? Reporter? Lycan? None of the above. Jamie Madrox, in his worn and weary overcoat, clucks his tongue at the sound of a hammer pulled back. Shoulders sag and sloooooooy, his hands lift. Cautious. No fast movements even as his pulse quickens.

"If I said housekeeping, would you shoot me or laugh?" A brow lifts, he dares not turn. That tone of voice, smooth and calm. Much calmer than his now racing pulse. He's looking for anything to serve as a distraction in this ultra modern steel and glass kitchen. "And if I threw that pasta maker at you, would you maul me or shoot me?"

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene stands there before the man as he turns around with his hands up. She doesn't make a move, just stands there in her black leathers, dripping rain water from the same window that he'd entered through. She'd gotten through it without even making a damn sound, the first thing he'd heard was that hammer being pulled back, maybe she was already in the house? That can't be, she's drenched from the rains and her skin looks pale as a snow covered road...

"I'd shoot you." She replies coldly in that European accented voice, but pauses, her eyes flicker a little as she very quickly takes in more of his form. "Probably in the knee." She adds then before she parts her pale lips and lets a breath in between them.

"You don't strike me as a Police Officer, nor a looter." She continues then, the gun still aimed right at his nose. "Are you a member of the Baumgartner's family? A brother of Peter's perhaps?" She knows he's not a Lycan, after 600+ years of this, she can tell pretty easily. "

Multiple Man has posed:
"Then I'm definitely not housekeeping." Jamie deadpans all too quickly. Not a moments hesitation from a little quip even at gunpoint. He either can't help it or won't. Slow to turn, he leaves both hands raised. Unarmed. The barest hint of a smirk on his lips. The lift of his eyebrow creases the black 'M' inked over his right eye. "The knee? Why does everybody always assume that's a nicety? Do you have any idea how much physical rehab I'd have to go through?"

Regarding the pale woman with unexpectedly calm eyes, he looks right past the barrel of that gun to the blue eyes aiming down the sights. "I'm going to reach into my jacket. Slowly. I have a gun but it's in the car sooooo... " Eyes on Selene, Jamie carefully reaches for his wallet to offer up ID. He flips it open but the lack of an actual badge takes away some of the dramatic effect. "I'm a private investigator. I'm looking into a money trail that started at a human trafficking case three weeks ago. If I knew it was going to take me here? I'd have probably just stayed home. Buuuuuut I didn't. So here we are. You pointing a gun at me and me trying quite hard to not pee a little."

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene's gun stays on him throughout his response and the reveal of his wallet. Her eyes go to his ID for a split second, long enough to confirm what he's telling her. A lingering moment of decision takes place there-after and... then she lowers the gun down to her thigh level.

"You shouldn't leave your weapon inside your car." Selene says then as she steps around him, turning herself enough to glide past him on her way deeper into the home ahead of him now. She has business here as well after all. "Not everyone you meet in this town is as generous as I am." She adds then.

Selene sweeps around a corner of the house, out into a hallway, her leather trench coat swaying around her legs as she walks. Quiet footfalls take her the various hot spots of violent activity that have occurred here-in. She's scanning the place with the thoroughness of an investigator herself... though Jamie's never likely seen one dressed like her, Cop or otherwise.

She does glance back though to see if he's pursuing her in this endeavor, or without her aiming down on him, if he'd make a run for it.

Multiple Man has posed:
Eyebrow poised in a high arch, Jamie lets time stretch out like an eternity made of taffy. A half chuckle is immediately followed by the rush of warm breath as he sighs with clear relief. This man has had entirely too many guns pointed at him for such a short time. Then again, Jamie tends to royally screw statistics just by existing.

"See, you'd think that's a smart play. Especially considering how... " Brows furrow, Jamie stuffs his wallet away as she walks around him. Annoyed momentarily, he gives her a quick once over. Hands drop finally as he moves to follow. This was his crime scene, dammit! "Well armed you are. Then you factor in the police presence. Breaking and entering. With a firearm? That ups the ante big time." Smartest dumb move ever. Or so he tells himself as he follows after the rain drenched assassin(?!)

The attacks started in the living room. Blood dried and tacky on leather furniture and well polished floors. The shape of a body outlined in tape. The trail leads up the stairs. Jamie following her and the trail alike. "This isn't your first murder scene, is it? Look, I showed you mine. Now it's your turn. Who are you? What's your interest in this nightmare? Peter owe your boss money?"

Run for it? No. The curiousity would literally kill him if he left without some answers.

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene lingered on the first floor as long as she could find more things to add onto the case she was building inside her own head, the case toward Lycan involvement in this home's recent history. She does keep her senses primed, and does listen to the P.I. as he trails after her.

Her tall boots lead her to the stairs, the soles of those boots quietly depressing their individual surfaces as she starts up them. She hears his question with regard to who SHE is and she just keeps her eyes up to the second level. "I'm a Vampire." She replies to him bluntly. "I'm hunting werewolves, as you'd call them here." Thats as silly of a response as his housekeeping attempt with her mere moments ago! Isn't it?

What he might notice, though, is she glances back down at him once she reaches the top of the stairs and her eyes aren't that silvery blue anymore like they had been when she had the gun trained on his face, they're a dark brown hue now.

But her stare leaves him fairly quickly so he may miss it in that instance.

Up on the second floor now, Selene continues to follow the trail, forming her own idea of what happened within this quiet home. "I think this case might be beyond what you should put your efforts toward, Mister Madrox." She'd gotten his name off of his ID, but has yet to give him hers in return.

Multiple Man has posed:
The first attack was, from evidence of blood spray and body positioning, one taken on a fleeing victim. Brought low, likely the wife, dead before she hit the ground. The spatter patterns were dead on for Lycan or other large, clawed sorts. Definitely not knives or guns. Her admission of Vampire-ness gets the a half-assed laugh from the man. Disbelief to be sure. "Of course. That explains the amazing skin and night shift tone." Looking down at the rust brown stain on white carpeted stairs, Jamie rolls the words in his head. Vampire. Werewolves. He pinches the bridge of his nose and groans.

"I really should have asked for more money." Looking up the stairs to Selene, he's taken aback by the change in eye color. Contacts? Shapeshifter? Eyes narrow ever so slightly as she continues on. He considers doubling up. Maybe three Madri. In the end, he goes up those stairs by himself. Another wise choice, to be sure.

"You'd be surprised. If I'm not punching well above my weight class, I'm clearly taking the day off." Pausing to examine the bloody bunk beds, Jamie feels a certain pit grow cold in his gut. No point stopping now. Claw marks and bloody prints lead to the master bedroom. The outline of a body near the back wall. Window smashed inward, glass on the carpet. Wall safe ripped open. "Who are you? What's your stake in this for real?"

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene is definitely coming to the conclusion that these attacks were orchestrated by the Lycans infesting Gotham's underworld now. But why... the why is whats keeping her here, searching for more. She gives a glance back at the P.I. as he proceeds on after her and as they end up staring at the bunkbeds in the bedroom together, she pauses to look over at him when he says the word 'stake' as if she'd taken offense to that word usage. But she doesn't say anything to indicate she had!

"Not much surprises me anymore." She replies to him though before she turns and looks further around the room before she pauses and offers him something. Her left hand reaches out and she offers him... a silver stake? Its long and very pointy. She lets him take it to examine it if he'd like, and the end of it is actually loosened and open, should he pull it further apart he'll find that there's a vial of... blood inside it?

Her 'Vampire' story might start to take more form and shape for him, not that its true, of course, but that she might be a crazy person who believes it is! Either way, the woman disappears out of the bunkbed bedroom and ends up in the master bedroom now.

"A simple robbery..." She murmurs. "This feels unlikely..." Nevertheless, Selene steps toward the safe to tip it open to peer inside, though she expects the Police have already removed anything that was in it, but still... leave no secret left un-looked for.

Multiple Man has posed:
While Selene connects the dots, centuries of experience showing her the clear and near feral craft of a Lycan pack in full, furious swing. Something set them off to the point of massacre. Bloody bunk beds will be burned into the memory of Jamie Madrox for all his days. The shadow of sorrow darkens his gaze momentarily. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he shakes his head regretfully and moves on.

The stake lands firmly in palm and Jamie pays it proper concern and care. "Ever see a man turn into pink goo to kill a robot taller than this house?" He asks with a faint smirk, smug and self satisfied when he manages to open the tip of the stake. Brows knit low and close. Blood? "What the blue fu-" Looking up, he notes Selene has moved onward. With a huff, he follows. She's quiet. The way she moves, it's a natural grace. Predatory. Shit, he thinks to himself... Vampire.

Stopping in the space beside Selene, Jamie offers the stake back without looking at her. His eyes are on that hole where tbe safe once sat intact. "Simple? How many burglars you know can rip three inches of steel apart like cardboard and would maul a family to do it?" Jamie, tone serious and steady l, brings attention fully to Selene. "Peter was either going to get something from the safe or protect it. Whatever it was, it was worth killing for."

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene did respond to his pink mist question with a 'Yes, once' before she'd left him back there. Whether it was a joke or not was anyone's guess though as her dry sense of humor is as well formed as the clothing she wears.

But once he joins her in the study and hands her the silver spike back, she accepts it and slides it back up inside of the cuff of her leather coat's sleeve where it vanishes once more there-in.

Her eyes then return to the safe's hole and she just exhales. His vocalized rundown of what happened here causes her to just turn around and look the office over again. "What you've stumbled across here tonight, Mister Madrox is the initial steps into a world I don't think you want any part of."

She's now standing beside the nearby desk and her brown eyed gaze is back upon Jamie's face, calm and cold, just as cold as her skin looks with that damp black hair framing her face. "Werewolves did this." She notes, glancing around the room and then nodding her chin toward the study's doorway. "Slayed the family, took whatever was in that safe, and left this house a blight upon this otherwise quiet neighborhood." She looks back over to him then.

"Werewolves, though my people refer to them as Lycans. They come in many varieties however. American... and otherwise. I believe the ones that struck here where the ones I'm hunting, with rooted origins in eastern Europe. The same as myself." A short pause is taken then before she glances down at the desk. "Why they did this? I don't know... yet."

Multiple Man has posed:
"You know Federico too, huh? Small world." Jamie says with easy acceptance. Flat out assuming she actually did know the young mutant in question. After all, who else could turn into a sentient pink cloud-thing?

Rummaging in his overcoat pockets, Jamie takes out a pack of cigarettes and lighter. Not sparking up, he just likes to roll a cigarette between his fingers. Helps him think. Lighter tumbling over and under the knuckles of his other hand as he drinks it all in. "Yeah, I'm gonna need your name if you're going to keep using mine." Lifting the cigarette to point at her, he lifts his chin ever so slightly. "I don't know who you asked but I don't run from a job. The Yelp reviews would eat me alive."

When Selene drops terrible, unnatural truths on him, Jamie Madrox takes it -shockingly- well. A blink at first. Then a slow nod of actual acceptance. He is currently in three places right now. Strange things are his bread and butter. "Shapeshifters. Lovely. No chance they wear matching uniforms or insignia to make this easier? No?" Jamie takes in a deep, chest swelling breath... and lets it out in a heavy, suddenly exhausted sigh. "Werewolves. Vampire. Mutant. Missing three million dollars and a dead family. Yeah. Sounds about right for a weekend."

That said, Jamie cups his hands and sparks the cigarette. Shielding the flame from the windows. Can't have that get spotted. "So. Mysterious vampire lady. Looks like we're on the same case. Wouldn't happen to have more of those silver stabbers, would you?"

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene seems to be formulating thoughts and ideas inside of her head as she stands there beside the desk and stares off toward the window where the rain is still rolling down behind the drapes that cover them, at least somewhat offering protection from prying eyes even if they're sheer and not doing the job entirely.

After he lights up and asks those questions her eyes dart back over to him, almost suggesting that she'd forgotten they were sharing a room together. After a second she just upturns the corners of her pales lips into a light smile then dips her chin once in a nod. "Selene." She tells him, it might come off as an alias though since she doesn't offer a last name, but there is some sincerity to how she says it.

She then turns to face him and her head tilts toward her left shoulder ever so slightly. "I have many of them. The blood that you saw inside of it, assuming you opened it after I left of course." She unscrewed it so he could look inside after all. "Is synthetic. My people are wealthy and have extensive resources, we've synthesized human blood so that we may feed from it without endangering any of your kind with our ways. Its our hope to finish off the Lycans that we're hunting, and remove ourselves from society as entirely as we possibly can. To live simple lives, of solitude." Or at least thats what she's been told for the past six centuries.

"I can give you some of the silver stakes, if you truly do plan to investigate this further. But I should ask that you take my telephone number as well, so you can have me at your disposal... in-case you do stumble across something that might be... out of your element." Selene is after all the contacts and leads she can get. She's not from the United States, she's trying to re-establish so many things she's lost since leaving Hungary for the shores of America.

Multiple Man has posed:
He quit smoking four days ago. For the second time in a week. Yet here he is, quietly enjoying this cigarette in the one place he knows nobody would think to look for him. Gotham is a long stroll to secretly steal a smoke. Exhaling upward, Jamie ashes into an overcoat pocket. Leave no trace.

"Selene." He repeats the name for himself, trying it on for size. Earnest sounding or not, he assumes the name is a placeholder. "Jamie." He says, touching his chest above that yellow geometric design on a form fitting emerald shirt. Introductions Now formally made, Madrox seems to release the tension in his shoulders ever so slightly. Still that tightness of caution remains. After all, the lady is claiming Vampire cred. Crazy or cannibal, he plays it semi-safe.

"Couldn't resist." Jamie says with a shrug in regards to opening the stake. Regarding her evenly though unmistakeably intrigued, he sucks his teeth before pointing the orange tip of that cigarette at her. Expressive hand movements. Energetic but trying to play at restrained. "So until these wild, murderous mutts are out down, you guys can't go to Vampire Vacation. Rough trade. Not exactly what Bram Stoker told us but... who am I to judge?"

Cigarette left to dangle between his lips, Multiple Man talks around it expertly as he takes out that wallet again. His card snatched up between two fingers. "I'm not going to turn down a free parting gift. Especially if these things catch my scent on the wind behind them." A brow arches, Jamie chuckles under a breath and offers the card. X-Factor Investigations. Mutant Town, NYC. "Hey, I'm all for expert opinions at my disposal. Skin tight leather or latex being a bonus." A chuckle, he clears his throat. Cigarette bobbing lazily as he speaks. "Looks like you found yourself a spotter on this little hunt."

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
While he speaks, she's already turning to the desk to pick up one of the expensive pens resting in the bronze statuette that is holding three more that look identical to the one between her fingers. She picks up a small notepad thats on the desk and glances over to him while he speaks about the vampire vacation which causes her to show another very faint and ghostly expression of amusement, as though its an expression rare to grace her visage.

She jots down a number and then offers him the whole notepad before she places the pen back where she'd gotten it and reaches out to accept is hard. "It would seem so." She replies to him in that husky voice of hers with the mixture of many European accents flavoring every word that she does vocalize.

There's a roll of thunder outside followed by a heavier spread of wind against the back of the home as the winds seem to pick up. Selene glances at his X-Factor labeled card and then to the windows before she looks back to him. "I should be on my way. Thank you though, Mister Madrox." She states. "For not making me have to shoot you."

With a much more visible sly smirk, Selene starts for the doorway back onto the second floor landing, leather coat whipping around her legs, over that very same tight leather and all. She does look back over her shoulder too. "And do consider carrying a gun, it won't stop a Lycan, but it can scare them off if they're not looking for a confrontation. If you're lucky..."

Multiple Man has posed:
That barest hint of a smile. Jamie is no stranger to those. Give him enough time, he'll either pry one of those out of the sternest of sorts... or get his face pummeled. It's a 50/50, really. Self satisfied with that and not bleeding from the nose, he counts itbas a win and takes the notepad. A glance to memorize the number and its gone in the overcoat.

Thunder rolling, rattling the windows in that long, drawn out rumble. Jamie plucks the cigarette from his lips, clearly watching her with the utmost of his attention. Vampire. Lycans. Murder and money. The perfect set up to go out with a bang. He smiles wide, sunny and all too cheerful for a man at a murder scene. "Trust me, Selene. The pleasure of not being shot was all mine."

Quiet steps take him from the desk, watching Selene in her departure. He wonders if it was wise to give a possible cannibal his address. Then she looks back. He averts his eyes a little too quickly. Clearing his throat behind a loose fist. "Yeeaaaaah... once you see that gun, you'll change your mind." A shake of his head, Jamie nods and gestures with a politely dismissive wave. He still has a house to comb.