9530/A Helpful Ritual...Right

A Helpful Ritual...Right
Date of Scene:	11 October 2019
Location:	Interior - Fulham Hotel, Brooklyn
Synopsis:	The busted ley line shows at the Fulham Hotel in Brooklyn. Felicia manages to complete a ritual circle and close off the breach in reality with Lucifer's guidance. It's magic! And still not a kidnapping!
Cast of Characters:	Lucifer, Black Cat

---

Lucifer has posed:
Trooping out of the elevator, Lucifer leads the way. He pauses when they exit the elevator, Felicia in tow with the box, and looks at the directions on the wall. Columbus meeting room... left. He strolls off along the hallway. They pass a fancy looking couple, who slow to stare at Lucifer a little long. He only smiles at them, and continues, to the meeting room. He checks the door: locked.

"Seems they weren't expecting us, after all," chuckles Lucifer.

Black Cat has posed:
Recovering from the drive from Sanctum to hotel in relatively short time, Felicia looks far less frazzled beneath her veneer of bright-eyed interest. Thank you, metahuman inner ear adjustments. There might as well be the Crown Jewels in the box for all the thief swans alongside Lucifer exuding prideful airs, the lighter-haired half of the pair leaving a wake of twinkling trouble behind them.

"That's unfortunate." A thoughtful sigh leaves her. Those jade-green eyes slowly slide from the meeting room to linger on Lucifer's face. "You know these things can be jimmied open with a bobby pin, right?" Immaculate dark lashes flutter at the club owner.

Lucifer has posed:
"Or a credit card?" Lucifer encourages, extending his hands forwards in clear indication that he expects to be handed the box. "Do show me," he suggests, his dark brows up, a little flirtatious edge to the way he widens his eyes. She's impressive, it appears. "I lack bobby pins, but credit cards I have in spades," says the cheeky devil.

Black Cat has posed:
Lucifer is indeed handed the box. Smiling to herself, the thief with the red-red lipstick then reaches up to pull a bobby pin from nearly the nape of her neck.

"I never leave one at home. Why scuff up a good credit card?" The question is somewhat rhetorical even as Felicia then bends to the doorknob. A little jiggle there, little wiggle there, turn to feel the internal tumblers lift, and...

Her sigh is utterly content, as if she'd finally cracked her back -- or slid into a hot tub.

"There we go." Turning the knob, the blonde cat-burglar sashays into the empty meeting room..

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer watches her intently, particularly her reaction as she gets the tumblers to turn. "I always appreciate a good example of quality breaking and entering," Lucifer says smoothly, complimentary, bringing the box along. He doesn't mind carrying it, it appears, it just hadn't occurred to him to do so on his own before now.

"Yes, rather the right place," he says, as they enter. It was subtle at first if you weren't looking for it-- in the corner of the room, lacy lines of flitting disturbance show in the air. It's almost like a ghost, that is about four feet in length, like a scar in the air that goes into the floor.

"I guessed correctly. I should get a lottery ticket today," Lucifer chuckles, crossing the meeting room. "We'll want to move the table out of the way, use the floor, I suppose."

Black Cat has posed:
The meeting room's door clicks shut quietly behind Lucifer. With delicate booted steps, Felicia travels around the far side of the table from the gossamer stress on reality seen if she squints very, very hard. Curiosity is still hedged //hard// by things she's seen around the Sanctum, all of them beyond her immediate control.

"Luck's definitely on your side today," Felicia agrees with a coy edge to her smile. Such puns, such puns. "I'll move the table." Both hands grasp the furniture and then begin to yank it away from the wall in question. Carpeting beneath it saves them both from the ear-wrenching grinding that usually accompanies this process. The chairs are easily enough herded to one side and now there's space for them to work -- or so the thief assumes. She gives Lucifer an expectant look now, hands idly resting on her hips.

Lucifer has posed:
"Ugh, hotel carpeting," Lucifer observes, making a dismayed face down at the gross, dense carpet on the hotel floor. "Won't matter, though, the designs can be put on it," he says, setting the box down on the table she cleared to the side. He then hops up to sit on the table's edge next to it.

One hand lazily reaches into the box, pulls the book out. He flips it open, navigating the table of contents very quickly, and then pulls to page 56. He flips it in his hands and offers her the book. There is a diagram, and a bunch of text.

"Circle first. Salt is fine for it, in this case. You'll mix in a few other things," Lucifer says, his tone helpful, but not very engaged. Like reciting a recipe he's done many times.

Black Cat has posed:
With page fifty-six on display, Felicia balances the tome across one palm as she plucks open the folded tabs of the box to peer into it again.

"I'll do the salt first then...oh, no, wait." She squints at the cramped writing alongside the diagram. "I have to mix in the archdemon shavings and the...tincture of actonite first and then add in..." It's the most esoteric cooking book she's seen yet.

"The...distilled shadow-kin saliva." Ah, the super purple ink bottle not containing ink. "...and let it sit thirty seconds."

The tome is set on the table's top beside Lucifer's thigh and she then gets to swift, delicately, combining the items.

"So." It's a friendly little opening for a different tack of conversation. "You say you're the devil." She clearly side-eyes the man and runs her gaze down and up him as she spins the small bottle in her hand to combine the salt and actonite. "You certainly look the part."

Lucifer has posed:
"Some of these ingredients will need to be cut or pulverized. Be glad the arch-demon shavings are already... shaved," Lucifer says, tone light. He reaches into a pocket, pulling out a small pocket knife, and the wyvern tusk he'd picked up earlier, that he'd slipped into his pocket, along with a bit of paper. He gets off the table to take a chair instead, relaxing into it. Lucifer begins to do what must be a demonstration: he uses the knife to evenly shave bits of the tusk off, onto the paper, in even little strokes, creating a finely shaved little pile. "Like so," Lucifer says, gesturing to it.

He then rolls the paper around the shavings neatly into a cylinder, setting the rest of the tusk aside.

Then Lucifer puts the paper cylinder in between his lips, draws his lighter, and lights the end. He reclines in the chair, breathing in the smoke deeply, exhaling in a robust purple-gray breath of fog, and observes Felicia's progress. It smells of ozone and burned wood.

"Thank you. If I may ask, what part especially says 'fiend of hell' to you?" Lucifer wonders lightly, exhaling another deep breath.

Black Cat has posed:
Felicia's shavings end up on the meeting table given she's got no sheet of paper to place them on. She does a passable job of mimicking the size and thickness of the small collection now being smoked. The cloud of foggy smoke is considered before her regard falls to Lucifer reclined so comfortably.

"That was a particularly devil-ish thing to do," she notes, gesturing in a circle with the borrowed pocket knife towards the dissipating smoke. "I mean...you're pretty snazzy. The get-up, the build...the accent." A tooth dimples one corner of her plush lower lip for a moment before the thief returns to removing pieces of tusk. Her expression is innocent just shy of mockingly so. "You've got a good gig going on if it's not true."

The shadow-kin distillation is added to the salt mixture now and set aside in the largest crystalline bottle. Felicia peers at the book, reading through the instructions. Something about crushed glass? Oh, crushed pearlized glass -- there it is. She fishes it out.

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer just smiles at her, from his spot smoking, as if it were all sort of entertaining to him, in some way. He lifts his shoulders just slightly, turning to tap ash from the handmade cigarette onto the surface of the table. It does hurt the finish.

"'Snazzy', oooh, I like it," Lucifer says with a little 'shiver', and broad grin. Lucifer's smile is very snazzy indeed, so white, and cheerful. It just begs others to grin along with him. He's enjoying life, it seems.

"It has it's perks, being the devil, yes," chuckles Lucifer. "Though it comes with some considerable stigma, you understand," he points out, tone still light. He then glances over to the ghostly scar in the air. "I think our wound is getting bigger," he says, and gets to his feet, crossing to look at it up close. Like, two feet away type of close, entirely fearless.

Black Cat has posed:
Felicia watches him approach the stretching of reality with eyes gone a little wider. Since living with the good Doctor, her sense of the supernatural has increased from a mere wonderment to something more of a proper radar and at this point?

Lucifer's pinging pretty hard as something worth paying attention to...if for her personal safety if not to assuage the rampant fascination with that beyond the definition of 'normalcy'.

Her momentary purling of lips and minor frown vanishes into a hard lip bite for a second while Lucifer is distracted. This...this is outright //fun//. The wyvern shavings vanish into the bottle with a sharp 'puft' of near-instant dissolving and Felicia coughs at the scent. "Whew. Sharp," she whispers, her nose itching. "Okay, so then..."

A fingernail reads down the last section of the instructions. "Sprinkle the...powdered leaf thingies while the liquid's still wet after painting the circle on top and then step out for the sigils."

Untying her peacoat, the thief then shrugs out of it with a refined roll of each shoulder. Beneath it, a cream-colored sweater-dress that clings to every curve and sports a daringly-low vee neck. Her sleeves are rolled up and then she walks over.

"Excuse me, mister devil, you're in my workspace," she simpers, fluttering lashes at him before flashing a big grin.

Lucifer has posed:
"Am I?" Lucifer begins to answer, but then something happens.

Out of the rip in the air, suddenly oozes a little something. It looks like a slug the size of a small terrier, with three legs, and no real face, just teeth. It emerges from the tear, and falls on the floor with a wet *SPAK* noise. It freezes in place, as if fearful of being spotted.

Lucifer draws his hand back from the rip in the air and looks at it. It sits there.

Black Cat has posed:
"Yes, you aaaaAAAAAARRRE -- "

Felicia claps her free hand to her mouth and thankfully doesn't spill the crystalline container's contents in her surprise. Her riding boots make no sound as she slides at least six feet back from the sudden extra-dimensional creature's appearance.

"Soooooooo..." The vowel again lingers in a range almost squeaky. "That's not supposed to be there. Can you put it back? Please?"

The thief gives Lucifer her biggest pleading jade-green eyes. These are lethal to Stephen, at least -- but to the devil...?

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer was staring at it, as if he could stare it down somehow with just a look. Then Felicia talks to him, and he blinks once and looks to her, one perfect dark brow arching 'just so'.

The little squishmonster suddenly bolts from the room, across the carpet and out the door by mushing under it.

Lucifer blinks and looks after it. He doesn't seem concerned, in particular. "I wouldn't worry about it, it'll sort itself out," says Lucifer. "Worse will come out if you don't close it, though," he comments, and finally gets out of her workspace, moving to the side. He taps his cigarette over the table again, and has another deep drag from it. "Circle first."

Black Cat has posed:
Levitating off the floor at the creature's quick movements has Felicia landing a literal one-Mississippi later having somehow //still// not spilled the contents of the small crystalline decanter. She stares at where the slug escaped beneath the door and looks back at Lucifer.

"No kidding," she squeaks properly. As quickly and precisely as she can manage, the circle is dripped in a unbroken stream around the rift.

One of the kidgloves must be sacrificed for her to paint the sigils with a fingertip -- at least it doesn't eat through the fabric! Memory does her justice as she quickly sketches them in place outside the ring of admixture. Then, darting back to the table, the bag of finely-crushed pearlized glass is snatched from inside the box.

A thorough, swift over-shaking of the twinkling grit is thrown across the circle and its sigils. They appear to shine like ice touched by heat. Pinked at the cheeks, the thief then turns to swiftly walk back and grab the open tome. Lucifer is given a look while she frets her lip.

"...any suggestions for how to say it? I think it's Latin... I remember the vowel pronounciation scheme well enough."

Lucifer has posed:
"Yes, I do," Lucifer says. He has since proceeded to go back to the table to sit on it, next to the little bit of ashes and other mess they've made. His cigarette is nearly gone, but not quite.

"You'll want to use your throat more than you'd expect. So, do your best Elvis impersonation," Lucifer recommends, with a little gesture of fingers, cigarette held between them. He has a cunning little gleam in his eyes, but it isn't mean: he's enjoying the whole situation, watching her work on her project.

Behind him, the scar grows another two feet and starts to fracture into a second scar.

Black Cat has posed:
Felicia's pert nose wrinkles. "Elvis..." she echoes, and by her tone, she doesn't entirely believe the handsome man seated with his otherworldly cigarette making the room smell of a fire-gutted house and the zing of lightning. "Right. I'll enunciate."

She swallows before turning on her toes to pad back over to the circle drawn around the fracturing of reality now further extended by another small number of feet yet. One hand is outheld towards the rift in an angled starring of fingers while the tome is balanced yet again before her chest. A final little titter is nerves leaving her system before the Cat lifts her chin.

It's with a firm, deeper timbre that she speaks the command in Latin -- her tone implying the implicit demand that the ritual respond precisely how intended:

"Intra circulum, tenetur elementum, fractum prope verum velum --

Vayu -
Tejas -
Prithi -
Apas -

AKASH!!!"

The warding circle suddenly flares brightly prismatic and Felicia does her best to keep her stance firm even as she winces.

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer nods just a bit at her confirming about Elvis being the tone to use, and tips his head towards her. He takes a deep final breath of his cigarette as she evokes the words, twisting his torso to snub it out on the table surface, and then dusts his hands together neatly. All of his body language suggests being comfortable and relaxed, as if Felicia were simply talking through her math homework.

He does settle, then, one hand in his lap, the other behind him on the table propping him up, observing her without much indication either way. At least he doesn't spring from the table in alarm, nor does he laugh at her.

He waits after she's done, a sly half-smile on his lips, as if waiting for HER. "How do you think you did?" Lucifer asks, as if he'd just pulled her over on the highway of rituals.

Black Cat has posed:
Reality itself ripples within the cylindrical upswelling of auroral light around the scarred tearing. Felicia squints against the bright glow, momentarily outlined by it and completely silhouetted nearly chiaroscuro by its intense lambence before it all settles down. Like a completed chemical reaction, all that's left on the carpeting is the odd circling of burnt components now brought down to ash and dust.

The thief turns to look at Lucifer with wide jade-green eyes. "Um. I think I didn't break anything?" Carefully as before, she retreats from the circle and sigils to return to the table, not far from the svelte club owner.

"I mean...I didn't break a thing." The tome now pressed flat to her chest with both hands. Confidence is her shield here even if she doesn't entirely feel it.

Lucifer has posed:
"Rituals are composed of three general parts," Lucifer describes, still reclined. "Firstly, the physical items: which really comes down to the potency of the objects you use, amounts, distribution. It's rather complex. Sometimes you can substitute, and get stronger effects, or weaker ones," Lucifer continues, in his sultry accent. There isn't any tone of him talking down to her: more like he's giving a little speech. The topic is one he likes, perhaps.

"Second, the designs themselves. How they interweave. How many handsome devils walk across it while you're drawing it," Lucifer chuckles. "And last, intent. Which is part of your speech, the words, but also intent. It sounded to me more like you intended to say the words right. You'll need to /intend/ to send the power from the components, the circle, into the tear. It will use the energy to either heal, or to summon more things." He clears his throat, and adjusts one of his sleeves some, picking off a speck of lint. Or wyvern horn scraping, more like.

"To be perfectly frank, you won't be able to summon anything from it, with your skill level, so." Lucifer looks to the scar that is much, much smaller now. "It will probably collapse in a few hours, left alone." He smiles, jovial, and moves a hand to offer a congratulatory handshake, companionable.

"You could go again if you wanted, for practice. But if you're done, we can go."

Black Cat has posed:
Realizing this is turning into a lesson, Felicia seats herself on the edge of the table on her hip. In a manner very few have seen, she narrows her eyes at Lucifer and //listens//; it's not some idle acknowledgement of information being offered out and swept aside because it doesn't interest her.

The cat-burglar hasn't forgotten her refusal of a tantalizing possibility spoken by the Trickster God. That one stung more than she had expected it to, saying no to such an opportunity in the basic conceptualization of the gift.

Frowning down at the tome now open across her lap, the thief nods. "Mkay. Ingredients matter, mixing stuff gets different results, be careful how you draw stuff and who touches it, and mean what you mean. I bet the pronounciation does matter," she notes with a small red-red smirk towards the devil. "Hmm...there's enough left for a second shot. Let's see what happens!"

The circle and sigils are repainted and the kidskin glove is unable to be salvaged now. Pearlized glass is resprinkled. Felicia takes up her place again with her palm outheld and pauses to think. Hmm.

Spanless of time as he is, Lucifer will note her attempt to make the warding circle influence the rift -- to control the //intent// of it. It's an interesting concept for Felicia, the effect of willpower; the thief has copious amounts of it, after all, if usually directed elsewhere.

Again the circle flares up and this time, with more illumination yet. It leaves Felicia blinking stars from her eyes. "...it worked?"

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer does get off the table towards the end to correct her location next to the circle. There's no weird charge to his touch, or anything like that. He's guiding briefly, and then goes back to ...making a second cigarette in his way of appearing to just let her work without him staring at her.

Lucifer has his second cig lit and blazing in plumes of that weird some as she finishes her second attempt. "Yes. Sealed," Lucifier agrees, all smiles for her, sharing her pleasure, evidently: his dark eyes are bright. "No more Ykuzantih," decides the devil, with a vague motion of head. "Slugs." No more slugs.

"Did it on your own, just so you know. I didn't aid you on either cast. That was entirely you." Lucifer's smile remains, like flowing mercury on his lips.

Black Cat has posed:
The blonde spins on her toes to face the Devil and again smushes the tome to her chest. It leaves her to laugh breathily in sheer delight. She did it -- she did it! She did...

"I did magic," she whispers almost revently to herself. A glance back at the totally burnt-out circle swiftly returns to Lucifer and it twinkles in multiple hues of green. "It felt...wow, it felt amazing." Her hand lifted before herself is considered, her lips licked as the fine hairs on her neck rise in sheer reaction to the realization.

Then comes the giggle. Closing the tome, the thief meanders back over to the table and sets the book down upon it before she takes up her hip-slant seating on the table. Her grin at Lucifer is uttterly unrepentant.

"I don't think I was half-bad if I do say so myself," she shares.

Lucifer has posed:
"No, it wasn't," Lucifer agrees openly, in his usual honest way that also holds amusement. Not that he's lying, but that he finds her reaction charming.

"I can tell that it was electric for you. If you liked it, do more," Lucifer suggests, but it isn't forceful. He's not pushy.

"You are welcome, Ms. Hardy. As the devil, though, I'll obviously be requiring a favor from you later, of course, for this excellent service I've provided today," chuckles Lucifer teasingly. Is he joking? Did she somehow end up in debt to someone that (at least believes he is) the devil? His entire manner doesn't suggest he's aggressive, though his level of actual 'danger' may be hard to calculate.

Lucifer is, at least, a confident one, debonair and sharp. But predators can sense other predators, and Lucifer is an apex predator, of some unknown kind.

Black Cat has posed:
For a split second, Felicia goes still. She forgets entirely to breathe and her pupils constrict to something nearly pinpoint.

Oh god -- is this Loki again?!

However, there's an element to the man's dark gaze that she recognizes as true amusement in matters rather than the cold smile which never reached the Trickster's eyes.

Her laugh is weaker than his, but she still rallies. "Right, right, how could I forget? You deal with the Devil, you owe him a favor. So." Her boot lifted from the floor begins a gentle swing back and forth, like a cat's tail marking metronomic pace.

"What are you thinking?" Easily enough, the Cat slips into a purr even as she gives Lucifer a fetching smile, kohl-lined eyes half-lidded.

Lucifer has posed:
Looking into Lucifer's eyes must feel very different from someone like Loki. Lucifer is a well of emotions, and so much of it expresses through his deep, dark eyes. In fact, holding his stare intensifies it, makes that dark ring draw open ever further, like a pool of black water welling up.

"I sense you have some issue with favors," Lucifer asks perceptively, fingering the end of his new cigarette. He gestures to the table at his side, pushing the box out of the way with some noise as the things inside it fall over, though it doesn't sound like he broke anything.

"I was thinking that ... you try some magic without me, enjoy yourself," Lucifer suggests, with a shrug of one shoulder. "And if you /want/ to," he smiles again, "Tell me what made your heart drop into your stomach just now. I'm a good listener."

Black Cat has posed:
It is rather difficult to pull herself from the fascinating darkness of those eyes the longer she holds them. Uncanny...and finally, Felicia blinks when he touches the box. The sounds of items shifting in it seem to bring her back to the present.

"Um. I mean, the whole trying magic thing...sure." By her tone, she's hedging yet. "I'll try it more when I get the chance." Her regard hasn't shifted from Lucifer's face yet.

It's after another moment that she continues more quietly, "I've been burned on favors before with somebody else who didn't have my best interests in mind. I watched him screw with everybody and nobody get off on it but him."

A beat. "And you have //amazing// eyes."

Lucifer has posed:
"Well. Fuck /that/ guy right in the ear, then," Lucifer answers evenly, his tone smooth, serene as always.

Lucifer smiles into her compliment about his eyes, automatically flaring them just a little more, which grants him an overly intense, almost crazy-person expression, when paired with the grin he's wearing. "Not too much like staring into the abyss? Appreciate it, thank you," answers the friendly devil, moving one hand to attempt to pat her upper arm once. There's no presence in it, no electric zaps, none of that, it's really just a touch and nothing else. Not everything has to be /something/.

Black Cat has posed:
Felicia snorts at the line about the ear. How very blase, its delivery, and it shooes away the clouds momentarily darkening her expression. It also allows her to finally break eye contact with Lucifer, though she's privy to the nearly manic smile on display which makes her return the grin to a lesser intensity. It's not awkward enough yet to mean sliding away down the table from him.

"You're welcome. I tend to call it like I see it." The hotel carpet somewhat destroyed in the corner by esoteric incantations and reactions gets a minimally-concerned side glance.

"They're probably going to have to pull that up. If only they knew the amount of effort put into keeping more of those slug things out. Blugh." Felicia shimmies in disgust. It does interesting things to the sweater-dress.

"Speaking of that slug, we have to go. I'm surprised no one's started screaming about it...or at us. You said we weren't expected, after all." Reaching out, a manicured nail curls into the box to pull it back over to beside her hip. "Mind if I get a ride home? You do have a very nice ride..."

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer entirely ignores the carpet, and keeps looking at her instead. He knows what the carpet looks like, and he'd rather look at her. Which is further shown to be smart as she shimmies in her little shiver. Lucifer hides absolutely zero of looking at her appreciatively. Even so, he doesn't do anything untoward, beyond to be observant: and not to pretend that he's not looking. No, he's owning it, in a way some people might be self conscious about, or find him repulsive for.

"Not expecting us doesn't mean they /mind/ us. The key is acting like you belong," Lucifer says, with a grin that speaks of some private extra meaning that he's keeping to himself.

"I don't mind at all. Let's be off," Lucifer says, snubbing out his cigarette, and sliding off the table. He heads towards the door, opening it for her. The room is cloudy with the smoke and effects of the ritual, now obvious with the 'fresh' scent of the stale hotel air. The interesting scents will cling to them for a time, probably. It could explain Lucifer's interesting 'cologne', or whatever magic he gets up to.

"Unless you'd like to get a room," Lucifer offers, in a very open, direct way that his gaze leaves little to guess about. "Women often find the desire, and I'm willing to oblige in this case." Lucifer doesn't seem to have any actual weight on the offer: it's more like this happens all the time, for him, and it's normal to just offer casual sex.

Black Cat has posed:
"True," Felicia agrees in regards to his note about belonging -- little does she know the full, hidden intimation of his thought. Her coat is donned and tied into place yet again. She gathers up the tome into the box and folds it closed again before accompanying him to the door. The air in the hallway is refreshing if boring after the spicier, grittier notes of the warding circle's reactions upon reality...and that cigarette or two of Lucifer's creation.

Upon being courted with the abrupt idea of a room, the thief stops dead in the middle of the hallway. It's not fetching this time, the smile the dark-haired man gets: it's outright sultry, candid, and her pupils flick wider just like that.

"Would that I could, Mister Morningstar, but I have the Sorcerer Supreme waiting for me at home. We agreed on a //temporary// kidnapping, remember?" Turning on her toes, Felicia then continues down the hallway. "I like your moxy though," comes the addition along with a wink. "I bet that desire happens often."

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer didn't know they were stopping in the hallway, and kept going to the elevator. He turns to look to her again, still relaxed and smooth as ever. As if he hadn't asked anything inappropriate, from his viewpoint.

No reason to stop, really: even if she said yes, they'd end up in the elevator, after all. It just depends on if they're going directly out, or if there's a detour past the front desk for a more official room!

"I do recall that he is your lover. It's exclusive then? Another time, should circumstances change," says the man with grace. He doesn't appear to feel rejected at all, and holds the elevator door for her. He emits no danger... at least not from that topic. Lucifer's subtle menace has nothing to do with anything he's talked about.

"Of course, I did promise a short kidnapping. I always keep my word, Felicia."