(Untitled)
By 4:45, the protesters who started at Grant Park have marched past the ruins of old City Hall, stopped for a speech, and then forged on to mass across from the building which houses the legislature at the moment - across because there's a handful of police just to make sure that everything goes smoothly
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Ace has been trailing them from Buckingham Fountain, taking shortcuts where necessary, blending in with the crowd and moving to the front. She's been spending all this time picking out which people are most likely actual CLF members. Actual killers.
The others will just be collateral damage. Oh well.
Before they reach the City Hall ruins, Ace slips into an alley and pulls the two pipe bombs from her duffel. The noise and violence is really starting when she returns, carrying the bombs. She walks into the thick of the front of the crowd, where she's sure the actual members are, shouting a few phrases as she goes. No one is even looking at her as she sets the first bomb's timer for sixty seconds. Then she lets it fall from her hand, where it rolls away to be kicked around by the rioters.
She keeps walking, heading now for the edge of the crowd, dropping the second bomb as she goes. The riot is picking up. People are throwing Molotovs and rocks, oblivious to the bombs kicking around their feet.
Ace reaches the alley by the time the first bomb goes off. As soon as she's out of sight, she passes her hand over her face.
Dev grins and starts humming to himself as he strolls away from the riot.
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If there are assaults on the citizens of Chicago there have to be Wanderers here - any one of these people on the streets, any one of the spectators who don't have the sense to turn around and walk away. The mob started off throwing molotovs at buildings and blockades. Now it's well and truly out for blood.
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Dev stops into a little cafe nearby to buy a bagel and a coffee, then he heads on towards a tall building, some tourist attraction with partial roof access. He pulls a pair of binoculars out of the duffel, then shoves the duffel into a nearby Dumpster and keeps walking.
He takes the elevator to the roof and goes to a chair that Ace left there near the edge. He takes a seat and starts munching his bagel, raising the binoculars to his eyes so he can watch the chaos.
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A fountain of smoke and flame to his left, a finger whipping past his face. The air ripples and strikes him in a concussive wall, less sound than impact. It sweeps him sideways and then the world is silent. Ringing. Color tumbles and resolves into a close-up of the pavement just before he slams against it.
Fuck. Jesus fuck.
Suddenly killing someone doesn't sound as good as getting the hell out of here.
Adrian tries to push himself upright and screams--he can't hear it, can only feel the rawness of it in his throat. He looks at his arm, dazed with pain, and sees a moving ruin of leather and blood.
He manages to stand and hangs on to that accomplishment, hearing another explosion and the whistling near-silence of punctured eardrums. Screams that sound like shredding cotton. There's a girl. A girl with no foot, near where the bomb went off. He looks at the scattering crowd, coughs, and moves toward her.
He doesn't realize his wings are showing.
The bullets tear into him, moving from his ravaged arm to his chest, pinpoint punches that rip him off his feet and back onto the ground.
Fuck.
Fucking Chicago.
The demon closes his eyes.
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She rights herself, seated on the pavement, gasping down a couple of big breaths. She's considering trying to stand when another explosion goes off, in a different spot. She whips her head around to see, and spies a familiar form stand up and begin to stagger away.
Adrian.
Only... he's got wings. He's got his wings out. Oh, God, she thinks as she scrambles to her feet and tries to run, he's got his wings out in the middle of this crowd.
She wants to call his name, but before her mouth can form around the syllables, before the very sound can even rise in her throat, gunfire breaks out. She stops short, dropping to the ground; when she raises her head Adrian's gone from view.
She forces herself up, and heads over to the general area where she last saw him standing. She picks her way through debris, through bodies strewn about, until she sees him.
"Adrian," she breathes, dropping to her knees beside him, her hands slipping under his coat to check for injuries. They come out coated in blood. His arm. His chest.
He's hurt, and she's not sure what to do at first. But then it dawns on her, if she lets him stay here, he's dead. Someone will finish him.
She rolls him onto his side, then pulls him upright into a seated position. She wraps his arms around her neck and holds on, standing, sort of hauling him onto her back. The breath's knocked out of her again by the weight of him, but she manages to stagger forward a few steps.
She runs into something. Someone. She looks up, as much as she can, to see someone staring her down.
"Where're you going?"
Rachel scowls up at the man. "You can get out of my way," she hisses through clenched teeth, furious, scared, weighted down, "or I can fucking tear you limb from limb, right here in front of God and everyone."
Rachel takes two steps to the side, to get out of the man's shadow, and she draws in a huge breath, preparing herself. Just in case. But the man seems to think better of being in her path, and he steps aside. She tightens her grip on Adrian's arms, and she resumes shuffling along the pavement.
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A flash of red hair from the corner of his eye gets his attention, and he spins to face that direction. For a moment, he doesn't spot her, and then... She's dragging a body. Maybe still alive, maybe not, but the guy's got wings, and he's bleeding... black blood... Fuck.
"RACHEL!" He lunges toward her, shouldering aside a few people who get in his way. Maybe they're CLF, maybe they're just innocent bystanders, and as long as they're not attacking him it doesn't matter which, but they are not getting in his way.
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And then he's close, and in the time it's taken for him to close the distance between them, her mind's already turned over a couple of times. "Martin, no," she says, looking up at him as best she can with Adrian's deadweight sprawled on her back. "Me doing this is bad enough. You'll get hurt too."
She pauses, studying him. And then she adds, carefully, the softness of her voice belying the emotion behind it, "...and he's mine, Martin. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but I won't let you hurt him. And I won't let him hurt you. But I have to get him out of here. Please, just let me go..."
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"Fine, give him to me," he growls. If he can't get Rachel out without the demon... obviously he's just going to have to get them both out, even with his instincts screaming against that. Who listens to instinct anymore anyway?
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"It's... okay." She stands up a bit straighter, and unwraps Adrian's arms from around her neck. One she holds, to keep him falling to the ground; the other she extends for Martin to take.
"I can't leave him here, Martin. They'll tear him apart. I can take him home, it's not far. I mean, to my room. I can't take him back to his home, it's too far away, and I don't know where else to hide him for now."
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"You don't have to explain it to me. Not now, anyway." There's a section of the crowd edging toward them, looking murderous. CLF. Have to be CLF. He and Rachel might not be obviously different, but they're helping someone who is, and that means they're just as bad in these people's eyes. He shifts the bat in his free hand, tensing uneasily.
"Conrad's too far. There's an office building a block or two away, run by wanderers... Come on." Before someone starts shooting again.
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"Thank you," she says earnestly, looking up at him. "I owe you for this. Seriously. And if this office building is the best place to be, let's go there. Anything to get away from here and make sure Adrian's okay."
She pauses a moment, and then gestures at Martin's back. "...That's Adrian."
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"Look, I'm going to have to put my wings out - I'm stronger that way, and faster, but you really don't want to be seen hanging around with two guys with wings. Go ahead of me to the Kashtta Tower, on Wabash and Lake, straight ahead two blocks and then a couple blocks up, and I swear I'll meet you there."
Once they're out of the direct area of the riot, she should be okay, has to be okay, and safer than she'll be around him and Adrian. It's an old, old lesson archangels and most demons know - wings make you stronger, but they also make you a target, and Martin would rather not draw fire to Rachel as well as himself.
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Rachel hesitates, and it's clear she doesn't approve, that she wants to stay right there with both of them. Adrian's her friend, her responsibility, and she's gone and dragged Martin into the mess, which is really a shitty way to treat a friend.
But she glances around at the crowd, and at Martin, slowly being covered in Adrian's blood, just as she is, and she can't find it in herself to argue. As much as she hates to give in, if they're all going to get out of this in one piece, Martin's right.
"Okay. Okay, I'll meet you there," she says with a worried frown. She pauses, and then rests a hand on Martin's arm. "Be careful. I'll see you at the tower."
And then she slips away, weaving through the crowd, dodging bottles and the odd flying body, stealing glances back at Martin and Adrian for as long as they're within her sight.
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"...N. Nat." God, he feels like shit. "Natalia, get out."
It comes out as a whisper, a croak. It takes a moment for awareness to kick in. He's moving. There's noise. The animal roar of a crowd unleashed. Everything muffled by empty whistling.
Rachel. He heard Rachel. Oh god. "Rachel!"
Adrian snaps awake, everything coming into focus for about half a breath before pain blurs it into dizziness again. Long enough for him to see who's missing. Long enough to see what's there.
Angel. Fuck. This day keeps getting better.
He shifts, freeing up his good arm and reaching both hands up to seize at Martin's throat. The demon tries not to shudder. He feels so fucking weak and it's a warzone, fucking warzone, and here's an angel and god only knows where they're going.
"Where is she?" Adrian barely recognizes his own voice. Never mind the fact that he can hardly hear in the first place--it sounds ravaged. Feels ravaged. Like a saw grating against rusted metal.
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