Detroit

[reducing_ray]

Even by Detroit standards, it's not a great part of town. Most of the buildings surrounding "Descent," the bar where Palmer's supposed to be able to find Sabastian Faust, are abandoned, and the streetlights seem to all be malfunctioning as they near the place. The street's dark, save for the bar itself.

There, there's light and activity. Rough

Comments

[mrs_dibny]

"I know enough to know that the real deal have simple doors." She looks away from that and to Ray. "And that wannabes are always more dangerous because they're just that."

[reducing_ray]

Ray nods to a pair of punks who've wandered away from the crowd to talk. One of them cups a cigarette in his palm, where flame appears to light it.

"Not a lot of wannabes here. Way it was explained to me, this is a hub for a whole underclass of metas and mystics who want nothing to do with the men-in-tights scene."

He nods to her and exits the car.

"A whole super-powered subculture I never knew existed."

[mrs_dibny]

Sue eyes them cautiously. "No one to teach them how not to blow things up. I've read up on these folks. Most of them are normal 9 to 5ers in their own way, but there's like one in five that become our problem in some way eventually even if most don't becoem big problems."

Thank you Jordan. The Circle occasionally buys these bars.

"Either way, they aren't our issue tonight. Only one guy we need to talk to is." She smiles. "So it's showtime."

[reducing_ray]

"Exactly. But there's reasons he frequents bars like this."

Sue and Ray garner attention as they walk through the crowd to the door. The doorman stops them at the front, but steps aside quickly when Ray flashes his driver's license. He might be at full height, and not wearing a costume, but The Atom's ID is public knowledge. Sometimes that comes in handy.

"We don't want no trouble," the doorman says, paying far too much attention to where his own hands are, trying not to be threatening.

"Not looking for any," says Ray, cool as ice now. "Just looking for a friend. Faust. The younger one."

The doorman looks nervously from side to side, and then gestures to a thin, dark-haired young man in black leather and sunglasses at the end of the bar. Ray presses some bills for their door fees (and a little extra) into the doorman's hamhock hands.

[mrs_dibny]

Sue has been eyeing him coolly trying to determine how much liquid courage is driving his actions at the moment.

"Sure. Need a car?" It's a stupid question to ask a mage, but teleporting drunk is just one of those things she's learned can screw a mage over. Zee once screwed up one of her backwardws things and teleported to her bathtub instead of her bed - and that was lucky.

[og_outsiders]

"Nah," he says, walking toward the door. "It's just right here. Follow me."

He walks through the door, and disappears from view.

[reducing_ray]

Ray casts Sue a sideways glance, and then shrugs.

"Well, we've come this far..."

And without another word, he walsk through the door and disappears.

[mrs_dibny]

"When in Rome..." And through the looking glass.

[reducing_ray]

"This is insane," says Ray, his gaze locked on the knife in his hand. "No way am I going to ..."

[og_outsiders]

"....slash her throat," says Faust, interrupting him. "You're going to have to slahs her throat to separate the two.

Winter descends on his face, and the air around him chills.

"It has to be a murder, and it has to be someone who loves her. That's how it works."

[reducing_ray]

Ray stares at him blankly ... but he doesn't hand back the knife.