Noel’s Wednesday afternoon odd encounter(Arachne)
Date: 2025-08-13 14:23
(Noel’s Wednesday afternoon odd encounter(Arachne):Arachne)
[Wed Aug 13 2025]
On Beacon Street/span
It is afternoon, about 76F(24C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. The mist is heaviest At Hawthorn and Lake/span
(Your target and their allies encounter a newly made vampire who hasn’t been taught by their maker and doesn’t know what they are.
)
A soft buzz cuts through the hum of midday traffic, and Noel is receiving a new message from Arachne. It starts with a pin dropped onto Google maps, coordinates leading to a narrow service alley just up ahead behind the Duchess Theater in Fairefield.
Behind it, she texts: Now. Get here. You’ll hear him before you see him.
Even from the mouth of Beacon Street, the sound carries: a ragged, panicked scream ricocheting off brick walls, the worlds themselves lost in their own incoherence.
“Mon Dieu, Madame knows how to get herself into trouble, and I am not le most stealthy… How could I be? Ma body demands attention and eyes!” Noel complains in that sweet, sweet French, his body shifting across the driver’s seat of his Alfa Romeo. It’s a fast car, but it’s also exceedingly safe, both of which seem to balance out into the neutrality of his arrival time, the door popped open, and then slammed shut again as that piercing, keening yowl howls through his ears, causing his face to scrunch up and flinch. Maybe he wants to drive off, but what did that text message say? Now. So he sighs, and whimpers, and then whines, and punches his steering wheel a few times, careful not to beep the horn, before darting out of his car and towards that alleyway, keeping his eyes peeled for Arachne.
(repost for August ) “Mon Dieu, Madame knows how to get herself into trouble, and I am not le most stealthy… How could I be? Ma body demands attention and eyes!” Noel complains in that sweet, sweet French, his body shifting across the driver’s seat of his Alfa Romeo. It’s a fast car, but it’s also exceedingly safe, both of which seem to balance out into the neutrality of his arrival time, the door popped open, and then slammed shut again as that piercing, keening yowl howls through his ears, causing his face to scrunch up and flinch. Maybe he wants to drive off, but what did that text message say? Now. So he sighs, and whimpers, and then whines, and punches his steering wheel a few times, careful not to beep the horn, before darting out of his car and towards that alleyway, keeping his eyes peeled for Arachne.
August’s own car is not far off the road. It pulls up on the curb, purrs like a cat, a very well-mainted cat in spite of its age. When August steps out of it, he’s still in his gym-clothes, duffle-bag up on his shoulder, while he fixes the bandages around his hands tied neatly down to his wrist. A flex of his fingers to get them loose and easy to move, and he’s ready to continue, down into the alleyway where his GPS pinged in search of Arachne, a decent pace away from Noel.
The source of the ragged, panicked screams ricocheting off brick walls deep in the service alley running behind The Duchess Theater in Fairefield becomes immediately apparent to Noel. A young man, maybe barely out of his teens, pale under a mask of drying blood, thrashes inside an open dumpster life a trapped animal. The reek of copper is almost choking. Crumpled within the steel bin are the limp, pallid bodies of four, maybe five women, their skin littered with fresh bite marks, throats caved in from feeding too fast, too deep. The boy’s wide eyes hold no comprehension, only terror and hunger, as crimson froths at the corner of his mouth. His hands clasp at his ears, another gurgling cry of anguish spilling from his throat as he lowers himself back down into the dumpster.
Arachne is no where to be seen, and it becomes apparent that the Head of the Whispering Hand has dispatched not only Noel as a fledgling Shadow, but August as well, given he is the CMO’s secretary.
August’s hand lands on Noel’s shoulder from behind when they chance upon the scene. Give a squeeze, as to let them know that they’re here, but it’s drawn back after. Something troubles him, something he hears past the veil, clearly, and it makes that expression of his all the more harsh, teeth clenched and eyes nearly narrowed to slits. He needs only one look at the corpses ahead to know what killed them and how, and he takes to fixing the ring over his neatly bandaged fingers. It glows when he squeezes his hand into a fist, with a speck of dark swirl swimming in the grooves of its sigils. “Vampire. You’re lucky I’m here.”
“… Fledgling,” Noel breathes out to himself, sounding almost relieved as he makes this realization, his footsteps slowing down to a near stop as he slowly approaches the dumpster, letting his soft voice carry over the sound of agonized screaming. “Mon ami… You are alright. Come, come here- let us see you. It is scary, I know, but you must non draw such attention to yourself. Sweet ange, calm down. Shhhh, shhhh, we are here to help, oui?” says the incubus, extending his hands slowly with palms up, fingers spread, framed by silk and velvet and feathers of his robe. “Shush, shush, sweet angel. Shh. Look, you must be quiet now. We can fix this- you must know me, I am Noel Deveraux, oui? I run La Tresor Fuyant in All Saints-” and only now does he try to view the drained girls in the dumpster- does he recognize them? Are they his? A rival’s? Has he seen them before at all? He jolts slightly when August’s hand finds him, but nods, glancing over his shoulder at the Pierce with a smoldering gaze that burns like wildfire all on its own, no stoking needed- he is in his element now. Cleanup, control, sweet-talking, customer service and hospitality. He’s in full demonic seduction mode in the moment attempting to smooth all of this out.
The teen’s eyes dark between Noel and August, pupils blown in wide panic, but the French demonborn’s voice seems to pull him just far enough from the edge that his trembling hands dart from his ears, still struggling to adjust to his heightened senses. He stares down at the bodies as if seeing them for the first time, lips parting in a wet, shuddering gasp, suddenly scrambling back with a frightened screech and thudding his back hard against the dumpster’s side with an echoing thud. The boy’s voice cracks, thick with a half-feral sob, “I-I-I didn’t… I don’t know what happened… They wouldn’t stop screaming!!” His nails scrape at the dumpster’s rim as if to climb out, but his muscles twitch.
Another text pings simultaneously to August and Noel’s phone with a directive from Arachne Client is requesting that he be exterminated. Clean the mess and secure the target. He needs to vanish and no trace of him found.
At the mouth of the alley, it doesn’t appear that anyone’s caught on to the situation just yet.
Behind Noel, August/i>August starts to load them up, then loudly prime the sawn-off with a one-handed tug that click-clacks in threat. “Hold it still for me.” It, like the vampire is an animal, rabid and in need of putting down.
“But… But mon ami, wait…” Noel says to August as he brushes nearby with that shotgun, Noel’s body and mind blatantly conflicted as he approaches the fledgling vampire, voice trembling slightly. “I am non strong enough hold down anyone, let alone a fresh leech… Surely we can.. Well.. There must be some other way to make him disappear. I have done this before, non? Myself, I… I have disappeared. I am still gone,” whispers the whore softly, even as his footsteps carry him closer and closer to the distraught male. He glances over at August, then at the shotgun, looking as though he may pounce upon them both just to afford the sorry sap some time to run- and yet he doesn’t, ever vigilant in his duties… He steps forward- then he locks eyes with the young man. “I am… So sorry, mon ami… It will not hurt, he will be quick…
The boy’s gaze skitters between August and Noel, breath coming in wet, broken bursts, the stench of copper clinging to every exhale. His fingers clutch the dumpster’s edge like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered, even while the spirits of the dead girls circle around, four pale shapes pressing closer, their whispers heightening into snarls of desperation, urging him to take revenge.
The fledgling flinches at the click-clack of the shotgun, some instinct recognizing it as final punctuation, even if his racing and fractured mind doesn’t quite fully grasp why. “Please… I… I don’t want to –” His plea crumbles into a sound halfway between a sob and an hiss, fangs flashing unbidden as panic and terror forces them free. “I’m the governor of Minnesota’s son!” he blurts suddenly, voice cracking into a high, frantic pitch as his hands dive into the blood-slick pocket of his jeans. He’s pawing, rummaging, fumbling for his wallet that’s either not there or lost in the mess, the desperation mounting before he chances a look at Noel’s pretty eyes and finds him suddenly locked into a haze, growing slack.
Something else seems to cloud August’s/i>August’s hand lifts, palm-open, then curls into a slow fist.
In that there is a pooling glow, and the lowering of his hand aids the stillness, slackness induced by Noel to do something far worse. Magic tries to suffuse into the vampire, lock his joints, his limbs, while August begins to lift the shotgun straight up for their face peeking out of the garbage bin they’re still half-way in. “I don’t give a single fuck whose son you are. This bullet’s for you.” And that last part doesn’t sound at all like he’s speaking to Noel or the vampire at all. The trigger is squeezed, and it rings out loudly in the alleyway.
“i.. Parddone-moi…” Noel says softly in French to the man as he steps to the side, giving August’s shotgun full reign over the blast it sends towards the already dead man, his hazel eyes drifting closed as the following shockwave breezes across his hair, sending golden blond streaks to the wind as much as the black feathers of his house coat. He pauses there soon after, watching the spot where the fledgling vampire’s face had been, waiting to see if it rises again, or crumbles to ash, with a destitute expression upon his angelic face. “Pardonne-moi…” he says again. “Forgive me…”
The blast tears through the fledgling’s face with brutal finality, snapping his head back against the dumpster’s steel wall in a spray of blood and bone before what’s left of him slumps limply into the heap of corpses. he echo hangs sharp between the brick walls, and with it, the chorus of the dead begins to peel away from August. Unfortunately, the consequences of a shotgun blast in a gentrified neighborhood in an inner borough of New Haven comes due quickly. A window opens several stories above, and a young brunette man ducks his head out, a toothbrush dangling from his clenched teeth as he checks out all the ruckus. “Oh shit!” he yells, ducking back in, leaving the window open, and likely about to call the cops.
With the blast tearing through, and the voice of the dead silenced, August throws the shotgun over his shoulder. It’s barrel still steams while it lands beside the dufflebag, but it isn’t paid any more heed as he reaches inside, grabs the dead-dead man by the scruff of his neck, and yanks out to throw down into the mass of corpses. “Help me pile them all together.” Noel is given an order, in spite of the fact that August is only an intern and a secretary in the hand. “I have gasoline in my trunk, we’ll burn up the whole alley before the cops show up, then we can get the fuck out of here.” But, that isn’t what he does. Not yet. Instead, he’s ducking by the corpse with a hole in its face, and grabs a fist-sized rock, with which he begins to smash the poor, undeserving fledgling’s teeth out. It may not be August’s first arson, or murder, because he’s going as far as removing evidence of dental records to clean his tracks.
Noel flinches with every pounding of stone against bone and flesh, though he does not move to assist August with the corpses. Why would he? He’s too pretty for manual labor, and August is not only an intern, but a human. Heavily lifting, being a pack mule, that is his purpose in the Hand so far as Noel is concerned. Instead the Incubus slips past him and towards his car, attempting to snag his keys along the way, patiently explaining: “I will get your gasoline, mon ami, but I am non touching…. That,” says the petite Frenchie with disgust, clearing his throat and then moseying on by towards the trunk of August’s car on tiptoed feet, silent and sweet. He is more than willing to burn the evidence, but so far as getting in that blood splatter trajectory range goes? Good luck moving Noel anywhere into the splash zone.
The rock comes down again and again, each wet crack of bone and enamel swallowed quickly by the close of brick walls as August does the gruesome work he does best. Blood pools in the dumpster’s grooves, thick and metallic in the summer heat, while the bodies beneath shift with each jolt. Overhead, the nosey dude’s window stays open like an unblinking eye, the faint sound of hurried footsteps inside suggesting a call is already in progress. Noel’s assistance with handling potential pedestrians and diverting them away from witnessing them in the area, and likely last night’s events, makes it easy to give everyone a window to clean. It may not have been what Arachne asked for, but the job is – by technicality – done. August and Noel need to leave the area immediately.
With all the identifiable evidence out of the vampire’s skull, August retreats with a handfull of teeth that he pockets. The incisors in them sharper than others. The stone, bloodied or otherwise, is chucked into his bag as well to dispose of elsewhere and later, while Noel returns with his canister of gasoline after having snatched his keys. August just gives the man a stern look, baleful in the green of them, but without complaint that he’s doing the heavy-lifting. First order of business, August puts all the bodies in the same neat pile, but doesn’t touch the women. They’re left as is, identifiable – and first he pours a hefty dose of gasoline on the whole lot. Retreating back to his bag, he gets his trusty cylinder of salt, and pours a veritable sea of it all over them before he lights it all with a match. The pyre ensuing is tall, scalding, and it is sure to both set spirits at rest, as well as remove their traces while he wanders back to Noel. His keys are yanked out of their hand, and he storms off with his tools over his shoulder. He needs to have his tools. “See you later, Noel. Pour me a drink at your place sometime.” Even if he says it spitefully.
“Oui, as soon as you paint ma likeness,” Noel nips back through the air as he heads for his Alfa Romeo, wonderfully clean of splatter and spatter where August is a mess of it, slipping into his vehicle and tossing his robe over a thigh haughtily, glad to be done with the endeavour even if he does look back longingly into that alley for a time, eyes on the dumpster, insuring it all burns until the sound of sirens means he can dally no longer. In the interim he does ensure that the sole witness is taken care of, either mentally or physically, the incubus does not seem to care much at all.
(Your target stumbles upon a vampire feeding gone wrong – the victim is dying but not yet turned. The vampire, young and panicked, begs for help covering up their mistake before the supernatural authorities arrive. Your target must decide whether to help, turn them in, or use this leverage for their own purposes.)
As Arachne wanders through the streets doing whatever the Summer Queen does on a Wednesday afternoon, she gets a text from one of her more problematic knights.
It reads: “Hey boss, Can you meet me at Beacon and Darkwater? We have a bit of a situation that I need your help resolving.”
Arachne had only just stepped out of a town car that delivered her outside of a restaurant for her next meeting when the text arrives to her iPhone. It’s skimmed over briefly before she flicks through the Maps app, running it through public transportation to get a ballpark of her ETA. She sighs, a hand coming up to rub at a hint of sweat from her brow before she replies: “Details.”
“Baby leech got a little overzealous. Gabriel is sleeping or I would make this his problem,” Obadiah texts back quickly. “Apparently She was recently turned and he’s her boyfriend. Too man Ann Rice novels or that other show. Anyway I responded to the disturbance, they are both alive but I dunno what to do with them. Wait for a body?”
Arachne skims over the the reply briefly before she calls for a Masquerade Hunter to chauffeur the summer queen across town and to the location her knight gave her, resigning herself to stepping in to deal with the matter. “It must be a mess, if he’s calling me to deal with it directly,” she murmurs under her breath, watching the passing scenery while they zip through late afternoon traffic.
Another text follows as Arachne heads that way, “Is necking still a thing? I feel like it has a double meaning here.”
When Arachne arrives, she finds Obadiah standing at the entrance to an alley, leaning against the brick wall, sipping on a bright blue slurpie waiting for the reinforcements. Every time someone tries to enter he gives them a warm smile, locks eyes with them and convinces them to find an alternative route. When he spies the Hunter and Arachne he stands upright and gives her a grin, “Thanks. It… She hit an artery. Arterial spray… Looks like a scene from Dexter in there.”
Arachne emerges from the back of the blacked-out town car, leaving her bag secure in the trunk, then reaches up to secure her hair into a high ponytail of fluffy blonde curls. Her chin tilts a degree higher, reaching to pull out the flesh-toned noise cancellation device that keeps her sensitive hearing from being overwhelmed, and inhales deep, aligning her senses with the sounds and smells emanating from the alley behind Obadiah. “Glad to see you’re keeping a good sense of humor about all of this, Ser Mercer,” she remarks mildly, flicking a finger out to tap at his blue slurpie. “And hydrated. Who is the girl? One of our courtiers? An Orderite?”
“I am not sure she is old enough to know what she wants to be when she grows up,” Obadiah confesses with a shrug before getting serious, “I did a cursory search of the premises to figure out who else might be in the apartment. The back entrance is just up the alley here.” He pivots on one sharply dressed heel and offers Arachne his arm to escort her, “I was able to stop the bleeding but he has lost a lot of blood.”
He pauses again as he thinks and squints, “Mars got after Esme once about not turning a baby vamp over to the Hand so, I called you. You seem best suited to make sure she gets to the right place.”
Arachne’s steps slow as she comes into view of the mouth of the alley, staring ahead for a short while before gray eyes lift to meet Obadiah’s grin. “And here I was thinking you only brought me along for my charming personality,” she deadpans dryly, a hand lifting to slip into the crook of his arm without missing stride. “If it’s anything you’re describing, you can save me the guided tour. I’d rather not have my shoes ruined and to deal with this quickly. Mars can get after whomever she likes, but not every vampire needs to be destined for the Hand, nor the Court. We can save all of that for later once we’ve assessed what awaits us, hm?”
“Quite right,” Obadiah says with a grin as he guides her up the paved pathway and into the back door. The scene before them is pretty much what Obadiah described. In the front room a man in his mid-twenties lays in a pool of surprising, or perhaps not all that surprising, little blood in front of the sofa. Pale and close to complete exsanguination, he is little threat and clings to life.
Next to the body is a woman who has been tied up, quite tightly. She is also in her early to mid-twenties and has clearly been crying heavily, though her stomach is slightly distended from the overfeeding. “So,” Obadiah asks Arachne, “What should we do?”
Arachne takes in the scene through unreadable eyes, gaze flicking from the man’s shallow rise and fall of breath to the bound girl, belly bloated with his blood, and sighs. “He will not last long without intervention,” she observes mildly, then turns to look back over a shoulder, calling back for the Masquerade Hunter who accompanies her. “Have one of the Chamberlains dispatched and brought in, darling. They should have a shadow walking ritual prepared to get the man back to the theater and into proper care before he loses life.” And then, she turns to the girl, scanning her over idly. “Stop crying. Do you understand what you were doing?”
“As you wish,” the Masquerade Hunter reports before flipping open his phone and taking a step outside to make the necessary calls. “Sometimes I wonder if I should be a hunter,” Obadiah muses, watching the other man leave. “They’re so cool.”
The girl sniffles once when Arachne addresses her, trying to calm down. “I… I… I love him but he tasted so good,” she starts to say then starts sobbing again. “Straw… Strawberries… and… and… I just love him so much!”
Arachne lowers herself into an easy crouch, the camel-toned fabric of her wide-legged trousers fanning neatly around her as she studies the girl with a patient kind of detachment. “Mm. Love and appetite rarely make for a sustainable pairing,” she remarks absently, neither scolding nor sympathetic, only matter-of-fact. “Save me the hysterics, girl. You’ll think more clearly once you’ve stopped drowning in those tears.” A beat passes, grat eyes holding steady on the bound vampire’s tear-blotched face. “Now, tell me. Was this the first time? Where is your sire? And how long have you been living in New Haven?”
Obadiah moves to the door and takes up a post holding up the wall, continuing with his blue raspberry slurpie, neither involving himself, nor completely abandoning Arachne, just letting her do what she does best: lead.
The girl finally catches her breath, but when she speaks her voice is still ragged and halting, every word punctuated with a gasp as she tries to remain collected, and struggles, “I… No ma’am. This was… I have been eating rats and blood bags, but my Sire is out of town and I was just so hungry. I couldn’t get another bag… I just thought… I just though a little taste wouldn’t be so bad. It couldn’t hurt anything could it? And then… There was screaming, and then that man in the suit came in,” she motions to Obadiah who is now looking at his phone, “And tied me up then left. He came back saying he was calling a friend.”
Arachne tilts her head back to watch Obadiah essentially leave this mess in her lap, but she does not blame him. Instead, her gaze slides back to the girl with a glint of dry amusement in her eyes. “You’ve alerady answered your own question, haven’t you?” She rises with the same unhurried grace she lowered herself with, smoothing out her pants. “It hurt something. Namely him. You’re fortunate it was Ser Mercer who walked through that door and not a Templar or one of the Vigilantes. When your sire returns, you will inform them of this lapse, and you will replenish the blood you’ve taken – whether in bags or coin. Until then, you’ll be placed under vigilance of the Illusium Court and our eyes will be upon you at all times. The Masquerade Theater downtown is where you can come. I’ll put a more… sympathetic and kind courtier of your own kind to ensure you’re feeding properly, and understand how to only take what is necessary, and ensure you know how to hunt.” Her gaze shifts toward Obadiah, lifting just enough. “I’m sure you can handle the clean-up, darling. Was this all, or was there more?”
“Would I be your favorite reveler if I couldn’t handle a little scene clean up?” Obadiah says looking up from his phone with a wry grin, pushing his luck if even just a little bit. “I have a cleaning crew on their way. The neighbors are going to have some real bad dreams but we’ll deal with it.” He nods as another courtier comes in and causes the body to disappear away to the hospital. “And we’ll make sure he gets the care he needs. I leave the wayward childe in your hands.”
The Mask Hunter returns with a nod to Arachne, ready to take her back to wherever it was she wants to go. He removes her bindings and offers a hand to her feet, silently extending the offer to drive her too, just to make sure she doesn’t get lost on the way to the theatre.
“I’ll leave you to it. We have a raid to deploy to,” Arachne sighs, heading out.
nods and follows Arachne