fic teaser: Phony People, Come To Prey, chapter 6 intro

[propergoffick]

I've started writing for my long-ass VtM: Bloodlines / Life is Strange crossover fic again. I'm also quite proud of the little "gosh it's been a month since the last chapter let's wake up and smell the plot point" intro that I wrote, so here it is to say "hello community, sorry I've been neglecting you, January was hell but I'm off work for two weeks and two of my hobby projects are finally getting some love so maybe there'll be a preview for the other one too.
 

 

This is how the word gets out. Call by call, voice by voice, the chattels of the damned spread the word. It makes the TV and the radio and the blogs, of course; unidentified man, unregistered vehicle, both found burnt out in the Hollywood Hills this morning. The facts - such as they are - trickle through narrower channels. Isaac Abrams is dead. 

 

Sonja in Hollywood leans over the motel desk to borrow their phone, and calls Rico downtown. Rico leaves a note at the mission, ‘cause this sounds like the kind of thing Sanchez wants to know, and texts Carson: you hear anything about this big guy in Hollywood just got whacked? Carson hasn’t, so he emails Bertram, and then he waits. 

 

Vandal hovers and hesitates as the day unfolds. This is too big. Out of his league. Goddess has to know, and she won’t be too pleased, and finally he gives in and makes the call. But come what may, the bank’s got to open up tomorrow night… so he waits. 

 

Nadia swallows her fear, and two Ativan, and by degrees she falls asleep, and yes - for the other shoe, for the discovery she knows is coming, for the tears that will choke out of her if her resolve breaks, if Mira straight out orders it so - she waits.

 

And a bright spark in a dark panelled room in an old tall house on Fifth Street puts two and two together, watching and reading and listening. He makes a note for his employer, who’s not a morning person, on the official Regency paper with the official Regency pen, and he tosses it into the top tray. This is priority. And he makes a few calls, to a few tired men and women who’ve been by their phones all night, and suggests this one’s worth a look, and could they see their way clear to a BCC to this address, usual process? And because Regency has placed some key people by some key phones in some key offices all over LA in the last few years, and because they keep in touch and everyone knows it’s not what you know but who you owe, a file starts to build as the day goes by and the story doesn’t break, not quite. Nobody on TV says "believed to be retired movie producer and investor Isaac Abrams." They will, sooner or later. But the bright sparks are good at what they do. They’ll buy a night or two for the real investigation, and then - maybe - if the truth is more distracting than the lie - the world will be deemed ready to know. Of course, it all needs signing off, but that too can wait.

 

Until nightfall.