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"What do you mean she's dead?"
"I mean she's dead. I don't know how many ways I can say it."
"No, no she can't be-- What happened? How did she--?"
He had looked at her as if he had no feelings on the situation, as if her denial and upset was a stain upon his day.
"She slipped and fell during the escape. She fell, I heard the bell, and even if I didn’t, no one survives a fall like that."
"No..."
Sonja had no idea why she had chosen to actually answer the letter she received. She just needed to do something rather than just wallowing in her house pretending nothing was wrong. That was all she had done for a month, and it wasn't healthy nor was it getting her any money. And as much as she wanted to continue seeing no one, money was something she needed. The amount of money being offered for this job was enough to set her up for months, which was enough to drag her out here into the streets of ornate manor houses where she had been summoned. She supposed that anyone who lived in around here would see her as very out of place, in her hooded coat carrying a bag designed for business rather than fashion, but she cared little for their or anyone else’s hypothetical opinions as she walked up to one that she knew housed someone far odder than herself.
In a city pretty much run by gangs and crime, Sonja would very much call herself a freelancer. A specialist in the ghosts of the world, namely in getting them out places they were unwanted, be that buildings, objects, or people. Now this still very much made her a criminal as ghosts were, well they were regarded as highly volatile materials, a fact that Sonja found offensive even if she knew it was generally true. Ghosts could be vicious and far too many of left to their own devices try to possess people to just continue their old lives, but to make it so any kind of research with spirits was so highly regulated was frankly an annoyance, but it did mean she as a freelance Whisper got more than enough work from gangs and less organised criminals who didn't particularly want to go through official channels.
Within the groups that made up her clientele, the man she was currently going to meet was technically an oddity. Waglington was not in the criminal world in the normal way her clients were. Publicly he was a well to do member of an exclusive architectural company, but Sonja knew Waglington far better as the man who decided he could fight a god and somehow managed to win. So technically a cultist, but a good benefactor for her given how much he paid typically just for relic examinations. Which was the only reason she was currently walking up to the manor when she rather be alone not doing anything. Who could reject six month’s salary for one job? She sighed as she lifted the ornate door knocker, she really wished that large amounts of money were easier for crims to turn down. Maybe if everything was more consistent, if they weren’t always chasing the biggest score, Capsize would still been alive. She forced herself to wear a smile as the door was opened and she was met by the cloaked man. A couple hours pretending to be fine, she could do that.
"Ah Sonja, you made it," He greeted from behind one of his various masks. She was unsure if he ever showed his actual face. She assumed that, surely, he must. He kept up a well to do job in public. Yet no one she asked seemed to know his real face, if he even had one, and surely someone would if there had ever been a public moment where he hadn’t been wearing a mask. Tonight's was a grey mask with red tear stain patterns decorating it, a typical design for him though she didn't know if she had seen this particular mask before. Somehow, she could tell that he was smiling. "Please come in."
"So, what relic did you pick up this time? Haunted or cursed?" She asked as soon as the door was closed behind her, just wanting to get this over with. She'd normally be excited to hear whatever he had found, but she'd really been struggling to find such a spark lately. She'd brought her tools for the worst-case scenario, though she hoped this would be something easier mostly just so she could go back to ignoring the world. She tensed as Wag chuckled.
"I'm afraid I might've stretched the truth a little in my letter," He said. The statement was far too casually said for her liking. She reached onto her belt, taking a breath and wondering if what she was about to do was too rash. It was much easier to escalate than to relax a situation she'd been told, but unfortunately, she had stopped caring about her position in this world about a month ago. She drew a pistol and whipped around, pointing it squarely at his chest.
"I’m not in the mood to be messed around. If you’re going to try and get me possessed I’m not just going to laugh it off this time," She spoke sharply, completely and utterly done with the world at the current moment. She was done with being messed around, after fucking everything she wasn't about to be the easy target of anyone. Wag slowly lifted his hands as if in surrender, he knew there was little chance the gun was an unloaded bluff. Likely loaded with electroplasmic bullets intended to ward off ghosts not people, but they would still very much pack a punch. Yes, he raised his hands, though his aim was truly just to calm her down, to make sure that she saw it.
"You misunderstand me. I do have a new relic, but I think once you see what it is, and realise who gave it to me, you'll understand why it's actually her that wants to see you," He spoke far more calmly than anyone with a gun pointed at them had any right to. The presentation of someone else being involved was enough to make her aim to relax slightly. She knew people had been trying to contact her. Had someone gotten desperate enough they decided to use Wag, her most common benefactor, to get her attention? Slowly he turned one of his hands, drawing Sonja's attention but rather than some sort of attack as she was worried about, instead he revealed a ring. A ring that despite having never seen in person before, she recognised instantly.
"This is insane, that place is guarded better than some banks."
"I know, I know, but the money Sonj! It's enough to live without working for a year! And she said I'd get to keep a piece of the collection. Imagine actually having someone as valuable as one of the shadow diamond pieces! I can't turn this down."
"We'll never find a buyer for something that valuable."
"Of course not, we'll keep it. Have something pretty for once."
"I... I just don't want you to get caught or--"
"Hey, don't worry, if things look like they're sinking, I'll be with Sparklez, so I'll shove him into the danger and make my escape."
"You better!"
They had both laughed, it had seemed ridiculous that anything could possibly go wrong to the point that they wouldn’t be reunited. Capsize had taken her hands in her, a smile on her face that belonged to a starry-eyed dreamer rather than a criminal gang member.
"I promise you, I'll come back and when I do, we'll have enough money to reject any more risky jobs... And I, er, was gonna keep a ring if you still wanna make this official."
It was her ring. The one Capsize had stolen for her. It had been on her when she fell, Jordan had told her that. Despite his apparent lack of care about Capsize's death he had assured her that he would've given her the ring if he'd had it. She hadn’t been completely sure if she trusted him on the matter, but she hadn’t found any evidence to contradict his words. She'd looked everywhere for any information on the thing, and everywhere had the same story that it was stolen along with the rest of the pieces of the shadow diamond collection. Nothing about it being recovered, it was just gone in the night like Capsize. She’d assumed it had likely just been collected alongside her body, destroyed by spirit wardens who would’ve been far more concerned about preventing ghosts to care about possible stolen treasures. But Wag had it on his finger so--
"She's in the study," Were all the words Sonja needed to hear to take off running. Her heart was pounding. She didn't care if this was a trap. If she got possessed, then at least she’d lose herself while actually having a feeling of happiness. She pretty much burst through the door, blind to everything but the sheer overwhelming hope in her heart that had shattered a wall of grief and denial as sat there was Capsize.
"Hey, Fox," She said, standing up. Her voice cracked part way through her sentence, breaking her attempt to sound relaxed. And both women broke. They half embraced, half just clung to one another as they sobbed the tears of two that thought they'd never see the other again. It went on for minutes like that, quiet apologises murmured throughout, before they finally broke apart, now slumped on the floor.
"I... I was told you were dead," Sonja said, her voice shaky and unsure because it wasn't just that she was told, it was that she'd disappeared, that she hadn't seen her for a month. That had been enough to convince her, as she'd been sure that even if Capsize had had to fake her death she would've been told. But she could also see that Capsize was not exactly the best for wear. While she'd clearly cleaned herself up for this meeting, to say she looked rough would be putting it lightly. There were injuries on her that she certainly hadn't had before leaving on the heist. Her clothes were clearly either borrowed or quickly brought as they didn’t quite fit her, looking unkempt in a way that Sonja knew she would never usually. She looked away from her, trying to avoid her own shame.
"You were right, I was in over my head," She admitted, drumming her fingers against her knee. It was painful to admit, and made her feel beyond weak, but she’d spend a good portion of the last month unable to move. Obviously, she’d gotten into something far beyond her typical scores and had nearly paid the ultimate price for it. She took a brief pause, trying to steady her thoughts and find the right words for what she needed to explain. She still felt shaken from it all, but she owed Sonja an explanation for why she’d disappeared. “It started out normal, me and Sparklez aren’t exactly best friends, but we can work together on a heist. We knocked out the guards, got the security disabled, had a getaway plan. But when we were pulling out the jewellery, the moment we touched one of the pieces this weird black smoke came out of them. It tried to attack us, the necklace you gave me I think it protected me somehow ‘cause it was glowing but all the smoke, it went into Sparklez and something about him changed.”
“Wait, the necklace that I--” Sonja cut herself off as Capsize pulled the necklace she’d been given as a gift nearly a year ago now from under her shirt, a simple chain with an intricate charm as a pendant, carved from bone and crystal. And Sonja froze. The necklace was a demonsbane charm, one she crafted for her girlfriend out of concern of the worst she might run into in this city. If it had glowed, if it had protected her then that meant… oh gods. “Capsize, are you telling me that a demon has possessed the right-hand man of one of the three most powerful gang leaders in the city?”
She nodded, words failing her as she remembered that night. The change that had come over Sparklez was more terrifying than anything she’d ever seen, despite him not really changing physically it was like the man she knew had completely vanished as she was looked at with cold, unfeeling eyes.
“He tried to kill me, Sonj. When he realised that I’d been protected, he attacked me. He threw some dust in my face, the weird stuff Sparklez carries to knock out guards, and the next thing I know he was pushing me off the roof."
"Please Sparklez, don't do this. You don't have to do this."
“We both know that isn’t my name.”
“I don’t care! Whatever you are, just let us both go! You think people won't notice that you've replaced him?"
"Oh I'm not worried about that. People tend to attribute sudden personality changes to grief and guilt."
He had placed a boot on her hip, her body still numb from the knockout powder, she hadn’t been able to do anything but lay there waiting for the thing that had taken over Sparklez’s body to push her over the edge. He’d looked down at her with a dark smile that didn’t suit his face.
"I'll make you a deal, if you don't want to fall, take off the necklace. You and this one can switch."
"You're not having my body."
"Really? You'd rather die?"
"A thousand times over rather than being someone's puppet."
"Heh, braver than you look, I suppose. Enjoy the drop."
She should’ve died in the fall. She knew she was meant to. She’d seen the smile on his face as he kicked her off. But she’d survived. She’d barely been able to move, but she had been alive. She’d never been more scared to have survived. Because she was sure that he was coming to finish her off and what was she supposed to do about that? She didn’t know what had been worse, the idea of the demon returning to finish her off or hearing a bluecoat coming to investigate the noise of the fall. Being arrested in the condition she’d been in; it was just a different death sentence. She’d fruitlessly tried to crawl away, sobbing in pain as he’d rounded the corner, thinking about her promise to Sonja that she’d come back. It had been a miracle that she hadn’t died that night.
“The wizard came in a nick of time, shot the bluecoat that found me. Apparently, he’d been investigating the jewels himself, something about the seal on ‘em being weak. I blacked out, woke up here where he explained about the demon stuff. I wanted to see you right away, let you know I wasn’t dead, but I could barely move, if the demon had caught wind that I'd survived I couldn't have put up a fight. And I thought if he went after me, he might… I was so scared he’d go after you.”
“I’m safe, you’re safe,” Sonja said, taking a hold of the nearly shaking woman. She was going to make sure whatever demon had done this paid the price. Of course, it was going to be hard, it was currently in the form of one of the most powerful criminals in the city, and it was very likely that if it found out anyone was seeing through its disguise all hell would break loose. She was going to have to find other help than just Waglington and Capsize, not the easiest task when the one of them with the most connections was thought to be dead, but that didn’t matter. Someone, no matter how powerful, had tried to kill her girlfriend and no one got away with that. This demon was going to learn that the hard way. For now, however, she was just happy that Capsize was alive. Overwhelmed, yes, that her grief hadn’t been needed, but still happy. She pulled her closer, never wanting to let her go again. “We’ll fix this, I promise you. And afterwards, we’ll find a ring that isn’t hosting a demon.”
For the first time in nearly a month, Capsize laughed. It was a laugh that quickly devolved into sobs as she felt safe and that allowed for the terror she’d felt to properly release. But the two were together again and nothing, no matter how dangerous, was going to force them apart again.