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There are many people who find solace in the quiet.
The peace in stillness eases the burden of living for most, leaves space to breathe and think outside of the loud, crowded box of a room where people gather. Quiet grants them a second chance at composure before going back into the cacophony of madness that is life amongst tricksters, backstabbers and thieves that would sooner replace them than extend an olive branch.
Riley Spire isn’t one of these many.
More often than not, the quiet is violent. It exacerbates the existence of her death, an echo chamber for the shotgun blast that pushed her deep into the darkness, past the swinging bones of long-rotten skeletons.
They find themselves a mess of twitching limbs and sweeping eyes like a Kit-Cat Clock. Always looking from here, to there, to here, to there. Metronomic. Paranoid.
It’s a little easier to deal with when their hands are busy. The steady clicks of gears and springs, knuckles deep inside the grease-slicked metal of a gun. Those are the sensations that keep them grounded in the moment.
Those are the sensations they focus on now during the early afternoon at her crowded desk.
There’s an old pistol half taken apart, its loose components strewn across the desk and organized in a way only Riley could understand. A soft burst of most floats through the sunlight that streams past the slatted blinds over her window from a can of WD40 in her hand. Some stubborn, rusted bits of the gun won’t turn. Riley sprays a bit again, then tries again to loosen the parts. She strains even with the extra lubrication, resorts to pushing up off her chair to find extra leverage.
A sudden, loud knock at their door sends the components spinning out of their hands, momentum carrying it across the desk until it knocks up against the wall. Riley feels a chill trickle down their spine.
A second, double knock echoes through the room only seconds later. Riley looks towards the door, feeling her throat tighten as she listens to the sound of metal wobbling over polished wood.
Again, three knocks this time, pounding so loud she mistakes it for a heartbeat. (She almost fools herself into thinking it’s her own.)
The silence returns and envelops the room once more as Riley blindly reaches for another gun, put together and functional. Her hand slides over the grip slowly. Riley blinks, and suddenly she’s in front of the door, straining to breathe as her free hand grips the knob.
They rip the door open and point the gun, only to find someone else’s hand pushing it and Riley’s arm up into the air. Another hand clamps down onto the inside of their elbow and pulls, forcing Riley to stumble forward and into the stranger’s personal space.
Riley’s finger tenses on the trigger, then freezes as they lock eyes with the stranger.
For a moment, they almost feel as if they’re looking into a mirror; Riley hadn’t seen eyes so dead since looking at their reflection this morning. Dark red hair and dark bruises frame the stranger’s eyes, their red-ringed pupils burning with the same intensity of embers flickering off an open flame.
“You pull that trigger,” their voice murmurs, a harsh rasp with a smooth cadence. “An’ I’ll leave you t’ explain it t’ Chrissy on your own.”
Riley stutters over a million different things to say in response to the situation, all of their words tangling and tripping over each other and resulting in nothing more than a confused squeak.
The stranger removes her hand from Riley’s elbow and plants it firmly against their chest, just beneath the collarbones, and shoves the both of them into the hotel room. She uses her foot to kick the door shut as Riley stumbles backwards, trying to retain both balance and control over the gun.
“The hell are you thinkin,’ pullin’ a gun in neutral territory?!” The redheaded stranger does Riley a favor, grabs them by the front of their t-shirt and pulls them onto their toes. “I even knocked with that dumb fuckin’ code, case y’ didn’t notice.”
“F–ffffffucking shit, man. I’m sorry!” Riley raises her hands up beside her head, the gun in one of them now held limply, pointed away from the stranger despite the fear that gripped her. “Wasn’t expectin’ anyone. Shit got me paranoid.”
Despite her fear, she manages to keep eye contact with the stranger – not that she had much of a choice with her shirt clenched in their fist, but she still made a point of fighting her instinct of flight and held her ground as best she could. This makes the stranger pause a moment, look the gunsmith up and down before speaking again.
“You got any idea who I am, Kid?”
Riley scoffs, her brow furrowing. The cold chill of fear begins to warm, shifting to annoyance. She struggles a bit in the stranger’s hold, readjusting her weight across the toes of her shoes. “No, I fuckin’ don’t! You just busted into my room! Feels like I should be the one yelling at you.”
Riley watches as the stranger’s expression goes blank. Her eyes seem to brighten a fraction, staring straight through her. Then she smirks.
“Well, shit,” She says with a chuckle. Her hand loosens and releases Riley’s shirt, and she watches somewhat amused as the teen stumbles back to their feet. “Y’ got me jumpin’ ahead of myself, pointin’ that shit at me. Sorry ‘bout that.”
And as if nothing had happened, the redhead begins to stroll further into the room, wandering over to the edge of Riley’s unmade bed.
Riley watches in stunned disbelief as she reaches down to slide her hand over the rumpled bed sheets. The gun is a dead weight in her hand, the only thing keeping her anchored when her mind feels like it’s beginning to soar into the clouds.
“So — A-Am I supposed to guess?”
“Hm?” It takes longer than Riley would like to get an answer, but eventually the redhead does an about-face and falls back into a sitting position on the bed. “Jasper.”
Jasper leans back onto one hand, uses the other to fish a cigarette from a loose t-shirt pocket.
Now that Riley has a moment to look at her – and fucking breathe – they can better see the person who has so rudely made herself at home. There isn’t anything extravagant about their dress – an old shirt with some sort of leather harness over the shoulders, well-worn denim pants, dusty leather boots. Her hair looks like she just rolled out of bed and pulled it into a lazy ponytail. If Riley had to guess, it was likely around mid-back length.
A loose neckerchief circles her neck, the folds shifting slightly as Jasper tilts her head up to look towards Riley. They swear there’s some sort of flicker barely obscured by it.
“Mind if I smoke in here?” Jasper’s voice pulls Riley’s mind back into focus.
They clear their throat before cautiously giving Jasper a nod, watching with a puzzled expression as she produces a lighter. Riley pads slowly backwards towards their desk and rests the gun on its surface, though they never take their eyes off Jasper.
“Jasper, like — like Jasper Daemon? The ‘ripped a guy’s throat out with their teeth’ Jasper Daemon?!”
Riley watches Jasper’s thumb flick the lid of their lighter up, hears with way too much clarity the way their laidback chuckle vibrates like a rosined bow pulled across strings. A deep velvety sound you’d hear when the card’s flip and someone’s got a royal flush.
“Didn’t rip out his throat,” Jasper mumbles around the cigarette held in her lips. She presses her thumb down against the wheel of the lighter. Sparks, but no flame. “Just his soul.”
Yep, Riley thinks. This is how I die again.
She gulps. “A-And you’re in my room because … ?”
Her eyes track Jasper’s other hand as she reaches towards the side of her torso and retrieves a pistol. The leather harness was a holster. Jasper tosses the gun unceremoniously onto the bed beside her, then reaches into the other side and pulls an identical pistol from there, tosses it above the first.
Jasper nods towards them before turning her attention back to her failing lighter. “Téa says you’re good with guns. Need these fixed up ‘fore I end up blowin’ my hands off.”
Riley feels some of the tension leave her body, her eyes drawn to the slight bounce of the guns as they land on her mattress with muted thuds. She takes a few small steps closer for a better look at them; definitely a pair of older pistols, model 57’s with custom mahogany grips. Under the light, she can make out a small brass inlay of what looked like a laurel within the dark grain.
“Jesus, you jumped me so you could ask me to fix your guns?” With a cautious glance towards Jasper, who was still fidgeting with her lighter, Riley reaches out and takes one of the guns into their hands. Fine craftsmanship, but a definite decline in upkeep. Not terribly far gone, at least. “Pretty sure there’s easier ways to ask.”
Jasper holds their cigarette in their teeth. “Well – Not exactly.”
She looks up from the gun and back to Jasper, her brow arched as she lets the silence stretch between them, rather than asking the obvious question.
“Téa also says you’re good with information.” Jasper turns her attention once again to the lighter in her hand. “Got a couple people I’m lookin’ t’ locate. If I give you names, think you can tell me if you’ve heard anythin’ about ‘em?”
Riley slowly twists the gun around in their hands. “Uh — Guess I could try.”
Jasper wastes no time.
“Harold Ulysses.”
Her thumb spins the flint wheel, but her eyes stay locked onto Riley, unblinking. All sparks, no flame.
Riley shakes their head. “Dunno ‘em.”
“Darnell Arnoult.” The wheel spins with a hiss of friction. No flame.
Riley shakes their head again.
Jasper’s nostrils flare as she exhales. “Nolan Arison.”
Sparks fly but don’t catch. It’s starting to get painful for Riley to watch, even more so for her to keep coming up short.
“Jean Rider.” The force with which Jasper spins the wheel after this name makes Riley think the thing is plain broken at this point. Or maybe it was an intimidation tactic to make her scared of hiding anything?
One thing was for sure, it was effective.
Riley’s shoulders hike up a fraction. Despite being the one holding Jasper’s weapon in her hands, she feels powerless underneath her gaze. “I-I’m sorry, I don’t know —”
“Father Thaddeus.”
The wheel spins again. Both hear the hiss of fire catching, see the bright orange flame dance up the lighter’s wick.
“I — Y-Yes!” Riley exclaims – both to the flame and Jasper’s request. “Yes. Father Thaddeus, I saw him just, uh — Just two days ago, over by the Weather Vein.”
Riley watches the flame ignite the tip of Jasper’s cigarette, watches her take a deep drag before exhaling a thick white smoke. It leaves a flowery scent in the air.
“The good Father was partakin’ in the Devil’s drink?”
“No, he didn’t go inside,” Riley replies. She realizes now that through her nervousness, her hands have shifted to clutch Jasper’s pistol close to her chest. Riley clears her throat and carefully sets the gun back down on the bed beside its twin. “Didn’t exactly see where he came from, but he was leavin’ the area, back towards the middle of town.”
Jasper seems to pause, her chest expanding as she takes another long drag from the cigarette. “Well — It’s a start, at least.”
The redhead grabs the cigarette between two fingers, then uses the other hand to roughly rub her thumb and forefinger across her eyes.
Another five seconds pass and Jasper pushes roughly to her feet, giving Riley a slap on the shoulder that makes them feel like they jump five feet out of their skin.
“Thanks, Kid,” Jasper mumbles. “Jus’ come find me once them guns are nice an’ spiffy.”
Jasper begins to walk towards the door, but stops as she hears Riley’s sputtering reply.
“Wait, where do I find you when I’m done?”
Hand on the doorknob, Jasper looks back over her shoulder. She lifts the cigarette to her mouth and mumbles around the butt of it, “Go t’ Hell.”
Riley feels herself pale.
She opens her mouth to reply, once again stuttering over her words. Did she say something that upset her? Shit, she definitely didn’t need someone like Jasper angry at her. Especially if this was someone Téa sent to them for help.
“God damn, you’re a jumpy li’l shit,” Jasper cackles through her cloud of flowery smoke as Riley looks at her confused. “Tartarus. ‘s the apothecary down the street. Just opened it. If I’m not down at the bar, that’s where you’ll find me.”
As abruptly as she’d entered, Jasper exits Riley’s hotel room, leaving her alone to try and comprehend whatever the fuck just happened to them.