Suspire/Boiler Room

From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

High-Proof Friend

The bar wasn't a nice place, it was a one-room affair that the current owner had won over a crooked game of poker and nobody was really sure if the risk had been worth it. The faux woodgrain walls, though dipped in shadow by low-hanging poolhall lights somehow remained visible enough to give the patrons the feeling they were drinking inside an oldtime wooden crate. The air-conditioning system did not work well enough to dissipate heat, just make the air a nice, damp breeding ground for the ten billion most lazy and melancholy bacteria in King's Row. It was the kind of place even the regulars justified visiting by claiming it was "local", as if it were some kind of excuse.

The patrons were mostly factory workers, construction, truck drivers in for a weekend and hung about the pool table, or the television in small knots, making conversation that filled the air with a half-hearted buzz that waned in and out of perception in time with the tv's commercial breaks. One patron, a lone, dark-haired woman sat on a cracked, vinyl stool, tipping mouthfuls of tan spirits down her mouth with an easy, but high-tempo rhythm. Though the alcohol, and hours in the bar had given her a slump, the woman still retained something approaching a kind of stubborn, habitual strength- like a iron rod had been surgically fused to her spine to keep her from melting away entirely, despite the amount of grainy liquor she drained.

One of the bar patrons, a medium set man with a heavy paunch, finished up a game of pool with requisite hand-slapping. Young by the bar crowds standards, he cracked a peel of laughter to his friends and wandered over to the dark stranger and her glittering, high-proof friend.

"Hey lady, where's your boyfriend?" he eased out with a smile.

There was no motion from her eyes, blue and dulled by the alcohol, but he felt her scan him. Yet, there was no response.

"Hey lady, I'm talking to you."

He reached out for her shoulder and saw it suddenly tense, but not in the manner of a frightened deer. It was preparing to move her body towards him. He stopped, fingertips inches away from her bare shoulder.

"Try Captain!" a voice called out from the pool table, accompanied by a laugh that sounded like an old tree falling.

The man twisted back, his face wrinkled up in an incredulous query to the other patron.

"She's army. Captain... Grant, right!?"

The man turned back to the pantherine figure, who was leaning across the bar for another drink. He rocked back and forth on his heels and summoned up anoher, full-mouthed smile.

"Captain," he said with something that approached a friendly tone.

No response.

"What's a-matter, you army women are too good to talk to civilians?"

She moved, drew her glass across the bar with a scrape. Though the movement was mundane, it seemed like an answer in kind. One he didn't like.

"You know how many times my shop has had the windows kicked in, or been bombed by god-damned Rikti over the last three years while my tax dollars paid your damn wages?"

The man slammed his bottle on the counter. Watery suds spilled over the lip like mop water being cast out over the sidewalk.

"I got a boy at home, his leg is broke because fucking Lost didn't like the look of him. He had to run six blocks on that shattered knee. And you, the fucking army come in here to our place and act like you're better than us!?"

The woman didn't seem to even hear him. She lifted her glass to her lips and pulled, washing the liquor around in her mouth before swallowing.

"Hey, cool it, Phil," came the weak interjection from the anonymity of the crowd.

"Fuck that man," he spat, turning away. "It's because of bitches like that we lost Astoria."

The dark woman, Suspire, perked a brow.

"You hear that? Boy knows his history."

Volcano

Lurking among the patrons, unseen to all but Grant were two figures, barely visible from the space between life and death. Ghosts. She knew these two, in the years since the fall of Dark Astoria they had crept further and further into city, occasionally appearing to the mediums and shaman that had dispersed through Paragon. The first, was a tall and gangly man in ragged clothes and a top hat. He stood by one of the pool tables, grinning as he diverted the ricocheting balls from their intended path. He looked up to Jessica and spoke again.

"Maybe if you had worked a little harder, Astoria could have been an actual fight."

Grant's jaw tightened imperceptibly. The Pantheon ghost had been heckling all night, and the alcohol hadn't helped her tune him out.

The second ghost was seated at one wall. He was a heavy built man, dressed in the scraps of military fatigues. Though shadows was draped around him, she could make out the burning, judgemental gaze in eyes and a gleam of off-white from bone protruded from the flesh of his jaw. He didn't speak, not even to accuse her, but she could feel this ghosts anger. Anger he deserved to bear, during the Fall the Pantheon had used his animated corpose to carry a grenade into a hospital.

Grant looked down into her drink, a puddle of murky water at the bottom of a glass, the ice unmelted. Her stomach churned, conjuring up images of rolling clouds of soil and rocks pouring down a mountain slope. The stoic, implacable volcano had awakened. The soldier rose to her feet, wobbling slightly as she touched the floor. She picked up her glass and with a little effort, wandered a straight line towards Phil and the pool table. For a blessed, single moment, the Pantheon ghost had stopped yammering.

"Hey Phil, think someone changed their mind."

Phil was still simmering, his eyes deep looked like deep set coals, but he rose to his feet when Grant approached.

"Look, I'm sorry. For your boy, and for your..."

There was a touch of a triumphant smirk at the corners of Phil's thin lips. Grant paused for a fraction of a second that seemed to last a lifetime. Then inside, she felt an explosion at her core, reinvigorating her tired, leaden limbs.

Her hand shot out, fingers splayed so that the web of her hand crashed into his windpipe sending Phil back reeling. All at once, the patrons spread back in a shockwave of bodies to get away from the man stumbling backward.

Grant's first instinct was to turn away, but fury pushed her on. She felt the ghost's eyes bore into her, approve as she stomped forward towards her enemy. One quick hit was an assault that could be laughed off, but she intended to send a message.

The soldier scooped a pool cue propped up against the table and speared the butt into the enemy's torso, forcing him to keel over. He fell back out of reach, but rather than follow she shot the cue out with one hand, wedged it between his neck and collar bone and twisted, jerking his body to the floor with a wet thump. She hoisted the cue high and hacked downwards to his back, snapping the cue in half. That last blow would leave a bruise, she knew, but it was mostly for cinema.

Grant sneered her fallen foe, who stirred on the dirty ground, unable to decide whether to rise of not and cast the remaining cue down to the floor besides him. The anger was not yet appeased, she seethed with it, let it broadcast from her body. All eyes were fixed on her.

Somewhere, in the back of the room, the Pantheon ghost was clapping, slowly. Disgusted as she was, Grant was glad to hear it.

"Perfect," she hissed between her teeth. She didn't understand why the word tasted so good.

There was gargle from the floor, but Grant didn't care to hear it. The other men were approaching cautiously to hoist their friend to his feet. Feeling the anger subside, congeal into a black tar at the pit of her stomach, Grant picked up her glass and knocked back the last of her whiskey, turned on her heel and departed.