This Devil's Workday: Brewster House

[x-scorpion.livejournal.com]

Cammie goes to check one more time with people she knew just what is going on in Chicago...

Biker bars aside, there was one other place you could find the people Cammie and her friend used to always hang out in. Alleyways, trashcan fires and abandoned buildings. Like any large city, Chicago had a huge population of street kids. It was all about finding them. In this case it was pretty easy. In colder weather, a lot of kids loitered or spent their time in homeless shelters. This group was loitering. "Hey everyone, it's fucking cold here," she said, walking up to one such group. She knew almost all of the faces here.

"Not cold enough for Ada's," came the mumble from a pile of dirty clothes and once-blond hair. "Thirty-two degrees and not a decimal place more. You know the rules, or you been gone too long to remember?"

"You'll get yours," Cammie said, "I'm afraid I'm the bringer of some bad fucking news and not staying all that long, but yeah."

"Don't mind Jacko, querida. He's missed you as much as I have." Jeffe wasn't his real name, but he liked to maintain his air of superiority. In that direction, he made every effort to stay as clean as possible with street living. He glided up to Cammie, standing on the edge of what used to be her comfort zone, ready to cross over at the least provocation.

"I know how much you miss everyone," she said simply. She still didn't do close contact, but was a lot more relaxed than she was the last time he had seen her. At least in terms of comfort zone, "But I got some bad news and you're not going to like it. When's the last time you seen Amy around?"

Every eye in the alley turned to her as every voice went silent. Jeffe glanced around before he moved closer. "We heard she's been doing some running for some pretty bad bendejos. But not much else."

"That doesn't surprise me," Cammie said dryly, "Brace yourself boys, Amy's dead. On the upside it's not a drug hit, because whoever did it didn't cut her open to try to find it," which would've happened. "Anyway, I need to know something. Anything else wiggy been going on? General word says people are going poof like some fucking magic act, only with no snappy finish."

One kid, much younger than the rest, shuffled up to Cammie and reached out a grubby hand to clasp it on the hem of her jacket. "Brewster House," he mumbled.

Cammie backed from the kid and almost ran right into Jeffe. Nothing like a full alley, "What house? Did you say Brewster?"

"She said they could help, but it's scary there," he sank down to a crouch. "The voices there are scared, so I don't want to go."

"What're the voice telling you?" Cammie asked. Before she knew telepaths, she had the tendency to think everyone who claimed to hear voices was crazy. But this kid always had the disconcerting ability to know just what you were thinking. It was, she reasoned, why he wasn't dead, "I hafta know. I think they got Amy."

"They hurt, they hurt a lot. And sometimes there are angry ones." Every person in the alley strained to hear the child's words, listening with a mix of fear and awe.

"The angry ones, what are they saying?" Cammie asked. Oh, this was going to be good. And she meant that in a bad way. She thought about calling for help and getting Kurt to come out here, but she didn't want to be jumping at shadows.

Yet this kid, who had never told anyone his name, was never wrong about crap like this.

The kid studied a crack in the wall. "They need to be cleansed," he said, as if quoting someone. "Purified."

Cammie glowered, "Well then. Sounds like these people just signed up for an ass kicking."
* * *


When checking things out, however, Cammie ends up over her head.

The house, for a runaway shelter, was actually pretty nice. It generally meant some bleeding heart was tossing money the home’s way, generally for a tax write off. But when a building had central heat and not the cracking, creaking furnace in each room, that was a plus. The rooms were small, but that itself was also normal. She did get a private room when she asked, for personal reasons. That was also good. No roommate to watch you sneak around and wonder where you’re going in the middle of the night.

It was good. And it was bad.

At least she didn’t need to pile herself in winter coats in here, it meant she was comfortably dressed, down to her old, off colored bandages.

Daniel knocked on the door, sure of his mission to lead this girl downstairs for cleansing. Opening the door without consideration for her privacy he smiled sinisterly and spoke in his heavy Chicago-Land accent. "Hey, Cammie, right?" He knew full well who she was, just like Director Ramses did, soon her plight would be lifted and her spirit could ascend to heaven. "The facility director would like to see you, it's about that girl you were looking for."

“Really?” Cammie said looking over, “Awesome. The sooner the better.” For Amy’s sake and for hers, she was going to get the revenge or justice, either or really, that Amy deserved.

"If you'll just follow me," Daniel said, smiling brightly in a menacing sort of way. It was fortunate for the young zealot that Cammie was not a telepath or she would have heard him silently add, 'I'll show you where we keep the bodies of those poor young hell spawned freaks like you.' He led the way to a sitting room that was comfortably adorned in a monastic sort of way. The director, dressed in a purple suit and black tie with a golden cross around his neck, smiled as he shifted through some papers and waited next to the fire place.

“So, what is this place like run by a church or something?” Cammie asked, looking around. It was generally easy to spot the Christian Soldiers. This place had bad vibes, but it was actually doing good too. It was an odd place, “I mean, it kinda looks like it.”

"Something, like that, yes, Cammie," he chuckled and put a hand in his pocket. "But you were wondering about Amy Wilson, yes?" His accent didn't sound like born and raised Chicagoan, it had a more nasal whine that you only got north of the Wisconsin boarder.

“Yeah, she stayed here,” and then left and was murdered, “I’m just trying to wrap up her affairs.”

"Well, she didn't bring any of her personal effects with her, so I'm not sure what affairs there are to wrap up. In any event, you know she was a mutant, I take it." It was a question formed to be a statement- with the word mutant being forced out in a near whisper and with great effort.

“Oh no,” Cammie said, mockingly, “She was? What’s this world coming to, that people are born different. I mean what the fuck.”

The veneer of his smile faded instantly, "I take it you're one of Satan's children as well then."

“Hail Satan,” Cammie said happily, “Devil’s army for the win.”

"That's what I like to hear," his smile returned. "Bring us your poor, your weak, your huddled masses yearning for salvation. They just forgot one thing, bring us your devil-spawn so that we may cleanse them for the afterlife. Have you been saved yet, Cammie?"

“Not in a way you can appreciate,” she returned.

"Don't worry child, your friend may not have appreciated our best efforts, but you will," his eyes glanced behind Cammie at the doorway while putting a hand in his pocket.

“Okay, this is getting creepy,” Cammie said, even though there wasn’t anything she could use to justify bashing in the heads of the management like a green ball of anger, no matter how much she was so fucking sure. “I think I’ll just take a look towards the front door now.”

Daniel was at the doorway to the sitting room, sighted taser pointed at her chest. Without a moment of hesitation he pulled the trigger, sending the two metal prongs soaring across the room until they impacted on her right breast and left shoulder- arcing thousands of volts of electricity into their victim.

Cammie choked on a scream, a green cloud started show up around her. First and last defense. She had enough volts being put through her that her arm was starting to discharge. This would be the third time in her life she had been tazered and it still hurt like hell.

The director started to gag almost immediately and fell towards Cammie. Fortunately, his hand had already been on the remote for the deadman's drop the girl was unknowingly standing over. The room started to go dark as he entered the cloud and hit the girl- getting a jolt of the electricity arcing through her body knocked him the rest of the way out. The trapdoor opened wide and the pair of them fell through the floor into the tank of icy water below.

The shock of the cold water did the trick of knocking the rest of the wind out of her. Cammie was flailing, dealing with the shock of too cold and suddenly trying to keep her head above water. Today was not a good day.