THE SWEENEY - Log 4
Apr. 18th, 2026 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsClea and Strange meet a pair of truly disagreeable characters.
WARNING: Explicit content and language.
The little shop a block from the famed Carnaby Street was just finishing up their morning, selling to the last of their high end customers before closing for lunch. The Druid's Grove was stuffed full of crystals and wrought iron window pieces; amulets and jewelry made with mystical symbols; coloured mandala kits and bunches of organic dried herbs for cleansing. Everything an aspiring mystically focused person would need and be happy to take all major credit cards in the process. In pure magical terms, it was largely trash. Expensive, high end and yet still overpriced trash, but trash.
Behind the counter, a man with hair too black and a smile too white for either to be natural was ringing up a four figure bill while at a computer in a back niche, a grey-haired women in a pixie cut and nearly armoured by the amount of cheap jewelry she wore sat.
Clea looked over at Stephen for a quick moment before pushing open the door to the little magical curio shop. Heavy incense of frankincense, sandalwood, and a hint of musk laced the air. The redhead picked up a crystal before dropping it back into the pile. She had been studying earth magic on her own time to know the difference between the real and what was heavily manufactured. Clea continued to walk through the shop until she reached the counter to see items that were just for show and nothing more. Clea didn't want to be in there anymore than she had too, because under near the heavy incense was another smell. Death.
Steven meandered in the opposite direction, his height allowing him to keep Clea in sight even as he picked up a package of pre-sorted herbs meant to ward off evil, according to the label. He almost rolled his eyes, but managed to suppress the urge at the last moment. They were here for information and, while he wasn't getting great vibes off of anyone but Clea in the shop, he didn't want to tip their hand too early. The fact that they would both be clocked immediately as magic users meant there were only a few ways they could play this entire scenario.
Putting the package of herbs back in their place, he moved over to the jewelry section, still keeping an eye on Clea, and decided that none of them would work for Fourteen at all. They looked alright, but there was no actual magic imbued in the symbols and half of them didn't even make sense because the languages they were written in were miss-mashed together.
"Hello all. Can I help you find the first steps in your magical journey?" Oliver said, appearing on the floor with them.
"We're more looking for some information," Stephen murmured, holding an Egyptian ankh up to the light for a moment and repressing another snort when he found both northern European runes and dodgy Greek scrawled all over it, a single malformed hieroglyph stamped boldly in the middle of the middle meeting point. "Then I think we'd quite like to make a purchase..." He looked toward the man and smiled benignly. "This is hardly going to be our first foray into magic."
"Oh, some fellow travellers." He said as his wife locked the doors. "Tell me, what do you need?"
"Information." Clea said and smiled brightly, which only reached her eyes. "We are looking for a specific person who connected the two of you in magical tools. Especially magical tools that used to neutralize and contain magical abilities." Clea tapped on a shelf at a bottled love potions. "And people." Again she smiled. "We just need the connection's name and we will be on our merry way."
"I'm afraid our transactions with other clients are quite private. And even if they weren't, they'd at the very least be too valuable to simply give away."
"Oh, we're happy to pay," Stephen murmured. "Name your price." He kept both Clea and the Hag in his line of sight even as he arched an eyebrow at Oliver.
"I assure you, our pockets run deep." Clea said her smile never wavered. "Or we can do this the hard way. Because either way, we will get the answer we want."
"Oh will you poppet?" Alice said, appearing behind Clea, her smile vulpine and urgent. "Or maybe, you bit of a little more than you can chew." She arched an eyebrow at Stephen. "And your rather ridiculous defender. I can smell the weakness of the Ancient One on you."
Stephen smirked, thumbing his family ring over until the crest was accessible. "Let me guess. You weren't good enough to get in, so you've spent the rest of your life being bitter about it? In the immortal words of one of the world's most influential princesses, 'let it go.' Just give us the information, we'll pay you, and your shop doesn't suffer the consequences of a magical mini-nuke."
"You think you're the first mage to threaten us? Fifty years in this business. All the threats you could imagine. You know what we learned?" She said with a smile, holding up what looked like a garage door opener. As she clicked it, a crackle of electricity ripped through the shop and like a switch being flipped, their access to magic disappeared. "It's called a Houdini cage. I mean, the Yank didn't invent it, but he was so famously anti-magic that they thought it was cheeky to name a magic suppressor after him." She said as she drew a viciously curved knife. Behind them, there was the uncharacteristic clack of a shotgun as Oliver hoisted the weapon. "So if you want to threaten us, I'm afraid you'll need something other than magic."
Clea couldn't help but laugh and pulled out her own handgun and aimed it right at the Hag, "I can assure you, I can threaten you with more than just magic." And pulled out another handgun and aimed it right at the husband. She shot one bullet toward the man's leg with precision she was sure to make her mentor proud. "Now. Tell us what we want to know or the next time I shoot will be in his head. I bet you never met a witch that was professionally trained." Keep one gun pointed at Alice and the other at Oliver.
Tapping into the magic stored within his family ring, Stephen brought up both a defensive and offensive spell, one in either hand, the Ancient One's training evident in the distinctive, round shapes the spell lit around his hands. "Perhaps fifty years in the business has just made you sloppy and complacent," he offered, arching an eyebrow at the Hag. He and Clea were definitely going to be discussing the new hardware she was sporting, but not because he took exception to them. "Now, as my friend suggested, give us the information we requested. Otherwise I'm afraid this is going to get rather messy."
Oliver had gone down, cursing as the bullet lodged in his leg. The Hag hissed and the blade shot through the air with snake-like precision. Clea ducked, losing only a lock of hair to the blade, but it hit right off of Stephen's shield. The impact crackled and exploded violently, pushing him sideways. Oliver fired off a shot, costing Clea one of her guns as everyone scrambled for cover.
Clea ducked behind a shelf, she had to get to that device. Being separated from her own magic was like losing a part of herself. At least her training made her hone in on other skills, closing her eyes, she listened. Hearing movement directly to her right, Clea opened her eyes to see Alice trying to move to another location, Clea aimed and fired three shots, before taking the opportunity to rush Alice before she could arm herself with another dagger. The two women collided, and Clea lost her other gun in the shuffle. Instead, Clea kicked the old woman in the knees to knock her prone before grabbing a large scrying orb to hit the woman across the head.
Off-balance after the unexpected magical impact of the blade, Stephen righted himself and spun his sling ring to open a portal. His lack of balance translated into a misplaced opening, though, meaning that instead of a portal spreading beneath Oliver, it opened through his middle and his torso began to drop through. "Oh bloody fuck," he cursed, horrified at what was happening. Instinctively, he wanted to close the portal, but that would just lead to both halves of the man bleeding all over the floor, so he kept it open to let Oliver's torso and gun fall through to the floor of the Amazon rainforest before snapping it closed and ducking down behind his shelf. "Oooooh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck."
The Hag's eye's widened as Oliver died with a scream cut off by the closing of the portal. The bash of the orb on her head barely seemed to register as she lunged back at Clea, teeth snapping at her right eye as she unbalanced her in her fury. Another knife slipped from her sleeve into her hand as she slashed at her, screaming. "You fucking cunt! Fucking cunt! I'll fucking skin you and eat your fucking bones!" Spittle flew as she moved with fanatic strength and fury.
Clea stumbled backwards as the knife slashed her forearm and in that instant the Hag was on top of her. It seemed that seeing her husband died gave the old woman newfound strength. The knife came down at her again, but for Clea it felt like it was going in slow motion. She was going to die.
The moment the knife hit her cheek, something within Clea awoke. The next second a purple magical energy surged from Clea and blasted everything in a five foot radius, including the Hag, sending the old woman flying into the nearby counter. Clea slowly stood up as time finally seemed to catch up and was going at normal speed. Holding out a hand as rope like energy shot out towards the Hag, encircling her to keep her from going anywhere.
Clea walked over and knelt down in front of the bound Hag, her eyes had turned purple. "Now. Shall we try this again?" Kill her. Her inner voice echoed, which Clea ignored completely. "Name."
"Three-Four. He brokered the deal." She said finally, her teeth gritted. "But know this. I now have one goal in this life. I am going to hunt you, skin you alive, slowly suck out your magic and then, I will start killing you slow. I promise this to you." She hiss.
Clea was only half listening as she looked over at Stephen but kept a tight hold on the Hag. "She said Three-Four." A little louder for him to hear, "What do you want me to do with her? She is threatening your life and having another magical stalker wasn't on my 2026 bingo card."
Pulling himself together, Stephen shunted his feelings about having just killed a man to the back of his mind to deal with later. "Logically, we can't leave her alive. She'd be a loose end and I don't think either of us are interested in dealing with her more permanently at a later date. Are you comfortable taking care of that while I check through the rest of the shop for information on this Three-Four person? I can always... dismember her the way I did her partner."
"Yes." Clea said to Stephen's question about taking care of her. "I don't want you to bloody your hands any more than you already have." Turning her head to look at Stephen, she would want to make sure he was doing okay mentally. "If more information exists it would be in the back. Perhaps with the other real magical items." Turning her attention back to the Hag. "This could have all been avoided if you just gave us what we wanted in the first place." And Clea used her own body to move in and the Hag disappeared from view.
Stephen was already moving into the back of the shop when he heard the shot from one of Clea's firearms. It made him wince, but he resolutely pushed that all to the back of his mind as he started going through various stacks of paper and other magical accoutrement. He had to break a few seals using the last of his stored magic, but inside the false bottom of a desk drawer, he located a black book containing the information they needed as well as a great deal of other information about the people the Hag had been draining of their powers.
WARNING: Explicit content and language.
The little shop a block from the famed Carnaby Street was just finishing up their morning, selling to the last of their high end customers before closing for lunch. The Druid's Grove was stuffed full of crystals and wrought iron window pieces; amulets and jewelry made with mystical symbols; coloured mandala kits and bunches of organic dried herbs for cleansing. Everything an aspiring mystically focused person would need and be happy to take all major credit cards in the process. In pure magical terms, it was largely trash. Expensive, high end and yet still overpriced trash, but trash.
Behind the counter, a man with hair too black and a smile too white for either to be natural was ringing up a four figure bill while at a computer in a back niche, a grey-haired women in a pixie cut and nearly armoured by the amount of cheap jewelry she wore sat.
Clea looked over at Stephen for a quick moment before pushing open the door to the little magical curio shop. Heavy incense of frankincense, sandalwood, and a hint of musk laced the air. The redhead picked up a crystal before dropping it back into the pile. She had been studying earth magic on her own time to know the difference between the real and what was heavily manufactured. Clea continued to walk through the shop until she reached the counter to see items that were just for show and nothing more. Clea didn't want to be in there anymore than she had too, because under near the heavy incense was another smell. Death.
Steven meandered in the opposite direction, his height allowing him to keep Clea in sight even as he picked up a package of pre-sorted herbs meant to ward off evil, according to the label. He almost rolled his eyes, but managed to suppress the urge at the last moment. They were here for information and, while he wasn't getting great vibes off of anyone but Clea in the shop, he didn't want to tip their hand too early. The fact that they would both be clocked immediately as magic users meant there were only a few ways they could play this entire scenario.
Putting the package of herbs back in their place, he moved over to the jewelry section, still keeping an eye on Clea, and decided that none of them would work for Fourteen at all. They looked alright, but there was no actual magic imbued in the symbols and half of them didn't even make sense because the languages they were written in were miss-mashed together.
"Hello all. Can I help you find the first steps in your magical journey?" Oliver said, appearing on the floor with them.
"We're more looking for some information," Stephen murmured, holding an Egyptian ankh up to the light for a moment and repressing another snort when he found both northern European runes and dodgy Greek scrawled all over it, a single malformed hieroglyph stamped boldly in the middle of the middle meeting point. "Then I think we'd quite like to make a purchase..." He looked toward the man and smiled benignly. "This is hardly going to be our first foray into magic."
"Oh, some fellow travellers." He said as his wife locked the doors. "Tell me, what do you need?"
"Information." Clea said and smiled brightly, which only reached her eyes. "We are looking for a specific person who connected the two of you in magical tools. Especially magical tools that used to neutralize and contain magical abilities." Clea tapped on a shelf at a bottled love potions. "And people." Again she smiled. "We just need the connection's name and we will be on our merry way."
"I'm afraid our transactions with other clients are quite private. And even if they weren't, they'd at the very least be too valuable to simply give away."
"Oh, we're happy to pay," Stephen murmured. "Name your price." He kept both Clea and the Hag in his line of sight even as he arched an eyebrow at Oliver.
"I assure you, our pockets run deep." Clea said her smile never wavered. "Or we can do this the hard way. Because either way, we will get the answer we want."
"Oh will you poppet?" Alice said, appearing behind Clea, her smile vulpine and urgent. "Or maybe, you bit of a little more than you can chew." She arched an eyebrow at Stephen. "And your rather ridiculous defender. I can smell the weakness of the Ancient One on you."
Stephen smirked, thumbing his family ring over until the crest was accessible. "Let me guess. You weren't good enough to get in, so you've spent the rest of your life being bitter about it? In the immortal words of one of the world's most influential princesses, 'let it go.' Just give us the information, we'll pay you, and your shop doesn't suffer the consequences of a magical mini-nuke."
"You think you're the first mage to threaten us? Fifty years in this business. All the threats you could imagine. You know what we learned?" She said with a smile, holding up what looked like a garage door opener. As she clicked it, a crackle of electricity ripped through the shop and like a switch being flipped, their access to magic disappeared. "It's called a Houdini cage. I mean, the Yank didn't invent it, but he was so famously anti-magic that they thought it was cheeky to name a magic suppressor after him." She said as she drew a viciously curved knife. Behind them, there was the uncharacteristic clack of a shotgun as Oliver hoisted the weapon. "So if you want to threaten us, I'm afraid you'll need something other than magic."
Clea couldn't help but laugh and pulled out her own handgun and aimed it right at the Hag, "I can assure you, I can threaten you with more than just magic." And pulled out another handgun and aimed it right at the husband. She shot one bullet toward the man's leg with precision she was sure to make her mentor proud. "Now. Tell us what we want to know or the next time I shoot will be in his head. I bet you never met a witch that was professionally trained." Keep one gun pointed at Alice and the other at Oliver.
Tapping into the magic stored within his family ring, Stephen brought up both a defensive and offensive spell, one in either hand, the Ancient One's training evident in the distinctive, round shapes the spell lit around his hands. "Perhaps fifty years in the business has just made you sloppy and complacent," he offered, arching an eyebrow at the Hag. He and Clea were definitely going to be discussing the new hardware she was sporting, but not because he took exception to them. "Now, as my friend suggested, give us the information we requested. Otherwise I'm afraid this is going to get rather messy."
Oliver had gone down, cursing as the bullet lodged in his leg. The Hag hissed and the blade shot through the air with snake-like precision. Clea ducked, losing only a lock of hair to the blade, but it hit right off of Stephen's shield. The impact crackled and exploded violently, pushing him sideways. Oliver fired off a shot, costing Clea one of her guns as everyone scrambled for cover.
Clea ducked behind a shelf, she had to get to that device. Being separated from her own magic was like losing a part of herself. At least her training made her hone in on other skills, closing her eyes, she listened. Hearing movement directly to her right, Clea opened her eyes to see Alice trying to move to another location, Clea aimed and fired three shots, before taking the opportunity to rush Alice before she could arm herself with another dagger. The two women collided, and Clea lost her other gun in the shuffle. Instead, Clea kicked the old woman in the knees to knock her prone before grabbing a large scrying orb to hit the woman across the head.
Off-balance after the unexpected magical impact of the blade, Stephen righted himself and spun his sling ring to open a portal. His lack of balance translated into a misplaced opening, though, meaning that instead of a portal spreading beneath Oliver, it opened through his middle and his torso began to drop through. "Oh bloody fuck," he cursed, horrified at what was happening. Instinctively, he wanted to close the portal, but that would just lead to both halves of the man bleeding all over the floor, so he kept it open to let Oliver's torso and gun fall through to the floor of the Amazon rainforest before snapping it closed and ducking down behind his shelf. "Oooooh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck."
The Hag's eye's widened as Oliver died with a scream cut off by the closing of the portal. The bash of the orb on her head barely seemed to register as she lunged back at Clea, teeth snapping at her right eye as she unbalanced her in her fury. Another knife slipped from her sleeve into her hand as she slashed at her, screaming. "You fucking cunt! Fucking cunt! I'll fucking skin you and eat your fucking bones!" Spittle flew as she moved with fanatic strength and fury.
Clea stumbled backwards as the knife slashed her forearm and in that instant the Hag was on top of her. It seemed that seeing her husband died gave the old woman newfound strength. The knife came down at her again, but for Clea it felt like it was going in slow motion. She was going to die.
The moment the knife hit her cheek, something within Clea awoke. The next second a purple magical energy surged from Clea and blasted everything in a five foot radius, including the Hag, sending the old woman flying into the nearby counter. Clea slowly stood up as time finally seemed to catch up and was going at normal speed. Holding out a hand as rope like energy shot out towards the Hag, encircling her to keep her from going anywhere.
Clea walked over and knelt down in front of the bound Hag, her eyes had turned purple. "Now. Shall we try this again?" Kill her. Her inner voice echoed, which Clea ignored completely. "Name."
"Three-Four. He brokered the deal." She said finally, her teeth gritted. "But know this. I now have one goal in this life. I am going to hunt you, skin you alive, slowly suck out your magic and then, I will start killing you slow. I promise this to you." She hiss.
Clea was only half listening as she looked over at Stephen but kept a tight hold on the Hag. "She said Three-Four." A little louder for him to hear, "What do you want me to do with her? She is threatening your life and having another magical stalker wasn't on my 2026 bingo card."
Pulling himself together, Stephen shunted his feelings about having just killed a man to the back of his mind to deal with later. "Logically, we can't leave her alive. She'd be a loose end and I don't think either of us are interested in dealing with her more permanently at a later date. Are you comfortable taking care of that while I check through the rest of the shop for information on this Three-Four person? I can always... dismember her the way I did her partner."
"Yes." Clea said to Stephen's question about taking care of her. "I don't want you to bloody your hands any more than you already have." Turning her head to look at Stephen, she would want to make sure he was doing okay mentally. "If more information exists it would be in the back. Perhaps with the other real magical items." Turning her attention back to the Hag. "This could have all been avoided if you just gave us what we wanted in the first place." And Clea used her own body to move in and the Hag disappeared from view.
Stephen was already moving into the back of the shop when he heard the shot from one of Clea's firearms. It made him wince, but he resolutely pushed that all to the back of his mind as he started going through various stacks of paper and other magical accoutrement. He had to break a few seals using the last of his stored magic, but inside the false bottom of a desk drawer, he located a black book containing the information they needed as well as a great deal of other information about the people the Hag had been draining of their powers.
