Family Call
13th of March 2007 A.D.
Harry had barely gotten the salient parts of what he had seen out by the time you call Thomas, silently cursing the lack of a personal satellite to
make sure calls like this get through. He picks up on the third ring. "Something you did, Molly?" He sounds worried in spite of the glibness, alas not nearly worried enough.
There's a part of you that wants answer yes, to apologize for making his sister into... into... you are not even sure what to call those who bear the void shards, reapers and executioners. You shove that part into time out so hard it bruises. Now's the time to fix things not go looking for forgiveness. The image of your dad looking far larger though the eyes of child's memory, his face less lined and eyes not as worried offers a moment to breathe and center yourself before picking up the thread of conversation.: "We don't have a lot of time, but the short story is that something like a different flavor of what happened to me is happening to four others."
Silence rings in your ears like a bell.
"Inari is one of them."
"But she's...
why?"
You meet the eyes of Listens to the Wind and his curious companion across the room. Truth be told you have theories, impressions born of dreams and glimpses of darkness, but that's not something to blurt out.
As Uriel did for for me so do I hope to do for others. Does that make me conceited? You certainly don't feel conceited, frazzled, flummoxed and some other less polite words that start with F. Otherwise hardly more room for feelings.
"I need her number."
To tell her to get off the street in the wake of what probably looks like a double homicide, you add, though only in the privacy of your own head. You still remember the Scarecrow, the hate and rage rushing though your veins with power. If all of that had happened on a crowded street you'd have killed it just as dead.
Thomas rattles it off from memory, voice half drowned by the sound of an already revving engine.
Of course he's know it, she's his sister. You try to imagine how you would have reacted if it had been Daniel, Mathew or Leech, then flinch away from the thought.
One, ring two... and then a familiar voice.
"Ah, Miss Carpenter. I'm guessing you obtained the number from Thomas," Lara Raith says, trying and not at all succeeding to sound unphased.
Taunt as a bow about to shoot. "Inari is safe, though unable to answer the phone at the moment."
"What happened?"
One can practically hear the gears turning in her head at the question. On the one hand you're a stranger without any particular right to know the state of a girl you'd never met. On the other hand you have been friendly to the White Court and her brother as well as Inari's works for you. Finally she answers, each word deliberate: "She is otherwise occupied paying back a betrayal, a family endeavor for an ill
done the family." Nothing of that rings false, but then you don't think Lara normally bothers with anything as crude as a lie, but far from the whole truth.
"I might be able to help, I want to help," you blurt out, or seem to at least. Though the emotion is genuine the way you harness it is anything but. "What's happening with Inari?"
A strained sigh can be heard on the other side. "Owing to recent events my younger sister intended to destroy this phone rather than face calls from her beau or business partner. I pointed out that she will most likely want it in the morning no matter how she feels right now. Needing to replace one's phone never improves a situation. So she dropped it on me and said, verbatim, 'you answer then'."
For just a second or two there you feel simple sympathy for Lara Raith, one older sister to another. Her next question puts an end to it as quickly as it had come:
"Speaking of the situation, what do you
know?"
It would be dramatic to say that the current White Queen by proxy is the last person you would rather be sharing the deeper mysteries of the world with, but of the people one could honestly imagine such a conversation with she's certainly down near the bottom. On the other hand she is the woman on the spot and seems to have things in hand, potential revenge fueled rampage asside.
What do you reply?
[] Offer to come to San Francisco to help
[] Share what insights you have
-[] Including the fact that you let the shards out
-[] Not including the fact that you let the shards out
[] Write in
OOC: A riddle for the ages, how do you stop a newly Exalted Abyssal from rampaging? The answer, if you are Lara Raith is 'you don't, you offer to help'. For anyone wondering how Lara got across the country so fast, Molly suspects she set up a Way connecting Chicago (or even just Castle Raith) and San Francisco because she knew Inari would be living there. I tried putting the speculation in the update proper but it wouldn't fit given Molly's present mindset. 
