Getting Ahead
22st of July 2006 A.D.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, be with us sinners now, the prayer runs through your mind in a flash of almost eerie clarity, the ringing in your ears faint and far away. "Harry, get the guns. We'll get Mathews" you bark as you dart towards the old man, Lydia on your heels.
"Fuego!"
Running towards the old man you already feel the scorching gust of magic at your back as the haunted decks are shrouded in a corona of flames not blue but gold and crimson as the heart of a forge.
"Stop that. We've rescued Cindy, and her pretty blue shoes"
The old man does not look up from his work, the dagger still descends, but then the arm that
should have been slashed spasms and twitches back almost as if filled with a life of its own and alive indeed as the Kemlerities have tried to make Matthews the living dead. By mingled lights silver and green you see his eyes widen in sudden horror, realization and then at last resolve. He throws the knife away sending it clattering to the floor.
As you pull him away he jerks forward almost pulling you off balance.
"Lydia hold him! We need to get him to..." you never get as far as to say 'Harry' as sudden blinding pain fills your world.
Ow.... my head, what the hell!
"What are you?" The absurdly calm question in the middle of the fight is almost more confusing then than the pain.
That is when you realize two things, first that the wet sticky stuff coming out of the side of your head is blood, secondly that you are surprisingly lucid for someone who has just been shot execution style and third that Katrina is better at this time nonsense to do more than slow others down, she can make herself faster.
You take 2 Wounds
To her credit Lydia does not shy away from the fight, or the fact that she is
wearing some of your blood, she pivots left and slams her foot into Katrina's stomach. You catch a glimpse of her jacket shifting,
growing like some cancerous thing studded with runecarved nails, but it does not seem to help as much as she might have hoped as she's sent reeling into one of the display cases.
Glass and model ship parts fly all around you as Matthews struggles to get to the knife he had just thrown away.
"Your worst nightmare!" you hiss the answer, unsure if it was your thought, Usum or someone else's, but even as your sword flies out in a burning arc to slay the fallen valkyrie you realize something is wrong... she's moving too fast, or are you moving too slow, it's hard to tell one from the other, but the weapon feels slow, clumsy in your hand.
It slides against the strange armor and does not pierce it.
Rising to her feet with uncanny grace, pistol still in hand "Many have said that girl, many have tried, all are dead and forgotten. You will join them." She does not scream or sneer, she sounds detached and below that chillingly almost... sad.
But as she looks beyond you recognition kindles in her narrowed gaze: "Gard...."
What she might have said to her once sister you to not know for in that moment you feel the silent thrum of Gard's ward pass over you, a knife that cuts apart the subtle skeins of magic. Katrina flinches back
"Must I do
everything?" The voice spews out from Matthews' lips it is not him. The old man heaves and commits bitter grey mist that starts to pull together into the shape of a cowled figure you had seen once before, the Corpsetaker.
She is as solid as you are not in ragged garb of ectoplasm and in her incarnation she had banished the power of Gard;s runes, but she had shown herself, outside of dead shell or mortal hostage. This is probably the best chance you'll to send the dark spirit to its rightful fate. On the other hand Katrina is the one who had managed to shoot you in the head.
What do you do?
[] Focus on Katrina
[] Focus on Capricorpus
[] Write in
OOC: Katrina had one more ace up her sleeve than Gard knew, whether it is new or the Monoc people just did not know about it you are not sure, but it is clear she cannot pull off 'temporal invisibility' easily much less constantly. Also you not know how slow works, each success she gets on Int+Occult (Difficulty 7) halves your damage dice. It is a Temporis power from Dark Ages. 
