Straight Shot
25st of July 2006 A.D.
Sam's Shooters, Chicago
Moniker aside Gentleman Johnny Marcone was not the sort of man to take his ease with with a sniffer of brandy and a cigar. He had learned early that both could do you in as surely as a bullet in the gut, if not quite as fast. He preferred the basketball court, the gym, or, as was the case this time, the range, the crack of riffles went a long way to dealing with any listening devices and he knew well that the woman carefully watching his performance was more comfortable around dealing with live weapons than physical exertion with no martial application.
"Fifty points, you are still leading the target too aggressively though, there is such a thing as
overcompensating you know." The woman who had been old when America was young said after his last shot, the faint smell of cordite still in the air.
"You don't say? I've never heard that from a woman before," John joked, one of the few people he could afford to joke about such things with.
"You need to talk to more women then," Gard shot back. It was not hard at all to read what was unspoken in her tone.
You need to talk to more people. She was of the opinion that John was a 'lord without a proper court', too much business too little mingling to put it in terms that were not older than Shakespeare's English.
"So the girl. Margret Carpenter, do you have any better of an idea what she is now that you searched around?" He asked as much to distract her as anything else.
"No and that should worry you," she replied, expression darkening. "With that much power... it cannot be something new, if it were everyone with eyes in their heads would have noticed it being born. Which just means she has to be something very old."
"So you need more money for old books?" Over the years John had learned that magic know-how could be as expensive as a a high priced lawyer or a drug habit, or maybe a high priced lawyer
with a drug habit, but he has also learned that it was much better to pay in advance than deal with the occult when it was already trying to kill you.
Gard shook her head, her braid flying off at the vehemence of the motion. "Old enough that if anything is written about what she is it's on clay tablets... or cave paintings, as remote from
me as it is from you. Yet she is still Margret Amanda Carpenter at her core. I've checked that she finished the school year and there is no indication she will not return next year for her Senior Year, she goes to Church on Sunday... This power did not cut the thread of her mundane life though it cut the thread of her fate. You wanted a threat assessment... Superman."
"Pardon?" John asked, not trying to hide his confusion. Gard was not usually the sort to use pop culture in her comparisons.
"Otherwise ordinary human teenager who has been granted powers which are near divine in scope and authority. Nathan said Superman would be the most appropriate current cultural context only and I quote 'ignore the all-American apple pie bullshit'."
John thought about that for a moment, really thought about it. He had never really been into superhero comics as a kid, at most he had read some Archie Comics, but someone who could jump a skyscraper, stop a speeding train, shoot lasers out of their eyes and all the rest... someone like that as a teenager with a taste for heroics... "Fuck."
"There is a reason why the scheming old king always gives the demigod seemingly impossible tasks far away," Gard snorted. "Now that I have that out of the way, some more specifics, she has authority over a significant class of knowledge spirit, authority that she calls on often, which means she is either a fool, which should not be discounted but cannot be the first assumption, or the price is something she does not mind paying. Given her association with a true servant of the White God most forms of sacrificial magic can be excluded, but you remember what I told you about the internet a few years ago?"
"I believe you called it 'a vast cauldron of human insight swirling with the hopes and nightmares of mankind'," John replied after a moment.
"Indeed," Gard leaned back against the wall as she continued. "Well if there is something about her power that allows her to bridge the gap between stone, glass and metal and a certain ethereal spirits that would give her insights related to both. Assume Miss Carpenter can look through any camera she wants to and if you want to keep information out of her hands use paper."
"So treat her like she is Homeland Security?" John could already feel a headache coming on, but he reminded himself, it was not all doom and gloom. Unlike Dresden Margret Carpenter had not shown herself to be opposed to working with him, he might yet get Homeland Security on his side.
He returned his attention to the target, more careful of leading it. He would not make the mistakes of those old kings.
OOC: This is not a full report since Gard would have told him the basics of how Molly fights and other obvious things already. 
