Karen and Melanie greet the dawn
It was just passed 3am. Karen helped the semi conscious Melanie to bed in their hotel room. She passed out almost instantly, having have an extremely draining day. Karen herself was left to speculate quietly to her self and check upon her attunements for a few hours. She knew there is no way that she would be able to wake Mel at least until 9 or 10, the poor dear needed rest like nothing else right now.
The few brief hours before the dawn passed in contemplation, and finally assurity that all the people she was in contact with were still safe... Save Raphael. Karen could not sense anything about Raphael. She knew only one thing and through that had still got reason to hope: Raphael still lived. For whatever reason, Her/His kidnapper seemed to desire that Raphael remain in one piece.
Karen began to lay her plans for the day. There were several leads she could follow, and she began to get them organized in her own mind, ready for the morning light.
Slowly the brightening sky heralded a tingling wash of golden sound, as dawn began to break gently across the eastern sky. A flux of essence filled the angel, bringing the new day's energy to her. All felt well, as though finally all was as it should be. And of course, this was when something went wrong.
The sound grew, and amplified louder and louder, until the very firmament itself, the very framework of reality, shook and trembled at the celestial vibration. Yet the mundane world stayed as always serene and still.
Like static whining between stations, like feedback drowning out all music, like the feeling in your feet as a train approaches a station, it rushed towards her, building to crescendo. The positive force was tremendous and almost deafening.
When it hit, it was too loud to make out specifics. Perhaps this effect was even by design. It was just so intense. Nevertheless, Karen recognizes a signature within it. Not since Sodom and Gomorrah, or later, and on a smaller scale, the Monster Slaughter in the 5-600s had such an effect been felt. It was the mark of tremendous celestial energy focused entirely upon one corporeal place, for the purpose of utter destruction. Karen recognizes the signature of her previous superior. It was the manifest wrath of Uriel, ascendant archangel of Purity and the Dawn.
That the mundane world did not even feel different because of it seems somehow wrong. Melanie did not even stir in her sleep, even though her senses were more than acute enough to hear a noise of that magnitude.
The event came, not with the instantaneous speed of the Symphony, but delayed, keyed in and locked into the sound of the sun rising over the earth. It was possible, nay, probable, that this was Uriel's intent... Obscure the sound with the flux of Dawn... only an Angel, able to feel the attunement of the morning would even hear the noise after it had been so obscured.
Karen's first reaction was to try and attune her senses to the sound, to the feeling, to the signature - to anything that would give her some clue about where the wrath of Uriel was directed.
She then glanced over at Melanie to make sure she was still sleeping quietly, moving quickly over to turn the TV onto the world news channel. With this going quietly in the background she hesitated, wanting to try to contact Uriel to ask about what happened, yet knowing that because of her previous
failures and her resultant dissonance, Uriel's reaction was likely to be bad (not to mention that quietly tapping on the shoulder of someone who has most likely just got angry enough to destroy a part of creation is not the smartest of moves). Leaving that thought for the moment, Karen quickly raked her memory, trying to remember if there were any other of Uriel's angels (or those that used to be) that she had any chance of contacting now.
Karen turned on the news, and heard and saw the events unfolding there.
The only names that came to mind were Remiel, the angel of Vengeance, a Malakim who was working for Gabriel the last she heard about it, and Raguel, a Mercurian now in the service of Novalis, who was somewhere in the mid west at the moment. Remiel was notoriously hard to reach, but Karen could probably leave a note with a police department in Washington that he might get, and Raguel had a phone number she could find without too much effort.
Karen calls up Jason, and was not overly surprised to find him answer the phone before it really rang.
(to follow the conversation, go back here)
After talking to him, Karen said good-bye and hung up the phone, then connected it to her laptop. A few moments later, she was in the police network.
A bit of reverse phone book referencing yielded the address of Nathaniel Sevinoff, Russian orthodox priest, and one Denis Sheil, laboratory technician and science student at the university of Massachusetts.
Further work on both these people and their homes yielded the following information;
There was one record of a disturbance at Nathaniel�s house on the Saturday night of the Silence, about an hour and a half after the Silence occurred. A neighbour complained about loud noises in the house, and when the police went on the scene, there were no disturbances evident. The police spoke with the owner of the house, Nathaniel himself, and nothing seemed awry. The name of the neighbors filing the report is Mr. Harry Swift, and their address / phone number was given.
Denis Sheil was listed as having three traffic offenses for speeding, one under the influence of alcohol, but nothing else.
Lastly Karen tried to have a look at the global picture, regarding the power outage. The police database was nation wide, so she had a look at that first. It appeared that the power departments had not been handling all their calls particularly well, as several calls have been made across the eastern seaboard complaining to the police about some kind of trouble with the power companies. Most of the complaints had been of a simple nature (we thought they were rude/ they claimed to have no knowledge of the problem/ received differing responses from different people) and so on. The police had neither the time nor resources to address these complains, nor are they in fact within police jurisdiction, but that people were annoyed enough to call the police and that it had gone on record, said something.
As Karen pondered over her options, she received another point of essence from the powerlines, and heard the low sounds of Melanie stirring, close to wakefulness.
Karen did one final search of the database, trying to see what the preliminary police reports on the incidents that were on the news show. She got an immediate block out informing her that all files regarding this morning's events in LA were now belonging to the FBI and as such, only FBI clearances allow access. Even then, the level of security clearance necessary to get at the information was remarkable...
Deciding to leave this for the minute, Karen disconnected the phone from her laptop and waited for the dial tone.
Nathaniel's phone was disconnected or engaged. Leaving that for the moment also, she tried Denis'.
"... Hello?" said a tired voice on the other end of the line.
Karen asked for Denis Sheil.
�Speaking... who is this? *yawn*"
Karen sighed a little in relief, but quickly covered this, then spoke in a business-like voice "Forgive the intrusion, Mr. Sheil, at such an early hour of the morning. My name is DI Karen McKinnon, and I'd like to ask you a couple of questions, if you don't mind?"
Silence from the other end of the line, then, "Er... police?" followed by a more focused, "oh, um, please, go on..."
Melanie rolled over into a sunbeam, and blinked awake slowly, yawning and stretching in the early morning light to the sound of Karen's hushed voice on the phone. With a gentle half smile and wave, she stood and headed for the bathroom, grabbing clothes and towel on the way. A few moments later and the sounds of a shower started up.
Karen smiled warmly as Melanie wandered past, watching her for a moment to see if she looked like she had recovered from last night's ordeal, and then returned the wave, again focusing on the phone conversation.
"I've recently been involved in investigations in NYC and your name has arisen, amongst others, in relation to these investigations. I would like to know if you've experienced or noticed anything unusual or out of the ordinary over the past few days?"
"Extra ordinary? er no, no, er... Who did you say you were again? How did my name come up exactly? What is this all about?" Karen could hear his nervousness on the other end of the phone.
Karen chuckled and then puts on her best warm friendly voice and said "Mr. Sheil, I should perhaps stress that you've done nothing wrong here. I'm simply seeking information that might be relevant to a case I�m working on. And Karen is the name... Karen M'cKinnon."
Karen paused before continuing, as if considering her words. "As for what this is all about... it's a little complicated, so perhaps it would be better if we were to meet in person and discuss it? Would you have time later in the day?"
Not entirely reassured, Denis answered with some hesitation. "I, er, that is, I guess that would be all right. I am free this afternoon between 2 and 4... I could meet you for lunch if you want... Ms M'cKinnon. Would that be OK?"
Karen agreed to this and asked Denis to name a place. Then, after giving him her mobile number and saying good-byes, (after all, there's little she could say right now that would reassure him) she hung up and started to make the next call to book a flight.
As it turned out there was a flight in one and one half hours and one again in the evening.
Melanie came out of the shower looking decidedly refreshed, and started to make coffee.
While waiting on hold with the airline Karen called out to Melanie "Sorry I�d not made you a cup yet... I got caught up with these calls. Speaking of which, I got in contact with Denis Shiel and have arranged to meet with him this afternoon. You up for another flight?"
With a gentle sigh she answered, "Yes, that will be fine." and she rapidly got dressed. In short order she had gathered all of their things together, and placed them by the door.
Karen chuckled "Hey, think of it this way, at least you get a few hours more to rest while flying!" Karen was about to go on, when she is suddenly taken off hold.
Abruptly, Melanie gave Karen a peculiar look.
Karen looked puzzled at the peculiar look, but couldn't really do anything about it given that she was on the phone.
Karen booked seats on the early flight, then hung up. Melanie spent a few minutes on the phone to Washington DC, then stood, straightening her shoulders and came to Karen's side.
"Let me have a look at that hand." She said, then unwrapped the hasty bandage of last night. The exposed wounds were not deep, but seemed to have failed in coagulating, and still seep blood. There were four main cuts, more like scratches, but they still hurt abominably, even under Melanie�s gentle ministrations. Clucking worriedly, Melanie re-did the bandaging, and said, "We really had better let Jason or a doctor look at that at some point. If you end up discorperating because of blood loss, I would never forgive myself. That really should have healed by now, shouldn't it have?"
Karen, still a little puzzled over the strange look nodded as Melanie spoke. "Is everything OK with you? You kinda gave me a weird look while I was on the phone before."
Melanie frowned again. "I'm fine... but you..." She shrugged, obviously looking for words and not finding them. "I don't know." She said finally, then shrugged again, immediately paying closer attention to the wound, and forestalling any further inquires.
Karen shrugged also, as Melanie looked at her hand "I'd almost forgotten about that actually, although now that you remind me, it is still rather painful." She frowned, looking at the cuts "That really doesn't look good. And yes it should have healed by now...at the least it should have coagulated shortly after the fight last night." Her expression became a little worried, although she refrained from worrying Melanie further by voicing her thoughts. "Jason will know what's wrong...but that will have to wait until tonight at least."
Then, done, she smiled crookedly at Karen. "Let's go, boss."
On the way to the airport Karen put in a quick phone call to Jason.
"Hi Jason, this is Karen...Just a quick call to ask where you're going to be this evening. I think I have a little problem, because the cuts I got last night haven't even started to heal. They're still bleeding, and I think you'd better take a look at them fairly soon. I'm going to be away from the city all day I�m afraid, but should be back by about 7 tonight."
Jason replied. "I'll take a look at it, I plan to be in the city until dawn unless something weird happens... and what is the chance of that?" He said with a chuckle.
They arrived at the airport, cutting the conversation short, and Karen said "Look...I�ve got to go now... we're at the airport. I'll call you when we get back tonight"