[M] Stone and Steel [IC - kittydivine & cwlee]

[kittydivine]

Charlotte didn't like that it was dodging her questions. However, it was right. There wasn't any time to have a discussion on this. "How can I trust you'd stay in the city?" It was a fair question. She couldn't trust it at all. More footsteps in the distance made her tense. She was going regret doing this, but she reached in her shirt and pulled out a leather with a rectangular token.

"Take this," she said, offering it to the gargoyle. "If you get stuck again, break the token. It will transport you to a safe place. Also know that I can track you with it. If you take one step out of the city, I will hunt you down." Charlotte scowled. These tokens were expensive. She didn't have much choice, though. With one last look at the creature, she slipped back into the shadows.

[cwlee]

"I'm cursed to stay in this forsaken city," Dante answered. As the woman handed him a strange token, Dante stared blankly at it and gripped it with his enlarged hand. He nodded, understanding the promise he had made with her. He gazed at the tinier person one last time before he dove off the side of the building, vanishing into the night before Charlotte can track him. And by the time the second wave of first responders arrived, neither of the two could be found.

The following dawn, Dante had snuck himself into an abandoned shop where he had been tending his wounds all night with whatever gauss and bandages he could scavenge. By the first peek of sunlight, the gargoyle had shapeshifted back into human, the wounds appearing more prominent in this form. The silver lines had cut him deep, and it would take a professional practitioner to properly heal him, ones that were accustomed to healing... non-humans. Dante winced in pain as he had manually stitched his wounds together, bits of blood continuing to ooze through. However for now, it was better than before. Dante was finally able to relax, leaning back on a pile of rubble and trash, but while his body relaxed, his mind could not escape the thought of the woman, the mysterious woman who had saved him.

Dante reached into his pocket and dug out the token she had given him, inspecting it thoroughly. He had never seen tokens of such kind, even for a creature that had lived for countless years. He squinted in the attempt to read the engravings on it.

[kittydivine]

Charlotte needed to get another token. It wasn't a complete loss, however. Being able to keep an eye on the gargoyle was a benefit. She'd visit a broker tomorrow. It was late in the evening. Perhaps she should wait for Hierophant and ask them questions about what was going on.

She stepped into a condo building. This one was on the pricier side of the city. She walked up to the front desk and looked at the night doorman. He looked up at her expectantly. "What a night," she said, "too bad the moon wasn't shining." The doorman slid a key fob to her with a nod. Certain keywords would let others know why she was here. It was how several safehouses worked.

Charlotte headed to the elevators and pushed the up button. After getting inside the condo, she closed the curtains and checked the locks. She messaged a number and waited. Her next steps would have to be cautious.

[cwlee]

Dante inspected the token, squinting to try and read the engravings. However, he could not recognize any symbol or characters. For someone who had lived many, many lifetimes, he was stumped in simply recognizing anything familiar. The man knew countless languages and cultures, but this one, this token that he held, Dante had know idea what it was.

"It's not Latin... not Greek... not ancient Chinese... not Mayan... Sumerian? No, that wouldn't make sense..." Dante mumbled and grumbled to himself as he fidgeted with the token. The token itself appeared heavy as if it was made with some sort of metal but as he held it, it was practically weightless almost as if he could snap the token in half with ease. The woman's voice echoed in Dante's mind, letting him know about the uses of the token; were he to snap it, she would be able to find him immediately. Just how, Dante wondered. Just how would she be able to locate him?

"I wonder how-" Dante began to say when his thumb pressed down on the token a little too hard, cracking the token. Immediately, Dante's face lit up, blood being flushed from his face. "Oh my," he began to say as he lifted the token up to his face, seeing the fissure that divided the token into two. It hadn't been completely shattered, or maybe it was, and he was just using his two fingers to hold it together. Carefully, Dante put down the token in front of his feet and looked around the area before relaxing when nothing seemed to happen.

"A fluke," Dante said, chuckling lightly. "A humorous woman. I was more or less hoping to see her again." He sighed.

[kittydivine]

When Dante had cracked the token, it set off the spell within. In a matter of seconds he would be enveloped by smoke and teleported somewhere else. The location would be a place guarded and hidden from the human world. Oops.

Charlotte's phone rang. Answering it, she heard a familiar British voice. "Lottie? It seems your token brought me something and it's not you." Ruben's tone was both amused and bewildered. "Please come as soon as possible...sooner even."

Her eyes rolled heavily and she sighed. "Alright, I'll be there quickly. Don't agitate the creature." She gathered her things and made her way to Ruben's base of operations. The outside looked ordinary, a wholesale antique store, but further in and down was where the real transactions were done.

Dante would find himself in a big room, decorated in a renaissance style. Before him would be a tall pale man wearing round tinted glasses and dressed in well-made suit. The man's eyebrows nit together before pulling out a phone and calling someone. He didn't seem fearful of Dante. The room smelled of incense and spices. The marble floor displayed etchings similar to those on the token.

"Oh Lottie, what have you done?" The man said, sipping his wine. "What am I going to do with it?"

[cwlee]

Before Dante knew it, he was swallowed by smoke. Startled, he sprang to his feet, transforming into his stone form. He cursed loudly as his vision blurred and the ground vanished beneath him, sending him into a freefall. He attempted to fly but couldn't, and moments later, he crash landed in an unknown space.

Weakly, Dante lifted his head, followed by the rest of his body, to find himself face to face with a person in a fancy suit. He blinked a few times, ensuring he was truly seeing what was before him. Yes, someone was there. Shaking off his daze, Dante raised his voice at the stranger, "It?" The gargoyle snarled.

[kittydivine]

Ruben seemed unfazed by Dante's snarl. He sipped his wine and sat down by a table within an alcove. "She could have warned me." At the table was a stack of books with several opened. It seemed he might have been researching before being interrupted. He tapped his finger lightly on the table. "I need a cigarette." Setting down his glass, he pulled out a slim case and an ornate lighter. The cigarette he pulled out was all black.

The door on the other end opened. "I'm surprised, Ruben. You tend to have an irksome affect on others." It was Charlotte. She casually walked toward Ruben who gave her a grin. Her arms crossed as she turned to look at Dante. "I warned you about the token. Now I have shill out another couple hundred bucks for a new one."

[cwlee]

The gargoyle's eyes widened upon seeing a familiar face. "Y-You..." Dante began, his words trailing off as he realized that the hooded woman and this woman were one and the same. His gaze remained fixed on her as she entered the room, his body frozen like stone, as if her presence had turned him into stone like Medusa. "I-It was you..."

"I do apologize," Dante said, trying to explain himself. "I was simply inspecting the token you gifted me, but I had not realized it was such a fragile relic." He choked on his words, embarrassed by the turn of events. "I am in your debt regardless, Charlotte," he added, addressing her by the name given to him when they had met a few days ago, when Dante was human.

[kittydivine]

Charlotte narrowed her eyes at the gargoyle. Ruben's eyebrows raised as he glanced between the two. "It knows your name," he said. Charlotte observed the creature, wondering how it knew her name. Her mind went back to the man she helped.

"Dante?" She tilted her head. This seemed to amuse Ruben as he laughed. "You know its' name?" His laughter was quelled by a sharp look from her. "Sorry, Lottie, but this is absolutely comical." His body shook from his giggles. Charlotte rolled her eyes and looked back at Dante. Pieces began to fit together in her mind.

[cwlee]

The gargoyle nodded as he shrank in size, transforming into a human. "Yes," he answered her once he had fully shapeshifted, his eyes locking onto hers, completely disregarding the other person. He wore a tank top similar to the one when they first met, but this one was much more worn and torn in places. Beneath his clothes, multiple deep gashes ran across his body. There was no blood, but the wounds were clearly fresh and on the verge of infection.

Ever since his encounter with the mimics, he had done his best to ignore the pain that surged through his body, but now, standing before the woman who had saved him, all the pain from the previous night returned, engulfing him like flames. Dante fell weakly on one knee. Whether he had broken the token accidentally or not, it was evident that the mimics had inflicted a greater damage on him than realized.