bitten_notshy | De Ulloa-Priest Residence, London, Thursday Evening (Reply)

D.I. Cooper	The noise of the door being forcibly opened came from the front of the house, and -- almost before anyone could move -- the hall and parlor filled with uniformed policemen. One detective, obviously the highest-ranking among them, pursed his lips in obvious distaste before speaking. "Well," he said. "This looks like a cozy little gathering."
John Mitchell	Mitchell had not been a big fan of the police recently. He had a hunch that wasn't going to change with these lads. He'd startled for a second, and then the guy had to try and get all John Wayne about it. "Yeah," he said, and barely repressed a so why don't you piss off that was still painfully visible on his face. "Hope you brought your invitation. A warrant'll do."
D.I. Pyle	A second detective looked at Mitchell as if he were something scraped off the bottom of a shoe, than extended his look to encompass everyone in the room. "One phone call and we could just take the lot of you in," he warned, then turned toward David and Sebastien. "But the warrant is for Sebastien de Ulloa, alias David Bull, for the vampiric murders of Grant Nelson and Alexander Dabree. Please come quietly." But when he took a step, it was clear they were there for David, not for Sebastien.
Karla	"On what grounds will you be doing so, exactly?" Karla asked, trading the detective look for snotty look. "Last time I checked, chatting in a private residence was hardly illegal." "And I think we need to see that warrant, too," she added--though she faltered slightly when he turned to David, instead of Sebastian.
Jack Priest	//I don't understand why they're here//, Jack thought at Emma a bit frantically, while he waited for the officer to stop sneering and answer Karla. //We've done nothing wrong. And* they think David is Sebastien...?//*
Emma Grace Frost	Emma's fingers twitched, slightly, and those who knew what to look for would see the faint pink haze, and the blankness in her eyes which the police could easily interpret as fear. <<We were sold out,>> she informed the group as she unrepentantly - but delicately, they'd never feel a thing - rooted through the minds of the officers. <<Miss Chouchou has a lot to answer for.>>
Kate Gregson	Kate's face fell as she heard Emma in her mind. By the time her eyes darted to the other girl, though, she was already looking distinctly pissed off. //That bitch!// There was a good chunk of personal indignation thrown in there, along with worry for all of them as a group.
D.I. Cooper	Oblivious to the psychic currents in the room, one detective continued doing his best to stare Karla down while the other came closer to David. "Gathering's no crime," he agreed, as he passed over a crisp sheet of paper for her inspection. "Abetting a fugitive, being an accessory after the fact, interfering with an arrest -- those all sound like likely charges. Does anyone else have any questions?"
Karla	"Just one," Karla said, with a tight little smile. "How many generations back were your parents rela--" [Can I get someone to shut her up please?]
Kate Gregson	Yeeeeah, what with all the things the detective had just listed off, Kate figured it was time to step in before they all got arrested. "Karla!" she hissed. The 'for the love of God or whatever other force you might worship, SHUT UP' was left unsaid but heavily implied.
John Mitchell	Kate's outcry was joined by an equally alarmed look from Mitchell. (He'd prefer not having to eat any more cops, thank you.) Though it wasn't like he wasn't sympathetic. "No one's abetting anyone," he said, eyes flicking back towards the officer. "Who's saying they were vampiric?"
Emma Grace Frost	"Because if they admit someone human could do something that violent, well, things could get messy," Emma drawled, even as her fingers twitched again. Assholes in uniforms had always made her twitchy, but the obvious abuse of power was starting to make her internally hyperventilate and want to lash out. "Evidence is for those that are good at their jobs." Oh yes, that was Emma's 'you are a pathetic little amoeba' smirk. "Must be nice to blindly follow orders."
D.I. Cooper	"Not loads better if they were just hacked up with a knife, is it?" the shorter detective snapped, and he reached to seize the warrant back before he turned to his colleague. "Pyle, we're wasting our time here. Get the cuffs on de Ulloa. We'll worry about the rude children later." Pyle, nodding, read off the necessary rights in a mumble and slipped the metal around David's slender wrists. David's beatific smile through the process was equally Christ-like and eerie; Sebastien, knowing the look of his child with an idea he found exceptionally clever, mistrusted it.
D.I. Pyle	D.I. Pyle took hold of the chains between David's wrists. Sebastien thought that only he saw the quick, sideways glance at the window, the daylight glowing behind the curtain. They would put him to the test; part of the crime was vampirism, and the test was the sentence as well. Wampyr only died by burning. A walk outside with no protection ... it was legal. But it was murder, if one could murder something already dead. If the officer knew that, his polite tone gave no hint. "Are you ready, sir?"
David	David nodded solemnly and let the patrolmen take his elbows and shuffle him towards the door. At the very last second, he turned toward Sebastien and winked.
Karla	We're not really going to let him do this, are we? Karla's psychic thread darted through the minds of everyone in the room, concern overcoming politeness. Jack, don't the vampires in your world--?! Didn't they burn?! Karla had just witnessed a dozen people die under horrible circumstances while she stood by and watched on the teevee. Including one person she'd called friend. She didn't think she could handle seeing someone else die, too.
Jack Priest	Jack's telepathic voice was almost giddy with horror. //Burn//, he finished grimly. //They could take Sebastien too, and God knows what they'd do to Mitchell. Give me a minute, there has to be a way --// Damned if he saw it, as the detective solemnly pulled the door open and let the first rays of afternoon sun into the room.
Emma Grace Frost	<< Say the word, and none of them remember this at all, >> Emma promised, readying her powers. << No one in a three block radius will recall the cops ever coming to the door, and for their part, they'll be found getting drunk in some disreputable tavern. >> It wouldn't fix things, but it would give them some time. << Or best yet, I make them burn. >> Emma's smile was bright and vicious. << Or at least think they're burning for the next thousand years. >> Again, not a long-term solution, but she itched to make them hurt.
John Mitchell	Burning up in the sun. If Mitchell had been a vampire of a different breed, the notion would have struck him as bone-deep horrifying; now it was at least in part a sort of... distant thing, because it wouldn't touch him. It didn't keep the frown off his face. It certainly didn't keep it from deepening when he heard Emma's voice rattling around his head, though now it was snapping off into a different direction. He didn't know, exactly, how to deal with telepaths. But he was going to think very hard, here. What, do you want* these people knowing something else might be going on? They're fucking paranoid--* He was never quite good at that verbal censorship thing around the students. --we don't need anyone coming looking* and thrusting this whole thing into fucking chaos.* Serious to fuck, he did not need any more damaged cops. This month, this year, this fucking lifetime.
Emma Grace Frost	<< You can't tell me the world wouldn't be a better place without a few less boot-strapping thugs around, >> Emma snapped. << They get away with this today, who's next when they have another inconvenient truth? >>
John Mitchell	Do these people look easily intimidated to you? It starts with a couple of 'boot-strapping thugs', and it ends in half the people on your neck. On everyone's necks if they even look strange. If someone doesn't try using you instead, Mitchell snapped back, anger rising internally even as he looked back at the door. He really would have loved making a go for it, too.
Emma Grace Frost	<< Don't lecture me about being used! >> she bit out. << You have no idea what can happen to telepaths. None. >> Not that she could expect him - or any of them, really - to understand. It's not like he was Kerrigan. << I don't need to 'intimidate' them when I can rip their minds apart with a flick of my fingers. We can stop this! >> Emma didn't even particularly care about David, but he mattered to Sebastien, who mattered to Jack. Giving a shit sucked.
Kate Gregson	And so did having to listen to bickering on a shared telepathic thread. Kate had been holding back on participating, partly because thinking at people for more than a few words at a time gave her headaches, and partly because she hadn't had anything to contribute, choosing to listen in and anxiously look at the door instead. But this was too much. //NO//, came her voice with as much force as she could muster. //Both of you, shut up! Emma, you are not fucking ripping anyone's mind apart. I don't care if they're bad people, you are not doing it.// Even the thought managed to make her stomach churn more than anything else about this.
Karla	Karla was watching Emma with concern; she knew where this was coming from, even if no one else but Jack did. She didn't agree with what Emma was proposing--exactly--but she liked the alternative even less. So then we sit here and watch an innocent male turn to ashes, she sent, unwilling to stop it, while the real murderer goes free. How convenient for the rich and powerful that there was a scapegoat around to take the fall. And with every moment that passed, David walked closer to the sun. I--I can't watch this, she announced. She couldn't bear to stand witness one more time. And if she stayed out here, she'd do something; she knew it.
John Mitchell	Somehow, it was Karla's rant that jarred Mitchell out of his own inclination to do something. He took a step back. Sometimes that's all we've got, he thought. When the alternative's worse.
Emma Grace Frost	"And here I thought this was a civilized nation and people were innocent until proven guilty," Emma spit out, standing up. "I'm not even particularly fond of the gentleman in question, but generally one arrests a suspect pending a trial instead of murdering them outright." She offered her hand to Karla even as she pulled herself up to her full height and gave the officers a truly scathing look, making it utterly clear that they were less than mud. "And I'm not a 'rude child,' darlings, I'm a bitch. It's in the breeding, not that it is a concept you're familiar with." You know, what with their parents being related and all. "Come along, darling," she murmured to Karla. "Let's go in the kitchen. I'll not sanction their murder, and I think everyone is going to need some of your tea." A slight incline of her head to the condemned, and Emma left the room. She would not give these thugs the satisfaction of knowing she'd watched David burn.
Sebastien	If Sebastien had been paying the slightest attention to anything except the sun creeping in the door and the blond being lead towards it, he would have been planning a lecture for Jack about his choice of female companionship. Except Kate. She at least seemed to have something approaching an ounce of sense. As it was, it was time to bear witness. While he was far from telepathic, he could tell from posture alone that David was viewing this as some kind of noble sacrifice instead of the pointless horror it was. Epaphras Bull: A liar to the end, even to himself. He turned away as the sun hit David full-on. There were things no one needed to see more than once, and his memory was more than vivid enough on this point. It was some comfort that David didn't scream. It was more of one that the detective did.
Kate Gregson	Kate was staring, transfixed, eyes wide. She knew she shouldn't have been. She knew she should've gone to the kitchen, or anywhere, or at least turned away but somehow she couldn't. there was a sick sort of fascination that came with this completely absurd-feeling situation. Except that right as the sun really hit David, she remembered what Bod had told her about Silent Hill, and how he'd seen a girl light herself on fire, and how he'd still been seeing it months later. He wouldn't have wanted that for her, too. She turned away quickly, bowing her head and covering her eyes. It was too late, though: the image was already in her head, and the detective's scream was sticking to memory too. So much for that ounce of sense.
John Mitchell	The moment David's ashes dissipated, Mitchell shut his eyes. Not to block out the sight - it was by far too late for that - but because of... something. Some sense of finality. He was gone, he was dead, another sacrifice for the common good. They tended to stack, didn't they? Two beats later he was standing by Kate's side, trying to give her shoulder a brotherly squeeze.
Jack Priest	Jack hadn't been able to look away either. The part of him that always had to know got him in trouble again. He regretted it almost instantly. He closed his eyes, and found David burned still behind his eyelids. When he moved to wrap an arm around Sebastien, it was for his own comfort as much as his guardian's. He stayed there, willing himself to say something or check on Karla and Emma or make sure the police were all leaving or -- anything, really, except this stillness. The stillness was all he could manage.
Kate Gregson	Yeah, that was going around. There was no way Mitchell was getting away with just a shoulder squeeze, either, not when Kate had immediately turned towards him to reach for a hug or any kind of comfort she could manage to get. Things had gone very wrong very fast.
John Mitchell	Mitchell... was caught by surprise for a brief second. Then he wrapped his arms around Kate, giving her a little squeeze for comfort. His eyes were trained on the empty space that had once been David the whole time, but he doubted that mattered to her.