Mercy and ?

[coyote_walking]

Stupid white belts.

Mercy had showered and changed, but she was still limping a bit as she left the dojo. And she was going to have a nice bruise on the side of her face. Oh well, she sure couldn't say she hadn't gotten a good workout dodging the guy's wild kicks and punches. She could have done without her sensei's hidden laughter as she was leaving, though she'd known it was because he understood all too well what she'd been through.

She looked up at the hill she usually ran up to get back to her garage where her car was parked. With a sigh she thought maybe walking this one time wouldn't be such a bad thing.

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[marshmallowsaint]

Hael ran his fingers through his black hair, certain everyone was gone now, and he was stuck without a lead. He'd been looking for too long at this point; maybe it was time to let it go, and find someone else. It just felt dirty, letting scumbags like this one walk.

Someone else emerged from the dojo, and he hoped, briefly, she wouldn't know anything either. He should probably just walk away from this hunt.

"Excuse me," he said, smiling a little, trying to appear harmless. Hael knew full well what approaching a woman as a man could seem like, no matter what the intention. " I'm looking for someone who used to go to this dojo. May I show you a photo?"

His accent was strange, difficult to place, and he smelled... different. Earthy and... heated, like soil rich from a volcanic eruption.

[coyote_walking]

Mercy looked at him cautiously. His smell wasn't anything she expected, but it made her think he might be fae - and one should always be cautious around the fae. She wouldn't be thanking this one.

She knew everyone except her sensei had left the building and he wasn't likely to hear her if she yelled. Well, she'd just have to be fast if she needed to run.

"Sure." She smiled at him, friendly, but not completely open. "I'd be glad to look at a picture."

[marshmallowsaint]

He unfolded a piece of paper from his hands, and the picture was clear despite the fold lines, from being put in and taken out of his pocket so many times.  The man on the picture was familiar; someone who has signed up for classes at the dojo, been charming enough but talked over Mercy and any other woman who had tried to participate in conversations before or after class.  He'd dropped off the face of the earth a few months ago for two weeks and then come back, with a little more swagger that made women a little more uncomfortable, but he hadn't turned up this week.  

For his part, Hael stood back as she examined the picture, giving her plenty of room.  Respectful, but definitely there, giving her time.  

[coyote_walking]

Mercy looked over the picture. She knew the man, the sour smell of him covered up with expensive cologne. He didn't have much use for woman and preferred to hang out the man she knew really disliked woman, the one she always tried to avoid sparring with.

She handed the picture back. "Friend of his?"

Her face was carefully blank.

[marshmallowsaint]

"No," Hael replied simply. "But I need to find him, and my trail is starting to run cold." He leaned forward to take the picture, leaving the space between them. For a moment, he was quiet, deciding. "He's left some bad blood," he ventured. "And it's my job to settle up."

He had no idea how fey that sounded. Hael knew very little of the fey, and he left them well alone, as they did him. His family had history with them, but since Poland, that had been largely severed.

[coyote_walking]

Bad blood. Mercy nodded. "He hasn't been here this week, but I know him. He's bad news. Especially if you're female, I'd guess."

She nodded toward the dojo. "He studies here. Disappeared a couple months back for a few weeks and I have to say I was more than a little disappointed that he showed up again. There's just... something about him that, well, that just feels wrong."

[marshmallowsaint]

"Do you know if anyone would be able to get me a home address, or something like that?" Hael asked.  If this woman understood on instinct alone that this guy was seriously bad news, then he needed something more than a study place.  "I know that's a lot to ask.  And obviously I don't have any official capacity like the police to ask.  I just... want to settle this soon."  

He wanted to find him before the bastard got bolder.

"I can promise you nothing will blow back here," he added.

[coyote_walking]

She shook her head. "I'm not worried about that." She could handle any blow back. Or the wolves could, if it came to that.

"Sensei would probably have his address. Not sure if he'd give it to you, not without a pretty good reason."

Mercy raised an eyebrow at him. "If I bring you in to talk to him, do you have a good story ready?"

[marshmallowsaint]

Hael looked uncertain for a moment, and he scratched the back of his head for a moment, clearly thinking, unsure.  

"Is the fact that I'm very worried he's... escalating his aggressiveness against women a sufficient sort of reason?" 

He didn't like giving this much detail. Even if it was almost no detail at all, if the question of how he knew about things like this arose... no one believed stories like his.  Sometimes, in the normal times, neither did he.

[coyote_walking]

Her eyebrows went even higher. "I'd say so, yes. Come on in and I'll introduce you to Sensei." She started back into the building.

She couldn't guarantee that Sensei would give this guy an address, but she was pretty sure he would.

[marshmallowsaint]

He nodded, and folded the picture, even though he'd just be opening it back up again in a moment. He didn't like looking at the face, and that was probably noticeable to anyone who would notice that sort of thing. He tried to not remember the faces too clearly, not that it ever worked.

"Thank you," he said, following her into the building at a respectable distance.

[coyote_walking]

Mercy led him into the building and to Sensei's office where she explained who the man was looking for and why he wanted him. As she'd expected, after a few pointed questions, Sensei had written the man's address onto a piece of paper and handed it over.

She thanked him, bowed again, and then led the way back out to the parking lot. "Okay then? Anything else I can help you with?"

[marshmallowsaint]

"I think I have what I need," Hael said. "I really appreciate it. I hope I'm wrong."

He folded his paper, written with the address, and gave her a smile, shy but illuminated slightly by his honest gratefulness that she had helped; no one else had wanted to.

He got into his car, and was gone; driving off presumably in the direction of the man's house.

It was a few hours, but word spread quickly in a small town; someone had called an ambulance, and there was a woman from a couple towns over in the local hospital, being treated for all sorts of things. She'd come from the address Mercy had helped the stranger get; and it was only half an hour later when she saw the car that definitely belonged to Hael drive by, heading for the wilderness. At a glance, he looked alone, but there was a shoe in the back window; a shoe, attached to a leg.

[coyote_walking]

Oh no, that was not happening.

Mercy was in her car and following him at a safe distance until he reached his destination. She had her guns wit her, but planned to try and handle this without them. If she needed to, she'd shift and follow him the rest of the way in that form.

[marshmallowsaint]

Hael parked the car in a spot that was quite well out of the way. He got out, and opened the back door, and the man that he'd been looking for got out on wobbly feet and looked like he might bolt.

"Don't make this worse," Hael said, and the man looked afraid, and more than a little cowed. Hael started to walk; he wanted to be far away. He definitely didn't want to be interrupted.

[coyote_walking]

Well, too bad for Hael. Mercy was definitely going to interrupt. She stopped a ways back, then hoofed it quietly up the rise just in time to hear him tell the man not to make it worse.

"What's going on here?"

[marshmallowsaint]

Hael took a breath, and sighed it out. He pointed to the man with an expression that clearly said 'stay right the fuck there', and despite how boisterous and overconfident the man had seemed every other time Mercy had met him, Hael had completely cowed him.

"I collect debts," Hael explained, approaching her, but giving her distance, as he had before. "They're just not normal debts, and the payments aren't in money-- or flesh," he said, quickly, so it was clear he wasn't there to break any legs. "What you need to know is that he will never hurt another woman again, and the women he's hurt, will be healed."

[coyote_walking]

"Okay," Mercy said slowly. "And at the risk of getting in even further over my head... Exactly how do you collect these debts - and what are you collecting?"

She sighed and let her hands fall to her sides, palms up, but ready to pull her gun if she needed to. "I think you can understand that I helped you find this man and if you're about to do something dreadful, I'm going to feel responsible. I'm glad the woman is going to be healed, but you know, we do have a justice system here. So, unless this is some sort of fae thing or something like that - in which case I will graciously back out - I need some more information."

"Oh... and I can tell if you're lying." Which... was pretty close to a lie, but not exactly. Odds were pretty good that she wouldn't be able to tell with this already strange-smelling man, but she did have the ability, if she knew him well enough to use it well.

[marshmallowsaint]

"Good, because lying tastes bad, so it saves me the try," Hael replied, shrugging. "I can appreciate that you helped me find him, and that there is a justice system in place that would attempt to address his wrongdoings. But I think you are more than smart enough to know I'm right when I say the likelihood he does more than sit in prison a little while is low, and that's not nearly the damage he has done. I do not know what you believe, personally. But in my world, there are ways to stain your soul, and when a soul is dark enough, it is better to take it and use the boon to heal those hurt by it, than it is to let it continue stain the world around it."

He didn't want to say that much else. Talking about God and the Devil was... a little intense for some people.

"If you really want to know, I will tell you, but I do not know if you will believe me, and what is happening here, will happen."

[coyote_walking]

She listened carefully to what he had to say, and honestly, part of her just wanted to nod and turn away, but unfortunately her conscience wouldn't allow that.

"You might just be surprised at what I believe," Mercy said. "But if you're talking about taking someone's soul, then I damn well want to hear about it."

[marshmallowsaint]

He looked a little sorry, for some reason; the man had not moved from where Hael had left him, as if fixed in place.

"I take dark souls for the Devil," he said. "And in return, the Devil gives me boons I can use however I want. It's not fair that every soul can be redeemed at the last second by a prayer; some souls have done too much damage. So I find them, and I give them to the Devil, and I use the boons to help fix the damage, when the damage can be fixed. Once a soul has been marked, I can choose to take it whenever I like. And I'm not waiting on him. The longer I wait on him, the worse the damage he's done, and the harder it is to repair."

[coyote_walking]

Mercy took a step back and her hand went to the lamb necklace around her throat. "You work for the Devil," she said, looking pale.

She took another step back and began praying. The Lord's Prayer was the only thing that came to her right at the moment so that was what she began with.

[marshmallowsaint]

"Work for is really, really not the right word," he replied, and shook his head as she started to pray. He wasn't the Devil; he wasn't even a demon. His own soul had seen Hell only very briefly, and never would again; it was the nice benefit of having the Devil be head over heels in love with you, never having to worry about true damnation.

"Listen," he said, interrupting her prayer. "I do not know what you meant by fae shit, earlier, because what ties with faeries my family had ended at least a hundred years before I was born, and I didn't even know about until about ten years ago, which is not a long time, for me. So if that is an easy way for you to excuse to yourself what is happening here, then pretend the Devil is another faerie, and tell yourself that's why you can walk away."

[coyote_walking]

"If you think I don't know the difference between the fae and the Devil, you're nuts," Mercy said. "Not that I buy into the whole sweetness and light thing the fae who are out try to pull. Some of them are still damn dangerous and would love to go back to children as their main meal if they weren't afraid of the Grey Lords."

She rubbed at the lamb on her necklace, praying in her head for guidance, asking God to tell her what she should do. "But they are not the devil. They're not even demons. I've dealt with one of those and I still have the nightmares."

And the scars.

[marshmallowsaint]

"Then you know there is not a lot of room to interfere here," Hael replied. "I have no work with demons and I am frankly not the least bit interested. I am not one, and I have met very few. The Devil is a different creature from those. But none of that really matters, unless you think you have some room to be part of this. Or at least, if you are curious, just tell me, and you can watch; it is not very scary, not usually, and I do not think he is going to come to collect from me today, so you won't even have to meet the Devil."

[coyote_walking]

"I'm not going anywhere," she said firmly, even though inside she was more on the terrified side. So far, the quiet voice that she associated with God hadn't told her to run - hadn't told her to stop him either.

So, she'd stay. And if she had to try and stop him, well, she'd do her damndest.

[dza_devlesa]

He gave a half-smile and shook his head, and then turned, walking back towards the man, who was standing exactly where Hael had left him.

"Alright then," he said, looking back at her again. "But like I said; once it starts, it doesn't stop."

He didn't wait for her to make up her mind last second. He touched the man's face, and the man went to his knees in front of Hael with a strangled sob. Hael stepped away, not touching him, but there was a strange sort of humming in the air; a duplicity had come around him, settled into his skin, and when the man raised his head, compelled to meet Hael's eyes, it only intensified. Hael gave a slight sound; almost like pain, but not quite, and his hands balled into fists for a moment as the man on his knees gave a bone-deep moan of pain that lasted for only a moment before both of them visibly relaxed.

Something manifested between them, something bright and beautiful and utterly transfixing to behold. It was a human soul; the man's, for all he had done terrible things. Hael's expression was one of awe as the soul hovered there. The man was slowly collapsing onto the ground as it became more and more solid, and suddenly, it looked like it was piercing Hael through; like it had suddenly become something sharp that was moving straight through his body.

Hael was clearly in pain, but though the light piercing through his chest was starting to fade, and so was the soul, he was breathing heavily. And then, as quick as it had appeared, it was gone, and Hael staggered, looking like he wasn't sure he could stand.

[coyote_walking]

Mercy's lips had continued in silent prayer as she watched in a mix of fascination and horror.

The man didn't look certain he could stand any longer, but Mercy kept her distance. He was playing with forces way beyond her understanding and she was not going any closer.

"You okay?" she asked.

[dza_devlesa]

The body of the man was quickly fading-- fading, not crumbling or dissolving but fading, as if it were being edited out of existence. Hael nodded, stumbling towards his car and sitting on the hood, his hands shaking as he pulled the other half of his cigarette out of the pack and taking a deep draw on it; he didn't light it, but as soon as he inhaled the cherry glowed to life, and he exhaled, looking no less upset.

"It happens every time," he said hoarsely, rubbing at his face for a moment, trying to get his head together.

[coyote_walking]

"Oh?" she said dryly, hands on hips. "Why do you do it then?"

She made sure to stand upwind of the cigarette. Nasty habit to go along with whatever deal with the devil he had going on. Though at least she didn't have to worry about how he was going to dispose of the body.

[dza_devlesa]

"I just let you see something very few humans in the entire world have ever seen or can conceive of," he snapped at her, too threadbare to be as tolerant as he had been before this. "Something that leaves me a fucking mess afterwards, which I did because you insisted on staying, so spare me the judging attitude for a minute."

Of course, Hael rarely snapped at people like that; he took another very long drag off of that cigarette, and didn't look any less upset. He hadn't smelled like these cigarettes when she'd first met him; people who smoked habitually usually smelled like their habit. And these cigarettes didn't smell like anything like normal ones.

"Sorry," he said, after a moment. "It's upsetting. It's impossible to not fall in love with a soul. Even if the owner is despicable, even if what they've done is irredeemable... even if why you're doing it is all the right reasons. Even after all these years I fall in love with every single one of them and it's hard to know that I've sent them all to Hell." He took one last drag off of the cigarette and rolled the cherry between his fingers to snub it out, exhaling through his nose. He was careful there was no burning ashes on the ground, and put the butt of the cigarette back into the pack.

"I do it for love," he said at last, and there were no lies in that. "It's impossible to not fall in love with a soul as a human. And I fell in love with the Devil, once he had fallen in love with me enough to show me his."

[coyote_walking]

Mercy wasn't impressed or moved by his attitude. She'd grown up with grumpy werewolves after all. And this whole falling in love with the devil thing...

"All right," she said. "You've done your thing and unfortunately I helped you before I realized what would happen. I assume you're done here now? And that I won't be seeing you around again." That last wasn't a question.

Someone who worked for the devil was someone she didn't want anywhere around where she and hers lived. Sorry, Hael, but that's the way it was.

[dza_devlesa]

"Before you banish me," he said, sliding off the front of the car and fishing in his pocket for a card. "Go check on the girl they took from his house. And the four other names on that card. You know I'm not lying when I say they won't remember anything terrible having happened to them, despite the fact that if you go to his shed, there will be DNA evidence everywhere of the things he did to them. And then you can judge for yourself if the soul of some fuckup with a problem with women is something to condemn me over." He headed for the door of his car. "And then, when you have someone whose actions you need undone, you give me a call."

[coyote_walking]

Mercy waved away the card. "I'm not doubting he did the things you say, but we have a justice system here."

And if it was one of the monsters, the werewolves or the fae were well able to take care of - or take out - their own.

"Even if he deserved to lose his life, and I'm not arguing that point, his soul is an entirely different matter and I will never agree that that's okay. What happens to his soul is a matter for God to deal with. Not you and not the devil trying to circumvent things. We won't need your help, thank you very much."

She'd long since come to terms with the immediacy and harshness of the werewolves' justice systems, but stealing souls? No. Never.

[dza_devlesa]

"God doesn't care about souls any more," Hael replied.  "Or anything that happens to humans.  You need only history to tell you that.  At least the Devil will give you the time of day.  Humans don't need the Devil to be cruel, but they convince themselves they need God to be kind, or to forgive themselves their cruelty, or to give them strength. God doesn't give them any of those things. I have been around long enough to know that if you don't get it yourself, you'd better have friends.  So I'm going to give things. And if it's out of the hands of the Devil for a soul God doesn't care about, that's a deal I'll make."

He got into his car and started the engine.  "Don't lose the card."

[coyote_walking]

"You're wrong," Mercy said. "I hear his voice, feel his presence. He cares. And you should remember that there a reason why people call the devil 'The Father of Lies'. I'm sure he's thrilled to know that you've bought his story hook, line, and sinker. I'll pray for you, but I don't want to see you in my territory again. Goodbye."