Slithering Names

All of them were gone. After a minute of standing still in case one was still lurking around, Secora put the smoking gun down and and observed the group's numbers. The group of twenty five was reduced to eighteen. Not bad, she figured. she was sure this was more of a test than anything else.

"Brian, I think we should go after them," Aroces said after her observations.

Johansson, however, shook his head. "The super demon'll be out pretty soon. For now we need to rest, and tend to the two wounded folks over there." He extracted his pale, bony hand from his pocket to point at a man laying face down on the pavement, and a woman holding her left shoulder with her good hand.

Secora put the gun back in Traywick's arms. While looking like just your normal AK-47, the weapon which seemed to be carried around very nonchalantly in the woman's arms made an uncanny drop once Traywick caught it. "Put it back in the suitcase," she said dryly.

She then cocked her head and eyed the young equivoque she had not seen before. "Hey, kid, what's your name?" He turned around and left her without a response. She dug into her back pocket again and took out a short cigarette filter. She grinned at Brian a bit, seeing him stand motionless. "Hey, want to have a smoke or something?" Secora walked over and circled in front of him. "Huh?"

H.H. looked at her coldly. "I don't smoke."

Secora seemed to take it well. She simply shrugged and, out of her other pocket, took out a bag of cannabis flowers. So she turned her attention to the others. "Hey, come on, guys. Join me, why don't you? There's plenty for everyone."

Aleksandar didn't smoke. There was plenty for him in the Hagia when the air filled with smoke finely produced in Cuba. He sat down and made a few prayers before staring off into the distance, and then wondering how the fuck he would get back to where he was before. This wasn't his job, his job was to shout prayers at people and give money to a bunch of gang bangers in military uniforms. He liked his job better.

"You seem so absorbed by those photos, your research..." Secora commented after taking a long drag. she gave the bag and her extra instruments to Shane. "Roll a joint if you want, whatever," she quietly told him.

"It's almost like nobody wants to talk anymore, though. you're all so busy doing your research that one day you wake up, your thing's done, and you realize nobody's gonna listen to you and that you haven't been listening to anybody else, because everybody's so fucking busy with their stuff. Everybody has a story to tell." Secora took another long drag.

"I mean, talk about me. I was raised in Northampton by fucking criminals. I was too busy being a criminal to think about the other folks out there, and so I was bigoted. Probably still am. Whatever, nobody cares, anyway."

Secora's criticism finally stopped, as she closed her eyes and mumbled something to herself.