Starring:
Summary: Celestina gets Dajan up to speed on the werewolf problem facing LA.
Date It Happened: January 26, 2002
Shiny Happy Silver
Celestina's Home
It's research-time at Celestina's. At least as she defines it. Which at the moment involves several newspapers and books spread out over her dining room table. She's standing there with a pen at hand, and notepad not far, and there are occasional notes.
Dajan shows up at her usual ten am, having made sure to leave Celestina a phone message to indicate when to expect her back from her family's. "Good morning," she calls, fairly assured. If she counted right and the Celestina she spoke with last wasn't having her on, she should be greeted by a fairly easygoing variation on the personality.
Celestina smiles over. "Morning, Dajan." she says, warmly. She's in some of her more old-fashioned attire. Slightly, anyway. Silk blouse, knee-length skirt. She looks over to her assistant. "Tell me you brought coffee." she says hopefully.
Dajan smiles warmly until Celestina speaks again. Then, she raises a dubious brow. "I thought you hated coffee," she says, warily. Did she count wrong? She'll wait on the response, coiled and tense, before she reacts.
Celestina chuckles. "I was speaking metaphorically. In this case "caffiene". I haven't slept in…" Pauses. "My god, if you're here, it's morning. In a while." she sighs.
"Just checking," Dajan replies, relaxing. "I do have tea." She holds out a paper bag from a lovely little patisserie. "Oolong okay? I've tried theirs; it's quite good." She wrinkles her nose. "What's kept you up? Do I need to schedule you a massage therapy session?"
Celestina reaches out to accept the tea. "Lovely. And no massage yet. We have werewolves on the loose in Griffith Park, I feel confident." She nods to the documentation on the table. "Something has to be done."
Werewolves. Dajan shrugs, and settles beside Celestina at the table. "Okay. Give me the details. What do I need to know, what do you need me to do, and do I need to find someplace to melt the good silver?" She's surprisingly good-humored for the fact that her boss just casually mentioned werewolves.
The witch looks thoughtful. "From what I've been able to tell, there's a rogue werewolf. It killed a man in the park, and infected the woman and her child. There are apparently at least two rogues out there, and the two infected are going to need some help. Some confining, really. I'm not set up to confine anyone, and I also don't like the idea of going toe-to-toe with a werewolf. We may need some help on this."
First thought: Hit eBay for cheap silver auctions ending right away. Dajan heads over to the laptop and pops it open. "Okay, I'm already looking up where we can get silver and silver nitrate quick and easy. But what do we need to confine rogue werewolves? And by 'help', who are we referring to?"
Celestina thinks. "We're going to need some kind of a securable cell or bunker. Somewhere we can hold two beings…separately…for a few nights. As far as help…someone or someones that can subdue a pair of werewolves. We may need to check and see who the Champions are in the area now."
"Oh, I already got that one covered, boss. The group at Angel Investigations are doing the Champion thing, if I understood 'em right. Big Muscly dude is with them. Specializes in slaying nasty demon things. Nice butt. Good hair. But as I understand it, their top gun, the man himself, is off the grid at the moment. But it'd be a good place to start. I've got a couple acquaintances there I can call. So, reinforced, securable cells or bunkers. Caves? Or did you actually mean jail cell? Because those little worksheds from Home Depot are not gonna do it."
Celestina blinks in surprise at that. "Well, that's good to know. See if you can try and set up some kind of a meeting with this demon slayer and us. Jail cells would be preferable, but I'm not willing to put these people in with Wolfram and Hart, and they're the only ones off the top of my head who have access to things like that."
Dajan grins at her boss, and bids on a few silver auctions, then pops out her cellphone and texts Cordelia: WE GOT ANIMAL CONTROL PROBS? GOT BIG CAGES FOR WOOFIES? —DT "Wolfram and Hart. You mentioned them," Dajan muses after the text sends, return receipt requested. "Fill me in. We didn't quite get to talk about it last time." Noir-Celestina wanted to go out and party.
Celestina looks a little miffed. "They're an evil law firm. They have almost limitless resources, no ethics, and represent demons and other dark entities across the dimensions. And they're trying to bring about the apocalypse. And a few days a month, I tend to work with them."
Dajan isn't sorry, but her expression is sympathetic. She has to remain silent a moment to master the urge to ask Evil Law Firm? Isn't that redundant? Once that moment has passed, she shakes her head. "Okay. You mentioned." Elsewhen in the mooncycle. "I'm not to touch their appointments in your datebook, come what may."
Celestina scowls. "That would have been evil-me saying that. You can try your best to ignore evil-me, Dajan. Don't trust her. Me."
"Well, almost-evil," Dajan allows. "It wasn't That One Week a month." She smiles faintly. "I'll try to keep you-her out of trouble, though. You have my word."
Celestina looks back to Dajan. "We should get you armed. Silver bullets. Just in case. You know how to shoot a gun?" she looks concerned.
"Don't sweat it, 'Tina," Dajan says, relaxed. "The virus won't take on me. I don't know how to shoot, but I wouldn't object to learning. Although I like knives better. And my own nails. Hm." She turns back to the laptop screen. "I wonder if I could stir silver nitrate into a topcoat for my nail polish…"
The witch considers it, as she looks over at Dajan. "All right. Get yourself booked for some shooting lessons. Daggers I have. But I don't want you in hand to hand with a werewolf except as a last resort. They're faster, stronger, and far nastier than human."
Dajan grins. "You got it." She schedules herself a reminder to hit at the end of the day so she can take her time about it. "I'd rather not be in hand to hand with a werewolf either. They have no manners." She's joking, but it's the sort of joke one tells when one really is preferring not to think about this subject too closely. "And in case it isn't obvious yet, boss? I'm only half human."
The witch chuckles. "Well, I assumed that SOMETHING was going on. Do you want to let me know what it is you can do, or would you rather keep that to yourself?" She won't press. At least, good-Celestina won't press.
Nasty Celestina is never going to get a straight answer. Good Celestina can be trusted, but she has a sneaking suspicion what one knows the other knows. "Think I'll keep it to myself for a bit." At least until she's surer of what she can expect from the other moonphases of her personality. "Suffice to say that it's practically impossible to do me lasting harm. I've never officially tested it against a werewolf, but no germ has taken on me yet."
Celestina nods. "Good. I'm going to try and make sure that we don't have to put it to the test, either. We should get some wolvesbane as well. I want to try to be as prepared for this as possible. The two newly-infected won't be an issue if we get to them before the next full moon. But the two rogues could be an issue."
"Wolfbane, check." Dajan types another memo to herself. Her cellphone beeps to indicate receipt of it. She types up a few searches for herbal stores, as wolfsbane is known under several other mundane names as well. "Baby werewolves," Dajan shakes her head at the idea of it. "But hey, you have been at this for a good few years, and I'm the newbie. I'm following your lead."
Celestina smiles wryly. "This is new to me as well. Infants almost never survive a werewolf attack in the first place. We'll need to get to them in the hospital, too…somehow make them aware of the danger. I can get us past the security, but persuading them may be harder."
Dajan doesn't have to mention she can turn invisible, then. Good. "That shouldn't be too difficult," she says, pensively. Healing the baby before mommy's eyes should convince her that there are strange things afoot, and we're not just talking the Circle K, baby.
Celestina nods. "We've got a fairly good chunk of time to work with this…most of the month. But you're going to have to watch for when I need to be pulled off this."
Dajan snaps her head around to stare at Celestina. "Hold up. Your nasty week is gonna start in the middle of this? You're gonna trust me to run this whole operation solo?!" There's a distinct air of 'I did not put Angel Dust in that tea…'
Celestina smiles. "I said we have most of the month. The full moon just passed, so I'm still mostly good. But I'll be getting worse as time goes on. Time is a relevant concern."
Dajan pinches the bridge of her nose. "Lovely. And how am I supposed to convince you to back off when you're phasing down?" It's a great display of trust and all, but Dajan knows how difficult nasty Celestina is to deal with from experience, despite how little it is.
Celestina smiles. "Well, that's harder to answer, dear. When I don't know what you can do. But you seem fairly good at negotiating with me all through the month."
"So far," Dajan admits. It's mainly knowing how to spoil Celestina. And, perhaps, the right research on the right herbal concoction to make a witch mellow out for a day or two. "I couldn't do anything to persuade you. I don't have any sort of mojo that'd put you in my powers or anything."
Celestina considers. "Part of the problem is that this isn't a multiple personality. Just a temperament shift. What I know remains constant. But one of the best ways to try and neutralize me is to come up with some way to stop me from talking. If I can't talk, it negates most of my magic."
Dajan considers. "Alum could do it. I'll hit the net. There are probably a few ways to induce laryngitis without having to gag you. So it's not in your hands. You can't just do the Pentagram of Fingerspace or whatever in silence and Hadouken my ass across the room then step over my momentarily unconscious body?"
Celestina admits "I'll still have my telekinesis. But that's tiring. I can't use full strength at it for long. If you're already dosing me, hitting me with anything that makes concentrating hard would take care of that."
"Nasty you likes to party. It can be sorted." She has ideas already. She already knows an herb or two that will combine badly with alcohol in the system. "Okay. So no talking, and anything that makes concentrating hard." Some 80s Hair Rock should help with the difficulty concentrating, too.
Celestina nods. "YOU are a godsend, Dajan. I don't know how I got along without you." She smiles warmly. "Sounds like we have a good plan. Time to start going and being heroes."
Dajan grins. "You get what you pay for, 'Tina," she says, honestly and sincerely. Hiring Dajan at the agreed on rate has the woman taking the job very seriously. She feared having to work two or three jobs to make ends meet, and now the one has her living inside her means with enough to sock away. "So — what's our first move?"
Celestina smiles. "You pick up supplies, and see what you can find out from this demon fighter. I'm going to get some spells together to get us in to see the victims, and start working on a tracking spell."
"On it," Dajan confirms, snapping a salute. "I'll get ya a couple lodestones and moonstones. Just for resonance purposes." Yep, she went to an artsy college, didn't she, that those new age ideas come so easily to mind. "I should have everything but the silver I ordered off eBay while we talked by tonight. And the silver should be here by tomorrow evening. I figured overnight shipping was most practical."
Celestina nods. "Time is a factor here, and money's rarely a concern." She's got buckets of investments, plus working for W&H pays very, very well. "Good job."
