Game session: 5/3/2011
The Montoya Botanica is closed on Sundays for church-going, but Anita Perez-Montoya spends the morning walking through the Springfield Cemetery. When she returns she finds her beloved blue Honda missing. She storms inside and leans her younger sister Del took the car half an hour ago, Abuela assumed it was with Anita's permission. Anita immediately starts making phone calls, but Del's phone is off. She calls one of her friends and learns that Del "borrowed" her car to go up to Northampton, and said friend passes the phone to Del, who is driving. Del refuses to turn around and Anita starts threatening her little sister – and The Witch assists, which leads to Anita's tone getting even more threatening and unearthly. Abuela crosses herself and leaves the room. Anita demands Del return the car within the next forty-five minutes or else.
Del hangs up and Anita fumes. When the forty-five minute mark passes, Anita calls the SPD, and oddly enough gets her friend TJ, who she met after her death and Bargain with The Witch. TJ admits to "pissing in a superior's oatmeal" and getting stuck on dispatcher duty as punishment, but takes down the information. He admits there's not much the SPD can do if the car is outside Springfield, but he promises to get the word out. Anita continues fuming, and when dusk arrives with still no sign of Del or the car, Anita heads upstairs and starts messing with Del's room.
Del doesn't return until after midnight, and Anita can clearly see the front quarter-panel destroyed. She demands to know what happened, but Del only says she hit a dog and won't elaborate. Del heads upstairs and Anita checks her car. To her horror, she finds blood in the damage and calls TJ. TJ reveals that a Springfield cop – Peter Sweets – was injured in a hit-and-run but is still alive and did report the car that hit him "was a blue Honda driven by a Latina teenager." Anita curses and TJ offers to "forget" her call, but Anita asks for some time to think about what to do next.
Abuela is asleep, so Anita storms up to Del's room and tries to pick the lock, but Del hears her and yells for privacy. Anita snaps that she knows Del hit a cop, but Del opens the door and denies it. Anita states she is going to tell Abuela in the morning, and heads for her room. She tries to sleep, but The Witch is active for some time. Finally, Anita drifts off around 2 o'clock in the morning.
Around 4:30 AM she wakes up when she hears the Honda start, and she realizes Del stole her keys and is stealing the Honda! She watches as the Honda peels away from the house, and waits until it gets to the end of the street before she calls 911. The 911 operator transfers her to the SPD as this isn't a life-threatening emergency, and she gets TJ again. TJ takes the information and puts out an APB. Anita asks him to call the house line when Del is arrested.
Anita returns to bed and waits patiently until the phone rings at 5:30 AM. She remains in her room as Abuela sluggishly answers, and then smirks when her grandmother starts swearing in Spanish. Abuela bangs on her door next, and Anita feigns sleepiness as she answers the door. Abuela tells her tersely that Del has been arrested and is at the central Springfield police station downtown. They get dressed and call a cab to bring them down there; they arrive just after 6 o'clock. They head inside and are escorted to an interrogation room by a short and surly Latina desk sergeant. Two of the scariest-looking female cops escort Del in a few minutes later, and Anita realizes the Springfield Police are less then thrilled with Del running over one of their officers.
As the ranking officer on duty, TJ comes in and greets Anita sarcastically; Abuela lifts an eyebrow. TJ then turns to all three women and lays out the case against Del – in rapid-fire Spanish. Abuela is amazed that this gringo speaks Spanish so well, while Anita quickly loses track of the conversation. TJ leaves for a minute to get some paperwork, and Abuela laments the fact she can't make fun of him in Spanish, as he'll obviously understand it, and also she thinks he's cute. Anita and Del shudder at the thought. TJ returns with a ream of paperwork and lays it out: Del will likely be tried as an adult, and her previous history won't help. He recommends getting a lawyer immediately if they don't already have one, and hopefully they can plea-bargain down to being tried as a juvenile. He also adds that the Honda will have to be impounded as evidence, unfortunately. Abuela snaps at Del, "You will not be another member of this family in jail!" and she leaves the room.
Del is taken back to her cell, and Anita gives her no sympathy. TJ apologizes, but Anita shrugs and says Del brought this on herself. TJ passes her a card for a lawyer, but it also has Officer Sweet's address written on the back. Anita thanks him and suggests TJ actually go home, but the SWAT officer shrugs and admits he was involved on a raid on a crack house yesterday and accidentally inhaled cocaine when a bullet punctured a bag and sprayed the powder everywhere, so the doctors want to keep him close to the station just in case. He also called SWAT on Del, mostly out of amusement and a desire never to be put on dispatch duty ever again. Anita laughs and TJ escorts her out. Anita and her grandmother take a cab home; Abuela is silent the entire time. The cab drops Abuela off at home, and she heads inside to contact the family lawyer. The cab brings Anita to the Botanica, and she opens early for the day.
A few days have passed and Del is still in custody as Abuela deals with all the legal hassles. Anita continues to work at the store, and around 2 o'clock an unfamiliar Hispanic woman enters. The woman is clearly a nurse at Baystate, as she's wearing her smock, and she's badly rattled. The woman introduces herself as Consuela and states, "I am a good Catholic." Anita has seen this reluctance before and manages to calm Consuela down a bit with tea, and Consuela eventually tells her what she saw: two months ago she was on duty in the ER when a junkie came in with lacerations down his arms. The man had to be restrained and a female doctor started working on him when another woman and four men in black suits came storming in, demanding the release of the junkie and all information on him. The junkie got free in the chaos and grabbed the female doctor and threw her across the room. The doctor's neck broke when she hit the wall… and then she got back up a few seconds later! The doctor is still around, and no one seems to have noticed anything wrong.
Anita winces as The Witch suddenly surges forward, hissing for Anita to get more information. Anita asks for the doctor's name and Consuela hesitates, so she backs off and packs a few protective charms and candles in a bag. She undercharges Consuela, but asks again for the doctor's name "so she can pray for her." Consuela hesitates, and then says, "Dr. Isobel Vanora." Anita assures Consuela that God wouldn't have brought Dr. Vanora back if she wasn't part of His plan, and Consuela departs. The Witch demands to find this Dr. Vanora immediately as she believes this woman might be like Anita, but Anita refuses as she has a store to run. The Botanica is currently empty so she grabs the computer and starts working. She web-stalks Isobel Vanora and finds her profile on the Baystate website and Isobel's Facebook page. She notes that Isobel works the graveyard shift at the ER.
The Montoya Botanica closes at 7 o'clock, but at 6:50 PM a young ganger with a yellow and black bandana enters, looking nervous. Anita tells him, "Hey! No colors in here!" The boy quickly removes his bandana. The kid starts with, "So… have you ever seen The Crow?" and Anita sighs and puts on more tea. She also starts preparing a second "kit" as the boy tells of his strange experience, initially as "something that happened to someone I know," but Anita says, "Just tell me, mijo; no judgment here." The boy relaxes and confesses to being part of a gang up near Central High School and back on the 4th of July this gringo substitute teacher came down to their hangout spot and started threatening their leader Luis to leave one of his kids alone. Luis stabbed the guy and he died, but then "white stuff jizzed out of his wound and the motherfucker got back up!"1)
Anita groans inwardly as she charges the kid $20 for her charms and candles, and the boy provides a rough description of the teacher. The kid bolts out of the store and Anita closes up. The Witch crows that she may have found three of her fellows, and reminds Anita that this cop Peter Sweets got hit and should have died, but didn't. So Officer Peter Sweets, Dr. Isobel Vanora, and this unknown substitute teacher are all possibly like Anita. The Witch demands Anita get spray paint to leave a message, but Anita refuses and does a bit of research on the computer. She grunts when she discovers that Central High School has no teacher directory, and then she decides to look up Peter Sweets. She grabs a cab over to West Springfield, and finds Peter's apartment. She stops at the grocery underneath the apartment and grabs a few things before she heads up the stairs at 9 o'clock.
Peter answers the door buzzed on Vicodin and wearing socks, tighty-whities, and an unbuttoned dress shirt. Both Sin-Eaters immediately see the other's geists and Fallen Snow purges the Vicodin from Peter's systems so he can function. The Witch hisses, "Fallen Snow," as Anita stares at the fleshy blobs that make up Peter's geist, and Fallen Snow grunts, "The Witch," in his heavily-accented Russian tone. Peter invites Anita in and she meets his German shepherd Dee-Oh-Gee, who is spoiled beyond belief. There are awkward introductions and Anita explains that she sought him out not only because of their mutual connection with their dead friends, but also because it was her sister Adela that hit Peter on Sunday. Peter hands her the Honda decal that was stuck to his body after the accident and buttons up his shirt before suggesting they go out and get something to eat and try to figure this all out. Anita gently suggests pants first, and Peter agrees. He grabs a pair of pants and brings her down to his sport mini. They end up at IHOP talking, and Anita also tells him of the other two potentials, Dr. Vanora and the unknown teacher. Peter volunteers to drive them to Baystate.
Meanwhile, Erika Cook is enjoying the late summer evening when her geist, The Deep Dweller, suddenly seems to "go active" and demands she get a ladder and some spray paint. Erika is startled by the sudden demand and wants to know what for, and The Deep Dweller indicates he needs some strange symbols spray-painted on a billboard overlooking the highway; he hopes it will attract his "companions" to him. Erika is obviously resistant to the idea of dangerous vandalism, but finally relents. She refuses to go out until very later, however, but gathers spray paint from the basement.
Erika drives to the billboard overlooking Route 291 at 2 o'clock in the morning. She parks her car several blocks away and hikes over with her satchel of spray paint and ladder. The billboard looms above her but The Deep Dweller is insistent, so she carefully props up the ladder and climbs. She reaches the billboard's ladder that's bolted to the support strut, and carefully climbs up to the narrow lip below the billboard. Traffic zooms by under her and reverberations threaten to shake her off the billboard, but she holds on and starts spraying the strange symbols and upside down crosses over the Rock 102 advertisement. 2) She hears the screech of a police siren and tries to scramble down the ladder, but she's only halfway down when the car careens into view… and passes the billboard without slowing. Erika breathes a sigh of relief and asks The Deep Dweller if they're done, but her geist remains insistent. Sighing, Erika climbs back up and finishes spraying the sigils. She makes it down without dying and scoots back to her car, apparently free and clear.
Recap originally published on Livejournal.