Ignatius Perrish's Story

The café walls were a dark goldenrod color and lit up like Chernobyl when the sunlight hit them. Golden like hope, like the sun, like the future of unstained children. Ignatius squinted at them, he hated these walls. He slumped against the uncomfortable contours of the ornate iron chair. The sun burned his pallid face and made him sweat; adding a seeping, dangerous lethargy to his weakened limbs. His hands, when he curved one of them around his tiny mug (He had atrocious late day coffee traditions), trembled and he had to lean forward to keep from sloshing the scalding black drink all down his chin and into his lap. He banged it back like a shot to wash away the taste of his last stale cigarette, the flavor of cloves lingering around as a reminder of his many vices.

He squandered away another fifteen minutes waffling between panic and sleepy resignation, drumming his fingertips rhythmically against the underside of the table.

The side effects of being a woodland supernatural creature trapped in the concrete confines of the city were a bitch. Apart from the physical symptoms, which consisted more or less of his body racing to fall apart before his sanity, he'd begun suffering from the sharp and sudden onset of acute existential uncertainty. His fingers were always tapping along to songs he didn't know. He found himself answering questions he hadn't been asked. Ig knew his classical literature, and the traditional consequence of knowing too much was always some form of blubbering, wise insanity. And really, Ig was happy being a blubbering pedantic idiot.

The waitress made her rounds to his quaint little outdoor table and offered to refill his cup, to which he declined. She wasn't human herself, but a half Fae girl living off tips and working her way through a college nearby. He hadn't asked, but like always, he hadn't needed to. Everyone, even those from the mythical world, told him just about everything without provocation. The girl excitedly pulled a folded up slip of paper from the waist band of her apron, and slid it across the table to him with an overbearing and eager grin on her face.

"An A+, can you believe it?! My friends thought I had to charm the professor or something, get a warlock to hex him but no, I managed all on my own!" She squealed, expecting to glean some type of reaction.

Ignatius spared it a bored, disinterested glance before he returned it to her. "Here. I suspect your mother will want to put it on the refrigerator or something."

The waitresses expression turned wistful. "Yeah, she saw these scores and her head spun around and exploded."

Ig rubbed his heavy eyelids with his finger tips, too exhausted to engage in conversation at the present. "I've been around you Fae lot too long. That was metaphorical, yes?"

She snatched up the paper and returned it safely to it's hiding place, dramatically rolling her eyes in the process. "Yes, grumpy. She's Fair Folk, not the little girl from The Exorcist."

He fished around in his jean pockets for the correct amount of change, including the tip, and spilled it across the glass table top; nickels and dimes chasing each other in tightening circles. Ignatius' fingers were achy and itchy. He flexed them, curled them into his hair, pulled his hair, and popped his knuckles, but the feeling persisted. His ankles were sore for no reason, so were his knees. He needed to do...something, anything but sit there for another second longer. Why was he suffering this place, slogging through the quagmire of his own thoughts and the thoughts of others, when he could devote every waking second to finding this killer? He was slowing every day, finding monotonous routine instead of recklessly abandoning the comfort of tedium to find purchase in his search. He grew more weak willed and worse for wear for each day he spent there, he needed to move forward.

"...and it's roaring twenties themed tonight, so if you're going, you'll need to have something made-" The Fae rambled on, heedless to the fact Ignatius had just been a mentally a million miles away.

"Wait what, I missed that last bit. Back up." He demanded rather than asked, but she seemed pleased to have finally caught his attention.

"Utopia, the theme tonight is like the twenties or thirties or something. It's all very Gatsby, which is all very Magnus Bane. It's sure to be glamorous if not a tad bit off color." She explained patiently. "The entrance is in the park, in some horrible restroom stall. Not where I would have placed it, but I suppose it wards off a human element."

Ig frowned. He didn't own anything other than threadbare tee-shirts and hoodies; like three pairs of blue jeans and one very worn out pair of sneakers. Finery wasn't something he cared for nor trifled with. Fearing he'd be turned away at the door in his current dress though, he made his excuses and farewells and shuffled off down the strip to a shop where he could at the very least collect a cheap, ill fitting waistcoat and a button up shirt and tie that would class up his jeans. He had to pay the vanishing nightclub a visit again, it was his best chance at catching a lead in his case.

All around him were tourists and ambitious locals and screaming children, he feared them as much as they would've feared him. Monsters beneath a peaceful clamor; they were smiling and chattering and belching out the black mist that began to fog up his mind. And Ignatius, who wanted nothing more than to curl up under a blanket somewhere and close his eyes and let himself be taken by the beasts, knew he wasn't searching hard enough. His murderer was still so far away, he was practically unreachable. Ig would have to press hard at Utopia tonight, he couldn't let another opportunity slip right through his fingers least he let this city and it's people become such a distraction that he never found the object of his hunt.

By the time he had made his purchase's and brought them back 'home' to change, night had stolen over the sky. Ignatius meandered around the park after that, dragging his feet a bit so he could smoke one last cigarette. A red headed werewolf slipped past him into the restroom then with a gaggle of friends at her heels; they were disgusted by the entrance glamour but pressed on anyway, the promise of a party proving to be too alluring. He made a mental note to get her attention once inside, after all there werewolves were as much about family as the Satyrs. He stamped the remnants of his cigarette and tucked what was left behind his ear for later before slinking after her into Utopia.

The lights in the club grew brighter as the earth lurched away from the sun and the evening transformed into night. Along the walls, there was a bar that wrapped itself around--practically hugging--most of the room, and near it rested a giant fountain sat on a table, shooting up champagne in high arcs. Within the depths of the glass base, an array of colored lights shone through the sparkling citrine alcohol. Champagne was hardly a bootleg liquor seen in that era, but apparently this Magnus Bane would not substitute quality for authenticity. However, plenty of high-proof white lightning moonshines could be found being served by the tenders for those club goers that felt a little less elegant than usual. With the band was in full swing, the crowd's laughter came more easily minute by minute, the opera of voices pitching a key higher and spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. And the groups changed more swiftly as well, swell with new arrivals, they dissolved and formed in the same breath; creature's gliding on through the sea-change of faces and voices. It was all a bit overwhelming to someone so simple like Ignatius, who was wandering around alone, rather ill at ease among swirls and eddies of people he didn't know.

Much to his luck, he needn't approach the wolf girl himself at all. He soon found her stumbling in his direction to introduce herself before she was knocked off kilter by an impenitent vampric couple in their haste to get on the canvas dance floor. Embera clutched onto his arm to balance herself with a nervous apology, looking embarrassed though it was no fault of her own. She began rambling on about scents then, his orphic Satyr's gift taking effect with the contact. He sighed, despite the effortlessness at which he could gather information that was sure to be truthful this way, he had hoped he could talk to someone, anyone, without the use of this...compulsion. Ignatius shook his head and offered up a wan smile."No I appreciate your candor. I'm Ignatius but you can call me Ig. It's much shorter." His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed as his gaze trailed after the offending fanged couple who had now joined older appearing men pushing young looking girls backward in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each other tortuously, fashionably, and keeping in the corners — and a great number of single girls danced individualistically.

"If you become a vampire do you automatically become a very sharp dresser, or is that a skill that you develop over time? Are there novice vampires meandering around in aeropostale shirts and khaki pants?" He asked in a joking manner to lighten the mood up a bit and put her at ease.

He returned his eyes to his counterpart and noted the disparity between their outfits, her dress being not only stunning and glamorous, but also likely authentic; the flappers fringe giving out a continual rustle as she swept about. "You look lovely by the way, much too attractive to be seen slumming it with me." He laughed, his wrinkled shirt and loosened tie adding to the over all effect of his dishevelment.