[Jewel: She's tall and long-legged, not slender but graceful, and spectacularly curvaceous, with blue hair falling straight to her hips like a swathe of summer sky, and a complexion like white chocolate flavored with cinnamon. Her face is a smooth valentine, mirroring the emotions of the moment in faintly exotic features and great eyes bright as her namesake and blue as the widow's peak above them. She's dressed in a white denim bolero jacket and figure-hugging jeans, both painted with red roses and thorny green vines, and a scanty white summer top with lacy straps framing an impressive display, and tied loosely behind her neck.]
Los Angeles, a bright Spring day. Jewel has just returned to her apartment after rehersal, and her phone rings, and phones are wont to do.
Jewel picks up the phone. "Hi!"
A soft voice that she's never heard before asks, "Coxotli?"
It might be a male voice that never broke.
Jewel flinches violently! After a couple of deep breathes, she pastes a smile back on and says pleasantly, "I'm sorry, she doesn't live here anymore."
The voice sounds puzzled. "Do you have her new number?"
Jewel says "I can take a message."
"That's sort of the problem, you see. Her messages have been, ah, piling up. I understand that a young man nearly drowned when he attempted to place the most recent one in her box."
Jewel giggles.
Jewel says "I'm sorry! I hope he's okay!"
Clean laughter. "I believe he was fished out before any permanent damage was done. Could you tell Coxotli to come by the Halls of Creation when she has a chance?"
Jewel says "That's good! Sure, I'll let her know. Is there anyone I should tell her to look for?"
"She is advised to contact Heshmon."
Jewel says "Heshmon. Okay, I'll let her know!"
There is a click, and then silence.
Jewel throws the phone back onto the hook! "SHIT! Shit shit shit!"
Jewel, being a hopeless romantic, is convinced she could tell if that was Eli, and it wasn't.
Jewel throws herself into a chair and hyperventilates for a bit.
Jewel thinks about divine tethers, but doesn't actually know of any in the local area, although she presumes that tethers of various archangels could be found in the characteristic places.
Jewel says "What am I *thinking*? They're just trying to trap me. And I bet I didn't put them off very long, either. Shit shit shit."
Jewel picks up the phone and dials. "Hi, is Maddy there? Thanks." Time passes. "Maddy? It's Jewel. I'm not going to be able to make it to rehearsals." Outraged noises from the phone. "I'm really sorry! But it's family business; I can't put it off." More outraged noises, with a tinge of despair. "I don't know when I'll be back, no." Despairing noise. "Oh, it's not that bad! Susian will be fine, and she deserves the break." More outraged noises. "It's your fault she sulks so much! I don't know why you don't like her; she's really nice once you get her to drop the attitude." Sullen noises. "Yes, I remember Danny. But Susian's not Danny, and I think I can safely say she's not likely to get you pregnant." Extremely indignant noises. "Yah, I'll try to make it back for opening, but I can't promise you anything. Bye, Maddy." *click*
Jewel paces, thoughtfully. "Aaron? No, he'd burn the place down. Melinda? No, she's allergic to the plants. Kimberly just moved in with that really yummy waiter from Canter's."
Jewel starts packing while she paces. Fortunately, she doesn't need to pack much.
Jewel is visibly struck by inspiration! She picks up the phone and dials again. "Mrs Sandora? Is Jose' there?" Indignant but informative noises. "Thanks!"
Jose' is just some guy Jewel knows, who wants to move out of his parents' spare room.
A disturbed note in the Symphony.
Footsteps coming up the driveway? Stairs?
Jewel jumps, and her ears prick up!
Jewel stuffs the rest of her jewelry into her bag, tosses it out the back window, and jumps down after it! (It's only a second-story window.)
Jewel lands badly, but fortunately Vessels are good at that sort of thing; she's up again a moment later.
Jewel runs for it!
Jewel ducks around the corner of a drugstore to break line of sight and attempts to vanish into the crowd.
This is not all that easy on foot in LA. She can't tell how well she blends in without walking back to a good observation point and watching her escape, but no one seems to be coming after her.
Jewel waves frantically at the bus driver, and sprints for the bus stop, her jacket fluttering open over barely-covered bounciness as she runs!
Apparently, the bus driver is male...
The bus stops readily, and Jewel scrambles aboard. There's even a seat free! As she fumbles to drop a few coins into the box, the doors close behind her -- and, oops, there isn't a seat free after all./p>
Jewel undulates to the back of the bus and smiles dazzlingly at the teenage boys sitting there (there are *always* teenage boys sitting at the back of the bus). "Can I sit down?"
There is no problem getting them to squnch to the sides.
A phone rings, elsewhere on the bus, and a red-haired young man pulls out a portable.
Jewel squeezes in between them, politely stowing her bag on her lap. "Thanks!"
Why, the man is describing the current location of the bus! Why would he do that? Not only that, but two other men on the bus are having a heated debate about Clinton's morality, using quite colorful language, the teenaged boys are, er, looking at Jewel with fairly significant interest and one of the far ones is poking a near one in the side, and the bus driver is humming snatches of "New York, New York."
The redhead mutters, "Nah, didn't see a thing."
Jewel is used to teenage boys looking at her with significant interest, knows better than to mind political arguments, and thinks the bus driver could be okay if only he learned to hum on key, but the guy with the phone is pretty worrisome.
Not only does Jewel not recall the guy with the phone ogling her when she got on, she doesn't recall seeing him at all then. In fact, he's in the seat she thought was empty.
Jewel pretends she's not terrified. She's an actress; she can do that.
The voice on the other end of the phone says, "Keep her on. We'll join you in two stops.", or at least that's what it sounds like to Jewel.
Jewel leans over to whisper in the ear of whichever of the two boys next to her is cuter, incidentally pressing the side of her breast against his arm. "Um... could you do me a favor? You see that guy with the red hair up theree, with the cellphone? He's a private detective, he works for my exhusband. He's been following me around all day. When I get off the bus, could you keep him on until the next stop?" She make her very best damsel-in-distress expression, huge sapphire eyes shining piteously.
"Um." he says intelligently. "Um. Uh. Okay."
Jewel beams at him. "Thanks! You're wonderful!" She gives him a kiss on the cheek and leans past/against him to ding the stop cord.
The bus goes on for a few minutes more, then pulls over at the next stop.
Jewel waits until the bus is about to move on, then leaps out the back door!
A ringing note in the air. Jewel's motions are oddly slow and stiff. Jewel stumbles out the door and onto the pavement as the red-haired man rises elegantly to his feet. Her teen stands as well.
Jewel ducks as quickly as may be into the burger joint on the corner and takes refuge in the ladies' room.
A *harsh* jangle in the Symphony from the direction of the bus. It was already out of sight by then.
Jewel didn't see if the redhead got off.
Jewel makes it to the restroom, which has no other exits except for a small clouded window, which looks out on a parking lot and is too small for anyone of Jewel's proportions to get through. The parking lot is of course in full view of the entire world.
Jewel says "Haagenti devour him!"
Jewel peers out the window some more. "This is going to be so embarrassing."
"Do you need toilet paper?" a voice comes from a closed stall.
Jewel says "No thanks. Just talking to myself."
Jewel watches out the window until there's no one in the parking lot, meanwhile looking for a way out of the parking lot that doesn't involve going back out to the front street; back door of a store or restaurant, probably. Then she *quickly* peels off her clothes, stuffs them and her bag out the window, changes to her other vessel, hops into the window, changes back to her human vessel, jumps down, and *quickly* puts on her jeans and jacket, buttoning her jacket as she runs for the door across the parking lot. Fortunately, she's good at changing clothes quickly.
The disturbance to the Symphony is minimal.
[Jewel: She's tall and long-legged, not slender but graceful, and spectacularly curvaceous, with blue hair falling straight to her hips like a swathe of summer sky, and a complexion like white chocolate flavored with cinnamon. Her face is a smooth valentine, mirroring the emotions of the moment in faintly exotic features and great eyes bright as her namesake and blue as the widow's peak above them. She's dressed in a white denim bolero jacket and figure-hugging white jeans, both painted with red roses and thorny green vines; the jacket is unbuttoned halfway down, over an impressive display of Jewel and nothing else.]
Jewel goes in the back door of the nearby KFC and out the front, putting the buildings between her and the burger joint, jaywalks, and goes into a department store, and then out the back door to that parking lot.
Jewel keeps going until she's three or four blocks distant, and then catches another bus at random. At some point during the run, she tucks her underwear, top, and socks into her bad, and puts on her shoes.
Jewel smiles at the teenaged boys to get a seat in the back of the bus again and slumps into the seat, panting in a manner that will no doubt get her plenty of attention from the boys.
Jewel rides the bus into downtown LA, Little Tokyo, where she gets off and goes into the Japanese shopping mall, which has authentic Japanese atmosphere: way too many people, not enough room, inadequate acoustic damping.
"Hey!" a well-met young Japanese waiter calls, stepping out from a restaurant and waving in Jewel's general direction. "You look like you could use a unagi."
Jewel recognizes her archangel and sweetheart, Eli!
Jewel smiles way more blindingly than she would for any mortal, but knows better than to make a scene here. Well, *too* much of a scene. She undulates over to him. "Sure, I'll let you slip me some eel any time." *wink*
The man makes an amused face, but that's all of his reaction. "Come, come." He leads her into the restaurant. Oddly enough, it's empty.
"The problem with jackals," he adds, "is that they make terrible sushi."
Jewel giggles. "I'm sure you make sushi as divinely as you make... everything else."
Jewel, in that Habbalite wildly-shifting emotions way, suddenly goes all shy. "Eli? Is it really you?"
"Never." He thinks about that half a second. "Well, hardly ever."
"Here," he says, grabbing a tray from the counter. "Unagi, LA rolls, and spider rolls. Those are the best."
Jewel ignores the sushi and puts her hand on his cheek. "I didn't know if I was ever going to see you again..."
Jewel listens in the Symphony for the notes of Eli's creative potential, and is overwhelmed.
Jewel's eyes widen at the feel of Eli's skin against her palm, and glisten with faint moisture. "You're so beautiful..."
His eyes twinkle. "That's my line, I think."
He reaches out, with the utmost delicacy, and touches Jewel's nose.
Jewel nips at the fingertip!
"The other problem with jackals," he admits, eyes suddenly pensive, "is that they can find me with little difficulty."
"I have a favor to ask, my Jewel."
Jewel says "They can? I thought you were unfindable. The Archangel of Mystery."
Jewel says "Anything!"
Jewel says "Whipped cream, silk scarves, you name it."
He pulls out a small, sparkling crystal sphere. Lights swirl in it like drunken fireflies.
Jewel eyes it dubiously. "Very pretty, but I'm not sure how we'd use it..."
"My Heart," he explains, simply. "I wish you to bring it to the Lindel House, where an apartment is waiting for you."
Jewel says "Your *Heart*?!"
Jewel stares in astonishment.
He points out, "If I keep it in Heaven, then anyone can find me."
Jewel reaches out and strokes it gently with her fingers. "Why don't you keep it with you then? I mean, you know I'd die the Final Death before I'd let you down, but if Dominic sent a raptor squad after me to get it, that's exactly what would happen."
It feels exactly like Eli. Not just like his skin: like the Eli of the night he spent with Jewel.
Jewel shivers all over, her eyes half closing. She steps forward, squishing Eli's Heart and the hand holding it against her breasts, and wraps her arms around him, hugging him with all of her strength.
Jewel whispers in his ear, "I've missed you so much! I've tried to do what you asked, but I don't know if I have. I was afraid I hadn't done it, that I'd failed you and I'd never see you again."
Jewel's tears glisten where their cheeks touch.
Eli smiles.
He touches a finger to Jewel's lips. "Trust me."
Then he's gone.
The restaurant has more people in it now than a moment ago. Some of them are looking oddly at Jewel and her crystal thing and her tears.
Jewel tucks the Heart into her bag, since she can't very well hide something the size of a baseball under her jacket, and slinks out of the restaurant.
Jewel goes and sits by the water sculpture (*all* malls have a water sculpture, except old ones which have a fountain) to think.
Jewel keeps *such* a firm grasp on her bag.
Jewel tries to remember what she knows of the Lindel House. It's a small housing complex not far from a major producer's office. It popped up in the news a few days ago because there was a murder there and a witness fingered, of all people, Leonardo diCaprio. Of course, he wasn't there, but that's not the point, where news is concerned; they just stuck in a lot of allegeds.
Jewel thinks. She can't go to any of her friends; they're probably all already under surveillance. Well, the bus worked after she got away from her apartment. So she goes outside and catches a bus in that direction.
A few minutes after Jewel catches the bus, the Symphony explodes behind her. So, judging by the physical sound and the smoke, did the mall.
Jewel turns from cinnamonwhitechocolate to paper. "E-!" No, a mere bomb wouldn't do anything to him. He's an *Archangel*. He's fine. He *has* to be fine.
Jewel realizes that, more to the point, if he had been blown up, she'd have his Celestial form sitting in her lap, since that's where his Heart is. That idea keeps her occupied until it's time to change busses. :)
Jewel spends the next bus ride feeling like an idiot and a failure for being all mushily emotional instead of asking important questions like, "When will you be back to get your Heart?", "Who should I watch out for?", and "You still love me, right?"
Jewel transfers to a third bus, spends a while feeling paranoid and watching everyone who gets on and off the bus, and then she's there. Well, as close as the bus gets.
The Lindel House is an imposing, gothic-style building, although it was built in 1996. Figures, right? There's a police car idly pulled up in front.
Jewel loiters across the street, listening for disturbances in the Symphony, watching to see if people go in and out, checking the emotions of the people who do go in and out, looking to see if there's yellow police tape and armed guards, that sort of thing.
Jewel spots no obvious police tape. Most of the people going in and out are fairly calm, going about their lives. The man sitting in the police car -- only one, which means presumably that his partner is elsewhere -- is unsettled and nervous.
After an hour or two, Jewel starts to get a little uneasy just standing out in the street holding an Archangel's Heart in her bag. The other cop hasn't returned.
Jewel goes down to the end of the block and looks for an alley going behind the Lindel House.
There's a thin alley that goes back to the dumpsters. It doesn't appear to be under police observation.
Jewel goes down and checks to see if the back door is locked. If not, she goes in.
The door opens easily, leading into a storage space, mostly mechanic-type stuff, and also the electrical room and so forth. The storage area opens into a hall leading towards the apartments. The place is fairly roomy until it gets to the hall, which is a bit cramped and dark. One door has yellow police tape stretched across it; Jewel spots a cop ducking under it to emerge from the room behind.
Jewel takes an unhurried step backwards out of sight.
His footsteps recede down the hall.
Jewel waits a couple seconds, then continues going forward, looking for the office or manager's apartment, or whatever.
Continuing on, Jewel finds an office (at least, the door is clear plastic, and there's a women behind a desk) almost all the way to the front door.
Jewel knocks on the door. "Excuse me, is this the office?"
"Indeed so, my dear. Indeed so." The woman looks up and smiles blandly. "And you would be interested in ...?"
Jewel reflexively pricks a metaphorical ear toward the woman's resonance, at the same time her eyes are performing the more usual evaluation of appearance and edibility. People who look bland often have the most fascinating emotions behind the facade.
Jewel says "I'm new in town, and my boyfriend said he arranged an apartment for me here, but he forgot to tell me the number. He's kind of... scattered."
The woman's mind is a hideous cesspool of every vile emotion you can imagine. It's not like opening up a book to a picture of Auschwitz: it's like falling a million miles into a pool of putrescent bodies still jerking from the deaths. It takes a moment for Jewel to get herself clear of it again.
The woman looks at Jewel expectantly.
On the other hand, as Jewel struggles to collect herself, she doesn't recall having spotted 'recognition'. She's been to Hell, so this is not a new experience, but this is a *bad* part of Hell. Either the person has just been to, say, Abaddon; she's a Prince; she's a Shedite; or she's a schizophrenic in the midst of a violent psychotic episode. Jewel didn't spot anything in all the worlds this person was afraid of, not even a Prince's face, but she didn't exactly stick around to search.
The woman looks at Jewel more expectantly.
Jewel says "I'm sorry; you just look like someone I used to know. Anyway, could you see if he really did arrange the apartment? My name's Eliza.", hoping to have the demon say, 'no, no apartments under that name', so she can say her boyfriend must have flaked, and *leave*.
She rolls her chair back and looks in a file cabinet. "Eliza Whitney?" she wonders, after flipping open a file or two.
Jewel sighs inwardly. Eli said to trust him, and she was going to use the name Whitney before she decided to chicken out, so... "Yes, that's me."
And that's how Jewel came to the Lindel House.