"Police have not yet disclosed any leads," the television in Constantine's
room is saying as he tiredly puts down the phone. He's called the others,
told them to come to his room so they can have another of those damn
discussions that only end up depressing them more. He looks at the TV
again. "...Mr. Winters was 68 at the time of his death," it says. It's
showing a reporter standing outside of a blocked-off area in Hamilton.

"Fucking hell," Constantine says to nobody in particular. He then proceeds
to light a cigarette. He hasn't even bothered to check if this is a
non-smoking room. And if it is, he's sure he can find a way to mask the
smell. He's nothing if not resourceful--despite his lack of much idea on
what to do to save the world right now.

Kate comes wandering into the room after a few moments. "Jack's dead to
the world, I'm afraid. Should I try to awaken him, or just take notes to
fill him in later? He'll not be pleased if I rouse him."

Holmes comes in with Seishi at his side, looking a bit distant, his mind
elsewhere.

Seishi and Holmes are making a nice pair this evening; she's not really
any more animated than he is. She is at least more *present,* if
self-contained to the point of impassivity, dark eyes sharply focused. She
inclines her head to those already there--that is, John and
Kate--wondering in a calm voice, "What news?"

Kitty and Pete's arrival is slightly belated compared to the others';
Pete, crutches and all, is looking even more rumpled than usual, and
Kitty's wearing one of his shirts along with her jeans. She darts
Constantine a 'comment and die' look as she holds the door for the injured
type.

"Take notes," Constantine says gloomily to Kate, still staring at the TV.
He slumps down onto his bed. "He'd be pretty pissed off if you woke him up
for *this*." The reporter on the television continues to describe the
discovery of Jimmy Winters's dead body behind a building in Hamilton. John
glances up at the sight of Pete and Kitty. His mouth twitches just
*slightly* upward, and he gives Kitty a decidedly amused look. But he has
a sense of self-preservation. So he doesn't actually comment.

Wisdom merely thumps in pointedly after Kitty, giving John a look of his
own. His is more along the lines of 'your timing #$@*ing stinks,
Constantine'. There's also an element of 'so I took painkillers for
/this/?' "What's up *now*."

Kate wanders over and picks up the stationery set that always comes with a
hotel room. She pulls out a pen and sits cross-legged on the bed. "So
what's the best news?"

Carita walks into John's room, joining the rest of them, looking ashen and
shaken, red-eyed and not at all pleased. "It's shown up in six more
instances," she says, wiping at her face and seeming some combination of
frustrated and furious. She barely looks to the other people, but waves at
the TV, half pleading, half demanding "Turn it off. Off that, at least.
Weather Channel's got something of note." She lifts a sheaf of papers out
for John's inspection. "/Six/. And I'm not anywhere near finished."

"There's no news that deserves the title of 'best.'" Constantine blows
smoke at the TV irritably. In the middle of that, in comes Carita, and he
winces. "Fuck. Six." He gets up for a moment to go over to the TV and
turns it to a weather report, then goes back to his bed. "I suppose, of
all the news we've got, the 'best' is that Carita and I've made some
progress decoding the notes." He sighs. "We identified one word. Blood."

Holmes nods slightly. "...may I see these notes, and your work?"

Kate jots that down. "So these are the books you two have been poring
over?"

Seishi tucks her hands into her pockets for lack of anything better to do
with them, and looks between John and Carita with her brow creasing just
slightly, giving her a faintly troubled expression. "I take it this is a
bad sign."

"Oh, of /course/," mutters Pete, eyeing John and Carita, then shooting a
baleful glance at the television. He appropriates a chair, tugging at
Kitty. "Constantine! Shut the bleeding telly /off/, will you? I've /had/
the weather station on. Maybe if we don't watch it we won't tempt fate."

Kitty takes a place leaning lightly against Pete's more-or-less-good
shoulder. "Why did I have the feeling that particular term'd be turning up
sooner or later?" She darts Wisdom a look briefly.

Long distance to Pete Wisdom: Kitty cuddles the sick very carefully. Cold
awful?

Kate sighs. "While Jack's been sleeping, I've been on the phone all
afternoon with the airport, trying to make sure that the Lucky Lady's in a
sturdy hangar."

The weather station makes vague mutterings about Tropical Storm Isaac,
which has yet to blow itself out, and is currently on the way toward
crashing into Bermuda. It's not apocalyptic--not /yet/ anyway--but it
certainly isn't *good*. "Because it's always about blood," Carita murmurs
sadly, and sinks into a chair, rubbing her eyes.

"Someone else can turn the bloody thing off," Constantine informs Pete.
"I've already got up once." He's feeling lazy at the moment, apparently.
"And yeah, it's a fucking awful sign. Spells that talk a lot about blood
usually end up being painful. And...pricy. For lack of a better word." He
stares off into the distance for a moment. "Carita? Did you know Jimmy
Winters?"

Exchanging the glance with Kitty, eyebrows up and somewhat disgusted
expression on his face, Pete just shakes his head. Then he eyes the
television speculatively, idly raising the arm that's not in a cast and
pointing. "I could shut it off from here."

Seishi turns a dry look toward Pete. "Please do not fry the hotel's TV,
Wisdom-san," she says, with just a hint of a drawl. "I think we have
enough problems." And, in the interests of forestalling any efforts along
those lines, she goes and turns the TV off herself, the old-fashioned way.
Then she looks back to John. "About that code," she says, more a prompt
than anything else.

Kitty puts her hand on Pete's forearm and pushes lightly downward.
"Behave, Wisdom," she says firmly, overlapping Seishi's more polite
request. "You can despise appliances later."

"And you'll be the one to pay the costs, mate," Constantine retorts,
giving Pete a dirty look. Fortunately Seishi solves the problem for him.
"They're in Carita's room right now," he tells Holmes, "but it'd probably
be a good idea for you to look at them. Yeah?" This last is directed at
Seishi.

Holmes nods slightly. "I have written a treatise on multilingual
cryptography." he says. "I'm interested to see if I can help."

"Yes," Carita says dully. "Yes, I did." And considering her expression, it
seems as though she's not particularly happy about that fact. "Jimmy just
got back from holiday," she says. "Only just," she says, and looks at her
hands, ink-stained, cut, burned, scarred, nicked. These are the hands of
one who /works/ amongst magic. "I could get them," she offers, and jumps a
little, at the sound of the knock.

Hey, it got the job done, didn't it? Pete settles back into his chair and
looks mildly pleased with himself, even though he got reprimanded not once
but thrice. But any remarks are suppressed out of a measure of respect;
someone here knows someone who just got killed.

Constantine waves his cigarette-holding hand at the door. "Somebody get
that," he declares. Carita gets a long, searching look. "Dabbled in the
occult, did he? Think the demons might've had a reason for topping him?"

Whisper slips into the room, her hair damp and tied back. "Sorry. You
called when I was in the bath," she says, offering a bag of chips to the
room at large. "What's going on and is there any way I can be useful?"

Kate sets her notes down, then picks them back up as the door gets itself.
"Come on in, Barb. There's a Hurricane a'blowin and the word 'blood' shows
up in the mystic code six times. Things do not bode well."

Kitty eyes Pete's expression suspiciously, and fails to volunteer to get
the door, apparently on the principle that she's probably more useful
keeping the man with broken limbs from causing any trouble. Or something.

Seishi's only response is to quirk a crooked half-grin, cock her head
toward Holmes and comment, in just above a murmur, "Told you so." It's not
a lot of humor, and it's gone quickly. "So why did you call us all here?"
she asks Constantine bluntly. "Just to keep us appraised, or is there
something else?"

"He could have helped," Carita says, shrugging. It looks almost like the
fire's gone out of her, for the moment. "There's /no one/ here, besides
us, who even /dabbles/," she says, sighing. "Eight left now, including me.
And the other seven are all off the island," she says.

"To keep you lot appraised," Constantine says with a shrug. "You can go
ahead and get the notes," he adds to Carita. Back to the others: "And to
see if you can figure out anything to do about it. Ilistair was around
here when it happened--I saw him sulking near that cave with the
Shakespearean name at about that time. So the demons must have at least
one other working for them."

Whisper lifts an eyebrow at Kate and caps the line, "Looks like the end is
comin' soon, huh?" she asks, flopping down in an empty sheet. "Well, I'm
not sure how good I'll be against demons. Techie-not-so-evil-guy gave me a
few moments I'd really rather not have happen ever again, and the one
before that could rip his own lungs out, which kind of made me less than
useful. If there is something, though, just point."

"Not that I have any desire whatsoever to hear about someone ripping his
own lung out," Seishi remarks with asperity, looking to Whisper, "but what
on earth are you talking about?"

"Sounds like the other seven knew it was all about to hit the fan,"
comments Pete, glancing at Carita. "One or two, I could see it explained
as coincidence." His hand - yeah, the one Kitty pushed down - is busy
again. But this time it's not getting in trouble, it's just settled at the
small of her back.

Kitty flicks Seishi a grin at her told-you-so, and Pete a grateful look at
his failing to comment on Prospero's Cave. "That or their absence
influenced the timing," she speculates. "What I'm wondering is, if the
demons have another agent on the loose, why haven't they gone after the
third stone yet?" She looks toward Carita as well. "Or have they? Or
/can't/ they?"

Carita says nothing in response to Pete. Whether they all knew or not
isn't much of the point /now/; getting the texts and notes thus far is
more helpful than wondering if somehow she could've seen signs earlier.
She exits the room, plodding, rather than walking, wiping at her eyes once
more. Before she leaves, she murmurs, "They can, and will, if they aren't
trying, already."

"Or the demons arranged matters to make some of them leave without
figuring it out," Constantine points out. Then he grimaces at Kitty. "They
might well be about to. That's why we've got to do something about this
agent."

Kate considers. "Maybe there's some...I don't know. Warding or enchantment
on it. Some kind of failsafe that they can't get through.

Whisper shrugs, "Sinn," she replies. "Just the general principle that
making things not breathe doesn't work so well on things that aren't from
this world. Unless you need a spy..." She shrugs. "Agent?"

Kitty replies to Whisper, "They've got to have at least one more agent
besides Ilistair - there's been another death, away from the water this
time."

Holmes continues to be quiet, listening closely - but there's nothing, it
seems, he can contribute.

Perhaps that will change once Carita's brought back the notes and texts;
once Holmes has information, he's often far more active, if not offering a
solution, then at least assimilating data. The woman sets down the stacks
of information, and sits down into a chair heavily once more, rubbing at
her temples. She mutters something about a stiff drink.

Whisper leans back on the couch, "Let me know if you need an extra pair of
eyes," she says, before fishing out a cheap-looking paperback.

Seishi is quiet for some time, turning things over and around in her head.
Finally she hisses quietly through her teeth. "Maybe," she says, each word
carefully pronounced, "we should be trying to guard the stone."

Kate says "Do we know where it is, exactly? And what might be a worthwhile
manner to guard it?"

Constantine throws his hands up in exasperation. "It's hidden. It's *near*
the Crystal Caves, but it's hidden. Hopefully the demons don't know
exactly where it is either, but we can't rely on that, can we?"

Holmes looks at the notes closely. He absorbs all of Carita and
Constantine's work of the last two days with one glance. "Yes, you're
correct about 'blood'." he says. Then turns to the code itself, paging
through one line after another.

Pete glances up at Kitty, then over at Seishi. "Well, Ilistair mentioned
that bit about fire, didn't he." Fucking Dr. Hibbard. "But then again,
hidden, eh? So if we find it, then they'll probably find it too. That
might be exactly what they want us to do. Once again being led up the
garden path. Constantine, Carita, does either of you have any idea at all
about the other agent?"

"Only that Winters seems to have died from strangling," Constantine says
tiredly. "Which I suppose is a tentacle-ish thing to do, but you never
know. Bloody demons," he adds, disgustedly.

"Ilistair didn't mention any others," Seishi adds, a shade grimly, "which
means either that he's playing a very complicated game with us, or that he
didn't know."

Holmes doesn't look up. "He didn't know." Holmes says. "Although you don't
need tentacles to strangle someone."

Kitty eyes Constantine skeptically. "/Tentacles/?" she asks, dubious.
"What, hands with opposable thumbs just aren't good enough?" She glances
aside to Seishi. "I'm thinking that he didn't know. It would've been
pretty stupid of him to lie about it."

Kate says "Frankly, Illy back there seems too superficial to get /too/
complicated."

"Yeah, but the things that attacked the plane were tentacles," Constantine
points out irritably. Dammit, think in occult terms for once! No
self-respecting demon with normal hands would simply *strangle* someone.
They'd come up with a more complicated way to kill them. "And the old
books mention the demons having tentacles. I hope it's not one of them,
though--that'd mean that at least one of 'em's loose." Which would be
Very, Very Bad.

"It's entirely possible to seem awfully superficial, and have several
dozen aces up your sleeve," comments Pete mildly. He sinks back a little
further, raising his eyebrows. "Though in his case it's not bloody
likely."

Pete adds, "And I hate tentacles. It's always tentacles! Always!"

Constantine gives Pete a too-bright smile. "That's right, it *is*
possible."

"Don't be too critical of him," Seishi says, voice quiet although her
expression has gone unwontedly fierce. "He didn't have to help us at all,
but he has been." Apparently her doubts about Ilistair's motives have been
fading.

Kitty eyes Pete sidelong. "And /what/ did you say you used to have in your
glove compartment?" She looks up again, half-nodding to Seishi. "We're
going to need to know more about this one. Where'd the death happen?"

Holmes says "He might still be hiding something. Just not /this/."

Kate nods her head. "We're going to have quite a time, if the storm does
hit us. I'll bet the caves will flood, with the high surf that's kicked
up."

"In Hamilton," Constantine tells Kitty. "Behind a building on," he tries
to remember, "Parliament Street."

Whatever reply Seishi might have made to Holmes is broken off by Kate's
comment, which stops her short. She blinks once or twice at the pilot,
considering this for a moment. Finally she begins, slowly, "If the caves
flood..."

Kitty nods at Seishi quietly, staying wordless for a moment before
speaking. "Pete and I have to go into Hamilton anyway, We can check
around, see if there's anything else we can find out - anything that might
tell us more about what killed him." Really, it's Holmes's type of
business, but his work on the code is likely to be much more important.

Holmes says without looking up, "If there are any ordinary clues, we know
it's unrelated. There were no indications with the tourists in the water,
you recall."

Kate scribbles down these various comments, for bringing Jack up to date
later.

Constantine glances at Seishi thoughtfully. "If the caves flood," he
repeats, "it could be bad for the demons, or it could be good--and it'd
certainly be bad for us." He rolls his eyes. "Even nature's got to make
this hard on us, eh?" He considers Kitty's comment. "You'll be all right,
then?"

"Well, considering the alternative when we get home, if we *don't* go into
Hamilton... yeah, I think we'll be all right," mutters Pete, steadfastly
not looking at Constantine. Or Kitty. Are his ears red? No. They can't be
red. Why would they be red. "If anybody wants anything from town, let us
know now."

Seishi bites her lip for a moment before answering Constantine, "I think
it will be worse for us. According to what Ilistair told us... they've
been able to get out into the water into the caves, but no farther as of
yet. So if the caves flood..."

Constantine winces at Seishi. "Yeah. That'd be bad," he says
unnecessarily.

Kitty nods to Holmes's note, attentive, then flashes Pete a thoroughly
amused look and pats him lightly on the far shoulder. "Well, I'm not
saying everything will be perfect," she says to Constantine, "but even if
one of them /is/ loose - we've got fire on hand, pun not intended. I'm not
worried."

Kate asks Constantine, "Are there ways to put up elemental barriers? So
if, say, we found the cave but then the hurricane or tropical storm hit,
we could keep the water out?"

"It's called sandbags." Pete just looks unimpressed. But hey, it's a
common expression. On him, anyway. Not to be taken personally. Ever.