Name: Sophia De La Fuente

Gender: Female

Race/Species: Human

Age: 27

Appearance: An olive skinned Latina with short raven hair and hard eyes. Although not unattractive, her features have a slightly feral look. Tattoos cover her arms and much of her body, though her face is unmarked. Many of the tattoos appear to be related to South and Central American religions of the Pre-columbian Period, although there are a number of gang related designs. She is slender and a little on the short side.

Personality: Sophia is passionate and intense. She is easily roused to anger, especially when she is frightened or confused. She is in the process of beginning to break down the walls that her previous life required her to build but remains a trifle aloof and perhaps a little awkward.

Powers, Traits, and Abilities: Sophia’s primary talent lay in the direction of ritual magic and thaumaturgy. After being extensively educated by her mother she traveled from her native El Salvador, absorbing various other traditions along the way. Years of involvement with gangs and narcotics trafficking have given her an insight into the criminal underworld, though it isn’t something she is eager to revisit. Sophia is also a naturally gifted sculptor and painter, though she lacks any kind of formal training.

Background:

The smell was the worst. Like greasy meat burned in an oven. It clung to her, coating her dark skin, sheening her black hair, an oily film at the back of her throat. Even when the flashing lights gave way to the quiet interrogation room and she was permitted a few minutes to ‘wash up’, swab her filthy body with a few wet wipes and rinse her mouth out with tepid tap water, it still clung to her. A change of clothes had been permitted her, an orange prison jumpsuit to replace the rags she had been arrested in, but the bright fabric did little but accentuate the filth that coated her. The detectives that came next wrinkled their noses, struggling to conceal their horror behind the blank face of professional detachment. They slapped a paper file down on the table between them and took their own seats.

Sophia looked up with them, her eyes dark and unreadable, the fluorescent light seemed to make tendrils of smoke dance in her irises. Neither of the detectives flinched but the younger of the pair shifted uneasily. He covered his unease by picking up the manila folder he had just slapped to the table and making a show of leafing through it.

“I’m going to be honest with you Miss De La Fuente, it doesn't look good for you. Four men burned alive… well California doesn't have a death penalty but if you don't cooperate there is no chance you will ever see the outside of a prison cell again.” It had the ring of a rehearsed statement, but that didn’t make it untrue.

“I was a prisoner there,” she said, her thick El Salvadoran accent rendering the final word as ‘dare’ rather than there. English was not her first, or even her second language but she spoke it well enough to be intelligible. The statement seemed to move the two policemen onto more familiar ground, a perp denying a crime was more intelligible than four men burned to carbonized husks. It helped that she spoke the way she did, it fit their comfortable preconceptions.

“Look girl, we got security footage of the place, no one in there but you, and you were the only one in the building,” the older, fatter one declared. Sophia spread her hands wide, the restraints that bound the ran through the eyebolt which secured her to the floor with a musical tinkle of metal on metal.

“So your theory is I overpowered four chera and set them on fire?” she asked with a skeptical quirk of her eyebrow. The younger thinner of the two gave her a malevolent grin, clearly aggravated by her apparent lack of reaction. He leaned across the table and grabbed her wrist. From arm to shoulder her skin was covered with tattoos of various kinds, curving serpents and strange sigils atop more prosaic ink.

“You think we don’t know gang ink when we see it? You think that any jury in the world won't take one look at those MS13 tats and…”

The metalized door swung open hard enough that the gasket hissed with the pressure of slowing its progress. A flustered looking junior officer slid into the room a only a footstep ahead of an elderly man dressed in a neat vest and wearing a bowler hat. The officer was trying to make a point of leading the newcomer into the room, but there was absolutely no evidence the older man would have waited for his theoretical escort. The man swept the room with his eyes and cleared his throat meaningfully.

“Uhh the chief says you are to give Mr Priest here a moment with the pris.. I mean suspect,” the escorting officer stammered. Both detectives stood up at once, their postures of angry beligerence so identical that the movement appeared rehearsed to Sophia’s eye. One of the cheap metal framed chairs toppled over with the suddenness of the movement. Priest regarded the detectives with a calm as cool and dry as the Atacama. Both men seemed to freeze for an instant in mid outburst, as though they had expected to find one more step in a long flight than was truly there. Angry words died on their lips in a moment of shock and confusion which transmuted to an anger for which their hesitation left them no outlet. Sofia saw the pulse throb in the heavier detectives neck. The moment passed and they stormed brusquely from the room but neither of them spoke.

The newcomer, Priest apparently, bent down and righted the toppled chair with quiet efficiency. This accomplished, he snapped open an antiquated looking case and withdrew a folded cloth which he unhurriedly spread on one of the recently vacated chairs. He sat down and adjusted the seat before tenting his fingers peering across at the chained, orange clad Sophia intently. There was something to his eyes, a keenness and weight to his gaze that she hadn't expected. She tossed her hair in half hearted defiance anyway, as a woman brought up in a brutal world of gangs and narcotics, it was an instinctive reaction.

“Miss De La Fuente was it?” he asked in culture Spanish. It was Castillian rather than South American in accent and idiom but perfectly understandable. It sounded exotic to her ear even elegant. She nodded her head, as powerless to prevent herself from moving as she would have been to stop a mudslide.

“That was quite an impressive piece of Thaumaturgy back there, what did you use for a flame?” The question was matter of fact and the point, the tone a man would use when asking which chisel one had selected for a particularly difficult cut. The shock moved quickly to a sense of panic. Were there police who could understand what had happened? What if she couldn’t… Priest lay a hand on hers, his hand was dry and slightly cooler than she imagined.

“No fear child, I just want to know how you did the working. Quite impressive, if a little gruesome. Now what did you use for a flame.” Sophia looked around as though afraid of hidden recording devices. Priest merely shook his head, dismissing the fear with unarguable certainty. His eyes bored into her as though trying to draw the answer from her mind with strength of will.

“The pilot light,” she said finally, “the stove had a pilot light, those cabrons were smart enough not to use it but they didn’t know about the light.” Priest sat back on his chair an appraising look in his eyes.

“It must have taken you days to gather enough power to use such a flimsy ignition source.”

“Four days,” Sophia said blankly, her eyes focusing on the near distance. By the way his gaze sharpened he clearly understood what such a task implied. The cartels knew how to hold a Brujha. An empowered circle was easy to create, even for a layman if they knew what they were doing, and even the mightiest practitioner could only do so much with what power remained within the mystical confinement. It would have been easy to waste it in useless fury, every mote of magic had been needed for what she had done, even then one of them might have lived if he hadn’t gone into shock.

“How did you create your links to them surely they were…” Priest trailed off as the answer to that particular question revealed itself in the asking, his face frowning with distaste. Sophia shrugged her shoulders as if to imply that it was nothing that concerned her. Priest withdrew his hand and sat back, his face considering.

“I will be frank Miss De La Fuente. My … firm you might call it, has an opening for someone of your particular skills. We consult on matters regarding the paranormal, take care of problems that sort of thing.” Sophia shifted against her restraints, rattling the chains.

“Senor if you can get me out of here, I don’t care if you are reanimating corpses for your friends to fuck.” Sophia’s voice was quiet and desperate, the profanity a habit rather than an effect of anger. If she were transferred to a prison, she wouldn’t last a day. Even a Brujah had to sleep sometime and the Narcocartels had a very short way with people like her, at least, once they slipped their leashes. Priest smiled as though he had expected nothing less.

“Splendid my dear, we will be happy to have you aboard.” Sophia glanced around the room, as though imagining some miraculous means of escape was about to present itself. No mystical portal opened, now transportation spell whisked her away, she merely sat, chained to the floor.

“So how are you going to get me out? Magic?” she asked Priest as he stood and began to fold his cloth, replacing it in his case with the same neat precision with which he had retrieved it. He gave her a slightly superior smile.

“Oh no my dear, a force much more powerful and diabolical than that.” As if on cue, the door opened to admit a man and a woman bedecked in sharp suits of severe and expensive cut.

“Lawyers.”

It was only after he left and the lawyers wrinkled their noses that Sophia realised that Priest had not so much as blinked at the smell of charred human corpses.

Name: Caber (his favored name)

Gender: Male

Race/Species: Gancanagh (Celtic Fae)

Age: 2,357 (appears 17)

Appearance: To describe the form of a Fae is...difficult. Some say he looks like a satyr, with cloven hooves and fur, and twin horns atop his head. Others describe him as a diminutive Elk, or a small man with the wings of a butterfly and a garment made of leaves and vines. Those who have seen him in Britain described him as a red fox. In truth he has been all of these, and more. His most common appearance is that of a youth, of with rich hair as dark as the night sky, eyes as blue as the deep sea, skin as flawless as a clear stream and a laugh like a song. His voice is often deep and as rich as his hair, but if he turns to anger or fear, it raises in pitch exponentially.

Personality: A lover of writing, paintings, and music, Caber is what you would call a patron of the arts. Beauty in all of its aspects, and the accumulation of such things drives him. He is very simple that way, and yet he has a vast wisdom and knowledge of the world born from his millennia of life. He is like most fae, quick to anger but equally as quick to calm, lust (what he is known for in the legends) and love arriving just as easily as distaste and hatred. Caber is a trickster and a knave, he is loyal to the PHI and those he seems of his clan. He enjoys learning and speaking dead or ancient languages. In relation, he has an extreme interest for ancient artifacts, particularly wealth that shines. He is quite greedy, and though he catches himself being selfish, it's hard to halt that part of his personality. Of course, above all he loves the natural world and he often stays outdoors whenever he is not working in the office, unless he has found a woman to seduce. After his many years of life, he has learned restraint to a point, however all it takes is a small push and he is as wild and unruly as he was back during his years as a Pagan deity.

Powers, Traits, and Abilities: Though he is no wizard or sorcerer, due to his Fae powers he can perform enchantments with his flute, and he can cast minor spells with a wave of his hand or the invocation of a word. His eyes and voice are mesmerizing, though anyone who is prepared can hold off that bit of magic with a stout mind. He has the ability to change shape, becoming creatures of the forest if need be, though there is hardly ever a need for that. He can see into the spirit realm and not only see other spirits or fae, but recently deceased humans or lost souls. Caber also has a minor levitation ability he enjoys using. His body is also far quicker, and slightly more durable than a normal man's. Years of exposure has also gained him a resistance to iron, the bane of all fae, though it still unnerves him and pure iron pressed to his skin will cause bruises and eventually cause him to lose his human form entirely. Despite these varied powers, his greatest strength is his knowledge. A lover of stories (mythological and mundanely historical) and ancient cultures, languages, and curses, he provides invaluable insight for the crew. He is very adept at gardening, bird watching, climbing trees, acrobatics, singing, dancing, and seducing taken women.

Background: A clear stream cascading down a rocky decline as the birds sing from above, and the sky opens to reveal a midsummer sun, revealing a vast sea of green, the highlands peaking out as waves. That was all Delilah could conjure in her mind to describe the melody played by the dashing stranger's flute. Once he was done, he opened his eyes and twirled the instrument within his nimble fingers, and the flute was gone as if it had never been. A sleight of hand, surely. "What's your name?" She asked, her pupils enlarged. He took her hand in his, looking positively smug.
The pub residents had all halted their conversations to pay attention to the flute playing, but once he was finished, the conversations rushed back in like a crashing wave of water. Caber took a drink from the generous pint he'd ordered. "Ah, a loaded question, some might say." he said, almost sounding bored. Perhaps not a loaded question to some, but Caber had been known by many names, and had seen many things change in his lifetime. The land he had been born had been called Gaul, by the Romans, and that turned into Gaullia, into Francia, and then France.
"Caber, they call me." He said. "And yours?"
She told him almost too quickly, her eyes caressing his jawline and the waves of his hair, only to follow his hand as he lifted up his mug once more. He was so young! Yet she was utterly attracted. "I love your music," she continued, her finger now idly twirling her hair.
"Can you believe some believed me a God for how I played the flute?"
She took it as a mere boast, giggling at what she perceived as an attempt at humor. He laughed with her as his mind wandered back into that ancient past, when he had ran wild and plagued the forests of old Gaul and Germania, until Caesar and his legions with swords of blasted iron came. The blasted Roman had gotten what he'd deserved at the senate, if only Caber could have been there to see him fall. Caber recalled the consular pursuing him even across the English channel into the British Isles. But ever northward had he traveled, and he found centuries of fun with the picts and the celts of Ireland. That is, until the Norse arrived, quaking with war and seeking vengeance with the power of their Gods of Asgard, using swords of dreaded steel.
With an effort, Caber calmed himself. He had done much better these days with keeping his faerie side from taking over, and once he opened his pools of blue, he found he should enjoy the catch he had made tonight. He drew in closer for a kiss.
"Hey, pal."
A rough voice tried to tear his attention away from the lass, but Caber had decided he would like to continue gazing at her for a moment. The voice spoke again.
"Hey, that's my woman there." The voice held a warning in it.
"Is it?" Caber asked aloud, unconcerned or simply unaware of the danger the interloper promised to present. "You are a lucky man. Tonight, I think she will be mine, however."
A rough, Nordic arm shoved Caber back and knocked over the wine he had been drinking, spilling the delectable contents across the table and shattering the serene mood the fae had placed himself in. Caber turned to the burly man, and the debonair young man suddenly looked feral, his teeth bared and the hair, no fur of his arms on end. What's more, his eyes blazed with the color of burning bronze. The lights began to dim slowly, and with the swiftness of the turning winds, Caber left his chair and had grabbed the man by his shirt collar, the youth's muscles firm like oak. "Do you think your Gods will save you from me?" the fae squealed in devilish delight. With an almost treeish certainly, he shoved the hairy Nord back into the next table, causing it to collapse. No sooner had the man hit the ground did Caber look as he had been, collected and as calm as can be.
The woman Delilah looked confused and torn, as if she needed to be told what to do next like a lost child. Caber smoothed his still-combed hair and cleared his throat, regaining his senses. "Two thousand and eighteen," he breathed, an indecipherable whisper to himself. A moment later, he turned back to Delilah. "My dear, it was lovely to speak to you. But alas, our time has come to an end. Had we met when I was a young one, you would be a Gwragedd Annwn." He clapped thrice, and the lights flickered once more. Those bar patrons that had not been too engrossed in their drink or still eyeing the prone body of the jealous boyfriend, would see the image of a goat-like thing in their retina before the lights turned back on, and the youth was gone.
The fae, now floating out in the nightsky back to his calling stone within the PHI HQ, realized he should speak of none of this to Morgan, or she would bind him to the station itself. That would be utterly dreadful!