Salt - Dragons Next Door - for the Giraffe Call

[aldersprig]

For ankewehner's prompt.

Dragons Next Door Verse. DND has a landing page - here (or on LJ)

This comes after Hostage Situation (LJ Link)and Ketchup (LJ Link) and is far darker than the normal DND stories.

Commenters: 5

We sat watching the TV, staring at it, really, transfixed and horrified and growing more and more restless. The grainy film of the outside of the bank rolled on, the police moving back and forth, muttering to themselves, but not doing anything, not moving forward, not stopping what we could imagine was going on inside.

“Why aren’t they scrying?” Jin asked impatiently, leaning forward in his seat as if willing the people to move in. “If he’s a human, he can’t have blocked their senses.”

“Salt,” Sage answered tiredly. “A ring of salt will do it; oldest trick in the book, and a lot of banks already have salt built into their vaults for just that reason.”

“Salt?” Jin glared at the TV. “Then a firehose would do it, wouldn’t it?”

Before Sage or I could say something to this relatively-wise advice, the chief of police looked up as if slapped. “Firehose.” Even with the volume down, his meaning was clear. “Someone get that truck over here!”

I could see Sage, on the other side of our oldest, turning to look at him, mirroring me, but Jin was paying us no attention. He was hunched forward, focused on the screen, every bit of his attention aimed towards the front door of the bank while the firemen dragged the hose over and aimed it at the door.

This could go so horribly badly. This could end in blood and tears, and some of both could be Jin’s. If the monster inside were not a garden-variety human, if there were someone else that could follow Jin’s signature back to him, an accomplice or just opportunistic… I glanced at my husband, and relaxed as he began moving his hands in a pattern I knew well. I sank into a half-trance. If this went badly for purely mundane reasons, if the monster killed all the hostages, well, we’d have to deal with Jin’s guilt in a mundane manner. But until then, we had his back magically.

The hose washed through the front doors of the bank, sweeping into the building. Almost immediately, the picture-in-picture flickered and focused on the scene inside, the hostage-taker sitting on the blood-covered slab, holding his long, messy knife and waving it at the captives. In his left hand was a kill-switch, an old-fashioned dead-man detonator.

Jin leaned forward so far he was nearly off the couch, his left hand twitching in a series of movements that looked more like spasms than magic. “Gotcha,” he crowed happily, as every single wire in the building wrapped itself around the monster. “There!” With an exultant cry, my oldest child passed out.





Next: Released

Comments

[kelkyag]

Oh, dear. I mean, good work Jin, at the moment that looks like a job well done (assuming he pinned down the deadman switch adequately), but there is going to be a *lot* of Explaining to do after this ...

(And if this time is anything like ours, some ninny at the bank will try to sue for damages to the wiring.)

[aldersprig]

Oy, yes, the Bank very well might!

[lilfluff]

In that case file a bill for services rendered. Or agree to pay, but do so quite publicly. How many of those former hostages might decide to yank their accounts if they here that the person who stopped the hostage taker was being billed for doing so.

"Bob Bother here with the Daily Tattler, I see you're taking a rather sizable amount of money to the bank. Do you have an account there?"

"Not exactly. Apparently they value the wiring more than their clients lives, so they're billing me for the cost of replacing the wires that were wrapped around that madman."

Then watch the bank manager loudly claim that he did not approve taking this action and of course he's going to scold the employee who billed him, and what can he do to make the media stop saying bad things -- er, thank Jin for his heroic actions...

(Then again, some people don't believe in bad publicity. Consider the recent TSA official who said we shouldn't worry about a loaded gun falling out of a carry on bag that had passed through inspection, "because we don't check those for guns, we check them for explosives, and the bag was clean of explosives.")

[kelkyag]

The services rendered weren't really to the bank, except inasmuch as some of its employees were (presumably?) among the hostages -- at least so far, there's no reason to believe the bank was at fault for the hostage-taking happening there. That doesn't improve the PR situation any, though.

(How gunpowder does not count as an explosive escapes me entirely.)

[aldersprig]

(gunpowder, explosive, mm?)

[kelkyag]

(Regarding lilfluff's mention of a loaded gun passing carry-on checks. Is gunpowder merely considered merely highly flamable and not explosive?)

[aldersprig]

Ah, I missed what we were talking about. Maybe 'cause it's harder to light a bullet on fire?

[thnidu]

Pointless nitpicking. Of course they SHOULD be checking for guns! "Oh, don't worry, he can't blow up the plane, just kill the passengers and the attendants. The cabin's locked."

[clare_dragonfly]

Oohhh neat. Jin has magic powerz! Is that why he wants to go to the Black Tower?

Go Jin! Now, I think you need to learn how to modulate your power usage so you don't pass out every time :-P

[aldersprig]

It's why the Black Tower wants him, at least.

And yes. :-d

[meridian_rose]

hero Jin :D
Agreeing with the others that he'll need to work on controlling his skills though before he hurts himself.

[aldersprig]

Yeah, he really will. :-)

[thnidu]

I've been reading through this 'verse tonight from the landing page. I didn't realize how tense I was getting until the last graf, and a huge "Whoof!" of relief. Well done, Mistress Maker!

[aldersprig]

Wow. Thank you!

[thnidu]

Uh, this is weird. *I don't remember reading this!* I saw the current installment and went back to start at the beginning, and then I hit my own comment... from three years ago. That would explain it.

[aldersprig]

*grin*

Since I lose memories from more recently than that, I can totally empathize.

[thnidu]

Forward link to next part, plizz?

[aldersprig]

*confused*

[thnidu]

Oof. Now so am I. ?????

[aldersprig]

There is a link to the next part at the end of the post here…?