With so many thanks and love to Goggles for going over this for me.
Warnings: mild ooc, more oc's, a wierd oc (get over her now)
Chapter two - Broken Glass and Special's Only Night
Claire didn't waver once in her six inch heels and felt truly hyped up as they finally got past the bouncer and headed through the fabled doors and into the arena of sound and movement. The lights pulsated hypnotically to the rhythm of the music and she felt herself begin to sway instinctively to the heavy beat. The club was laid out in approximately design number 172 that Claire had made up on the plane over; two layered, the ground level being a long bar with a few tables in front and shadowy booths around the edge. There were stairs leading down to an enormous dance-floor and large stage area all down in what used to be the basement. The light was everywhere, the sound rippled through her whole body and she leaned on the railings that ran between the stairs, and noted another bar and some tables underneath where she was now, right next to the dance-floor. She took in the sight, hundreds of wildly dancing people, all in colourful and wonderful costumes. She wondered how many of them were Specials and how many of the guys were good-looking. On the stage, doing a live performance, was a woman in a UV dress that played havoc with her eyes, singing covers of well-known dance tracks and a few dancers were on the stages on the main set.
Kelly made a bee-line for a booth from which they would set up their base of operations for tonight, taking their bags and coats and sitting, scowling slightly in the dark corner. West went immediately to 'get to know the locals' and by that he meant chat up the nearest group of girls. Claire was surprised but not surprised at the same time by the ease with which he flirted and became quickly popular with the circle of friends. Kelly frowned when Claire came back with shots of luminous liquid.
"I'm not here on a boozer!" She shouted at Claire, wanting just to get to business.
"Can't hear you!" Claire teased and chinked the tiny glass before downing a shot. She could not get drunk (oh, she would never forget that bottle of tequila), but she liked the taste, the bitter after-taste and the thirty second effect it had on her. Kelly shook her head petulantly when Claire gestured for her to drink. "You'll stick out and then get noticed for all the wrong reasons!" Claire said, shouting into her ear so she could be heard. Kelly rolled her eyes and hesitantly sipped it until it was gone.
"Alcohol makes me lose control after a while! I might put everyone here into a suicidal depression!" She protested when Claire made the gesture to get more drinks. Claire pouted. "Fine, one more, but that's it!" She promised and rolled her eyes again as her partner skipped back to the bar merrily. This time she brought back beers and they had a longer drink. West soon returned, a little flushed from having been dragged onto the dance floor to 'flaunt his funky stuff' to the girls.
"There's about four hundred people down there!" He said, shouting above the music, grinning widely. He was trying to think about work, but the fun was just too much. "Not seen anything Special yet." He reported, trying to at least have something he could tell Noah in his daily report to make it look as though he was doing work. "There's a really weird bouncer down there!" Their hearing was beginning to adjust to the loud music and they could pick up each other's voices better, thank god.
"What do you mean? Like, Special weird?" Kelly asked, beating Claire to it, and she now felt like she was the only one not doing work.
"I dunno. Big woman, muscle, blue tattoos all over her, you can't miss her!" He said. They nodded at each other, the super-secret Company signal for 'let's go check it out gang'. They made their way down the main steps and instinctively scanned the area for anything suspicious and entry/escape routes before joining the main throng of the crowd.
They tried to stay together, keeping a look out for the strange bouncer-lady, but soon the crowd seemed to pull them apart like the debris of a ship wreck. Claire was about to push back to regroup with West, when the crowd erupted in cheers and surged forward, pushing her along with it. She nearly stumbled and fell flat on her face in the bad-idea heels she was wearing, but only by grabbing the person in front of her, who remained oblivious to being used as a rail, did she stay on her feet. The woman in the UV dress had come back on the stage, apparently they'd come in just as she left for her interval.
Claire observed her closely in case it became relevant later (you never know), and committed to memory that she was quite small, a bit like herself, with loosely curled buoyant mahogany hair, not like her, and ... oh holy Jesus what a voice! She stopped all thought as the performer opened her mouth and sent forth wonderful waves of beauty. There was energy and power behind it, and she could do nothing but listen, sway to the tune and eventually her body picked up the pace and began dancing, her mind so enraptured by the vocals to have any say over the wild surrender of her body. She had never enjoyed 'Sing it Back' so much in all her life.
An hour later, the set came to another interval and Claire suddenly snapped out of her trance. She had just somehow had an amazing time, but without really realising it. She looked around for West, remembering that before the woman came on stage she was trying to find him. She saw him up on the balcony, scanning the crowd her, she waved and pushed through the crowd, a large part of which seemed to be all heading to the bar at the same time.
Eventually she made it to their booth and sat down, realising how tired her feet were. The dancing and the voice had made her forget she was in six-inch heels and did NOT dance accordingly. She would definitely have to wear her flats next time. She knew she would be in trouble now.
"Sorry guys, I don't know what happened, one moment I was trying to find West, next minute I know it's an hour later, sorry!" She apologised, mostly to Kelly, hoping she wouldn't get too much of a bothersome scolding.
"It's ok, the same thing happened to us – hypnotised by her voice." Kelly said, her eye was twitching ever so slightly. "My ability, sort of shifted a gear when she sang...like hitting cruise control on a car." She tried to explain. "She experienced several different emotions, but always kept the audience in one – rapture, joy."
"Her name's Melody, she plays here twice a week, Monday nights and Thursday nights." West said, handing out leaflets he'd found downstairs. They scrutinised for a moment.
"I'll go ask at the bar about her, see what they can tell me about her." Claire said and after getting the approving nods from her friends, took up her purse and headed to the bar. She ordered a round of tequilas (she was still not really sure how she felt about that drink), and casually asked about the act.
"She's been here about 6 months. Really talented girl. Works here, trying to get labels interested in her stuff. She does other places, but this is, like, her home. Never met DJ Unknown, just stays hunkered up in the mixing room up top." He jabbed a thump to a small black box on stilts above the balcony on the far side. "Guess, that's why he's unknown." He speculated. He went off to serve another customer. Claire stood and thought for a moment. Suddenly a menacing presence descended on the bar beside her. A large woman, tall and imposing with strong muscles. Her hair was bleach blond short, curling slightly around her ears, gelled back like a boy's and had blue Celtic knot tattoos all over her skin, even on her face, but those looked as though they had been drawn rather than inked. She radiated 'don't funk with me' vibes and Claire took a step away, despite her previous agreement to investigating her. The mysterious woman waved at the barman who nodded with a smile, if not slightly fearful and got a special bottle out of the fridge for her. She bowed her head in appreciation, flipped the cap off with her thumb and took a long draught. Claire's eyes darted over to the cap as it landed with a drowned-out 'chink' on the bar top. It was a metal one, and she flipped it off as though it was plastic pop-lid.
Claire went to go and take the drinks back to Kelly and West when she caused a bit of a scene. Two girls fell over and their drinks smashed on the floor, sending glass everywhere. Unfortunately, she did not stop in time herself and swerved to avoid the mess, only ending up on the floor herself – slashed a few dozen times by tiny fragments of shattered glass. She groaned in pain, and felt a crowd of people descend on them trying to help. She felt a hand around her wrist and which hauled her up onto her feet with little apparent effort – the scary bouncer-lady. She felt herself pulled behind the bar and through the washing room to coffee room and sat on a desk. The woman was already brandishing tweezers and antiseptic wipes before Claire really could establish what had happened.
"How much have you had to drink?" Came a strong Scottish accent, but not so broad as to be unintelligible.
"Not much, a shot and a beer." She said, and jerked her arm away when she came close. Claire panicked, she couldn't show this woman that she could heal! That would ruin everything! Not to mention reveal to a non-Special that she was a regenerator!
"I have to take the glass out." She said in a short, non-argumentative way. Claire made for the door.
"I'll be fine, thanks, I'll just..." She tried, but was dragged back by two impossibly strong hands.
"No. You will sit still until I get this all out." And Claire was helpless, she could not even begin to compete with the strength of the Scary Bouncer Lady as she was quickly being christened in Claire's head, and her voice struck fear in the girl.
She took the first large fragment out and chucked it in a yellow bin and her head turned back to the wound quickly enough to see it close up of its own accord. She looked mildly shocked for a moment and then looked at Claire with a sincere expression.
"Never met a proper healer like you before." She said, returning to her nonplussed face. "How did you know to come here?"
"Friend of a friend kinda thing." Claire improvised quickly. Scary Bouncer Lady was surprised, but not afraid of the healing, so she obviously had experience with Specials. Was she one too? Is that where she was getting all that ungodly strength from?
"At least you won't get infected then from these cuts." She said, wiping away the blood remaining on the skin and efficiently plucking all the small offending shards with an alarmingly practised hand. "You want to come back on Thursday. And you'll need a ticket. I'll get you one from behind the bar when we go back out." She said. She certainly played her cards so close to her chest they might as well be behind her shirt, her tone betrayed nothing, and the most Claire had seen of Scary Bouncer Lady's reactions was the look of mild surprise earlier.
"I've got friends with me..." Claire began, but wasn't sure where she planned to go from there.
"Only people like us can get in on Thursdays." She said, sternly.
"Oh, yeah." She said, unsettled slightly. "One can fly." She said, as if that proved anything.
"I'll get you tickets." She repeated and took the last sharp shard from Claire's arm. Luckily, it had seemed not to get on her brand new dress.
"Thanks." She said as she flexed her arm and hand to make sure all the fragments were out.
"Not at all. Let's go back." And with that, she led the way.
"What's your name?" Claire asked quickly, wanting to get a serious name for her, rather than having to report to her father as 'Scary bouncer Lady'.
"Morgan Dana." She said, and Claire barely heard the last name as the door to the club was swung open and the heavy beat assaulted her ears again, just as they had become accustomed the to the lesser noise and relative quiet of the coffee room.
As she stepped out, West and Kelly rushed her, fussing and worried.
"Where the hell have you been?" Kelly demanded, angry out of concern.
"Scary Bouncer Lady took be behind the bar to get the glass out of my arm – I fell on some broken glasses." She elaborated, the wrong way round, but they got the story. Claire felt a tap on her shoulder, and her two compatriots tense up before she turned around, and Morgan presented her with three tickets. She looked at West and Kelly as though asking if they were to two Claire mentioned earlier; she nodded and took the thin slips of card. Morgan nodded and walked off into the invisible crowd of people roaming the place.
"What are those?" West shouted above the din. Claire led them back to the booth and shared them out.
"These are tickets to a Specials-only night. Thursday!" She said, and didn't need to verbally make the connection between the Specials-only night and the other night 'Melody' played.
"That's why her voice was so enrapturing! It must be her ability!" West shouted. Claire visibly gasped when she looked at the ticket properly.
"That...that symbol!" She said, mostly to herself, as it was too quiet to have a chance of being heard by the other two, but they saw it as well: the slender 's' curve with three neat strikes going through it, they symbol of so many things connected with Specials. What did that mean? They guessed they would find out on Thursday. A few words were exchanged. They had found out quite a bit, they came to the conclusion that they needed a break and all headed for some serious partying.