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In West Philadelphia, along the rail line, are neighborhoods of old row homes that look more like gums with many missing teeth than neighborhoods. Homes that fell into disrepair and were condemned by the city and demolished become empty lots. And there are a great many empty lots. It's easy to escape notice in this neck of the woods. Everyone minds their own business, because they know what's good for them. Gun violence is high, crime is high, and the cops rarely if ever perform routine patrols. Welcome to the worst part of the city.
Here, sitting on the front porch and beneath the notice of literally everyone by dint of magic, sits one Vasily Tometchko. He's dressed like a G-man. Black suit, thin black tie, white shirt. Even in the face of the summer heat. He does wear a pair of sunglasses, though. More a nod to style than to practicality, though. He smokes his shitty German cigarettes, sips his not-shitty German beer, and waits for Mearcstapa's arrival so that he can drop his spell effect and reveal himself to the world again.
The man who arrives at the house probably looks out of place for the neighborhood. Cargo shorts, a T-shirt that reads "I Void Warranties", hair that's not quite shoulder-length held out of his face with some plain brown bobby pins. He's wearing a brown leather messenger bag over his shoulders, and is absolutely and completely covered in freckles.
In short, he looks like a nerd.
As he approaches the safehouse, he double-checks his texts for instructions on how to approach.
Mearcstapa probably won't notice anything unusual at first. There's not really anyone around to stop paying attention to him apart from Vasily himself, and of course he's the one doing the cloaking. But a veil of unobtrusiveness falls over the pair, and in so doing overwrites the effect that had been keeping Vasha hidden from everyone else, too. Suddenly, there's a Vasha there on the stoop, rising up to his feet. The experience is the definition of apperception. He'd been there the whole time, only now Mearcstapa is aware of his awareness of that fact.
"Apologies for the secrecy. We like to keep a low profile. You're now as I was a moment ago. Beneath the notice of most minds. Once we've concluded and you feel yourself safe, text me and I'll lower the effect you're under." Vasha plucks the cigarette from his mouth, takes a few steps forward, and offers his hand for shaking. "I am Vasha. Thank you for coming all this way. Truly."
"I have the ability to do something similar, myself, I'm familiar with such effects. I believe vampires can also do something similar. The common threads between all of us are fascinating to track. Thank you." He accepts the offered hand, his grip professional, but utterly non-confrontational. You know, some people try to win at a handshake when given the opportunity. Mearc doesn't play that shit.
"Fox has told me very little about you, and all of it filtered through a very fond lens."
Neither does Vasha. He shakes hands like a gentleman. A European one, at that. He even adds his free hand over the top of the first at the mention of Fox. "Then it is my honor to disabuse you of her impressions of me." There's a mercurial curl of a grin at that statement. "We share a kinship, you know. Your kind and myself. All of us vagabonds of fate and chance. People out of time. Citizens of all countries and none. I imagine we could share quite a few stories over drinks." He claps their clasped hands twice with his own in a decidedly Prison Slav manner, then gestures up to the outwardly dilapidated house that they're to be entering. "If you're familiar with Doctor Who, it's a bit like that. It's nicer on the inside." Vasha leads the way, mounting the small stoop and stepping through the door.
Nicer is a relative term. It's not fancy by any stretch, but the wasting away on the exterior is cosmetic. The bones are sturdy, and the interior has been renovated to appear plausibly well kept while still being true to the state of the neighborhood. Furniture is reclaimed, old, faded and threadbare in places. But clean. All the amenities are decades out of date, but functional. The TV is a tube one, and has a digital converter box for the aerial. Hope you like VHS, because that's all that's here.
It appears to be only them present, but who knows. "What prompted you to take up my cause, if I may ask? We've never met. You owe me nothing."
He looks around the room with the casual hypervigilence of someone who's hypervigilent, noting windows, exits, hallways he can't see down, positions of furniture. It's not a lingering sort of thing, but he seems to take stock of his surroundings before continuing.
"Fox asked. You're a member of her tribe, I'm a member of his tribe, that makes us cousins or something. Plus, it's work I'm already doing within my own community--I was already getting one built for someone whose 'good name' was compromised. It didn't take too much extra effort to work on another."
As he speaks, he reaches into his bag, pulling out a manila envelope and offering it to Vasha. Contained within are driver's license, library card, even a gym membership card for one of the local 24-hour workout places. All under the name Ivan Medvedev.
Vasha takes the ID's up and looks them over carefully with the critical eye of one whose former day job was spycraft while it night he unwound by being a spy but magical. "This will get me out of a traffic stop. Is there anything behind these things, or just the plastic they're printed on? If I run this number, what comes back?" He waggles the driver's license for a moment, then pulls out his wallet to slide the items away casually.
"And what do I owe you?" Quid pro quo seems to be his expectation.
"They won't stand up to a full background check done by someone who knows what they're doing--I'm not able to make that happen yet, and I'm sorry for that. But there is some weight behind it. There's enough information that now exists on Ivan Medvedev that someone googling will think you're a real person who's left real Yelp reviews." There's a bit of a crooked grin there, and he tucks his hands back into his pockets after zipping his bag closed again.
"As for what you owe? I did this as a favor to Fox. Do you feel obligated to compensate me for this? It's not something I'm worrying about."
"Nothing to apologize for. You're an artist. This is quite impressive." Vasha waggles his wallet before sliding it away. "I was just curious when I should try to use it and when I should simply obscure myself. Don't hand it over to the feds or a detective. That's good information." Vasha takes a drag from his cigarette and walks over to tap some ash into the ash tray on the coffee table. "I don't like owing favors. I like being owed favors. I'm sure you can relate. I'd prefer to balance those scales somehow, yes. Money is no object. Perhaps there's something you need, magically speaking, that I can provide. I'd offer to tell you about one of your own, but I believe a mutual friend already tipped out that tea for you."
Mearc snorts, sounding somehow like a disgruntled large cat. "Yeah, I heard about that, and have passed the information on to people who will be able to handle it, and then washed my hands of the matter."
There's a moment of thought as he mulls over the possibilities. "I'm not sure I know enough about your personal talents with magic, to know if anything I need is something you can offer, yet. But I understand that revealing that information might not be comfortable to you."
"Not particularly. I deal in matters of fate, time, and of the mind. It's how I move in and out of society. I am where I should be when I should be, and nobody notices. In essence. This means I can assist you in achieving your ends either immediate or more long term by putting my thumb on the scales for you. In your favor, of course. I could enhance your skills or heighten your senses. I could postcognate a scene for you, and so on. About a week's worth of such work would be typical for the favor you have done me. If there's a particularly difficult task before you, you can leave here better situated to achieve it, and so on. Sorry if I'm speaking in abstracts, it's hard to speak in concretes where fate and potentiality are concerned."
"Of course. That all makes sense, and it's all something I don't need at the present moment."
As they talk, Mearc's not making direct eye contact. It's not a pointed thing, not like he's avoiding looking at Vasha, it's just that his gaze tends to linger somewhere around Vasha's ear or chin, instead of his eyes.
A thought occurs to him, and he smiles. "Actually, it occurs to me that this is a unique opportunity. You're clearly experienced in a field that runs parallel to some of my own work. Teach me something about mundane security that you know, something that either might help me in my work as a physical penetration tester or that might be interesting enough to put into one of my Youtube videos."
"Wet work is usually my area of expertise, if I'm being honest, Mearcstapa." Vasha's admission is casually spoken. No doubt they have their hatchet men, too. "I guarantee you that you know more about mundane security systems than I do. Usually I just cheat when confronted with them." Vasha rubs at his chin for a few moments before further admitting, "I do know some tradecraft secrets of the Russian Government. I can educate you on ways to confuse Russian military assets in the field, and maybe give you some intel on the location of some of their agents here in the US, but that's of limited use to you, I imagine. And if you're putting these things on YouTube, that's probably not a good idea for you. Similarly if I start giving you tips on infiltration in the open. Assuming a role in the organization and so on, and how to tell if you've been made by the ones you are infiltrating. That seems like publishing it might land you in some legal trouble. But I genuinely don't want to insult you with advice like 'check inside the drawer for a post it note with passwords' and the like."
"Ah. Wet work is...not usually a field I engage--if I am put in that position, it means something has gone wrong. Infiltration, I have more experience with than I want to admit, but these days I leave that side of business to my social engineer, and pretend I don't have those skills. As for checking inside the drawer, under the keyboard's proven more common with my clients."
He looks thoughtful. "...would you teach me the basics of speaking Russian? That, that could be useful at some point. I'm not saying get me completely fluent, but. Enough to order a drink and a sandwich, tell the time and give directions?"
Vasha gestures to Mearcstapa as he suggests under the keyboard is a more likely hit, as if to say 'You see?'. "As I am certain you can relate to? We have our enemies that enjoy hunting us and putting us in the ground. I hunt those hunter. So most of the time I try not to exist in anyone's perceptions. It's a lonely life, but at least I'm alive. Accordingly, most of my skills relate to that pursuit."
His eyebrows raise a touch, "You wish to learn Russian? Certainly. It's actually a cunningly simple language. Once you wrap your head around the alphabet, reading and writing it is simple. As is grammar and the like. I also speak Ukrainian. And English, obviously. But I am happy to serve as your Russian tutor for the week. How many hours a day would you like to dedicate to in person instruction?"
"Two or three, if you can spare the time. I'll probably ask Fox to help me practice. Beside English the only language I know is American Sign Language; I learned because an acquaintance of mine is Deaf. But it does mean I have some familiarity with non-English grammatical structures."
A pause. Mearc leans against a wall, watching Vasha. "I understand what you mean, hunting the hunters. And how lonely it can be. We do these things so that those around us can sleep soundly at night, mm?"
"That is the hope. It doesn't always work out that way, in practice." Vasha seems to be speaking from experience. "With great power comes great responsibility, and so on. Plus, if I'm being honest, I genuinely enjoy the work. I could explain the matter sometime. It's a bit of an in depth story to break into at a casual meeting such as this." Vasha finishes off his cigarette before snubbing it out in the ash tray and dropping the butt into his box of smokes. "That was thoughtful of you. Learning to sign. I just know my old military hand signs." There's a beat. "In any case. Give me a few days to put together a 21 hour program for you, and we can meet and work through it together. You won't be writing Tolstoy at the end of it, but you'll be able to get drunk and laid in Minsk, at the very least."
"I just need to be able to order a sandwich and find the train station. My freckles and my smile are enough to get me laid." The bravado is completely and totally an act, but it's a playful one here; he's aware he's not a Casanova. Sometimes it's fun to imagine, though.
"And I text you, when I'm safely away and ready to be visible to the world again?"
"I imagine playing connect the dots gets much more exciting the lower down you get," Vasha rejoins in a nakedly provocative manner. Well. Fully clothed at the moment, but the implication was certainly there. "Sadly, I have only my winning smile, my receding hairline, my growing stomach, and an abundance of body hair to win the day for me." His smile is back, more amused than otherwise. "But. Catching a train and ordering a sandwich, that I can do. It will be nice having another speaker around that isn't trying to sell me lottery tickets at the orthodox church."
Mearcstapa's laugh comes easily. "It's your eyebrows and your stormy gaze, Vasha. Your face is animated. That's pretty cute."
The eyebrows waggle. For they are, indeed, quite bushy. Then he smiles again, "And the accent. I've found Americans will forgive things from a Ukrainian accent that they would never tolerate in an American one. Don't quite understand it, but it amuses me." Vasha then slides his own hands into his pockets, "Well, the official business is concluded. You're free to stick around and be social, if you like. Or we can go out and do that. Or you can be on your way under my cloaking. Just remember to text me when you want it dropped."
"I ought to head out. We're renovating a house and today there's some fiddly work involving making sure the doors are secure on the agenda. But take care until I see you again, Vasha." He laughs, heading for the main exit.
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