The following phone call takes place between Les Kaczmarek and Eiizabeth Lee during the night after the conversation with Metisse in 'Better The Devil You Know' the thread preceding this one.

Thank you to the writer of Les for the scene.

Late though it was in the evening, with the digital alarm clock on the bedside table pronouncing 11:45, Roach was bothered and impatient and curious.

Metisse's instructions and requests were proving to give her the clarity she sought in coming to New Orleans again, but also a great measure of concern and question. The scales were evenly balanced with pros and cons, potential and denial. It seemed that if she wished to undo her mantle herself, then she would need to take great risks in bargaining with the Loa and the world of Voodoun, something over her years of involvement with the Crez she had taken great pains in trying to resist.

But, she figured, the man had no motive in crossing her in any way, in hurting her nor dragging her to Hades. Robert was fixated on his own power rather than his power over her and she believed the loa when he said that he was of his word. Words were their own kind of magic and not living up to them or not meaning them was an offence in the world in which he moved. The world within the world, the world beyond this. The one that she sought to emancipate herself from. One of the many masquerades one might find themselves within, in this fractured fairytale of Louisiana.

Lizzie laid out on her bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to focus on who she could ask to assist with the creation of the tether that she needed. There was certainly no option in town. Or at least, an option she was willing to take. Her mind went over those she really trusted and there were only three:

Vitaly
Bones
and Les.

Vitaly didn't deal in magic. Bones was her safe place; she'd said she didn't want him involved directly because he had done more than enough for her, let alone be dragged down this avenue. It left only one, but one who dealt in magic somehow, having created the construct that almost obliterated her employer, Owen Ramsey.

But Les was a weird guy. He'd never smiled, he was resistant to any kind of humour, or flirtation, never really looked at her but she got the sense he saw it all and then some. But weird was her thing. She was a total freak. And however oblique or stony he might be, he was a man who always spoke straight with her, much like the other two. Honesty and transparency were qualities that she held above all others in these new days. Les had not given her cause to question him and had indeed sought out Bones to assist in finding the artefact responsible for containing the will of the contract and possibly even her soul. Even if the blonde loner had his own motivations for helping her, they never seemed aimed at her detriment or to endanger. Elizabeth had always taken in more than she seemed to but had lived a certain way out of desperation and poverty and being a little too big for her boots. But now she could be selective and now she had learned to pull her head in. With poverty not being an imminent problem in her life, even if she was far from rich, she had the luxury of making sure who she entrusted and those she surrounded herself with, were people of their mettle.

So, it was Les she would call. A glance at the clock.

11:50.

Fuck it.

Sure, she was changing, but some elements of her wouldn't and her patience was one of them. Hitting dial on the only number she had for Les, the direct line to his pawn shop in West End, she waited for him to pick up. No answer. She left a brief voicemail asking him to call her on the hotel line and that she needed some travel advice. It had given her a snicker of amusement when she hung up.

But, her questions still burned inside. So she waited a little longer and then called again.

Midnight, on February 28th, 2017.

"Hello?"

"Yo, Les. It's Roach. Sup? You uh... got a minute to chat?"

She stared out that Wyndham window at the street below. The faintest sound of a brass band down on the ground carried through the receiver. The rustle of a cigarette leaving its packet. The sound of it sizzling as she lit it up.

There was no background noise on his end, nothing but the soft rise and fall of his breathing while he waited for her to respond. "Yes, I have a moment. What is it you need? Your message was vague."

"So man, likes, I had an idea. After all that shit with the magic death ball thing I showed you, that was sent to kills Owen? Looks, knows you seen Bones, but I don't know what you knows about my sitch exactly, but uh... I gots to go get my soul from like, the veil thing, through it, I don't fucking know, so anyways, this guy who is goings to help me get across, says I needs a tether. Like, an invisible rope thing.. and you popped into my head cuz you made that magic death ball. So, coulds you make something ... likes, for me to hang onto, while I take a wander through the underworld?" She took a hard inhale on the cigarette and then exhaled, turning her back to the glass to look over the dark of the room. The shape of the bed barely illuminated by the light from the moon. No lights on otherwise. Only her, cigarette smoke and a slightly nervous voice.

"I know this is fucking weirds but.. I don'ts know who else to ask. And Bones says you is ... you know. "Handy"."

Eyes closed as he tried to muddle through her vernacular, each word like a needle into his ear. A pained expression formed while she rambled, forcing his focus to sharpen on her. "Your details are confusing. Let me be certain I understand correctly. You want to travel to find your soul? Where will you be going?" The exhale of smoke practically wafted through the phone but that urge was buried beneath the needs of the moment. "What sort of tether do you require?"

"I gots to scooby doo to the land of the dead, find and picks up my soul and comes back through the curtain, veil, whatever the fuck. But ... the tether has to be... well... uh, it's like a rope but it's not a rope." Frustrated, she stubbed out the cigarette in the tray atop the TV and pushed off the window to walk across to sit on the edge of her bed.

"I'm sorry, man, this is reals hard for me cuz, I'm trying to recount shit I don't even totally understand. I need tethers, apples, bones.. it's all kinda crazy fucking up in here, yo. But.. alls I know is if I don'ts have the rope, the tether, than I can't go through, cuz, I'll get stuck. I need something that is binding. He says, absolute. It has to be constructed with belief and it has to's be something that is irrefutable. No plastic, nothing can be melted or distorted. It has to be a metal or a...." she trailed off and reached over to switch on the bedside light.

"Sway?"

"Yes, I know the tenets of creating a tether. Do you know the plane to which you are traveling to find your soul?"

"Huh? He says there's this curtain I'll steps through. Behind this abandoned theatre on the outside of town. That's all I know, Les. The only other way I've ever reached its is via a ghost train at the docks in Rhy'Din. Know that small carnival theys got set up down there on the boardwalk? There. I ride that fucking train and I sees shit. But no, I don't gots the address of this "plane" of the dead. Just that it's... " she paused and rubbed at her forehead. Her brain hurt. "They left it out of the tour guide."

Roach could hear a soft sigh over the connection. "So you're involved in that nonsense there in that city? I see. Do you go on the train willingly or is someone forcing you?"

The sound of his voice made her tense and for a moment, a low, blue flame of frustration rose in her belly. She ground her teeth and closed her eyes. "Yeahs. I'm very involved." And then her mind went back to the ghost train. The clack of the carriage across the rails. The dark curtains and the giant wings of black birds. "I went on it because this fortune teller lady told me I oughts to one night.. and I had visions. I sees the dead, Les, but most times I tune them out. But on that train, I sees stuff I don'ts always understand. It's... sometimes just.. pictures. Of stuffs. But I can go into its. I can feel it pulling me. But I get off before I can. But I knows for this, I gots to go in there alone. As for what I do.. how to get theres...It's likes stepping into a painting. Only way I can 'plain it."

This train was a conversation for another time. He itched to investigate but that would be far too risky, even for him. "How quickly do you need a tether? I have a proposal but it will be very costly."

She groaned and fell back on the bed, kicking off her boots, the cell held to her ear. "Oh gods. How much am I lookings at? I kind of needs it this week...." she winced.

"This will not be a payment of gold or worldly goods, but of a different nature. Precisely what day do you need this ready?"

"Can works around you, man. Given the late notice. Justs.. I'm in town this week and had no idea that this was all going to go down when it has. We haves the tether, the when don't matter. No rubber, no grinding. No tether, no journey. And uh.. what the fuck does that mean? I got money if you needs it; I'm good for it, yo. I'd give you my soul but I can't." A little sassy there at the end.

The sass rolled off his back as if it was never spoken. "I will not require your soul for this. We shall discuss it in person. I can be in that city as soon as tomorrow. Where are you staying?"

Relief eclipsed everything else in that moment. It was a shadow that moved through her body like a building storm and darkened when it reached her mouth and her words breathed out in a slow succession that sounded like what she felt. "The Wyndham. Room four oh six." She sat up and bit down on her lip. "Yo, I really, *really 'preciate this." All the joke and barb gone from her tattoo needle of a voice as it caressed his ear in hard jolts from down the line. "Room service is on me, aiight." She smiled, though he couldn't see it. Then, she remembered something. "Oh; the Wyndham on Royal. There's some... sister hotel around heres someone so... yeahs. Royal. It's right by Canal."

"I will not require sustenance," that murmured absently as he wrote down the details of her current habitation. "I will find the correct hotel, worry not. You will not be so grateful once you are tethered to me."

"You're the reassuring sorts, aintscha. Wells, it's anything is better than being tethered likes I am to a fucking demon and a city that would eat me alive. I'll take the trade off." She didn't say it with her usual obnoxious bravado, but a kind of weary acceptance wisened by trauma. "Thanks for helping. I knew you were the bests shot." She got up off the bed and stripped off her jacket and wandered around into the bathroom and turned on the light. The blonde staring back at her in the mirror looked worn. "Uh... how will I know when youse here, though? Mister "I don't do cell phones.""

"You are hiring me for a service, not to coddle your tender human feelings. However, you can rest assured that I have no interest in eating you alive. You wouldn't be nearly as useful that way." There was a pause, the hollow sort that implied his attention was elsewhere. "I will find you. It won't be difficult."

She made a face at the mirror and then shook her head. "If it is, just looks for the parade of my followers." She laughed, a crackle of lightning confined to her lips though it was tinged with malaise, and she drew the phone from the side of her head. "See you tomorrow." She didn't hit 'end' immediately, but stared at the phone with a kind of a suspense. Nearly as useful that way, echoing though the words were gone. It projected a kind of foreboding onto the night and gave her an anticipation for getting their meeting over and done with, so that she knew the score. So she knew what she was owing, like she owed Metisse. "Night."

Les, however, had hung up before she said 'Night'.