Marks stood up and snatched Cyril's phone out of the lawyer's hand. "Shut the hell up, all of you crazy motherfuc*ers." Marks hissed when he realized that Garvey's number had already started to ring. He punched the disconnect button, then tossed the phone back to Cyril. "The last thing we need is that crazy b!tch breathing down our necks. She'll call back. When she does, tell her whatever you need to tell her, but for fu*k's sake, do not tell her what just happened here. Not yet, anyway." He scrubbed at his neck, unaware that he left red streaks of Esmeralda's blood on it. "It's late. It's crowded in here. We need time, but we don't have it. C'mon." Marks led the group into the sanctuary. There was more space for everyone to congregate comfortably in the sanctuary.
He looked first at Feral. "I dunno what that thing was. You saw more of it than I did. Frankly, it looked like a larger than normal octopus, except that it was clinging to the ceiling. I got no clue how it got there, what it wanted--except maybe a meal--or what to do with it now that it's dead. It is dead, right?" Marks looked around at T-dawg and J.R., uncertain. "I do know this, though. The one cop, I heard him asking for ID, but he never got mine. Never came back in the office, thank the Maker. If you think he'll be back, we got a problem, though. Because we got us a dead girl in that office. And a dead octopus in the basement. We either gotta clean up, and clean up fast, or we gotta clear the fu@k out of this place and never come back." Marks looked around for input. "Now's the time, people. If you got a clue what to do, speak up. Time's ticking."
