Edward "Eddie Odin" Bouvier's Questionnaire

Eddie lives in the Bay Area - generally San Francisco, but she hops around as she's able. After she got free from her former employers in Ouroboros, she leveraged what connections she had left to find first a ticket on a train across China, then a ferry to Hong Kong, and finally a ship to San Francisco. Wanting to see what the mines she'd killed to protect had made, she settled into silicon valley, and upon actually seeing it, quickly developed a deep hatred for the so-called "civilized" world which the dense web of syndicates and counter-corporate terrorism that fester in it offer no end of opportunities to vent. Her home is an urban wilderness she clings to like moss on a rotting log: Eddie lives on its trolleys, in its alleys, in basements under delis and the back rooms of bars where a stack of dirty bills buys a bunk and a blind eye. She bounces from place to place like a camper until the bills run out, and when they do, there's always more to be found by getting her hands dirty.

I get my money doing odd jobs for antisocial lunatics, not-too-respectable mafiosi, and the occasional paranoid octogenarian who heard she knows how to get rid of a ghost. My clients don't know my background - not exactly - but they know that I know more than most people do, and most of them know I've got very few limits when it comes to destruction. I'm something of a paranormally apt domestic terrorist - my employers pay me lots of money because they know I know enough to blow up laboratories, banks, and office buildings that have a hint of supernatural protection, and they know I know to keep my mouth shut when I do it. When I have money, I spend it on two things - maintaining a nomadic urban lifestyle that lets me avoid most people most of the time and experience the Bay as a sort of concrete wilderness, and acquiring the supplies I need to carry out my own personal vendettas against the corporate bourgeois who pay the people that used to pay me.

My ambition is an impossible dream - the end of civilization. As a structure, I love cities, but only as structures - as societies, cities breed wealth, ignorance, and outrageous decadence. They produce fattened pigs who suckle on the suffering of the world and bleed the rest of humanity dry; worse than vampires because they are driven not by need, but greed. My dream is a world where skyscraper windows are shattered and technicolor trees burst from their overgrown edifices; a world where the twin plagues of industry and consumption lie stabbed to death and small, tight-knit communities live simply and feast upon their bloated corpses. A world where toil addresses necessity of the neighbor and not enrichment of the foreigner, and where violence is done to protect oneself and one's kin, and where humanity can live as brother and sister to itself in a world they share with all other living things. A world without politic or economy - one I'd burn myself alongside the whole world as it is now to achieve.

I was fifteen when it happened.I don't know exactly where I was living at the time - somewhere in central Africa, near the Congo, or maybe Sudan? The places then blur together - but my comrades and I had been marched long miles to fight for control over a cobalt mine. I was one of the senior members of my unit; seven years of service made me mean and strong, and helped me to marshal the green recruits in the group. That was when I thought of them that way - recruits, not conscripts or slaves. It was much like any campaign, at the start - the younger members of our unit were given civilian uniforms and sent to gather intelligence from the enemy, then we went to engage. The engagement was different, though. We were to serve as front-line support for a smaller allied force - foreign mercenaries, mostly European, armed with the sort of fancy black tactical gear in all the Tom Cruise movies. We all thought it was a good sign - we had the supersoldiers backing us up, we thought, they would make us invincible.

They did not make us invincible.

We were bait - the mine's defenders weren't... human. They were... things - beasts that wore human skins like clothes, that changed shape and melded with the jungle like nothing. They butchered us like rats, but the noise we made when they did helped our supersoldier friends draw targets on them. Their guns made different sounds, somehow - they didn't seem to when I used them later, so maybe it was just my memory playing tricks on me - but when they started shooting, it was over fast. We had seventy four children enter that fight - of them all, only I survived. I got the attention of the mercenary leader that way - a stout frenchman who called himself Frere and liked to smoke these awful, awful cigars. He told me that his group was called Ouroboros, and that they fought the sorts of things that killed all my friends. He told me that my bosses didn't expect any of us to survive this job - that I impressed him, and if I wanted, it would be easy to say I died with the rest so that I could join up with him, now that I'd seen the real world like they had.

I didn't hesitate when I accepted, and that was the first time I can ever remember being free.

Alexandre "Frere" Laurent - my former CO in Ouroboros and sort of adoptive father. A big, broad guy built like a castle wall and with the haircut to match, an impressive moustache, and an ever-present cigar hanging out of his mouth. Considering himself an adventurer and scholar, Alexandre was scouted by Ouroboros after his family perished in a haunting - his first job for the group was exterminating the poltergeist which was active in his former apartment (the building had recently been purchased for conversion into office spaces by a Chinese tech conglomerate and needed to be cleared before work could begin). Whenever he's off-duty, he always has his nose in a novel - fantasy epics by Tolkein, Burroughs, Anthony and May. The most recent piece of technology he owns is a Motorola Razor flip-phone, and he's as loyal to those he's responsible for as he is callous to complications that might get in the way of a job. When I last saw him, he was starting to go grey and get a little thinner; that was a few years ago. We still write each other from time to time - in my letters, I always tell him which address to write to next.

Jackie Greco - The proprietor of The Roman, my favorite bar. She's a tough woman - in her fifties, but she looks like she's in her thirties but in a leathery way that's kind of hot. Jackie typically wears a denim jacket with the sleeves torn off and a cheap prosthetic leg that starts just below the knee and doesn't fit quite right, but her "home run bat" more than makes up for it if she needs to remove a customer from her business. We dated for a bit not long after I got into town - nothing too sentimental, just a bored widow who saw a broke young punk in need of a place to stay - and stayed friends after that; if I ever really need it, I know Jackie will give me a place to crash, lie low, maybe get some stitches put in, and if she ever really needs it, she knows good old Eddie will make something - or someone - disappear.

Edgar Lee - The front counter guy at my favorite Chinese restaurant. It's a tiny hole in the wall place his family's run since they emigrated to the states - or, at least, that's what he tells the customers. In reality, Edgar's only a quarter Chinese, only speaks English, and is stuck here after he dropped out of college last year and decided he couldn't tell his parents. He's a good liar, but he never lies about anything important, so I don't really care, and he's always made sure I get an extra potsticker with my order and that my order's always getting packed in the bag not a moment before I walk in ever since I beat a couple guys trying to mug him so bad they had to go to the hospital, so he's good in my book.

I don't remember my early childhood - not clearly. I remember I lived in a small village - the kind without a grocery store or a market or anything - with my mother and my brothers and sisters. I don't remember my father; maybe he died or left before I was five. I had four siblings - two older brothers and two younger sisters; I think they were sets of twins, because the brothers were only a year older than me and the sisters only a year younger, so the timeline doesn't add up unless they were twins or adopted. The soldiers came to my village when I was seven, I think, or maybe six. I remember a lot of shouting and screaming, and my mother herding us out to escape. I had a stuffed tiger - I remember his name was Gonzo - and I forgot him in our house, so I snuck away when one of my little sisters started to cry. That's when the soldiers got me. There were a few children from the village they captured - they told us that it was lucky they found us, because the Muslims were not far behind and would have killed all of us. They brought us back to camp, and showed us a bunch of other children; they told us they were Muslims, the ones who would have burned our village. Then they gave us all heroin and cocaine and handguns, and gave the Muslim kids the same, and mixed us all up so nobody remembered who was from where anymore, then paired us off and made us shoot each other, and then we became soldiers. I was a soldier with that batch of kids for seven years - I learned how to use an AK pretty early on, and a machete too. Ouroboros took me in when I was 14 - Frere was the closest thing I ever had to a father. He taught me to read, schooled me in my languages, made sure I could speak Songo and not just French so if I ever went home I could talk to anybody. He was a good father, I think - kept me safe, put a good head on my shoulders, and taught me how to channel my rage productively. I mean, he introduced me to Tolkien and kept me away from Harry Potter - better than anyone I've met in the states, no?

In my experience, romance is a luxury reserved for the wealthy, the foolish, or both. There was once, maybe - a boy from my unit we all used to call Lumiere as a joke, because we had a tape of The Beauty and the Beast and he always carried a flashlight, even during the day. It was confusing - we were both young teenagers, pubescent and impulsive and violent in the madness of youth and the perpetual war. We started fooling around about a year before the end of all that business - it wasn't really l'amour, I don't think, but we were each other's confidantes, and we would spend the first hours past curfew looking together at the stars when the adults weren't watching. Lumiere was eaten along with the rest of them; all that the monsters left behind was his flashlight, and even that was too smashed to salvage.

I try not to get attached to people, since then. It's a liability in my line of work; clouds your judgement, makes you slow, inefficient, and if you are slow or inefficient in my line of work you are more harmful to the people you want to protect than helpful.

I don't like the idea of being stuck. Obligations, imprisonment, duties - I suppose if I had a worst fear it would be to be held captive, somewhere I can't escape with captors whose demands I cannot satisfy. Physical pain is endurable, emotional torment can be recovered from and survived; but to be held, to be helpless - it is terrifying in a way I never wish to experience again. I was helpless before Ouroboros found me - I had to prove I was useful as a soldier every day, prove that I could pull my weight. The children who could not were left for dead or worse - I could not let that happen to me. Proving myself meant doing what I was asked - taking the heroin or cocaine they thought would make me a better killer and going into gunfights with mushroom acid pulsing in my brain. It meant throwing myself into the wolf's jaws when asked, because I knew I had no choice in the matter. None of us had any choice, and I would rather die than be in that position again.

I fear not having control over my life, not having my freedom, allowing others to be in a position they could hurt me and I couldn't hurt them back. I fear the men who took me when I was a girl. If I find the things I fear, I'm going to kill them.

My motorcycle - Skuchat - is the thing I would be most sad to lose. She is a rescue, and a project I worked on with Frere, the man who may as well be my father. We found her on a job - Nazi zombies had desfrosted under an old Soviet town and taken over the place, pretty standard stuff - after she fell off a collapsing roof and crushed a hostile that almost got my neck in its jaws. She wasn't in great condition, but miraculously, she was still salvageable, so Frere helped me bring her back to the carrier. We spent two years working on her - first replacing all the original parts, then modifying and tweaking her for more modern performance with all the reliability and durability of old soviet engineering. She's saved my life countless times, and in return, I keep her paint job crisp and perfect. She's never let me down.

Gungnir, of course, goes without mention. Such a weapon hardly lets its owner sleep easy without it, after all.

I need more firepower and I need more resources.

It's becoming increasingly clear that the structures of the world are not something I can destroy alone - I am capable and I am potent, but I am still one woman, and the sycophants, leeches, and parasites that keep this broken world running are surrounded by more bodies than even I can cut my way through. Police, civilians, urbanity, the whole mess of it - it's a shield for the pillars that support this rotting hulk, a cyst I don't have a sharp enough scalpel to cut through.

I need friends.

I need more than friends - I need minions.

I understand, now, why Jesus had his apostles; why he preached to his masses, and did not simply turn his powers as Lord against the Romans. I see why Moses led his people from bondage in Egypt and did not fight Pharaoh; I see why my Prince and Master acted not alone, but with his host. Power is not something that can be broken alone - power is not something that can be confronted alone. The only thing that cannot be killed is an idea, and so to break the world, I must become one.

I must gather His servants; the broken, the damned.

I must give them purpose.

I need a cult.

Not much to tell about a typical morning; wake up, splash some water on my face, brush my teeth. Next I check over my things - go on my phone, see if I have any new contacts, look at the news, polish Skuchat and make sure she's tuned up and cater to my weapons. Then, hunt for somewhere I can get a shower - usually wherever I'm staying has one (Jackie doesn't even question it if I walk around my designated space naked anymore), but if not it's no major trouble; every city has a place that the destitute or the vagrant can use to get clean, and they never question another body. Breakfast is either before or after the shower - I'm not very picky, and it's best to pop into some random food truck, cart, or cafe while I'm exploring than to go anywhere I already know. By the time I'm done, I usually have a few new places I want to check out, or a new job from the Family I can help them out with, and then I have the rest of my day.

There's not many reasons Eddie would get "dressed up", and there's not really a degree to which she owns clothing to dress up in, but if she wants to impress, she does have a routine she follows.

The first step is to comb out all of her dreds and lay the hair on the same side of her head prior to applying a small amount of oil and carefully trimming any loose strands, so that no stray hairs fall on the shaved side of her scalp. Following, she does a full scrub of her face using a cloth, soap, and warm water, then pulls any loose eyelashes. The most time consuming step is to fully clean her jacket and pants - this means putting them through the wash as normal for each, but then also using a roller to pick up any lint and a rag wet with gun oil to polish every metal component in all of her clothing and equipment. If the venue allows weapons, this includes her hatchets and sword, which she will display; otherwise she'll clean those anyways, but only take Gungnir with her. All in all, the routine takes the better part of three hours, and typically ends with her stealing someone's lipstick to hide any cracks.

I don't know what day my birthday is - when I was with Orobouros, we always celebrated the day I was recruited, but it was always more for them than for me. I'm not big on birthdays; never really understood the point. It makes more sense to celebrate your own survival when someone else dies - funerals fill that niche for me. Jackie's birthday always has a party at the Roman - sharp discounts on drinks that cost pennies to make and free shitty grocery store cake always brings the customers like flies, and it was always a lot of fun, especially when we were paramours (women age like wine, and Jackie is a fine fucking wine). I suppose that if any of my new friends - Blanche maybe? - celebrate their birthday, I'll have to attend. Maybe bring a gift or two.

Does an enemy's head make a good birthday gift? Probably not. Maybe a new gun instead.

This is horrible.

How does anybody survive this? Is this a test? Damn you, God! Is it not enough that you set my duty on the path to Hell but you must also continue to test me on the road of the damned? I serve a different Lord than you - and yet He is helpless to shield me against your depredations, and a thousand times over I am helpless to shield me from myself.

This is horrible. I hate this. I cannot stand it and yet I am certain now that were I to go without it, I would die.

To love is the most beautiful and terrible part of being human.

O Lords, why have you set this upon me? Whether from heaven or hell my condemning angel has crawled, they have made me weak - my armor is broken and my conviction falters and I can no longer pursue my purpose without distraction. I am not divine, I am but human! I have seen before me the image of Lilith and I am undone.

How can I do what I must do when I ache at the thought of losing them?

How can I go on, now carrying the weight you had lifted from my shoulders all those years ago when you answered my prayers and made my heart stone?

And again I play the fool - is this what the Maker intended? Lord, forgive me, for I forget that I am not a servant of the Creator but your servant, and you are not the Lord of Virtue but the Lord of Sin. How could I hope to be your vengeful sword if I were not flawed? How could I lead the wretched and the suffering and the hopeless if I did not truly understand them? Is this what you teach me, Lord? Is the agony of love a burden I must bear if I am to remake the world as it must be remade?

Is this the truth of your difference from the haughty Lord of Heaven; that your agent must not be a destroying angel or a virtuous saint, but meek, flawed, and small, harvested from the fields of raw humanity?

If I had understood years before, would it not hurt so much now?

The nature of Eddie's gifts is inherently paradoxical; they are at once gifts from the Prince of Darkness and tokens produced by Eddie herself which prove that she is worthy of His gifts. They fall, in reality somewhere in between - does Eddie shape the power awarded her by Harbingers? Does the Prince of Lies intercede when the power is granted, and form it into tools that best suit His chosen servant? Both are true - the gifts that Eddie manifests are deeply entwined in her faith, and are a hybridization of inherent potential, strong desire, and devout prayer. Eddie's "gifts" are the process of her Becoming - they are powers granted and shaped by the Devil (consciously or not) as prophesied for His chosen servant, and by earning them, Eddie proves that she is the agent of the Adversary on the mortal plane. It's the reason that her conviction that she is the chosen servant of the Devil is a delusion - she isn't... yet.