Amelia

6) Why do you smell gasoline when you think about the boy?

5) Where is the boy?

4) Who is the boy in the yearbook picture?

3) Where can I find "Frankie?"

2) Who sent you after her?

1) Who is the girl you were chasing?

Here's some rolls to save time. You can always toss 'em out if the next couple of IC posts invalidate them somehow.

He'll be using his blood-based Super-Senses (Postcognition) and Mind Reading powers.

Notes on Postcog from UP:

You can make Notice and Search checks to pick up on past information in an area or from a subject. The Gamemaster sets the DC for these checks based on how obscure and distant in the past the information is, from DC 15 (for a vague vision that may or may not be accurate) to DC 30 (for near complete knowledge of a particular past event as if you were actually present).

If required:

Notice check: 16

Search check: 10

Mister Strix's Mind Reading effect has -Requires Grapple, but his target is unconscious, so he automatically wins that check.

Here's the Mind Reading check: 16.

If I'm allowed to coup-de-grace (the Mind Reading effect isn't Perception-range, it's Touch-range, it requires an attack roll, so a case could be made), then it's an automatic critical for 21.

Regardless, the gang leader opposes that check result with his steadily-increasing Will save.

He's doing a mind probe.

If I won the opposed check, then I get the answer to one question I ask the GM.

Since the Mind Reading effect has a duration of Instant (Lasting), the victim gets a new save every round to kick me out, with a cumulative +1 bonus per round.

Each round he doesn't kick me out, I get another question.

GM (6)

To Serve and Protect (6)

Mister Strix (15)

Golgotha Tenement Blues (11)

To Serve and Protect (4)

I'm basically waiting for the others to clear the bystander out of the office so I can get a snack and start reading the gang leader's mind through his blood.

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"If it makes you feel better I think I'm covered by Deuteronomy 18:9-12, only Simon Magus gets to be both apparently."

"Sorcery. Witchcraft. Abomination. I'm all that and more. And you two are quicker to trust than you should be."

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"And do not apologize overmuch, yon bird of the carrion; your contrition shows itself in your deeds. A white-washed tomb is a deception, but a tomb plain and honest is merely a resting place."

"Not all owls are scavengers. Some of us hunt live prey."

The man in white dropped a plastic trash bag onto the pew next to him, triggering a series of loud clanking and thumping. "Guns. From the four in back. You should secure the rest if you haven't already. If you can't destroy them, let me know and I'll take care of it. Anything else, and they'll just wind up back on the street." Then he walked over to the gang leader, heaved him up over his shoulder, and started back toward the central room. "I'll find out what he knows. He'll be alright. But you don't want to watch."

The man in white held his unblinking gaze on Judex and Thorne. When he spoke, his voice had a slight echo to it, but not one created by the acoustics of the church. "The girl needs help. If she's still here, then we need to find out why she came here. If she ran off, then we need to track her down. You'll have better luck with that than I will." He pointed at the unconscious thugs draped over the pews. "We also need to make them talk. I'll have better luck with that than you will. Just point out the one who was doing the talking outside, and give me a few minutes." His shoulders slumped and he looked down at the ground for a few moments. "We need to find the priest, too. Whatever cash the goons have on them will hopefully cover the cost of repairs. And when you find him...tell him I apologize for desecrating this place with my presence."

Wow, Tiff. No foreplay or nuffin'. Jeez, buy a guy dinner first! 

Doctor Thorne's blurted analysis brought several disparate irregularities of the scene into sharper focus for the people in the church. It was colder inside that church at the moment than it was in the rainy night outside. They could see their own breath, and the breath of everyone else, except for the man in white. The plants in the lobby stood tall a few minutes ago, bright and green, but when Judex and Thorne passed them again on their way back inside, those same plants were now brown and hanging limply. The overhead lights in the nave were bright enough for everyone and everything beneath them to cast a shadow, but the man in white had no shadow. His shirt had several obvious bullet-holes, but no blood, and he wasn't wearing any kind of body armor, because his pale flesh was clearly visible behind those holes, smooth and unscathed. The only blood on him was spattered across his boots, and the knuckles of his fingerless gloves.

Now that they had a clear view of his face, or at least the parts his mask didn't conceal, they could see that it was...wrong. His skin was so pale that it was difficult to tell where it ended and the white cloth of his costume began. His eyeballs were completely black, and his facial features were out of proper proportion with one another. His mouth was too big for his face, twice as large as it should have been. He touched a finger to the trickle of blood seeping from the nose of an unconscious gangster, scooped up a few drops onto his fingertip, raised it to his mouth, and licked it off. At that point, they could see that his canine teeth and his tongue were both also two to three times as long as that of any human. The rest of his teeth almost could have looked normal, if they weren't so distractingly bright and clean. When he swallowed those drops of blood, he gave a slight, almost imperceptible shudder.

Will save (DC20): 11. Mister Strix is Shaken.

Mister Strix picked up the nearest trash bag, emptied its contents onto the ground, and replaced them with all of the dropped firearms. Then he grabbed each of the two unconscious thugs by the cuffs of their pant legs and pulled them through the alley to the back door, where he grabbed the other two battered gangsters, transferring his grip to two legs per hand. He dragged nearly eight-hundred pounds of bleeding and broken criminals back into the nave, where he heaved them one by one up onto the pews like they were wet towels.

DC15 Notice check per chat to notice the thugs outside: 22.

Move Action: Go outside. Get shot.

22 hits Mister Strix.

DC19 Toughness save: 26. Doesn't even slow him down.

Standard Action: Charge with a 90ft standing leap.

Charge for +2 Attack / -2 Defense.

All-Out Attack for -2 Defense / +2 Attack.

Power Attack for -2 Attack / +2 Damage.

Mister Strix is Defense +4 / DC14 until his action next round.

Take 10 for attack, hitting DC20.

Just like last time, if that hits, it's a Toughness save, DC25 +1 per 2 points he got over their Defense.

If that KO's the first, then Takedown Attack to do the same to the second.

The man in white stepped slowly through the ruined doorway out into the alley behind the church. He didn't seem to react when the trembling gangsters fired and their bullets ripped through him. In the dark and the rain, it was easy to think that the shots hadn't connected at all, or to miss how no blood followed the slugs as they tore through his back on their way to the next building over, or how the bullet holes closed behind them a half-second later, light wisps of steam rising from them as tiny amounts of vampire blood burned itself off to grow new dead flesh. He turned to look at the far end of the alley where the gangsters crouched behind bags of trash and empty boxes. He knelt down, and between the blinks of an eye, he jumped, closing the distance with a pounce and another roar, smashing into the thugs like a bowling ball, fists and feet flailing in the general direction of any human flesh he could see.

Now that he was outside, the crowd gathered at the front door could hear the tiger-growl even more clearly.

Mister Strix (5)

Golgotha Tenement Blues (5)

I punch them!

If they're already in melee range, then I'll just make a normal attack. If they're not, then I'll charge (and that'll be +2 Attack / -2 Defense for the round).

Array gets switched to the Autofire Strength + Claws AP, but I'm not popping the claws.

The two in back are surprised, and they haven't acted yet, so they're flat-footed twice over, and since they're surprised they also suffer -2 Defense (which probably wasn't that high to start with). I'll go ahead and Power Attack for -2 Attack / +2 Damage. They're confirmed minions, so I'll take 10 on the attack roll for 16. If that hits, Toughness save is DC25, +1 for every 2 points my attack "roll" got over their defense DC. Assuming that KO's the first one, I'll Takedown Attack the second one in the same way (I have rank 2, so I can make a 5ft step between them if they're not right next to each other).

At +10 damage, I'm guessing there's going to be some knockback, and he's certainly not going to restrain himself, so if one or more of them fail their saves, feel free to describe them getting knocked halfway through walls or back into the door hard enough to knock it off its hinges. I would've done it myself, but it seemed presumptuous.

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"You one-a them kinda priests then? We can work something out, we just need talk to her when you done, yea?"

Mister Strix's eyes turned completely black, the darkness at the center expanding to quickly engulf the rest. His canine teeth extended, becoming fangs.

Not a "misunderstanding," then. No need to go easy. No reason they should be able to walk away from this. No reason they shouldn't be carried away.

When the gangsters cleared the doorway into the mudroom, they heard the distinctive, echoing roar of a lion or a tiger. Pastor Theo could hear it in the nave. Doctor Thorne and the other gangsters could hear it on the other end of the building.

With that roar, Mister Strix sprang into action. Mortal eyes could glimpse a series of white blurs, if even that, as his fist and feet crashed toward them like a wrecking ball. There was no grace in his strikes, no beauty, just raw speed and fury. A trained soldier, or even a seasoned brawler, probably could've dodged or blocked the blows successfully, if Mister Strix wasn't moving too fast for them to see, or if he wasn't hitting hard enough to knock them through a wall.

Mister Strix

Initiative: 17.

When he heard the men trying to break in through the other door, Mister Strix glanced over his shoulder, then flinched and averted his gaze. He closed his eyes tightly for a second to re-active his psychic invisibility. Once his presence was again hidden from the weak-minded, he crawled and skittered like a spider, across the ceiling and down the wall, dropping to the floor next to the frightened girl without a sound.

He knelt down beside her in the back room. From her point of view, he appeared out of thin air when his hands, hands that could crush brick into powder, clamped down over her mouth and gently, carefully turned her face to meet his. He kept one hand over her mouth but let go of the back of her head to raise a finger to his lips. He whispered into her ear. "More coming in through the back. Don't move." Then he removed his hand from her face, rose to his feet, turned his back on her, and crept toward the back door.

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None of the npcs will notice you.  they're not trying and don't have a good chance anyway.

I was saying it as much for the other PCs' benefit as for the NPCs, but good to know.

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Strix is both in and out of luck; Theo's denomination typically doesn't do much religious iconography....but this is actually an old church that was abandoned and then purchased and "renovated". Maybe an Eastern Orthodox church? Either way, it still mostly has all the stained glass and stuff; Theo's a fan and a huge history and theology buff.

If nothing else, I'm guessing there's a giant cross at the center back of the room, even if there's no Jesus attached to it like there would be at a Catholic church?

Durf, it's literally your call how to inconvenience him or make him suffer.

I left the complications vague so that individual GMs would have room for their own interpretation and level of crunch.

In general, what I had in mind was that being on "holy ground" isn't as "bad" for him as actually seeing a "holy symbol" (or standing in its shadow), that he might have to make a static Will save (or something like it) to force himself to knowingly approach one that's just sitting there passively, and that he'd need to make an opposed check of some kind (the book builds tend to use raw Charisma) to move toward someone who was actively brandishing it at him, trying to ward him off. I also had the idea that the GM could force him to make a Toughness save against Damage or a Will save against some other attack effect like Nauseate even if he did successfully force his way toward it.

In any case, I left the DCs and effect ranks up to the GM.

There's an IC post. Let me know if I should adjust it. I assumed we're not in combat rounds, so I described what would probably be two rounds worth of actions, even at 50MPH, even if it didn't include two array reconfigurations. I also took the liberty of invoking one of his environmental complications (the cold).

Mister Strix flinched and hesitated for a moment when he looked up and saw that the building the girl had run into was a church.

She needs help. Just do it. If He doesn't want you to go in, He'll stop you.

His muscles briefly tensed up. As they relaxed, his body dissolved into a cloud of mist, almost the same pale white as his flesh or his costume. The cloud stretched and condensed into a narrow tube as it shot into the sky in an arc, like a mortar launched from one roof to another. He started at the top and worked his way down, circling the building in search of an air vent or even a crack in the walls.

The people on the street and in the church might have heard a gust of wind, or maybe something that sounded like a car racing down the street at double the posted limit. They definitely felt colder than they had a second ago. The rare soul who paid attention might have noticed that they could now see their own breath, or that the rain collecting in puddles and gutters was starting to freeze over.

Once the cloud had slithered its way down into the main room of the church, like a maggot hatched in the nose of a corpse finally finding the brain, his body re-solidified. His hands and feet were pressed against the ceiling, allowing him to crouch upside-down over the pews. He tried to focus on the two men at the front of the room. His back felt like it was blistering, as though the giant cross on the wall behind him were a campfire and he was sitting too close. The veins in his neck bulged, thick and black. He clenched his teeth.

Questions:

1) Please clarify: Did the girl and then the gangbangers run into the diner, or the church?

2) Should I make some kind of check or saving throw to be able to approach the scene on account of the presence of the church?

Housekeeping:

Concealment to all senses of all types except Mental would have been up while tailing someone, and is definitely still up now. DC18 Will save to anyone who wants to try to see through the perception filter and resist the subliminal psychic command "Do Not See Me, Do Not Remember Me."

Anyone who can get through that shouldn't have much trouble spotting him, since I rolled a "1" on his initial Stealth check: 16.