After the immediate shock of Chen’s surprise attack transformation from mild businessman to … whatever he was now, Pace got ahold of himself, though was nonetheless ticked by the way his cheek stung from being bitten. No blood had been drawn, but the man had left a dent in his face. Stepping up, Pace grabbed the other man by the back of the collar before he could launch himself at any other unsuspecting souls like he was ramping himself up to do. The feral mask of his face twisted and turned as Chen jerked in Pace’s grasp, but the taller man’s strength was too much.<br/><br/><br/>Locking Chen’s arms behind his back as he snarled and hissed, Pace beamed around the room, “A small disagreement, I promise. He’s a little upset that I beat him--” Pace’s sunny disposition jerked over to Nora, turning into more of a grimace. “Darling, do you have any spells to cloak this up? We don’t want anyone running out onto the street and stir up any unnecessary… reactions from the locals.”<br/><br/><br/>Chen was starting to make a high pitched keening sound as he struggled in Pace’s grasp, causing him to tighten his grasp, muscles flexing underneath the cut of his suit jacket and legs tensing. He lifted up Chen until the other man was forced to stand on his tiptoes, mouth moving to whisper in his ear. “You’re embarrassing yourself, my good man. I would stop struggling.”<br/><br/><br/>Then he looked back up at Nora, then back at the restless patrons of their underground gambling outing, “Unless it’s just better for me to knock him out. Because we can’t just kill him…” This said with a flash of his teeth, a predatory expression bleeding into the otherwise charming exterior. “Because then it’ll just hop to a new host. Now that it’s been released, we’re fucked unless we can get it back into the stone. So, to answer your question…” He started, grunting as an elbow connected to his sternum. Growling low, Pace adjusted his grip until Chen groaned in protest as his arms twisted up, threatening to come loose from their sockets.<br/><br/><br/>The black stare honed in on Nora then, a salacious smile stretching Chen’s mouth open like a frog. His tongue rolled out, licking messily. This time the creature that was now Chen spoke, his voice a combination of all languages, and none, but all of them known depending on whom it spoke to, “Come closer, come closer so I can lick you, then rip open your cunt and bury my head in your entrails. Fuck your skull. Come closer, bitch.”<br/><br/><br/>Stone face, but dangerously so, Pace wrenched his grip up once last time, cutting off the trail of obscenities that came from Chen by dislocating both his arms from their sockets. The voice became a scream -- that didn’t stop until Pace released his locked hold on Chen and applied pressure to the side of his neck. In just a couple of beats, the man’s body slumped.<br/><br/><br/>“Fuck,” Pace groaned. Naturally, those within the gambling den either had their phones out, or were making a hasty getaway to the door. “It’s the mad soul of a fucking sick asshole, is what it is. Put there a really fucking long time ago, most likely by a sorcerer of some such, so the world didn’t have to listen to it anymore. Think Ancient Jack the Ripper, only most likely was once magical, and a sadistic psychopath.” Translation: Not even Pace fully knew. Or he was still being short with the details on account of their current situation.<br/><br/><br/>“I’ll tell you the whole bedtime story once we figure out how to clean this up,” he promised, tossing Chen’s unconscious body over his shoulder and eyeing the door. “Just know that we have to unpossess Chen here, find where the Stone actually is, and put the son of a bitch inside him back in it. Probably destroy it afterwards, too.”