brothers in blood

[Serge Carlock] Eylsium, supposedly the safest place you could possibly within this city as a vampire, it was sacred ground, neutral, in the fact that even the sabbat could stand within its grounds and so long as they did not violate its rules....could stand their unharmed even in times of war.

One could wonder then, why the man who stepped through over the threshold of the elevator as the steel doors drew open, looked so prepared for war, in a place meant for the war of the psyche and the socialite, and not the gun. He strode forward on black matt combat boots, the soles clapping softly off the floor, his body was covered all in black, combat pants, a black wifebeater, and overtop, a thin, but still present kevlar vest, there were no weapons as such things were forbidden even in the worst of times, but the man still screamed to the common view of blood and war and death.

His body bore the signs of such dealings, scar tissue ran along his arms, could be seen along his neck and peeking up past the kevlar, and covered his face. Slashes, burns, bullet holes, and other less definable scars were all present, maring, or improving, what was once a handsome man. His blonde hair is buzzed short, a hair cut the man will never be able to change, and his ice blue eyes scan the room as if almost like missiles searching for a target.

[Marie-Helene] The Elysium's lounge is quiet tonight; there is only the low buzz of activity from the Prince's ghouls, the attendants, the constant presence of the ghouled and the blood bonded, the dominated and the mindless men and women who stand everywhere, still as columns and as easily ignored until violent is offered, or someone stranger wants to play. Their eyes are not eyes, their hands are not hands. Their minds are are lost to the haze of addiction and want that ghouling creates. They are everywhere and they are nowhere, chained in their bodies by the shortest of leashes.

- she despises them. They make her skin crawl, these half-human things that live chained to their shallow skins by addiction and want.

She: is an elegant sprawl across an easy chair in the corner of the room. There is neither blood nor blooded cocktail on the elegant little table beside the overlarge brown leather easy chair over which she has draped herself. And she has draped herself over it - artfully, showing the long, nearly straight lines of her model's frame to best light without conscious thought. All is symmetry, here: a perfect, terrible, lovely symmetry, the golden hair loose about her milk-white shoulders, bared except for the sliding black strap of a sleek little camisole, the lines of her face seen in repose - a neat little mouth that could easily turn kind or cruel, a narrow nose, haughty cheeks and a certain - light in her dark eyes.

The fine camisole is paired, however, with oversized BDUs in desert camoflage, and these in turn are paired with a sleek pair of golden slippers with turned up toes and impossibly high heels. The left shoe is firmly on her foot, but the right one dangles from her big toe, ready to clatter to the floor.

She is - reading.

Something. Some paperback, mass market no less, the book held open overhand in her lap, against her thighs with her left hand. In the right, she turns an unlit cigar over and over and over yet again, the gesture both meditative and thoughtless.

[Serge Carlock] The scarred man moved looked through the crowd, through the sea of slaves, civilians, and addicts. To him, they were mostly expendable, unless they proved that they were of some value greater then the blood running through their veins. He is certain that they have their uses for whoever ghouled them, some...emotional attachment to them, but not for him.

He spots no one he knew at first, and he almost turned to leave, he wasn't one to remain within this place without a reason, no lounger he. However he stopped himself as his eyes located and locked onto someone who was clearly not a slave, nor a civilian. The woman who had conformed her body to the chair as a cat might was clearly no human, and he turned his body entirely in her direction, before making his way through the crowd, his destination now set, and she was it.


[Marie-Helene] There are no scars on her milk-white skin. There are no marks. There are no tattooes, no obvious piercings with the singular exception of her ears, which are pierced several times over. Fine gold hoops nip through the flesh of her lobe, and three flawless diamonds are punches through the cartilage.

Nevermind that the piercing was done tonight, when she awoke.
Nevermind that tomorrow, by morning, the holes will be gone, the foreign matter expelled, her flesh returned to its natural state - unbroken as it was the night she died.

The creature looks up as he approaches. There are few of them here tonight, and there is no mistaking the intent of his direct line through the room. So: she looks up, lifts her chin from the book she still holds open against her thighs. When he is closer, he may well catch a glimpse of the cover. It is neither Shakespeare nor Milton, neither Marquez nor Woolf nor Auden nor Elliot nor Loy. In short: it is nothing fine. The pages are yellowed, and the cover belongs to a particular age - a man in a fedora, a woman in a pillbox hat, with a black lace fringe covering her eyes. A body on the floor. - the distinctive cover of 1930s or 1940s pulp-noir fiction.

She looks up, and the cigar still in her hands, and her mouth is still as her cool dark eyes sweep over him - an appraisor's eye, that, from his shoes to his waist to his chest to his shoulders before they settle on her face. She offers him the edge of a slow-crawling smile.

"We have not been introduce, m'sieur."

The accent is distinctively French. Parisian, if he has the ear for it.

[Serge Carlock] The man stops just shy of three feet from her position and looks down at her those cool, icy eyes. Where her gaze was simply appraising, the feel of his eyes passing over her body might make her think of a pair of gun sights, looking for the perfect kill spot. But it passes, and the man's eyes are drawn up to hers, and he locks gazes with her, unwilling to flinch away.

She says they haven't been introduced, and that is entirely true, so much so that the man gives her a slight nod of his head before speaking. What might surprise her however, is that he responds in perfect Parisian french, the dialect, being from Paris herself.

~French~ "You are correct, we have not. I am Serge Carlock, who are you?"~French~ He may speak in the language of love, that famous and debaucherous language but his words are clipped and to the point, it would seem that this man, Serge, was direct and to the point, with little interest in mincing words.

At this distance two tattoo's become plainly obvious to Marie, one large and almost to the point of garish covers his right shoulder, a deaths head skull, emblazoned with a fleur-de-li from the tip of its nose, to over the top of the skull. The other, almost obscured by a swath of scar tissue along his neck is smaller and far more minimalistic reading simply as EI-49-01-12.

He settles in on that spot near to her, his hands unclenching from his walk, and his stance spreading slightly as he watches her, no interest in sitting it would seem.

[Marie-Helene] There are a half-dozen perfect kill spots. A fair third of her torso is bare to his eyes - the delicate architecture of her shoulder girdle - the subtle slope of her trapezius from the neck to arm, the straight, fine line of her collarbones, the hollows within. The long, langourous arms tipped by long, langourous hands and long, fine fingers. These are also tipped: by rather sensibly clipped nails painted a vibrant shade of chartreuse. Waves of golden hair brush her bare shoulders - a half-dozen shades of gold. The gold of a dying sun. The gold of glistening wheat. The gold of amber, shot-through with light.

She could have been embraced fro the color of her hair alone. For the symmetry of the impeccable face - the perfect, mutable angle of her cheek bone, the fine line of her jaw, the shape of her perfect little mouth, which is a natural moue that she employs for the sparest of moments.

"Bon nuit m'sieur," she murmurs, then, her French easy and natural, unforced. There's a curl to her mouth that he might interpret as pleasure, were he to take his eyes from her own. Which are dark, the color of the sky at midnight, some blue velvet tone. Which are dark, and framed by blond lashes just now - lowered in an expression that could almost be coquettish. "It has been some nights since I heard such perfect French -

" - from any tongue except my own. I'm pleased to hear it. I am Marie-Hélène Alette de Sausanne d'Allais." Pause. "Toreador."

- of course.

[Serge Carlock] She regales him with her full name, and seems to be putting on some measure of charm for the man, or perhaps that is simply how she acts regularly, but Serge seems unaffected, she is a beautiful woman, something that mortals would clamor for, lust after, and give up their souls, and their blood simply to touch, but Serge was no mortal man, he was as she was, a vampire, and it was harder to impress him by a far margin.

When she indicates her clan, the man simply nods, as if he had expected that answer from what he had already seen, if he was displeased with the outcome, he kept it tightly under wraps.

"Brujah." He returns the exchange of information in kind and before taking a moment to briefly look about at any foolish kin which may be watching them, his eyes ensuring that they look away, or become otherwise busy.

When he speaks again, it is english and as he does so any hint of his former accent is wiped clean, leaving his voice almost flat. "You are newly arrived then?"

[Marie-Helene] "You are yours are well-represented in the city these dark nights, m'sieur," the creature replies, her neat little mouth carving a fine smile across her perfectly proportioned, bone-white face. "I met a handful of your brothers on the streets of Chinatown some nights ago."

She hasn't moved. Her sprawl might put her at some disadvantage, of perspective if nothing else. She is looking up at him, and he is looking down at her, and she is smiling as if, in fact, this situation were reversed. Her voice is velvet, the subtle charm of the French accent undiminished. "And, I am - new, in these nights, yes. M'sieur Carlock. I did spend some passing time in the Second City some years ago - a handful, who counts these things? So I do not consider myself new so much as: returned.

"And you?" she continues, her attention keen on his face. " - have you been in the city long? Or are you a wanderer. A transplant."

[Serge Carlock] "They are brother's in blood, that is all." He says curtly, it is a bold statement, said well and with a great deal of meaning, but then Brujah were prone to such things from time to time. She asks how new he is, and he simply shrugs before answering.

"New, within several months." He respond's as a brow rises, wrinkling scar tissue upon his forehead as he regards the woman and tries to figure out what shes thinking. "It is a difficult city to reside in, with this cease-fire in effect."

He speaks slowly and methodically now as if this was his form of conversational chatter, his arms moving upward and crossing infront of himself, becoming more comfortable it would seem.

[Marie-Helene] There are no scars on her milk-white skin. There are no marks. There are no tattooes, no obvious piercings with the singular exception of her ears, which are pierced several times over. Fine gold hoops nip through the flesh of her lobe, and three flawless diamonds are punches through the cartilage.

Nevermind that the piercing was done tonight, when she awoke.
Nevermind that tomorrow, by morning, the holes will be gone, the foreign matter expelled, her flesh returned to its natural state - unbroken as it was the night she died.

The creature looks up as he approaches. There are few of them here tonight, and there is no mistaking the intent of his direct line through the room. So: she looks up, lifts her chin from the book she still holds open against her thighs. When he is closer, he may well catch a glimpse of the cover. It is neither Shakespeare nor Milton, neither Marquez nor Woolf nor Auden nor Elliot nor Loy. In short: it is nothing fine. The pages are yellowed, and the cover belongs to a particular age - a man in a fedora, a woman in a pillbox hat, with a black lace fringe covering her eyes. A body on the floor. - the distinctive cover of 1930s or 1940s pulp-noir fiction.

She looks up, and the cigar still in her hands, and her mouth is still as her cool dark eyes sweep over him - an appraisor's eye, that, from his shoes to his waist to his chest to his shoulders before they settle on her face. She offers him the edge of a slow-crawling smile.

"We have not been introduce, m'sieur."

The accent is distinctively French. Parisian, if he has the ear for it.

[Serge Carlock] The man stops just shy of three feet from her position and looks down at her those cool, icy eyes. Where her gaze was simply appraising, the feel of his eyes passing over her body might make her think of a pair of gun sights, looking for the perfect kill spot. But it passes, and the man's eyes are drawn up to hers, and he locks gazes with her, unwilling to flinch away.

She says they haven't been introduced, and that is entirely true, so much so that the man gives her a slight nod of his head before speaking. What might surprise her however, is that he responds in perfect Parisian french, the dialect, being from Paris herself.

~French~ "You are correct, we have not. I am Serge Carlock, who are you?"~French~ He may speak in the language of love, that famous and debaucherous language but his words are clipped and to the point, it would seem that this man, Serge, was direct and to the point, with little interest in mincing words.

At this distance two tattoo's become plainly obvious to Marie, one large and almost to the point of garish covers his right shoulder, a deaths head skull, emblazoned with a fleur-de-li from the tip of its nose, to over the top of the skull. The other, almost obscured by a swath of scar tissue along his neck is smaller and far more minimalistic reading simply as EI-49-01-12.

He settles in on that spot near to her, his hands unclenching from his walk, and his stance spreading slightly as he watches her, no interest in sitting it would seem.

[Marie-Helene] There are a half-dozen perfect kill spots. A fair third of her torso is bare to his eyes - the delicate architecture of her shoulder girdle - the subtle slope of her trapezius from the neck to arm, the straight, fine line of her collarbones, the hollows within. The long, langourous arms tipped by long, langourous hands and long, fine fingers. These are also tipped: by rather sensibly clipped nails painted a vibrant shade of chartreuse. Waves of golden hair brush her bare shoulders - a half-dozen shades of gold. The gold of a dying sun. The gold of glistening wheat. The gold of amber, shot-through with light.

She could have been embraced fro the color of her hair alone. For the symmetry of the impeccable face - the perfect, mutable angle of her cheek bone, the fine line of her jaw, the shape of her perfect little mouth, which is a natural moue that she employs for the sparest of moments.

"Bon nuit m'sieur," she murmurs, then, her French easy and natural, unforced. There's a curl to her mouth that he might interpret as pleasure, were he to take his eyes from her own. Which are dark, the color of the sky at midnight, some blue velvet tone. Which are dark, and framed by blond lashes just now - lowered in an expression that could almost be coquettish. "It has been some nights since I heard such perfect French -

" - from any tongue except my own. I'm pleased to hear it. I am Marie-Hélène Alette de Sausanne d'Allais." Pause. "Toreador."

- of course.

[Serge Carlock] She regales him with her full name, and seems to be putting on some measure of charm for the man, or perhaps that is simply how she acts regularly, but Serge seems unaffected, she is a beautiful woman, something that mortals would clamor for, lust after, and give up their souls, and their blood simply to touch, but Serge was no mortal man, he was as she was, a vampire, and it was harder to impress him by a far margin.

When she indicates her clan, the man simply nods, as if he had expected that answer from what he had already seen, if he was displeased with the outcome, he kept it tightly under wraps.

"Brujah." He returns the exchange of information in kind and before taking a moment to briefly look about at any foolish kin which may be watching them, his eyes ensuring that they look away, or become otherwise busy.

When he speaks again, it is english and as he does so any hint of his former accent is wiped clean, leaving his voice almost flat. "You are newly arrived then?"

[Marie-Helene] "You are yours are well-represented in the city these dark nights, m'sieur," the creature replies, her neat little mouth carving a fine smile across her perfectly proportioned, bone-white face. "I met a handful of your brothers on the streets of Chinatown some nights ago."

She hasn't moved. Her sprawl might put her at some disadvantage, of perspective if nothing else. She is looking up at him, and he is looking down at her, and she is smiling as if, in fact, this situation were reversed. Her voice is velvet, the subtle charm of the French accent undiminished. "And, I am - new, in these nights, yes. M'sieur Carlock. I did spend some passing time in the Second City some years ago - a handful, who counts these things? So I do not consider myself new so much as: returned.

"And you?" she continues, her attention keen on his face. " - have you been in the city long? Or are you a wanderer. A transplant."

[Serge Carlock] "They are brother's in blood, that is all." He says curtly, it is a bold statement, said well and with a great deal of meaning, but then Brujah were prone to such things from time to time. She asks how new he is, and he simply shrugs before answering.

"New, within several months." He respond's as a brow rises, wrinkling scar tissue upon his forehead as he regards the woman and tries to figure out what shes thinking. "It is a difficult city to reside in, with this cease-fire in effect."

He speaks slowly and methodically now as if this was his form of conversational chatter, his arms moving upward and crossing infront of himself, becoming more comfortable it would seem.

[Serge Carlock] [Per+Emp what are you thinking you devious woman?]

[Marie-Helene] "You have no fellow feeling, then?" the creature replies, her dark eyes lingering drifting down from his face, then, lingering on his many scars. "For M'sieur Schafer and M'sieur Romero?" Her eyes drop further, half-shadowed by a scrim of pale lashes. Were he a Toreador, he would understand her charms on an aesthetic level - the elegance of a perfectly turned and painted mouth, the art of an implicitly arched brow. "Or have I misread your words, cheri?"

Marie-Hélène offers the diminutive carelessly, casually, glancing fully away from him as she folds her book closed at last. He can read the title, now: Twilight Girl. And see the price (Ten Cents) typed above the veiled woman's dark head on the cover, in the right upper corner.

"I knew m'sieur Schafer once before. In New York, some years ago. Tell me, m'sieur Carlock. Where have you come from, before you arrived in this difficult city, with its foolish cease fire?"

[Marie-Helene] Manipulation + subterfuge.

[Serge Carlock] Serge raises a brow as she almost outright insults him with her familiarity, but she was right...in a sense. "They are Brujah, as am I. They were taught one thing, I was taught another entirely. They are blood brothers, but they are not at the same time."

He says so firmly, but what it is precisely that he was taught, he seems unwilling to divulge. He watches her as well, watches her coquettish ways, and how she chooses act about him. Some might think shes playing hard to get.

"Los Angeles, but that was sometime ago. I have been moving for sometime, I was recently in New York....it was bad for business."

[Marie-Helene] The cigar stills in her hand. The book remains against her body, in the concave hollow of her ribs, beneath her breastbone, balanced. She twists the cigar one more time, then draws it beneath her nose, slowly, savoring the scent of the packed leaves of tobacco rolled within.

The golden waves of her hair frame her features naturally, easily. Still: there is something terrible about her loveliness. Something ungiving about the perfect symmetry of her features, broken now - but only just - by the edge of a small, subtle, crooked little -

call it a smirk, the way her mouth curves for him. At him.

"Tell me, cheri, what business is that?"

[Serge Carlock] Serge raises a brow once more and the look on his face lets her know, that he knows she is pumping him for information, and that he is giving only the information he chooses to give. He uncrosses his arms and shrugs at the terrifyingly beautiful woman, acting as if she could be as impressive as a homeless person.

"That would depend on how much money you are willing to spend Marie."

A suitably vague answer for her question, and he responds to her smirk with a small upward twist of his own lip, causing more scar tissue to jump and twitch as he does so.

"And what brings you to this city again? Are you not bored of it?"

[Marie-Helene] "I never negotiate a price, petit," there is a pause; her dark eyes drift back up his body, again lingering on the scars that choke his skin. There is something intimate about her directness, no matter than they are far from alone in a room teeming with the blood-blound ghouls kept in the Prince's service. She pays them as much mind as she does the drywall. " - until I know what services are on offer."

[Marie-Helene] Then, finally - after a neat and narrow pause - the changeable creature flashes Serge a radiant smile, all white teeth and flashing eyes. "I am never bored, cheri," she cautions him. " - boredom is the habit of a meager mind."

[Serge Carlock] He nods thoughtfully, she at least had a brain in her head. It had been sometime since he had encountered a Toreador with such a feature, a dangerous feature in a body like that. He regards her for several long silent moments.

She had somehow made the moment intimate, personal despite the man's stand offish behavior and the pile of ghouls that watched and listened to every word that they said, surely to report it later to their master.

"My services are many suffice it to say, I am a soldier for hire, and I am very...very good at what I do." He says as he watches her go from smokey and intimate, to bright and vibrant.

"Is that why you are here...does this cities situation intrigue your mind?"

[Marie-Helene] Marie-Hélène rises then. And rises and rises and -

- rises. Her figure is lean, elegant as smoke sketching a slow coil against a night skin. The BDUs are overlarge, battered and worn, cinched at the hips by an oversized belt, but the shimmering camisole clings to her torso and sheens liquid with every move she makes. The heels on those golden sandals are nearly impossibly high. By the time she is done standing, the creature is a good five inches taller than her native 5'11". 6'4" with the heels, though the height is cheated a bit by her elegant slouch. A half-inch, no more.

"Cheri" she begins when she is close enough, her heels clattering with every step. She is so long-legged, so tall, to attenuated in those heels that she looks like some fantastical beast conjured from the air. When she is close enough, she ducks her head to murmur, "[i]je suis dans cette ville parce qu'il me plaît d'être ici." - into the region of his ear. Then, tucking the cigar into her mouth, the tip between her teeth, still uncut and unlit, she sway-stalks toward the elevator, without another word.

[Marie-Helene] Marie-Hélène rises then. And rises and rises and -

- rises. Her figure is lean, elegant as smoke sketching a slow coil against a night skin. The BDUs are overlarge, battered and worn, cinched at the hips by an oversized belt, but the shimmering camisole clings to her torso and sheens liquid with every move she makes. The heels on those golden sandals are nearly impossibly high. By the time she is done standing, the creature is a good five inches taller than her native 5'11". 6'4" with the heels, though the height is cheated a bit by her elegant slouch. A half-inch, no more.

"Cheri" she begins when she is close enough, her heels clattering with every step. She is so long-legged, so tall, to attenuated in those heels that she looks like some fantastical beast conjured from the air. When she is close enough, she ducks her head to murmur, "je suis dans cette ville parce qu'il me plaît d'être ici." - into the region of his ear. Then, tucking the cigar into her mouth, the tip between her teeth, still uncut and unlit, she sway-stalks toward the elevator, without another word.

A meeting on the streets.

[Paul Schafer] The sun set less than an hour ago, dipped down over the western horizon to stain the sky in varying shades of Dark before disappearing entirely. With natural light replaced with the sickly glow of ailing street lamps, with the piercing illumination of headlights and the flickering of neon signs, the streets have cleared out considerably. Gone are the scampering children chasing toys and each other around dismal lots and publicly-funded parks, retreated are the pedestrians outside for the mere enjoyment of the warmth of the day. The only people who are outside right now are the ones who have reason to be, who are hurrying from cars and subway stations and buildings to other buildings, who are out for dinner or picking up coffee or heading to work.

Chinatown is aglow this time of night, and shows no signs of slowing down. With the rapid approach of summer and the temperatures to show for it, the cows are finding reasons to stay out later. Restaurants and tea shops are packed, bus stops are crowded, and all around is the promise of immortality, bared necks and the hum of health beneath the skin.

Moving through the crowd is a man of insubstantial height, dressed well enough considering what he is, with whom he is affiliated. He wears a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, slacks, a tie, a watch, has his hair combed back out of his face and a pack of cigarettes in his breast pocket. To look at him, no one would guess that he's any older than 25: he's got a young face that doesn't quite match the hard cast to his gaze, the sense of detachment people get from him.

They don't know any better.

[Kyle Rayne] Brooding only slightly, Kyle Rayne, that meek vegetarian vampire, tries to look tough
in his polyester purple button up as he wanders through the dangerous streets of Chinatown.

He is not successful.

He looks about thirty, with ruffled blond hair and soulful eyes. If there are any clues to his clan of origin in his gait, it would be the almost paranoid furtivity to his glances, but then he knows there is much to be wary of in the darkness.

Kyle scans the alley with his preternatural senses, hunting for a sizable stray to sate his hunger

[Benicio Romero] Its a matter of aging. Perhaps after the first three or four decades, you're memory of it skews. The sunlight in your mind looks different. Colors that you never see again except in neon signs. A few more decades, and you don't remember that at all. Sunlight becomes something akin to the fear of lurking smilodons, something that exists in the deepest parts of you. The parts that say 'I am human, somehow.' The parts that cower in fear from the other parts, which say 'I am as far from human as you will ever see.'

Perhaps that's why kindred these days liked these parts of the cities they infested. Perhaps that's why Benicio likes it. One can almost see it in that disturbingly pleased smile that he shines toward the businesses, as if happy with the neighborhood, with the city. One can almost see it in the way the pinks and purples and the oranges reflect dimly off his gold teeth. A reflection of a false memory that he doesn't even remember having. Or doesn't even remember missing.

Life starts with the night for Benicio Romero. He breathes in the smell of the city, standing in front of a certain strip club, caressing the bare scalp on either side of his mohawk. Life has started again tonight. He can almost taste it.

[Paul Schafer] There are some of them who never grow used to the knowledge that society as they know it is going to continue on without them, that they're going to watch the world they were born into reach its apex and then come crashing down to give way to a new time, a new generation, a new way of working and living that they have to choose to either keep up with or remain separate from. There are Kindred who are several centuries old who haven't been able to keep up with the shifting of the cultural tides and have wound up secluding themselves within their own personal anachronisms; there are Kindred who make valiant attempts to keep up with the progression of society's whims, who make sure their dress remains consistent with what the rest of the world is wearing, who learn the lexicon of forward motion, who don't allow themselves to become too wrapped up in how they remember life being.

Even a decade of remaining exactly the same is enough to drive home the fact that life as you know it is going to end eventually while you are afforded little choice other than to keep on moving.

Out of the shadows come those who feed on humanity in order to survive. The baby-faced man in a tie has his hands in his pockets, is moving down the sidewalk without any particular destination in mind or objective at hand when a smiling specter from another lifetime appears out of the edge of his awareness.

New York. The 80s. A time of boundless consumerism and rampant drug use, of war on a distant shore. You remember the people you fight with. You remember the deals, the promises you make.

"Benicio fuckin' Romero," he calls, his brassy New York accent unchanged after all these years. "Is that you?"

[Kyle Rayne] The weight of this endless night can be too much for some to bear, the call of the sun or the hunter's stake too strong when life itself was burden enough. For those souls who had more to give than take, the use is little in eons of taking. The wounds of old did not heal from the embrace, they had more time to fester.

The harmless psychotic monster finished his meal, a simple cat that had no home. He finished quickly, whether from mercy or hunger. He did not seem sated, but that could have been a yearning for something more full-bodied.

His senses always sharp and alert, Kyle heard the strange accent, like out of an old movie, unmistakably American, almost comically coastal. Then he saw them. Two revenants like him, as dead as the concrete they stood on. Yet unlike him, and they were acquainted. Kyle stayed in the shadows, unsure of how to proceed, whether to greet his fellows to bolt to his haven.

[Benicio Romero] If he had a heart, it would have jumped right then. Ripped from the odd, momentary rapture, his eyes turn with a furrow toward the voice--

Familiar. The way birds are familiar.

"What the..."

That furrow deepens, but the curve of his mouth changes angles from defensive to curious, and slightly amused.

"Schafer? You gotta be kiddin' me. I thought for sure your punk ass was got got years ago. Its been...fuck...FUCK!"

And finally, to full amusement. A cruel grin on his face as he takes the few steps toward the man. A fist bereft of rings (Back when they knew each other there would have been at least one. A wide one. Across the entire fist. Knuckle rings had gone the way of fingerless gloves) punches at the man's shoulder, half in greeting, half intending to dispel the apparition.

[Marie-Helene] There is a noodle shop mid-way down the block, with a scattering of tables on the sidewalk for patrons who might like to soak up the sun of an afternoon. The sun is gone, and the owner's daughters have lowered the umbrellas and lashed them tightly, chained the iron chairs together and stacked them alongside the tables. There are two tables, eight chairs stacked high enough that it would be dangerous to remove the topmost. Certainly, some physical law would be broken, someone's skull would be endangerous.

The shop is closed, too. The neon light is off, and the iron gate has been pulled across the storefront. There's the pale blue glow from the drink colors - blue, and red - and a light somewhere in the back, cutting onto the street through the picture windows.

Closed store, no chairs in which to sit: no matter. There is someone sitting on one of the iron tables, directly in front of the window, backlit by the glow of the pepsi case, her spine straight against the lashed umbrella, her long legs crossed. Her costume is hardly elegant: battered BDUs, the khaki coloured desert camoflage, these, and a mismatched black camisole, silk and lace, which leaves the delicate architecture of her shoulders bared except for two thin black straps. Her sharp features are sunk in the shadow of brim of a black baseball cap, the logo unreadable in the darkness, except when she brings a small, stinking, cheap little cigarello to her mouth and inhales. The embers spark, sucking in oxgen, and she holds herself still, thrilling in the the autonomic response of her dead body to the embryonic flame. Smiles a sharp, thin smile around the filter, holds the cigarello negligently away from her body as she exhales -

- in Kyle's direction, a stream of smoke. "Are you going to watch them all night, cher?" Her voice is quiet, but her eyes spark beneath the brim as she casts the stranger a sidelong look. " - do we need to buy tickets?" Then, stretching her neck, tipping her head sidelong, insouciant, she glances back toward the pair of Brujah greeting each other.

"Will this, do you think, be a good show?"

[Kyle Rayne] Each new night is an opportunity to learn -- or get eaten. Kyle's first lesson of the night -- not to be distracted, not to overestimate his abilities. Okay, that was two lessons.

To his credit, the newborn did not jump out of his skin, and for all Kyle knew he could do that. He wrinkled his nose at the malodorous herb and narrowed his eyes at the woman before him. He couldn't keep up the illusion, however, and dissolved into congeniality, smiling.

"Didn't want to interrupt their reunion. I've only met Benicio, and I do not believe I've had the pleasure."

He extended his hand in greeting.

"I am Kyle."

[Paul Schafer] The body Benicio's fist comes into contact with hasn't changed one ounce in either direction since they last saw each other. His shoulder is a solid force beneath the older Brujah's fist, strips of unrelenting muscle laid overtop of tenacious bone, and he rolls with the strike before returning the gesture. That amusement is contagious, splitting his lips into a teeth-baring grin as laughter slips out of his throat.

What pedestrians are still out after dark are taking pains to step around the two men, granting them as wide a berth as is possible without plunging footwear into the gutter or crashing into a parking meter or a trash can or another hapless bystander. Attempting to gauge whether they're simply enthused to see each other or whether they're about to burst into a brawl is difficult for the average person, and with the exception of the cigarillo-smoking woman perched on a nearby tabletop, no one is overly interested in sticking around to see what the outcome is going to be.

"Y'know," he says, when they've got their hands back to themselves but before the initial shock has completely worn off, "I heard you were out this way but I didn't fuckin' believe it."

Something over Benicio's shoulder attracts the younger man's attention, some odor or some lilt of speech on the wind, and his eyes find a blond woman in a baseball cap, legs dangling over the side of a packed-away table, cherry of her cigarillo winking through the wan light of the never-sleeping city.

"Shit."

[Benicio Romero] "Believe it, fucker! I'm still kickin', and there's still ass to be kicked."

That grin falters, and he stretches his neck as if working out a cramp that had been there for...so long.

"Well, at least it there was, till recently."

He turns, following Paul's gaze, then traces it back.

"Friend of yours?"

[Marie-Helene] The little cigar is cheap. It might have been flavored cherry, but the smoke has the odor of sawdust and brown paper bags wrapped around dishtowels. Something like it. Kyle offers his hand, and the tall blond stranger shifts the cigarello from her right hand to her left, holding it airily away from her body, sparing him both the worst of the scent (should he deign to breathe it in) and the inherent threat of the glowing cherry.

"The pleasure is all mine," she says, her head tipped back, the light cutting across sharp features so perfectly symmetrical, so pleasingly balanced that she could well have been embraced for that along: an ornamental beast. The light cuts across the sharp planes of her face, highlighting the cut of her cheekbones and the thin, fine twist of her mouth, now crawling into faint, sure little - smile, or smirk, some bitter/sweet doublehelix of the two. Kyle holds out his hand to shake. Marie-Hélène takes his hand, instead, the way a persistent courtier might take the hand of an easily flattered dowager, bending the tips of his fingers to sit neatly in her hand.

She takes his hand, and leans over it as if she meant to pay him the compliment of a courtly little kiss - but instead, breathes out a lungful of smoke over his skin, watches the way the light plays over the surface of it, the pattern of dead skin cells, the shifting billow of the smoke. "Marie-Hélène." The faintest French accent touches her speech, which deepens when she offers him her name. She pronounces it like a Parisian. "Don't," she cautions him hard on the heels of the introduction as she straightens and releases the hand. " - think about shortening it, cher."

[Kyle Rayne] "Marie-Hélène." Kyle mulls it over for a moment, the cuteness of his demeanor almost overpowering. "Beautiful. I just hope I pronounce it well enough."

There is something improper about talking to a lovely lady from a shadowy corner. Kyle steps under a glowing streetlight. With boyish charm, he puts his hands in his pockets and stares at the waxing moon. A wolf howls in the distance.

"I think our friends have spotted us. So much for spectating."

[Paul Schafer] By the time Benicio's attention has drifted back from the distant shores to which Paul's had been cast, the younger man has reeled in his gaze and centered himself on the conversation that he's having with his clansman. They have not yet drifted into the realm of nostalgia, haven't started telling old tales and reliving old days, but there is still a sort of exuberance in their reunion, a muted delight in seeing that the night had not claimed the other in the time that has passed.

It was a different time back then, a time when there was a clearly-drawn line dividing the sides, a line drawn in blood and ash, beset on either side by bullets and fire and good old-fashioned staking.

Friend of yours, Benicio wants to know, and Paul reaches up to push his hair back out of his face.

"Sort of."

He doesn't rush over to reintroduce himself, though, doesn't even seem entirely sure that the woman he's looking at is the same one who has a space in his dusty memory banks, who shares a space in history, whose feet have tread the same sidewalks and whose fangs have fought for the same scant supply of necks. Something the older Brujah had said had stood out, and Paul frowns now, pushing his hand back into his pocket.

"Whaddaya mean, 'until recently'?"

[Benicio Romero] "Eh." He sounds as if he doesn't really want to tlak about it. As if its hardly anything quite worth talking about. This is a ruse. it is worth talking about. And he does talk about it.

"This fuckin' ceasefire the Prince has goin on. Something's been nabbin Licks from both sides, so now we gotta sit around holdin' our dicks till they figure it out."

Even if you weren't in earshot, simply watching the conversation taking place would have been quite amusing. The previous statement, for instance, coupled with the animation of Benicio's hands as he speaks, was as good as a punch line.

"And lemme tell you man, up until then, I was fuckin roarin' to go! I mean, you know me! I had a fleet in the works. I had territory staked out. Domain. Our fucking domain! A huge fucking chunk of the city for the family to call our own. And now? Its all fuckin' useless. Ceasefire."

He doesn't spit. He makes the sound. The motion. But there's not white stream from his mouth. No globule of moisture hitting the sidewalk. Its just a pure expression of disgust.

"Ptew! Ceasefire. Peace. Pain in my fuckin' ass, man."

[Marie-Helene] "Non - " the creature murmurs, low, gradually unfolding her endless legs, arching her lean hips as she searches with her toes for her shoes, discarded on the sidewalk. The shoes brilliantly made stiletto pumps, with five inch heels that bring the dead thing to a towering 6'4" in height. They have the signature red soles of a pair of Christian Louboutin originals - but have been spraypainted blaze orange. " - Kyle, the spectating has only begun."

The discarded shoes located, the creature slips her feet into them and stands - and stands and stands and stands. She has a model's proportions - so specific, those to a certain time and a certain place, a certain spartan aethetic, where the body disappears into itself - impossibly tall, with long limbs defined by sharp joints and a certain spare elegance - matched with the sort of perfectly formed, wholly mutable features that can be made to look just so with this or that application of paint and cosmetics. Tonight, her mouth is bare, pale - not stained crimson from an evening meal, not yet - but her eyes, pale blue discs that sheen silver in the light of the full moon - are framed in a rather astonishing shade of chartreause.

"Come." Perfectly comfortable in her ridiculous shoes, the creature gestures to Kyle and offers him the edge of a smile that creates a certain aura of intimacy. "Let me introduce you, and then you can spectate up close."

With that, she leads Kyle through what remains of the late evening crowd, across the street, directly toward the pair of animated Brujah.

[Kyle Rayne] "You're the boss."

Some would say that the view Kyle was getting was wasted on such a boy scout. He should have been thinking nasty thoughts; even a dead man could get lost in those eyes. Kyle just tried to stand straighter, intimidated by her model's height.

While she led him through the night, Kyle moved seamlessly among the passersby. He knew where each cockroach scuttled in the night. Something or someone was out there, waiting for him. He wanted to be ready for what came next. The look on his face revealed by the light of the lamps told a different story: he expected to be caught off guard, an inevitable meeting with his nightmares.

[Paul Schafer] At mention of the ceasefire, Paul scowls. It's as if a previously-believed rumor has had light cast on it, clinical and dissecting, revealing all the putrid wrongness about the situation that he hasn't taken pains to closely examine up until now.

He doesn't interrupt Benicio as he rants, doesn't agree with him or ask any further questions. Standing with his hands in his pockets and his feet planted, his spine straight and his head up, he embodies stillness, personifies it. No breath passes through his lungs, his thin chest remaining quiet and motionless as he listens. It's almost eerie, the stillness; but their lot are used to it. There is no need to pretend at liveliness when they know better, when they aren't looking for it.

"Ceasefire," he repeats, as if trying the word out for himself. "Wha' the fuck."

[Benicio Romero] "I dunno man. Aint nobody talkin'. Aint nobody sayin' shit. Oh...oh shit."

He turns himself, now grinning maliciously in a sudden shift of mood.

"Here comes your girlfriend, man. Just so you know, if you owe her money I aint spottin' you."

[Marie-Helene] Ceasefire - says Paul -

- and here come two more licks. Benicio says something, low. Marie-Hélène catches the edge of the word girlfriend and gives him a sharp look and a twisted, lilting sort of smile, lovely as the flash of a shark beneath clear waters. Her right hand is in the side pocket of her BDUs, the left holds the cigarello - down somewhere near the level of her hip. "Gentleman," she greets them, her faint French accent enrobing the words, just, with a hint of the exotic. Then, an ironic little bow toward Benicio before she turns to Schafer. "Paul, cher. It's been a while."

"I've come to present young Kyle here to you both." They create a loose circle. She stands, her right arm now held negligently across her lean torso, her left bringing the cheap cigar up to her pale mouth. "Introductions all around?"

[Kyle Rayne] Feeling a little incidental, Kyle matches the Toreador's casual grace by being up front and in the moment.

"Hey, Benicio. Good to see you."

Turning to Paul, he seems relieved to see someone who closer fits his definition of normal. Appearances had deceived him in the past, however.

"Paul, is it? I'm Kyle Rayne. You and Mari-Helene know each other, then?"

[Paul Schafer] Benicio makes a joke about not spotting him if he owes the approaching Toreador money, and Paul returns fire with a "Some friend you are."

Gentlemen.

Even barefoot, Marie-Hélène towers over Paul. Right now, she's not barefoot. She's got those ridiculous painted stiletto heels on, her approach announced with each clack of the soles against the pavement. The Brujah is not tall by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, when he was Embraced, 5'8" was a rather generous height for an American male. Americans are getting taller, though, they're getting bigger, and these days he's several inches shorter than his breathing, bleeding counterparts, to say nothing of the fact that his head barely comes up to the towering Parisian goddess's shoulder now.

It's been a while.

"You're tellin' me," he says. A while. It's been the better part of a decade, long enough for time to have ravaged most individuals; neither of them has aged a night, though. For his part, the Brujah looks exactly the same tonight as he did the last time their paths crossed. His clothes aren't exactly the same, but his hair, his eyes, his skin have all retained their youthfulness.

Kyle introduces himself, and Paul shifts his body so that the quartet forms an imperfect circle underneath the awning of a sleeping business's storefront, out of the way of traffic. When he speaks, his voice carries with it the caustic croon of Brooklyn New York. It's not pleasing to listen to, but it does little to detract from the man's charm.

"Yeah," he confirms, eyes briefly flicking towards the female. "We knew each other back in New York."

New Yawk, is how it comes out.

[Benicio Romero] He's still grinning as the other two step forward proper, and offers a quick chin-raise in response to Kyle's greeting.

"How you doin' there, milk-tooth?"

Paul and the tall woman do indeed know each other. And from New York, of all places.

"No shit? You sly, fucking dog. And I'm only gettin' an introduction now?"

He smiles even wider at the Marie-Helene now.

"How ya doin', gorgeous? Benicio Romero."

[Marie-Helene] "You haven't changed a bit, chéri," the creature murmurs to Paul, with more than a hint of irony bleeding into the supple thread of her tone. Her mouth still twisted into a faint little I-have-a-secret smile, and her cool eyes gleam from beneath the shadow of the baseball cap. IOWA, it says, in big bold letters. She leans in toward Paul, makes an airy gesture toward the French kiss-kiss that suggests at the full gesture but does not come cheek to cheek. They are on the street, afterall. She has smoked three-quarters of a cheap cigar and stinks of cheap tobacco, rusting metal - when she should smell like Chanel Number 5. They are on a street, and they are dead things, predators, for all her fine manners, and one is careful around others. "Mais, bien sur, I am pleased to see you still in one piece."

Note how, when she turns to the wide-smiling Benicio Romero, her own half-smile spreading to match his own. "M'sieur Romero, the pleasure's mine, though it's been nearly a decade since I left New York, and when I was there, I'm sure I was beneath your notice. I'm Marie-Hélène Alette de Sausanne d'Allais." Much as she did with Schafer, the creature leans in toward Benicio when the introduction has finished, makes the airy gesture of a kiss at either cheek. Her own are smooth and pale, shadowed by the brim of the IOWA ballcap, her eyes framed by poisonous green shadow.

" - now Kyle, isn't this preferable to skulking in the shadows, watching?" - as if it were a magnanimous gesture, as if she were holding court, dressed in mismatched clothing made elegant by the sheer virture of her presence, as if they were in the plushest Elysium rather than some sidestreet in Chinatown, the dark night moving around them, livid, alive.

[Kyle Rayne] Age and experience is here, events spent together and apart, forming friendship and wreaking havoc, some instances the two colliding. All the gravitas Kyle sensed here threatened to push him out of the circle, heat like the oven in mother's kitchen, dangerous but inviting. He kept his back straight and his head high. He took Benicio's gibe and replied, "Tried some lamb. Wasn't bad. Thanks for the suggestion."

Kyle admires Marie-Helene as she socializes, weaving through the subtle currents of propriety with the grace of a natural. He looks at her, probing with his gaze, searching for a hint of what lies beneath her carefully crafted demeanor, down to her true needs.

"I wasn't skulking, mon cherie. I just didn't want to get in the way of these two lovebirds."

[Marie-Helene] Kyle's quip earns him a sidelong look, the faint curve of half-smile, and a hint of laughter like smoke on the wind. "Touché," she murmurs to him, sotto voce, the faintest gleam gilding her pale blue eyes platinum.

[Marie-Helene] [ooc: WREAKS HAVOC WITH POSTING ORDER THEN HUSHES UP. :) ]

[Paul Schafer] [*FRENZIES*]

[Vincent McCann] How could the showman resist such a gathering? A break from the dull and drool day to day activities to meet both new and old faces? Well, McCann certainly wasn't going to pass up this chance. Or chances.

McCann as always, never passed up the opportunity to have some amusement at Benicio's expense. Which would most likely be the reason why the Kindred's own presence or apperance wasn't made aware until he was mere feet behind the Brujah, appearing out of the night air like a bolt of lighting in the blink of a eye.

The Caitiff tonight went without the suit, favoring his trim and well kept black denim jeans and jacket. A matching ballcap with a white crosshair over the center of the forehead kept his hair out of his face and those sparkling emerald eyes clear.

" Good evening gentleman and lady. "

[Benicio Romero] "Oh Shit! Listen to you! Found some balls on ya now that you got this idea of the good doctor out there lookin' after ya huh?"

He's grinning at first, turning to Paul as he jerks a thumb toward Kyle.

"Love birds he calls us."

And then...he's not smiling. He's certainly not smiling indeed.

"Well the doctor aint fuckin' here, is he? And even if he were, it'd just mean I'd have to kick his ass instead of yours."

He's close now, glaring at the neonate who seems just as tall, just as physically built as he is. Close enough to jab him in the shoulder with a finger as he speaks.

"Don't forget who the fuck you're talkin' to, y'hear me?"

[Kyle Rayne] Kyle almost backs down. He knows he's looking at two undead monsters who could probably tear his head off before he could blink, but he also knows what happens when a dog backs down. He becomes a bitch.

"I knew the Brujah could dish it out, but I didn't know they couldn't take it. I wasn't trying to start anything, so you just back off and don't take it so personal."

The last he says with a disarming smile. Who could stay mad at such an adorable face?

[Paul Schafer] Kyle makes a quip about the two Brujah being lovebirds, and the previous placidity in the younger, decidedly more pretty of the two of them abruptly vanishes, immediately replaced by something harder, something more predacious. He doesn't lunge for the Malkavian, doesn't growl threats or posture, but there is a visible tension in his form that speaks of the potential for violence that his kind is known for.

In the presence of his elder and the city's Primogen, he controls himself. At first, Benicio is jovial, grinning and joking. Paul's attempts to play along are tempered by his... well... temper. He forces a smile that looks more like a scowl than anything else when Benicio jerks a thumb towards Kyle, and when the Primogen's smile disappears, strangely enough, Paul seems to recover from the flash of irritation that had bristled beneath his skin. He reaches into the breast pocket of his shirt to fish loose a packet of Dunhills and a lighter--

... and then the Scourge appears right behind them.

Paul does not startle or drop his things. He does, however, tear his gaze away from Benicio's handling of the Malkavian and turn towards Vincent.

"Evenin'," he replies, sticking a cigarette between his lips and cautiously, respectful even of so small a flame, lighting it.

And then Kyle keeps talking.

Paul coughs out a touch of laughter, then turns to Marie-Hélène and asks, "The hell'd you find this guy, Luce?"

[Marie-Helene] Marie-Hélène's attention attaches to Benicio - intense, fixated, unblinking - and she is watching him rapt, (quite literally) breathless - capturing the fractional moment when the grin twists into itself, melts from his face like candlewax. He stalks closer, jabbing Kyle in the shoulder with a finger, and she looks away, out beyond the pair of them, down the street, shifting her stance subtly - moving from hip to hip, her body balanced perfectly atop the tottering heels, the now guttering smoke still held negligently in her left hand, the arm trailing away from her hip.

Vincent appears behind Benicio; she doesn't see the moment when he coalesces, as it were, in an eyeblink. Instead, she cuts a simmering pale gaze back at him when he greets them.

"I assure you," quiet back, "good sirrah, I'm no lady." Then, back to Paul, her mouth twists into a neat little moue. "I found him on the sidewalk, Paul." She hasn't moved, though; cuts a look back to Kyle as he responds to Benicio, her eyes still pools, considered. "I think we should keep him."

[Vincent McCann] McCann stepped around from behind Benicio and Paul, off to the side to be able to see the group more clearly. His hands were idly tucked into his jacket pockets, his eyes decidedly guarded against them all while his lips were curled in unabashed amusement. Yet those emerald eyes lingered on each briefly while he spoke to them.

" Truly, Marie? I bet you'll be fun to play with them. "

Kyle earned a measuring gaze before he spoke to the young neonate. " He's all talk, don't you worry. Benicio wouldn't hurt a hair on that precious head of yours. "

Benicio earned the most lavish of his attention however. " Benny, my boy, should I bother taking bets? Or will you end it too soon for me to enjoy it? "

[Benicio Romero] "Do you like your teeth, motherfucker?" Benicio barks back on the heels of Kyle's attempt to diffuse. He seems anything but appeased. Vincent's appeared. Out of nowhere, as usual. Benicio barely seems to notice anything beyond Kyle. Barely hears anything with the angry ringing gradually growing in his ears.

"If you do, you better hide 'em with them fuckin lips!"

[Kyle Rayne] Kyle's hands ball up into fists, and he tremors slightly, his eyes, full of steel, on Benicio. He crosses his arms and stays silent a moment. Then he turns his head slightly and begins bobbing it, as though listening to someone speaking, someone no one else can see. He chuckles. "You're right, Sam, he does. He reminds me of you, actually."

[Marie-Helene] "Marie-Hélène," the creature corrects, with a sharp, clean breaking of a look back at Mcann. "Pas de Marie. - Marie-Hélène. And," mildly, her mouth still, her gleaming eyes cutting back to Benicio and Kyle, "I am purely ornamental. Unless you wish to spend the evening discussing Foucault's model of power, Panopticism, Rene Dumas or pulp fiction, I'm afraid I don't - " here she pauses, cutting a glance back toward McCann, "play well with others."

Then, she dips her head low enough to murmur into Kyle's other ear. "Cheri, try not to anger the Brujah. They do have tempers." The irony is low, mild, every present. She straightens, cuts a look back to Paul. "Another night, hmm? And soon. We should catch up. Or at least smoke a decent cigar together."

Then, stepping back, she offers her remaining farewells - "M'sieur Romero." to Benicio and " - sir." McCann, and turns, elegant and impossibly tall, like a giraffe wearing stilts as she balances easily on the spray-painted orange stillettos, in her baggy combat BDUs, the obsuring (and absurd) IOWA baseball cap, the silk camisole the only fine thing against her skin, stalks off down the sidewalk, her heels clattering with every step until she disappears around a corner, and is gone.