Practised hands swept the cards into a neat pile and placed them away in their velvet lined ash wood box. At the opposite side of the circular table a silver ring shone dimly, runes and a heraldic device catching the minimal light as fingers shifted.
"A cross-roads, you say? Why does it always seem to be that way when you give a reading, eh?" Sonorous, the man's voice seemed to be more jesting than anything else. Jovial though the question might be, the underlying tone still implied that it was not rhetorical.
Thoughtfully the keeper of the deck stroked its time smoothed case before replying, androgynous features giving no clue as to gender. When it spoke the voice was again neither male or female. "Perhaps it is because only at such times you seek me out, Matelot. When the path you are to set foot on is one you realise well enough, but instead you prevaricate in this manner."
"You probably have me there," the tense answer came, a self depreciating glance softening the momentary harshness of the voice. Smoothly the man rose from his chair and pushed it beneath the table once more. Strong hands still grasping the plain wooden support he looked intently at the cowled figure opposite. "One last thing. That many major arcana - that's not usual, is it?"
"The reading is over. You've been to enough before to draw your own conclusions, drifter. Go now and be satisfied."
A bow, half mocking, half respect, and the man was gone, the curtain falling into position again with a whisper of motion and a displacement of incense. An instant later the outer door clicked closed, leaving unsteady candle flames and indistinct patterns in their guttering smoke.
Within the club was the typical pulse of sound and light common to such places. Men and women kept in motion with the beat, moving their bodies in ways to call attention to their presence or simply to justify it. Fine clothes wrapped around the same mortal coils that they would no doubt use to puke, shit and have their petty little lust satiated in later on. Usually he would note these facts with dispassion, puting the clinical observances off in a relatively untouched section of his mind, but this evening was different. Loathing and disgust warred with something that felt very like envy as he slipped through the mob of dancers. Sweat, body heat and a myriad of unnatural perfumes assaulted his senses as he approached the less frequented areas of the establishment. Following the sweeping curve of a grandiose set of steps he raised himself above the hurly burly of the floor below and entered the more sedate balcony.
Drinking here was usually for show alone. Many would have a vessel at hand for feel or look alone, others for memory. A few would actually consume whatever poison or elixir they had chosen. It was all for naught, of course; the walking dead lusted after one liquid alone, and that was to be found behind bars everywhere, true enough, but within bottles in practically none, Exceptions always prove a rule, however.
"A Gewurztraminer, thank you," Handel requested of the short, attractive read head waiting for his order. "Be sure it is properly chilled and bring me the bottle, please. I'll likely be needing another at least, so be prepared," he added with a wry quirk of the lips. Smiling in response, the bartender proceeded about her business.
Stifling an unnecessary yawn, the vampire let his gaze drift across the others present. Hidden from normal sight or not, it didn't matter; he saw them all - creatures of ugliness with hearts of gold, perfect beauties with ice in their undead veins, those in between and those who actually were within as they appeared without. One in particular, her head turned to the movement below, caught his attention. Dark hair swept across perfectly curved shoulders...
She sensed something.....or could it be someone? She knew the
feeling....it was all too familiar....one that had been impressing itself on her ever since......
The dazzling brunette brushed the thought from her mind, at the same time brushing a long, curled strand of hair from her eye - doing so in fear that she might reveal herself to someone she may not care to. Feeling the sensation of rain against her skin and hair gave her a sensual feeling that was now more heightened than ever before, combining itself with the 'presence' and the hunger coursing through her body. This was a new experience for her, therefore she knew she must contain her hunger in exchange for keeping her identity from the mortals that surrounded....still, the hunger and the sense were in the closest reaches of her mind...and yet, the identity of the presence was eluding her.
... as the rains outside continued their pounding against the windows behind. A drop of water wandered its way down one bared arm in slow counterpoint to the swiftly flowing multitude outside. Fangs extended in a sensuous languor as hunger quickened. Predator quick, flowing across the small space to the bed he held back from touching her in a pause that cost no small effort.
"Look at me," he said simply.
A voice came to her, one that she had not heard in a while, familiar, yet she could not seem to place it. Convictions advising her to ignore it warred with instinct and curiosity telling her to obey. Hoping that following the orders of the voice would not get her in trouble, she carried out the instructions given.
Time slowed as her head swung around, highlights from the small part of the storm that had claimed residence in her hair gleaming like diamonds in the lamp light. Finally the framed face, almost too perfect to him, as if taken from a dream, and the eyes that hungrily hunted out his own. So much implicit in those green-blue orbs. He raised his head to...
... see the woman facing him across the room. Same eyes, a questioning look on her face as she slid catlike from her stool and sauntered towards him. In the corner of his perception he was aware of the discrete arrival of the wine. Shaken by the vision of a future, he still managed to ask for an extra glass. For once the past was not the intrusion. Light bulbs instead of candles, carpet instead of stone floors, and instead of Carol... her.
Relief surged through her veins after turning around to see who had called to her. She knew the face, the build and now the presence that she had felt only minutes after entering the mortals' playroom. Approaching him with gracious ease and an air that called for attention, she let a sly mischievous grin spread across her ruby lips as she reached his table.
"Hello Mikaela." He would normally rise, but both knowing her more modern ways and his present state disinclined him from doing so.
"Not drinking alone, are you Handel," she questioned while gliding into the opposite chair, smiling enticingly. "And wine too? I thought you were a rum man?"
"Rum? Yes, too much so, maybe. Rum is what I have been. It's safe and protective and a reminder of how things were. A blanket of safety, perhaps. Wine recollects the sun, growth, life, love... accoutrements which we must survive without in our present state."
Collecting himself, he poured two glasses of the pale yellow liquid, passing one to the woman and raising the other to his nose. Even as he savoured the bouquet his enhanced senses leapt maddeningly upon her specific scent as well. Brief annoyance flickered across his brow, then he raised his glass. "To your good health."
Silken smooth, the wine rested well upon his tongue as he savoured its rich complexities, then fell lightly down his throat. His own peculiar biology began its simulacrum of alcoholic breakdown, allowing the tenseness he hadn't even realised was there to begin to fall apart. Partly from fun, partly kindness, partly from impulse he expended some of his own energies so that Mikaela too would have more than a fine tasting liquid ballast in her stomach. She smiled as the beginnings of intoxication made themselves known and placed a hand upon his. Handel felt his intuition flash at the contact.
With her most devious grin, she looked Handel straight in the eyes and smirked.
"Handel, my dear, what brings you round to such a place as
this....aren't you a bit too 'old' for such an establishment? Not to
mention.....you don't dance...."
Mikaela turned her head to one side, letting some of her long dark tresses fall across a bare shoulder, accentuating the full length of her well formed neck, the work of a master craftsman. As intended, Handel watched the display with interest piqued, and an amused smile on his lips.
"Only when the mood takes me, but yes, that is fairly infrequently. Most of the performances executed these days bear little resemblance to what I would term dancing, anyway. At least the wine has become more elegant with time." Raising his glass he finished it and refilled both vessels.
Time passed pleasantly enough.
Out of the club the elements immediately made themselves known. Although only hinting at rain presently, the promise of a downpour at some stage hung in the air like a death sentence. Zephyrs whipped madly down the lamp lit street, raising flurries of autumn leaves in one instant and leaving them to fall without support in the next. Comfortable despite the chill, an action of their coats and the presence of each other as much as any supernatural indifference to temperature, the two walked up the rise and towards the richer districts of suburbia.
As Mikaela's place of residence came closer the pace of the pair slowed increasingly. Neither particularly wished for the night to end, for the other to go off about their own business. They found more and more reasons to halt and comment on things seen and unseen, actions of present and past.
Across the street a man sat quietly, watching from the relative anonymity of his sheltered porch. Wrapped up against the chill, he seemed an elderly fellow taken by a lack of interest in sleep. Beside him stretched a long bodied tabby, laying claim to the remainder of the couch they occupied. Two pairs of eyes, one set glinting with reflected light, the others dark and hidden, observed the couple stroll by. Both returned the glances flicked their way unconcernedly, not having any reason to suspect the attractive woman and her smiling escort of being anything other than what they appeared.
Light breezes carried the muted scent of flowers to the walking pair. They halted briefly before a residence resplendent in its blooms and regarded the pathway wending its way through the landscaped garden. Briefly, a wish to see the scene in natural sunlight touched them both, causing them to draw closer. Conflicting hungers, fears on several different levels left Handel compelled to dip his lips to hers for a brief kiss.
Softening against her, Handel suddenly jerked his head up to look around wildly.
"Did you hear that? Someone's in trouble."
Faintly, the cries came again. Both vampires sensed the hushed struggle to come from within the pillared mansion before them, standing monument like behind the iron fence line, gardens and elegantly coiffeured lawns. The moment broken, Handel ghosted along the footpath with Mikaela following after. An observor would have seen them enter the shadow of a magnificent beech and then disappear entirely. Briefly a dog barked within the grounds, a questioning 'ruff', then was silent.
"The security system is off," remarked Mikaela as she silently shut the door behind her. "I think they're upstairs, whatever they are."
An odour alien to the house was wafting from the upper stories. Faintly sweet, it was like a tantalising mixture of herbs, yet earthy and more given to gardens than the interior of a mansion.
"Yes." Handel nodded in a strip of illumination coming through the windows, his face bisected into dark and light. Menacing for an instant, he grinned self effacingly and dispelled the momentary disquiet Mikaela felt. "I think I know what that is. We'd better hurry."
With no further words he bounded up the stairs towards the second level.
