Chapter VII - Healing Pains

[IamLEAM1983]

In another plane and another place, bodies parted with a moan. Sweat dappled their brow and speckled their arms. A sitar played, somewhere, and the seraglio's lights were hung low, colored sheets covering nearly all of them. The man, if you could call him that, grunted in a mixture of pleasure and affection, and pressed his burning, withered and corpse-like lips on the woman's forehead. She was panting, a mixture of pleasure and confusion playing on her features.

"I don't understand," she said, "if I already accepted that I had issues, why am I still here? Why are we still doing this?"

The incubus' voice was low and hoarse, scarred by thousands of years of intoxicants and as many years of grunts and screams. There still was a loving quality to it, as if knowledge hid underneath his kind's irrepressible libido. He understood her - and knew just what Lucifer's idea for torture involved.

"Letting go is a game all in itself, love," he said. "You can't escape us, here - couldn't escape any of us. It's still up to you to find your key, turn it in your own lock. I'm here to keep you rooted in your senses, anchored in the past - and your job is to ascend. If tenderness doesn't free you, then you have to ask yourself what's left...
- Can't you give me a clue?"

Gremory pressed his warm, reddish and skeletal frame against the Damned woman's, squirmed against her on the bed and nuzzled her, bony fingers intertwining with hers. "Not in my job description, Maggie," he said, adding a tiny bit of a smirk. "It's as it's always been: you're the one with the questions, and you're also the one with answers. You just don't know it, yet."

Maggie sighed. "The others say things changed, outside. We haven't seen Asmodeus in, well, forever.
- You haven't noticed much because my docket didn't need much changing," noted Gremory between half-asleep snores. "Sex is movement, it's a part of life, and the others spent thousands of years acting like they were meant to keep things still...
- You just said you're meant to weigh me down; isn't that contradictory?"

In response, Gremory chuckled in the crook of her neck. "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie - still so new at the game after so long... Who are you, then? Maggie the wayward soul with a hope and a prayer, or Salome, who's still down here after eons?"

The woman's face flushed and anger glinted in her eyes. She focused on the incubus' reflection in the polished brass mirror next to her, ignored the reddish, corpselike thing's almost Priapic member as it swelled up again and pressed against the small of her back and spat out - 

"Don't call me that."

Gremory chuckled again, the sound dark and sweet. He'd already gone past the refractory period and propped himself up on one elbow, using his right index to trace her forearm's contour. "Whatever you say, Maggie darling... Will you be good if I head out for a while; there's a long-lost brother of mine who's called for me."

Maggie pushed herself out of bed and gathered the linens she'd been lying in around her. "I imagine you'll want to lay with him, too."

The incubus watched her gather what little she was allowed for cover - mostly bits of jewellery - and waited for his urges to simmer down. "It's in the name, dear - there isn't a single brother or sister of mine that I haven't kissed or slept with. This one's a bit different, however."

She huffed out a breath. "How so?
- I think it'd be safe to call him... Entrepreneurial," he said, smirking. "This simplest of attires won't do, considering."

That surprised Maggie. "You're getting dressed?!
- I know," noted the older incubus, briefly pausing as he stood up to slick his white hair back with a hand. "I'm a bit surprised, myself."

He headed for a haphazard collection of racks and poles from across History. "Let's see, we're looking for something that's mildly dressy and still just so on the side of provocation...
- You should steal Asmodeus' robe and call it a day," suggested Salome. Gremory lightly grimaced. "Please, the hem is so saturated with dirt and semen it's practically turned into spackle; let me have some measure of dignity, here..."

A short while later, the self-crowned Steward of Lust applied the finishing touches in the mirror. "There we are... Part of me wonders how his mate will take to this. Story goes she's gone around the block with him, but all she's ever seen of Lust is either my brother's reluctance or my father's reckless abandon."

Maggie scoffed. "And you're so much more leveled out, of course.
- I don't lie to myself, at least," he noted. "It's what allows us to have these chats."

Maggie sat back down as she watched him test his jeans' pockets. "And you've never hoped for more? More than this?
- More is for mortals to claim," noted the eldest of incubi with a shrug, "with all the doubt and compromise and self-defeat this involves. What I want, I've already got.
- So why this... job interview?" she asked, looking puzzled with the concept. Gremory shrugged in response.

"For fun, mostly. To see the world again, fully in the flesh - and to find out what's got Lucifer so committed to coming back after disappearing for half of the mortal world's recorded history. Curiosity, then.
- Another hallmark of your kind, I've noted," she said. "You're curious, when you want to be."

Gremory applied a few daubs of cologne on his person. "Ah, but love-making requires curiosity...
- Don't you mean sex?"

The incubus paused, blinked and laughed. By the sound of it, that was a naïve joke she'd just landed, a real corker - and a marker of ignorance.

"What do you think I've been doing to you all these years, Maggie?
- But - your kind can't love anyone!"

Still laughing, Gremory waved her goodbye without looking back and headed out the door.

[IamLEAM1983]

The Drake household was on the outskirts of Green Island's old brownstone buildings, in what was a slightly bigger affair than your standard cottage arrangement with a shared wall between units. The front lawn looked to be a bit on the short side, and there was little doubt the backyard had to be used by both owners in the same block. Still, a concrete awning and a small half-wall divided both spaces, the neighbouring house's blinds still being fully drawn.

Marius' keen ears would pick up a younger voice than Aidan's piping up, asking for patience. Sock-wearing feet padded down and the door opened onto Sarah Drake. The young woman's hair was still filling in, months after her exposure to the Centennial Tree's discharge, but she still kept hers looser than Aidan's, the family's natural curliness given space to assert itself. She looked a fair bit like her brother, in the way common siblings could sometimes be mistaken for twins, but she carried herself differently. The scent of her blood spoke volumes, in any case: this wasn't a fearful individual, and had never really been. She didn't have her brother's grimly-internalized lessons and didn't need to call on empathy to display respect. That fearlessness wasn't yet Aidan's earned sense of control - it was genuine innocence.

Brunette, early twenties and her brother's pale eyes, glasses hanging from an old Steven Universe tee-shirt's neckline, with a white shirt thrown on and a pair of skinny jeans. The vague scent of childhood clinging to a few mannerisms - and the acrid undertone of fresh trauma. The surge had hurt her, that much was obvious. She hid it well enough, for a mortal.

"Hi!" she said, flashing her teeth. "Guessing you're Marius, right? I'm Sarah, the doofus' sister. Come on in, we're just about done with breakfast."

Another female voice sounded from the kitchen. "Ask him if he's had breakfast!"

Sarah didn't verbally relay the question, instead stepping aside and giving the vampire a smirk. Welp, she might've said, you've heard the lady...

* * *

Few people took to sleep to alleviate anxiety. In most cases, anxiety prevented sleep. In the Void Weavers' case, however, some sources of worry warranted a little trip Dreamside... Having felt hounded and observed at nearly every turn since Vermont, the man still known as Xenophon Thanos had felt the need to keep an eye on his opponents' stomping grounds. He'd only caught glimpses, having been unable to sink deeply enough and being unwilling to spend too long napping. He hadn't had time to thank his co-conspirators of the moment and had only previously known them as names in Aidan's messages. The man he'd been centuries ago would've hated this kind of dread-laced surface-level slumber; the man he was now was all too accustomed to it. All it took was one light prod from Abraham and he snorted and shook himself awake, looking even more bleary-eyed than before.

"Ah, hm - thank you, mister Zahvi. I wasn't able to get the best look imaginable, but there aren't any notable movements in the Darkhallow. I haven't dared to slip-stream my way to outside the bounds of Chambers' construct; I know he's absolutely beside himself. I wouldn't take any chances, as things are; I won't be comfortable playing spy or operative as long as my people don't have their own fortified bastion."

For the moment, Xenophon Thanos didn't look like Xenophon Thanos. He instead looked like Lee Olmstead, a portly sixtysomething trucker in suitably shabby clothes. The only telltale sign was the man's graying goatee, which hung thickly over his mouth, along with, perhaps, his big, brown, almost phocine eyes. It might've been strange to imagine the mouthpiece of a cabal of world-rending dead gods as looking as harmless as he did, but Charles and Abraham had been unlucky enough to get a front-row seat to his power. The agreed-upon truck-stop had been infiltrated and the resulting protracted gunfight that had begun with Thanos begging the men to please stop shooting them had ended with the same man barking a single word in the Black Speech.

There'd been four would-be assassins. An eyeblink later, four mounds of perfectly-tilled soil waited on the asphalt, surrounded by guns that had clattered to the floor. Thanos hadn't begged for them to stop because he feared them - he'd begged for them to stop out of fear of what he'd have to do to them.

Out of all the stories of having your mind turned to jelly and to be forced to serve self-destructive wills from beyond, being turned into plant food wasn't perhaps so bad. In that instant, he'd shown he'd had mettle and was indeed the man Meris had conspired with for so long, but missing the fact that he was from a different stripe than the American or the Israelian would've been difficult. Xenophon Thanos was powerful, yes, but he'd always been given to kindness and sympathy. A lethal failing in the Prelacy of Dalarath's eyes and a life-saving grace in those of the species' scattered rebels.

Thanos' eyes turned filmy once he took the impossibly familiar skyline in, and he found himself raising a hand to his mouth, fighting the urge to both grin spastically and start weeping. To be so close to his deserved rest was almost agonizing, especially considering how anything could still potentially thwart his escape. One lucky shot, a well-placed Word, a moment's worth of carelessness...

The hand he'd lifted turned into a fist. "Please," he whispered. "Please, please, please, please let this work..."

[TennyoCeres84]

Ciaran had been invited over for breakfast at the bar by Aislinn, bringing some pastries from one of the food courts. Aislinn sat at one of the booths, a partially eaten cinnamon roll on a plate. She occasionally swiped at her screen, looking at her schedule or the news. Her phone started ringing, Tom's face and number lighting up the screen.

"Did you have something planned this early?" he asked, sipping his coffee. Since the incursions were over, things had settled down some, but his sister was still an important member of the local reconstruction effort. However, she still now had more time to devote to creating designs, when she wasn't busy with helping tend to the new dryad's tree.

"Not to my knowledge," she answered, hitting the talk button and putting it on speakerphone. "Hey, Tom. What's up?"

***

"Mostly fish and some basic foraging," Aspasia noted. "Given the dent the local wildlife took and the wrong season, we didn't exactly get to have an illustrious hunt you might have been wishing to hear about, Anjali. Though, in the past, I was able to get some wild turkey and deer."

"Our camping trips are a lot of fun, though," Miranda added. "Stargazing, swimming if it's not too cold, exploring the woods. You and Regis should join us some time."

[Karl the Mad]

"It is Zahavi, if you please, sir," Abraham replied, unruffled as ever. "Abraham Zahavi. This, as you know, is my boss, Charles Jenkins."

"Th' Third!" Charles insisted gleefully, eyes on the road as they roared along in high gear, the old truck seeming to go faster than something that big would. He cackled at nothing for a second. "But damn, Thanos, if that trick wi' th' dirt weren't a laugh! Y' gotta teach me 'at!"

"What happened to the souls of those men, do you know?" the Israeli asked. Do you know or care? was the unsaid addendum, of course. "I would not imagine being transmuted into potting soil would be considered a very worthy end in most afterlives."

---------------------------------

"Yes, I am," Marius replied politely, "and no, I have not. Just some blood in my coffee." The antediluvian stepped over the threshold, glancing around the pleasantly lived-in space. A contrast to his own transient condo; he rarely used it for more than sleeping or recharging, these days, so much was going on. He tugged uncomfortably at the hem of his shirt, uneasy with such worn-out clothing. He'd have to get used to it, he knew, just like he'd have to get used to people being so casual around him, when his own feelings of guilt and pride demanded more significant reactions.

Putting all that aside he followed Sarah into the house. "Is the, uh, doofus still getting up?" he asked, making an attempt at a joke.

[IamLEAM1983]

Obsidian Plaza's noise would reach Aislinn's ear. "Hi, Ais - listen, I'd already mentioned that I might be hiring other people, right? I'm as taken up with other things as you are and, well, we need another barman, if I can't be down on the main floor with you all the time. Alice is starting to cost us goodwill, and as much as I'm sad to see one of the original people I saved turn sour, I need someone around from Lust with more of a level head. Ben and Lydia practically turned native, but I wouldn't feel comfortable asking them to light up again. They've got jobs out of the tower and they're great markers of progress, but I can't ask either of them to turn on the charm and pour drinks for strangers - not in good conscience. They've earned their peace."

Alice, obviously, was the Littlest of the original group. She'd apparently fully reached homeostasis and had now begun to display signs of puberty. Unfortunately, it had rendered her disruptive over the previous weeks, to the point where Paimon had been forced to fish her out of various nightclubs with forged ID. Tom had never needed to yell at his close cabal in the past, but Aislinn would remember seeing Tom wiping glasses with a cold look in his eyes, staring down the rebellious teenager with the experience and age of a millennia-old demon. Things had ended with his yelling and pointing her out the door, with orders to stay with her carers - who honestly were starting to be overwhelmed by her. Alice didn't seem to grasp what Tom or Aislinn had built together, didn't seem to care much for the wider world, and didn't fully understand why newly-crowned Princes like Herbert still bothered with congeniality.

Teenagers could be a handful, but a teenage succubus was something else entirely. She'd even tried to seduce Tom, when the warthog had long-since established he'd initially hoped for an egalitarian rapport. Now, he was stuck playing father to a being who clearly didn't care for it. All that had been needed to give the Warlock a final push had been the girl's slipping of her hand close to his belt, while he'd tried to grab some shuteye in the mezzanine's lounge.

"You've lost sight of what you are," she'd spat, once obviously rejected. "I had souls lined up to be with me and I traded it all first for a hovel carved out of Brimstone and then a girdle of conventions and politics! This isn't right, Tom!"

Obviously, Paimon had first suggested it might be time to leave Lust be. Still, Tom had been convinced that under Lucifer's more direct guidance, more promising elements could've been found. He'd floated the idea of asking Zeke to fill in for a few weeks, but the Gluttony Warden and attorney had since joined Wormsworth and Ephesian. As expected, his docket had filled quickly. After Amenadiel's desertion, Gabriel had warned Tom that he intended to temporary close off all direct forms of collaboration with Magnus Tower - at least until they'd be able to retrace the rogue angel. Protecting their operations in Hope mattered more, in the immediate, than finding someone with leathery or feathery wings to work a Martini shaker.

Of course, Paimon didn't know just how deep Tom's attachment to his quite literally carnal family still ran. It shouldn't have been much of a surprise to see him bring up a few candidates.

It's with this in mind that he continued. "I need you to have the best available baseline, when it comes to interviewing incubi, so I'm bucking the usual advice and putting the cream of the crop first-in-line. I don't know if I'll be here in time, so you might have to field things alone or with Ciaran for a few minutes."

Obsidian Plaza's noise receded as he re-entered the tower's tunnels. "We've only got one person on the schedule for today - Gremory. He's my eldest brother," he explained, then clicking his tongue. "Well, it'd be more accurate to say he's everyone's big brother, down in Lust. He's the first incubus Asmodeus spawned. He's been in full control of his urges for longer than Mankind's had writing systems, so he'll be less of a handful than even I was, at first."

A cough was added. "Be careful, though: he's a real charmer. His take on torture makes most Damned he ends up with think they've landed in Heaven for the first few centuries they spend with him. He's smart, considerate, witty - and he can probably make the sluttiest outfits look worthy of a Black Tie affair - and he was the first of us to pick up on Lucifer's true intentions for the Pit, while our father was more preoccupied with turning his damnation into a neverending joyride. So, just don't-"

He was cut off, Rhadamantus' voice carried by the basement's concrete as he came closer. "We have to talk, Tom!" he said, in the tone that had been his since Gabriel had lifted the pall of weariness the Goat had placed on him. He still sounded old and still evoked a certain frailty, but there was a definite dose of steel in his spine. Tom excused himself and was then heard addressing the Judge. 

"Sorry, Rhadamantus, Aislinn and I have a few things planned for the morning and I really can't leave her-
- It'll have to wait," was the tentacled dragon's curt and seemingly non-negotiable answer. There was a pause, and a little more warmth was added in the official's voice. "I'm sure Aislinn will do fine. Tell me - is that her on the line? Mind if I speak to her for a minute?"

Tom sounded a bit flustered. "There's some days, honestly, where I sort of miss the old you that napped whenever he wasn't working...
- Well, I don't," retorted Randolph, adding something like a hum - the audible component of a smile. 

"Hand me the phone, hm?"

The warlock was heard sighing. "I'll be up in a bit, Ais. Gremory isn't dangerous, it's just - he fills up a room on his lonesome, is all. You might have to remind him this is still your bar, technically."

* * *

"Oh, I'll take ordinary everyday," replied the girl with a smile. Besides, this is Rhode Island; I doubt there's anything left in the local forests that would make Sir Regis Woodford's Great Green Hunter spirit shake in its boots. I'm sure he'd like a spot of stargazing - maybe for two or three nights, at least. Then his troll instincts would start to make him jumpy."

Coach smiled at that. "And how's the old bean catching on, hm? Two hundred years and change in Morgana's forest and then bam, welcome to the world of TV on demand, reality shows, mustache-twirling demons, fast food and rifles that make the old classics feel cute, in comparison."

Anjali's smile widened. "He's a sponge, like Azazel. The part of him that's full-on Wyldfae doesn't care about missing history, he always has a foot in the moment. I show up for my long-range ballistics class, up on the helipad, and he's over by the stairwell's door, huddled over in the spot that's shielded from the wind, hunched over a bunch of photocopies and screen printouts and pinballing between emotions. He seems to process things well enough, but you'll sometimes catch him leaning on his rifle, looking out to the horizon - and it's not hard to see he's projecting his old Bombay over the city skyline, recalling scents or immersing himself back in the days of the Raj..."

Her grin softened. "He led locals and hunted problem animals to protect their crops; he's never personally participated in Britain's more abusive practices - at least until he starts to recall comments he would've landed about Indian women or girls, and realizes I'm looking back at him. Today's world isn't kind to anyone who's turned a blind eye to Colonialism and, well, most of us are hit-piece-worthy, now. I had to explain to him why people were demolishing him in the Comments section of an article on the Hope Herald's site about summer fashion. Regis had landed something about women being underdressed and, well, the Web did what it does. He thinks Archie just woke up all nice and Progressive and kept the gaslight era's dress code so he could marry it with Internet memes and fake laughs on talk radio."

That made Coach scoff. "Oh no, he didn't - trust me. I remember his short spurt of wakefulness in the seventies - half of it was spent looking agog at everything and staring off into the void. Fighting and planning, that he could do. Coping with Afros and flare-cut suits and psychedelics or Prog Rock, though? I still remember the first time Aspasia met him - he was due for decomission the next day and wanted to close out that chapter of his existence by getting plastered. He started by railing on everything from the local architecture to how he thought the Beatles looked and sounded grotesque, then once he was far gone, he copiously insulted Aspasia for her legs and horns. I apologized for him, said he didn't mean any of it and dragged his snoring and tick-tocking ass back to the mansion where frustrated Naughton techies were looking at their watches and tapping their feet."

Eyes twinkling, Anjali traded a glance between the lich and Fauness. "Shut up - my father did that?!"

Coach nodded. "Fast-forward to two years ago, him meeting Asp again was just a little awkward," he said, holding up his index and thumb's phalanges. "Just a teeny bit."

Anjali couldn't hold back her laughter, even as she grabbed one of Aspasia's hands. "Oh God, Asp - you're practically an aunt of mine; I'm so sorry!" she said, still giggling.

* * *

Nereus rubbed the spot between his eyebrows and shook his head. "I'm sorry - Zahavi. I'd bring up my last, oh, fifty-six years of chronic sleep deprivation as an excuse, but that would be crass."

Leaning into the space between both front seats, he kept his eyes on the road ahead. "I'd love to tell you that in our legendary wisdom, we've throught through this conundrum and heavily weighed the moral and ethical pros and cons of our abilities. I'm sure those that preceded the Usurper had that luxury, but most followers of the Others are notorious for their lack of care. I asked them not to shoot us precisely because I didn't want to confront this - not while I'm so on-edge with things - but I also knew we just couldn't drive around with a box filled with my things and someone else's vegetable shipment that would've been covered with bullet holes."

He glanced back at Abraham. "You're tactically useful, you've got a steady aim, you seem cordial enough, Aidan and Meris both vouch for you - and I could use friends, after almost two years of defacto loneliness while surrounded with decerebrate starlets and artificially-induced psychopaths waiting for their priming phrase to turn Century Hill, Napa Valley or Malibu into so many bloodbaths."

A sigh escaped him. "I'm sorry - I think you'd be on edge too, if you'd spent three hundred years forced to play patsy next to your primary abuser. I need to scream and cry and punch something and - I couldn't let either of you be hurt, ethics be damned. Ask me that again after eighteen hours spent snoring my head off and what'll probably be my first decent meal since the incursions, and I'll be more than happy to go over the Ninth House's thoughts on Descartes, the nature of consciousness and the presence of a soul construct in bodies that effectively mature in mere hours. I'm sorry I did what I did to these men, but we need our cover intact and there's at least two of us here who'd suffer a marked loss in efficiency if we took a few bullets."

The former Augur then glanced at Jenkins. "And for those same reasons, Mister Jenkins, I won't teach you that Word. You don't have my brain structure and you weren't exactly weaned on the Black Speech. I'm afraid you'd consider it as a form of destruction when it was really just something that would've made Nicolas Flamel drool, back in the Middle Ages. Those piles of dirt were still the gunmen who'd shot at us, technically - I'd just rearranged their atoms, forged new molecules out of the same starting blocks. I could've reverted them to stardust, maybe, or extra oxygen - give Carl Sagan's ghost a thrill."

He gestured loosely. "You, me, this truck, your weapons - they're all part of the same construction set. We're all fundamentally made of the same things, and Biology mostly relies on iterating over winning combinations. Strong bonds react well? There's your metals. Weaker ones adapt to temperature changes? You've got your volatile materials - water, steam, ice, or the various melting points of metals. What the Loyalists do is crude; it lacks poetic flow - I'm sorry to say it, but what you can do is still very, very basic. Breaking atomic bonds or throwing procedural generation algorithms into neural connections to forcefully imprint fealty, fear and obedience is the starter set of a newborn Void Weaver. It's fun for a while, and then you invariably pick up how this kind of power makes everything seem trivial."

A few seconds were spent glancing around, until he landed on a discarded Big Gulp cup from 7-Eleven on the dashboard. "Here, look," he said. "There's different inks in the plastic. You've got the base white, green for the band, some yellow here, maybe some red to reach that orange gradient... Give Abraham the wheel for a second and try and turn the white parts, say, blue."

He handed the cup to Jenkins. "Don't scream at it - cajole it. Find the beauty in the atomic bonds creating this ordinary thing - watch them dance in your mind's eye. Convince them to pick up your suggested beat. You've been around, so ask yourself if these atoms should do the jitterbug or the twist. Maybe what you need is actually a slow and graceful Viennese waltz, or maybe plastic just needs something to stomp on until it turns blue. Maybe that cup's an AC/DC fan and it just doesn't know it yet..."

In any case, Thanos' experience as a teacher was obvious. He was passionate and could easily be imagined coaxing young Squids towards more complex concepts with touches of pointed interest and respect that had probably long-since played against the Chamberlain's sensibilities.

"The world is a puzzle," he said, "and all the pieces fit with each and every other one - if you can find out how."

* * *

Sarah grinned. "Lemme check - yo, doofus! Your partner in crime's here!"

From upstairs, more noise was heard. Down came Aidan, dressed in a basic plaid shirt, jeans and workboots combo that wouldn't have looked out-of-place anywhere between a truck stop, Old Hope's hiking trails or a construction site. A clip-on badge hung from one of the shirt's chest pockets, declaring him to be Patrick Aubrey, long-haul driving for Patterson Networking Inc., Alexandria Antiquities' old transportation-related affiliate.

"Sorry about that," he told Marius, "cat figured it might be a good idea to hide this thing behind its bed," he explained, tapping the fake ID. Sarah lifted up her hands as she headed back towards the kitchen. "I told you, bro - Mini Bug is a supervillain in training! When he squints at you like he does and rolls biscuits in your room's carpet, it looks like he's planning something."

As if he'd been announced, a big Maine Coon padded down the stairs, gave Vlastos a supremely uninterested look that would've made the Goat at his snobbiest look congenial, and then rubbed the top of its head, the small of its back and most of its tail against the vampire's leg.

"Yeah, oops," joked Aidan as he entered the dining area. "Looks like you're our cat's property, Marius. Then again, you've got a foot in Egypt so I guess cats technically already owned everyone, from your perspective."

In the kitchen, a woman with sleek auburn hair, the beginnings of a tan and brown eyes was working on a plate of eggs the family had apparently indended to share, having smoothly added another pair into the bowl before setting the mix of yolks and whites to cook, as if Marius had always been intended to stay a while. That done, she opened the fridge and set a few items out in the open, from a bag of milk in a jar to a quart of almond milk, along with half of a 500-ml jug of HemoPlus, branded B+, with OxyPlus Formula.

"I'm Dawn, these two's mother," the explained. "For coffee, you're looking at our Rainforest Expresso single-use cups, a bag of Arabica beans for weekend specials, or Nescafe for when we're caffeine-deficient and not feeling too picky. Take your pick."

The way she moved, it wasn't hard to figure out she was a dancer by trade. She moved like she'd worked out the positioning of the kitchen's items into a routine, her simple running shoes barely making a sound as she moved and twisted She wore a simple pink shirt and a pair of gray leggings, the lithe and fluid figure standing in opposition to Gavin's more solid sense of presence. Her accent had smoothed out over the decades, but you could still tell that Toronto, Ottawa and perhaps even Gatineau weren't that far off in her registry. She'd never picked up the local drawl, and seemed the sort to refuse to refer to the local clams as Quahogs - not when Clams would've sufficed as a word.

Three opted he'd make things a tad easier on Marius and reached back while remaining seated, grabbed the bottle of supplement and placed it on the table. "Neighbour's a Guildmate stripling as of three months ago," he explained, "it was that or renal failure, transplants or aug jobs are still difficult to work out, with Pitspawn cells conducting raids. The branch office for the Vienna Council sent someone over, figured he'd include his two or three immediate neighbours in the transition process. As soon as we could move back in, we tossed a bottle of the stuff on the weekly groceries, and his anti-nausea pills get shipped here. He hasn't woken us up yet, but he does get lonely on occasion."

Gavin transferred Dawn's omelet onto a serving plate already topped with potatoes, chopped peppers and onions. "Lewis Black - he's a real sweetheart, the old curator for the Rare Books section at the public library. We know turning when you're old can be really hard for some people, so we're doing what we can to make things easier."

Sarah nodded as she cut herself a slice of egg. "Board game nights, movie nights, evening walks - he still hasn't caught on that he doesn't need his walker anymore, though, and he's still too young for the Kenning to be a huge influence."

[TennyoCeres84]

Tom could almost sense Aislinn's smile through the phone, despite not being able to see her. Her confidence had risen since the days when he was hoping for a makeout session in a library. "I think I can handle this, Tom. I'm not the same person as I was when I met you. I have enough experience as an employer and a practitioner that I can hold my own. Ciaran's here as well. If his personality gets to be too much, then we''ll have to pour some metaphorical cold water on his parade," she answered with a chuckle.

Ciaran let out a more sober sigh. "Don't worry, Tom. We'll do our best to avoid being lured in by his presence. If nothing else, Aislinn can threaten the family jewels with some blessed Hellfire. If that can take down Valefor, I think that'll hopefully be enough of a reality check for him to behave, right?" he slightly drolled out. "However, it shouldn't get to that point if he's going to apply any amount of seriousness to the job role and act like he's willing to be an employee."

The female selkie then returned her attention to the Judicator, "Tom's grumpiness aside, I'm glad you've found a new lease on life. What did you want to tell me?"

***

Aspasia joined her in the laughter and lightly squeezed her hand, then grinning. "Archie wasn't the first person I've seen rant while inebriated, so I did my best to take it in stride. I'd say his initial awkwardness after reawakening was slightly endearing albeit just a bit ridiculous. It had already been several decades, and I had learned to let insults roll off my back more easily. Though, for him, it had only been a few days ago. I reassured him that it was fine," Aspasia explained.

"Given he quite literally fell for Crystal, that cultural awkwardness toward the "fairer sex" evolved rather quickly. Neither Crystal or I fit the antiquated beauty ideals of the Victorian era, so he probably figured out rather quickly that he should handle himself more cautiously. He's had his times where he was predictably scandalized, but thankfully it wasn't near a computer keyboard." she lightly joked.

"We'll just have to nudge Regis if he makes a gaff, but at least he's willing to adapt," Miranda noted, then drifting back to Anjali's comment.

"If Mom's like an aunt to you, then that makes us cousins!" Miranda observed with a grin, her eyes drifting to the former Scapegoat. "Then I think that makes you an uncle or an older brother to Mom and me!"

[Karl the Mad]

"Thank you for allowing me into your home," Marius said quietly, as he listened to their words and let the chaos bear him along. He found himself at the table, food before him, blood-enhanced coffee in a thick mug to one side. The cat had followed; he leaned down and scratched beneath its chin, and it purred happily before jumping into his lap. "Oh... that's the easiest new friend I've made in a while," he said with a chuckle, allowing it to settle down before gently rubbing his hand through its fur.

"My sympathies to your neighbor, then. Being turned at an older age is indeed unpleasant, although I'd imagine being a willing and informed participant would alleviate it somewhat." Would that he'd been granted such courtesy, he thought, but he kept that dour thought to himself and kept busy with eating and amusing his furry new master. "Who's a good boy, hm?"

----------------------------

Switch seats? Charles and Abraham looked at each other, but shrugged and got ready to do so. "Gimme a sec then," Charles announced, downshifting and slowing down, scanning the side of the road for a turn-out they could park safely at. Thanos would have had ample time by now to notice that, for all his recklessness with his person and with smaller rides, when it came to big rigs he was much more careful to drive safely and avoid attention, for all that he pushed the speed limit now and then. The truck and trailer were fully insured and registered as well.

Moments later he saw a good spot, and completed the maneuver by slowing down even further, downshifting again and again until he could pull off and come to a full stop. He then set the brakes and took the cup in hand. "We're gonna step out 'fore we try 'is, don't wanna break nothin'," he told Thanos as he left the truck idling and undid his seatbelt before clambering down to the ground. Abraham got down too, a heavy pair of ear muffs in hand.

Charles walked around to the passenger side of the truck so they'd be out of sight of the highway, and Abe put the muffs over his ears as Charles cleared his throat. Even after knowing Aidan and all these friendly squids as long as he had, he still wasn't quite sure of his fine control over the Black Speech; however gently he tried to use it, it seemed to shriek and roar out of some angry, primal corner of his mind, eager to rip the world asunder around him. Handy in a fight, not so much anywhere else. After meeting his ancestor Jan, though, he had come to understand that reaction.

In any event, he cleared his throat, visualized what he wanted to happen, and opened his mouth to murmur the words that would bring it into being.

[IamLEAM1983]

"Oh, nothing much," replied Rhadamantus conversationally, "I just wanted to say how much I appreciate what Tom and yourself have done for me and for all of us here at Magnus Tower. Things are still rather tense in the wider world, and I'm given to understand that not all Pitspawn have an understanding of how deeply certain derelictions of the law can cut. I'd like to chat, eventually - maybe even over coffee. I'm not exactly glacial, I know, but your particular warmth and empathy could be a useful sounding board for me, if you wouldn't mind listening to me ramble on about a few anonymized cases."

He paused, in a way that felt perhaps just a tad deliberate. "There's one in particular; a very prickly one with a defendant who's proven time and again that they see themselves as an artful dodger, one who assumes their close associates haven't noticed anything..."

A cough was added. "Well, that, as well as the fact that the Archangel Gabriel gifted me with what probably is the most peculiar boon a Celestial has ever had to offer anyone - a working buttocks... I didn't have much of a need for chairs, previously, and now find myself trying to fit an interior designer on my docket. You and Tom renovated the nightclub before the incursions, so that would give me another reason to slither on by, maybe ask for advice."

Tom was heard, off on the side. "Do I know this defendant of yours?
- That remains to be seen," replied Rhadamantus, adding a small puff of air as he pouted. "I've a feeling you once did, seeing how networked you clearly are, but that this particular suspect would've grown estranged from you. You understand, of course; I'm not at liberty to give you a name."

Aislinn wouldn't have much trouble imagining her beau nodding gamely. "Of course, I understand. Still, I can't shake the notion that you'd like to send me off on a wild goose chase, Randolph.
- I wouldn't dream of it, old sport," replied the reptilian demon. "I know better than to muddle about in my liberators' backs."

Rhadamantus then coughed. "So - this afternoon, Aislinn? Just half an hour. I've got eight tentacles and four muscular arrays at the base of my torso that now serve as glutes - you might as well say I've got a backside itching for something comfortable to sit on..."

Something creaked as Tom was heard lagging behind by half a step and craning his leg back. "Oh, so that's why your jackets look a little longer than they used to be...
- A necessary expense, now that I no longer am quite as flat as a board," explained the Judge. "I can't be expected to crawl on by, with my hands on my rump all day long. I can't wear pants and skirts and kilts limit my freedom of movement, and I have a hard time imagining myself explaining my particular needs to a tailor."

Tom then addressed Aislinn. "Remind me, honey - didn't Randolph here  once lament his perpetual lack of pants? I swear I can remember him wishing he had legs. More to the point, don't we know an angel or a few Fae who could fix that for him?"

The question was clearly rhetorical, more of a joke than an overt suggestion. Mantus was heard snorting beside Tom. "Please. I've earned some local notoriety and respect and already, most adults smile and nod and address me politely, out on the street. Children get a pass, obviously, and the occasional dullard with outré questions only rips a yawn or two out of me. Things were different when I used to be your best-kept secret on eight legs, but now? Now the jury has a precise image of me in mind, long before first entering the courtroom. I let a few appendages crawl up and past the pulpit's rim, when I know I'll be sealing the fate of quarrelsome idiots."

A slightly mean chuckle was added. "I've found it gets the message across."

As they'd talked, the Ishtar Gate shimmered into life, the Pit's grey, almost Nordic landscape of sparse grass and scattered rocks and boulders bloomed into view. In the past, back when the landscape beyond had been red and, well, suitably Hellish, most entities had simply come and gone as desired. Now, however, what looked like a lightly-dressed man from afar was stopped at a checkpoint, a Pride demon faintly seen and heard demanding the newcomer to stop. Papers were proffered, the big black-clad brute stamping the entity's Trans-Planar Passport and waving him on by. The sidepath of sorts stretched out alongside a sparsely-populated road, demons with legal visitation rights driving off to the larger Gate that connected the Pit to Point Judith Road, just outside of town. Club Ishtar's own Pit-side guard gave the newcomer's passport a second look-through and waved him on, the being's full features coming into view as he stepped through.

In a sense, the newcomer looked like a relative of Iron Maiden's Eddie the Head and Tales from the Crypt's puppet zombie host, if said relative had opted to take exceptionally good care of its own withered cadaver. Bright red flesh clung to flaring pelvic bones and clung to the spine so tightly the demon's internal organs might as well have been absent. Each and every rib could be counted, especially thanks to the almost lamp-like glow that illuminated its torso from within. The incubus' face looked like the dessicated and mummified skull of a male model long past its prime, all markers of traditional beauty having long since crumbled away entirely, except for a sheath of skin that clung close to its teeth. Its nasal cavities were bare, its eyes yellow and sporting two tiny black pinpricks, and a shoulder-length and thin cover of white hair was rooted far back along the skull, parts of its scalp showing through. Black jeans so tight they would've cut blood flow on a living human adorned his legs, while he wore nothing else than a white leather jacket. Rather androgynous booties covered its feet, his steps all at once possessed of a certain virility and of a definitively feline and predatory fluidity.

Acting as if he were a regular, the old incubus raised a hand and then mimed talking on the phone, adding a few nods and a smile. Aislinn could keep talking if she wanted to finish things - he'd just sit down and wait.

Then, in a display that would've been more than familiar to both roanes, the red-skinned zombie picked a stool for himself, propped up his head with a hand, elbow resting on the countertop, and closed its eyes. He kept quiet, but the low timbre of his voice was hard to miss as he quietly sighed and seemed to delight in taking discrete sniffs of the air around him.

As Rhadamantus rebutted Tom's sarcastic offering of a fix for his locomotive issues, the zombie slowly opened its eyes, gave Ciaran a sideways glance and, very slowly, smiled. Its teeth were clean and brightly white - almost impossibly so, when compared to the rest of its appearance.

* * *

Azazel laughed uneasily. "Ha! I, uh, would probably have something funny to add if I'd had experience with this, but my mortal life is mostly a blur. What I do remember isn't exactly fun and it doesn't exactly fill me with nostalgia for this plane of existence. I'd rather take your companionship for what it is than say it's like something or something else. I've got enough on my plate as it is, what with preparing for Midsummer. Seeing as I don't know if or how I'll change, giving people labels feels a bit off to me."

Coach nodded. "Right, you and a few others are expected to take Haskill's coach to London-Upon-Faerie on the 23rd, and the next day's the ceremony proper. A few things've already crept down the proverbial grapevine, with the Fae arm of MI6 setting this as part of Operation Second Beltane..."

Anjali nodded at that and set her plate and utensils aside. "Both Summer and Winter lost a lot of people over the past year, and now the ley lines have moved, there's a bunch of changelings that felt the Call. A few of them stepped forward and requested something more secure, this year, for anyone who'd feel safer formally Choosing in a ceremonial fashion. Word is the Fae have something planned for Azazel that would involve the Hearth's counterpart. Nobody's seen it before, except maybe Titania, Oberon and their staff."

Coach blinked. "The Summerwell? I'm not surprised, legend says it's a direct clone of Yggdrasil, like an emergent arm of some superorganism - or the arcane equivalent of a clonal colony for trees. Like Pando, over in Utah. As in, it's not so much a tree as it's a branch, and it's the only visible part of-"

He was cut off when a long, spindly white hand alighted on his shoulder. The newcomer was eight feet tall, impossibly thin, white as a sheet and completely faceless. The general area of the mouth moved slightly as it spoke, Bill Spector's voice leaving it in a congenial tone.

"It, especially, is classified, Mister Robertson. Discussing the asset in public so soon after a global takeover is, um, kind of a dumb move."

As was typical of the reformed White King, Bill looked more than a little noodly as he sat down one table away from the group, his long arms and loose spine still allowing him to cross his arms on the unused side of their table, his features creasing in a smirk. "Let's stick to general chitchat for now, hm?"

Azazel looked like he didn't know if she should remain in place or lean away in disgust. "W-Who are you?" he asked, perhaps a little too quietly underneath the surrounding noise. Spector didn't look like he needed help understanding him.

"Your bodyguard," he said. "Court's orders, FBI-sanctioned. My brood's scattered cross-country, scaring off insurgents and dissuading civilians from entering pacts. You can expect a bit of a Slender Man resurgence in the next few months, maybe one or two fresh Creepypastas - and I wouldn't put it past one of my younger drones to improperly dispose of their victims. You can expect a few partially-digested Southside carcasses on LiveLeak or gore-related BitTorrent trackers in a few weeks."

Azazel blinked. "S-Southside?
- Codename," noted Spector. "Being visible here by the locals, using the D-word in the open... Ahriman and Akaios both swear up and down that everyone's friendly here, but I know from experience that there isn't any such place as a safe zone."

Coach looked about. "Are we in danger?
- Not yet," airily replied the Wisp. "Not with me around, at least. Several high-value targets have gone AWOL since peacetime was declared, and we already know Belial's putting in his newfound credit to diversify his activities. The Fomor feel like they were left out of the revised Accords even if Bran was allowed to put his John Hancock on paper. Getting a single, tiny town in Greenland for their efforts feels cheap, to them. Hannibal Callahan wasn't able to properly leverage Arthur Holden's loss of control, but made some in-roads in Pawtucket when they lost their entire Freak populace in an opening chasm. The Vanir gained contacts and resources during the occupation, and some have already reaffirmed their ties to Mab and Morgana."

Spector drew in a breath. "Phineas Sharpe is restructuring - we intercepted a package that was mailed to Meris McConmara. Henry Swinburne's head was inside, with all six tentacles cut off. That, and we have reasonable intelligence suggesting that Asset Codename Poseidon hasn't realized that he's dragging a small horde of would-be killers behind him, with orders not to engage until deeply embedded here."

The former Scapegoat frowned tightly for a second as he flitted through faces he'd either never seen or barely glanced at on television. "Poseidon - you mean the Thanos man, right?"

Spector canted his head to the side in an almost birdlike fashion. "I'd call you bright if you hadn't just spilled intel out in the open, boy. Someone might've bugged this food court or placed spotters around in the restaurants. I can't protect you if you won't pay attention to what comes out of your mouth."

* * *

Three nodded. "Oh, definitely. Nowadays, every stripling around the block feels obligated to comment on how unfair things were for new undead, before '75. The later ones got to go back and enjoy some post-transition support, but someone your age would probably think it all amounts to platitudes. You've already figured things out that someone who's on their third or fiftieth night as an undead might go on knowing nothing about for centuries, if it weren't for the Council's support network."

Sarah nodded between two mouthfuls of eggs and peppers. "Lewis' helper gave him what they called a blood doll - it's mostly a chunk of pool noodle with synthetic skin and capillaries on top, a small pump, and a refillable reservoir plus some kind of caulking agent for when he'll have punctured the thing full of holes. He can treat it like it's someone's neck or forearm and just, y'know-"

Dawn smirked as she worked on her next bite. "He was so proud to show it off, last week," she said. "I just thought it looked like a David Cronenberg movie prop - like Jude Law's phone in eXistenZ."

Aidan shrugged. "The wonders of technology: vampire pacifiers, cloned blood and clotting hormones for mortals derived out of donor Ordo Dracul DNA... There's nothing freaky about it, I think - these are all niches that needed to be filled by something. I'd say Lewis is glad to have the thing around, if it means his first real bite won't be as messy as they are in some of the period pieces you can watch on TV."

Gavin slurped some of his coffee. "Speaking of niches, Marius - Aidan's told me you're looking to go freelance as an architect. Would you say the average immortal has similar, or more complex needs than a Fortune 500 CEO with a checkered past?"

Dawn rolled her eyes at that. "Here we go again... Gavin, honey, I think mister Smith has as much right to have his security measures beefed up as anyone else, considering what we've gone through."

The patriarch of the family scoffed as he ate. "I know, hon, I know - but this? This is overkill."

Drake smirked at Marius and then looked back at his father. "Really, Dad? We're eating, your notes aren't out and you violated your NDAs the moment you offered to let me poke around in that folder.
- But you didn't," noted Gavin. Three, looking a tad annoyed, didn't think much of it when he used the Lexicon to bring his fork to his hand, instead of bringing his hand to his fork. His family stared for a second. Mini Bug didn't seem to care.

"Listen, Dad: we could all lie as convincingly as Hell, I'm sure, and you wouldn't land in any hot water. The problem is, you don't know Goliath like Shield does.
- He's just another corporate; it's can't be that bad, can't it?"

The soldier let out a sigh. "Okay, quick version. People with ambitions they can't admit to the wider world get paranoid. In my experience, there's three kinds of paranoia, out in the world - apologies in advance to you, Marius. I'm not targeting you in this, just so we're clear. First variety's human paranoia, what bigoted folks from our end of the gene pool keep against any anthro who's just a little keener or faster than them. It's also the same kind everyone keeps towards supernaturals out of ignorance. It's what gives us discriminatory laws, the Republican and Libertarian jackasses who think the world won't be a safe place until it's all one plane of existence and one species.

Second variety's superhuman paranoia. You develop powers, get vamped or mutate, you do a few good deeds and then think you're owed the world, or that sanctimonious idiots are going to legislate you out of functional existence. You don't need to mutate to get that, you don't so much as need Mage status or a foot in Paradise or Hell or Faerie - even regular meatheads stuck with bio-ports and an exo-suit are susceptible. I should know, I was still in therapy that I felt like yelling I told you so when Rico Cortez went AWOL with a rig and a fresh helping of nanites. That... functionally braindead idiot took off on a joyride in Fallujah, killed sixteen people, and top brass wiped their hands of it because he nabbed three Purple Hearts and turned seven Sword of Dawn cells to dust. Now he's Stateside and kicking it in Puerto Rico, ticking like a time bomb. It's what Marianna Jameson probably fought in the back of her mind every damn day she spent in SCRT, and what we helped her deal with over time."

He lifted a third finger. "Third one's mammoth anthro paranoia. They're via-infused at the genetic level, age more slowly than most anthro breeds on the planet by a factor of five, consistently score in the top percentiles for intelligence and logistics and don't even need superpowers to crush some endowed people with their bare freaking hands. John Smith's technically a mundane, and he could walk out of a fight against Marius here with severe, if survivable injuries. He's been planning every single product release as part of a whole, and he's already turned the huge players of the eighties and nineties into garage brands."

A hand was lifted. "When's the last time anyone here actually used Windows? When's the last time you saw Apple pump out anything else than tiny, incremental alterations of the same basic iPhone or iPad designs? Linus Torvalds was wiped off the face of the Earth when Mammoth OS incorporated Linux into its codebase, and Google's just a search engine with a few home security devices attached. Mammoth's cornered magitech, even a contractor like Marius at their most independent is going to be stuck paying licensing fees for control boards or network switches - and whoever doesn't join in with them is litigated out of existence. Shit, it's public knowledge that one of Smith's legal teams is paid millions to keep putting pressure on Ethelred Hahn, the head of the Jabberwocky, seeing as we owe him arcane sieves and MRCs!"

Sarah blinked. "Sorry, I don't speak Electrician and I wasn't there when you and Jenkins helped to bug that courthouse for the Lambert case - what's an MRC?
- Magic-Resistant Capacitor," noted Aidan. "It's a special electronic part that's designed to ground via that passes through it, so any surrounding circuits or traces don't get fried. It's usually big enough to be used in shop classes, but some of 'em are measured in nanometers. There's millions of 'em in your average processor die."

* * *

Before Charles could speak, however, Xenophon slipped a foot between the soldier's and lightly kicked at the left one, to widen his stance. "Wait - feet apart, shoulders back," he said, putting a hand in Jenkins's back and using the other to pull at a shoulder, like a chiropractor correcting a patient's posture. "Neck straight, at a level with your spine - you want to give your vocal tract as much amplitude as possible, even if you're whispering."

He corrected Jenkins' head tilt and then took the soldier's right hand, putting it on his abdomen. "Never push from your thoracic cage, hm? It's the best way to go hoarse on short notice! Plant yourself, ground yourself in the space - and occupy it like you mean it. You're here to bend Matter to your will, Charles my man, not put on some cheap parlor tricks! Stand straight and be proud, eh?"

He then stepped beside Jenkins and faced the cup, being sufficiently at ease and more experienced compared to Charles, to afford a bit of a dramatic forward lean. He extended a hand toward the cup, as if he were serenading to it, and then spoke Green into being.

It was but a single word in the Black Speech, but Thanos sang it softly, filling it with a timbre and tone that even Abraham would've found loving, even if the earmuffs preserved his sanity. The single sound filled Charles' mind with spontaneously-emerging images of evergreen forests and verdant fields in spring, with emeralds ensconced in jewels or the green whorls of some specifically-tuned ley lines around Hope. Mint and pine bloomed in his nostrils, fading away as the iodine of seaweed and kelp took their place. As for the cup, the green accents in the cup's design began to bleed past their margins and to populate the white base like a spreading mold. Nereus' hand shook as he used the gesture to help himself modulate and slightly amplify the word - and then he withdrew his hand and cut the word short. On cue, the green paint receded back into its margins.

Thanos then looked back to Jenkins, smiling. "Now, then - fill your mind with the concept of Blue. Draw upon your Lexicon and find the Word for it. What it knows, as you've understood, you know. Find the beauty, the glory of Blue - and then sing of it to the cup. If you're seductive enough, it'll follow without hesitation."

[TennyoCeres84]

Since the incubus' arrival was anticipated, Aislinn briefly watched his journey through glimpses as she talked on the phone. The reptilian demon's request for a visit brought a warm smile to her lips, leaving her to lightly nod her head.

"If you're happy with what you have for movement, then that's what matters most. I think they suit you better anyway."

"You can come here for a talk, Rhada. You're always welcome here," she responded cordially, the shortened name having a slight maternal tone to it. It was no secret that she felt a familial closeness to the Judicator, but she always maintained a professional demeanor when he was in his element. "We can chat over coffee or tea, if you'd like."

"As an FYI to Tom, I'm pretty sure Gremory just got here. A red-skinned, skeletal man, shoulder-length white hair and in '80s rock star attire?" she noted.

The female selkie wore a black, sleeveless blouse with a center lace ruffle going down the center and purple leggings, with studded combat boots. Her black wavy hair was partially pulled back in a neat bun, while the rest hung around her shoulders. The signature teal and black swirl tattoos danced down the length of her toned arms.

Meanwhile, Ciaran remained quiet during his sister's phone call and carefully observed Gremory's entrance, not wanting to give the demon too much attention in order to avoid his charm. The phrase that came to mind and fit his appearance was Zombie Chic, if filtered through a Metal fashion sense. The insolently white teeth was a bit of surprise, yet it also wasn't. After all, Tom had turned the resident joke of a warlock into a classy, albeit unorthodoxically attractive figure. Turning the most unlikely body into a prime object of allure was part and parcel for an incubus. And given his described caliber, he absolutely knew how to do this.

His clothing was considerably more casual than his sister's casual take on Corporate goth fashion. A gray t-shirt lightly hugged his fit chest and arms and dark blue jeans fit comfortably around his hips and legs, a pair of brown work boots covering his feet. The one item that seemed to clash with his working type aesthetic was a silver chain with a green, hand-cut glass oak leaf. The token would've probably been worn underneath his shirt, but this time it had slipped out. Ciaran had chosen to let his hair grow out some and had it tied loosely at the nape of his neck. Light facial hair covered the area above his lips and along the chin and jaw.

***

Given the security blunders the group was bumping into, Aspasia felt that it was best to steer their conversation in a safer direction. She looked over at Azazel and quietly said, "There's an old mortal saying, "Loose lips sink ships", which applies to both mortal and Fae forms of espionage and subterfuge. Your mind's sharp, but it's frequently a better idea to keep those observations to yourself until you're in a more secure location to confirm it. Whatever role you'll be given will likely come with its own share of secrets to keep, ones you couldn't even tell us. Remember to be cautious as to what leaves your lips."

The fauness wasn't a spy or an agent, but her past as a Drifter-influenced solder had taught her about the need for secrecy and a healthy sort of paranoia about people outside their social circle. Her explanation to the male Faun hadn't been an admonishment, just another lesson for him to learn. She opted to turn the conversation toward Spector's preferred option of general chit-chat. Perhaps the long-limbed agent could use it as a way to inform them of what he could tell them, in another form of secret code.

"Mira, did the school email you about any updates concerning the volleyball team? Your studies are online, but I think the local school districts were rather adamant about getting sports started ASAP. Some form of normalcy after the incursions. Your teammates also made it back safely and are probably yearning to play again," she noted.

The younger satyress nodded. "They did. The school said they're hoping to start back up in September and are working on rebuilding the gym," she stated.

[IamLEAM1983]

"That's great," noted Anjali with a smile. "I'm thinking I might apply to the RIMPTA in Lincoln, eventually. I'm not sure I'd be interested in becoming a cop like Crystal, but I'd like to help Dad and the rest of you guys, somehow. More officially, I mean. I wouldn't mind putting in a few years of service on the force, but I..."

She shrugged and smirked. "I don't know; I just grew up in the local weirdness, so I don't know how I'd feel about being stuck as a beat cop, at first. Issuing parking tickets or upping my speeding quotas in residential areas doesn't really seem like my idea of useful. I know you'd tell me to run before you leap, Aspasia, but in this case it feels like I'd go from a dead crawl to a full sprint - and I'm already jogging along with Regis and Al. It'd be a shame to waste it."

Spector tapped the table with a finger. "That's a noble sentiment, Miss Holden, but the concept of endowed civilians suddenly sprouting tights and a cape and getting a seat with the local supergroup without so much as a background check is pure fiction. The call to action, the good intentions - it's a great sell, but while we haven't had to officially monitor superhumans in decades, we still do need to tell those we can whitelist apart from those we can't. There's a reason as to why most supergroup members now tend to hold down mundane jobs on the side - it builds character. We vetted Wallace Doherty within the first week of peacetime, but these were extraordinary circumstances. Hope needed to return to stability quickly and we had no means to put the locals through the electoral grinder in the midst of early restoration efforts."

Anjali frowned. "Well, the Midnight Society's members don't work day jobs, right?"

The White King chuckled at that, a tiny slit appearing in his face for but an instant before being healed shut. "They're vampires, Anjali. Most of them have more money than sense as it is - they just happen to have an even bigger sense of civic duty towards Paris and France as a whole. They're quite seriously paid to focus on blood supplements over donor fluids, and the city has ruins and sunken quarters dating back to pre-Roman times. The tourists don't know anyone with a shred of power could visit for the sake of the bridges over the Seine and then somehow end up embroiled in a Franco-Karthian plot to overthrow the European Union. Paris is just as focal as Hope, on the arcane level - if not even more important, seeing as it's the last continental Nexus before the smaller knots in Marseilles and Monaco."

The young woman didn't look deterred. "You don't have a day job, either.
- I'm a Wisp and a Federal agent," noted Spector, his face creasing in a smirk. "This is my day job.
- So what do you off work?"

The gaunt being shrugged. "All sorts of things. I cook for myself, read, watch TV and I nap around a lot. I people-watch, too. Pop on a Veil and pick a park bench, try and peer into people's personal lives using nothing but my intuition while pretending to read a newspaper..."

Scoffing, Anjali looked back to Miranda. "God, that's so sad."

Spector's fingers drummed on the table. "Not as sad as itching to play Superman when you're being given a chance to have a decent life, kiddo. Not a day goes by where I don't wish I was the polar opposite of what I am: short and fat, hairy as all get-out, utterly forgettable while still somehow looking like everybody's best friend..."

* * *

Having caught on to Aislinn's warning and having recovered his phone, Tom added a grunt of assent. "That'd be about him, right. You can tell him I'll be right up, Ais - be safe!"

He hung up after they exchanged their goodbyes. In the meantime, Gremory's other hand lightly drummed on the counter for a few moments longer, after which he languidly straightened himself.

"The boss-man isn't here yet," he said, his voice almost as hoarse as a tracheotomy patient's, and unconsciously dripping with charisma, "so I suppose we could save him the formalities... One of you operates this place, and the other one is a bit of a broken bird, right now," he deduced. "Not too banged-up, all things considered, but grief is a hard sort of pain to miss, especially for someone like myself..."

Lightly shifting in his stool, he extended a hand towards Aislinn. "Gremory. You're Aislinn McConmara and if I gave a toss about the Lightbringer's fetish for aristocratic faff, I'd tell you I'm the acting Steward of Lust, in the absence of a Prince. It's just too bad I don't," he said, adding a teasing smirk.