Stories from RhyDin & The Rings

Lars & Lorne: "held to ransom -- hell to pay"
6/21/01 2:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time


The sun bowed its head just below the horizon line, streaking the sky in an orange chemical stain that paints could produce, but noone would believe in-more beautiful than nature. Soon the moon would smear the same sparkling, unbelievable shadow on the ocean off to the side of RhyDin proper. It was the first evening of summer, and she was fighting to be as memorable as the day.

Lars had surfaced, looking out of the front windows of Club Sacrifice as they reflected the sunset to all passersby. Some of the city's inhabitants stopped to see their own reflections, fixing exposed roots or premature grayness in the steeled, mirror-like surface of the glass club-front. Lars was nearly nose to nose with life as she preened a bad bleach job and made it more acceptable to herself and the toy poodle she held in one arm, as careless as the world was with her children.

Lars watched, unseen yet right there with them, like looking at the world from another plane of existence. The metaphor was quite fitting in a gentle, tender way.

Life fixed her stockings and adjusted eyeglasses when sunglasses became extravagant. Lars noted a few brand names, a few pleasing curves and angles, but not much more. He saw a young girl dash across the street, much to the chagrin of a taxi driver who raised a closed fist and muttered something in a foreign tongue.

They were all thinking of home, of beds, of people to talk to and lay with. While Lars just watched them-- cooly removed and doing the calculations necessary for a life. A life that worked equations that these people only played a (very) minor variable in. (They couldn't, and wouldn't want to anyway.) His life playing out in a series of vectors and pictograms, schematics and detailed instructions. Sometimes the live scenes held captions beneath crisp images, some he remembered in silence (incessant screams blacked out for monotony's sake), some others had bleachy fade-ins with crude directors.

But outside, the hurrying figures were spared of his vigil -- not simply by the sunglasses, though these were worn in a genuine act of concern and understanding of the world. (And how it ran on relationships between people, which weren't necessarily the most healthy of partnerships when one half of the speculative partners was afraid of or in awe of the other.) But, aside from the unnatural eyes, the people outside were relieved of the icy, spectral and unknowable gaze. A gaze that wakes the world from its beatific expression of someone on lithium, and shakes it to a state more wakeful and wary. A little like reality. Who needed something like that in the early evening hours of their life?

Soon the night things were creeping in, and they filled the streets with their fantastic poise and postures. Grotesque shadows prowled on silvery feet, chilling the hot tar of the streets.

Lars turned away from the window to greet Lorne who had snuck up, almost as skillful as the night time.
"Why are we here so early again?"
"Work," said Lars flatly as he turned to move back into the belly of the great gaping club.
"Ahh." Obviously unsatisfied, however Lorne dismissed his frivolous curiosity as easily as shaking his fingers through his mane of pitch hair.
"Neil gave me a sheet of music today, as well as a new piece. I thought it was almost poetic." Lorne was still adjusting himself, his hands in his belt now, slinging the silver at the perfect, rag-tag 50 degree angle it deserved. Emblazoning his hips like a badge of merit.
"Apparently we're getting rid of a little trouble tonight. Just you and me."
"Just us?" Lorne nearly stopped. It was not complaint, just surprise.
"Ja, it shouldn't be too bad. Ewen ran up some plans that Tom and Mick approved. Should be an in and out deal." Lars turned to his co-worker. Between the two, but above them, a hollow bluish light glared, draining their skin of life (their pallor already being intensified by their cool black hair to begin with). They were sharp specters, phantoms one could lift fingerprints from.

Lorne nodded and picked up his stride again. Accepting of fate, a free-rider on her twisting, tepid paths.

"Ah, well. Your car or mine?"



**Title by U2




Lorne, Lars & Echo: "takes a second to say goodbye. Say goodbye"
6/25/01 6:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time



Echo was waiting for them at the car. They almost didn't see her, swathed in a gauze of all black with a loose linen-like shawl over her raven hair and down her ivory arms. She was still, like a Stoic. They would have missed her all together, that's how unobtrusive she was. But Lars noticed the change in temperature her flesh caused. A man with his occupation lives and dies by the acuity of his peripheral vision. (She wasn't as cold
as the metal of the Viper.)
They continued their walk towards her, Lorne was reminded of a mourning Greek, or Miranda waiting on the beach.
"Hello there. What's up Echo?" Lars spoke, while Lorne looked on with speculation in his stare. But it wasn't Echo that answered.
"She's going with you, Neil says it's a lucrative enterprise to do so." Severin fell into view as they neared. He had been sitting in his car, door open, keeping the woman company.
"He doesn't think we can do it on our own?" Lorne said matter-of-factly with a cool glance at the Italian, but his lip corner curled (amusement).
"No, not at all. But why not send three instead of two? Particularly when their talents are so wonderfully complimented." Severin lifted his eyes to them as he brushed dust from his black slacks. "Show her the ropes boys."
Under his breath Lorne muttered. "Oh great, a rookie."
Lars frowned.
Echo responded. "Rookie� can do it on her own. Lucrative to do so." She smiled.Lars laughed. "Hey, I have no problem bringing her at all. I'd like to see what she can do."
"Wonderful," said Severin as he rose. His Ferrari creaked.
"Wonderful," said Echo as she crossed her slender arms.
Lars opened the side door of his car. He motioned for Echo to join him.
Lorne laughed. "Ehem, looks like we're taking both cars then, fine." He really didn't care. In fact, he was looking forward to a chance at racing Lars. (Which they always did whenever they drove somewhere at the same time. It was the husks of testosterone in their blood, however long ago their body stopped producing it. The chemical capsules were still there-- ghost galleons on red seas. Haunting the meat of their brains. Ahh, men, unchanged even by death.)
Their cars sped off like hybrid banshees. Wraiths looking for souls to pray upon, as easy to pluck and devour as reaching out their pale hands beneath their modified wails. (Their screams quieted by the newest, most compact, and technologically advanced silencers this plane has made. Bushnell.) One shot, that's all Lars needed.
Echo was grinning with glee.


**Title by U2




Lars, Lorne & Echo: "And they're doing the atomic bomb"
6/25/01 6:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time



Double cross hairs. Their target was a deep violet glow, a metal and glass edge. Lars didn't even squint behind his sunglasses (which had faded for practical purposes, and were faintly orange (the opposite of blue)).
The scope gave up, pulling away as Lars lowered the rifle. (The neon sign said, ironically, "Your Own Coffin".) He remembered to breathe again as he lifted his chin to look at Lorne. The other vampire was off to the side, leaning against the wall of the window, which Lars was so intent upon.
"Not bad at all. Great spot." Lars gave his assessment.
"Yeah? The kid does good with preparations."
"True, back when, we'd have had to kill the family who lived across the street. Now, all Ewen has to do is make a computer glitch and," Lars snapped his fingers, "family evicted".
"Much cleaner."
"Definitely."
"He sweep for bugs?"
"Yeap, just before we got here."
"Rock on."
A moment of silence, almost like a space for prayer, but noone was praying.
"What time is it?"
Lars didn't move, but responded. "3:17."
"Ahh, I'll head down stairs now."
"Yeah, Echo's in place already."
Lorne dared a glance out the window. "You can see her? I can't see shyt in that alley."
"Just barely, I saw her slip into place. The flutter of her shawl, a flash of skin."
"Yeah," Lorne sort of grinned. "Nice skin too, I'd --"
"You and everyone else, man."
"Fair enough." Lorne trotted off.
Lars kept staring at the curl of gauze on the pavement, like it was gesturing to him. Like a shadowy finger, curling in command. The piece of fabric was speaking in the imperative.
Lars smiled and shook his head before he rose the rifle for the second time.
He wouldn't put it down again till he pulled the trigger.

03:27:47 AM EST:

"Danke, Danke. Beautiful, truly beautiful. A wonderful arrangement," The man clapped the other man upon the shoulder as their body guards opened the door. "It is good to do business with a smart man."
"As well as an ambitions man." The owner grinned at his guest. Streetlight sliced his features in two.
And sparkled in the blood that spattered on his cheek.
Lars took out the owner and his closest guard with two, nearly simultaneous bullets to the head. As quiet as silk over a woman's stomach. His rifle had to be modified for his preternatural response time. The gun was almost as quick as he was.
As the bodies slumped and the second of the owner's guards drew and fired at the building (unable to locate the correct window from just the first shots) Lars took out the guard of the business man. But one to the head only stalled him, setting him up for Echo's attack.
Lorne had already torched the first two shot. Owner and right-hand-man went up in flames. Their bodies blazing an unholy fire as their figures writhed and curled. They were screaming.
But never as loud as Echo would be.
Lars hadn't noticed her advance. He was busy following the fleeing figure of the business man with his scope. One shot in the shoulder, one in the chest, finally, when he'd fallen, Lars had been able to put two in his head. The only human put up more struggle than the reputed undead now only ashes on the sidewalk.
Lars snarled at his inefficiency. And as he noticed Lorne in a hand-to-hand battle with the other owner's-guard, Lars disassembled the rifle and threw it into its case. He flew down the steps.
And then he heard Echo.
Even through the protective wear Severin had given him and Lorne. He almost reeled at the keening, and the way it magnetized his body. It almost threw him down the stairs.

Lorne was having a hard time with the owner's last guard. Normally the one at the owner's side was his strongest, but tonight, for some reason they would never know, the head of security for "Your Own Coffin" had been behind his employer. And perhaps he fought as hard as he did because he knew he'd failed in his single job requirement.
As Lorne battled this big man, nearly losing the gun to him several times, he saw Echo out of the corner of his eye. He also saw the businessman's guard see her (bullet in the brain or not). And then Lorne groaned upon seeing the final figure that had come out of the club-- the Manager. Second in Command. This was the moment of truth. Lorne shoved the Head of Security hard, trying to turn the tables with the inspiration of knowing he would soon be out-numbered. And Lorne felt the man give, but then there was a horrible rush of strength, and Lorne felt something pull his leg, something curling around it� He was falling.
But Echo was a force of nature. That last wounded guard was surprised, he had started when he saw Echo slink in from the side. He reached for his weapon-- and then Lorne could have sworn he saw Echo's eyes flash a swirling, mad-sea green-blue. She smiled, and her small teeth parted, and out of her mouth came voices.
Hundreds and thousands of voices.
The oncoming manager fell to the ground, writhing, spared the full brunt of the voice of Angels, the Residuals of Man.
Immediately the skilled man whom Lorne was going to lose to twitched, and he was tempered enough to not grab for his ears (to keep fighting even through the pain), but the surprise had given Lorne the moment. And that was all he needed. He had the gun. He fired. Three cop-killers, as wide as a fingernail, went into the Head of Security's chest-- and exited through wounds the size of his fist.
The body crumpled, and before its knees even hit the ground, it lit up in green, hissing flames. Lorne almost fell backwards trying to avoid them.
Now listen to the Echo.

Lorne and Lars felt their skin prickle, it felt like their fibers were alive. As though their composition was trying to crawl off their bones and bend and separate-- to wrap up and coddle the woman who was releasing all the collected voices in her head. She was a hole, a pit in reverse. Purging the communication of eternity. She exhaled all the breath of life and cognition that it brought with it-- in one cacophonous sigh.

(This was the chaos that light would form if it refracted through a crystal hive. Hexagonal triumph and destruction-- Like the membranes that made all and nothing.)
Echo-- the point at which things once sunk and disappeared, collecting like rain in gutters (greasy, primordial ooze rinsed off as residue from the man made), suddenly became the driving force of jet engines. The backburn of an organic sound machine, taking off at mock 8 and rearing off into the existence that created the world.
This must have been the sound of god.
It almost brought both her counterparts to their knees.

The last guard (the first to meet Echo) fell to the ground, dead. The sea-witch had sung in his ear, and the contents of his body leaked out in a pink, red and white liquid-- blood and brains and his soul-- if there was such a thing (made a tangible soup of extinguish). As viscous as the thoughts that were abolished there, as sick and dead as the skin that hung like loose sacks on his body (its elasticity spent from being pulled from the
muscle and bones).
He looked empty.
The body twitched. It had known the full circumference of her sound.
Lorne was reminded of something he had once seen lead out of Laurent's basements. He'd never asked what it was,o had thankfully left in him knew it was a sigh.

Lars surfaced out of the building with his case at his side. He had bought them the time of their attack, he had initiated this awful. He came to finish and aide in the ending. His hand gun was already drawn and he nearly pulled the trigger on Lorne as he didn't recognize the posture of stillness. The first thing he had seen was the grimace on Lorne's face, never before having seen the man stop before murder. Had it been curiosity or horror?
Lars never saw the creature that suddenly sparked to flame at Lorne's touch.
it was only this fraction of a second (that yes, arguably, could have cost him his life) that Lars spent in thought. A snapshot of violence, this coronation of wounds. In the next moment he saw Echo (sound came back from the silent picture), recovering from her attack. She bobbed her chin and straightened her face as though she'd taken a blow in the jaw. And then, graceful, like a gazelle or a dear, she swiftly dashed to paralyze the only
man left , the Manager, with a slice of her slender hand to his neck.
The Manager stopped moving.
The scenery revealed itself.
It took 3 minutes to clean.
No sirens.


**Title by U2








Laurent: "and i'd be the first to reconciliate the grace"
7/1/01 5:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time



Laurent was rolling an old coin over his slender fingers. The mint was French, 17-- the last two digits rubbed off by use or love (or dignity). It shimmered like a fish, a carp sliding through vaguely disturbed waters. Just another silver glitter about his person. No different from the lamplight in his hair, or the fiendishness in his stare.
He still preferred to write with the old, ink-well pens. Modern times had fallen in love with them again. So while most good gothic-likes in the club had a set of that and at least one Celtic-something-or-another in their room, Laurie made sure he got the genuine type. The ink that needed powder to dry from, and paper that was stained, but not by tea.
He scrawled his signature across the bottom of the document. He had to check his calendar for the exact date. Once dated, he dried the ink. And left it out so it would not bleed or smudge further.
He pulled himself up onto his long, grey limbs. And took a black cheroot from a box upon his desk.
"Hushup. I know quite well." He seemed to be murmuring to himself as he took out a boss, art-deco lighter and lit his smoke.
"Who are you to...cacophony? Like that damnable chanting you do?"
"Oh yes, excuse me. "Did"." Laurent made a light snorting sound that was mixed with the sound of a smirk. A noise made by those who are pleased by themselves.
"Yes, well, I took that gene out of you, did I? Amazing, isn't it?" Aren't I?
Laurent slowly returned to his desk. He exhaled the rich smoke slowly, and inhaled it through his perfect nostrils.
A moment of too-long silence. And then he picked up his phone. He dialed.
"Laine? Yes, yes I know. Come pick it up."
"Of course it's ready, you ass."
"Neil is pleased, but we shall leave him out of this for the now. Tell her to get her ass working. Make note of the date of production, she meets it on the first album...or..." Laurent smiled, he had to. "There shall not be a second."
"Make sure she is working."
"And I mean on the music, not on your drawstrings."
"Oh, and Laine. If she does something horribly self-destructive that causes her to fault on her contract-- Neil might be more interested in reviving her than letting her just go the way of the winds."
"And, we all rather not have that, I'm sure."



**Title by The Tea party



Lars, Echo, Raivis & Martins: "down in a hole"
7/21/01 9:09 AM Eastern Daylight Time



Lars was staring rather ambivalently at the disk on the coffee table. He looked at Echo questioningly. She shrugged and smiled, as demure and unhelpful as Maile customarily was.

"It's a cookie," Lars finally said.

"That's what I told him! But he doesn't listen to me!" Raivis squirmed in his seat.

Lars looked at Martins. "It's a cookie."

"It says bread on the box, it's bread." Martins shrugged.

"It's a fvckin' cookie! Martins!" Raivis pronounced the name correctly. Martinch was what it sounded like, though the 'ch' sound was just enough to earn it's 'c' rather than the more English prone 's'. Lars wouldn't have known how to spell it if you bet him your car on it. Raivis was laughing.

"You can't always believe advertising." Lars added helpfully. Only the very back of his brain was saying that this was ludicrous.

Raivis looked at Echo. His pale blue eyes were human, unlike Lars'. But they still reminded her of bleach.

Raivis' hair was red, that barely red that makes you doubt whether it's red at all. It could have been a dark brown, but no. That wouldn't have accounted for the way his brows seemed to turn white or blonde on his skin. What an interesting complexion, thought Echo. Enjoying her view.

Echo shrugged again.

"It's not advertising," explained Martins. "They're telling you what's in the damn box. Imagine how many people who wanted cookies wouldn't buy these because they called it 'bread'.? Christ."

Raivis paused. "Well...you bought it. They got the people who wanted bread to buy it."

"I didn't want bread," said Martins.

Raivis just looked at him. The question was imminent.

"I just wanted something Scottish."

Raivis raised one of his mirage brows. Martins scowled with the dark eyes under his sandy hair.

"...and this lady behind me said she always bought 'Scottish shortbread' whenever she was in London, so I thought I'd try it. Damnit." Martins' accent was thicker than Raivis'. It made him sound deeper, almost Russian. While the other man's (boy's?) added a lightheartedness to the way Raivis bobbed his head.

Lars, finally breaking the rules, reached out and broke the disk in quarters, not even paying attention to the lines. He bit into the crumbling cake.

"It's a cookie."

"Toldja."

"Nope."

" 'cookie.' "

"Shyt."


**Title by Alice in Chains


The RhyDin Starr | 07.23.01 | Sirens
7/23/01 9:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time



Might as well be ambulance Sirens.
by Lux Ashcroft

Our proud RhyDin Town/Infinity City is the owner
of a fairy-tale gothic rock n' roll band by the name
of /\bsinthe /\fter /'/\idnight. If one lives here, they
most likely are already in the know-how of this
tasty bit of information. One must also be familiar
with the exotic tales that go along with the group.

Plagued by bassists that either drop out, disappear
or get dead, our claim to fame local band has hit
some hard times. Founding father and critically
acclaimed synthesizer player Damien Fox died two
years ago when the band took up residence
permanently after gathering its members in London.
This cut their touring short by several disappointed
cities, and has also pushed back their third album
to a horribly rocky road of theoretical release dates.
Shortly after claiming the enigmatic Casey Spenser
from his founding project Exit Wound, /\a/'/\ offered
RhyDin another lovely scandal of a multiple stabwound
death in the bassist's posh apartments. Living up to
his former group's nom-de-plum, unfortunately.

After a hopeful list of non-namers and well acclaimed
talent there have been extraordinary tales of hospital
internments, car accidents, misdemeanors and side
projects, but there seems to be no real albums
forthcoming. Well, it is this article's helpful claim that
the date is mostlikely even farther pushed back by the
recent hospitalization of two of /\a/'/\'s members. That
lovely leading lady Millicent Grim and her charming
cohort, Gabriel Sharp.

As of Monday morning it appears that RhyDin's Central
Hospital has placed Millicent Grim on critical watch. Both
under the eyes of wary staff and her guitarist who was
treated for minor injuries of an un-explained sort. Alarmingly,
it appears that since Grim's internment, she has not been
conscious and the nature of her illness has concerned
and somewhat baffled several teams of doctors. There has
even been some questions of quarantine, but for what reasons
and in regards to what sort of contamination factor it is
unknown. Once again there are rumors of drug abuse, but
these should be taken with a grain of salt in cases involving
the rich and famous. Particularly when all of the hospital
staff has been more or less advised to keep their mouths
quiet by /\a/'/\'s manager, the ubiquitous Jonathan Davis.

The Starr had an opportunity to speak to Mr. Davis, who
has been known to occasionally fraternize with the press
since the positive and now familiar Rolling Stone cover of
'the band who was never predicted to make it double platinum
or reach radio play'. Mr. Davis informed us of the nature of
musicians- something this town is all too familiar with. And he
even joked about this internment as being a well needed
rest for the personalities that make up half of /\bsinthe /\fter
/'/\idnight. [He jokingly added that perhaps Miss Morrighan Cartier
and Mr. Dimitri Davis might also profit from a period of forced rest
and relaxation.] He also confirmed several rumors the Starr
used this opportunity to confirm. That yes, the band has
been seen with members of one of our other local groups,
Fade. And that there has been discussions with Jill
Lockhart. The natures of these relationships and affiliations
he claimed he 'could not' discuss.

Do to Mr. Davis' good nature, RhyDin Starr also questioned
the manager on the rumors on the relationship between
Mr. Sharp and Miss Grim. And Mr. Davis curtly ended the
conversation with dubious regrets as to the timing of his
interview, but also that this question shall be addressed in
a press release shortly withcoming.

The hospital has already received well-wishing cards and
even some cards jumping the gun on these rumors that
shall remain rumors. Mr. Davis did say that the band has
often been fond of receiving such things from their fans
and the hospital has made arrangements in the form of a
collection box for the mixed sentiments.

What does this say for the fans of the local heart-throbs?
This reporter suggests, "better luck next time".



Neil & Lars: "she's pilgrim and pagan"
7/24/01 3:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time



He leaned against the high counter top, his hips pivoted toward the dumbstruck nurses in the receiving lounge. Leather. The soft black silk shirt was open to expose the impossible white of his chest over his breast bone, and even a few of the galvanizing rib valleys. He wasn't wearing a coat.
He tossed the women in the waiting room and the nurses on duty a smile from one corner of his mouth, without even looking at them. They were as grateful for it as jackals fumbling and yelping for scraps. Neil was used to it by now, it didn't even grope his ego.
He purred over the surface to the woman behind the computer desk. "We're here to see Millicent Grim."
"Y-yesir." The woman ticked in some necessary access codes, and fumbled as he revealed a canine and winked at her for her shaking hands. Which, only made them even less controllable. She forced herself to look at the others in the trio of visitors. Falsely assuming that this would garner some comfort and control.
Lars stood there, black shades, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his black jeans. He wore a sleek Armani coat that was cut high, but hid his shoulder holster. He didn't smile. He didn't do anything. Just stood there, statuesque and agreeable to the eye.
He'd have rather been playing guitar or dissecting something for Laurie's experiments.
"Re-re-lation to Miss Grim?"
I own her. "Mmmm...big brother."
"And the two with you?"
Neil slid his chin down an imaginary incline that a photogropher would have wept for had he thought of the action himself. He smiled at the little girl-child that held his hand. "Little sister." Then he looked back at the nurse. "And he's our body guard."
Lars would have smirked, but he didn't feel like taking any attention onto himself.
"Of-of course. Room 713."
"Thank you."
And Neil prowled his way down the hall, trailing whispers and sighs to the elevator.
Angel wiggled her little fingers at the lady.
Later, the nurses would all attribute their little crying spell to the grace of the Club owner.






Lorne, Lars & Neil: "escape the sorrow and restraint of mortal cities"
7/26/01 1:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time



Lorne went up the blood red stairwell, muttering the entire time. As per usual, Lars wasn't even listening.
"What the fvck does he want to show us so goddamn early in the evening? What the hell's his problem lately? Why the fvck does he want us to bring Her?" The customary disdain was about a hundred times worse.
Wintermute grinned. Her black lips raising high over her enormous white teeth. Black gums glistening from the thing Lars let her kill on the way over to the Club.
"I ain't afraid of shit, Lars. But I'm afraid of your dog."
"Aw, she's just smiling at you, buddy-ole-pal."
"That's not a fvcking smile, that's a goddamn death threat. That animal is..is..."
"...my favorite thing in the whole wide world?"
"...yeah..that too."
The big brute of an animal bound up the steps, but never ate up the slack in her leash. Lorne realized that, though Lars might (might) be able to hold the hound back (she couldn't be all meat under that husky-like pelt, could she?) the leash, no way in hell, would hold her.
"Why don't you get a chain for her?"
"What's the point?"
"Public safety?"
"Wouldn't work anyway."
"Ha, great. Thanks for letting me know. I feel so much safer."
The trio came to the looming, steal and oak door. The damned screamed silently, frozen in their arched contortions and the work of some sixteenth century master. Neil had altered it, made it like a relief, gleaning the background to expose the steal door behind. But, it was anything but tacky, first and foremost, it was beautiful. A renaissance of technology and classical aesthetics. It opened without anyone knocking.
They stepped inside, Wintermute was as light footed as a fawn, and she had the sense to not go sniffing around. Lorne wondered if Lars had taught her to be less of a dog, or if it was natural. Or rather, unnatural.
Without realizing, Lorne spoke with a lowered voice. "Maybe Neil's going to eat her."
"Fat chance." I dare him.
Lorne glanced at Lars, one of his black brows raised high. He garnered a smug look, enjoying having a best friend with such balls.

"Come in, come in, do sit down," said Neil from his lean behind his desk. His pointed tip boots were crossed at the ankles on the cherry wood furniture.
One cool figure on a lacework of inanimates.
Lars sweeped the room and then smiled with his thin lips.
"What's up bossman?" Intruded Lorne.
"I wanted to compliment you on your lovely job the other day."
"No problem, no problem." Lorne sat down, crossing his long legs. "That Echo is an animal though, boss. I had no idea."
Lars remained standing, so did Wintermute, but her ears were still pressed back. Behind his shades, the corner of Lars' eye twitched. Neil was watching the dog.
"So why'd you want us to bring Winter? And where's Echo?" Asked Lorne, hardly the dumb kid on the block, afterall, Neil did employ him.
"She's--" Wintermute started to growl.
And then the leash snapped taught.
The corner of the room moved.

Lorne had his gun drawn. Lars didn't even pick up anything on his thermo.


Lorne, Neil, Lars & Sway: "I found refuge in a house of fire"
7/26/01 1:49 PM Eastern Daylight Time



"Whoa, man. You're fvckin' crazy." Lulled Lorne from his stance. Not quite at ease from Neil's wave of hand just yet.
Lars was silent, weighing the man in all his extrasensory motifs. He didn't show up as hot or cold, in fact, the thermo registered only the things behind him. The black man's face was knit with several sleek, straight tribal tattoos, barely noticeable on his cheekbones and above his eyes. Eyes surrounded by such white, and such curled, lashes. His face was leonine, almost sharp. Some would have called him pretty, but not Lars.
Wintermute was still growling, but she was watching the floor behind the figure.
"We seem to have some attention to remove from our organization. So I've called in an old friend to do some work for us."
"We can't do it ourselves, huh?" asked Lars.
Neil's eyes were smiling, a portent of calm before storm. "We all have our specialties."
"We all can hide in shadows."
Lorne shifted on his feet, the tension in the air tugging his cuffs taught, so he loosened them.
Lars shrugged, and Neil regarded Lorne. "This is Sway. Sway, Lorne and Lars, two of my top men." After a moment. "Ah, and Wintermute, the young lady who found you first."
Lorne reached to shake the midnight black hand. The grip was cool, calm and self assure.
"Pleasure." Said with an accent.
"British?"
"South African."
"Ah, of course."
Sway raised one of his nearly nonexistent brows.
"So how'd he do the little corner trick, and why isn't he showing up on my thermo?" Asked Lars. Sway stepped back, coolly accepting of the overstepped introduction.
"He'll show you."
"I rather you did, Neil."


**Title by assemblage 23


Sick, Sway & Lorne: "remindful of a cattle transport"
7/31/01 2:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time



"Dude, no man. Burger King all the way. Fvck McDonalds," crooned Sick in his crazy drawl from the back-seat.

"Then why are they more popular?" asked Sway from his position driving. His black car crawling around the corner of the drive through like it was slowly making love to the building. Lorne was very aware of this feat of mechanics from the passenger seat. Both of his thin, curved brows were high on his cold face.

"I dunno, but maaaan, they Lie too. You ever look at the pictures and wonder where the hell the lettuce and tomato went? They friggin' Lie to you." Sick looked heart broken as he pressed his nose to the window. Trying to figure out what sneaky things they did in those curious first windows most drivethroughs just didn't use anymore. He was sure it had something to do with speed. Maybe opium. "Can't you sue 'em for that shyt?"

Sway just laughed, Lorne was amused by the man's patience.

"Hey, have you ever eaten McDonald's?" A pause. "Either of you?" Both of the undead shook their heads.

Lorne: "Too old, man."
Sway: "I would have rather chewed off my own paw."

"Paw!" Sick giggled "Whhheeeeee." And bounced in the back seat.

Sway looked skeptically at the attendant when they finally came up to the window. He paid with a fifty. Which made him groan, realizing this would increase the time of transaction by at least one manager call, one swipe of highlighter and a few recounts of the change.

"Hot damn I'm hungry." Sick bounced.

"You couldn't have waited?" asked Lorne as he looked over his shoulder?

Sick gave the most serious scoff of his life. "Tcha. Yeah, like you freaks would break for dinner. I know you people, I'll be locked in that room fixing the security shyt you people fvcked up, and you wont even break for...for Tommy's faggy tea-time."

Sway threw the satchel back at Sick, he caught it in the chest and whined. But he yipped when they passed him his coke. "I suppose he has a point there," said Sway.

"Maybe we should vamp him," said Lorne rather precariously. "Then he wouldn't be hungry." Sway slammed on the gas and the car screamed out of the drive through.

Sick: "DAH!" "DOUBLE DAH!"



**Title by funker vogt


Sway: "from my birth until now, I can't help but wonder why"
7/31/01 2:43 PM Eastern Daylight Time



He walked as beast over the cooling sand. The warm granules felt like silk between his foretoes. It melted, a brave contrast to the >thwick< and >swish< of the air he cut with his tail.
The sun had set, dusk atrophying into a warm night. The sky was the colour of smelt steal, folded and folded again. Strong. It greeted his prowling figure and swallowed it upon his will. He fought the foreign urge to cry into the air. Stealth was his resistance, but so was the jerky, jostling music that came creeping in. The tang and twist of vaudeville. It was then that he knew this was a dream, and wondered if it would soon become a nightmare.
"Darling," said her voice, disembodied and coming from somewhere in the sky. He rose his chin and saw the honey light of a descending star. "Darling, you're so far away."
"I have to be," he growled and rumbled in his animal speech.
"I wish you were closer, my love." The sweet lies only dreams can tell.
"As do I."
"When he who is one but three..." it almost sounded like the stage, but it was too familiar.
"...takes from the innards of the night..." they recited prophecy like a child's song. He knew the pain was coming. He could feel the acid in her voice already, feel the syllables grow teeth and cause his ears to press flat against his head.
"...and with that scepter of flesh he shall pierce her side."
"AND DIE A MOST HOLY DEATH." He screamed.

Sway woke up screaming, clutching his chest at the pain of a heartbeat he no longer carried in his body. He reached out one of his large hands, and slapped on the light in his stark apartments on West 30th Street.
"Crow," he cursed. And sunk his brow into his paw of a hand. Muttering fearful words in the language he learned as a child.


Tommy, Ewen & Mickey: "but you always have to hear both sides of the story"
7/31/01 3:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time



"I got no troubles wit' you Ewen, just get your shyt together for when they get back here, a'right?" Tommy frowned at the boy.
"Fine, fine, but don't come at me like this is my fvcking fault. You're the people who hired the mule." Ewen spit on the floor, it wasn't as affective as he wanted it to be.
Ewen went to work.

Tommy sat down next to Mickey.
"ah don know wha'is problim is, mate."
"I do."
"Yeh?"
"Napolianic syndrome, or whatever they call it."
"Yah meen lahke... small cockadoodledoo shyt?"
Tommy gave a clipped, one syllable laugh.
"...oh wait, yamean lahke small mahn stuff, lahke 'imma short as all yous guys' crotches' raht?"
Tommy laughed again, less reserved. "Both."
"Ah, well, mahybe'll pop 'im one and ee'll feel bettah."
"Now how does that work, Mickey?"
"Ah, raight, 'll lettim win than."
"I guess that's better." Tommy ran his hand through his hair, fluffing it up like a berzerk rodent's fur.
"Wuz 'e makin' fun of Sevy?"
"Yeah."
"Aooaoooaaoh. Thas sum ba'd shyt raight there, boss." Foreshadowing was funny on the loon's tongue.
"It's just the short-man thing again. There's not even a reason for him to bring up Severin. Neil's just making more improvements."
"Yeah, well, whys 'e doin' that anywhey?"
"After the hit."
" 'it went wehl. Iffin anybodies s'pposed ta be pissed abou'that should be us. We got gipped, boyo."
"I think Neil just wanted them dead, not roughed up, or decked or anything, just dead." Tommy shrugged. "Lars and Lorne are better at that."
"They took tha'lil sweetums too, boss."
"Mate, I wouldn't call her that. Lorne still looks at her funny, and Lorne doesn't ever look at something funny like that."
"Mebbe she's crazy."
"Maybe you are."
Mickey sniggered. "Damn straite."

Laurent: "grey would be the colour, if I had a heart"
8/9/01 11:16 AM Eastern Daylight Time




More than two months ago:


There was the slow, nerve wracking >rrrrrriiippp< of plastic adhesives being pulled apart. Millicent kicked her legs as they hung over the long, raised reclining chair. Her little fingers hugged the worn red leather edges near her hips. And it had taken her this long to realize the dementia of the device.
It was a long, bent-in-three-places chair like an over-zealous barber's chair or an eccentric dentist's. It sat in a round room with a ceiling that screamed up to a vertical height of dwarfing proportions. Seven stories up was a glass cap to the tower, and the night time glistened--twinkling and winking down at Millicent Grim with sympathetic eyes.
The tower room had grey slate floors with occasional depressed vents as though the lid were open to rain and the elements that needed to be drained away. And though the tower was mostly a crypt of stone, the walls around the first story were paneled with a dark, ancient wood. This mixture of living stone and petrified wood could have simply added a taste of the medieval or a wholesome hearth. However, Laurent had driven some long-dead (though this was debatable) artist to great lengths (and deep dementia) by having him make this symbiosis spectacular.
The artist had chiseled, curled and carved the tops of the wood panels (and sometimes the stone behind) into a gnarled lace overlay. The rich brown-black fit with the stone chamber like some fantastic interlocking key from the hellish minds of Bosch or Brueghel. The realized landscape was disturbing. The fingers of preserved living tissue twisted their grasps for the sky. The only usable story of this strange room licked up into the awful height towards the dome of the stars.
And Laurent would never see the sun stare ominously down at him from that sky. Not like some other lucky patrons-of-here who had sat strapped into the seat upon which Millicent reclined. The wood was a night-horror landscape-- a stylized last sight of this world for the grim coats-of-arms that painted themselves on the searing retinas of the tower's victims. It was beautiful. And it reminded them of the man who was personally sending them
to hell.
A hell he made and they soon became.
Silhouette trees or black fire-- this was a winter forest in the black Russian heart. It watched, it waited. It was, and it would be. It was a thing of fairy tales and lost children.
And Millicent squirmed like one of those lost children (for really, she was), trapped in the imaginary clutches of this room. Laurent cruelly let the syringe glitter in the candle-lit night. He took his own prices for his favors, even if they were lost to her.
"My darling, My darling. I have met some masochists in my life, but I must say you do it with such a �" he inserted the needle into her prepared vein. "�an endearing�delicate..." he pursed his lips "but expert penchant." His nostrils flared as he drew the blood from her arm. A silver heat curled in his grey eyes, mercury bubbling and brewing up wretched things from its poisonous depths.
He pulled the needle out fast. She cringed, and he walked away.
She remained silent. Lost between warm contempt and cool grattitude.
He pooled a bead of the most precious jewel onto a glass slide. And he pooled another onto his tongue as he shuddered with a sick, erotic delight. He sighed, and almost told her what she tasted like.
Moments passed, he worked at a leisurely pace. Unaffected by the angst of the girl.
"You will not be content with any answer I give you, my dear," Laurent observed or philosophized.
She remained silent. He removed the vial into which the warm liquid had been extracted. He placed it within a rack.
"How do you do these things to yourself, my dear?" He knew the 'why's. Whether he knew them in perfect detail or not, it didn't matter, he knew. And then he chuckled softly to himself.
"Actually, I know exactly how you do this to yourself." He grinned. And it was blood curdling. For normally, snakes can't smile. "I may be dead, but I do remember."


**Title by trent

Maile & Laurent: "But whatever the reason, I do it for me."
8/13/01 4:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time



"Okay, to be totally honest, no I don't like working with someone who's been extraordinarily close with Alec."
" 'Extraordinarily close'? My dear, are you implying that�"
"Laurent, no I-- who cares?" Maile closed her eyes and sipped from her snifter.
"Look here, darling. Let me refresh your memory as to your surroundings. You are in my house, and you are speaking of someone whom I do not care for." He rolled one of his silver ribbed shoulders.
"I thought you always went for that 'keep thine friends close, but thine enemies closer' garbage."
"Well now, have you found out what then I'm doing with you, dear?" Laurent smiled slowly over the brim of his glass and watched her with extraordinarily sleek mirth.
Maile visibly strained but spoke with a tempered dialogue-voice. "Whatever you like, I suppose. That's always the way it was."
"You are so na�ve, Maile."
"And you, Laurent, are an ass."
"One you are still hopelessly in love with. I feel sorry for you, Maile."
"I don't need your pity, you were never good at it."

-^-V-^-

Her tongue tip entered the seam of his lips, the narrow muscle tearing on his teeth as he held her naked body up against his chest. He had broad shoulders, but narrow hips and he held her demure figure as a tall man must hold a petite woman-- close and firm.
He sucked softly from the still-warm living blood she had just drunk. It infused her body with a soft warmness he found distinctly intoxicating, even if he had never savored her tendency to create shadows when she was enthralled or in the rapture she divined from his arms. It greatly amused him that he had the equivalent of a white flag to signal when he had stroked her the right way, or said just the right things. It was like scratching a hound till it kicked.
Maile liked when he said things to her through the bond of the embrace, she liked when they were cruel. And her enjoyment of these things (which he did sincerely mean, they weren't really some perverse game to increase his pleasure he was simply cruel to begin with) had kept him interested. If only because he could do as he wished, when he wished and he didn't have to worry about her emotional imbalances or responses.
He slid the blades of his nails into the small of her back, like gills on that beautiful curve on either side of her spine. He punctured internal organs, and she kissed him harder. He tore flesh and meat, and she whimpered inside his mouth. He pulled her up to him this way, to a point where she was forced to wrap her legs around his waist.
"Maile," he said without words. "Maile, darling."
She inquired as to his call by purring quietly.
"What would you say if I knew what you were up to, and I just didn't really care at all?"
She nearly leaned away, but his teeth clamped and pinned her tongue in his mouth. Her occasionally-gentle eyes flashed.
"I am not prone to games of Jealousy, Maile. The green of Envy is a colour I am in the least admiration of. Particularly on others, but most especially upon myself."
"Laurie," rolled her soothing mind-speak. "Do you really think�"
"'Think', 'know', tis but games of English. Let us ignore the distinctions between the two, dear. Or you will anger me as to your choice between them." His teeth pressed harder, and she began to squirm. "Yes, I really know."
"I gave you�"
"A decade, maybe more�that is all, sweet Maile." He was pushing her slowly against a wall. Her eyes clouded with uncontrollable elation.
"Laurie, I�"
" '...am busy', I know." He let her legs down. "I am tired of these kissing games, put your mouth where it is better enjoyed, darling. And if you stop, let it only be for a trip to get ice cubes." And he pushed down upon her shoulders, and held her there.



**Title by Tina Turner


Lamia & Neil: "and she only reveals what she wants you to see."
8/16/01 12:13:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time




She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith
With her casual lies
And she only reveals what
She wants you to see
She hides like a child
But she's always a woman to me.

"Dear, dear sweetheart. Tell me you have not let the wooden horse into our lovely little Troy." Lamia sat upon Neil's desk. She was facing him as he lounged in his high leather chair.
His legs were folded at the ankles, resting on the impossibly expensive wood, while Lamia's pointed toe and stiletto heal scathed the impossibly expensive leather near his shoulder. She looked like a great, enthralling beast sitting there. Holding her pray down with impunity. Sinning if only in the way she sat in her very-short skirt.
" 'Our', Lamia?" He glanced up at her from the top corner of his eyes and slowly removed his cigarette-case from his breast pocket.
"What's yours is all of ours, incidentally, Neily-kins." She smiled beneath her dark brows. Her countenance was off balanced and strange considering the platinum blond dye of her hair (the roots dark from however many years of neglect). "We might not be joint stock-holders, but you go down, pumpkin� and we do too." She reached out and tapped a bony finger to the tip of his nose. Neil affected a lazy stare, a skeptical look of agitation. Skeptical because if the prospect of doing such a thing didn't have effect enough to stop her from doing it in the first place, than most likely anything less than a direct comment would go unheeded as well. He wasn't in the mood. She smiled at him, all her teeth were sharp.
"So," she began. "What do you think of Eskil Simonsson and Aleister Crowley?"

She can ask for the truth
But she'll never believe you
"Their credentials and their reputation precedes them."
"But you are not fond of Alec."
"Eskil seems to be able to control him."
"Is that good enough? You used to be so, so thorough, dearheart."
"Of all people who play card games, Lamia. You should know I play a good hand." Her lips parted to speak, but he continued. "And at least a few more under the table, completely separate."
Lamia laughed gently, but the sounds she made often sounded like they expressed more than mere mirth or disappointment. However, that's what one would be limited to if one tried to discern what was running through her mind. Neil did not appreciate the latter. He lit his cheroot and waited. He placed his feet upon the floor.
"They want something."
He shrugged the bones of his shoulders. "So do you."

She steals like a thief
She can wait if she wants
She's ahead of her time

"Of course I do, it's not only your charm that keeps me about."
"What then? Our mixed destinies?"
She looked down her nose at him. "Indeed."
Neil tapped the ashes off his cheroot, and grinned at it as he turned it in his fingers.
Lamia removed her foot from the back of his chair. But not after giving it a good push, rocking the figure of the Club's ruling head. He just kept smiling.
She crossed her legs. "They have old motives."
"And I say again, so do you."
"Perhaps, then, I may say that they have motives nearly as old as mine. How does this sit with my dark-prince of a pet?"
"You are crossing my lines, Lamia, in leaps and bounds that are rather unhealthy�and unbecoming."
"Have I ever been becoming to you?" She grinned at him, her eyes a hellish colour he did not care to look at. Storm clouds. He wasn't in the mood for her tempests.
Segue. "They have told me of their secrets. In fact, I appreciate the insight. If this had not come up now, it would have come up later. And with less warning." He paused. " I am annoyed that I didn't know this from the beginning�but we've made extraordinary time with preparations and the like."
"Awfully expensive for such �ephemeral toys." She narrowed her eyes at him.

Oh- and she never gives out
And she never gives in

"I believe I am allowed such extravagances. And darling, please," he said frankly. "World War II was expensive, this is a hobby."
"You will lose something, Neil."
"Are you telling me prophecy or are you merely being jealous?"
"I have no jealousies that pertain to you, Neily-kins." She pursed her lips, "Mmm� save maybe that little girl you keep in your closet."
Neil's eyes slid up to the woman. For the first time he actually turned his head to her to speak to her in a way that confirmed all acknowledgment and full attention. In this place, that was often a very, very bad thing. At first he spoke smoke.
"I allow you extravagances in social etiquette, my dear. But this particular social faux-pas is most unappealing. Perhaps even unbareably so." A twitch of his eyebrow. "No matter what your veiled reasons may be for such a jealousy, I promise you that you've touched on a topic that could very well get you killed. Why, right now even." He waved a flutter of his long, beautifully kept gambler's fingers.
"I'm too valuable, Neil. You've always known that.."
"Famous last words, my dear, famous last words." He smoked of his cheroot again.
"Mmm, yes," crooned the crone. "And they shall be, but for now I'm quite bareable. If only for the�fidelity I bare." The woman turned her head and a shroud of her light hair fell over one of her eyes. The other only became worse, but Neil smiled at it.
"You intrigue me, Lamia. I commend you for that."
"Why thank you, sweety."
"And you have yet to disappoint me. I look forward to that day almost as much as I am wary of it."
She took advantage of Neil offering insights into his personal perceptions. She spoke slowly, "If I offered you something�perhaps we could�"
Neil clucked his tongue, stretched his jaw and made it an elegant shake of his. It was a negative response that innately said that perhaps at another time he could be convinced.

She will promise you more
Than the Garden of Eden

However, she still hissed at him.

Then she'll carelessly cut you
And laugh while you're bleedin'
But she'll bring out the best
And the worst you can be
Blame it all on yourself
'cause she's always a woman to me.

"Tell me what I asked of you, Lamia. I have a meeting with Lars at the Lounge in an hour and I'm over dressed."
The woman got up and swayed the snake-lines of her body towards the large closet. She touched the button that opened the doors. She began to rifle through Neil's clothes. He smiled, smooth but genuinely amused. Much like a man who's mother has something to say about his tie, even though he's been buying his own for�.centuries. "I know why you like them."
"No, you know why Laurent likes them."
"Oh pish. That was easy."
"Ah, yes. Of course it was."
Lamia stopped amidst an old waist-coat. "You wore brocade?" She turned to Neil.
He simply nodded with a perfectly guilty and charming smile.
"I wouldn't have seen that one in a million years."
Neil sighed. "I had more faith in your scrying bowls and third eye. Was I wrong to think they were magnificent?"
Lamia just grinned at him. A smile full of those sharp teeth and witchery.
"Well," Neil continued, "hopefully when you gain that amount of insight, we are still speaking to one another."
"Like hell we will."
One of Neil's brows rose, but he said nothing to counter this statement. Afterall, he knew where his expertise fell short. That's why he hired whom he hired when he hired them. Ingenuity does not only come with talent, it comes with vision. No pun intended. Neil was a man of connections and a knack for a way of thinking that placed these connections in the most beautiful, simplistic, brilliant and well working puzzles. He remained on top of this side of the world for it, and even his enemies admired him-- even if he dabbled in the likes of Lamia. Who could blame him?
Lamia plucked out a velvet smoking jacket. Neil crossed his arms. He was waiting.
"Laurent has something of yours in his darling house."
"Yes, he probably has several."
"No, this thing dreams of beautiful people who have left it cold, and alone." Lamia's eyes glazed over slowly, not just in focus, but in colour. The storms were dying in a tumultuous and agonizing pattern of something-to-nothing. "It will not be angered, but it will be sorry. lovesick� cared for, not of his body and blood. Oh, such secrets people have." Lamia sighed. "Alec and Eskil�" She blinked. "-there is much to be done, Neil. And I think I know the best place to start."
She walked across the room with the jacket in hand, lost in thought. When she came to the desk she looked up, about to speak. And she found Neil smiling subtly.
Neil smiled like a man who has found out he has been stolen from.

And she's suddenly cruel
She can do as she pleases
She's nobody's fool
But she can't be convicted
She's earned her degree
And the most she will do
Is throw shadows at you
But she's always a woman to me
Hmm

"She's always a woman to me"-- by Billy Joel





Laurent & Neil: "the snake behind me hisses"
10/17/01 3:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time


Laurent had bought himself a pair of little Armani glasses. Not sunglasses mind you, but actual little reading glasses.
"Laurent," said Neil with a dark-choclate brow raised rather high.
"Yes?" Dr. Livingston I presume tone and a peer over the edge of the rims.
"Are you admitting that you aren't physically perfect? Have you lost your edge?" Neil was clipping the end of an imported cheroot. He tapped the tobacco and the papers into an art deco ashtray.
"Hardly," Laurie hissed. Two tips of tongue flickering between his grey-ish lips. Neil shook his head and put the cigarette between his own lips.
"Sales have been pretty damn good, so I hear. Is that true?" Neil lifted long legs and crossed booted feet at their ankles above the desk.
"Too true, everything looks ship-shape. Almost wish I was their manager." Laurent put down the little piece of history he'd been playing with. "Nice piece, 15th siecle?"
"But of course." Responded Neil without looking up.
"Great year."
Neil looked up.
"... so I hear." Laurie grinned, with teeth.
"Uh huh." Smoke curled above Neil's head, a smoky halo for a dark angel.
"...What I meant is Jonathan has done a wonderful job. Who'd have expected."
"I did." Nonchalant but with much authority. Very Neilian. An era in and of itself.
"Ah, yes. Of course."
"But it wasn't his manager-techniques I'm concerned with."
"You? Concerned, Neil?" Laurie blinked four eyelids across silver snake-eyes.
Neil wondered why he was being so coy. "What did you come up here, Laurent?"
"To keep you company."
Neil snorted. Perhaps the least appealing thing he's ever done.
"I have some mortal tales to tell you, that you probably aren't going to like."
"Family business?"
"So to speak."
---

Downstairs, Jonathan was trying to get Sick's attention as he came strutting out of the security room. Sick was bobbing, swaying his hips and bowing his legs singing rather loudly...
~Yeahhhhh play that funkay muuuusic whiiiiiite-boy...~ hip-throw ~yeah..~ he went up onto his tiptoes ~play that funky muussaaacc riiiiiite~ When Sick hit that high last syllable, Jon just threw himself over the nearest chair laughing.
Sick never noticed.


Laurent, Neil & Lars: "the wicked games you play..."
10/20/01 10:27 PM Eastern Daylight Time



"And that is all I received, but that is all I believe there to have been."
"Very well, Laurent." Neil's back was to the silver snake.
Lars was seated in a chair far away. Impervious. Irresponsible. Accurate.
"I am pleased with what we found," Laurent commented. And then continued further. "And I am also pleased with the way things came about."
"Are you now."
"Indeed. I wish you to know that between Lars and I," Laurent turned to the man he spoke of. "There are no hard feelings." Laurent inclined his chin at a diagonal towards him.
"As it is with you, Lars?" Neil turned around to look at the assassin.
"Of course." Lars responded, as if that was the only response he could possibly understand. Though each man knew that it didn't really matter who was at the end of the scope, Lars would always pull the trigger. And that was the one reason why Laurent refused to hold a grudge.
However, something had been disillusioned. And as it is with most illusions, once dislodged they are hard to return to a man stripped of the particular ignorance.
"What of Gabriel?" Neil inquired.
"What of him?" Laurent responded.
"I understand the symbolism of you allowing that great loss of blood." Neil offered his fashionable crooked smile. "I also understand the fidelity shown in not bringing him under our wing. However, that still does not answer what is to become of him to begin with. Afterall, we've seen individuals unable to handle much less trauma." Neil's words were vivisection. Laurent would have crooned under any other circumstances.
"I left him with what was said in front of him."
Neil nodded.
"I believe that it will keep him quiet more than taking it from him. He does not only understand, but there is something he can empathize with, something that effects him too greatly. I believe," Laurent summarized "he is even safer than Jonathan."
Neil turned his passion(ate/less) green eyes upon the grey man. "He is liability." Simply stated.
"Not more than he was already."
"Your point is well taken."



**Title by Chris Isaac. (i think)


Jonathan & Laurent: "Set 'em on fire they're all the same"
10/20/01 10:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time



"What the f*ck are you, god or something?" Laurent stumbled at Jonathan's swift push. But it was only for a moment, and then he was upright and in the younger man's face.
"Jonathan, my boy. I am something wholly, and most characteristically, more interesting than such a being." Jonathan saw the sneer pushing up upon the grey lips of the man and his fist clenched.
"I don't k now who you think you f*cking are... but you are too fucked up to mess with these people." Laurent motioned to speak, Jonathan cut him off and continued. "I don't care who you screwed to get your position, I don't care how old you are or who f*cking made you... you hurt either of them and I'll put you out of your misery myself. And Neil....Neil will thank me." Jonathan almost spit at the snake's feet.
Instead, Laurent gripped the boy by his collar and pulled him close to his face. Laurent's breath was sweet, like opium. "You will care of such things, child. For the traditions which have made you are the only things that keep me from killing you."
When Jonathan struggled, he was dropped to his feet again.
"Gabriel Sharp was mine long before he was yours." Laurent clucked his tongue and touched a finger to his lips. "And Millicent is mine too, now. At least for a few months." Laurent smiled to himself.
"I heard the shyt about you being a blood relative. He's nothing like you, he wont do anything for you. You're f*cked in the head, and I don't even think it was time that did it to you, I think you were hatched that way."
Laurent chuckled softly, and he shrugged. "Finding me as a scapegoat to cruelty against the musicians is ... hardly intuitive. You do realize nothing happens here that isn't part of the divine plan of your Father?"
Jonathan nearly spit at Laurent's feet.
Laurent fanned a set of fingers off to his side. "Suit yourself, child. You know it's true." A pause. "Besides, now he's fixed his little personality problem. And he has the wonderful career switch of actually dealing with his own problems himself. Maybe now he'll even realize that he has another role to fill."
Jonathan had about had enough of the man. But something made him listen, he thought... "What are you talking about?"
Laurent tickled the admission through the space between them.
"...no..."
Laurent smiled. "Why yes. Does this look like a face that lies?" Laurent grinned and leaned his shoulders back.
"You...."
"...didn't shoot him?" Another suggestion. "Have nothing to do with the dumb decisions they make?" Another. "Actually saved his life?" "Or how about..." Laurent crooned, "do my job perfectly."



**Title by Bush

Lamia & Laurent: "as she knows that she's a goddess"
10/26/01 3:39 PM Eastern Daylight Time



It was just before midnight on the 'bad' side of town. [Not that it wasn't midnight anywhere else.] Our attention goes to somewhere between the Sacrifice Club and the docks. The air smelt of seasalt and the crowd mingled between bikers, thieves, thugs, streetrats and sea-fairers. On the corner of all this wood there was a little shop. The walls were stucco and above the door (a genuine corner-shop, it faced the intersection) was a blinking neon sign. Both characteristics were foreign and caught the eye.
The single word advertised was blue and hot-pink. "Fortunes" it st-st-stuttered. And there was a line of people waiting to get one read for them.
It smelt musky in the shop. Like dead things and herbs, like men and musk. Like something you couldn't quite put your finger on, but you knew it well once. The walls were hospital white, but not without their stains. Over them were hung, tacked and taped little glimpses of advertisements through the ages. An exhibition of the ways that vices and magic were pawned off to the masses throughout modern history.
There was a 1950s cigarette add (complete with large breasts and hips), an 1890s add for a cabaret in Prague, an Absinthe Robette poster, a Victorian announcement for a 'freak show' (when they actually had freaks), and even a pictorial 1600s add for a witch-stonining. Most of them involved words like 'macabre' or 'malaise'. Words that made the skin think and crawl and recoil. The mind forced to act much the same, but then wonder, and become intrigued. Most of them had their own stains-- from the filth of bohemian Paris to the blood of Romania. [The highlight of the collection would probably be a small framed sign from the 1400s. It had been a tarot reader's advert from about the time of Vlad the Impaler. Of course it was an upper-class perversion, for back then, the only thing the lower classes could do would be speak and sh*t and maybe milk a cow or two-- nevermind read. But as anyone with a sense of humor must admit, what's better than upperclass perversion?]
But let us not consider the owners of this shop 'antiquarians' to the core. Amidst all the old 'fakes' there were hung a few pieces of modern homage. Gifts like tattoo designs or declarations of BDSM enslavement. There were pictures and strange art work, photos of the things people had done to themselves (from piercings, to suspensions to worse modifications or amputations). There were curse scrolls and greek-coffin models. Even a voodoo doll or two. Anything that could pay for the services and show their faith for what went on behind the little curtain that separated the one room waiting area from the one room workshop of our storyteller.
Right now, while everyone waited-- Laurent was back there.



"It stttillll would have been better if I had read it in his entrailssss." Hissed Lamia as she was hunched over a table. Her back was to him, he could see the exaggerated rosary beads of her spine through the open back of her sham-wedding dress. The white lace was dirty, almost like webbing. He immediately thought of the movie Species-- and he couldn't really say that that thought didn't make him smile.
In the red light of the room it looked like something viscous and black was dripping off the corner of an old table cloth. Just what are you doing over there, Lamia? Whatever, no, whomever it was, it didn't seem like they were going to wake up. The patterns of sound that the droplets made reminded Laurent of several people tapping upon pipes, hoping to be discovered alive in their tombs before the oxygen ran out.
He started to hum the little ditty. A song of genuine angst, not pre-teen. He rat-tat-tatted it against his chest with his long, silver fingers.
Lamia slowly turned around, more at the waist and shoulders than the hips. Her gash-red lips opened up into a grin. Feral. Laurent mused as to if once, she may have been pretty. [shockflash she looked 18 years old for a moment] Laurent frowned, and Lamia returned to her work again.
"You came very close to no return, dear."
"Indeed."
"it is not 'in deed', mon pettit garcon. It is true."
"Neil shouldn't have..." He paused. "This is not the issue. Tell me what you've found."
"It isssss the issssue. Our sweet Prince does not play our pretty games. Mmm.." the sound of chewing, her body straightened for a moment, in thought. Her curled fingers plucked at meat on the table, pushing aside small soft pieces and picking up one she had chosen from the rest. "He does more than just humor us... butttt..he has no patience for thissss."
"He does when it has implications on his business."
"No, that is what he dislikes even more." Lamia turned about, black liquid on her chin coming from between her filed teeth. She brushed past Laurent, finding a small silver flask from a pile of others like it. She tapped it against his shoulder as she walked by.
"You did a good job... it seems clean. A cauterized psyche-wound." She flashed a last grin, and then poured the powder from the flask into her hand. Lifting it to her nose she inhaled it with a loud >sniff<. She brushed the dust away from her upper lip and leaned back over the table. Dissecting, cutting, carving. She spat once into the fluid on the surface.
Her voice changed subtly, something deeper and more harmonic. "...though you may have not gotten it all."
Her body swayed, and Laurent caught the presence of another melody in the room. Though Lamia looked light on her feet, she was rigid, she looked almost powerful, even in her small frame. "Oh.. Laurent... is this you in here." The crone crooned. She smeared blood over the white of her thigh. Above the lace.
"Two... creating two... One left.. but one leaving.... Laurent.. I've seen this other one before too."
"Lamia... "
"Potent, both of them. Ah," Lamia drank something from the table as she traded the flask in her hand for something else. "...you should make your peace with him...." and she traded that item for another.
"There has only been peace with him." Laurent cocked his head, frowning. And then Lamia's knees were about to give out, swooning in a way that would make her slip to the floor. "Lamia" He warned. "I have no patience for answers more obscure than those I can find out for myself."
Laurent caught her when she fell. And Lamia slipped the knife point between his lowest, and his second rib. He gasped softly.
"...blood of a relative." The oracle grinned from her timeless face, sounding like any other artist asking for the next ingredient.
Laurent hissed, his muscles flexed, his nostrils flared. But he knew that Lamia already had Tzimiche in her. However, he did not appreciate the cold of her greyish tongue against his skin. Something more dead than dead.
She murmured against him, "you shall have two more to watch... and you shall have your musician fearing he has nowhere else to go. ....does he have anywhere to go?" Lamia asked. A question from a prophetess.
"He is his own being."
"Not even you believe that." Lamia closed her eyes as she let herself up or rather, gave herself over. She was letting the knife fall. And the keen sense of violation that Laurent had, and something like substances in his veins made him grip the table. Something warmed and wet pushed its amorphous form over his hand. He almost cringed. He had to bare both their weight, and he wasn't sure what he was...doing... or ..holding... Lamia looked like a young girl, her dyed blonde hair colouring itself to the hue of earth [returning]. Dark earth, black.. black... snakes. He couldn't stop thinking of snakes.
And then came a vision of fire.
f i r e
"... you should have let me read his entrailssss..."

in the suburbs
in the towns...
a psychozone
where the saints
the unbelievers
found a home
and the love we give
is more than you could bear
and the fever
and the fever
and the heat are there

**title by the merry thoughts





Lars & Lorne: "it's the summer of fourty-five... but we all feel so alive"
11/2/01 4:37 PM Eastern Standard Time



Whispers.

"Pss."
"Was ist es?" >what is it?
"Heissen sie gut." > "okay" (not literal transation)
"�sie gut?"
"Reichsf�hrer ist tot." >Reichsf�hrer is dead.
"...aber ...ist Weltanschauung..." >but...the (worldview)
"wer interessiert sich?" >who cares?
"..das gesabbel...Klugschei�er" >that's silly talk...smartass
"Nein."
"Lars...laufen." >Lars...run.


Lars sat up quickly, nearly knocking his glasses from his face. He had woken with a start, and blinked away the two seconds of 'sleep' he had gotten.
"was die H�lle?" he muttered.
"English."
"Nein."
"That wasn't a question, nor a request."
"Fein, Fein. ...nevermind."
"Nightmares."
"Piss off."
Lorne was driving the fast car. They were making a quick trip to Laurent's estate. It was the middle of the night, and they were unannounced.
"Weird that you're sleeping, man. What's eating you?"
"Nothing. I have been doing much work lately."
"Are you still playing with that new scope?"
"It is not 'play'. It is physics. It is science."
"It's playing. What the hell do you have to make a better gun for?"
"Better gun, better shot." Matter-of-factly.
"Bullshyt. You couldn't miss if you wanted to."
"I missed Laurent." Lars grinned.
Lorne had to laugh. "Ha.. ehem..that's not funny."
"Laurent did not think so either."
"Is it all good between you two?"
"Of course. It is business."
"For you, maybe."
"No. For both of us. It just depends if he cares to see it that way. I suppose I must understand if he does not."
"Suppose?" Lorne shook his head. "Don't let your cold-bastard attitude cloud your vision."
"I do not expect him to be all right. Is that better?"
"Sure."
A long pause. Lars saw deer off in the woods. He willed the crosshairs of his glasses to go to infravision and target each one. In the time that elapsed, he could have brought down 5 of the 6. And it all would have been reflex and unintentional, he hadn't even realized what he was doing.
Lorne looked over at his closest-thing-to-a-partner.
"Maybe you should go back to Berlin."
"Warum?"
"Why not?"
"Because I work for Neil."
"Not the way he wants you too, if you still have shyt on your mind."
"Once things start and finish, I will attend to my own issues. Until then, I am working for Neil."
"You're a sick-f*ck you know that?"
"I was wondering when you'd finally figure that out."

Logan, Vic & Jonathan: "cocaine"
11/16/01 11:56 AM Eastern Standard Time



"So where does he get it from, is my question."
Vic shrugged at Logan's inquiry. The punk didn't really care about what was going up people's noses or what was leaking out of their pockets in order to obtain it.
Logan's black brow rose, but he left it more or less to that. He pushed a frosted section of the mirror with his finger, and wiped the pad of skin over his gums.
"Try it."
"No thanks."
"Don't be a f*ckin' pussy about it, try it. You're just as qualified." Logan grinned.
Vic wasn't giving into peer pressure, he just conceded to Logan's point. He mimicked the gestures of the other boy. "It's good, you're right."
"Damn straight it is, you white out after the first line."
"Maybe he's into import/export."
"Maybe he has a chemical lab."
"Where the hell is he going to get one of those, the only person who builds them ...is..."
"I'm going to interrupt his little free-bee session over there. And I'm going to go make nice."
"Logan, it's not really worth all the trouble."
"Sure it is." Logan laughed, quick and hard. No second thoughts. "Besides, aren't you supposed to keep our hostess in good hands?"
"Yeah, and those don't include yours."
The two men went over to the coffee table. Hills and valleys worth at least 10K were all set up for the best noses in town. Corroding millions of dollars in plastic surgery and decaying life-spans by the minute.
All the girls all over the place, they looked like club-kids. But the crowd was mostly models and music industry. That's why Jonathan had told Leper Messiah to hang out.
Logan made a new friend. As Lo usually does, it wasn't a mutual relationship. Always suspicious, except with his 'boys'. He wasn't too surprised when he got the sense that this feeling of opposition was returned tit-for-tat.
Who'd notice if a new kid disappeared in RhyDin anyway?
The Logan Cat was getting too big for his britches.


-----

"Just give me the phone number, Jonathan."
"Why the f*ck would *I* have it?"
"Because she worked for you?"
"A hundred years ago."
"Bullshit. You know every broad in town. Give me the number."
"Look, I just have an address. And it might be an old one."
Logan grinned. "Good enough."
"Why all the interest in Leighton anyway....?"
"I bought her a present."





Maile: "It keeps my temperature from rising"
12/9/01 3:17 PM Eastern Standard Time



She pressed her fingers upon his chest, pushing him down onto the couch. His muscles tired, his senses muddled. His mind watching his body lay down slowly under her instruction. Vague memories of the cool temperature of her around him, the way her muscles moved, the way it felt to give a rush of heat into her when her body asked for it. The core-screaming sense of domination and yet there was little of that in the act itself. Nearly none� or� it was already getting hard to remember.
Just one last kiss. She wore no flush, no new heat. She'd stolen nothing of the sort from him. So the kiss was an invasion of cool, sharp tongue beyond his teeth. Another consummatory experience.
She left him with his decency, perhaps one button left undone for good measure. But she also left him exhausted, and in a deep, several-hour long sleep.
She did honestly hope he woke before Neil arrived back to his office. The room flooded with the scent of kine and-- no-one else. Neil would shake his head, curious. Flipping on the light to see perhaps several papers moved upon his desk. And several he had asked to be dropped off in his absence.
Absence. That is what was left in the room. He knew the scent of him-- but nothing else. In the seconds of confusion he would wonder if he could answer his own question with a lurid, egotistical and just plain lewd explanation. But then he figured that some things were better off not figured out. Particularly when he noted that his sigils and security cameras were uninterrupted. Perhaps he'd watch them later, but he rather not. His mental note, however, was to make sure he checked to see Ewen was at his post. And that Severin would take it when he left.
Before she left, she had one thing to do, after she pulled down the black silk over her cream, vaguely toffee hips. Her muscles remembered one last scandalous feeling of him being� She smoothed the silk over her stomach, ignoring the rush and scent of him.
She plucked up a piece of paper from Neil's desk. Purposefully negligent, if only because she knew that if He really wanted to find out, he could.
She scrawled out a very short note on the paper. Her round, curling script was discretely elegant and non-descript other than being feminine and mature.

----, on the bright side of things, at least you got off.

She closed the door behind her when she left.
After a few pieces of paper work and a trip to the bathroom, she even gave Severin a kiss on the way out.







Jonathan & Logan: "lost highway"
1/8/02 9:35 AM Eastern Standard Time



Jonathan had woken Logan up.
He had walked right into his apartment and then his bedroom. It was in the 5am. Dawn was in an hour.
There was a scattering of scantily clothed women. One stopped to make some sort of obnoxiously affectionate kissy-face type thing at Logan. Which got her a good shove and snarl and a quick 'get the f*ck out' from the makeshift crime-boss. Or rather, all-knowing Sick Boy-chaos dealer. Whatever he wanted to call himself, he wasn't in the mood for women. At least not ones that didn't have their head in his lap or tongue in his ear.
Logan tugged up his boxers and told Jonathan to get out for a moment so he could put his pants on and maybe even a shirt.
A few minutes later they were talking in Logan's kitchen. He was perking some coffee.
"Hey man, whatever. As long as you're sticking around." Logan shrugged black-knit shoulders and lit his morning cigarette.
"Yeah. I'm here for good now. I just had some sh*t to do." Jonathan said with a nonchalance that caused Logan to offset his pale lips.
"More like sh*t to get away from."
"Hey man, whatever. As long as I can handle it, what does it matter what it is?" Jon folded his arms over his chest. His trench didn't even creak.
"You know I'm a fan of that kinda talk, but Neil isn't." The words curled in a grey plume for a moment, then Logan continued. "But hey, he already knows everything, that's what matters."
"True enough."
"Hey," Logan sounded like he was going to give a pep-talk. "It looks like you have your sh*t together, that's all that matters. To all of us." That was as much of a pep-talk as Logan would ever give.
"Yeah." Jonathan slowly started to grin, looking wolvish even with those puppy-dog browns. Logan raised a brow, again.
"I want you to see how together my sh*t is. Come outside with me."
"It's damn cold out there."
"Put some shoes on, lazy."
And Logan did.

The two boys trundled out of Logan's apartment. Long legs hopping the two dark haired boys down the thirteen steps to the sidewalk. Logan lived in a brownstone apartment. Upper East Side. Call it luck, or just confusing taste. But Logan just thought of it as comfortable, so whatever.
They hit the sidewalk and Logan was grinning. He walked over to his car, conveniently parked right at his door.
Too convenient. He wrenched the ticket off the windshield. Jonathan interrupted his smirk. "Man, when are you going to stop parking there?"
Logan pat the fire-hydrant in front of his car. "Man, never. This is my spot. When is the meter maid going to understand that it's my spot? It's been f*ckin' two years now." Logan pocketed the ticket.
"If you ever get a traffic violation they're going to throw you in jail when they see how much you owe the city."
"No no no, Jonny-boy." Logan sounded like he'd been caught in a fedora, but when Jon looked he still had those black and blue, chin-length dreads. "I pay these tickets every f*ckin' day. I'm going to wear this lady out. One day, she's just going to give up."
"Fat chance."
"No, really, she used to give them to me every time I moved my car or left the spot, sometimes two, three times a day. But now." Logan shrugged. "Once a night. Sometimes only on the nights the trash-trucks come around."
"And they don't tow you?"
"Eh, never. Car's too low and they don't want to risk it, probably."
Jon scratched his chin, where no hair would ever grow again. "How much you paid so far?"
"Eh, at least 200 K." Logan shrugged. "It's fun, man. It's my little game."
"Coulda bought some cool sh*t with that money."
"Jon, c'mon. I could buy cool sh*t whenever I want." Even through the grin Logan took a drag. "Guy's gotta have his fun somewhere."
"Sick." Which more meant 'you're sick'.
"He's not around."
Jon rolled his eyes. And then he pointed.
Logan looked up, squinting in the icy morning.
"Holy sh*t man. No way. No f*ckin' way." He began.
"Neil had it. Can you believe it?" Jonathan was grinning like a proud father.
"You � he did not give that to you�"
"And why wouldn't he? I took care of my other baby so damn well till some screwball took her."
"Jonathan Davis! That's a Cobra GT!" Logan sounded like a girl at chirstmas. [When her sister got the PS2 she had asked for]
"I know man, in mint condition, baby. Purrs like� like�like the new Diablo. Even the nitro's fine. Ugh." Both boys shivered.
Logan almost walked over to the car. Then he beamed. "Whatever man, check this out. Look at my modifications. I was going to put nitro in her, but I figured I'd just see the pistons fly through the hood with my luck."
Logan went over to his car and opened the door with the key. Old fashioned. But so was the car.
It was a 1957 Super88 Oldsmobile convertible. Black. A pretty car, a boy's car. A drag racing car. And in perfect condition. Maybe that was the real benefit of knowing vamps, they could get you antiques.
Logan swung wide the door. "Check it out."
Jonathan ducked down, bending over to get a good look at what could possibly be in there.
"Holy sh*t!" Was the first reaction. "How the hell!" was the second. The third was an intelligent recognition of the sublime. "A hydrashift! What the hell, they didn't make this damn car in standard. What did you do!"
"I designed it myself, man. Me, Stephen" Logan and Jonathan both twitched. "And Lars."
Jonathan stood up, looking at Logan expectantly.
"Stephen was a tool and eye maker." Logan continued. "Well, actually, he still is. Heh, semantics. Anyway-- so is Lars, really. And Lars is more technologically advanced anyway. But anyhow, so we took the transmission out of a 1953 Oldsmobile sedan. Gorgeous thing, one of Stephen's friends had robbed it for other parts and left me everything I needed." Logan stamped out his cigarette.
"Anyhow," he continued. "We made a hydrashift. We redid the whole transmission, and I got myself a f*cking standard 1957 Super88. We should race, bitch."
"God, that's neat." Jonathan ducked back into the car and pet the gear shift. The advantage of this adaptation was that the shifter was not in the pronged formation like other cars, but instead completely vertically aligned. The speeds were changeable with one pull back of the gear-shift, and another, in succession, the same motion. The car was a classic drag-racing machine.
"'Neat' he says." Logan gave a curt laugh. "Fag, go get your car, lets play."
Jonathan stood up, smirking. The ground was starting to wink ice-chips in the dawning sun. His leather trench was starting to gather sunlight to it. He made a face. "F*ck, you know I would. I have to go though."
"Pussy."
"Dead-y is more like it."
"Whatever man. Just another word for cold-pussy. You get your car together and I'll kick your ass tonight." Logan gave a light, affectionate tap to the 'muffler' sticking out on the under-side of the car. Right near the front wheel. "I even put in some headers. Loud sh*t. But effective."
"Your ass is mine, Logan."
"Whatever. Look, I'll even spare you some sh*t. We won't bet cars tonight, wouldn't want you crying. Just bring something pretty that gives good head."
Jonathan rolled his eyes and started off for his car.
"Oh," Logan rose his voice. "And ten grand."
Jonathan smirked. "Now you're talking." And got into his new/old car. He even used the nitro as he pulled away-- just to split the still morning in two. Dividing night into a new day.


**title by imminent starvation



Sick & Logan: "cast away for the absolute"
1/10/02 2:30 PM Eastern Standard Time



"This just in on MTV News. Apparently secrets and controversy are the next best thing to record sales: or so the members of Absinthe After Midnight are trying to prove. With a record selling tour for the past history of our own little goth-industrial band, they seem to feel secure enough to finally answer the hottest question about their internal affairs. A recent press release from their enigmatic manager Jonathan Davis has admitted to the tying of knots rather than just tying of tongues between AaM's singer Millicent Grim and guitarist Gabriel Sharp.--"
Sick spit chocolate milk all over his new flat screen tv. "FJDKLSJFKjfdkslfjdskl!! DAH!"
"Ew...Luke...gross." Said his poor girlfriend retreating from him to the other side of their couch. "You almost--"
"DID YOU HEAR THAT?!" Screamed Sick to Logan after he cleared his windpipe.
Logan was awfully quiet, sitting there in his favorite lay-Z-boi in Sick's place. He was silently staring at the TV till he hissed a quiet. "Get the hell off of me." As he sneered at the girl sitting in his lap. When she didn't respond immediately he snarled and started to push her. "Off! OFF!"
"Christ, Logan. Ok..ok..."
He shoved her.
"OK!" She screeched and shoved him back. "Jerk." She picked up her shirt from the floor and left the room mumbling.
"God, Logan. You are such a pig sometimes." Sick's girlfriend got up off the couch to go comfort Caraline.
Logan almost appologized to Moira, if only because he wasn't sure of what else he should do right now. Like it mattered that he had upset someone in her appartment. Then he remembered he was unamused and stared dumbly at the tv again.
"Logan, that's f*cked up! How long do you think...?! I guess it makes sense?!? Do you think Vic knew?!" Sick's voice penetrated Logan's thoughts. It was inevitable, afterall, it could hit such horrible pitches.
"I don't want to talk about this, Sick. Turn the f*cking channel, ok?"
"Hey man, what got into you?"
"It's a long story."
And it was.
It had been three years in the making. And Logan wasn't really interested in it ending.
"Let's go break something."
"I'll call Ian!"


**Title by accessory

Ian, Sick & Vic: "I hate everyone"
1/10/02 3:22 PM Eastern Standard Time



There was a burst of laughter as the fatman fell under the table. His chin hit the seat edge as he slumped with a slap-splat onto the dirty pub's floor.
Ian stood up instantly, his stool falling over. He raised his arms above his head and shook his fists in the air. "An' donta you ferget it. *I* am the reigning champ of this piss-'ole. An' I'm bloody-well proud of it." He bounced on his toes like a boxer, mostly to the 'hurrah's of the three dirty tendresses. Who, energized by the prospect of a working champion, gathered the self respect for just one moment to smack the latest patron to put their fingers in their garter.
One gave a frat kid such a bash on the nose with her tray he blacked out for a moment and forgot it ever happened. It amused the piss out of his friends and everyone was happy. Bloody nose and all.
"I'll buy the drinks for tha next fifteen minutes. With the slow 'elp in this place I'll probably just end up paying for a bakers dozen." Ian grinned. "I'll even pay for those narcs over yonder. Hear hear, boys!" He rose a mug of beer that had been put in his hands by the tender. He grinned as it sloshed on his plaid pants.
A new age highlander, complete with his fanning disc of a mohawk.
The fun ended (or began?) when his cell rang. He raised his hand and begrudgingly picked it up since his ID said "hell hole" on it and he knew it was Sick's place ringing him.
"Lord of Hard Times, Master of Many at yer service!" Next to him Vic rolled his eyes.
"IAN IAN GUESS WHAT!"
"Stop yelling in me ear, you crazy freak. What..what? Who'd we kill now?"
"G-- That's not funny!" Vic, sitting next to Ian, silently agreed in the way his eyes snapped over to the punk.
"Fair enough, fair enough. What's on your mind, what do you need of me and me ole' boy here." He slapped Vic in between the shoulder blades, which caused him to pull a stunt like Sick had a moment before. Vic coughed, Ian laughed.
"Dude! Turn on MTV!"
"I'm at a bar, can'tcha hear?" Ian rotated the cell 45 degrees on an outstretched arm. Then returned it to the side of his face just in time to catch the last words.
"-- and then it said they were MARRIED!"
"What? Who parried?"
"MARRIED! Hitched. Holy Unioned. Made one in the eyes of the lord our father! Off limits! No whore of Babylons! Ring-Ed. Eternally unshankable. Will never play with your fiddly sticks!"
"--wha...who? What are you talking about?!"
Sick told Ian. Ian told Vic. And they all went out to break things.
Namely the old loft. Or at least a rock through the window. Ian couldn't help himself. They didn't know they had moved.


**Title by trent

|>etra and Vic Vaile: "human dislocation"[/size]
1/10/02 4:21 PM Eastern Standard Time


"Look! You're little friend bled all over our f*cking couch, Chris. But if you don't f*cking clean it up before Slade gets here I will personally kick your ass. Do you hear me?!" Wailed Vic's 6'0", fiber-optic haired sister.
"Petra, you can be such a f*cking c**t sometimes."
"That's Miss F*cking C**t to you, you little twirp." She yanked on his black hair and retreated into her corrugated steel lined room.
Vic muttered under his breath. "Freak."
"Punk." assailed him from the direction she had disappeared in.
Vic stood there, staring at the couch in his plaid boxers and tossled hair. He squinted at it. Tilted his head.
"What's the point if you can't see the blood?" he reasoned with himself.
"That is just Gross, Christian Vaile."
"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT already. Stop listening to me."
"I stopped listening to you a while ago."
"SHUT UP and fix your mating plumage before that limp-dick of a boyfriend gets here."
"Oh quiet" Petra reappeared. "You like, Slade."... "Don't you?"
"Whatever." Vic leaned over and started to collect cushions and bandages, bottles of tylonol and aspirin. He never knew if any of it had even been used, but what did it matter? They had tried to make his stay here as comfortable as possible. Operative word being possible.
"What the hell was wrong with your friend anyway?" Petra's voice was farther away. It echoed from the tiles in the bathroom.
"I dunno, got into a fight."
"Looked worse than a fight."
"What's worse than a fight?"
"I dunno."... "Broken heart."
Vic straightened and looked to where the voice had come from. "When did you start careing?"
"I didn't say I cared about his broken heart, I'm just calling it like I saw it."
Vic went to go get some water and some...no..bleach was a bad idea. Windex? He eyed the solvents under the sink warily. Why did they even own windex, did someone clean glass around here? Maybe she did, he'd never seen her clean but found traces of hints that surmised such a thing. Like his empty pizza boxes going mysteriously missing after a week of him 'meaning to' throw them out. Anyway, what the hell do you use to clean blood out of a couch?
"I doubt it was anything serious like that." Vic didn't believe in his own words the moment his mouth formed them.
"You sound ... confused. You know, other people get into relation-ships, Viccy-boy."
"Don't start on that crap with me."
"Fine-fine. But--" Petra appeared with mildew green eyeshadow climing all the way up to her drawn-on brows. "if you actualy give a f*ck though, I'd say you should check the bodies of water, the high balconies and the shooting ranges around here in a few days, to make sure you don't find your cutey-friend face down, jumping, swinging or with holes in him." Petra shrugged.
"Cutey? What the F*ck?"
"Hey, I may be a bitch but I amn't blind."
"You didn't...?"
"Bloody-'ell no. I get enough dick to keep my paws off some Ophelia-less freak."
"Good."
Petra grinned. "Toldja."
Vic looked confused. She'd figured out something, and he didn't know what.
The doorbell rang.
"Get the hell out of here, Vic."
"I live here too!"
"Get out and I'll clean up after your play-date. All right?"
"That's my Petra, always so damn fair."
Vic just slipped out the door before 6'6" Slade jammed his tongue down his sister's throat. Though he didn't look, he couldn't have told where one dreaded, plastic, goggled head began and the other ended.


**title by imminent starvation

Jonathan: "Because I'm tired of waiting"
1/13/02 10:54 PM Eastern Standard Time



"Hi" said Jonathan as Millicent opened the door.
"Y-you...you're here. I mean, how did...i mean come in! Please, hi, come in..you got my messages?" ..."Of course you got them..." She answered for herself. Milli was just smiling as she opened the huge door into the hall. The chandelier was on high above them, it's lights were dim.
"Nice pad, Milli."
"...thanks. We like it..I mean, *I* like it..i think he does."
"Oh, stop being so retarded."
"Hey." She pouted.
"I'm kidding." He closed the door behind himself so she didn't have to.
"Are you alone?"
"Nope, me and Mark were watching TV... Gabe's somewhere."
"Mark?"
"Yeah he--. Oh. I'll explain that later. He's Gabe's friend. From Detroit. Oh! You met him. --kinda." She looked sheepish.
"Oh!" -- "Oh." Realization. "Ah." Uncomfort. "Eh." Indifference.
Millicent shoved him lightly. He went to shove her back, reaching hands out to push her stomach and then he fumbled. "Gah! Sorry..bleh..jeez. Sorry."
Millicent tilted her head. Looked down. "Bleh. It's ok. Silly."
"No..it's not. I mean."
"Will you just shut up and give me a hug? I was worried sick about you. We all were."
Jonathan reached over to give her a big hug. He tugged her close and lifted her off her feet by a few inches. She squirmed and he put her down.
"Cmon, boyo. We'll find Gabe and I'll show you around a little. The dining room looks like a castle..and the den is all Armani." Milli was grinning.
"Money might spoil you...but at least you have good taste...and you're still working for it. Well, at least till the concert shows. After that..well.."
"Then I'll be working for it even more."
"...huh. Yeah, I guess you're right."
"We'll talk about that later."
"Fine."
"I have a Christmas present for you." Milli turned around, beaming as she led him through the green room and the smoking room to the hall.
"You shouldn't...have..but..heh. I have one for you too, so whatever. But, we'll do that all later. I just want to smack Gabe in the back of the head and go. I wanted to..check in."
"Oh..just check in, huh?"
"Yeah. I thought it was about time. And...I missed you guys."
"You better have!"
"Yeah... and I wont be disappearing again, I don't think. At least, not unless it's permanent."
"Hey, don't talk like that."
"Ok, I wont." Jonathan looked out the big windows. "Jesus, Milli. Is that a fountain and a..a...a courtyard in the middle of your house?"
"Nah."


Neil, Laurent & Jonathan: "It's a strange way of life I feel like death warmed up walking with the dead"
1/15/02 11:02 AM Eastern Standard Time

"Here. I'll make it easy for you to understand. Lars, Lorne and Echo will be there."
Laurent rose one of his silver brows. "Is that it? How about a hydrogen bomb?"
Neil smirked. "I thought about it. But our own people couldn't get out in time. Don't ever say I wasn't caring."
Laurent's lips slithered into a confidential smirk. "Oh yeah. A perfect--"
"I... will come back ANOTHER time." Interrupted Jon in a huff.
Both of the immortals looked over at the door. Jon's trench snapped and snarled at his heals as he whipped around to leave.
"Jonathan." Neil purred. It felt like it was right in his ear. "Get back here."
He had turned and was standing in front of them before he had even chosen to do so. He blinked. And for some reason felt partially violated, and partially home. He wouldn't argue with either of the sensations, actually. Not at the moment.
"Welcome back." Laurent didn't purr. It was something of a hiss.
"Yeah." Jon rolled his eyes at Laurent.
"Laurent. Leave us."
The silver man nodded, gathered a few papers and exited the plush office.
lucky... blood... f*ck up... he'll know... you smell like--
"So how's my boy, hmm?"
Jonathan was shaking his head, half turning around to look at Laurent as if the stem of his neurosis had come from ..."Wha'?" He turned back around to Neil.
Neil was watching him rather studiously. "I asked you how you were, Jonathan."
"Oh. Um. Here. Other than that. I guess.. I'm ok. Everything is all right now as long as you don't kill me."
"What would give you such an idea?"
"Oh, I don't know. Handing your blood over to some punk kid I don't even...I don't even... I don't know."
"You forget, Jonathan. We gave him to you. We gave you to him."
"Che' pass�?" Jonathan gave him an uplifted brow and half-parted lips expression of animated confusion.
Neil gave a soft, one syllable masculine laugh. "I have met my match in impulsivity and devil-be-damned attitude. You have gently avenged yourself of my wrongs to you. For, as you have been forced to take my blood, Jon. You have done with it what you will. Do you see the irony?"
"Yeah, I f*ckin' see it, and I see a great reason for you to take it back and start over."
"Mmm." Neil steepled his fingers. "The thought had passed my fancy on the fleet wings of ...wrath" his eyes narrowed, "that I first had when I heard. However. I shall explain my former comment. Sit."
And Jon sat.
"The guitarist is as much mine as you yourself are. It may be in ink, or at least that is the more credible modus vivendi, however it is also in blood. Of course, I'm not going to explain all of my reasons to you. Not even Laurent perceives the entire picture, and he has as much stock in Gabriel as I have in you. (Or so he thinks.) However, in this light, your thinning of my blood in this case, went to one of the three mortals I would allow it."
"Three?"
"Three." "And, of course, you realize I can look at it this way, you made a call and saved one of my assets. Now, I admit the fact you didn't hold that as a conscious perception, and this bothers me. But, I never had this chat with you have I? This is my neglect. I owe you some.....birds and the bees, as they say."
"Is it all right if I find this morally disgusting?"
"Is it all right if I think you think too much of yourself? Forgetting the context of who you are and were, and what you did and knew of in life?"
"... this is different."
"Yes, it is. Adapt."
"Is that a command?"
"Most assuredly it is."
The men sat in silence for a while. The gleaming pairs of their eyes meeting and battling for the ground between them. Of course, Neil won. Jonathan looked down and reevaluated his freedom in silence.
After some time Neil continued.
"Chris and yourself are mine. Mine personally. Everything you touch is marked with me. Everything you do, has my signature upon it. Everything you say I will at some point know. Every one you f*ck or eat... every time you jerk off to pictures of..." Neil smiled, catching the curl of timbre in a curl of lips.
Jonathan's nostrils flared.
"The quicker you accept this the less burden it will bring to you. It is inescapable. Completely, and utterly not up to you anymore. However, you will find me to be extraordinarily fair. And, unfortunately, you will find that yes, the two of you are exceptions. Both to me, and everyone who works for me. But, also to those who do not.
"You are a prime target. Prime weakness. Prime agenda to my enemies. All of this puts you in a very interesting position. I am probably more aware of your weaknesses and strengths than you yourself are."
Jonathan motioned to speak, but Neil continued.
"That is the case of most people though, and I am not saying I don't like what I see. I obviously do. However, you must understand me first, now. And know what behaviors from you I will now tolerate, and what behaviors I will absolutely not tolerate. You are an exception, relearn the rules." Every syllable was calculated as they left the vampire's cold lips.
Neil's words had slowly started to wear Jonathan down. The heaviness of their truth and inevitability had smoothed down his shoulders and placed soot on the fire of his rebellion. He saw the grains being explained, and he no longer thought it beneficial to go against them. At least... he could try it for a while. Try it on. Though, he was acutely aware that he...he..
"You wanted this. You still do."
"...It's hard."
"It would be insignificant if it were not."
"You have to tell me more."
"About?"
"About everything."
"I will."
"No, I mean now."
"There are simply some things I will not. Though it is more for your protection than for your personal annoyance."
"Then tell me about Gabriel."
Neil pivoted his shoulders back.
"Why?"
"Because I give a f*ck, that's why."
"Obviously, that is not a good enough reason, Jonathan."
"Is he going to get hurt? Are you going to do something to them?"
"Perhaps."

And though the pair talked for several more minutes, alone, in preternatural whispers, Jonathan left with that one understanding: 'Perhaps.'