Night's Omen

Look both ways before stepping out into traffic.  Evan knew this, did exactly as he was supposed to, and he'd glanced down to light a cigarette in the time it took the giant black Escalade to appear and plow into him with enough force that even his very durable supernatural constitution was utterly rocked instantaneously. 

He was in bad shape.  He knew it even in the street, when the big man in the even bigger vehicle had gotten out not to lose his shit because he hit someone, but to scrape Evan off of the sidewalk and stash him in the back of the black Escalade, not that it had slowed his mouth down all that much.

"I don't know about you, but I...I'm not good to drive," he slurred while the guy tossed him in back, and it might have been the slightest bit satisfying that he got a huffed laugh, even if he was otherwise ignored.  He lost track of time, which meant it could have been a minute or an hour that he was back there before he was at it again, head tilting and then exploding with pain from doing so.

"Y'know, way easier ways to get a guy's attention.  Not partial to flowers, but sure you could'a found something," he offered up drunkenly when consciousness rolled back in, swallowing down the agony that tore through him, and that wasn't good.  The driver didn't seem to notice anything, but Evan knew what it was, and if he wasn't the one experiencing it, he would have been a lot more desperate to make tracks.  As it was, flares meant he was too far gone to get too far on his own unless he could stop them, and he was pretty well fucked physically.  It had been a long time since he'd last been pulverized like this, and while the pain was excruciating and something he could do without, it wasn't the part that was most upsetting - he was alone and vulnerable.

The next one knocked him out cold, his inner fire flaring up spectacularly, but the pain of it dwarfed the damage that had been done, like being burned alive each and every time it burst forth from him.  A phoenix was usually immune to their own fire, for obvious reasons, but in death they literally burned out, and it was the most horrifically painful experience of their lives every time.  When Evan put it off, it was because it was beyond simply dying as mortals knew it, and that was without the fear of being brought down among enemies.  When next he regained consciousness, he was being moved none too gently, and he didn't even have words for how he felt.  That alone was telling.

"He's fucking burning up, Loic, what do you want me to do with him?"

"I have no fucking clue, why would Niall send him to me?  I don't even know what he is," another voice snapped, presumably Loic, and at least there was that.  Someone knew what was going on, but it wasn't these two stooges.

"Whatever he is, i need to drop him before he actually starts burning me, where do you want him?"

"Wait, do you mean--"  The man didn't finish his statement before reaching out to touch him, and while the touch was no different than anyone else's, Evan was a little pleased with the timing of that particular flare, even if Cerberus dumped him right there on the rug with a shout and Loic yanked his burned hand away.  Evan passed back out, but both of them had gotten theirs.  He came to again to find that he was actually still on the rug, though the two men were using it like a gurney to carry him somewhere, Loic bitching all the way about the fact that it was blah-blah years old and priceless.

"My bad, I'll try to die less inconveniently," he muttered.

He was left in a room on that rug while Cerberus gave a completely irreverent salute and left Loic standing there, trying to figure out what the fuck was happening.  He could sense the fiery beacons the really unassuming and utterly wrecked man that had been dumped on him was putting out, the magic hemorrhaging from him each time it burst forth.  He wasn't thrilled that a priceless rug was now covered in the man's blood and likely about to burn up, but at least he was on a cement floor to do it, so hopefully the rest of the house wouldn't go up with him.  That was the least of his worries, considering it was the heat and sense of fire about him that was making Loic think that perhaps he knew what kind of creature the man was, and he wasn't particularly thrilled about having one die in his home, assuming the remark from the guy was to be trusted. 

He just wasn't sure if he should be calling a healer, finding somewhere to dump him before he actually burst into flames, or trying to get information about what to do with him after he was reborn (and how that whole thing worked).  He knew immediately that he had no pull with him, which wasn't terribly surprising if he was indeed a phoenix, but watching one apparently in its death throes was surprisingly....affecting.  It was sad, mostly, and he didn't know where that came from, but it was the primary feeling keeping him from trying to find somewhere to toss him that would keep him from dying right there on that rug.  It was over an hour before he started to see something other than just the man in the magical flares, like he was losing his form with each burst of flame, and it started with his eyes and mouth, actually, like he was on fire and burning from within with a bright glow that became visible when he screamed with the most recent magical outpouring, and on the next one came the wings and feathers - feathers that Loic might have called iridescent only if he was too uncultured to understand that the shifting colors came from within instead of being affected by the light striking them.  They made their own light, and even in the grief of such a creature lighting up like this, they were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

Maybe it was because this was the dying gasp of such a fantasical creature that made them that much more beautiful.  It was the way of a phoenix to burn its brightest when it was about to go out, and Loic had accidentally earned a front row seat to this one.  The next flash of flame and light had a creature resembling a bird laid out on the carpet, and Loic's breath caught.  He thought it resembled a bird for the same reason that he struggled to use the word 'iridescent' for its feathers.  At a most basic description, bird was correct, and he struggled to decide if it looked more like a bird of paradise, beautiful and peaceful, or like a raptor with its graceful and deadly talons and hooked beak.  It had sharp eyes, still aglow with its internal fire, but a maddeningly beautiful voice, calling out with the most excruciatingly despairing song.  Even Loic, who was not the most emotionally available individual, found himself choking up, and he nearly stepped away just to escape it, but how could he leave?

The answer to that question came whether he was ready for it or not, as his front door essentially exploded inward with a scream of rage that felt like it reached all the way down into whatever was left of his soul.  It drew him out of the entrancement of the phoenix dying before him with a jolt, and he literally impacted the doorway when he jumped, then darted up the stairs to find himself face to face with a devastatingly beautiful woman whose hair was so red he would have sworn it was actually on fire.

Wait, no, it was.  It was on fire, and her eyes glowed with that same internal flame that the man downstairs had before he'd lost his human form.  "Oh, shit," he breathed.

She squared her shoulders, head tilting as she regarded him, and then she was on him fast enough that even all of his instincts for battle hadn't done more for him than allow him to grab at her arm as she wrapped her hand around his throat and smashed him into the wall beside the basement door.  He gasped despite not needing to breathe, her grip burning into his skin like a hot iron everywhere he touched her, and if she didn't release him, he was pretty certain that she'd just burn him alive right there. 

"Where.  Is he?" she demanded, her voice lovely and promising no less than the immolation that he was already afraid of, and he struggled to draw the air in that was required for speech under her touch.  Again, she tilted her head like the bird her other form must have also resembled, like she was puzzling him out before he burned him up.

"Downstairs, downstairs!  He was dropped here, I didn't know how to help him," he told her quickly, gesturing with the arm nearest the door to the basement, and she jerked her head towards it, then released him without another word.  She swept down the stairs, and it was only then that he even realized that she was wearing a long dress that clung to her form, spitting embers around her that sputtered out in her wake.  He wasn't so sure that he wanted to follow her, but he did in case he could help and somehow prevent her from setting the entire place ablaze. 

She was knelt at the side of the dying phoenix on the rug, and if he thought she'd missed the blood all over it, he was insane, but she was so much more concerned with Evan himself.  She'd been like a thing possessed from the first flare that he'd put up, and it had taken her this long to locate him, what with him having been on the move when it started.  There were other creatures that would be searching for him, and moving him again would be the best way to keep them away from him, not to mention getting him to the safety of her home, but he was so far along that she wasn't sure she could do anything until he'd finished.

"Oh, my child, you've really made a mess of yourself this time, haven't you?" she sang at him softly, sadly, as she reached out to stroke his face.  He hadn't told her what he was into, but he'd always been more impulsive than she liked and so very in love with the human race.  She had those that she liked, but he actively chose to live and exist among them, where she liked her castle in the sky and inviting only those that she chose into her presence.  She wouldn't truly change anything about him, but it was times like these when he left her on a mad search for him that she wished he could be more cautious.

There was very little apology in the response he gave, but it was all pain, and she shushed him softly.  "I'm here, and I won't let anyone have you.  Go on, get it over with, you'll be safe," she promised, voice gentle, but firm.  Holding out for as long as he had gave her the time and the beacon to find him, but now it would only serve to help draw others in and keep them in this awful place longer than necessary.  Granted, she knew that it was easier said than done to die, especially for something as long-lived as they were - there was something deep inside of them that fought to survive, and Evan more than most.  "Shh, I'm here, let go."

It took another thirty minutes before the phoenix on the rug went up like a bonfire with a scream, setting the rug up with him, though the flames ebbed before they reached the outer edges.  Katrina didn't move, and patiently waited as the flames died down to smoldering ashes - ashes that shifted around after another moment, which was when she reached into them to scoop something small and seemingly very fragile from them.  She clutched this thing to her chest, her hands glowing with that same fire that had been part of her since she'd appeared prepared for a small war to find him, and she rose, regarding Loic harshly.

He threw his hands up, stepping away from the door and gesturing her through it.  "I'm not here to stop you.  Do you need a ride somewhere?"

"No.  I brought my own," she snapped back, and he followed her at a distance of a few feet until she got out the front door, where he could see that she was telling the truth.  There was an elegant black car waiting for her outside, which she slid into the back of when her driver stepped out to open the door for her.  She rolled down the window and stared at him for a few seconds.  "Release the shapeshifters, they don't belong to you."

With that said, she turned away and the car pulled out before she'd even rolled up her window.  He stared after it, a little shellshocked after the whole thing, but he got the very real impression that it could have gone much worse.  The burns were healing slowly, which just went to show how badly she could have hurt even someone like him, and he looked to the house.  Release the shapeshifters, indeed.  Consider that done, if it meant never having to see her again.

list incoming

Moving in with Shaun, and then deciding to stay there on a more permanent basis, was one of the better decisions Odin had made in his adult life, starting with leaving his parents for New York so that he could run into Shaun again, and deciding to join the military.  It seemed odd that he'd consider that such a good choice now, considering his disability stemming from his service, but it also meant that he'd met some of the best people he'd ever known, and he wouldn't trade it.  The loss of his vision had been devastating, and he wouldn't deny that he'd been depressed and miserable afterwards, but he'd learned to cope and all of the therapists he'd talked to after it had happened had all encouraged him to tell people and himself that he didn't miss it.  It was a lie, because he missed being able to see the sunset and his friends' faces, all of the stupid little things that people took for granted like ugly christmas cookies and garish pajama pants, but he was coping well and he had support and friends where he was. 

Honestly, most of the time it was impossible to tell that he was even bothered at all by his own blindness.  He moved around confidently between his telekinesis, familiarity with the places he tended to spend time in, his cane and a hand on a friend's arm or shoulder, and he was the absolute worst when it came to making blind jokes in random conversation.  He was open about it and made it seem like it wasn't a taboo topic, and it had made for a much more comfortable environment overall.  He didn't have to be happy that he'd been blinded, but considering his life was finding a new normal, including interviewing with Shaun's security for a job, he could hardly complain. 

Still, there were some things that he simply couldn't do, or just couldn't do well, and most of them seemed to be the little things that people did for fun.  Video games were useless and mostly just noise to him unless someone wanted to narrate what was happening, and TV was the same problem.  Wren could sit with him and watch shows and movies, narrating the action that he couldn't see with the appropriate level of gravity or humor, and Dawn had joined them with her own commentary a few times, but Wren was highly adaptable, especially when it came to what to do for fun.

"And you've never done this before?" he asked, not for the first time as she sat on the couch next to him with her laptop in front of her on the coffee table with a video going, explaining what they were supposed to be doing.  For all of the same reasons as TV, it was useless to him. 

"Nope!  I'm just barely less in the dark than you are, and only on a technicality," she declared, turning her head enough that her hair brushed his arm and he could hear the smile in her voice.  He'd been told that her hair was vibrant red, like fire, but he couldn't see the color and still felt the warmth of who she was, though she was currently pausing, playing and rewinding something on youtube that may or may not have been helpful. 

"Okay, well what's the lady in the video telling you to do, because all I'm hearing is put needles in loops," he said, and she sighed dramatically, focusing on the yarn and needles in her lap. 

"I think I've got it?  Give me a sec."  There was movement, and then a pause as she examined what she'd done, made an affirmative sound and tried something else.  As though that settled it, she set down her needles, all business.  "Okay, yeah, I've got it, so this is what you're going to do."

Shaun walked through a half hour later to find both of them on the couch, knitting needles and yarn in hand while they half-listened to a true crime podcast.  Odin's square was further along than Wren's was, but he'd be the first person to point out that the reason for that was because she was stopping hers constantly to fix what he was doing.  He'd somehow managed to wrap the wrong part of his working yarn around the needles, and Wren was laughing so hard trying to untangle it that they didn't actually hear Shaun come in, though he stopped to watch them for a moment.

"So, uh, how's it going?"

"The husband totally did it," Wren told him without missing a beat, proving that she was perhaps listening more closely to the podcast than Odin was while he was concentrating.

"And I'm pretty sure this is some ancient ritual magic I'm failing to weave up properly," he added, holding his hands out with a loose grip so that Wren could move things around and then go back to the awkward cross of arms and hand holding necessary to show him how to do it by feel.  It helped that he kept feeling her knitting with his mind and then checking his own to see if it felt right, and he was building a picture of what it was supposed to look like and how she was moving when she did hers.  It wasn't as good as watching someone visually, but it was better than not at all.

"Yeah, well, don't forget that I asked for an enchanted scarf.  In dark green," Shaun said, sipping at his coffee as he watched.  Obviously, he knew they weren't dating and he understood the concept of being such good friends, but even he looked at them sometimes and wondered how they weren't dating. 

"Wait, this is dark green, right?" Odin asked, just as Wren got him on the right track again.  With guidance, he got a stitch done without issue and started in on another.

"Yes, it's dark green.  Everyone suggested lighter colors to start because they're easier to see, but obviously that's not an issue for you.  I should have gotten you a light color for my eyes, though," she pointed out, though she pretended she was more put out by it than she was.  A few more stitches with no incident, and she picked her own back up. 

"Okay, I think you're right, how could it be anyone but the husband?" Odin asked as the podcast went on, and Shaun snorted.

"It's usually the husband," he said, headed to the kitchen for a refill.  He might join them to listen for awhile, since the story sounded good, but he'd already told Wren that there was no way she was getting him to try knitting with them.  He already struggled with fat fingers when texting, and he wasn't about to put them to the test with yarn.  He returned with his mug freshly filled and settled in on the loveseat nearby, watching the slow yarn process with interest, though not enough to ask too many questions.

Surprisingly, it was not the husband.

prompt list incominnnnnnng at some point

Danielle had no idea how she'd gotten here, but she was sitting in her childhood home. She was at the dinner table, but it was clear of plates; it only had the normal centerpiece on it; flowers that Richard brought Celeste every other day in a short vase, stems cut to dwarf them against the massive blooms. They were always fresh, and always fragrant. Danielle couldn't remember ever seeing them in her teen. They were only a distant memory from her childhood, and honestly she thought she'd imagined them this whole time, but sitting here now, seeing them, it seemed to unlock a hidden memory that she had no idea she'd even possessed. Something that had flickered at the base of her skull every time she'd seen a table that did offer such accoutrements.

Celeste sat across from her, but she looked different. She was younger, brighter, and smiling, and the smile was genuine, not that wry, half-smirk that the older version of her had grown so used to. She slid her hands across the table to Danielle, palms up, and Danielle automatically reached out, putting her hands in her mother's. She felt the warmth of her, and it was comforting somehow to an anxiety that Danielle felt in the background of herself.

"Dani, I'm so glad you're here," Celeste said. "I'm so sorry that we're meeting like this."

Danielle was confused. "What do you mean?" she asked, moving her head slightly.

Celeste laughed a little to a joke that Danielle wasn't privy to, and dipped her head for a moment. She looked back up, a sharp intake of breath signaling that she was about to speak, but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. Instead, she closed it and smiled again. "Some people here really want to see you," she said finally.

The back door opened, the one that lead straight into the grass that surrounded the house, and the room that had already been well-lit by windows became flooded with sunlight. The scent of spring and fresh-cut lawns wafted into the room. Richard stood, the light at his back, a frown on his face.

"Oh, Danielle," he said softly. He shook his head, and then came to sit next to Celeste, though he didn't offer his own hands.

"Dad?" she asked, her breath nearly catching in her throat. Something was wrong, but she couldn't put her finger on what.

"Hi, baby girl," he said. "My god, you're so grown up now." His voice broke a little, and he reached out, putting a hand on his wife's shoulder. "Celeste, she looks just like you used to."

"I'd say she's a pretty good blend," Celeste said, looking from him and back to Danielle. "But it looks like she took my penchant for picking a fight I couldn't finish, doesn't it?"

"Hey rugrat," another voice said. Danielle released her mother's hands, whipping around in her chair at the familiar sound of Marcus' voice. She stood up, the chair making a scraping sound against the linoleum, and pushed it out of the way with her knee. Before Marcus could say another word, she grabbed him, squeezing him tightly.

"I thought you were dead," she breathed, burying her face into his chest. She could smell him; she could feel him.

He hugged her back, but pulled away after a moment, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Danielle," he said, voice hesitant. "I think you'd better sit back down."

She frowned. She supposed she thought he'd be happier to see her, but he had a strange worry behind his green eyes that she didn't like. She found it familiar, though - it was the same worry that she'd seen in her mother's eyes, and in Ash's, and perhaps most people who knew her well. That look that they were about to tell her something she wouldn't like to hear. She sat, though, being led by the arm back to her chair. Marcus sat next to her, scooting the chair so that he was more facing her. Their parents were still across from them, but they weren't smiling anymore.

"You know, I'm starting to wonder if you guys are about to tell me bad news," she said, laughing. The laugh was nervous; she didn't want it to be, but she felt a discomfort welling up at the very bottom of her chest, where she sent all of her bad feelings to die.

"Sweetie," Celeste began. Her smile faltered, and Danielle watched as she turned her head to the side, looking at Richard. "I can't," she whispered.

She tapped her fingers nervously on the table, drumming them almost as she watched them shift about, not saying something that needed to be said. She had that feeling at the back of her skull again, like a thing that she knew that she knew, but it was just on the tip of her tongue, and no matter how hard she reached back for it, she couldn't find it. It created a physical itch, and she reached back, ceasing her nervous tapping to scratch at the back of her neck. When she did, she felt something wet, and withdrew her hand quickly, almost smacking the table with it for the jerking motion she made.

There was blood on her hand. Had she cut herself. She looked up, and her father was tight-lipped and pale, a sadness on his face that she couldn't comprehend.

"Dad, what's happening?"

"Dani," Marcus said, grabbing her by the shoulder and turning her upper half to face him. "Dani, you're dead. We're all dead. If you're here, it's because..." he trailed off, looking at the blood on her hand. "What's happening?" he demanded. "That's not supposed to happen."

"What?" she barked, the sound catching in her throat. She felt like she was about to choke, and stood up again, this time knocking the chair over with her abrupt movement. Was that it? Her throat began to burn, and she opened her mouth to say something, but she only managed a gurgling sound. She fell almost immediately, but she didn't feel herself hitting the floor, only knew it was happening because she was on her side. She tried to push up, but found that her legs no longer worked, and her entire bottom half felt heavy, like it had become dead weight against her upper body.

Celeste got out of her chair and knelt down next to her. She reached out, petting Danielle's head softly, ignoring the matted blonde hair that had been dyed red with blood. "I'm so sorry, honey," she said, her voice low so only Danielle could hear. "I didn't think - I had hoped that you wouldn't be on my heels so fast. Lucifer didn't waste any time, it seems. But if you're here, it means the wards worked, and he couldn't take you." She looked over her daughter's form, seeing how it began to worsen, and swallowed. "We don't have much time. I think they're trying to bring you back," she said.

Danielle wanted to respond, but physically was unable to speak; Lucifer had slit her throat and her vocal cords with it, and so she just looked at her mother, blinking rapidly, trying to will her into hearing her questions. Was Tim her real father? Did Ash already know she was dead? Where would she go? Would she be in this state forever? Why was this happening? Who was trying to bring her back? And back to where?

"Richard, I don't know - I don't know what to do," Celeste said, rising to her knees and calling over the table for her husband. "I don't know how to stop this from happening." She looked back down at Danielle, her eyes wide with panic and fear. "Hold on baby, hold on to us," she urged.

Danielle had no idea what was going on; she saw Richard come to Celeste's side, but she couldn't hear what anyone was saying anymore. Everything was fading. She felt something grip her, and it felt like iron to her very core. It hurt. She tried to scream, but no sound came out, and she flailed her arms uselessly, grabbing onto Richard's wrist with her right hand. Something was pulling on her aggressively, and she felt like she was caught in some event horizon, unable to escape its pull.

Don't let it take me, she cried mentally, hoping Richard could hear her. She repeated it over and over, the frantic begging. She saw he and Celeste reaching back to her, but there was so much blood so suddenly, and their grip slipped, and Danielle just... felt blown out into the vacuum of darkness.

She was weightless, but somehow heavy at the same time, floating - or was it sinking? Everything was blacker than black, like it had a depth to it that she could see. She tried to move, to navigate back to her family, to that kitchen on that warm spring day, but she couldn't, and the further she drifted, the further away the memory seemed, until she didn't know what she'd been thinking about at all.

There was nothing for a long while.

Then, of course, the nightmare began.

It was blinding pain that suddenly pulled her back into reality. She had no idea where she'd been before, but she had been quiet and peaceful, just simply existing in some comfortable nothing, but now? Now every cell in her body burned, and screamed. There was screaming all around her, like wherever she existed at the moment was only screaming, and it permeated her entire essence, pushing what was left of her mind to the very brink of madness. She felt like a sturdy piece of cloth that had become frayed, and one string had been violently pulled - and now she was unraveling, being unmade. Pain was all she knew. It was all she had ever known, it was all she would ever know. It was eternity.

She was thrust back into her body with such violent force that the mirror in the room shattered. The flames on the votive candles that the earth witch had used burned hot, and then extinguished with the sudden release of pressure, and the room was plunged into a temporary darkness before the candles reignited themselves thanks to Ash's helper.

Danielle opened her eyes. She only knew the pain and the burning, and it was still happening, but now it was not a concept, it was her reality. She didn't simply sit up; she jumped, knees drawing in as she rolled off of whatever they had laid her body on, and she went like a creature, right for a corner, where she scampered back into it on her behind, her back to the wall, protected. She put her hands over her eyes and began to scream, surprised and scared at the sound that came out of her mouth. It didn't feel like her, didn't sound like her. Whose voice is this? she thought, but it didn't matter, because it was hers now, and she was using it to scream.

"Why did you bring me back?" she was screaming, over and over. She didn't know what it meant, the words were foreign to her, some alien language. She was disoriented from the drift, from being so completely ejected from the nothing and the magic that Ash had poured into her, that her mind had become liquid for the moment. Past, present, future - none of it was linear, and the realities she knew were collapsing on top of eachother out of sequence. "Why did you bring me back!?" She could feel Ash grabbing her arms, trying to steady her, but only part of her recognized him; all other parts, the ones in control, the ones who only knew the pain he had just dealt her, recoiled.

"You should have left me," she cried, struggling against his grip. "I was with them, I was with them," she sobbed, voice still rough from the damage done to her throat that the magic had mostly knitted back together. He'd taken her arms to stop her from clawing at herself; she was already bloodied enough. He looked to Tallulah, who looked back to him, and Danielle did not see the thing that passed between them in that glance. She heard him talking to her, but could not understand what he was saying, and though she had stopped trying to claw both him and herself, she was still crying. Her face was so caked with blood that the tears did nothing to remove it, and so they rolled down the dark brown smears on her face, falling into the nothing beneath her.

She was in a fucking nightmare, and she wanted - no, she needed to wake up.

It was suicide to show up to a home that he knew had been ravaged so badly that the two Vida queens had just been murdered in, but Ash was expected, and he knew it.  This show wasn't meant for him, it was perhaps Lucifer checking names off of a list, or getting revenge for something they didn't know about, or even working to prevent events that even Ash and his far-reaching understanding of the world hadn't predicted, but it didn't matter.  Celeste was dead, his Dani was dead, and his presence had been requested. 

He'd be heard long before he reached the door, from the car pulling up and the door slamming shut to his soft steps up the driveway to the house, and he didn't try to stop that from drawing the monster's attention inside, nor did he attempt to find a quiet way into the house.  He came in the front door that Celeste had used not so long before him, and just like Celeste, Lucifer struck when he'd barely entered the house.  Unlike Celeste, Ash was better equipped for Lucifer, and had been since he'd heard the bastard was roaming free. 

He felt the searing heat wash over and around him, so strong that his hair moved as if in an invisible wind, but it was more like opening an oven door than the agonizing attack that Celeste had endured.  Ash's eyes dipped shut against the burn and he pulled a face as though he smelled something just slightly off, but he was otherwise unphased by the attack, and he looked calm in the face of the carnage before him.  Lucifer stood there in Tim's body, Celeste on the floor with her neck bent at the wrong angle and Danielle tied to a chair, tortured and broken.  His calm nearly broke at that, but he'd disconnected when the power vacuum had sucked at him, and he breathed deep, eyes scanning back to Lucifer himself.

"Now, either you've gotten a lot stronger, or you've had help.  Not the boy I remember, are you?" Lucifer smirked, looking him up and down. 

"So they kicked you out of Trevor's body.  Too sloppy to realize he had witch blood, or too lazy to care?" Ash shot back, and he tried to keep his eyes off of the murdered women.  "That why you came here?  Lost your golden vessel and wanted to take it out on the rest of the bloodline?  It's a pretty pathetic look on someone who's supposed to be as powerful and scary as you."

Lucifer's smirk on Tim's face actually widened at that, his eyes narrowing in contrast.  He was used to taking attitude because it seemed like everyone wanted to feel like a badass sassing off against him, but most of them paid for it dearly, and Leone had already played this game with him and lost.  The triste was usually smarter than that.

"Did you know she was his sister?"

"I figured it out pretty quickly, not sure what your excuse is."

"You protected her when I took her brother, just in case I needed another vessel.  She's completely warded against me," Lucifer said, which wasn't any new information for Ash, but Tim's eyes watched his impassive face carefully.  Lucifer could feel the rage so carefully contained, the despair, but Leone was steel and he didn't budge; Lucifer wanted to see it happen.  "So who was her daddy?  Come on, it's the question of the hour."

"You didn't ask Celeste before you killed her?"

Lucifer scoffed, waving dismissively in her direction.  "Barely gave her the chance to talk.  Nothing that woman ever said was true, and I wasn't about to suffer a liar in precious Danielle's final moments."

There was a muscle twitch in Ash's face, barely perceptible, but Lucifer smiled slowly.  The triste gave no other indication of caring, but he obviously cared very much, or he wouldn't have been there.  "Then I guess you're out of luck.  Only Celeste knew, everyone else is guessing."

"What's your guess, then?"

A pause.  "I think Tim was her father, yes.  The two hunted together often for years."

"So you had her warded to keep me out.  Too bad you couldn't protect her past that.  She put up a fight, you know, but once I stripped her magic, she was pretty spent.  Strange that I couldn't do that to you," he said conversationally, wandering over to Danielle and tilting her face up by the chin.  She was a bloody mess, the wound in her throat on better display for Leone with the gesture.  He let her head go and it dropped inelegantly back down.  He sighed, sounding almost disappointed that it was done with.

He regarded Ash again, starting towards him with slow, leisurely movements.  The last time he'd seen the man, he'd had longer hair, wore lighter clothing and didn't have nearly the hard resolve and tight control he currently possessed, and this new impression made him seem taller and more imposing somehow, not that Lucifer was threatened.  It was simply an unexpected change, and made him think that perhaps he should have called on the young triste much sooner.  "You always were smart, but this...what have you done, Ash?"

It was arrogance that put Lucifer so damn close to where Ash stood, standing there so damn still; Lucifer himself had put out so much energy in the fight with the Old Ones and then being thrust out of Trevor Browning's skin that he really shouldn't have been indulging his anger like this, but what fight did he expect here?  He'd honestly planned to strip Leone as soon as he walked in the door, just as he'd done to Celeste Vida and as he'd done to Danielle shortly after he'd revealed his nature.  That Leone still stood there, impervious to his attempt, had not been part of the plan, and while it was interesting and a little exciting, it also wasn't the cathartic smashing of things that annoyed him that he'd been hoping for.

Ash, who was only an inch taller than Tim, still leaned down slightly to put their faces closer, his stony expression giving way to just a taste of the fury beneath.  "I studied and made friends, you dumb fuck," he snarled, and he swung his fist up fast enough that Lucifer's surprised hesitation landed the blow squarely to the side of Tim's head.  The human form pitched sideways from the force of it, blood spraying as Lucifer stumbled to the floor beside Celeste's broken body, and Ash shed his black overcoat for easier movement.  It was the last contained, calm motion he made, because Lucifer was picking himself up with a bubble of surprised laughter, and Ash turned from draping the coat over a chair to explode into violent motion.

All of the rage and desperate grief was there in his movement, sharp and devastatingly brutal.  Lucifer took a few more hits before he pushed back, using Tim's bulkier frame to try and take an advantage, but Lucifer didn't have Ash's fury, and Ash had been smart enough to come prepared to block the worst of Lucifer's magic.  It wouldn't last forever, but it would last long enough.  Again, the heat seared at his skin and washed over him near harmlessly, and Lucifer screamed his frustration only for Ash to lash out with his own power in return, coupling it with another blow.  It had taken a few of them for Lucifer to realize that he had some of brass knuckles on, likely blessed with something stronger than a mere priest could offer.  They were dangerous, and Ash was using them well for a man that Lucifer hadn't known to be incredibly physical.  He'd grown and changed a lot over the centuries, he was realizing.

They were both bleeding, a cut from Lucifer's elbow painting one side of Ash's face red and leaking into his eye, though the triste had blinked it back and just didn't seem to care.  That was what Lucifer hadn't banked on, because Leone cared so damn much about people and was always so careful to be mindful of who could be affected by somethine he did, or who he might be leaving unprotected if he were to risk himself unnecessarily.  This was an Ash that had left those concerns behind, who was living entirely in this one violent, destructive moment, and if Lucifer himself wasn't the one bearing the brunt of that brutality, he probably would have reveled in the release of that control and fear.  As it was, he still laughed in Ash's face as he hit him hard enough to send him stumbling backward a step, but Ash turned to look back at him, teeth smeared with the blood from his lip where Lucifer had just bloodied it, and he had to admit that it was quite the look for him. 

"You're going to end up killing your friend if you keep up with this, and for what?  I'll just leave and find someone else," Lucifer told him, a little breathlessly, so props to Ash.

The triste was on him immediately, throwing them both to the floor after crashing through half of the furniture in the room.  Lucifer was fairly certain they'd both have broken ribs, and he smashed a lamp into Ash's neck hard enough to shatter it and bloody the man up, and hopefully break his collarbone, even if he'd been aiming for his face.  If anything did break, he got no more than a grunt from Ash, who slammed him to the floor hard enough that it cracked beneath them, sending them both in a dive straight down into the basement below.  The cement was not forgiving and offered a few seconds of peace as they both caught up to the change in scenery and the new pains, which Lucifer was blaming entirely on Ash for putting so much damn force into throwing them both down.  He was on his feet before the triste, however, and that was the unfortunate truth of this fight and how it would go; Ash was much stronger than Lucifer had expected, and his will was even more impressive, but he was still not in Lucifer's league.  Nobody really was, and wasn't that the whole struggle?  Lucifer would win, because nobody was strong enough to stop him.

He stood, stumbling a step and laughing softly at that because how long had it been since he'd had a good old-fashioned beat down like this?  All of the posturing and big magic of his fight with the Old Ones was impressive and fun, but he'd known the whole time that Trevor Browning would offer a fantastic brawling form, and Tim was only slightly less enjoyable.  He figured he would have utterly destroyed Ash before they even got to the basement if he'd been wearing Trevor still, but this had been fun nonetheless.

Ash was picking himself up, no less furious but now also beaten and dazed from the fall, but he was recovering quickly.  Lucifer grabbed him by the hair, slamming his knee into the triste's face to slow him down a bit more and then yanking his face up to look at him as he leaned down close.  "This has been fun, and I'm impressed, you should know that because I don't say it lightly.  All good things come to an end, though."

"Go to hell," Ash snarled, and Lucifer grinned his own bloody grin. 

"Been there, kid.  See you when I get back, we'll pick this talk back up then."

He pulled Danielle's gun from where he'd stashed it at his back and where it had been causing him no small amount of discomfort for the entire fight, but he hadn't been willing to bother with it sooner.  He'd wanted to see what Ash could do, and damn, did it feel good.  Now, he was finished, and so was Ash.  He pressed the barrel of the gun with the firestone rounds to the triste's heart, taking in the look of the man's beaten form, kneeling in that basement, exhausted and bloodied; it was satisfying.  He apparently admired his victory a second too long, because Ash thrust his hand up with snake swiftness, plunging a blade into Lucifer's chest. 

He gasped, surprised, and pulled the trigger in a quick bid to cause similar harm to his opponent, but the gun had shifted when he'd been stabbed, and something was wrong.  The knife was ripped from his form when Ash fell, but Lucifer felt strangely disoriented, like the world had suddenly taken to spinning, and while he wasn't capable of getting nauseous, he felt like that must have been what this was most like.  Once again, he stumbled, but there was a violent flash and when Tim's body hit the floor, it was just the human bleeding beside the triste who'd stabbed him.  Ash groaned, turning his head to look at Tim and wishing that he could just fucking lay there and let it all just go, but he'd fucked it up.

"Sorry, Tim, my aim was off," he grunted.  He wasn't even sure if the hunter was conscious, but he forced himself up to his knees, swallowing down a scream at the fucking firestone gunshot wound that was just high enough on his chest not to be incapacitating, but low enough to be worse than just his shoulder.  He'd woven that damn firestone, and granted, this was better than the alternative, but he still didn't appreciate bleeding from his own weaponry.  He pressed on Tim's knife wound, looking him over and a little jealous that Lucifer's ability to heal himself had done wonders for Tim's durability during their fight, but it meant that the hunter was really only in danger from that last hit.  Considering Ash had been fully intending to kill both Tim and Lucifer with the enchanted blade, he almost just left Tim there, but the blade wasn't anymore dangerous to humans than a normal blade, and Lucifer had gotten away.  That made Tim's death tragic, and Ash would care later, he knew that.

Not that he really had the energy to spare right then, but if he didn't heal himself, he could muddle through, and so he forced power down into the knife wound, focusing on the worst of it to ensure that Tim was out of danger - when he woke up, he could call himself guild help or drive somewhere, and he'd need stitches, but it was superficial by the time Ash finished.  Only then did he crawl to his feet, making his way unsteadily up the basement stairs to the kitchen, where he dropped down beside Danielle after she'd been dropped in the destruction of his fight with Lucifer. 

It was only as he gently scooped her up into his arms that he broke down, clutching her to his chest and holding her there until the pain in his own body simply couldn't be ignored and he heard stirring downstairs.  Tim finally appeared, looking less like shit than Ash did, but scanning the room and choking back a sound.  "I gotta call the guilds or someone.  You look like you were hit by a truck."

Ash didn't comment at first, but when he finally looked up at Tim, he just looked raw.  "My phone is in my coat.  Call the guilds for Celeste, I'm taking Dani elsewhere."

Tim's eyes flicked down to her body, but to his credit, he didn't say anything about why Ash would be taking her anywhere except for a morgue.  "You're gonna need a hand getting her out of here, come on."

Katya had just begun to settle in for the evening when she felt Pandora's presence in her home. She walked through the house, curious as to what caused such a visit, and descended the stairs quickly. The closer she got to Pandora's voice calling for her, the more tense she felt. Something was wrong.

"Pandora? What is it?" she asked, unable to hide her concern. Pandora was an elegant, old creature, and as such, she rarely allowed her 'daughters' to see her as disheveled as she currently looked. It looked almost like she'd been in a fight, but on closer observation, Katya could see that she had been scratching herself and leaving marks. Pandora was a mother figure to her, and to see her in such a way was truly frightening.

Pandora wiped at her face, smudging her mascara that was drying on her cheeks from hysterical tears. "First Bacchus, and now Orpheus," she said, taking Katya's hand as it was offered. "Someone is targeting us, I fear. I need you and your sisters - I need you to protect me. Something is targeting me," she added, her voice small.

"Pandora, don't be ridiculous, nobody's coming after you," Katya said, though she didn't fully believe it herself. Mentally, she reached out, calling for her sisters. Perhaps it would be easier if they ganged up on her to calm her down.

Sasha appeared within seconds; Tanya took a little longer. The youngest had never been punctual.

"Hey, did you hear? Crimson got another ancient," Sasha said, literally strolling in with an orange in her hand like she had just dropped by for a chat. When she saw Pandora, she stopped tossing the orange, holding it at her side. "Pandora? What are you doing here?"

Katya rolled her eyes. "You're not helping," she growled. "Pandora thinks that someone is after her; Bacchus sired two fledglings directly - Orpheus and her. And if someone killed both of them, logically, the next step would be her - if someone was systematically taking them out. Which they aren't. Right?" she asked, glaring at Sasha.

"Right, of course not - they'd be stupid to try for a third time," Sasha said, waving the hand without the orange in it. She set the fruit down on the table and came more into the living room where Katya sat with Pandora, clutching her hands tightly - on closer observation, though, she could see that Pandora had her sister in a death grip. She could feel the fear coming off of her in waves, and it was off-putting as hell. "Pandora - I'm sure it's fine. Do you want to crash with me for a while?"

Pandora let go of Katya and stood up, practically pushing the eldest off of her. "You're not listening to me,"  she said, wringing her hands together. Her nails had been picked and bitten down to the quicks, and it was as though she hadn't even noticed. The girls could see red spots on her fingers where she'd chewed through the skin. She moved away from the couch, more into the center of the room - this was about when Tanya decided to show up, coming into the room just in time for her to start yelling.

"You're not LISTENING to me," she said again, stomping her foot. Her face was red from anger, while her eyes were so wide that the whites were exposed. She looked like a wild animal. "I need you, I need for you to protect me!"

"Pandora, we will protect you, but - " Sasha began.

"NO" she screamed suddenly. She tilted her head, like she was listening to something that none of the girls could hear, and the three sisters exchanged glances, unsure of what to do. She looked back to them, hands now at her temples. "They're coming for me," she insisted. "I can feel them." And she could, but it wasn't the hunters that she could feel. It was time, and it was destiny. All of those lives that she'd altered and all of that time that she'd bought herself by stealing it from other people; with the power of Bacchus suddenly truncated, and the bond of her blood-brother gone, Pandora was a creature alone, and it had left her very exposed to things that none of the sisters could see or hear. But then again, Furies usually didn't make time to become a problem to people they weren't concerned with.

All three sisters felt Pandora pulling on them then, hard, using every ounce of her control over them as a sire to force their power out, forming some sort of protective barrier - but since she was so frayed and parsed from reality, listening to whispers that only she could hear, she was commanding their power instead of letting them use it themselves, which was painful to say the least.

Katya was the first to break free, lashing out as hard as she could at the woman, hitting her squarely in the back. She only intended to break her hold over the other two sisters. It worked, but Pandora fell into the coffee table, her head connecting with the corner in a loud, sickening sound. Blood poured out from where her head fell to the floor, and Katya rushed away from her and to Sasha and Tanya, pulling them up off the ground.

"She'll get back up soon," she hissed, breathing heavy from both fear and pain at having just been yanked on.

"What the fuck," Sasha cried, blue eyes wet with tears. "I don't understand, what the fuck is wrong with her? Has she lost it? Did killing Bacchus make her go fucking crazy?"

"I think," Tanya said, wheezing a little, "I think so. She's old magic, really old, like Greek gods old," she reminded them. "What if - what if Bacchus was protecting her from something?" She would have been the only sister right on the money, but Tanya had often been curious of her origins, and so had been reading up on them lately. She'd had help from her neighbor, who had suddenly found himself able to access a wealth of knowledge with his new job.

"I don't care if she's going fucking crazy," Katya said. "We're getting the fuck out of here, right now."

"Katya, we can't leave her - she's - she's our mother," Tanya protested. "We have to help her!"

"Yeah? How are we gonna do that?" Sasha demanded. "Call the fucking guild?"

"I don't know, maybe! I don't know, Sasha, I just know we can't - I mean, she's not well," she said. "Oh, shit."

At that, the other two sisters glanced over to where Tanya was looking. The spot where Pandora had been was gone.

"No more of this," Katya said firmly. "We're going. I'll call Raphael."

"What the fuck can he do?" Sasha snapped. "Midnight is gone, remember? That's probably more likely what's after her, if anything is. Her own goddamn victims that she helped torture. It's what she dese-"

Sasha was cut short as Pandora hit her. She went down, hard, sprawling across the ground and laying there for a second before she crawled up to her feet again. Blood was across her face; her jaw was at an awkward angle. She worked to pull the bone back where it should be, but the point had been made.

"So, my own daughters would turn against me now?" she whispered. There was an eerie light in her eyes, and the way that her body trembled as she moved, every muscle tensed, made a pit form in Katya's stomach.

"No, no, we just - " Katya began.

"So the Furies have taken you, too," she said. It wasn't a question, it was a statement. When Pandora looked at them, she didn't see Ekaterina, Aleksandra, and Tatyana - she saw Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone. "They took you and they replaced you with FAKES!" She lashed out with her power, and Sasha, who was still recovering from the blow to the head, dropped to her knees first, screaming and clutching her hands to her temples. It felt like her fucking head was going to explode.

"Well, you may have taken my daughters, but you won't take me!" she yelled. She grabbed for Alecto/Katya, managing to catch a fistful of her brown hair, and wound her hand in it, knotting it thoroughly before she yanked the girl to her feet. Katya was screaming and fighting, clawing at her, but Pandora reached out with her other hand and swiftly crushed her throat, leaving her body hanging slack by her hair.

Still holding Katya, Pandora turned her head slowly, watching as Tisiphone/Tanya tried to sneak to Sasha's side.

"No helping," she hissed. She lashed out with her power again, causing both girls to flatten on the floor as she warped reality around them to some extra-dimensional shift, taking away their ability to reason out what was upright. She used that time to untangle Katya from her, dropping her body unceremoniously onto the floor. "I need to handle this, while I have time," she said to herself, reaching into her bag for something. She pulled out a knife that had a strange gleam to it, and held it tightly.

"You three, you think you've won. You killed my daughters, you helped kill my sire, but you won't get me. Oh no, you won't fucking get me. I am Pandora. I am the Oracle of Tyche. I serve the Goddess of Fortune, and I am not bound by your rules, Fates!" she roared. She pointed the knife at Sasha, hand the steadiest it had been since she'd appeared at Katya's home. "You first, Megaera," she hissed. And she went for the girl.

Katya came to as the struggle was already underway, pushing up off the ground and coughing, unable to speak at first as her vocal cords had been late to the repair party. She realized that Pandora was on top of Sasha, with a knife to her throat, only barely being held back, while Tanya struggled to pull her off of the other sister. She kept screaming about vengeance and curses, but it was still blurry to Katya. She made eye contact with Tanya over the fracas, and got up, stumbling towards them.

Tanya finally managed to pull her off of Sasha, only to get the knife to her throat for her trouble. "Are you here for all of the men and women I have killed?" she asked, each word spoken carefully, tensely, but loud enough that everyone in the room could hear. She backed up, dragging Tanya with her, and the girl looked helplessly at her sisters, eyes wide with that same craze that had been in Pandora's. She was begging them to get her out of this.

"Mama!" Katya screamed, hands to her face as she approached her. "Mama, no! Let her go, mama!" she screamed. She was crying; she couldn't help it. What had gone from unhealthy paranoia had become a full-blown psychotic break; Pandora had started calling them different names, accusing them of being imposters. "Mama, she's Tanya, let her go, please!"

"This isn't my Tatyana," she hissed. "This is a trick, a trick by the Furies, trying to come for me, trying to drive me mad," she said, her voice reaching a high pitch as she cried. "Well it won't work, I've got you, and I've got this knife just for you. It won't work!" She laughed, and then swung the knife down.

Katya could hear Sasha screaming as Tanya's body hit the floor, but it was like it was underwater. She felt herself collapse, catching a chair on the way down for her effort, but only succeeded in pulling it over with her. She couldn't feel it, though. Even the floor felt strange, fuzzy; not of this plane. She felt a part of herself dying as the life left Tanya's body, and all across the city, whether she knew it or not, wolves suddenly began to howl.

Sasha was still screaming, cradling Tanya's body, but Pandora wasn't worried about her - no, she was coming straight for Katya.

She snapped back into real-time and real-feelings reality as she was lifted by her throat, the bloody knife held up and catching the light from the lamp that had been knocked over. She looked into her mother's eyes, but she only saw vacancy, and madness. Maybe the Furies had come; maybe they were all caught up in the punishment. She struggled against her, kicking out and landing several blows, but to no avail. She felt herself being moved backwards; Pandora meant to fucking pin her to the wall like an insect.

Katya closed her eyes, and pushed out as hard as she could. She called harder than she had ever called in her entire existence. It was like a neutron bomb; any cat within the city could hear her, could feel her crying out, to come to her. She felt one presence in particular, a peculiar one - it was dark, aggressive, heavy. It was a thing she didn't recognize, but it was a cat, and so it was hers to control.

What do you want? it asked, because it was in control, not the man.

Come and see, she said. Come and see.

She saw the knife swing for her, and then Pandora just... disappeared. Something had exploded through the window in the living room, taking part of the wall with it. It had hit Pandora full force, and snapped her arm clean off as it had done so. Katya hit the ground, her mother's hand still attached to her throat. She couldn't even grab it off of her, she was so paralyzed.

This isn't real, this isn't real she told herself, eyes tightly closed.

It's very real, something responded to her.

She opened her eyes, and a massive tiger stood over her, its maw and much of its upper half coated in blood. It regarded her for a long, tense second, and then opened its mouth and pulled the arm off of her. She inhaled a sharp, short breath as the hand slid off of her throat, still unable to move, or do much of anything at all. The tiger deposited the arm somewhere else, and then lowered its head to her, giving her a solid, wet nudge. It wanted her to get up.

Katya stood, the animal supporting her, to survey the damage. The living room looked like a bomb had gone off in it. Sasha was in the corner, still holding Tanya's body, sitting over it with her upper half and trying to cover it from any damage that had come from the fight that had taken place - although it hadn't been much of a fight at all, really. The tiger had jumped through the window, and then Pandora had become a bad memory.

She let out a loud cry, dropping to her knees. She put her hands out for the cat, and wrapped her fingers in its thick, damp fur, feeling disgusted by the blood as it covered her hands. She began to sob uncontrollably, the sudden onslaught of emotions too much for her to hold in, and pulled into the animal for support. She hardly noticed somewhere in there that the tiger had changed its shape, and she was clinging to the body of a man - still very much covered in blood and viscera, but at least able to say something about it.

"I need to make a call," he told her softly, reaching for his phone. It wasn't so bloody that it didn't work, at least, though he did need to wipe his fingers on the innards of a pillow that had fallen victim to the whole moment in order to use it. "Stav," he said, still managing to keep an arm around the woman. "I need a cleanup crew." He hung the phone up after giving him an address, and then held the woman as she screamed into his chest. He didn't know why, but he felt like he couldn't let her go.

The lecture hall was small by terms of what large colleges had to offer, but the guilds were large, and through design had managed to set up a space that was adequate. Some-thirty odd hunters from various guilds sat, mostly attentive, waiting to see what knowledge they could glean from a former ancient. Bacchus, though no longer a vampire, was still worldly, and had retained his ability to recall all of the memories from before. He stood at the front of the room, the area lower than the raised seating so as to give his audience a clear view of not only him, but the information behind him on the board.

Chase and Capricia had come in after it had started, quietly joining Astrid, Lucien and Connor in the back of the room. It had been Lucien's decision to go ahead with this, and honestly, all of the guild leaders were curious as to what would be said. They had their own Therrayans, but as Lucien had learned in private conversation with a Therrayan from Diamond, some of their information was wrong. Lucien didn't like to be wrong, and he felt that the best way to correct it was, well, live. Nicolette had assured him that it would be best from the source, and though it had taken a little convincing from Devraj, he had ultimately agreed to this.

"Bloodlines," Bacchus said, turning and gesturing to the board. "Bloodlines will tell you so much about what type of supernatural thing you're dealing with. Now, while the focus of this is going to be on vampires, obviously, as I'm somewhat of a subject-matter expert," he said with a wry laugh, "I want you to keep in mind that the overarching theme of this applies to everything that you will encounter. Even with humans, lineage can play a large part in behaviours."

"Like, can serial killers and other mass murder-types inherit that 'evil gene', or killer instinct?" someone from the front said, raising a hand as they spoke.

Bacchus tilted his head, narrowing his eyes as he tried to remember her name. "Yes... Timber, right?"

The redhead nodded.

"Yes, exactly like that," he said, addressing the room as a whole again. "Now, from the very top, without getting into origin stories, we have some of the major and minor bloodlines." He turned, his laser pointer fixed at the top of the massive block/line chart. "My line, rather prolific if you notice, is the second oldest." He hovered the green dot over his own name, and then pointed to two right below it. "Here, though, is where it split. I created Orpheus and Pandora separately, and though Orpheus' fledglings all still fall under my name, Pandora's do not."

He saw multiple hands go up. "Why, right? That's what you're all about to ask. The thing is, I don't precisely know the why of it. I suspect it had something to do with her gifts, and what ultimately became the curse of her line." He paused, thinking back to how he'd met her.

"What was her gift? I've never even heard of her," a dark-haired girl asked.

"She granted wishes," another hunter answered. Erik Lucio sat forward in his chair a little, staring at Bacchus. "Isn't that right?"

Bacchus nodded once. "You would know," he said, gesturing to Erik. "You're the one who killed her." There was a tense silence in the room, and Bacchus shrugged. "No bad blood here. She was awful, and her power was grossly unchecked. I don't regret much in two thousand years, but my first two fledglings were not turned under the best circumstances. I could have handled the situations differently." It was an understatement, but it was as much an apology as anyone would ever get from him.

"So, she granted wishes, right? Sounds great - except her ability was some sort of reality-warping scenario where you got what you wanted, but it wasn't at all what you wanted in the end." Bacchus sighed. "In her human life, she was an oracle of Tyche, the goddess of fortune. I imagine that had something to do with it, but how we develop our abilities is another lecture entirely. What I can say now, though, is that her line is cursed by her ability, just as mine was."

Capricia raised an eyebrow. "What does he mean, cursed?" she asked, turning to look at Connor. Connor only shrugged in response.

"Listen to the lecture," he suggested unhelpfully.

Chase drew in a breath. "Did you ever notice he looks like Zaine?" she asked, to nobody in particular. She heard Astrid make a noise of agreement.

"Let me back up," he said, holding his hands up. "I should have mentioned that in the beginning. Every vampire line has a curse - some thing that becomes the crux of our lives, and gets worse as we age. For me, it was insatiable hunger, which presented in all forms. For Pandora's line, it's a yearning for things that you cannot have."

"So what's the difference?" a dark-haired vampire asked, slouched back in his seat. "I kind of want to know if I'm gonna be cursed."

"Well, it depends on who your sire is, but I can talk to you offline about that," Bacchus said, glancing his way. Jared. He already knew his name; he was very aware of the fact that the guild boasted two vampires - one of whom was in his bloodline. Jared, however, was not. He'd be interested to go over the boy's family tree with him.

"The difference between the two is that my line, we fixate on things. We obsess. Obviously," he said, giving a cursory glance up to where Capricia stood in the back. He still needed to apologize to her about that. "Pandora's fledglings are destined to try and fulfill their desires, but the things they desire will always end up corrupting. It's unfortunate, but... we're not meant to live so long. There has to be a price for that immortality. And that's theirs."

The lecture continued, and the leaders were surprised by how much participation occurred. He'd touched briefly on Iloquil's line, which, admittedly, he couldn't offer a lot of insight on due to how small her line was. Onyx even employed one of her bloodline in Alexander Darling, and though he had been absent from the lecture, his partner had not. Samantha was sure to report back to him with findings, despite not having found much. The two men may have to come to a gentlemen's agreement about what he'd say regarding Alexander and his fanged family.

When it was over, a few of the hunters stayed after to talk to Bacchus, and they all watched critically, judging the interactions to try and determine how they felt about all of this. When everyone had filtered out, Bacchus looked up to them.

"Well?" he asked.

Nobody said anything at first, but Astrid finally spoke. "It was good. Informative," she added. "I have to admit, I'm intensely curious - you only went over your bloodline and its breakaway, really. How much do you know about the other lines? I mean, you mentioned them, but there wasn't a lot there."

Bacchus walked up the steps to where they were slowly, speaking as he did. "It depends. Some of them are just hard to know - that one boy, Jared? His sire is fucking reclusive. She's very hard to get information on. I could probably try, but I'm persona non grata in some of my old social circles, so..." he trailed off, shrugging.

"What resources would you need?" Lucien asked.

"Well, I'd probably need to be a vampire again, for starters, and I'll be honest when I say that is the last thing I want. If I could never, ever feel that gnawing at my brain again to consume everything in sight, it would still be too soon."

"No kidding," Capri muttered. She felt the slight brush of Chase's hand against her back, and appreciated the woman letting her know non-verbally that she felt the same. Neither woman had positive experiences with the former vampire, and they weren't so keen on welcoming him into their space just yet.

"I know," he said. "I know, I know. It's a conversation that needs to be had, and we will have it," he promised. Just not now, were the unspoken words that hung between them. He glanced to Lucien. "But seriously, I'd need to talk to Aurora and Nicolette, get everything I have out on the table. It'll take a while, but if I can resurrect what I do know from the depths of my head, it would be easier to fill in the gaps rather than start from scratch.

Lucien nodded. "Do what you need to do."

Bacchus nodded. Lucien seemed to be a man of few words; he could appreciate it.

They stood in awkward silence for a moment, and then Astrid finally spoke. "Bacchus, walk with me. I've got some ideas for your next lecture." She lead him out the doors, and their voices carried down the hall, then faded as they went through another set of doors.

"Well," Chase said. "That was fucking weird." She passed her hand through her long blonde hair, and glanced to Connor, who no doubt shared similar feelings. The look on his face plainly said he did. Neither of them had missed the former vampire's mention of Aurora, either. So, apparently that was still happening.

"Did you get anything?" Connor asked.

She shook her head. "No. That's good, I guess - either that or he's gonna be a black spot because he's all defying the laws of nature and shit," she said, waving her hands around as she spoke. "I could test the theory, but I don't think I'll enjoy what I find."

Lucien regarded her critically, and then spoke. "That won't be necessary."

Connor held his hands up. "Wha - Lucien, come on. We need to know if he's planning something," he snapped.

The look Lucien gave Connor made Chase and Capricia both raise their eyebrows. "No," he said. "He's in my guild. My psychologist has cleared him, and right now he's with my wife discussing the next move. I can understand if you choose not to entertain him in your guildhouses, either of you," he said, glancing between both he and Capri, "but he is at Onyx, and he is with Onyx until I rescind that invitation. Leave him alone."

"Dude," Connor said, his tone clear that he was trying to appeal to Lucien's common sense.

"It's fine, Connor," Chase said, her tone gruff. "If that's what Lucien wants, then Lucien can take liability for it."

"Your concern is touching," he said dryly, his icy eyes flicking from Connor to Chase.

"WELL," Capricia said loudly, stepping physically into the middle of it. "I think it's time to go. Lucien, thanks for having us. A pleasure, as always," she said, her tone flat.

"Of course," he said, tone matching hers. "I trust you know the way out."

When they had gone, Lucien walked down the hall to where Astrid's office was, hands clasped behind his back. At least those three had waited until everyone had left before they questioned his decisions. Honestly, he didn't appreciate the lack of confidence they had in him - he understood that they'd had issues with Bacchus in the past, and that was fair, and he and the vampire had discussed that in particular when the prospect of onboarding him presented itself. He could appreciate their fervor in wanting to know if something awful was coming down the pipeline, but Lucien had experienced enough awful that he knew it when he saw it - and as it stood right now, Bacchus wasn't it. If he decided to be, well, it would be dealt with.

Ellisif had been gone for a very, very long time. However, just because she had been gone didn't mean that she didn't still know what was going on - most of the time, anyways. Living in Guangzhou made it difficult to keep up with current events where her brother was concerned, especially given his military activities and how hard they had been for her to access. She had to accept that some things she couldn't know about from the distance. So, of course, imagine her surprise when she got word that her brother had been blinded. She could get no details, only that it had occurred, and that he was currently living in New York somewhere.

Needless to say, Sif packed her bags and vacated the tiny apartment she lived in within a few days of that notification. She resisted the urge to reach out to Odin as she traveled, hesitant almost. The work she did wasn't good by any means, and of course, he'd ask her what she'd been doing. How could she tell him that she used her ability to blackmail people into ensuring she had a comfortable lifestyle away from Iceland? At least he can't see my hair, she thought to herself on the plane, accepting a cocktail that was offered to her in the dark of the cabin. She'd bleached her natural dark hair only a year or so ago, and she'd decided to keep it that way for a while. It gave a sort of trashy look that she enjoyed, and it often meant that people underestimated how smart she was.

And Sif was very smart.

So smart, in fact, that she'd managed to find out where Odin was staying. Not the exact apartment, but the building - and that was good enough. She got a hotel room for the night, not wanting to appear on his doorstep jetlagged and still on China time. She needed to sleep - and prior to that, a nightcap. Once her bags had been sent to her room and she'd changed from her sensible business attire to slightly more relaxed clothing, she went down to the bar area in the hotel, surprised to see that it was fairly populated for late evening on a Wednesday night.

She sat down towards the middle, finding it cliche to take an end - and besides, each end had already been occupied by some breed of brooding man, looking pensively down at a glass of dark liquor and simply begging for someone to ask them what their problem was so they could sell some sob story. Man, America hasn't changed at all, she mused, stirring the ice in her Midori sour. She took a small sip, sucking the sweet melon flavor off of an ice cube she'd caught in her mouth, and tried to observe more around her without looking too obvious.

A blonde was seated at a table with an older man, and Sif could tell just by the energy around him that he was something special. They talked, about what she didn't know, but she could see the woman grow frustrated more and more by what he said. She looked back to her glass as a slim man came to escort her out, with the old man shrugging and finishing his drink as though this was a daily occurrence.

After about twenty minutes, most of the bar had emptied out finally, leaving her alone in the center of the bar still, and couple off to her left speaking quietly. The man seemed familiar somehow; had she seen him in Asia? He had dark hair, and an even darker feel to him, despite his polite mannerisms, and almost flirtatious glances at the woman he was with. Was it a rule that everyone in the bar had to be stunning, somehow? Sif took that as her cue and drank the rest of her drink, setting it on the mat at the well on her path out. Weird place.

The next day, she decided not to check out, instead extending for another day - there was a chance, of course, that Odin wouldn't want to see her, but she doubted it. As mad as he'd be, he'd get over it. Sif was the grudge-bearer in their family, not him. As she walked through the apartment building, she removed a glove, brushing this or that, attempting to "find" him with her power. She got off on the wrong floor a few times, surprised finally to follow the little hints she got to the top floor. There were only a few penthouse apartments up here - had he come into money? She had sent him money when he was younger; wired it into a bank account their parents didn't know about so that he would have money to escape, but when he joined the military she hadn't considered what he'd done with it. Maybe he'd saved up a nice little nest egg. She couldn't even guess how much she'd sent; she always sent a large cut of what she'd made for her jobs - and she charged far above market value. Sif knew her worth, and she was well versed in public relations and international laws, what with all the time she had on her hands to read and take online courses.

She walked down the hall slowly, arm extended, two fingers brushing over the doors as she passed, trying to figure out which one was his. One door in particular gave her a jolt and she drew her arm back quickly, fingers curling into a fist. Fucking fae, she thought, rolling her eyes. Still, she could see the image of Odin walking into the door, a girl at his side. So he likes redheads, huh?. She smirked a little. Odin was all grown up, of course - she'd have to accept that he was and had been independent of their family for just under as long as she had. Still, it would be a little surprising if he was shacked up with said redhead, seeing as how she was a fae. Sif had done enough work to develop opinions about them and their strange blue and orange morality.

She continued walking, and finally found the apartment she was fairly certain was his. She knocked on the door, taking a moment to smooth her shirt down and push her hair behind her ear. She fully expected Odin to answer it, of course, so when someone else did, she couldn't help but look a little stunned.

"Hi," he said. He was tall, and large - wolf, she wagered. Still, his face was kind, and his eyes had a warmth to them that reminded Sif of her brother.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice clear and with no discernible accent. "I think I have the wrong door. I was looking for Odin?" She gave him her best smile, which lit up her pretty face quite nicely. That's it, she urged. Just tell me where I need to go, Chewy.

The man raised his brows, tilting his head. "Oh - Odin?" he repeated, sounding genuinely surprised. "No you're in the right place, he just didn't tell me he was expecting anyone. Please, though, come in," he offered, opening the door wider for her. As she entered, he turned his head, calling Odin from somewhere in the large apartment that Sif couldn't see.

She shrugged her coat off absently, almost automatically, handing it to the man who held a hand out for it, and ignoring him as he went to put it somewhere. This place was huge. Perhaps she'd grown too used to her tiny apartments in various cities in Asia to really appreciate the space that could be had with good real estate - it almost seemed too big. Still, he'd done well with decorating. It appeared lived in, at least - a few touches to the kitchen counter, the kitchen table, and then the back of the couch told her that this apartment was frequented by friends, and the energy among them was good - and strong.

"Hey, Shaun - you said someone was here for me?" Odin asked, coming from the darkness of a hallway. He had his hand on the edge of the wall, preparing to count steps in his head to where the couch was. "Can I help you?" he asked. It was still apparent he had no idea who she was.

Sif smiled. "Hæ, litli bróðir," she said, switching quickly to their mother tongue. "Saknaðir þú mín?" Hey, little brother. Did you miss me? Hopefully he still knew how to speak it.