Night's Omen

This was all getting so out of control so quickly.  Marius returned to his human form before he could do anything else stupid, and he hesitated when Autumn said that killing Raphael would kill her.  She begged him, and he didn't want to refuse her.

Raphael deserved to die, though.  He deserved it.  There had never been a soul that Marius had truly believed that about more than this monster.

Fortunately, Marius hadn't done anything else to potentially make things worse in the moments it took Elke to arrive and snag his arm, and he wasn't going to pull free of her out of respect.  He knew that her being small didn't mean a thing, and he knew that she had power behind her.  It was why he called her, besides the fact that he generally just knew that she would help him.  He had faith in her abilities, though finding that the two knew each other didn't exactly sit well with him.  Naturally, his first assumption most certainly wasn't that they were on friendly terms, a factor that Elke made clear when she said that Raphael had no business there, but he hadn't known about this.  Why hadn't Elke told him?

No matter.  He'd ask later.

It wasn't like he really cared enough right then to worry about it, anyway.  He'd refrained from attacking Raphael again merely because of the hesitation come of Autumn's pleading and then Elke's appearance.  She'd grabbed his arm, something she didn't usually do (or feel the need to), and it had gotten pause from him.  Hearing Raphael's reaction to Elke's appearance, hearing that he'd 'already dealt with her once', that was it.  It went from Elke appearing being best because she could help him to him feeling protective over her, which was exactly the last thing he needed to be doing right then.  He needed to be stopping and thinking, not trying to rush Raphael again and throwing power in that direction.

"FUCK.  YOU."

Nobody bad-mouthed Elke.  Nobody, not in front of him.

The air around Elke could have combusted if she'd been a Light Witch. She snarled at him - snarled, which was strange to witness, considering it was Elke doing the snarling. She pushed Marius back forcefully; it was possibly the most aggressive he'd ever seen her behave. She may have been 'good' in the theoretical sense of the word, but Elke still was a vampire, and she was a well-aged one at that, which meant she had plenty of power to spare.

"You'll find, Raphael, that things this time around won't quite go off without a hitch," she stated.

The bolt of energy she threw at him was stunning, really. If it could have been described, it was like electricity, or even lightning. She tapped into anger she rarely used, and that meant that it was potent and well-kept, like a good wine saved for just the right occasion.

Raphael perhaps had played his hand too boldly. He had not been expecting such a response from Elke, for it seemed as though she hid herself well among the younger vampires as far as power went. Suddenly it was all there, like a solar flare, and it hit him square in the mind, raking through the shields that he had drawn. He stumbled, using Narkisa in turn for support. He was too proud, however, to let his jaw slack at the unfortunate series of events, and instead sneered at her.

"It doesn't matter what you do, Adelaide. I've still won." He wrapped his arm tightly around Narkisa's waist, and before anyone could say or do anything in retaliation, vanished.

"DAMN," she spat. She was heated, and she wasn't feeling as benevolent as the attitude that usually became her. With a curled fist, she planted a small dent into the metal post of the tall streetlight above them, causing it to quake unsteadily. The light flickered, but remained on, and she rolled her eyes back as she tried to quell her temper.

Her head jerked to the small gathering at the doorway - Nikki, Drake, and Marius specifically. "Inside," she snapped. She knew the cats would do as she bid, but it was Marius that she had been speaking specifically to. Without another word, she went right for the door, and with the way she felt, they'd better have been following her, because she wasn't in the right mood for arguments at the moment.