Hail To the King, Baby [Otto, Matt, Stefan, Desten]

[Eliza Worthington]

Eliza sat at the front desk, trying to ignore Otto has he played with a zerg of the children that called Single Earth their home. Really, she wasn't a shifter, and she didn't want to be one, but the idea of just dropping your kid off because you couldn't handle the responsibility was... enraging. She didn't like kids, but she liked these kids. She didn't like that they liked Otto, because - well.

"So then, the King of Africa challenged me to a foot race across the Arctic.

She broke the tip of her pencil on the time sheet she'd been filling out when she heard the chorus of "OOOH" come from the room next to her, where about fifteen children between the ages of four and fourteen, all in their pajamas, were still awake listening to the story. They were all supposed to be asleep, but Otto's presence was like the fucking Pied Piper. They sensed him and all came rushing out of their rooms to swarm him.

She looked down at her phone, scanning through texts with her iridescent gold-purple polished thumb, and laughed when she saw a new one from Fiona.

Fiona: Dude. My mom just called me into the living room in the middle of the night to tell me that Lance and Laura Vida are bringing some strays in.

Eliza smirked and replied with, Strays, huh? Like the cats?

Fiona: No, like, people. Some guy and his brother.

'So are they hot?'

Fiona: NFI. Lance is, though. I'll let you know what's up when they get here.

'Pics and vid or ban, lol.'

The phone rang and scared the living shit out of her, so much so that when she grabbed it her hands were still shaking, and she damn near dropped it. She cleared her throat and flipped some of her long, blonde hair back, as though to reestablish herself.

"Thank you for calling Single Earth: Ramsa. This is Eliza, how can I help you?"

"Eliza, this is Ben Haven.  Someone from Onyx should be getting in touch with all of you about the crazy that is going down tonight, but I need to know if you've seen a vampire by the name of Stefan or Steven tonight?"

"Um, wait, what?" she asked, her voice raising. She sat forward and set her Blackberry down, ignoring for the moment Otto's loud singing and tribal drumming from the next room.

"Nobody from Onyx has called here, and I don't know what crazy shit you're talking about." She didn't answer his question about the vampire, because it was against the rules to just start telling people who called who was in house and who was out. Single Earth didn't fire people much, but that was a good way to get fired.

And in the background, "IN THE JUNGLE, THE MIGHTY JUNGLE, THE LEEE-MURR SLEEPS TONIGHT! AWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"

"Are you people having a party over there?"

Eliza groaned. "It's a long story," she said.

"Alright, listen to me, and listen quickly because there is no time.  Midnight is attacking the guilds and it's basically open season on whoever they want to attack at this point.  People are dying.  Onyx is supposed to contact both of your locations to try to arrange evacuation or defenses, so that's not my deal, but the vampire I'm talking about is a psychopath and a serial killer.  If he shows up there, you're all in danger, so I need to know now, have you heard from a blond vampire who goes by Stefan or some variation of that name?

Okay, whoa. "Um, what?" she asked, standing up so fast that she knocked the phone off of the counter. "Nobody from Onyx called here. What, were they just going to leave us to die?" she demanded. She grabbed her purse from under the desk and started shoving her stuff back into it as she talked to Ben.

"Yes," she finally said. "He goes by the name of Steven, but listen, he hasn't been here for weeks. I'm sure he's got better things to do than to -- "

She watched as Matthew Smoke hurried across the lobby with the vampire in tow, a long-legged blonde woman in his arms, crying and wailing incoherently. Eliza just stood there for a few seconds, mouth open, and then she blinked rapidly and put her attention back to the phone.

"I, uh, gotta go," she said. "I'll tell you if I see him."

She hung up the phone and grabbed her jacket, running into the room where Otto was. "Storytime's over, kids. We need to roll, right now. All of us."

At that exact moment, all fucking hell broke loose.