The Bleeding Rose Café

[Dreaming Alice]

Rani looks around and see many different people, she has to stop and wounder whats shes doing here, is there anywhere else she could go?Rani stops thinking like that and sighed it was so dull around here.  

[Rentetsu]

Slams hands on table."Damnit!! Its boring as hell in here I'm leaving" Stands up as if he about to leave because he's in anger from other thoughts"Good bye."  

[ninja of Persia]

Rentetsu

Rentetsu:"What was that....Blue orb?"
{He tracks the blue orb with eyes and sees it go back to the man he calls out to him}
Rentetsu:"What was that blue orb sir...."

THe orb opened it's mouth, but the voice came from the body it circled. "It is me and I am it. Through it I see without eyes and hear without ears. Most people call it astral projection." The orb vanished and Sabata opend his eyes. "My name is Sabata, and yours?"  

[ninja of Persia]

Sabata got tired of waiting for a reply, rose and left the building. "I'll see ya'll around." With that, he vanished.  

[Dreaming Alice]

Rani got up and walked out it was way to dead there so she would find somewhere else to go.  

[ninja of Persia]

A tall, lanky figure walked inside the bar, his mass of flaxon hair fell forward, almost obscuring the brown orbs of his eyes. He raised one hand, and brushed it away, almost unthinkingly. His sharp features and fondness for alcohol, which he immediately ordered upon sitting down suggested suggested he was that part of the world known as the Emerald Isle, a fact only enhanced by his accent. "Nothin' finer in all the world, than a good drink, a full belly, and a good laugh."  

[ninja of Persia]

About an hour, and a considerable amount of liquor, later, the Irishman rose, ordered another round of the drinks for the whole bar (his fourth time today) and grabbed a tankard. "I feel like singin' jus a lil somethin for yo'all." He took a deep drink from his cup, and began:

Of all the trades in England, a-beggin' is the best
For when a beggar's tired, You can lay him down to rest.
And a-begging I will go, a-begging I will go
And a-begging I will go, a-begging I will go

I got a pocket for me oatmeal, and another for me rye.
I got a bottle by me side to drink when I am dry.
And a-begging I will go, a-begging I will go
And a-begging I will go, a-begging I will go

A chorus of cheer erupted from the bar as he finished. The man bowed, ordered a bottle of "Somthin strong a' wet.", picked it up when it arrived and sauntered out of the bar. As he left he shouted back "Tell all ya friens' tha Welles is here now!"  

[Okimiyage]

The city was cold. A breeze drifted about the streets, a strange breeze, stirring up old and rotten thoughts, prompting collars to turn up and heads to turn down. The sky was grey, and the day had been plagued with inconstant rainfall; no sunset spread its rays across the city at the end of the day.
The sun's reign was shortened by season; by the time the employees of the Bleeding Rose had begun to shut the kitchen down, it was already dusk.
At the door, there was a knock.
The boy who stood there, umbrella-less in the drizzle, was not familiar to them. Had the employees of the Bleeding Rose been slightly better informed on subject of the city's 'night life', they would have recognized him as an individual on whom much gossip had centered some time ago.
The man who went to the door made the mistake of opening it a crack.
"Sorry, we're closi--"
"I'll only be a moment."
The boy's toe was suddenly jammed between door and threshold, and his hand thrust its way through the crack, and shadows fluttered inbetween his fingertips--there was a sound like the snap of a bird's wing--
The man, who did not deserve what was done to him, crumpled to the ground, and the boy stepped over the still-twitching body.

A few moments later, the restaurant was empty. The lights had been let out; the boy, the invader, sat at one of the fancy little wrought-iron tables near the window, with his hands propping up his chin. He stared straight ahead, and very purposefully did not look when he heard his name.
"Rynn Calais."
A man moved into view, and sat down.
He was very beautiful, and yet it was a beauty that had a wrongness to it. Although his face was smooth his eyes were old, and utterly black--so although it was possible to imagine that they might once have been blue or green, all color had been scoured from them by age and evil.
He had pale hair, rather long for a man but not quite to his shoulder; it was tied back from his face in a short ponytail, revealing a jawline sharper than a shard of glass, and beautifully drawn lips. They curled now, and he smiled. "You have yet to learn subtlety."
"Oh?" Rynn said carelessly, and he leaned back in his chair and looked up, finally--he gestured for the other to take a seat. "And how did you get in?"
"Through the back door."
"Maybe I like making a scene."
The seat was taken. Despite his exotic appearance, the man himself was not dressed to match. He wore a black coat, the collar turned up, and a long red scarf that was wrapped many times about his throat.
Each studied the other.
"You are not what I expected from your correspondance. I thought you would be--older." said Rynn, mildly. Testing the waters.
"I am." Abruptly, the man's tone--which was soft, almost velvety to the ears--took on an edge. "Let us not waste time baiting one another; assume that I have heard of your sentiments towards the Mayfair line, and I am inclined to favor them myself. I have a vested interest in the actions, particularly, of the girl who--rumour says--is your most hated enemy." The man cocked his head. Rynn had not moved; his face was utterly still, but something glittered in his eyes.
"It is true," he said quietly. "Since their heir apparent stole my brother--my only living relative--away from me, I find no good reason to pander to the whims of the greatest living witch brat in Mayfair City, no."
At this point, his companion burst into laughter. "I see your passion for the girl. Very well. I--as it should be apparent by now to you--have a proposition for you." Rynn gritted his teeth, and then stood. "You made that much clear in your letters. I want only to know exactly what will be required of me, now, in return for vengeance." His hands were shaking, and he slammed them down on the table to keep them still. His companion could catch traces of his thoughts without even trying. The only member of his family left, and she had the audacity to take Cian away--what's more, that he had left--the pair of them, traitors, both--
The man's black eyes gleamed.
"Come under my power. I will do the rest. I have--a vested interest, you see, in one of the vassals of Antha Mayfair. She has stolen family from us both."
Rynn was not interested in his companion's treacherous past with the Mayfairs. "I will. I shall--anything. What must I do?" he demanded. "--what is to be my part?"

Perhaps a half-hour later, Rynn left an empty table.  

[Okimiyage]

Quote:

They were at the cafe ten minutes later, nestled in the bustling quarter, seated quietly at the little wrought iron table on the patio, Antha sipping at her milk tea as Nicolae held a coffee in his hands, soaking up the warmth. "I don't like this," he muttered, staring into the impenetrable black depths as it caught the glow from the gas lamps on the street.
"Who's to say he'll even show up? He's not that fond of us, you know, and he has as little of a chance of killing us here as at Mayfair Manor. These complexes are crawling with too many ghosts, too much old magic, which we are intimately acquainted with."
"I don't see the point. Have you ever heard of two opposing forces having tea together and it ending well?"
"It is too late for your protests now, brother dearest. We are here, and what will be will be." And Nicolae did fall silent then, his barriers coming as tightly into place as Antha's, as they waited to see what was to come.

The fog was first to approach, before any other visitor. Thick, sweeping clouds of mist, colored yellow by the street-lamps, and bearing with it a lush scent of roses (and beneath that, the basenote of decay).
The night air was cool, and the mist left the cobblestones slick. There was no wind, but the fog rolled forth all the same; and in the gutters of the street, scratching and chittering could be heard from beneath the concrete--and this might have been ascribed to rats save for the remarkable resemblance that chittering bore to laughter. In the small ornamental bushes in front of the cafe, something could be seen to move, and stir the leaves.
Before a swathe of mist obscured it, a long and spidery arm could be briefly glimpsed to shoot up out of one of the gutters.
And then, quite suddenly, a space cleared away in the fog, a little corridor of clean air, and a silhouette formed itself beyond the veil of condensation. Rynn stepped out of the mist. He looked older, now--he might have been mistaken for Cian or even Aeric rather than the youngest of his brothers at this point, had he any left to which to compare himself. His eyes were sunken, the lids bruised from lack of sleep. Despite this, his clean, youthful features were as charming as ever, a crook of a smile curving his rosebud lips in a strangely cynical expression, one that had not been seen there before. He had a different...atmosphere. He had combed his hair back from his left temple, where a streak of white as pure as a dab of paint was highlighted, and his clothes--the sharp, perfectly tailored crease of the coat he wore, his gloves, silk tie and small golden spike of a tiepin--more than that, it was the completely natural way he wore these garments now, as though he was utterly at home in them. He moved smoothly as a shark through the fog, which parted before him like seas in certain religious texts.
Vikteren had come; there was not a chance of him being left behind, and he stood behind Antha's chair with his hands on the decorative hilts of its back. He had not taken his eyes off Rynn since he had appeared, nor blinked, and now his grip tightened on the iron briefly.

"Mayfairs," Rynn said, in lieu of a real greeting. He made a parody of a courtly bow to Antha. "I'd take my hat off if I had one. Congratulations on getting hitched. The whole city's talking about it...very intrigued by where you found your mysterious new beau, I hear. My benefactor also wishes for me to convey his best wishes and hopes for your continued matrimonial bliss."
Rynn took a spare seat from one of the other tables on the patio, and dragged it across the concrete, with an intentionally awful screeching noise, to sit down facing his opponents. "But let's be frank, now, there's not really much chance of that, is there? Witches don't get happy endings. Witches are the ones who get pushed into ovens or toppled off towers and then--then the rest of the world gets to enjoy happily-ever-after."
He pulled a cigarette case out of his breast pocket, a neat little shining thing of gold and silver. The cigarettes were cloves, black with a red stripe 'round the tip, and he lit up by holding the tip of his finger to the stick until it ignited.
"My employer has a proposition for you, Mrs. Mayfair."  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

For a while, neither of the Mayfairs reacted to the sickly fog, the flashes of things that would have terrified normal mortals. It wasn't until Rynn's dark figure appeared from it that Nicolae's eyes sharpened dangerously at the boy and Antha's hand went quietly to grasp her brother's, soothing him into inactivity.
Rynn looked dreadful, Antha thought. Worse, he looked so unnatural compared to the pretty boy she remembered, as if he were costumed for Halloween, that it was rather pitiable. Horrifying even, when she considered that underlying resemblance to her son, her beautiful little prodigy with her quick wit and a more self-restrained version of her ambition.

He could have been Rynn's child. Really, sometimes I think he must be. It wouldn't be the first secret Antha ever kept.
Sebastien, his fingers clutching the book that his gaze remained on though his attention had diverted, listened silently to the conversation that drifted with the speakers down the stairs of Mayfair Manor, sharp-tongued Eleanor and pretty Belle.
Do you remember him? From the night oncle Stefan died, when uncle Jack and uncle Vittorio dragged him in? Sebastien could almost be his twin. And daddy says he acts a little like him, too.
He was oncle Cian's brother, they have the same genes, Belle countered, her tone betraying how uncomfortable she felt with this conversation. She didn't like gossip the way Eleanor did, nor did she have anything but the fondest memories of her aunt Antha, and she loved oncle Cian who had joined their family when she was young enough not to think of him as an outsider. She even remembered, with the fuzziness of childhood, their wedding, when aunt Antha had truly been the most beautiful woman in the world and oncle Cian had looked at her so lovingly. It was a story Vanessa could never get enough of. Besides, you know what they say, aunt Antha and Rynn Calais were disturbingly similar. Sebastien takes after her, it's what everyone says, so really---
Don't be naive, Belle. Antha always had something up her sleeve, I admired her for it, but it left her legacy tangled and foggy.
Vanessa's fingers tightened angrily where they rested on his knee, her emerald eyes focused sharply on the staircase. Her little sketchbook was discarded in her lap, resting atop the satin skirts that made a circle around her on the carpet. Don't worry about them, she whispered quietly, knowing how her brother's cold rage surfaced with those old accusations.
Don't tell father, Sebastien murmured simply, refocusing on his book, It will only upset him. They were both sore subjects for Cian after all, both his deceased wife and his brother, and sometimes Vanessa's good intentions made messes. Sebastien blamed the fairytales some of their well-meaning relatives had spun for her, the way they cleaned up the stories. She had grown up in a fantasy world that only Sebastien's cynicism had spared him from. Well, that and oncle Courtland's whispered truths. Besides, it's too ridiculous to even mention. Ma mere and uncle Rynn--- He had never liked referring to that man as his uncle, and his tone showed it, but his father had raised him for fifteen years to call Rynn uncle. ---hated each other. The fact that anyone considers the idea that he could be our father only shows how idle our family has become since ma mere's days.

"Bon soir, monsieur Calais," Antha greeted Rynn politely, gesturing vaguely to the empty expanse of table across from her before he dragged a chair to it. "I am glad to see your manners are not so completely deteriorated that you can feign some hint of civility, even if your words do carry the taste of poison." And she sipped quietly on her tea for a moment, watching him, before setting the cup back upon the painted saucer. "Witches are as perfectly able to have happy endings as anyone, mon cher. No, it is people like us that are exempt from them. Human, witch, vampire, or whatever else, people with characters such as ours, ambitions and vices and morals as we have, are the ones fated to end up tragically."
"Perhaps you only think so because you share your well-deserved misery so well," Nicolae murmured, his gaze trained sharp and steadfast upon Rynn, and Antha knew it was not a good sign when her brother's usual character began to give way to something quieter, calmer, and more articulate such as this. "If my words are inappropriate, Evie," he said calmly, casting a sharp sidelong glance at her, "It's easily forgiveable. After all, Rynn is family now, your husband's brother, and I should be free to say what I want to family." He said it with a stronger poison than Rynn, and a spiteful grin to the boy because he knew as Antha knew that Rynn wanted no part of their family, legal or otherwise. Only Antha could really tell the whisper of an undertone, the pain and the promise of a storm to come when they were alone to talk.
"A proposition, you say?" Antha continued in a quick, seamless change of subject, her tone light enough to keep the atmosphere from tensing any further, "Well, I'm afraid if it has anything to do with poison, dismemberment, or any sort of impalement in general, I must go ahead and decline. Beyond that, you're welcome to offer whatever proposition he might have." And she took another sip of her tea, gaze never wavering, before the sudden words came casually from her painted lips. "I am surprised you don't inquire after your brother. Even if you did abandon him entirely, even attack him, one would think you would hope to hear of some misery on his behalf. It rings rather of heartlessness where I thought there to be something more like scorn or resentment." And she hmm'd as if it were a curious thing, worth some small consideration and then forgotten.
 

[Okimiyage]

Rynn's eyes flashed briefly--there was still something of the witch-child in him, no matter that he now styled himself as an adult, and he had never taken kindly to mockery. It was a strange echo of the slim, unusually polite boy who had come to the Talamasca so long ago, when the burning desire to save his family had still been etched into his pupils. He resisted the urge to snap down on Antha's baited lure, and be drawn into the debate of whether it was her witchcraft or her character which endangered her the most. "Don't worry," he answered, and it was a credit to Rynn that he could now honey his tongue to the point that you could hardly taste the venom, "You needn't fear poison, impalement, or even conflagration. I do not represent myself in this matter. As for the one who sent me here--well--" and he laughed, a dry little chuckle that had absolutely no humor in it. "--I'm afraid you imagine yourself to be of much greater importance to him than you really are. My benefactor really has no interest in your imminent demise. As for my brother..."
No matter how his acting talents had developed, Rynn was unable to conceal the split-second of a sneer that flashed across his face, twisting his cupid's-bow lips, as he leaned back into his chair, and crossed his arms across his chest. A heraldic band of gold glinted on his finger as he tapped it in irritation against his sleeve. He was wearing a crest ring--the tarnished labyrinth of Llyr's Court stamped into silver--and something else beneath it. A thin, blackened band, twisted and sharp enough to scrape the skin raw and red under the metal thorns.
"I have no idea of whom you speak. Cian Calais is no more, after all. Your clan took him in, fed and clothed him, and accepted him amongst your ranks. He is a Mayfair in thought and deed now, if not by birth, and much good may he do you." Rynn's tense shoulders belied the casual tone of his voice--but by now, he had quelled his emotions and managed to take up a pleasant fascimile of a smile. "I consider myself the sole heir to the Calais name now, as well as the heaping pile of rubble and corpses that Llyr's Court always was meant to be. If the man who was once my brother cares to fight me for it, I will kill him." It was the utter tonelessness with which this was stated that was bone-chilling. There was no rage, no passion, simple dismissal. Cian was less powerful than Rynn, and in a duel to the death, he had no chance of survival. Rynn took another drag of his cigarette, still smouldering carelessly in-between his fingertips. "But I doubt he will. You married a coward, Antha, dear sister-in-law. I know all his faults." It was almost a relief to hear the old flippancy in his voice.
"You have no right to refer to her so casually, if you have truly disinherited your brother." Vikteren remarked, in what seemed like idle observation until one bothered to glance at his eyes. His pupils were pinpricks of black in emerald. He had not taken his eyes off Rynn once since the man had sat down. It was the stare of a cat who had caught sight of prey--darting, entertaining prey, amusing enough to watch for now, but prey none-the-less. Rynn had threatened Antha's life, once. She may be willing to meet with him now, secure enough in her own power to face any risk, but Vikteren was not one to forget so easily. "May we skip the pleasantries and be down to business, and whatever proposal that my sire has dreamed up?"
The man across from them laughed, and laid his lit cigarette on the table. In the fog, behind him, an eerie groan resounded--that of of twisting metal, strangely warped and amplified by the mist--and then silence fell once more.
"I was waiting for that. He said you'd be impatient."
Subtle trails of smoke had begun to waft from his cigarette, but it did not burn further. Yet it produced more and more smoke, until it became quite evident that the smoke was creating forms. Letters--thin, spidery wisps that hardly could be discerned, and yet the message was imprinted clearly in the mind of whosoever viewed it.

It is said amongst the rats
who live within your walls
that you come today to make war
out of love for my long-lost child.
It is said amongst the spiders
who spin webs beneath your bed
that you have recently become a wife,
and are soon to become a mother.
Imagine, as a mother
how it must feel to be separated from your child
to be torn from their side for centuries
without ever a chance to know them.
You are not my enemy.
I have no wish to spar with you over petty affairs.
This is my proposal:
In the city at this time, gaining power
there grows a greater threat.
A dissolute force which seeks to swallow
any entity of significant import.
I am sure you are aware
it intends you as its finest meal yet.
I am another who has been threatened.
I propose a combining of efforts
to eradicate this entity.
In turn, I ask a chance
to persuade my prodigal child
of the benefits of fidelity.
Yrs. sincerely
Cyrus  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Amongst the two Mayfairs present, it was surprising to the younger that her brother was the one to respond to Rynn's words before she even had the chance. "Your brother is taking responsibility. Responsibility for his children, his blood. He may be many disagreeable things, and I may not like him---and believe me, I really don't---but unlike you, I'm not going to begrudge him his honorable actions. Yes, he joined our family. That was unavoidable, his blood is joined with ours now. What would you have had him do, abandon his children and lurk in the shadows with you, puppet to a cruel master that drives any of his subjects with any sense as far away as they can run?" He gestured briefly to Vikteren for emphasis, giving the smallest, most pitying laugh. "As I said, I don't like Cian. But I respect him, because he deserves that, but you Rynn? Rats are more worthy of respect. You're a dishonorable coward, a fool that brought your family to fiery ruins with your own ill-conceived plots, and no matter how you put on the airs of an adult you are just a petty child and will never be anything more."
"That's enough," Antha interjected quietly, and her brother only barely bit his tongue. There was fire in his eyes, outrage like she had never seen, and she feared to let it escalate any further. "Mon cheri, be a dear and get me another cup of tea, won't you please?"
Grudgingly, his eyes trained sharply on Rynn, the vampire rose violently, snatching her teacup up in his hands and making his way angrily into the shop, the door slamming behind him.
"My brother may never forgive you your actions," Antha sighed softly, leaning back in her seat, "But you are none of my concern anymore Rynn, not if I do not make you so, and I don't forget that. Neither is your 'benefactor'. His fledgling has a mind of his own, if he wants to return to him then so be it. But if he doesn't, no one is going to force him to and I'm going to make sure of it."
Behind her, the door slammed again, the bell above it clattering in a frenzy as Nicolae put her cup of tea before her and dropped angrily back into his chair, his eyes still fixed dangerously on Rynn. "As for our common threat," the girl continued calmly, taking up her teacup, "Cyrus does well to fear him. Nero is no force to be trifled with."
"Nero?" Nicolae hissed at her, "Is that his name?"
"A name erased from the tomes of history when his children forced him to sleep. It barely survived the ages, as did his legacy. The mad king that continually resurfaced in human history to wreak havoc. They say he is the original."
"The original?" Her brother's eyes spoke of suspicion. "The original vampire?"
"Whether he is or not, he is certainly the oldest remaining vampire. And the most knowledgeable, despite his madness. And to our misfortune, the most superstitious. He killed our kind in the old days, when witches had the power of gods. He has ideas about people like us, he thinks he knows what we are."
"Everyone knows what we---"
"Not you and I, Nicolae, not our family. Monsieur Calais and myself." Her eyes were focused oddly on Rynn, her countenance unusually serious. "I'm going to give you a little advice Rynn, because I swore to your brother I would not be your death if I could help it. My existence was what woke Nero from a very long sleep, what draws him here from halfway across the world, and your benefactor may do well to fear him, but the danger is much more yours than his. Nero cares very little for his children that cause him no trouble, but you and I speak to his ancient fears. The rest of the witches in this city he does not even consider deserving of the word, they are nothing compared to the witches of his day. But back then, it was believed that twins shared between them a single soul, and that if one were to die the surviving twin, with half of their soul in the land of the living and half in the realm of the dead, would become a demigod. He believes that in this day and age, with the old beliefs forgotten and twins more distant from one another than back then, most of them are harmless. But you and your twin shared a bond as in the days of old, and he knows this because I know it. As far as he is concerned, your twin's death made you as much an abomination as I, the witch of twice cursed blood whose twin brother died mere hours after our birth. If he has his way, you will die as miserably as I for the same offenses."
"Do your secrets ever end, Evie?" Nicolae groaned, a hand to his temple, "Regardless, how do you propose to kill the original vampire?"
"I don't," Antha responded simply, very sure of the lightly spoken words, "The first rule of political warfare is know your enemy, and what will happen if they are disposed of. If Nero is the original, the first, the nexus of vampire blood, there is no telling what chaos would follow his death. The death of every vampire, and thereby every witch in this world is a distinct possibility. Therefore the only solution is the same as the one his children came up with so long ago---put him to sleep."
"Do you know how?"
"If I did, do you think I would bother even mentioning this delicate predicament? No, I have my reasons for divulging. It is generally believed to be folly for a witch to surrender so much of their power to the dead for as long as you did, Rynn. But then, if you and Cyrus wish to rid yourself of the threat of Nero, you have a very distinct advantage. If there is magic to put him down as they did before, the knowledge of it is to be found with the dead. The very long dead, at that, witches and vampires that have existed in the realm of the dead so long that they have been completely forgotten by those in the land of the living, that they themselves have forgotten everything but their magic and their festering hatred. And I just so happen to know where they are to be found."
Despite himself, despite the situation and everything that went with it, Nicolae couldn't help but laugh, because he knew exactly what she meant and the irony was far from lost on him.
Ignoring the interruption, Antha's steady gaze remained on Rynn and there was an unusual lack of taunting in her eyes, a seriousness that betrayed the glimmer of sanity in her usually crazed mind. "My life is forfeit either way, it is an inevitability I have long since accepted. Rather like a sacrifice. But I would rather face my death knowing Nero will be put back where he belongs, asleep deep within the earth. It's your life that's on the line here Rynn, and perhaps Cyrus's too. You can agree to a truce, at least until we figure out a solution, or you can play the spiteful child as you always have and you can have a shallow grave beside mine. And as for Cyrus..." A shadow of a smirk touched her lips, that old familiar glimmer in her eyes. "He really has no sense of good sportsmanship. I don't take proposals through puppets or parlor tricks. If he truly wishes to collaborate, he can do it in person or not at all."
For his part, all Nicolae said as he settled languidly in the back of his chair was an exasperated, "I never should have taught you to play with fire. God help our whole damn family if Sebastien and Vanessa are half the stubborn lunatics their mother is."
"Oh, there's no help for that. Sebastien will be every bit my prodigy, and Vanessa will be every bit the faithful, adoring sister I am. But whatever would you do without a stubborn lunatic keeping you on your toes?"
"Ah, there's your brother's eternal punishment for joining our family, Rynn. He has to spend his life raising two miniatures of the brat princess. God knows it drove Julien over the edge, and Cian gets two of them."  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn said nothing at all, nothing until Nicolae had been commanded to abandon the field--only watched him with a strangely tender smile flickering at the corners of his lips, holding back peals of soft laughter.
When Nicolae had disappeared inside, Rynn picked up his cigarette again. The exhaled smoke formed no words this time, only rings. "It's funny to me that I should be lectured on immaturity by someone without the capacity to hold his tongue for the sake of diplomacy." Leaning back, he stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette on the rim of his wrought-iron seat.
"And I am here as a diplomat, Princess Mayfair. No more, no less. I have very little desire to speak on the subject of my estranged…brother; the fault of my family's destruction is of little or no relation to this matter. The immortal that I serve is of a much more cautious mind than that of a Mayfair heir in her own city. In my opinion, he would be a fool to engage you on your own turf should negotiations between these two factions sour--and while you could easily kill his pawn here and start a war, should it be to your whim, I think it would upset your blushing beau far, far too much."
There was a pause, while Rynn's eyes looked at something very, very far away--something that perhaps did not even exist outside his own head, and muttered just loud enough to be heard:
"The sentimental a**."
"But I will tell you this--for your own good--if you reject this offer simply because you do not like the way it was delivered to you, you will be a suicidal moron. And you will leave one more enemy--one more untraceable threat, one more unknowable power--out there for your children to fear. They already have more than their fair share on your behalf." His eyes were glittering, like the sharp edge of an iron sword, brilliant and hard. "Which adversary will it be, I wonder, who slips past your defenses? You'd love so to think that you are impenetrable--" he laughed at this, a harsh choking bark. "--well, everyone thought the Titanic was unsinkable, too."
He sat back, crossing his arms; the vile thorn on his finger glimmered and winked as he moved. More softly, he continued: "I'd encourage you to not to make up your mind so hastily in this matter. There are some things worth fighting for. Your vampire's pride is not worth rejecting such a magnanimous offer. You would have a small army with which to sweep through this city, and all of the masterful allies this force entails. We could avoid all 'unnecessary' bloodshed." The witch across the table regarded her levelly; something brushed up against her mind with the scent of sage--"You've already been marked for death. But what happens afterwards? What do you die for? You should leave behind a better legacy than this…kamikaze mission you've decided to embark upon."
Vikteren, who had been motionless, stirred. His voice was a deep growl in the back of his throat. "You ask Antha to give up her claim over that-which-binds, but I do not believe Cyrus has changed so much as to deem such a simple reward worthy of such expenditure. And you, yourself, have double-crossed this faction once before." Slowly, his steps deliberate and noiseless as a stalking cat, Vikteren stepped around the side of the table towards Rynn. His shoulders moved beneath the thin fabric of his shirt as he took hold of the table's rim and leaned towards the boy, his eyes brilliant. "Let me tell you what will happen, after Cyrus has his 'simple thing'. He will not be satisfied. And when Antha passes beyond the veil, he will believe the city left with no fit guardian, and will do his damnedest to take it from whatever forces are left behind. You truly believe him when he says he will make you his most trusted general, his favored student, he will teach you every forgotten, blackened rune hidden away in the crevices of his withered heart?" His voice dropped into a hiss. "I would weep for you if I did not believe you to be deserving of every betrayal he will inflict upon you. He may treat you as his favored lapdog now, but I warn you--his grace is as brief as it is sweet."
Rynn was passive, his face a careful mask. With a long scrape of metal, he pushed his chair back across the concrete, and rose. "I would not have expected such a gross breach of decorum from you, Vikky. Antha and her blood, perhaps, but Cyrus has always spoken so highly of your manners." Icily, he turned to Antha, his tone snappish now. "Are we done here? You have rejected this more-than-generous appeal to sanity with as much crudity as you can muster, or would you like to throw dirt clods at my back as I depart as well?"
Vikteren leaned back, and thought towards Antha, disgruntedly: Don't tempt me, gods.
In the fog, metal bent with a howl of protest; something clanged loudly, and a great gust of fog moved out and across the cobblestones, playing about the laces of Rynn's expensive shoes.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

As the wind howled and the metal creaked, as Nicolae's eyes sharpened and his muscles tensed, preparing for something, anything, and Vikteren's words rang like cracking ice through the air, Antha sat silent and still, her arms crossed thoughtfully and her gaze settled distantly upon the wrought iron tabletop, as if whatever she saw was nothing set before her. It worried Nicolae, her shields were up far too high even for this meeting, too tightly in place, stronger than steel. But she could not hide this secret completely, because the voice that whispered to her left a trace outside of her barriers, flickering words suspended in the air around her like a miasma, a poisonous fog. And suddenly, watching this, Nicolae was really and truly angry. It was one thing to run the risk of this dangerous dance with Rynn and Cyrus. It was quite another entirely---a different world, a separate dimension---to take much greater risks to help him, to suffer the consequences even as she sat there just for suggesting it, for offering the help he didn't want.
He was shushed even before the words left his mouth, with a small gesture of Antha's fingers which only a vampire would notice had trembled the faintest bit. "You truly must be the greatest fool that ever lived, Rynn Calais," the girl murmured at long last, her voice very even, thoughtful, "Or else a death seeker. I would not be surprised by either, really." Briefly her gaze flickered to Vikteren, begged him for silence, to be calm. "I want you to listen to me for a few moments, Rynn. Or more accurately, I want you to hear me, because you never seem to truly hear anything but what you wish to. If Cyrus really wanted a truce, an alliance, whatever it is he is proposing, he would not have sent you. One does not send an emissary that craves the opposite of what he proposes, and deep down inside you want a war, Rynn. And even if he had come himself, he proposes terms that would be unacceptable even if they were mine to grant. I do not know how he views Vikteren, what he thinks him to be, but he is quite able to decide what he wants to do on his own. Whatever Cyrus did to him, I've heard enough to know that it was psychotically horrific, to phrase it lightly, and if he expects anyone to come back to him after that then he is a fool as well. But that has nothing to do with me. If he wants to be rid of Nero, fine, I shall hear him out, but I do not trust him for the faintest trace of a second, I have no reason to, only reasons why he should be driven back from the city. That is my business. And despite every rational thought in my head, you are my business. There's really no explaining why I have any hint of affection left for you, I've never trusted you to begin with and you've never failed to uphold your high standard of untrustworthiness, you've never been anything but needlessly, unrelentingly rude, you tried to kill me when I tried to help you, and you spurned my hospitality for your wildly inappropriate amount of pride. God knows it isn't because of your brother, not after how you've come to treat him. And yet the fact is it's there, and for reasons I don't even pretend to understand I want to help you. Nero will kill you, Rynn. That is no idle fear or warning, it is a very real fact. Cyrus will not save you, I'm not one to say whether or not he would put forth the effort but either way, he can't save you from Nero, and you can't save yourself with what little you have at your disposal now. So here is what everything comes down to: you can be a stubborn child and die alongside me when Nero comes, or you can accept for just one moment that you need me and we can find the magic to be rid of him again. And really, think of it, isn't that what you want? This is magic from the time of the old gods, magic dredged up from the depths of hell, and I'm willing to hand it over to you just like that, no strings attached, all you have to do is suffer me long enough for us to get our hands on it. If Cyrus wants his part in this grand mess then fine, I won't turn away help, and any rational person knows that if you want someone back, you start by making amends. So, if any of that got through your thick head, think about it. If you decide to help, meet me at Satis House tomorrow night. And if Cyrus has anything to say to my proposal...well, I daresay he knows how to find me. I'd rather like to meet him, actually. Conversations made through you are utterly fruitless."
Antha rose then in a fluid, graceful series of motions, endlessly calm, and Nicolae tensely followed suit, stepping quickly after her as she made to leave. But at the last moment she stopped, standing beside Rynn not a foot away, turning her head to cast a sharp glance at him. "Oh, and Rynn---" Before one could blink, the world went gray. The flowers in the boxes hung from the gate, the dark green awnings of the little shop, the deep blue sky, everything was suddenly gray, the wind and fog vanished along with everyone else in the entire world. It was only Antha and Rynn in this colorless world, as still as a photograph. "Do not underestimate me for even the briefest moment. You haven't even begun to scratch the surface of all the secrets I've buried, and you would have to know all of them to even begin to guess at what I really am. You told me once that we were the same, both monsters, but you have no idea how much of a monster I really am. Do you think the original vampire wakes himself up for fear of nothing more than a witch?" And she paused just long enough to laugh pityingly, shaking her head for a moment before her sharp gaze cut at him again. "I was born to be the most powerful of them all, it was planned for hundreds of years before my birth, and my life has been nothing but an endless succession of magic to make myself all the more powerful, whether I like it or not. You might be a great witch some day, Rynn. You have the potential for it buried in your blood, your cruel, selfish little soul, but you are nothing right now." She stood closer then, as if she had never been further than a breath's width from him, her lips beside his ear just long enough to whisper, "Sentimentality is a tragedy, really. Without it, there would never be a soul in the world I would even think to fear. But as it is, I shall die rather than give up my last thin shred of humanity, the last miserable inch of my wretched heart. There is still some hope for you to be more than the second rate witch you are now, Rynn, but even if he wanted to, a vampire will never be able to give you that. No matter what you think of me, feel towards me, you're never going to be half what you could be without me, above all other witches."
Just as suddenly as the world had faded, it sprang back into life and Antha was walking away from Rynn, through the gates as she made a gesture that brought the nearby buildings to creaking and groaning, the trees down the street bending as if they might snap and the clouds above racing unnaturally through the sky as the fog was pressed back, away from Antha. "Just something to think about," she called airily back to him as she began down the sidewalk, sparing the smallest wave in parting, "Hope to see you tomorrow, mon ami."
Nicolae, his eyes staring incredulously at where she had been, uncomprehending of the magic he knew had just taken place but had not seen, went chasing after her, sparing Rynn brief, sharp glances over his shoulder as they went and watching the fog just barely kept at bay the rest of the time. He didn't trust one bit of this, not even Antha.