ѶдЯȻᾀɪȠҿҊ βɑɽ✚ɪℵℵ Walk-in's Welcome

[Vanity Varcainen]

outfit

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,

Vanity smiled at her reaction. Apparently, she had hit the nail on her head with her comment. She shrugged her bare, slender shoulders. "I'm a woman." she said, simply, giving the pretty woman a playful, impish wink. She was quiet while the elf spoke about the man she loved. "He sounds noble." she said softly, resting her pretty and deceptively innocent face on her closed fists. "But, Earane, you cannot spend your time mourning over lost love. If I did... well- let's just say there'd be a lot to cry about." Vanity laughed, trying to keep her spirit and the elf's spirit light.

"If you two were meant to be, than take solace in that he's out there- looking for you." she said, pushing herself up from the bar counter and simply resting her hands on the wooden counter. "...and if he did give his life in battle, than honor him by living your life happily, the way he would want you to." she added, pulling her long, soft hair over her left shoulder and running her dainty fingers through her styled curls.

Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned

[Nikolai Crowe]

Nikolai Crowe

Nikolai couldn't help but notice as Vanity eyed him as he chatted with Kai. Earane seemed pretty upset and although he wasn't trying to overhear, he could tell it wasn't a conversation he'd want to join uninvited. Well, maybe a little.

Kai sure cut to the heart of the issue, and he couldn't help but laugh at her question a little bit. "Rumors mostly, I wasn't really sure what I was going to find out here. Originally, I was just looking for what most humans find when they encounter, well you know." He leaned toward her a bit and whispered in a pseudo-mysterious voice, "The truth." He sat back in his chair and poured himself a little more before continuing. "I hafta admit, once you find it, it leaves you wondering why you questioned it in the first place." He wouldn't go into reasons why, he didn't want to make the conversation any more uncomfortable. After all, she didn't know her kind essentially put him in this chair.

[Kallistiae]

Kai tipped her head back as Nikolai spoke, taking a deep swig from her drink, emptying it of whatever mystery liquor the man had poured for her. Golden eyes slid closed for a moment as she felt it burn its way down her throat to pool, warm and heavy in the pit of her stomach, threading through her veins in a soft line of comforting fire.
Her ears were too good to not hear the conversation going on only a few bar stools away, and though she didnt react to it, and did her best to keep her nose out of it as well, it still made something behind her eyes cringe.
It seemed all the women had lost loved ones. But Vanity was right.
Once you started crying about them...you'd never stop.

The glass set back on the counter with a gentle clink as she gave a small little nod, eyes a little absent for a moment before they focused back on him, a wry little grin flickering around the corners of her lips.
"The Truth, huh?" Something in the back of her mind told her she was missing a very obvious puzzle piece. "What was it that made you want to seek ' the truth '."
She should have put it together faster, and she might have if she'd stopped to think.
After all, most people that survived an Attack from any of the species just a little higher up the food chain than humans came back damaged and looking for answers. And they were the lucky ones.
But it didnt click, before the question escaped her lips, that there might be a connection between the mans chair, and the reason his reason for being here.
She hadnt known him before the chair - therefore, the two of them existed in her mind as one whole creature, and once registered it became strange to think of them as separate.
Like trying to think of herself as anything but wolf-kind. It was possible, just not immediately obvious.

[Nikolai Crowe]

Nikolai Crowe

Nikolai was kind of hoping she wouldn't have asked. Before coming here, he'd literally sworn to himself that he'd have his revenge on the things that caused him to be where he was. But he wasn't about to displace his hate onto a girl, werewolf as she may be, she didn't personally murder his team and try to maim him. He sipped the drink some more, and it was going quickly.

He refilled it and topped off Kai's, sighing a little as he recounted the story in his head. "Well until now, I wasn't really sure what happened. But it seems that our government sent me to my death in some sort of genetic labratory." He finished his drink in one big gulp, shaking his head feigning disinterest. "You don't wanna hear this." He hoped she didn't.

[Vanity Varcainen]

outfit

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,

She smiled, sliding the rest of the bottle of jack towards Earane. She sighed softly. "You can finish that." she said softly. She was tired from her day, and if she could save this glow until tomorrow, she would really enjoy that. She stepped out from around the bar. "Have a good night, Earane." she said sweetly before making her way towards the archway of the bar leading out into the lobby. She paused a moment to watch Nikolai and his company. "You two have a good night." she purred, her golden eyes focused on Nikolai, working their bewitching magic for the moment she watched the man in the wheelchair.

Her powers of seduction would be even stronger and more alluring tonight than they've been in a long time, but she didn't linger to let them go to work, just enough to make the human think about it. Perhaps she was just playing, or maybe his long, black hair reminded her of Spider. She sauntered away, her hour glass body swaying from one side to the other hypnotically as she exited.

She ascended up the staircase, pulling her key from they pocket of her thigh leather miniskirt and using it to open her bedroom doors. The vampiress slipped inside her room and closed to doors behind her. She locked it and placed her key on her dresser before taking the ring Adenn had given her from her pocket, placing it on the dresser at well. She literally had to peel her tight clothing off of her body before being able to crawl into her bed, letting the satin sheets rub up against her soft nude body. Nothing helped her fall asleep faster... well- almost nothing.

Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned

[Kallistiae]

Kai took another long sip from her drink, too small to be considered a gulp, but certainly too deep of a drink to be quite lady-like. She seemed to catch herself in the middle of the gesture, and gave a little glance around, as if someone were liable to jump out from behind a corner and shout 'aha, gotcha!'.
When no one did, she took another drink, but this time at least it was a little more manageable.

Her mouth made a small little 'oh' of understanding as a few things clicked into place, and she nodded.
Ex-military, then, and a survivor of an attack. She didnt know what had put him in that chair, but whatever it was...
Genetic Laboratories rarely hold things of a cute and cuddly nature.
It had probably been bad, whatever it was.
"Im sorry." she said softly, having the decency to look a little embarrassed. "I didnt mean to pry."
'You dont wanna hear this.' was universal guy talk for 'I dont wanna tell you this.'
Kai was fluent in man-speak, and thus she dropped the topic like a hot stone.

She was silent for a moment as she sipped her drink, searching for something else to talk about that wouldnt hit on old wounds. Er. so to speak.
Luckily, Vanity provided that topic for her, without ever meaning to.
The little wolf knew the power of a vampires easy seduction maybe just a little too well, and the faint purr in their hostess' voice, the way her ruby lips formed the words of her goodnight, the way her eyes lingered heavy and a shade too warm for a creature so cold blooded on the man nearby were not lost on Kai.
Her head tilted to the side ever so faintly as she watched Vanity walk away, hips swaying entrancingly beneath her skirt, before she turned back to Nikolai.

The little wolf said nothing, but the corners of her lips twitched in the faintest hint of a teasing grin, her eye brows arching at the man as if both to tease him about the woman's attentions and simultaneously say 'daaaaamn'.

[Nikolai Crowe]

Nikolai Crowe

Nikolai finished his glass and set it up on the counter. He didn't much care for this subject especially when he thought he might make things a bit awkward. Awkward was not something he figured werewolves enjoyed very much, no more than humans, anyways. Luckily, he was right and Kai made no further mention of it.

His attention turned, almost automatically, toward Vanity as she stepped out into the lobby. He managed a "Good night...", just before she stepped away. Nikolai's vision lingered on the space Vanity had been previously standing, for awhile after she'd been gone. It was as if he could feel her calling him upstairs, it was almost supernatural. Oh, wow. She's good. It was definitely supernatural. Looking over to Kai he saw their thoughts fell in line. Nikolai backed out from around the bar and pushed himself up next to Kai. "I know right? You know, I thought I was gonna wake up with my throat missing the first night." He chuckled a little bit, "Lucky me, I'm good with a shotgun and I was in the right place at the right time.

Nikolai couldn't help noticing Kai in this light, in her makeshift bedsheet dress. With a head full of liquor and the thoughts he was now convinced Vanity had planted in his head, none of them good, he decided it was best he head to bed. "I need to get some sleep", he said somewhat hurriedly to her, trying not to stare. "Good night, Kai."

As usual, he'd push himself over to the elevator, riding it upstairs. He'd enter his room and undress, laying his pistol on the nearby nightstand, just in case. Sleep would come very easy tonight.

[Kallistiae]

Kai laughed, a soft easy sound as the man beat a hasty retreat to his room for the night, leaving her grinning and amused at the bar counter as she finished off her drink, and the rest of the russians', too.
Poor man.
No doubt the heat and suggestion in that stare was enough to make him more than just a little...uncomfortable for a while.
She had to resist the urge to laugh again, but there was no mockery in it.
After all, she wasnt exactly one to talk, was she?
They had yet to see the kind of company she kept. Suffice it to say she knew the weight of a gaze like that, very well.

She finished the drink she'd been nursing, downing the last of it quickly before she stood as well, taking the glasses back to the sink and putting the bottle away.
Golden eyes glanced at the little elf woman who still remained, and they softened for a moment.
There was a heart beat of hesitation as Kai walked past her, before the little wolf reached out and laid a warm hand on Earane's shoulder.
She didnt have any words to say that might comfort the woman - Kai wasnt..very good at comforting - but there was a sympathetic sort of friend ship in the weight of her hand, and the implication of a shared pain in the way that she stopped at the girls side for just a moment.
"Goodnight." was all she managed to say, before she too headed up to her room.

Once in her room, she stripped out of the thin sheet she had been wearing, bare to the cold night air that teased the curtains at her window as she curled up in her bed, one pistol tucked under her pillow and the other within easy grabbing distance on the nightstand, her fingers stretched out to brush to cold metal softly as her eyes closed.
Tomorrow she would go into town and collect the package she had requested this morning.
For now, though - sleep.

[Kallistiae]

The following day found Kai not in the building at all, but in the closest down with a respectable bank that she'd been able to find.
God only knows when she had left, or what on earth she had been wearing, but it hadn't been too hard to hitch a ride from a passing trucker out on the main road, once she'd hidden her guns from sight. Truckers dont usually pick up heavily armed hitchikers.
A quick stop in the local bank and a few bemused stares from the tellers later, and she was walking away with a brand new little strip of plastic that would be more than enough to provide her with some pants.
A few years ago, the thought of accepting what she still considered to be inordinately large gifts of money would have made her shift uncomfortably from foot to foot. Now, though she still had some residual reservations about the whole process, it was with a relatively worry free mind that she hit the first store she could find that looked like they carried clothing.
The sales ladies took one look at the bedsheet she had wrapped around her like some kind of makeshift toga and there was a moment where she had to explain that no, she wasnt looking for the women's shelter and yes she did have money, before she was allowed to begin browsing. Though she felt the weight of the shopgirls suspicious eyes on her the whole time.

The clerks seemed nervous to let her into the changing room - even more so once a careless step let the bedsheet fall open at her hip, betraying the telling gleam of gunmetal - so the little lycan was forced to guess at the sizes, and all but tossed back onto the street before she could even ask to change out of the bed-sheet. She grumbled a little as the door smacked closed behind her, the little bell chime tinkling angrily as it shooed her away, and she paused only to push her tangle of white hair out of her eyes before she headed back towards the main road.
The bags werent heavy - well, the might have been, but when you can bench press at a lycans strength level, its not really that much of an issue - but the were unwieldy. Twine handles dug painfully into her wrists, the cheap department store paper bags threatening to buckle under the weight of their contents as she tried to juggle all of them at once, eventually giving up at the dirt edge of what might have been the highway. She dropped it all with a resounding 'thud' that brought up a little plume of loose dirt around her ankles as she looked one way, and then the other up the road.
Her fingers absently tightened the knots holding her bedsheet-dress together, trying unsuccessfully to fix it so that the split in the side didnt go quite so far up her hip as she waited for another car to drive by. One thumb stuck out in the air hopefully, aimed back in the direction of the bar, as she wondered just how much money was on that card, and if she could rent a ride with it.

[DoV-gnilkrad]

Is she wearing a bed sheet? Doyle made an uneasy face, oddly expressive for him as a pale figure appeared on the horizon. His first thought wasn't about what could be under it, but why she was in it. He'd been around long enough to know the two most likely reasons. Victim or predator. He was perfectly fine with both, though didn't cherish the thought of either.
She came into view enough to realize she was hitchhiking and had a little debate with himself. It was a short one. He couldn't leave someone on the side of the road. He certainly couldn't leave someone half naked on the side of the road. He Most certainly couldn't leave a half naked girl on the road. Chauvinistic or chivalrous, that was a whole mess of trouble he could get her out of just by giving her a ride.
White hair. White, not blond. He'd only seen that one other place before. Bet she got it from the same place. That just wasn't genetic, not with human DNA. Predator then?
Wait a second.
Was that Kai?
He gave a slow blink as he slowed his old, battered pickup truck to a stop next to the hitchhiker. Doyle looked over at her for a critical second, giving a soft humph, "Well no kidding." He leaned over to open the passenger side door for her, and moved a rather large medical bag from the passenger side to the seat between them, giving her as much room as possible for the bags. "Kai." He hadn't expected to see her again. But stranger things had happened. If he had to see anyone's face from their old haunt, he was glad it was hers and not ...... he shoved the thought aside, but that old emptiness sunk back into his eyes.

Doyle had gotten older a lot faster then she had. The creases were forming into actual wrinkles, the skin more weather worn than ever. He was still thin and the years he'd put on made all the angles on him sharp and dramatic. Even underneath his classic cowboy hat his hair had grown out, too shaggy to be neat, and not long enough to look like it was on purpose. It'd started to pepper, streaks of silver catching the light. Still in a plaid shirt and jeans, but he'd replaced the cowhide jacket with a blazer, faded and threadbare.
But the most noticeable change was the cane propped up on the seat between them.

He looked at her for a long second, eyes creasing as if he were smiling without his mouth ever moving. He could hardly believe it. Kai. Well, it explained the sheet. Some things never did change. "Lost your bike?"

[Kallistiae]

The little wolf had a moment to wonder why it was always trucks that slowed down to let her hitch a ride - but then again, she was hardly complaining. It saved her a lot of walking and a few miles of uncomfortable bag-juggling, the least she could do was smile all friendly-like.
But the smile that had started out as merely polite broke into a genuine grin as the truck drew closer, and she got a good look at the cowboy hat that was driving it.
She was surprised to see him, but she had to admit, she probably shouldn't have been. The world was smaller than they gave it credit for, and even smaller for those who ran in the sorts of circles that Kai rubbed elbows with.
Still, she could have kissed that grizzled old cheek. It had been a long year. Seeing a friendly face...it was a blessing.
Even more so when the blessing was behind the wheel of a working vehicle.

The little wolf bunched up the skirt of her makeshift dress, tossing the extra length over her arm as she hoisted herself into the passengers seat in one fluid motion, leaning down to drag her bags in after her and cram them on the floorboards under her feet.
"Hey there, Marshall Dillon." she greeted warmly as she closed the door behind her, still grinning up at the man.
'Lost your bike?'
"Some gang-banger stole her back in the city." she admitted ruefully. "I dont suppose you could give me a lift back to Home Base? Just a few miles up the road, little victorian lookin' haven house, you cant miss it. I'll buy you a drink."
She clasped her hands in front of her, tilting her head to bat her eyes up at him with a little 'pretty-please' puppy dog grin, even though they both knew he would have done it even without all that.

[Vanity Varcainen]

outfit

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,

The radiant vampiress strolled into the mansion from the out doors, sticking a set of keys into her pocket from her luxury sports car that sat parked in front. She simply glowed. Her skin illuminated like the moon. Her golden eyes gleaming with an enticing lure stronger than usual. Her dark hair fell in loose ringlets around her pretty face and cascaded down her back.

She sauntered through the seemingly empty lobby and into the bar. Another glass of wine for her mood. She didn't mind this. Sneaking out at dusk, finding some despicable piece of human garbage and taking him out of existence. Lucky for her, there was never a shortage of scum to suck dry and leave dead in some alley in the streets of Scranton. Eventually, she'd have to be careful- SPD would eventually start looking for a killer. She knew they'd never have the ability or pleasure of capturing her, though.

As she crossed the thresholds any fear of the police faded and the thought of what liquor she wanted. She tapped her chin gently as she looked over the selection. She had seen it thousands of times, but she approached it much like the way a teenager would their family refrigerator. Stand in front of the open door for about ten minutes before they made a decision. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. "Hmmm." she hummed quietly to herself as she slipped behind the bar counter.

She curled her seemingly delicate fingers around a bottle of black spiced rum. The label was decorated with a picture of an octopus and read "Krakken" She took the bottle from the shelf and placed it on the bar counter behind her. She turned back and grabbed several shot glasses from the bar, placing them in front of her. Six in total. Vanity took the cap off of the bottle of black spiced rum and tipped it over, slowly ran it over the glasses, carelessly spilling some of it on the counter.

Once the six glasses were full, she'd screw the cap back on the bottle and place it back on it's self behind her. She leaned over them, smiling impishly as she eyed them carefully before putting them back, one by one. For once, she wasn't drinking out of sorrow or anger, but just because she enjoyed the sting of the ninety-four proof rum. It made her feel like a pirate.

Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned

[DoV-gnilkrad]

He was almost about to joke with her. Home-Base tended to be pretty dangerous coming from those lips. 'remember what happened last time.' But he realized it'd come out bitter more than playful. Grenades tended to leave a lot of pent up resentment in their wake. He didn't blame her, there was absolutely no way to place the blame anywhere near her. He'd never even felt like blaming her. She'd been one of his only real friends, kept her neutrality just like him. As well as that Family would let them.
He settled on, "O'course. Anything for a drink." There. That didn't come out bitter. Of course his sense of humor was so try it could spontaneously combust. So maybe it wasn't a joke...
He glanced at the bags, though. Eyes making shifty little motions between the bags, the road, and the toga-sheet.
Guns. He was looking for the guns. .... Convincingly.

---
"Little?" He almost scoffed as they pulled up, mansion coming into view through the trees. Goddamn.
He felt out of place just looking at it, and he wasn't the one who tended to show up places naked. "This doesn't look like the sort of place you can set on fire. I in the right spot?" I said, God Damn it was pretty. She mentions a haven house, and what comes to mind is more like a halfway house were some people had wings and fangs. He'd put in his time in The Community in cities here and there, but nothing came close to this.
Even out in the country, funds were low, and people were suspicious as ever. Weren't the worried about the vanillas?
How could they manage this? Who had that sort of money in this day of ag---
Vampires.
Doyle wasn't the most of relaxed people. He was a laid back guy, but something about his was just.. stiff. But his knuckles whitened as he gripped the steering wheel and gave Kai a sidelong glance. He didn't voice it. There was only one way to answer and he'd never tell if it was a lie or not. Are you taking me into a trap? Vampires. Vampires..
She'd had dealings with them before. He didn't know much, hell, he didn't know nothing about nothing save for what he saw one night, and what came up in the IS. But he knew trouble hung around them, and he knew there were times when the need for fangs on his neck made him wake up in a cold sweat. All this time and he still needed it. He'd been avoiding vampires.
But it could be anything. Didn't have to be them. Could be regular sorts of immortals, or just really eccentric humans. Something this nice was up everyone's alley, could be magic-casters, or shifters, or, what else was there? Fairies?

[Kallistiae]

Kai laughed, and gave a little grin at his dry answer, propping her feet up on the dashboard as they drove.
Gold eyes didnt miss the way he scanned her bags, her waist, looking for guns he knew she had. Rather than being offended by the scrutiny and suspicion, she was almost pleased. For one, it was always a good policy to assume other people were armed, and to find out what exactly they were armed with.
For two, it was kinda funny to watch him trying to spot her weaponry under the lose folds of her tunic-dress. Like a really messed up game of Where's Waldo.

------

"Well...little-ish?" she amended with a small grin as they pulled up the drive. The very shiny, very expensive looking car sitting up front of the house didnt exactly help down play the wealth of the place.
It was a little more...elegant...than her usual tastes and they both knew it, but she had been trying - really, honest and truly trying - to uphold her darklings image, especially with how catastrophically she had 'gone off the grid' last year.
And while it would have been impossible for her to give up completely those decrepit dive bars and dirty pool halls she loved so much, she was making an effort to at least sleep in a place that had hot showers and some semblance of respectability.
This place had more than enough of both. She couldnt help being just a little bit proud that she had chosen well.
This time.

The comment about fires was left untouched, except for another rueful rub at the back of her neck.
Hey. Those last two had not been her fault...
Fingers hooked in the bags down by her feet as they pulled around, but some little change in the scent on the wind made her glance back at the cowboy.
His face might not have changed, but his scent had. That little spike of adrenaline that made her nostrils flare. She could almost see his pulse pick up speed in that big vein that runs along the neck, pounding against his skin as his knuckles turned pale on the steering wheel.
For a moment, she couldnt do the math; she could only look at him quizzically as she tried to guess what had set his fur on edge.
Then it clicked.

You start to loose track, after a while, of all the damage that has been done to people you know, people you like. After long enough, it all blends together, and you lose the details, left with nothing but a fuzzy outline until something jogs your memory.
But Kai looked at him now, and even though she couldnt see them, she could picture the two ever so tiny, delicate little puncture wounds that had rested at his neck.
Oh..
"She's old." Kai told him in a low, neutral voice that could have had no other purpose than delivering unbiased information - like she was giving a military report. "Several centuries at least. The old ones usually play by the Old Rules. She set up this house as a have. By old law, it should mean none may come to harm while under her roof..."
Kai couldnt guarantee anything, of course. She would have said that Doyle would be safe at the Immortal Souls, too, and look how that had turned out...
"There is at least one other human in residence. Plain vanilla, and he doesnt appear to be on the menu."

She didnt ask if he'd be ok, or if he still wanted to come in with her - it would have been...rude, in a very Guy Code sort of way.
But she waited patiently in the passengers seat for him to make a decision, face impassive.
If it became an issue, she would do her damndest to keep him off the menu.
At least...unless he changed his mind and wanted to be on the menu.
Kai had been on the receiving end of a vampires kiss. Her need had never been as great as others, to taste that bite again, but she knew the power that Kiss held.
She had seen men and women hooked on it as surely as the would be any other drug. Fang junkies, like little Gothic heroin addicts.

[DoV-gnilkrad]

Next to the sexy little sports car his looked like The Hulk. The doors had to slammed shut, and the fender was only just staying on, and if you could see though the mud, then you'd see all the rust. He fixed his stare on that car as he felt Kai size him up, and took a deep breath to try and will his reactions back under control. Some people could. They slowed their heart rate and even the scent of their emotions and a superhuman level. But a zen monk, he was not. All that was biological and Doyle had only as much control over it as any other mortal. But he tried, and he hadn't let his wits scatter.
A couple things went through his mind all at once. Old meant power: power to the bite, and power to resist the urge. That Old Rules only got enforced by the oldest among them, and that meant not-at-all in plenty of situations. And that the human who lived here without being bit was either way smarter or way dumber than him.
"Well then. I bet she has one hell of a vintage." He was Not backing out of this because he was nervous. While every memory he had told him this was a Bad idea, he had to go in for at least a drink. His pride was on the line now. Doyle wasn't a vain man, but you don't back down from a fight. Not even an internal one.

He slid out and it took him about as much to grab his cane and doctorin' bag as it took Kai to grab the whole mess of bags from her feet. He leaned heavily on his cane, bag in his free hand heavy enough to lopside him. He moves slow. Way to slow his age. The one leg hardly worked at all, the other was still stiff and re-learning how to walk. It was getting easier, but it was a long time to heal from what he was healing from. Especially when he refused supernatural help.
Everything about the house was beautiful. He wasn't much for art, or class, or history. He probably couldn't appreciate the fullness of it, or even gage how expensive it must be. But it was nice to look at and sure nicer than any place he'd ever lived. Walking as slow as he had too, he had plenty of time to admire. And admire he did.

In the lobby he gave Kai a questioning glance, nodding up the stair and then to the arch that lead to the bar. Silently asking if she was going up first, or heading in. Regardless, he started moving towards the later, and when he caught sight of the bartender, he swallowed.
Skin that pale, woman that beautiful. He knew what she was at the first glance and his heart skipped a beat. But nothing in his face betrayed his frayed nerves. Instead he gave a bow of his head as he took a seat at the bar, "Ma'am." Butter milk and bourbon accent - southern. He laid his bag at his feet, the cane hooked on the counter, and pretended not to be shy.