SUE VS SUE
May. 9th, 2013 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_ratFor those wondering who Envy is, she is one of the golden weretigers who appears in Bullet. She got zero characterization, so I hope to find room in the fic somewhere for expanding on her...unfortunately she barely gets to speak in this installment of....
SUE VS SUE
It fell to Envy to show the New Yorkers to their rooms. Since coming to St. Louis herself, the poor weretiger had been reduced to mere hostess instead of being treated like an endangered treasure. Which would have been a fair trade for her freedom, except she'd never gotten that. She'd just changed masters, from the Harlequin to Anita. While Anita did not fuck the woman herself, she certainly saw Envy as nothing more than a sex object with no desires, rights, or personality of her own, and thus took no interest in her despite her ownership, letting Jean-Claude choose what to do with her when she wasn't used to get Anita off. He had chosen hostess because he that a rare specimen like a golden tiger was something worth showing off to guests, while at the same time the servile and low-level nature of the role communicated that such rarities were a mere trifle in his court and thus used in such common ways versus being guarded carefully or kept secret as last-resort weapons.
She stopped in the middle of a long stone hallway with about a dozen doors carved into the sides
"Your rooms," she said, gesturing, "I apologize that each was not personalized, but we were not given an exact guest list of who would be here and what their needs would be, nor their ranks. Please forgive--"
Armel waved his hand, "The hospitality and accommodations of Jean-Claude's Kiss are legend here in the States, Ms. Envy. I'm sure that our rooms will be not only adequate, but well beyond."
"Well," said Envy, relieved that these people apparently weren't running on some complicated hierarchy that dictated everything down to who got what thread-count sheets, "If you need anything, please ask."
She hoped they'd brought their own food. Food meaning people around here, of course.
"Actually," said one of the bunch, stepping up to Envy's side, "What I could really go for right now is a tour. Wanna be my guide, gorgeous?"
It was the Indian wererat that Anita had sighted talking to Cardinal and the lionesses earlier. Envy was close enough to 'him' that her therian nose could detect that he was a she, or at least had female biology. Like Cardinal and the others, however, she didn't mind at all, and readily agreed out of more than just a sense of being a gracious host. They linked arms and soon disappeared around a corner, leaving the others at last able to speak freely amongst themselves. Yes, they knew the St. Louis wererats had bugs in the Circus to monitor visitors, but they didn't mind, because they had listened in on those very bugs and what they had to say was what everyone said all the time in these halls anyway, both visitors and residents.
Klaus immediately tore his arm away from Armel, who had been hanging off it. It was supposed to be the other way around, to keep up the idea that it was Klaus who was possessive of him, but Klaus being a big man and Armel being a small one had made it end up the reverse.
"Let go already! We've been out of her sight for ages now!"
"Envy has eyes, you know," Armel rubbed his own arm, which had been sorely jerked when Klaus took his away. "By the way, you were supposed to be nuzzling me out there too. She's all about weretigers doing cute domestic cat shit like that. Scent-mark me with your cheeks or whatever it is she thinks you do."
"Because pretending to be your boytoy wasn't humiliating enough?"
Klaus was indeed a man for men only, but Armel was NOT his type. As for Armel, well, he'd tried giving bi a try, it was practically required among vampires, but he'd found he was personally only into the ladies. He actually had two vampire girls friends back home in New York, Paloma and Columba. He knew they were just into him for his Master status, sure, but that was one of the perks of the jobs!
Klaus entered one of the rooms, and, with a sigh, Armel went into another. Without even bothering to make a mental map of the decor, he sat down on the bed and tapped into the literal psychic hotline that their Traveller vampire had set up, with himself at the center as the call operator. He would use his own telepathic abilities to connect two vampires--or anyone else--that didn't normally have a psychic link of any sort between them. Of course, this carried the liability of Cornelius also being in on said link, so what was exchanged over it had to be only things they could afford for him to know.
Cornelius?
Getting you loud and clear, Daube. What can I do for you? Good party?
Lousy, but we're in, at least for now. Pending on whether we can stay. Put me in to Padma, please.
Will do, Dove-man. Glad I didn't miss anything!
Klaus, at least, was not the only one getting a reprimand for his performance or lack thereof. Out in the hallway the others were poking their heads in to the remaining rooms and talking amongst themselves as they made their choices.
"You were supposed to flirt with her. Be a lesbian, remember?", Edgar reminded his fellow weresnake. Sati made a little grimace and a sound to match it, the pointed that Edgar hadn't flirted with her either.
"I'm a hot man," Edgar pointed out. "I don't need to do anything. Women, on the other hand, have to work for her approval. Lavish praises without getting icky girl germs on her, that was the plan! Really, you know I can't say anything nice to her, that's why we brought you in the first place!"
It was true. Sati was the sweetheart of the Nest, a subdued and charitable sort as well as sensible enough to be trusted with a mission as big as this. Edgar, on the other hand, was frankly kind of a snarky bastard. Sure, he had looks that were hot to some, but he also looked just plain weird to others. He was like one of those odd-faced British actors that tumblr fandoms went so crazy over, and it was a gamble on whether Anita would see any appeal in him. Sati's brother, Zahid, might have been a better bet for the more conventionally attractive card, but he wasn't white, so he was out, and had ordinary brown eyes, not ever-changing lovely ones like Blake loved and Edgar had. They hadn't bothered to pick rats who would be attractive to Anita, since they knew she wouldn't touch them, but they had wanted to make Edgar and Klaus ones she'd at least think about, and Sati tolerable for her own safety. Speaking of the rats, the one that Anita had mistaken for the sole girl in the group, Eva, a cute little slender brunette with a choppy bob, was talking avidly with Rowan about how tacky everything was, from decor to dress code.
"I don't see why I couldn't have gone in a dress," said Rowan when the last one came up. "She seems to like ladylike boys well enough, what would the harm be?"
"It would have been a good way to gauge their reactions to that sort of thing," agreed Eva, "Not to make you my sacrificial lamb, but..."
"I understand," Rowan patted her shoulder.
Eva was transgender, and her supernatural healing meant that surgery would never be an option for her, at least not until someone figured out how to do some truly sensitive things with silver. Wereanimals could smell her sex, not her gender but her physical sex, and instantly know. This put her in a lot of danger from other therians and from vampires too. But Lucille and her bosses didn't care. No way to say no when it was Padma pulling your strings from the inside of your own beast. As for Rowan...well, Rowan was also male-assigned biology-wise, but zir gender switched around. Having one at all was really more an option for zir than a rule. Sometimes she was a he, sometimes he was a she, and today was a 'she' day. Unfortunately, they needed her to be a 'he' right now, so a suit it was rather than the elegant dress and Louise Brooks bobbed wig she'd rather be wearing.
As for Max, the one who had charmed Envy away, she was not like Eva or Rowan in T-terms, just a very butch lesbian who by coincidence really looked almost exactly like a cisgender man anyway, even without wearing a suit and her hair short like she was. It kind of made Eva feel good that even cis girls could look so 'manly'---manlier than she ever did even before she started transitioning, in fact! Yes, she had started, being a therian didn't make hormones impossible like it did surgery. But the St. Louis supernaturals might not differentiate; if they didn't like Eva and Rowan, Max might be in trouble too.
"I wish she hadn't gone off like that," said Eva in a worried tone, looking in the direction Max had left. Misinterpreting her concern, another wererat stepped up beside her, "It's okay, Eva. I'll protect you if...if anything comes up."
Eva had to smile at him. Next to Max, she was the toughest wererat they'd sent, and Hank here...well, he wasn't, to put it nicely. To be a little more blunt, Hank was a scrawny wimpy geek, and the addition of therian super-physicality had not made him anything less of a wimp or anything more of a fighter. Eva surprised people with her scrappiness, but with Hank, what you saw was really what you got: He was a white male, cis, in his early twenties like all four of the wererats sent to the mixer were, dark brown hair already graying despite his young age, light blue eyes, a bit underweight, big nose and ears that made him look like a rodent even before he had been turned, and, at 5'5, he stood an inch less than Eva herself.
"Aw, thank you Hank," she told him, not wanting to crush his ego. She really did appreciate his goodwill too. She, Max, Hank, and Mikey Joe, the fourth rat, were all good friends and could be trusted to watch out for each other, which made them a good team to send in together, in addition to how they were all unassuming sorts that were not likely to be noticed as a threat by St. Louis bigwigs.
When Eva had selected and entered her room, Hank stood in the doorway and asked if he should stay outside her room tonight, just in case. When she said that wouldn't be needed, he remained a moment more, fidgeting with his fingers in silence, before asking, when he was sure the subject of his question had gone into a room of his own and closed the door,
"Um, you don't think Edgar likes her at all do you?"
Eva laughed as she put her clothes away into the provided drawers, "Hell no. Didn't you hear him talking to Sati about it?"
"Well, do you think she likes him?"
"Honey, you'd better hope not. Though that is sort of why he's here, you know."
And as for Pryderi, or Fidget as he was more commonly called, he was quietly thinking about how hard it would be to burn a place made from stone, how very long the fire would have to burn...
Sig did not usually have thoughts like that, unlike Pyro-deri as he should have been called, but at this moment his fantasies were about the same.
***
Since everything was done now, Lucille began to exit, leaving others to deal with Moon Moon, but on the way out, she paused. Specifically, she paused next to one of the girls, the chubby bespectacled brunette that was NOT Wander the wererat.
"Nan," she said, and grabbed the woman by the arm, her fingers pressing far too hard into Nan's flesh to be nice as she stared harshly into her eyes, her own blue ones as blank and menacing as a shark's, "Sweet dreams tonight."
Without another word, she released her and strode out. Nan rubbed her arm, looking peeved. She was a precog, and her sights came in her sleep, but Lucille couldn't seem to accept that this wasn't something she could control, let alone summon for specific purposes. Needless to say, Nan not only didn't appreciate this, but was also starting to get a bit worried on just what Lucille might do if she didn't start delivering somehow, especially now that the mission was about to get underway.
As Lucille settled into her suite, there was a knock at the door. Quirking a brow suspiciously, she peered out the peephole before opening it to reveal Max and Envy.
"Took the lady out for a night on the town, told her I'd show her my digs," said Max. "Babe, this is my...what'd you call Blake, Little Queen? No, wait, I think it was, Big Pain in the--"
Seeing the look on her lover's face, Max realized she'd made a mistake in revealing the base to a potential ally so soon.
"Lucy, Lucy, gorgeous, listen, this here is Envy, golden tiger if you couldn't tell, and she has such a tale of woe and axe to grind I thought, hey, why not sign her up now, she is ready to go!"
Despite these explanations, Lucille did not seem to be appease. Time for Max to bust out her secret weapon. Well, secret get-of-jail-free card, whatever. With a nod to Envy, the pair stepped aside to reveal Valetina behind their legs.
"I came across her while Envy was...showing me a few things," Max explained, "Thought you'd like to meet her."
Lucille's expression did not just soften, it positively liquified. She swooped down upon the baby vampire, hugging her and making cooing sounds. This continued for quite a few moments, during which Max gave a pleased told-you-so look to Envy, then asked if she and her new friend could be excused for the night. It was hard to make out through all the fussing babytalk, but Max was pretty sure her boss had said yes, and she led Envy down the hallway, saying something about returning favors and showing rooms.
That was when the cooing from Lucy abruptly stopped and her whole body stiffened. Valentina had sunk her tiny needle-like teeth into the her neck. Lucille stayed completely still, eyes wide, her mouth initially open in shock but then closing, her teeth now gritted together in endurance. She was letting Valentina drink with no protest, not because Valentina had rolled her or was making the bite in ay way pleasurable, but because it was her choice. She would never refuse a nursing child.
When Valentina had finished, she pulled away and smiled sweetly at Lucille, the woman's blood still staining her little fangs. Lucille smiled sweetly right back, sincerely so,
"Aw, you needed that, didn't you sweetheart?
"Did it hurt?" Valentina asked. She sounded like she hoped so.
"Why, yes. Very much. I like to hurt people. Do you?"
At long last, Valentina had found a friend
***
Richard, Micah, Donovan, Rafael,and Narcissus were all seated at a table with Jean-Claude at the head. Nick was not there despite being the Rex, since he couldn't have an opinion if Anita didn't, and thus the lions were left out of having a say on anything she didn't care about...which was many things.
"This is an unlikely Trojan horse," Micah noted, "They're not a bunch of pretty men made to catch Anita's eye.
"That's for damn sure," scoffed Naricissus. He knew that it would be a bad idea for him to seem too on-board for the New Yorkers. The others would probably decide against them based on that alone.
"That could be the idea though," said Donovan. "So we wouldn't suspect them."
"They all seem harmless," said Richard. "The only ones with any power are Klaus and the Swan prince.
"Spies don't have to be powerful," Rafael pointed out. "In fact, it's better if they're not so they don't stick out."
"What say you about this prince, Donovan?", asked Jean-Claude, lazily gesturing at the white-haired man.
"He tells me he wants to see the city himself before letting Armel dump any of his people here. That is understandable. He is also open about hating Anita. that is also understandable. Most of my people, as you are aware, do, especially those outside her range of influence."
"That sounds alright coming from a swan, sure, but what about the rest of them?" asked Micah, "Do you think there's any connection between this and those rumors? Namely, how they stopped?"
"Perhaps," said Jean-Claude, "the reason they stopped is as our Mr. Daube says. They have banded together, and so there is no more suspcious whispering between them, no more quarrels or mud-slinging, as in our dear St. Louis."
"You don't believe that," Richard stated tje obvious, "but let's say you do. If we had nothing to lose from taking them in, what would we have to gain?"
Micah spoke again, "Most are strays and rarities species-wise, there no groups in St. Louis for their kind."
"I open the Cackle to Klaus," purred Narcissus. Yes, he would play the sex-obsessed gay man with nothing else on his mind. They would buy it, he knew that they thought that little of him. That was how he had swelled his ranks under their noses and sheltered Chimera with none the wiser. They still hadn't learned, they thought that it was poor Orlando King that was the mastermind behind that. Ha! He couldn't even master his own minds, the big dumb mean raping machine...oh, Narcissus missed him! Hey, unlike Anita, at least he was honest about what he liked in a man.
"As you said, none are very powerful in supernatural terms, save the swan and the tiger," said Rafael, "but there are more ways to be useful than that. The girl wererats both seem competent in their own ways, especially the marimacho one, Max. She tells me skill as handyman and mechanic. Eva will need my protection, and her skills aren't as physical, but she seems good with people and we are more social than even most shifters. If I must take the males to get them too, well, the more the merrier is the way it is with rats.
"Protection? asked Richard. Rafael told him not his business. Richard looked confused and a little offended, but Jean-Claude patted his shoulder and told him that "The pretty petite marron has a condition that may make other wererats see her as weak, easy prey, despite her virtues."
Had Jean-Claude not already known, he actually would have made Rafael tell him right here just like Richard had been about too, but knew about Eva himself. Like Rafael, he had been close enough to scent her secret. Richard had not, nor had Narcissus, which was lucky since otherwise he would surely have made some off-color offensive joke. Jean-Claude, for his part, had no opinion on such things beyond that he really did not want to waste time explaining it to Richard, who had proved himself utterly ignorant of such concepts when he'd proclaimed Narcissus must be a hermaphrodite in order to have gotten pregnant.
Moving on, Micah put forth the idea that they could use the rarities to build base of their species in St. Louis. "For instance, if Pryderi and Rowan start up skulk with Gil, it might attract more werefoxes looking for a group, and that could be useful to us."
"Or they might turn against us, as we have no one who calls their kind."
The pros, cons, and possibilities were weighed among the leaders long through the night, but at last a decision was made: The New York City visitors would be allowed a trial stay.
SUE VS SUE
It fell to Envy to show the New Yorkers to their rooms. Since coming to St. Louis herself, the poor weretiger had been reduced to mere hostess instead of being treated like an endangered treasure. Which would have been a fair trade for her freedom, except she'd never gotten that. She'd just changed masters, from the Harlequin to Anita. While Anita did not fuck the woman herself, she certainly saw Envy as nothing more than a sex object with no desires, rights, or personality of her own, and thus took no interest in her despite her ownership, letting Jean-Claude choose what to do with her when she wasn't used to get Anita off. He had chosen hostess because he that a rare specimen like a golden tiger was something worth showing off to guests, while at the same time the servile and low-level nature of the role communicated that such rarities were a mere trifle in his court and thus used in such common ways versus being guarded carefully or kept secret as last-resort weapons.
She stopped in the middle of a long stone hallway with about a dozen doors carved into the sides
"Your rooms," she said, gesturing, "I apologize that each was not personalized, but we were not given an exact guest list of who would be here and what their needs would be, nor their ranks. Please forgive--"
Armel waved his hand, "The hospitality and accommodations of Jean-Claude's Kiss are legend here in the States, Ms. Envy. I'm sure that our rooms will be not only adequate, but well beyond."
"Well," said Envy, relieved that these people apparently weren't running on some complicated hierarchy that dictated everything down to who got what thread-count sheets, "If you need anything, please ask."
She hoped they'd brought their own food. Food meaning people around here, of course.
"Actually," said one of the bunch, stepping up to Envy's side, "What I could really go for right now is a tour. Wanna be my guide, gorgeous?"
It was the Indian wererat that Anita had sighted talking to Cardinal and the lionesses earlier. Envy was close enough to 'him' that her therian nose could detect that he was a she, or at least had female biology. Like Cardinal and the others, however, she didn't mind at all, and readily agreed out of more than just a sense of being a gracious host. They linked arms and soon disappeared around a corner, leaving the others at last able to speak freely amongst themselves. Yes, they knew the St. Louis wererats had bugs in the Circus to monitor visitors, but they didn't mind, because they had listened in on those very bugs and what they had to say was what everyone said all the time in these halls anyway, both visitors and residents.
Klaus immediately tore his arm away from Armel, who had been hanging off it. It was supposed to be the other way around, to keep up the idea that it was Klaus who was possessive of him, but Klaus being a big man and Armel being a small one had made it end up the reverse.
"Let go already! We've been out of her sight for ages now!"
"Envy has eyes, you know," Armel rubbed his own arm, which had been sorely jerked when Klaus took his away. "By the way, you were supposed to be nuzzling me out there too. She's all about weretigers doing cute domestic cat shit like that. Scent-mark me with your cheeks or whatever it is she thinks you do."
"Because pretending to be your boytoy wasn't humiliating enough?"
Klaus was indeed a man for men only, but Armel was NOT his type. As for Armel, well, he'd tried giving bi a try, it was practically required among vampires, but he'd found he was personally only into the ladies. He actually had two vampire girls friends back home in New York, Paloma and Columba. He knew they were just into him for his Master status, sure, but that was one of the perks of the jobs!
Klaus entered one of the rooms, and, with a sigh, Armel went into another. Without even bothering to make a mental map of the decor, he sat down on the bed and tapped into the literal psychic hotline that their Traveller vampire had set up, with himself at the center as the call operator. He would use his own telepathic abilities to connect two vampires--or anyone else--that didn't normally have a psychic link of any sort between them. Of course, this carried the liability of Cornelius also being in on said link, so what was exchanged over it had to be only things they could afford for him to know.
Cornelius?
Getting you loud and clear, Daube. What can I do for you? Good party?
Lousy, but we're in, at least for now. Pending on whether we can stay. Put me in to Padma, please.
Will do, Dove-man. Glad I didn't miss anything!
Klaus, at least, was not the only one getting a reprimand for his performance or lack thereof. Out in the hallway the others were poking their heads in to the remaining rooms and talking amongst themselves as they made their choices.
"You were supposed to flirt with her. Be a lesbian, remember?", Edgar reminded his fellow weresnake. Sati made a little grimace and a sound to match it, the pointed that Edgar hadn't flirted with her either.
"I'm a hot man," Edgar pointed out. "I don't need to do anything. Women, on the other hand, have to work for her approval. Lavish praises without getting icky girl germs on her, that was the plan! Really, you know I can't say anything nice to her, that's why we brought you in the first place!"
It was true. Sati was the sweetheart of the Nest, a subdued and charitable sort as well as sensible enough to be trusted with a mission as big as this. Edgar, on the other hand, was frankly kind of a snarky bastard. Sure, he had looks that were hot to some, but he also looked just plain weird to others. He was like one of those odd-faced British actors that tumblr fandoms went so crazy over, and it was a gamble on whether Anita would see any appeal in him. Sati's brother, Zahid, might have been a better bet for the more conventionally attractive card, but he wasn't white, so he was out, and had ordinary brown eyes, not ever-changing lovely ones like Blake loved and Edgar had. They hadn't bothered to pick rats who would be attractive to Anita, since they knew she wouldn't touch them, but they had wanted to make Edgar and Klaus ones she'd at least think about, and Sati tolerable for her own safety. Speaking of the rats, the one that Anita had mistaken for the sole girl in the group, Eva, a cute little slender brunette with a choppy bob, was talking avidly with Rowan about how tacky everything was, from decor to dress code.
"I don't see why I couldn't have gone in a dress," said Rowan when the last one came up. "She seems to like ladylike boys well enough, what would the harm be?"
"It would have been a good way to gauge their reactions to that sort of thing," agreed Eva, "Not to make you my sacrificial lamb, but..."
"I understand," Rowan patted her shoulder.
Eva was transgender, and her supernatural healing meant that surgery would never be an option for her, at least not until someone figured out how to do some truly sensitive things with silver. Wereanimals could smell her sex, not her gender but her physical sex, and instantly know. This put her in a lot of danger from other therians and from vampires too. But Lucille and her bosses didn't care. No way to say no when it was Padma pulling your strings from the inside of your own beast. As for Rowan...well, Rowan was also male-assigned biology-wise, but zir gender switched around. Having one at all was really more an option for zir than a rule. Sometimes she was a he, sometimes he was a she, and today was a 'she' day. Unfortunately, they needed her to be a 'he' right now, so a suit it was rather than the elegant dress and Louise Brooks bobbed wig she'd rather be wearing.
As for Max, the one who had charmed Envy away, she was not like Eva or Rowan in T-terms, just a very butch lesbian who by coincidence really looked almost exactly like a cisgender man anyway, even without wearing a suit and her hair short like she was. It kind of made Eva feel good that even cis girls could look so 'manly'---manlier than she ever did even before she started transitioning, in fact! Yes, she had started, being a therian didn't make hormones impossible like it did surgery. But the St. Louis supernaturals might not differentiate; if they didn't like Eva and Rowan, Max might be in trouble too.
"I wish she hadn't gone off like that," said Eva in a worried tone, looking in the direction Max had left. Misinterpreting her concern, another wererat stepped up beside her, "It's okay, Eva. I'll protect you if...if anything comes up."
Eva had to smile at him. Next to Max, she was the toughest wererat they'd sent, and Hank here...well, he wasn't, to put it nicely. To be a little more blunt, Hank was a scrawny wimpy geek, and the addition of therian super-physicality had not made him anything less of a wimp or anything more of a fighter. Eva surprised people with her scrappiness, but with Hank, what you saw was really what you got: He was a white male, cis, in his early twenties like all four of the wererats sent to the mixer were, dark brown hair already graying despite his young age, light blue eyes, a bit underweight, big nose and ears that made him look like a rodent even before he had been turned, and, at 5'5, he stood an inch less than Eva herself.
"Aw, thank you Hank," she told him, not wanting to crush his ego. She really did appreciate his goodwill too. She, Max, Hank, and Mikey Joe, the fourth rat, were all good friends and could be trusted to watch out for each other, which made them a good team to send in together, in addition to how they were all unassuming sorts that were not likely to be noticed as a threat by St. Louis bigwigs.
When Eva had selected and entered her room, Hank stood in the doorway and asked if he should stay outside her room tonight, just in case. When she said that wouldn't be needed, he remained a moment more, fidgeting with his fingers in silence, before asking, when he was sure the subject of his question had gone into a room of his own and closed the door,
"Um, you don't think Edgar likes her at all do you?"
Eva laughed as she put her clothes away into the provided drawers, "Hell no. Didn't you hear him talking to Sati about it?"
"Well, do you think she likes him?"
"Honey, you'd better hope not. Though that is sort of why he's here, you know."
And as for Pryderi, or Fidget as he was more commonly called, he was quietly thinking about how hard it would be to burn a place made from stone, how very long the fire would have to burn...
Sig did not usually have thoughts like that, unlike Pyro-deri as he should have been called, but at this moment his fantasies were about the same.
***
Since everything was done now, Lucille began to exit, leaving others to deal with Moon Moon, but on the way out, she paused. Specifically, she paused next to one of the girls, the chubby bespectacled brunette that was NOT Wander the wererat.
"Nan," she said, and grabbed the woman by the arm, her fingers pressing far too hard into Nan's flesh to be nice as she stared harshly into her eyes, her own blue ones as blank and menacing as a shark's, "Sweet dreams tonight."
Without another word, she released her and strode out. Nan rubbed her arm, looking peeved. She was a precog, and her sights came in her sleep, but Lucille couldn't seem to accept that this wasn't something she could control, let alone summon for specific purposes. Needless to say, Nan not only didn't appreciate this, but was also starting to get a bit worried on just what Lucille might do if she didn't start delivering somehow, especially now that the mission was about to get underway.
As Lucille settled into her suite, there was a knock at the door. Quirking a brow suspiciously, she peered out the peephole before opening it to reveal Max and Envy.
"Took the lady out for a night on the town, told her I'd show her my digs," said Max. "Babe, this is my...what'd you call Blake, Little Queen? No, wait, I think it was, Big Pain in the--"
Seeing the look on her lover's face, Max realized she'd made a mistake in revealing the base to a potential ally so soon.
"Lucy, Lucy, gorgeous, listen, this here is Envy, golden tiger if you couldn't tell, and she has such a tale of woe and axe to grind I thought, hey, why not sign her up now, she is ready to go!"
Despite these explanations, Lucille did not seem to be appease. Time for Max to bust out her secret weapon. Well, secret get-of-jail-free card, whatever. With a nod to Envy, the pair stepped aside to reveal Valetina behind their legs.
"I came across her while Envy was...showing me a few things," Max explained, "Thought you'd like to meet her."
Lucille's expression did not just soften, it positively liquified. She swooped down upon the baby vampire, hugging her and making cooing sounds. This continued for quite a few moments, during which Max gave a pleased told-you-so look to Envy, then asked if she and her new friend could be excused for the night. It was hard to make out through all the fussing babytalk, but Max was pretty sure her boss had said yes, and she led Envy down the hallway, saying something about returning favors and showing rooms.
That was when the cooing from Lucy abruptly stopped and her whole body stiffened. Valentina had sunk her tiny needle-like teeth into the her neck. Lucille stayed completely still, eyes wide, her mouth initially open in shock but then closing, her teeth now gritted together in endurance. She was letting Valentina drink with no protest, not because Valentina had rolled her or was making the bite in ay way pleasurable, but because it was her choice. She would never refuse a nursing child.
When Valentina had finished, she pulled away and smiled sweetly at Lucille, the woman's blood still staining her little fangs. Lucille smiled sweetly right back, sincerely so,
"Aw, you needed that, didn't you sweetheart?
"Did it hurt?" Valentina asked. She sounded like she hoped so.
"Why, yes. Very much. I like to hurt people. Do you?"
At long last, Valentina had found a friend
***
Richard, Micah, Donovan, Rafael,and Narcissus were all seated at a table with Jean-Claude at the head. Nick was not there despite being the Rex, since he couldn't have an opinion if Anita didn't, and thus the lions were left out of having a say on anything she didn't care about...which was many things.
"This is an unlikely Trojan horse," Micah noted, "They're not a bunch of pretty men made to catch Anita's eye.
"That's for damn sure," scoffed Naricissus. He knew that it would be a bad idea for him to seem too on-board for the New Yorkers. The others would probably decide against them based on that alone.
"That could be the idea though," said Donovan. "So we wouldn't suspect them."
"They all seem harmless," said Richard. "The only ones with any power are Klaus and the Swan prince.
"Spies don't have to be powerful," Rafael pointed out. "In fact, it's better if they're not so they don't stick out."
"What say you about this prince, Donovan?", asked Jean-Claude, lazily gesturing at the white-haired man.
"He tells me he wants to see the city himself before letting Armel dump any of his people here. That is understandable. He is also open about hating Anita. that is also understandable. Most of my people, as you are aware, do, especially those outside her range of influence."
"That sounds alright coming from a swan, sure, but what about the rest of them?" asked Micah, "Do you think there's any connection between this and those rumors? Namely, how they stopped?"
"Perhaps," said Jean-Claude, "the reason they stopped is as our Mr. Daube says. They have banded together, and so there is no more suspcious whispering between them, no more quarrels or mud-slinging, as in our dear St. Louis."
"You don't believe that," Richard stated tje obvious, "but let's say you do. If we had nothing to lose from taking them in, what would we have to gain?"
Micah spoke again, "Most are strays and rarities species-wise, there no groups in St. Louis for their kind."
"I open the Cackle to Klaus," purred Narcissus. Yes, he would play the sex-obsessed gay man with nothing else on his mind. They would buy it, he knew that they thought that little of him. That was how he had swelled his ranks under their noses and sheltered Chimera with none the wiser. They still hadn't learned, they thought that it was poor Orlando King that was the mastermind behind that. Ha! He couldn't even master his own minds, the big dumb mean raping machine...oh, Narcissus missed him! Hey, unlike Anita, at least he was honest about what he liked in a man.
"As you said, none are very powerful in supernatural terms, save the swan and the tiger," said Rafael, "but there are more ways to be useful than that. The girl wererats both seem competent in their own ways, especially the marimacho one, Max. She tells me skill as handyman and mechanic. Eva will need my protection, and her skills aren't as physical, but she seems good with people and we are more social than even most shifters. If I must take the males to get them too, well, the more the merrier is the way it is with rats.
"Protection? asked Richard. Rafael told him not his business. Richard looked confused and a little offended, but Jean-Claude patted his shoulder and told him that "The pretty petite marron has a condition that may make other wererats see her as weak, easy prey, despite her virtues."
Had Jean-Claude not already known, he actually would have made Rafael tell him right here just like Richard had been about too, but knew about Eva himself. Like Rafael, he had been close enough to scent her secret. Richard had not, nor had Narcissus, which was lucky since otherwise he would surely have made some off-color offensive joke. Jean-Claude, for his part, had no opinion on such things beyond that he really did not want to waste time explaining it to Richard, who had proved himself utterly ignorant of such concepts when he'd proclaimed Narcissus must be a hermaphrodite in order to have gotten pregnant.
Moving on, Micah put forth the idea that they could use the rarities to build base of their species in St. Louis. "For instance, if Pryderi and Rowan start up skulk with Gil, it might attract more werefoxes looking for a group, and that could be useful to us."
"Or they might turn against us, as we have no one who calls their kind."
The pros, cons, and possibilities were weighed among the leaders long through the night, but at last a decision was made: The New York City visitors would be allowed a trial stay.
