OD 6.19.2002 [11:38 p.m.]

and another:

Joaqu�n Monteverde

Wed 07:33PM

He had the vampire's pattern down now. Wake at sunset. Groom - or rather, be groomed by the silent, bland-faced woman who seemed to be his servant. Rather Renfieldesque. Leave the house at a quarter past nine in a chauffered car. Attend a whirl of societal meetings. Hunt.

Unfortunately, he could not be sure whom of the vampire's associates were also bloodsuckers...and who were simply mortals in the wrong place at the wrong time. The clustering of banes was about as helpful as a scenting for the Wyrm - not very, even if he had possessed that gift - and he had no choice but to watch and wait. Wait and watch.

The she-vampire had not been on his mind since the incident. It was foolish, perhaps, revealing himself like that, but he knew of no Gifts the vampires commanded, that they might track him down in turn. He was safe, he concluded, as long as he remained on his toes. And that was something that came naturally to him.

The vampire had made a smoky jazz club his hunting grounds this evening - so perfect a throwback to a roarin' 20s speakeasy that all the charm was lost and mundanified. In the back, in the shadows, a lean man in a neatly tailored, though unremarkable outfit sits quietly, unspeaking, unnoticed, watching (it seems) the soulstress on the tiny stage.

(Your friend is back, it seems.)

The voice comes from the other side of the Umbra, but it is a familiar one. The dark-haired man does not start, but he does stir: the fist propped upon his cheek coming to rest on the top of the small table before him. He glances briefly at his watch, then flags down the waitress standing, coincidentally, behind the vampire.

(Other side...other side...)

He looks when he can, a casual glance toward the door, his dark eyes sweeping the crowd of silver-haired stockbrokers and executives, some of whom nod in time to the music. His attention does not linger, but it is thorough. He recognizes one face that differs from the rest in a way imperceptible enough for her to go unnoticed if she should wish - but with an edge that draws the eye back to her for just another glance.

Predator among prey.

Joaqu�n tries not to smile, turning as the waitress draws abreast of him. A gesture of an elegant, long-fingered hand toward the woman across the room; a bourbon on the rocks ordered. A drink she'll never down, but it didn't matter. Joaqu�n is a gentleman, and a gentleman buys a lady a drink before chancing to speak to her.

Madeleine Brevard

Wed 07:48PM

Predatory among prey, wolf amidst the sheep: the metaphors are familiar and apt, and they come to mind only when the light slashes just so across her sharp features, highlighting the casual surety of her stance, or the reflective otherness of her eyes. The impression vanishes as quickly as it appears, and she is another of them again - a stockbroker, a young executive, an attorney out for an evening's canned entertainment before heading home to the bland sameness of her luxury highrise condo, trying to make the most of the night so that she can remember the freedom of her single days when she's tied down with a husband, 2.4 kids and a dog.

Or not. There is, after all, a familiar grace to her. The waitress presents her with the drink, and murmurs a reply to her whispered question, and she slips through the knot of businessmen before her like a hot knife through butter.

One hand is slung back against her shoulder, holding the suit jacket she shed after walking in. The other is curled around the cool smooth of the glass. Her gaze finds his briefly, and she lifts the glass in toast. If he studies her, he will see fine lines of wary tension framing her lips.

Joaqu�n Monteverde

Wed 08:01PM

Of course, he takes the toast as invitation. Men like him: tall, fit, lean, handsome with a broad brow and a noble aquiline nose; confident, attractive - and not simply in the visual sense - with his dark, dark eyes...men like him always took such things as invitations. After (how many?) years of never aging a day, of existing as a sliver of the shadowy underworld made material, such things must seem boring and predictable to her. And to be sure, she must have her means of driving the interested herds off. Or devouring them, whichever worked better.

This one takes his time, breaking eye contact long enough to cast the singer a glance during a particularly lovely arc of melody. This one moves with an implicit, modest grace, stopping by her table and raising his eyebrows in question, asking permission before setting his drink down and, thereafter, sliding his length into the seat across from her.

He leans across then, smiling, and despite the obvious latin blood in him, speaks without the clich�d accent. Clearly, quietly and, one might even say, friendly.

"I thought we had agreed you would not follow the gentleman anymore."

Madeleine Brevard

Wed 08:09PM

And even she cannot control the surprise that spins over her fine features. Two well-groomed, aristocratic eyebrows rise in unison, and her mouth opens in a distinct "O" as she turns to devour him with a frankly curious gaze. She is no doubt grateful that she cannot drink, for if she had had a mouthful of bourbon she would have sputtered it up at his words.

Then one brow falls, and her lips slide into a self-amused smirk, and she leans forward to meet him half-way across the table, her eyes finding his. "I'm afraid your memory is faulty. You told me not to follow the gentleman anymore. I offered a compromise, which you could not accept. There is certainly a difference."

Her smirk slides - easily - into a graceful and deceptive smile. "Perhaps we should make another agreement, then?"

Joaqu�n Monteverde

Wed 08:13PM

A soft breath out, somewhere between sigh and snort and chuckle. Joaquin pushes a hand through his hair, leans that elbow on the table, his cheek on that fist. So close, so casual, that no one would think them anything but a pair hitting it off over a shot of bourbon.

"And what might that agreement be?"

Madeleine Brevard

Wed 08:20PM

Her lips twitch in amusement. Briefly, her eyes graze downward, skimming across the surface of the bourbon in her glass before returning to his once more.

"You will cease following him, and you will not bother me again." No doubt he can sense the power behind the words - indeed, behind her eyes - as charged as a live wire, subtle (or not) as a velvet-gloved fist.

She leans then, lounges back and away from. Smiles, amused and challenging at once. "I think that should be acceptable, don't you?"

Joaqu�n Monteverde

Wed 08:27PM

There is only the slightest narrowing of his eyes, more concentration than anger. A wave of command breaks over him, and his blood is not equipped to brush it aside. The corners of his mouth, which is generous but short of lush, curve up. "It will have to be, I'm afraid. The cessation of the tracking and hunting, at least. But I'm not really bothering you yet, am I?"

Just the slightest of stresses on the 'yet', no more obvious than the narrowing of his eyes.

Madeleine Brevard

Wed 08:33PM

Her eyes flash down again, the whites serving only to accentuate the dark of irises so close to black as to be almost indistinguishable, and settle on his hands. Strangely elegant, they are, finely made.

She would have expected something more coarse, in keeping with his particular affliction.

"No," she is surprised to find herself murmuring in reply, "...you are not really bothering me yet."

Joaqu�n Monteverde

Wed 08:42PM

"No," he agrees, and quietly. "Not yet."

She has leaned back, but he has not. The lady is reluctant, but the gentleman is avid. Those who care in their little drama might think so, but perhaps he is merely more comfortable leaning forward. Closer to a hunch, a crouch. In keeping with his particular affliction, and all.

"I will not follow the creature anymore," he adds, "but nor will you. And if you deny me this, I will send another to do my work for me. You cannot hope to ward every possibility against me, and I am patient, and I am thorough.

"So gratify me with a pretty courtesy. Lift your command, and I will not - " he follows the direction of her gaze to his hand resting upon the table, turning it over to reveal the hairless palm, gently flexing it. Back to her, " - bother you."

Madeleine Brevard

Wed 08:51PM

"I do not trust courtesies, pretty or nor," she murmurs absently in response to his statement, watching the movement of muscle and bone beneath skin. When she glances back up and fnds herself confronted with his eyes (more intelligent than she would have though. And it seems to know the language well.), she still has something of a faraway look, briefly, distant and lost.

"I release you. You may follow him," she pauses, her eyes narrowing, her head shaking a faint negative as if she considers this folly. "...but you shall not disrupt my own investigation. Is that more to your liking?"

Joaqu�n Monteverde

Wed 09:00PM

For his part, Joaqu�n no longer considers his follies. Others will do enough of it for him. He knows better, and yet...

And yet.

"It will be sufficient," replies the Shadow Lord, with a nod. "For now." His drink is untouched on the table, and he does not touch it. It is, after all, no fun to drink alone. "A word of advice: investigate quickly." A shrug, apologetic, honestly so. "It is not in my nature to spare too much, too long."

Madeleine Brevard

Wed 09:10PM

Madeleine inclines her head and rises in one smooth, uninterrupted motion, not so much serpentine as post-modern industrial, ball bearings, focal points, flexible polymers, a machine that no longer needs to be oiled.

Perhaps he thinks she will say nothing more. After all, she is already turning away, her strangely exclusive attention drifting to another target, primary. But at the last minute she turns back, leaning across the table. Her shadow - or, we should say, her shadows, for she casts many in the shifting light of the club - her shadows fall across him as she retrieves her drink.

"Good hunting."

It is an afterthought, no more. She is already slipping into the thinning crowd.