As they parked the Bronco near Commanders Palace he couldn't help but watch the dwindling dinner crowds who were taking their leave. Must be nice, that was the thought he had about those families out for an evening in the Garden District, must be nice. Their simple joys and pains, pleasures and past times seemed perfect in comparison to what he had planned for the evening. Using the heel of his boot he kicked closed the door of the black Bronco after hopping down. He heard the resounding sound of the passenger door being closed as Ariadne did the same.
"That's the place." Giving a simple nod of his chin at the cemetary across the street as she came to walk beside him on the sidewalk, his onyx eyes lost in the darkness of his own thoughts. "You'd think they'd want to be just a little less stereotypical. I mean, vampires meeting you in a graveyard. It's sooooo overdone."
Stringing along the conversation he felt the need to fill the air with sound since Ariadne had gotten progressively more and more silent as the evening had grown dark around them. Sarcasm laced his tone but he didn't really have the energy to be jolly just now. For him there was too much unknown, and too much possibility of things going wrong to really paint a clowns smile on for the evening.
The two of them walked in practiced steps beside one another, falling into that old hunting stride that came reflexively from years of fighting together. Yet now they milled among the evening crowds, making their way across the street and towards the locked gates of the cemetary. Even in New Orleans the cemetaries were locked up after dark, not that something as simple as locks and gates would keep them from their appointed rendezvois. Rounding a corner to a less populated part of the street he paused, and turned to face his Crone.
"You sure about this Rad? There's nothing saying we can't just turn back, go back to Rome, back to the tribe." Back to Trinity. The last part was only in his head, but she would know what he was thinking. She always knew where his true thoughts harbored. "You don't have to do this."
Yet the look in her eyes told him more surely than words that for her there were no other options. Some kind of fate had brought them to this point, seperated them from their roots and cast them adrift for this purpose. Heaving a sigh of resignation he looked left and right, waiting for a moment of stillness on the street and then he made a foothold of his hands to hoist her over the bricks of the cemetary walls. Agile and strong she used the boost he gave her to flip over the wall as if it were the merest of blockades against her skills.
Finding creases in the bricks he used the toe of his boot to hoist himself up, arms straining with tension as he pushed over the top and leapt down on the other side of the wall. His boots made the faintest sound as they hit turf and he instantly scanned his surroundings with jet black eyes. The cemetary was quiet, peaceful, but he could feel the essence of the dead that dwelled here and it made his fingers twitch, wanting to grab the silver stake holstered against his thigh.
"I guess the cat will have no problem getting in on her own." Ariadne's moon glow eyes looked at him and he shook his head with a faint laugh. "No, I don't want to know."
That had been part of the deal. He wanted plausible deniability where Mary Jane was concerned. After all, Faith had made this deal promising to bring Azrael to meet with Ariadne, the tiger hadn't been a part of their concessions. Where Jane was, what she knew about this meeting, whether she was planning to show up, he didn't want to know those details. If the tiger got too close too soon they would all know it, but he was hoping that Rad had planned it so he and Faith would be long gone before Mary Jane showed on the scene. At least he hoped that was how she'd arranged it. In any event, it was out of his hands now.
Moving among the shades of the mosoleums he kept close to Ariadne's side, not fully trusting to Faiths promise. If this was an ambush they would fight, and they would win. Part of him hoped that there would be an ambush. That was the kind of event that he could save her from. Sadly, if Faith came through on her end of this deal there was nothing he could do to help Rad with what she would be facing. Spitting in the dirt he wished he had a Red Bull to quench his thirst.
"This is the place. Now we just wait."
They stopped beneath a blocked burial site with a statue of an angel rising above it. The angels wings spread wide and cast shadows on the ground from the bit of light that the moon cast down on them. They stood in a silvery glow and for a moment he watched the breeze play in Ariadne's hair. He always thought of her as the Crone, remembered her leading the Tarakians into battle with blood soaking her milky skin and her golden hair a ribbon of death. But here she looked muted somehow, like a ghost of her former self. Hannibal tried to shake that image of her from his head, but as he waited for the angel of death to descend on them he couldn't fight the powerful imagery that flooded his mind.
-- Edited by HANNIBAL KING on Wednesday 7th of December 2011 12:01:01 PM
So the fateful day had finally come. For a minute Faith wasn't so sure that Hannibal would hold up part of his bargain and was ready to call the whole thing a wash when she got a text on the disposable cell phone that simply read "the heat is on." It took the vampire quite a bit of effort not to groan at that. One of the things that bothered Faith about the whole thing was Azrael's reaction. Sometimes he was so easy to read Faith felt like buying a pack of crayons, yet sometimes he kept things so close to the chest, no matter what she tried or how she acted he wouldn't let anything slip out. Fort Knox was Azrael. Still, he didn't say no. Even after a thousand years curiosity seemed to get the better of people. Sometimes.
At least the weather held for the night. Earlier on the news the forecast had been for rain, now it had changed to partially cloudy with a chance of a drizzle in the morning. Not that the vampires would be awake to see it. Faith paused for a minute and thought about that. How long has it been since she had seen the sun? Years. Had it really been so long? Shaking her head to clear out the random thought, Faith resumed her walk among the grave. Even though she was the youngest of the duo, she was the one who set up this meeting and so she had left Azrael a few minutes behind while she scouted ahead. She didn't expect ghosts and ghouls to rise up out of their graves and attack them or anything as cliche as that, but she didn't trust Hannibal not to have made a day trip and set traps while the Vampires slept the daylight away.
After a couple of circuits around the portion of the cemetery where they were supposed to meet, Faith had decided that it was safe enough. Since nothing exploded, shot, flamed up, come to life and try to stab her....it was as safe as a cemetery could be. So Faith perched atop of a grave and texted Azrael the all clear.
She had dressed for the occasion too. Gone were the high heels and the mini dresses that made up the 99.9% of her wardrobe. Instead Faith went with the more sensible option of combat boots and black leather pants with reinforced knee patches. A dark gray top and a matching leather jacket that had pockets for girlish necessities like a cell phone and a tube of gloss. And hidden toys like a pair of knives and a 9mm loaded with regular human killing bullets. Packing silver was overkill. She wasn't going to hunt weres, and per the rules of long ago she couldn't just put a regular metal cylinder of metal between Hannibal's eyes no matter how itchy her trigger finger was. So armed more for the novelty of it rather than actual need, Faith kicked her heels and took in the "sighs" while she waited for the rest of the party guests to arrive.
And what do you know. Just as she was starting to get kind of comfortable and into the mind set that maybe no one was going to show up after all....there was that unmistakable sound of Hannibal and his keeper approaching an area not too far away. Even faint, the sounds were unmistakable. Narrowing her eyes, Faith focused her hearing on the conversation, wondering if she could pick out anything interesting out of what ever white noise they were spewing. Deciding that would take more effort than she was willing to expand, Faith simply stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled. A noise loud enough and shrill enough to wake the dead.
-- Edited by FAITH on Wednesday 7th of December 2011 08:36:58 PM
~Besides their different species Azrael was confounded on how to explain the never masked animousity between Faith and Hannibal. The two of them were like gasoline soaked rags awaiting only the slightest of sparks to turn the night into a furnace. Why the man seemed to irritate his protegee so much was a question that he had never asked her, assuming only that something had happened to them during their time in Rome that she preferred not to tell him about. If he was wrong, if it was only racial animousity, then that hardly seemed capable of explaining the sheer volume of annoyances which Hannibal seemed to produce for Faith.~
~In short, if Azrael's reaction to this entire affair bothered Faith, then it was safe to say that he was also bothered by her seeming inability to leave well enough alone where Hannibal King was concerned. Perhaps she mistook Azrael's silence for keeping things close to the chest, but he would've been right lucky to get a bloody word in edgewise the way she kept going on and on about her impending liasion with the Tarakian. It was a wonder either of them had a moments peace the days leading up to the meeting without someone snapping from the tension involved in watching each other and trying to gauge the others reaction to the upcoming event.~
~If she'd asked him why he wanted to see Ariadne again he would have probably answered with some sturdy bit about curiousity, or the fact that he still felt a lingering connection to her from their days in Rome. The truth however went much farther back. Ariadne reminded him of a mistake that he had made centuries ago and had never been able to set right. In some ways when he saw her he couldn't help but see her ancestors face transposed over her own. There were ghosts in his past that would haunt him forever, and in some ways helping Ariadne for a short time had eased the pain of those long ago mistakes.~
"About bloody time."
~The comment was muttered mostly to himself as he got the text message from Faith giving him the all clear. Truthfully he hadn't been terribly worried about any possible attacks, but Faith did adore a chance to play soldier so he indulged her. Moving among the shadow grasp of the ether he would join the others in the cemetary. Standing near Faith atop the mausoleum he leaned casually against one of the outstretched wings of the marble angel. In some ways he looked like that stone creature, his features chiselled and cold, his manner as dark and mysterious as the dead stone effigy.~
"My, my. Don't you look eager pet."
~Arctic eyes glanced down at Faith as she swung her heels and let the combat boots pound a rhythm lightly against the stone. Her manner of dress made one of his black brows rise in an arch as he looked her over. Again he had a moment to wonder just what Faith and that Hannibal would be doing while he and Ariadne spoke, but before he could lose himself too much in wondering he looked up to find the Tarakians drawing closer.~
"He's so buggering loud it's a miracle he could kill a deaf dumb and blind vampire let alone one with the use of all it's faculties."
~Sour grapes? Perhaps. Crouching down he let cool fingers cup at Faith's chin and draw her close so that his lips could press softly to her temple. As he held her there but a moment he spoke to her without saying a word aloud. "Whatever happens tonight, be careful pet. Be at the crypt before the dawn or so help me I will raise the city in flames to find you." Knowing they were going to be seperated he left her with those parting words before descending from his perch like a hovering angelic being, albeit one draped in black leather with a sneering smirk set on his sculpted lips.~
"Ariadne," ~He looked her over a moment to note any changes since the last time that he had seen her in Rome.~ "What brings you to our fair city. Don't tell me you came all the way here looking for me?" ~His eyes squinted, head canting to the side as his smile broadened.~ "That's so........sweet."
~Well, he would hardly be himself if sarcasm and mockery didn't lace his words. Still unsure of what he wanted he wasn't about to give an inch. Moving closer he let his eyes flick to Hannibal and watch the man shadowing him.~
"Things might have been simpler for all of us if we'd just decided to kill each other when we first met. Que sera sera. Hindsights twenty-twenty and all that rot."
