No Empty Promise, Nor Road Lightly Taken
Wednesday, 24 Sep 2014
Art Gallery, Downtown
Natchez MS
2320 hrs, CDT
Wisps of smoke still curled from Evangeline's remains as court ended. The crowd of departing vampires kept clear of the ashes and Renny's ghouls. Renny himself seemed to reflect the tenseness as he returned from his meeting with Eliza. "Well . . . that happened." He smiled to Irina. "Way to open with a bang. A couple of them actually."
Irina up nodded at Renny's compliment but refrained from saying anything. She simply zipped up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. She cut a look at the door and raised a brow at her Regnant. The meaning was clear: Going now?
Renny stood up to his full height and gave an arch look to his compatriots. "To the Vampmobile."
Irina took a measured breath and started walking. She'd missed many things after leaving Natchez, but Renny's cornball humor wasn't one of them. Once outside, she swept the street with a hard look. Nothing immediately struck her as a threat, so she relaxed minutely and waited for Renny to join her.
Flame watched the night through her purple sunglasses, her eyes narrowed. She still wasn't certain what was going on, but she hated being used like a puppet assassin. The petite deaf woman at her side still seemed a little shell-shocked but Flame could only glare into the night, waiting for an attack. She was glad she had fed beforehand. Every vampire here seemed to bring food with them that it would be rude to eat from. She was fairly certain that the Gangrel would resent a little taste from Caroline. Voices made her freeze, the only noise the faint creak of her leathers as she shifted onto the balls of her feet.
Irina saw Flame step outside with Caroline and after murmuring to Renny to wait a moment, she walked over to the L.A. vampire and Caroline.
"Caroline," she said, making sure the woman could see her lips. "Don't worry. We'll get through this." She gave the woman a heartfelt hug and saw Mason coming in fast from the side. Irina released Caroline and stepped back to give the man some room. "I've got a few things to wrap up here but we'll meet you at the townhouse. Half an hour, tops."
Reaching up absently, Flame moved a strand of black hair from her eyes to better look at the small vampire killer, and studied the woman as she spoke to Caroline. Are they all tiny here? she thought to herself with a twist of her lips, aware that she towered in her heels. The Irina woman seemed to be wanting to talk to her and so she waited, slowly calming herself down. Space had always counseled calm, something that as a Brujah she considered a precious commodity that she had little of. Ironic that Space seemed to have it in spades but he wasn't a typical Brujah with his Zen ditziness.
"Flame," Irina said, turning to the L.A. vampire. "You meant what you said back there." It wasn't stated as a question but there was that faint query to it nevertheless.
"That I'm not killing Boone? Or that you're not what you're saying you are?" A black eyebrow raised and she shrugged. The bones of the hand perched on her shoulder shifted like a cat, stretching and then clamping itself back to her jacket. She glanced at it and then her gaze went to Irina's. "You didn't learn all that as a hobby." Her lips slid into an easy smile as looked at the woman. "You wanna walk and talk? Old and dried up in there doesn't tickle my fancy and Space seems to be out of harm's way right now."
"Let's walk." Irina gave Flame a twitch of a smile and started walking for the corner, watching the street. Caroline and Mason were clinched in a tight hug at their car and as Irina walked, they both got in and drove off. By the time she made it to the corner, the lights of their car had disappeared into the night. "No," she said as she turned to Flame. "You're not killing Boone. I am who I say I am. It's not a hobby. It's a calling. You?"
"No hobby, just lifestyle." She breathed in deeply, an old habit she maintained around the living, and then let it go. They needed to hear it; she used it a centering tool. "Surely Renny warned you that I'm Brujah."
"He did. I don't have a problem with that." Irina looked at Flame directly. "I have a problem with people threatening kids. Eliza's threatened Caroline's. That's not the only reason why she's on my shit list, but it's one of the bigger ones. Does it bother you what I do?"
The purple shaded gaze locked on hers. "Yes."
"I'm not after you." Irina didn't flinch but let the other woman look her fill. "You're not part of the problem I'm taking care of here. You're safe from me. You and Rocket and Dragon."
Irina flicked a glance at the street, counting the people in the immediate vicinity in sheer reflex. Three, two, and three. Eight. Nothing threatened them. Yet. Irina relaxed her stance minutely, shifted the strap across her shoulder.
"I used to be a cop. Detective. Homicide." She met Flame's gaze again. "New York. It was all I wanted. It was all I was. And I was good at it. That life was taken away from me." Irina's voice dropped to her toes. "Three days in a basement, chained, beaten, left for dead. I survived but it broke me. I couldn't continue as a cop. I had to start over." Irina flicked another glance at the street. "This is what I am now. And it's finally something I want more than the life I lost, because the life I have now is more than what I lost."
Irina looked Flame in the eye, her voice steely.
"I won't compromise. So when I tell you that you are safe from me, you are."
Her laugh rang out over the street and Flame shook her head. "I'm not making that promise. And you shouldn't either. I'm safe from you for now." Flame shook her head, incredulous and bemused. "One of us is gonna have to take care of Boone. I'm not doing it. And neither are you it seems. So it will fall to someone else. We don't get a pass for not playing the Prince's game. I was in high school. I know a queen bitch when I see one. We'll do what we're told or pay."
She stopped abruptly. "Can you hold onto that promise when it's your life or my unlife babe?"
"Yes." Irina swept the street ahead of them. Clear. She gave it her back and started walking back the way they came. "I've already died once. I can do it again. Besides," Irina added, her lips twitching in a fleeting grin. "You don't know me, but I really hate to lose."
The model nodded and shook her head before catching up to her in three quick strides. "Me too," she agreed with both statements. "So guess we better stay on the same side. I promised that Caroline woman I'd help protect her kid. I don't do kids. What side of that fight are you really on, Court Slayer? The Prince's or that lady's? Who really yanks your chain?"
"In order: We should. I made the same promise. My side. And the last?" Irina cut a glance at Flame and went back to watching the street. "I'm still a cop. I'm fighting the same fight as before. My jurisdiction is just a little ... broader ... than it used to be."
Flame slipped around her in a blur of darkness, darting ahead to stop in the shadows on the sidewalk, arms akimbo in a perfect catwalk pose. "I have to tell you that I hate cops," she announced brightly. "Change my mind." With that, she whirled and was gone into the night.
"Figured that," Irina said softly to the air where Flame once stood. She didn't break stride to look for her. She knew the model could take care of herself. No, Irina had another matter to attend to: BoonE. She quickened her pace to join Renny, there to beg his patience while she saw to it.
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