Satis House

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Vaguely, Antha sighed. She had rather hoped he might say something, and though she knew why he wouldn't it brought an impetuous little pout to her lips. But finally she just shook her head, sighing and detaching herself from him, rising up on outstretched arms, eyes still studying him. She did not point out that she already had something live and mute to tell her secrets to and a dozen men who would sell their souls to be the father of the child of Antha Mayfair---ones with blood that did not spell certain disaster when mixed with her own, as the Calais blood did. No, she said none of these things. She stood and went to the window as if she herself was mute, leaning her shoulder against the wooden windowframe and gazing out into the darkness that flashed distantly with threatening light as it tore the sky in half and then left it to mend before it struck again. It didn't matter that she had barely bothered to cloth herself, just the pieces of black lace that clung to her thin frame and of course the Mayfair emerald gleamed against her pale skin, the bare minimal in case Rynn or some wayward cousin of hers should show up, because no one was around, wandering the pitch black swamps. There was only the single house, old and creaking with the howling wind, and the people within it. "Uncle Louis used to play records on his victrola for me when the weather was this frightful," she said errantly, giving a vague motion towards the one in the corner that was in fact not the one Louis had left her---that one resided in the parlor of Mayfair Manor---but was a perfect copy of it, "I must have been ten years old. I didn't mind them, I was too used to being in the attic here while they played out, wondering if the wind was going to bring the rotting roof down around my head. But I loved the sun, and uncle Louis hated to see me so sad." She gave a brief, humorless, laugh---reminiscent was the only word for it. "I thought the world would end when uncle Louis died, me and the rest of his worshipful cult of Mayfair children. It seemed so...wrong, that I could be alive while he wasn't. Wrong and sad and terribly, terribly unfair." She was quiet long enough to look down at Amadeo, who had seen her separate from Cian and seized the opportunity, skidding through the door and hopping up onto the windowsill, rubbing his head affectionately against her knees. She glanced then over her shoulder at Cian, her eyes flashing in the firelight, and another streak of lightning silhouetted her figure against the window, while Amadeo went still and rigid and frightened at the crack of thunder that chased it. "All of his things burned, too. Even before he died, while he laid in his bed in the attic of Mayfair Manor wasting away into death, aunt Bianca gathered anything that had ever belonged to him and built great bonfires of the things in the yard. I hated her so much for that, and hated myself that I was too small and fragile to stop her in her crusade. I could only hide what little he had left to me and my brothers under the floorboards in this house and stare angrily at her when she came demanding them from me. And I felt so awful then, when I measured the things she had burned against the things I had saved. As if I had failed him miserably, and he was dead and I couldn't make it up to him again." Again the silence as Amadeo mewed at her, pleaded for her attention, and she scratched his ears. She felt oddly like talking, like rambling on and on until he was driven mad enough by the sound of her voice that he would talk. "I sat on the floor in the attic where I had hidden his things and watched her tear through my belongings, looking for them. And she never told us why exactly, not even on her deathbed when I screamed at her and demanded answers and Nicolae had to hold me back because I couldn't forgive her, couldn't stop hating her, because uncle Louis was the first person I had ever loved, in any manner, and she burned his legacy to ashes in my own goddamn yard." She laughed once, bleakly. "God help you if you stick around," she murmured, her fingertips resting still against the top of Amadeo's head, "Because they'll swallow you, my ruthless aunts and uncles. Collect your blood like some rare jewel and add it to our pool of pretty, shiny things we like."  

[Okimiyage]

Antha looked, he remembered thinking--her red curls unbound, clad in nothing but jewels and scraps of lace and moonlight--like a siren. Maybe she was. She had certainly lured Rynn and himself here without much effort. Probably what they deserved for trying it on her. He stood, as the whip-crack of lightning split the sky and, briefly, lit the room. It was storming, and that again brought that secret glad cheshire-smile to Cian's face, and he dragged his clothes back on--like Antha, enough to be decent, although nobody would be able to deny what they had been doing if they were suddenly presented with an unexpected visitor. He wondered what it was like, to have--uncles and cousins and all the trappings of extended family. His grandfather had died before Cian was born--the only one who even remembered the old man vaguely was Erin, and it suddenly occurred to Cian with a pang in his chest that he had never bothered to ask for stories, and now he never would be able to. Not that he had any reason to care, he reminded himself. Rynn and Cian were of a house of no name worth mention now. So he sat quietly--when Amadeo took fright at the thunder, he coaxed the cat out from under the armchair, although of course the cat wanted Antha, everyone wanted Antha--and listened to her spin out her childhood heartbreak, and thought about his own. The fire that resulted in the funeral of their parents had been--so sudden. One night you go to bed, and when you wake up in the morning you're an orphan. The fire had been stopped, quite cleanly, at the double-doors which opened into the west wing. For weeks, the brothers and their two younger sisters had been shuffled around like dreary-eyed, amiable puppets by hawk-thin, black-suited lawyers while paperwork was drawn up to be signed by Rynn. Rynn and Liesse had been five. He probably didn't even remember it at this point. Cian was ten, and even for him the memories were hazy.
It occurred to Cian that their lives, for people who came from such grandiose heritages, had been unspeakably hard, and wasn't there supposed to be more lying around on silk pillows and eating bonbons, et cetera, involved in being from a wealthy family? Paris Hilton certainly seemed to have more fun with it than they did.
Cian watched her pet Amadeo, and then picked up and shuffled across the floor to her. He sighed, and his long limbs collapsed upon themselves in a most ungraceful manner that nevertheless ended up with Cian sitting on the floor next to Antha, cross-legged. It was funny seeing humans move sometimes, after so much of the eerie-liquid-grace thing that vampires were into. He leaned in to listen to her words, closely; shook his head at her and frowned. He wanted to tell her, Don't fear for me.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"Ah," she said, giving a vague little smile, "But I do. And I fear for Rynn, no matter how he despises me." She went, quietly, to sit beside him, to do what she had wanted all along and wrap her arms around him, to kiss his cheek and lips and stroke his pretty curls, and it made her oddly happy to do it. Amadeo followed her example and went to the other side of him, rubbed his cheeks against the boy's leg and looked at him with sharp chartreuse eyes that knew too much for a creature that could not understand their words. And then he moved away from them, padded out the door and down the hall to scratch at Rynn's door, mewing softly like he would tell him it was no monster.
It was then that she pressed Cian onto his back, that she slid over him and laid a little kiss upon his throat. "But to think of those things now is foolish," she whispered in a sigh, looking thoughtfully down to him, the heavy, shining Mayfair emerald suspended between them, brushing his chest, "It is better to kiss and touch and pretend the world ends with these walls, is it not? Even if it is only until the vampires rise from the dust and spoil all our fun." She paused long enough to grin somewhat impishly. Something was happening in the world outside, this she knew by the very feel of the air, the storm that swirled continuously over the city with no end in sight, and yet she refused to acknowledge it. It could wait, whatever it was, wait until either Cian fell asleep or the sun set and Nicolae dragged them apart anyways. As she said, it was better at the moment to pretend that the world ended with the walls of Satis House.  

[Okimiyage]

Cian thought that despises was a harsh word for it, and let her know as much. Rynn was--grieving. Or simply being a brat. Cian knew he was owed his own display of mourning, but oddly enough, he felt--nothing. Whenever he thought about his brothers, Liesse, their deaths--it was as though he was imagining characters in a play, rather than his siblings. Or perhaps Cian's preferences ran to silence, cigarettes, bourbon, and sex rather than shrieking and carrying on. He went along with her petting for a few minutes--long enough, at least, to feel a strange sense of camaraderie with Amadeo--before he shook her hand free of his hair, with a silent chuckle. The weight of her palms upon his chest was little enough, but he let her lead him with her light touch until his shoulder blades pressed flat against the floorboards. Her words made him sigh--he wanted to be convinced, wanted to forget that there was a world outside the library with words like duty and choice. For a moment, he pretended--as she had advised--that her name held no weight, and his never had. They were simply--lovers, and needed nothing more to define them. (Right. And the Mayfair emerald was 'simply' a big chunk of green rock.)

The younger Calais brother was lying on the bed, arms thrown up over his eyes, listening to the storm and pretending to sleep when he heard a miaow at his door. Antha's witchy little beast had come to call, or she had sent it. Drat. Perhaps it was just passing by. Rynn waited, ears cocked, with bated breath.
Another miaow.
With a groan, he rolled over onto his stomach. Well, the damn thing could wait outside all day if it liked. He wasn't going to get up and let it in, he had been up all night, was bone-tired and moved for no man.
Miaow.
Besides, Rynn wasn't in the mood to turn cat-lover for Antha's familiar. He'd already found a steadfast devotee in Cian.
Miaow.
He put a pillow over his head and clamped his arms down around his ears. Miaow.
The pillow was irksomely ineffective.
Miaow.
"For the love of all cat-hating gods, you can come in already." Rynn snarled, sitting up and flinging the pillow across the room at the door, which unbolted violently and flew open to reveal Amadeo, as expected, on the sill of the door.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Antha just smiled, bitterly, and shook her head. Grieving or not, she thought her words perfectly fitting. "Clearly you are unconvinced with my games of make believe," she sighed at last, watching him ruefully, "What a shame. I rather like to pretend that none of it matters." She rose then, in a very graceful series of gestures that had everything to do with breeding and good upbringing (as Julien would call it), and yet still had nothing on that of a vampire's movements. "I had better go to spare your brother the company of my cat," she murmured, taking Nicolae's shirt up from the floor and sliding it over her arms, though she was not quite modest enough to bother buttoning it.
The cat in question, who had found himself rather discouraged after a certain amount of scratching and begging, was quite delighted to find the door open to him all of a sudden. He went bounding at the bed upon which Rynn laid, trotting over the covers and the boy's limbs to lay beside him, his back curled and his little paws tucked into the tight ball he had formed of himself.
"I can take him for you," Antha said, quietly, from the doorway, leaning her shoulder against the frame, "If you are that irritated by his presence." Amadeo did not look at Antha, rather he trusted her to come to him and so he did not move from his position but instead began purring softly, expectant. But Antha was not looking at the cat, was hardly paying him any attention, and was instead focused upon Rynn. Clearly he wasn't in a good mood, and she had the nagging urge to tease him or ridicule him or something to mess with him in general. It was all she could do to contain herself to divert her eyes, to watch the play of dust upon the floor and the fall of rain against the windows.  

[Okimiyage]

Cian sat up to watch her leave, because she moved so prettily that he could not refuse to observe. Despite her make-believe, she left the library quickly enough when she was through with him. Perhaps that was why he found Antha's games of pretense somewhat unconvincing; they were so brief, and changed so swiftly. Cian didn't mind. Besides, he understood the need to keep a watchful eye on Rynn at the moment. He found that, no matter his brother's opinion of her, Cian rather liked Antha. There was something about her that was not quite tame, something that he suspected never would be. Like an animal born in the wild, but raised in captivity. She was...interesting, even if she did have a propensity for petting him like he was a cat rather than half of a moderately disheveled post-coital duo.
It was tempting to just lay there, in the warm heat of the library, his back pressed to the woodgrain beneath him, listening to the rain tap-dancing on the roof. Tempting--but Cian had enough good sense (no matter what anyone else said) to curl up in one of the armchairs rather than the floor.

Rynn refused to be lured by a purring ball of fuzz into a false sense of security. He remained sitting up, pulling his legs underneath him, his back and shoulders stiffening distrustfully at the cat's presence; a posture which was only reinforced by Antha's appearance at the door. Rynn said, darkly, "I know what you sent it here to do and it's not going to happen. I am not going to be tricked into having some sort of touching, emotional bonding moment with your cat, Antha, no matter how much it might entertain you." He screwed his mouth into a scowl and returned Amadeo's stare unflinchingly, crossing his arms over his chest. "Does your cat not know better than to jump on the furniture?" Rynn knew enough about family heirlooms to be able to estimate the price of some of the pieces in this house, and enough to know that most antique dealers would not let a cat within twenty paces (human, not cat) of this furniture, let alone jump on it all the kitty liked.

...
Rynn had just added the word 'kitty' in his vocabulary. Not 'kitten', not 'cat'. 'Kitty'.

Amadeo was winning.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

A moment passed in silence, during which time Antha stared at Rynn, quite like he was losing his mind. "It's a cat, Rynn," she pointed out, slowly, as if she thought he needed time to process such a thing, "He does as he pleases. Even if I could order him around to do things for my amusement---which I cannot because, as I said, it's a cat---why would I send Amadeo to bond with you?" At the mention of his name, the cat looked up. Clearly he was unhappy that no one was petting him or scratching his ears and since Antha was so far away, he turned to Rynn to remedy the situation, rubbing his head against the boy's leg. "God knows why he likes you," Antha scoffed, shaking her head, "You've been nothing but rude. But he does, and he likes attention."
To the second comment, she only rolled her eyes. "He knows not to break and scratch things. Beyond that, I really have no problem with him doing what he likes." But she went to the cat anyways, plucked him from the bed and set him down on the floor. "Go," she told him, motioning to the door just firmly enough that he went through it, wandering down the hall and back to her room, sulking.  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn's expression said it all: she was not going to convince him of Amadeo's purity of intent.
"It's not just a cat, it's your cat." Rynn told her, with a tight-lipped smile. But as Amadeo exited the room, he relaxed (infinitesimally) and uncrossed his legs to dangle them over the side of the bed. "And like you said, Antha--there's absolutely no reason for your pet to come begging strange, discourteous house guests for attention, especially when I clearly have no intention of giving him any." He raised an eyebrow. "You don't have an excuse to visit me, either. Unless you've lost interest in Cian already?--in which case, you might as well slink back to the poor thing. I'm sure he's desolate without you, and you're certainly not going to find any sort of entertainment here." His tone was dismissive, his stare--his eyes flicked over her once, from the feet up, then he glanced away--not so much appraising as it was indecent, as though the porcelain skin that peeked through her open shirt told him more about her than he ever desired to know. His averted eyes were less a gesture of propriety than of pity.

Rynn was good at these games. God knew he'd played them often enough with Erin--the one member of Llyr's Court that hated him enough to challenge his authority over their bloodline. They'd fought too many times to count--some duels strictly verbal, some less so. They'd each perfected ways to deride, to wound, to snap and retort and snarl until they were masters of hurting everyone but each other. Like swordsmen who practiced without gloves for years upon end, until their palms were as rough as steel wool, the skin so thick with callus that they could hardly feel the hilt of the swords in their hands. (In the walled asylum of his own head, he practiced the changes in verb tense--Erin is a dead man. Erin was my brother. One soul over which he would not grieve, at least.)  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Antha laughed once, briefly, as if at some private joke. "There is nothing I could ever possibly want from you, Rynn," she murmured, going back to stand in the doorway, to watch him with eyes that barely concealed her amusement. But, beneath it all, there was something else. Indecipherable certainly, at least to Rynn for he had nothing to do with it, and infinitely anxious. "You know, I'm not really sure why I came. Perhaps you were just some excuse to appease my sense of procrastination, to stall another few moments before I go to meet something even worse than your company. But you're right, I have no excuse. Bon soir, monsieur Calais." She turned her back on him, taking the first step towards the end of the hall, and then paused, bothering with a quiet laugh, a whisper no human ears could possibly distinguish, and then vanished into the darkness of her room. Immediately Amadeo was cast back into the hall, the door to her room closed between the two of them, and immediately he began whining to be let back in.
It was the sound of things clattering around that stopped him, that brought him to hissing at the closed door, ears folded back. The low, broken scream was what made him jump, staring warily at the door through slitted eyes, and then it stopped, abruptly, and he was left sitting quietly where he had been, waiting for the door to open. It wouldn't, however. If anyone bothered to let him in, they wouldn't find Antha shut away in her room. They would only find the open window, the overturned chair, and the little pile of glass shards left on the floor for Nicolae, because he would recognize them as coming from the attic window.
This he did, some hours later when the sun---still unseen behind the clouds---had set and he went bounding up the stairs, frantic, intent upon seeing it with his own eyes."It always has to be an eye for an eye with them," he hissed, his fingers clenched tightly around the fistful of glass that cut his fingers and dripped blood all across the floor.  

[Okimiyage]

It was not Rynn, closest in distance, who was the first to discover the scene in Antha's room, but Cian. He woke from his doze an hour's time from sunset--s**t. The vampires would be up soon. Uncurling rapidly from his armchair, he picked up the garments from the library floor that both he and Antha had shed so hastily. He climbed the creaking stairs of Satis House; he let himself into the room where Rynn had secluded himself practically since he had first entered Antha's abode. Cian was surprised to catch his little brother asleep atop the lavishly embroidered bedspread; even more surprised to note, with some alarm, unfamiliarly...fraternal...feelings at the strange sight of catching Rynn at rest. Seeing his face at peace, without the tense expression that Cian had come to recognize as his little brother's standard, elicited the vaguely unnerving impression that he was looking at a stranger.
...Unnerving, indeed. He was being an idiot.
Cian distracted himself by searching a place to stow their discarded garments, and then by hunting down a replacement to the shirt that Antha had absconded with. The pale tones of shirt he chose bespoke the genius of the well-known M. Charvet of the rue de la Paix, and he stepped into the hallway still doing up his cuffs. It was then that he noticed Amadeo, and realized why he had not seen him upon initially climbing the landing. The cat was sitting stock still, tail not even lashing, in front of the door across the hall. His eyes were as big and round as bell-wheels, and without thinking Cian crossed the hall, set his hand upon the door-handle, and opened it.
There was nobody inside of--what was a bedroom, by the looks of it. From the chosen trappings of whoever slept here--and if this were not obvious enough, the scent of lilacs--Cian would have to guess the room belonged to Antha. Amadeo wound around Cian's ankles anxiously; and as the man's eye fell upon the overturned chair, the window open, the glass--that was what puzzled him the most, because the shards were flat like windowpane glass, but there were no broken windows int the room. It was obviously not from a portrait or anything of the sort, because there remained no evidence of the frame. Cian frowned. He would not have expected the same girl who he had watched in the library, who moved like a dancer, to be so clumsy in her own quarters. Shaking his head, he went across the room, setting upright the overturned chair.
His hand still grasping the back of the seat, Cian froze. There was something here--something ugly, that permeated the room beneath Antha's lilacs like the scent of rot. The wood bore witness to a scene, a struggle--
Minutes later, Rynn found himself being shaken bodily awake by his brother. When Nicolas entered the room at dusk, in an hour's time, he was watched through the open door across the hall by the two brothers.

When Vikteren woke, it was in time to see Nicolae vanish from the chamber beneath Satis House, into the rooms above. Wondering what could have elicited such a reaction so immediately upon rising, Vikteren left the little vault, shutting the little trap-door behind the two of them conscientiously. He could smell--panic.
The vampire's dark eyes flickered, little tongues of emerald skittering at the edge of his irises. He knew now why Nicolae had moved so quickly.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"It's already begun," the vampire said quietly---though he could not tell the tone of his voice from the mess of things in his head, the screams and laughter and insults flung from blood-filled mouths, "That was his plan, and Antha ******** knew it. She tried to soothe us with promises of daylight and she knew he was coming under the cloud cover, that his great show was taking her while all the rest of us slept."
Of all people, Nicolae was not one to stay mad at his sister. He couldn't bear it, it was too much like driving a blade into his own flesh, and so he turned the anger elsewhere. Stalking down the hallway, the glass clattering to the floor beneath him, he entered the room that had been assigned to Rynn. He could have gone after either of them really, and most probably would have expected him to go after Cian---he was a vampire after all, he knew what had taken place while he was dead to the world---but he didn't. He went to Rynn, took his neck in his bloodied hand and brought him up against the wall. "Are you good for ******** anything?" he shouted at the boy, dropping him as if just now realizing he didn't really want to kill him. Time was too precious to take vengeance upon him, and anyways he preferred to store his anger, to hold it in the pit of his stomach and let it grow, gradually, until he got to Sleet.
Khayman walked in on all of this, watching with careful eyes for the moment that Nicolae decided to either proceed or drop the fight he had started. "This is not the time," the vampire master whispered to his fledgling, still watching for any last minute change of heart, "What is he doing?"
Nicolae did as his master told him, dropped the fight completely and went to stand beside him, to clutch his head and try to make sense of the mess he was tapping into. "I can't be sure," he mumbled in clear agitation, "She keeps screaming and then insulting him, and then screaming again."
"Of course she is," Khayman responded flatly, giving a little shake of his head so that his raven hair rippled around his shoulders. And then, turning to seek out the other vampire, "I assume you will come with us?"
By this time, Singe had joined the small party of vampires in the hallway, standing quietly beside Nicolae as if he'd been there all along. It was when eyes began to turn to him---Khayman's dark eyes and Nicolae's golden ones---that he blinked at them, smiling in mock innocence. "David Talbot sent me to watch them," he answered to their unasked questions, making a small gesture towards Rynn and Cian, "He tried to send Atticus, but..." He paused, pursed his lips, and then grinned. "Whatever happened last night, Atticus refuses to be around anything with the Calais name attached to it. His words, not mine."
Nicolae made a quick, violent gesture for him to shut up before turning to Khayman, his eyes hard and steely as he said, with much more force than was really necessary, "Let's go."  

[Okimiyage]

XCandy and LunacyX

"It's already begun," the vampire said quietly---though he could not tell the tone of his voice from the mess of things in his head, the screams and laughter and insults flung from blood-filled mouths, "That was his plan, and Antha ******** knew it. She tried to soothe us with promises of daylight and she knew he was coming under the cloud cover, that his great show was taking her while all the rest of us slept."
Of all people, Nicolae was not one to stay mad at his sister. He couldn't bear it, it was too much like driving a blade into his own flesh, and so he turned the anger elsewhere. Stalking down the hallway, the glass clattering to the floor beneath him, he entered the room that had been assigned to Rynn. He could have gone after either of them really, and most probably would have expected him to go after Cian---he was a vampire after all, he knew what had taken place while he was dead to the world---but he didn't. He went to Rynn, took his neck in his bloodied hand and brought him up against the wall. "Are you good for ******** anything?" he shouted at the boy, dropping him as if just now realizing he didn't really want to kill him. Time was too precious to take vengeance upon him, and anyways he preferred to store his anger, to hold it in the pit of his stomach and let it grow, gradually, until he got to Sleet.
Khayman walked in on all of this, watching with careful eyes for the moment that Nicolae decided to either proceed or drop the fight he had started. "This is not the time," the vampire master whispered to his fledgling, still watching for any last minute change of heart, "What is he doing?"
Nicolae did as his master told him, dropped the fight completely and went to stand beside him, to clutch his head and try to make sense of the mess he was tapping into. "I can't be sure," he mumbled in clear agitation, "She keeps screaming and then insulting him, and then screaming again."
"Of course she is," Khayman responded flatly, giving a little shake of his head so that his raven hair rippled around his shoulders. And then, turning to seek out the other vampire, "I assume you will come with us?"
By this time, Singe had joined the small party of vampires in the hallway, standing quietly beside Nicolae as if he'd been there all along. It was when eyes began to turn to him---Khayman's dark eyes and Nicolae's golden ones---that he blinked at them, smiling in mock innocence. "David Talbot sent me to watch them," he answered to their unasked questions, making a small gesture towards Rynn and Cian, "He tried to send Atticus, but..." He paused, pursed his lips, and then grinned. "Whatever happened last night, Atticus refuses to be around anything with the Calais name attached to it. His words, not mine."
Nicolae made a quick, violent gesture for him to shut up before turning to Khayman, his eyes hard and steely as he said, with much more force than was really necessary, "Let's go."

Nicolae's bloody hands left red smears on Rynn's throat and shirt collar, and his back would be black with bruises tomorrow from being slammed up against the wall. Nicolae didn't give him a chance to speak before he dropped the boy again, and he obviously didn't want the question answered, judging anything from the force with which he had grabbed Rynn by the neck.
Which meant, of course, that Rynn had a snarky comeback to deliver. He coughed, putting his hands to his throat, and got to his feet slowly. "Ah, of course." he croaked, "Because obviously, whatever Miss Mayfair cannot handle by her own strength, I will be able to vanquish with a modicum of effort. After all, it is up to me as Miss Mayfair's personal bodyguard to see that she does not allow herself to be kidnapped at her convenience like she did today." The volume of Rynn's voice increased steadily as he spoke; so that what began as a hoarse but conversational tone ended up with Rynn sawing out the syllables from his crippled voice box at the top of his lungs.
Cian gave Nicolae a desperate look, and hauled his little brother bodily by his shirt collar to the wall, where Cian could try to look as unobtrusive as--well, as two humans in a room full of vampires. Not.
Admittedly, Rynn had a point. If what Nicolae said was true--that Antha knew that her kidnappers were coming, and had taken no measures to prevent this from happening--he could not expect either of them to be capable of protecting Antha where she could not protect herself.

Vikteren had materialized silently behind Khayman, in the hallway. To mortal eyes, he appeared out of thin air; too still, too tall, too pale, his presence unsettling. Alien. He was not bothering to pass for human, this evening. The vampire looked at Khayman upon being addressed, his expression unreadable, his eyes--twin mirrors of viridian, compelling as an open flame to moths--unfathomable.
Vikteren said, "Where did they take her this time?" Even his voice sounded--different. Funny, but not funny in a ha-ha way. Funny in a not-human way. Older. Direr. As if the chest that produced it did not quite--reflect sound in the same way that a human's did.
He didn't bother answering Khayman's question. The only way that any sort of doubt would have been cast on the matter was if they were trying to stop him. Instead, he focused on Nicolae. Casting aside all else, in this they were allies, united in cause and conviction. He did not care if Nicolae hated him for dividing Antha's attention from her brother--that wasn't important now.

Rynn lifted his eyes off the assortment of undead just long enough to witness the arrival--if you could call it that, when it looked more like teleportation, and it was hard not to flinch out of surprise, watching people pop out of thin air. Atticus's refusal to associate with Rynn and his brother hardly surprised him, but he was amused none the less. His younger brother's muttered 'hah!' did not escape Cian's notice. But oddly enough, the newcomer had Rynn's attention where no one else could hold it. He said, "I remember you--from the Talamasca. Singe, am I correct?"  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

It was at this point that Khayman almost had to hold Nicolae back, had to assert his power over the vampire who belonged to his coven. "This is not the ******** time to act like you're so damn high and mighty!" he screamed at the boy, and under the pressure of his anger the house began a fine trembling. It was so easy to forget sometimes that he was not merely some vampire but a Mayfair, and by that blood he was indeed a powerful witch, "You can get rid of the snarky tone, little boy, because it doesn't matter what you could have done, you attempted nothing! This is why your brothers and your sisters are dead, because you're not good for anything!" Admittedly, Nicolae didn't care as to how much he had to back up his words. He was shooting to kill now, at least at far as Khayman would let him. "You're alive because Antha risked her own goddamn life to drag you out with her, and when someone snatches her in the middle of the night you do nothing. You couldn't even be bothered to try to wake us, to call David ******** Talbot and tell him Antha Mayfair had been abducted, not even when we're at the point that an hour could mean her life." Somewhere in this, the whole angry, hastily growled thing, Khayman began to recognize the first traces of fear. As angry as he was, for some reason he took Antha and Sleet's game very seriously this time. As if he knew something the rest of them weren't catching onto. But he couldn't comfort him, couldn't stop him when he hissed, "It's on your head if we're too late, Calais! But then, what's one more to the numbers you've already racked up in the past day?" He could only clasp him by the shoulder, his long, pale fingers like iron as he steered him away, spitting and screaming, so that at least the boys were not face to face.
"They will have taken her to Sleet's crypt, to his own personal lair. If I am correct, you met Antha there, did you not?" Khayman responded to the question he had been posed. It would help if Vikteren knew something of the layout, something of what they were faced with, he reasoned. He and Nicolae knew it well---this was not the first time he had taken Antha prisoner after all, far from it---but to have anyone going in blind was unwise. "They will be ready for us, all of his minions, and they may be slow and dim and wholly inexperienced, but they have a very great advantage in their sheer numbers."
"Garland," Nicolae reminded him bitterly from the hallway, where the sight of Rynn could not further enrage him, "Oncle Garland is there, lying in wait, that blood-traitor b*****d."
Singe was not interested in these things, the talk of invasion and the battle that was to come, because he really held no part in it. He turned instead to the Calais brothers, Rynn whom he had already met and Cian, whom he knew from Atticus. "Singe," he confirmed, grinning wildly, "So I guess all the work we put into that spell didn't work for you, did it? Not that you really wanted it to, I think." As always he spoke rapidly, his voice full of some dark glee, and as he did so his grin grew wider, flashing steadily more of his sharp teeth. "I read the report Atticus submitted before David filed it away. Not that I really cared why you needed Antha, but it made for interesting reading. The reports from Atticus usually do, he's such a hardcore witch even in death. He kept calling you 'cursed' and 'damned' and dramatic things like that. It's the first time I ever really heard him condemn Antha's actions, how she should have burned you both up on the spot instead of dragging you out here to 'subject others to your curse'. You know, I think I might dress up as you for Halloween, just for kicks."
"My God, will you just shut the hell up!" Nicolae could be heard screaming from the other side of the wall, just before he went to stand before Vikteren, his eyes sharp. "You know what's waiting for us, how dangerous it is, everything one would expect when breaking into an enemy vampire's lair." He had taken a very large breath to speak, and held to the little bit of air left in his lungs as if he didn't want to say what he had to say, and he really did have to because they were allies in this respect. "And I know you'll do it, risk your life for my sister, and I trust you to do it."  

[Okimiyage]

Watching Nicolae and Rynn at the moment reminded Cian of two drunks about one slurred insult away from a barfight. In a second, they'd be needing uninvolved parties to hold them back from one another.
But oddly enough, Rynn did not respond to the vampire's accusations; he watched, his face impassive, while Nicolae growled and spit out what seemed like any blistering phrase he could think of. He didn't feel the need to defend himself from Antha's brother in this case. He was right, after all. If Antha died, she would just be one more name to add to the list.
He waited until Nicolae had been dragged off by Khayman before turning his attention to Singe. "Flattering. So they sent you to make sure we don't burn down the house while everyone's away, then? Although I'd only be returning the favor..." It was strange to see the persona that had been present in the Talamasca lobby, turning on as though operated by lightswitch. Rynn's posture relaxed, and the smile he wore--well, he could never quite fake the serenity of a martyr again once his cover had been blown for the first time, but the good humor that tugged at the corners of his mouth almost made up for it. He remember that he'd rather liked Singe, when they'd met for the first time. "Come on, we're not helping anyone here." Rynn said, taking his brother's hand and gesturing for Singe to follow them out of the room and across the hall. Nicolae, he was sure, appreciated being relieved of their presence.

Vikteren answered Khayman shortly, "The catacombs? Yes." It seemed ages ago that he'd first slipped into those hallways, slid the shallow-carved stone doors shut behind him. He remembered, dimly, the bloodlust that had left his hands dripping to his elbows, as he sought Sleet's innermost sanctum. He said, "I know what paths I took in that place. I will not hinder you." The vampire's head turned--snapped--towards Nicolae at his mention of 'Garland'. "I remember him." he said. For a moment, his eyes narrowed. After his supernatural stillness, the effect of movement was an unnerving one; like watching a statue come to life. And then, "We should not tarry here, unless there are preparations you think it possible to make that would aid us before we begin after Antha." He went to the door--would have brushed past Nicolae, but Antha's brother spoke before he could move by. What he said made Vikteren stop, made him look at the other vampire with eyes alive with inhumanity. He gave a curt nod. th"Allies tonight, then." He did not expect the truce to hold for long, after Antha was returned to them, but he knew--just as Nicolae knew--that they both would risk anything, and damn their pride, to get her back.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Nicolae just nodded, looking to Khayman, and repeated himself. "Let's go." Time was of the essence after all, they both understood that, and so they both vanished from the house as quickly as if they'd never been there at all, streaking through the swamps with that inhuman speed until in no time they spilled through the gates of the graveyard and went for the door to the crypt.
"It's Antha's blood," Nicolae confirmed as he set eyes on the carved stone, before Khayman could say a word about the red splatters across the rough surface, "He's ******** with us."
"We cannot let it get to us," Khayman responded quietly, laying his hands flat against the door to open it, his palms going red and slick with blood. "It would be wise for you to go first," he said to Nicolae, moving aside to allow him in, "You are the most capable when it comes to widespread destruction. You take out as many as you can, and we will eliminate the ones who manage to evade you. Understood?" He glanced first to Nicolae---who dove straight into the darkness without a word---and then to Vikteren before he followed into the darkness and down the stairs, at the bottom of which the first assault had begun. But they were only young things, fresh and new and completely inexperienced, and Nicolae needed no help with them. By the time Khayman reached him they had all dropped like flies, necks broken and chests marred, Nicolae's fingers speckled with little pieces of meat, his shirt splattered red, and he was already moving on, sweeping through the first chamber like death itself.

In Satis House, Singe had watched the other vampires leave from the window, quietly, before he followed after the humans. "Partly," he responded, going through the room and adjusting the paintings on the walls so that they all hung at angles, "David wanted me to protect Antha's interests---the house, like you said--- and Aaron wanted me to help work on your file, add to what Atticus wrote up, and Atticus wanted me to take you down to the basement and sacrifice you to one of his pagan Gods, I don't pretend to remember which one." He shrugged his shoulders, going to the nearest bookshelf and turning the books around, their spines facing the wall. "I just like to poke around in Antha's house, to look at her photos and play with Mayfair family trinkets that are older than I am." He paused, his grin flashing broad, before he started checking under furniture for Amadeo. "And I do have to pretend to earn my keep every once in a while. David would like to know about Antha's new new lover. Like it enough that I can keep my room at least." And then, abruptly and angrily, "Where in the name of Atticus's creepy pagan gods is that goddamn cat?!"