Searching for answers (Open)

[cian_oneill]

It had been three weeks since Hallowe'en, and still nothing had come to light about the vampire who had lead the bloodbath at the Shark Tank. Cian had prowled the street when he could, spending more nights in Vegas since the attack than he usually did. He finally figured the one place he might be able to find out something, and after sourcing the password, and satisfying the bouncer, he walked into Seventh Circle and headed for the bar.

If there was anywhere that information on the activities in the demon world could bandied about like schoolgirl gossip, it would be here.

"Whiskey," he told the bartender, leaning an elbow on the bar and starting to survey the area, seeing who was there, and more importantly, what.

Comments

[tiny_dancer81]

While Theresa's bloodlust was largely a personal matter, she did like to gamble. The casinos were fairly strict about checking IDs, and she'd been shooed away from the tables more than once since being in Las Vegas. She was asking some discreet questions about where she could get a better fake identification. Fuck knew there had to be something to do after dark besides drink.

She'd heard whispers about the Seventh Circle in the limited amount of time she'd spent in the company of other vampires in Sin City, and it was the one place she'd run across where her other face wasn't an issue. It was nice to feel like she wasn't under a microscope for once. She hadn't even come up to the massive bouncer's shoulder. He'd nearly patted her on the head when she gave the password, but her death glare was surprisingly effective despite her lack of height.

Inside, there were already plenty of bodies filling the space, and Theresa picked her way through the crowd until she reached the bar. She was dressed down to fit in with the room; blue jeans and Converses, topped off with an ancient Beatles t shirt. Happiness might not be a warm gun, but it was a cold beer.

Searching for answers

[cian_oneill]

When the bartender brought Cian his whiskey Cian paid him, picked up his drink and down a mouthful. The burn of the cheap liquor coursing down his gullet made the corner of his mouth twitch slightly. He wiped at it with the back of his hand holding the glass before lowering it again.

As he did his head tilted slightly, his nose now picking up the scent of the 'young' girl in front of him who'd just arrived at the bar. There as no mistaking she was vampire, and he figuratively pricked his ears to hear her voice when she ordered.

Re: Searching for answers

[tiny_dancer81]

The diminutive brunette snagged her bottle of domestic beer after tossing down some cash for the bartender to scoop up, used her shirt tail to twist the cap off. There was a plastic pitcher on the bar with dozens of other bottle caps in it, and the vampire flipped her contribution on top of the lot before taking a pull at the cold contents.The betting for the next match was starting, and she decided to wait until that bout was over before making a wager of her own.

The longer she stood there, the more aware she became that there was a smell in the near vicinity. Not just a smell, but a stink. Back when she was human, her mother had owned a Maine coon cat named Pickles. The smell was more pungent than that, but it was slightly feline. Theresa's nose wrinkled with distaste.

There was a man with a glass of something stronger than beer in his hand close by. If she'd been the confrontational sort, she'd have leaned into his space to see if the odor was coming from him. Was it possible that he worked with animals and just forgot to take a shower? He was very good-looking. But she already didn't like him, and she didn't know why when he wasn't even looking at her.

This was a fuck of a place to develop stranger danger.

Re: Searching for answers

[cian_oneill]

Cian's keen senses were not just olfactory and audio but vision as well, and seeing the girl's nose wrinkling made him sigh internally. For all he knew she could be just turned, therefore really as young as she looked, or she could be 150 years young. Whichever it was it was pretty clear to him that her reaction was not conducive to conversation so he moved away, going and leaning on a pole a few yards from the bar, taking another sip from his drink and looking around to see who was there before going and finding the bout manager.

Re: Searching for answers

[tiny_dancer81]

Damn, he'd noticed. It made her feel weirdly bad, as if she'd been offensive on purpose. He was probably a perfectly nice guy and she was just being paranoid. If he was different, the way she was different, she should disregard the smell and stop acting like a twat. Generally, she was pretty content to just be, and that didn't include jumping to conclusions.

"Hey." She stepped through a sudden hole in the crowd to approach him, holding up the hand not occupied with the beer in a careful greeting. "I'm sorry about that. When I, uh....yeah. My mother always told me if I made faces, it would freeze that way permanently. I was, like, seven when she said it, but it's one of the few things I remember about her."

Re: Searching for answers

[cian_oneill]

Cian was a little surprised when she came over, having already dismissed her as potentially communicative. Her stream of conversation almost struck him as a little strange, almost nervous, so he quickly surmised that she was closer to the 'newly dead' end of the scale rather than one of the older vintages.

He shook her hand, the skin almost decidedly cold to him, given that regular human hands were cool to the touch normally. "Mine said if th' wind changed it'd stay that way. I always wondered why there weren' more people walkin' around wi' frozen faces," he returned, giving her a cautious smile.

Re: Searching for answers

[tiny_dancer81]

Her answering smile showed some teeth, but not too many. His hand was much warmer than a normal human's. She filed that bit of information away for further investigation later. For now, she would think of him simply as Other, but what kind of Other he might be was yet to be determined.

"You just gonna watch or get in the ring?" she asked, thinking he seemed fit enough to go a few rounds. If he was the pugilistic sort, she might put a few dollars on him to win. "Is the booze to give you Dutch courage, or do you even need that?"

Re: Searching for answers

[cian_oneill]

He looked at the drink in his hand and shook his head. "They prefer if y' at least drop a few dime on the bar t' keep th' staff paid," he joked, glancing over his shoulder at the bartenders. They looked like they would prefer to be paid in some other fashion than just mundane cash on some nights. "And not tonight," he continued, the statement mostly true. He wasn't planning on getting in the ring, more interested in getting the lay of the land and sussing out the word on the Hallowe'en mayhem. "Y' ever do any, or y' just a spectator?" he asked, his eye catching a movement that he recognised, and the fighters preparing to get back into it grunting at each other. If he was desperate for money he'd have gone and put a big bet on right then but he didn't, instead keeping a half an eye on the ring, the rest of his attention going to the teenage vampire.

Re: Searching for answers

[tiny_dancer81]

"I'm not exactly combat-ready. I know enough street fighting to take out a mugger or something, but the best I could do against one of those monsters is try to bite their kneecaps off."

Theresa pointed at the broad back of a sumo-sized demon when she said it, knowing that the rolls of fat likely hid a core of solid muscle. Dane's limited knowledge of other creatures meant she didn't have actual lore to go on. Weres were an exception, since even a lazy slob like her sire warned her against having any truck with them. She was, however, prepared not to hold Irish's status against him. He probably thought she smelled funny too. The fact that he hadn't attacked her on sight was a gold star in his favor.

"Can I ask, um, how come your heart's beating so much faster? I can hear your pulse, and it sounds like you're about to have a coronary."

Re: Searching for answers

[cian_oneill]

Cian had been about to point out that in some cases being able to take out a kneecap is the best way of bringing down some of the bigger beasts out there when she asked about his heartbeat. He wasn't really aware it was that much faster, it was just who he was, and had been for so long. While it was faster than most humans, especially athletes, as he'd been one when he was attacked, it certainly hadn't brought any comment from anyone he knew who did hear it up close and personal, even when it was accelerated by that person. He smiled as he momentarily recalled the last time it had been accelerated by a particular Slayer.

"Oh? It certainly don't feel tha' way," he replied, giving her the tail-end of the smile. "Must be the place," he said, glancing around at the clientele, who were varied, and relaxed enough to reveal their different sides and countenances enough that it would put the wind up a normal 'punter' who happened into the place. "Or the company," he added, a completely benign smile now, leaving it unclear whether he was referring to her, or to the aforementioned clientele and bout happening in the ring.

Re: Searching for answers

[tiny_dancer81]

The smile made her squirm a little as she stood there, but it wasn't necessarily an unpleasant squirm. She knew what men were looking at when they spoke to her, or at least what a certain type of man was looking at, but Irish wasn't giving off a skeevy vibe. If anything, he reminded her of Whistler, minus the hat. Companionable, but not presumptuous.

Her posture loosened up a little more. She began to pick at the label of her beer bottle, peeling it off in strips. "So you're not here to jump right into the ring and you can't see a joint like this as a pick-up scene." The vampire's head tipped to the left. The blue streaks in her hair had faded. She was going to have to go back to the salon and get them retouched.

"C'mon, you can tell me. What am I gonna do, tell on you?"