Author's Note: Chapter three. Not much happens in this one, but it furthers the plot, doesn't it? Well at least I hope it does… Language warning in this one. That Quattuor… such filthy mouths XD
Marcus Lazarus: Glad you're finding it interesting. Oh, 'Tom' remembers her, he just doesn't want to. Anise and Dmitri are in this chapter. Fate of the League won't be revealed in detail – like I'm sure you want – for a while yet, but we get a sample soon.
funyun: Hehe, I agree about Exuro. I had to give him and the others a voice. After all, it WOULD have been boring if he just sat there and looked threatening, as you said. (Anise is her name, btw) I'm happy you find this refreshing.
BloodMoonLycan: 50 badass points? He'll like that. As will Falx. And yes, she probably would kick your ass. If not for ignoring her, then for paying attention to her lover oO She's shallow that way XD I'm glad you love it.
Mrs. Mina Harker: They're assassin werewolves… not big on marriage really, more companionship. Heh, trying to play matchmaker, are we? XD
Sethoz: Thanks, buddy. Glad you love Exuro. I'm waaaaaaaay too fond of him right now – d'oh. Yay! You loved the conversation. Cool. I had too much fun writing that, and I was going for a good mix of attitude, sarcasm and threat, so I'm very happy you liked it. Look! I updated!
Queerquail: Interesting? Nifty ::smiles:: Glad you like Exuro. Defeatism is indeed a word, at least according to my dictionary. Here's the new chapter.
And here's the new part of Eternal Midnight…
I hope you like it.
With a pounding headache, she glanced out the window, lying otherwise motionless in her bed, and saw the sun's first rays stream in through her partially open curtains, draped haphazardly over the glass to block out the intense morning light that would otherwise have struck her in the face, blinding her, if only for a few moments. It was mere seconds after that her alarm clicked into life, a rather upbeat song playing a little too loudly for her liking. She winced, groaned, and slammed a lean palm down on the deactivation button.
When the noise failed to stop, she gave in to impatience, and growled, grabbing a hold of it with one hand, and yanking away from the wall and cabinet where it sat, not far from her head. With a snap and a buzz, she tossed the torn alarm clock to the floor, hearing it clatter. She would get another one… not that she really needed it. Her 'job' never required early starts… she more or less found late nights the norm, and barely minded it, given her 'disposition'.
Sighing, she rolled herself towards the open end of her mattress, and practically toppled free of the blankets, though with a natural grace that she barely recognised anymore. She landed on her feet, in a low crouch that she soon snapped out of, and walked to her dresser, pulling out a black sweater and pants, tugging them on. The thought of a shower never even occurred to her… it was something that she preferred later in the day. Running a brush swiftly through her hair and only wincing briefly at the tugging of slight knots, she regarded herself in her mirror for a moment… only for a moment.
Anise Delacroix did not like to regard herself for much longer than a few seconds, somehow finding it unbearable to see the sadness and reverie in her own brown eyes. It was just about heartbreaking, and with the turmoil they had already suffered, she didn't think she could take it anymore. She needed to focus… concentrate on something other than the past… though the past was her life, and its alteration was her future.
Forcing herself out of her room, her senses kicked into play as soon as she stepped foot out of the door, shrugging her shoulder-length hair back out of her face. It bobbed lightly around her face as she walked, feathery bangs framing her cheeks, before she caught a scent… and honed in on it, following it precisely to its point of origin.
Furrowing her brow, she automatically tracked it, and found her feet tracing their way directly to the room that belonged to Mina Harker, the resident vampire, and all round individual in the building. The other two occupants were both lycanthropes… werewolves, and neither was as intelligent as the vampire herself. She far outmatched them for wit and brainpower, whereas Anise liked to think that she and Mina were equally placed for prowess, speed, stealth and in some examples, even skill.
When she had come outside Mina's door, she gave in to manners, and knocked lightly, finding it slightly ajar. She pushed it open lightly with a hand, palm against the wood, and peered inside, seeing the Englishwoman coming out of her bathroom, a damp cloth in her hands. She looked up at once, and met Anise's curious gaze.
"You went out," Anise stated simply. "Have you just got back?" True, her language had lulled a little over the past century, but her accent was still as subtly present as it had ever been. Her vocabulary – as with her fellow werewolf and Mina – had changed dramatically, and it showed in each sentence. The structure was less rigid, and it was slightly more fluidic.
"I did," Mina responded plainly. She nodded, and her hair – only marginally longer than Anise's – wavered slightly in its position, flowing smoothly around her face, having just been brushed through. "I needed to feed."
Anise stepped into the room, her heart skipping a beat. She swallowed the lump in her throat as that all too painfully familiar scent bit at her senses, and she whispered, "You saw him…"
Mina visibly gnawed lightly at her bottom lip, and tossed the lightly bloodstained cloth onto the desk beside her, sighing sadly, and nodding, tilting her face at such an angle that wispy layers of auburn-brown hair fell across her flawless, mature features. "Yes I did…"
Anise's breath caught in her throat. She breathed a little swifter after she gathered herself enough to come to her senses, and narrowed her eyes in pensive regard of the situation. "You spoke to him…?"
Mina averted her gaze at this point, and glanced out the window at the sun as it filtered through the tall buildings of the city beyond their abode. Another heavy sigh heaved her chest in a slow rise and fall as she closed her blue eyes for just a moment, breathing out an affirmative, "I did…"
Anise bowed her head, unsure of what to make of this information. In the century that had passed since Tom Sawyer's turning into the assassin that was Exuro… she had barely seen him. Her fellow lycanthrope, and Mina, would very rarely allow it. When they were certain Exuro would be present at 'meetings'… they ensured an excuse to make her remain behind, lest her powerful emotions get in the way of her judgement.
She wasn't sure what to make of this twist, but finally came out with, "How many other times have there been… where you have not told me?"
Mina turned halfway from the window, and tucked some of her silky hair behind her ear as she shrugged. "Honestly? I've lost count."
Anise blinked back a single tear, and lifted her head. "Why did you keep it secret?"
Mina eyed her seriously then, and responded, "Because I see the tears now in your eyes, though you try to hide them… and I knew every time that I came across the man we once knew and perhaps loved in our own ways that you would not be able to withhold your passion for him… and it could get you killed. Each encounter… if I told you, you would scour the city for him… hunt for him, and you yourself would become the hunted. They did not become the world's best assassins, he as their leader, by forgiving past trespasses, Anise, and you know this… he is not who he once was."
Anise flared internally at the retaliation, and simply said, "Yes he is… inside… he is."
Mina sighed sadly, and came forward, reaching out a hand and tenderly running it down Anise's arm in the fashion of an old friend. "Even after one hundred years… you still mourn for his death."
Anise turned her eyes away, afraid to betray her emotions for a moment as they collided and worked furiously against her, before she pulled in a calm, deep breath, met Mina's gaze firmly, and corrected, "He is not dead… he is simply lost." She saw the flicker of recognition in Mina's eyes, and quickly persisted sternly, optimistically, "He can be found again."
Mina simply stared back into her brown eyes with clear blue for a moment, seemingly on the verge of denial, before a slight smile broke out on her full lips. "He rubbed off on you," she said softly, gently. "I can hear it in your words… the promise with which you speak is unmistakable as his…"
The optimism, she thought to herself, permitting a slight smile of her own, just turning up the edges of her mouth on the left ever so subtly. He did have an impact on me in more ways than one it seems. She missed that… but she had dedicated her days – along with her companions – to correcting the terrible mistake.
Sighing lightly, Anise let out a slight, not entirely humoured laugh, and nodded. "We should get back to work. Did you learn anything about them last night?"
Frowning slightly, Mina replied, "Nothing much that I wish to share with you, I'm afraid. Needless to say, it was nothing we had not seen before."
Anise knew the meaning hidden behind these words. She had seen the instinctual affection between Exuro and Falx, and knew it to mean their status as lovers had flared… she had lost Tom Sawyer to the woman, and it made her furious and melancholy both at the same time, so fierce that it threatened to tear her apart from within. Mina had undoubtedly seen the pair today, and with another light sigh – something she was doing more and more often recently – she walked with Mina out of the woman's personal room, and down the hall to where their third member would be waiting… he always was. He was an early riser by nature, and this never failed to amuse and surprise Anise, given her inherited laziness.
In perfect unison – though neither registered such odd timing – they strode through the hall, and into their main room, where a large table was centrepiece, strewn with photographs, blueprints, documents and notes. Standing at one side of the table with a steaming mug of coffee in his hand – no doubt dispensed from the fresh percolator at the far wall – with his head down and one palm flat on the tabletop was a man who Anise felt was very close to her heart… a man who – even in all her years knowing him – she only knew as Dmitri. He was bordering on seven feet when he stood to his full height, with muscular – yet not overly so – limbs and torso, broad shouldered and chested, but with perhaps the kindest and softest eyes she had ever seen, especially for someone his size, and a werewolf. He had brown eyes, dark but soothing, and almost black hair that was gently spiked off the top of his skull. The eyes rose from the documents as he became aware of their presence, and he smiled wanly, ever alert, but ever pensive and somewhat melancholy, as though the mistakes of years past were all crashing down inside of him and putting a great burden upon either soul or heart… perhaps both.
Anise smiled, and walked up beside him, greeting him with a gaze that bore more than any words could ever accomplish, and settled down into study and thought beside him, with Mina taking up residence opposite, the three taking up their daily routine once again…
A fake explosion ripped through the expansive room, with its leather furniture, stocked from floor to ceiling with every commodity to please any of the greediest individuals in the entirety of America. Hi-fi, wide screen television, surround sound, a range of – for some bizarre reason – console computer game sets, not to mention the variety of entertainment paraphernalia that littered shelves, the front of the TV, and around the stereo. The surround sound was being abused, first thing on a Saturday morning, with the Roadrunner cartoon at full blast.
The person watching it was slouched unhealthily in a reclining leather armchair, his booted feet up on a low coffee table of sorts, one leg crossed lazily over the other. His jeans were belted at the top, black in colour, and tough, hardy and longwearing. They were of the highest, most expensive quality, as had been his boots at first purchase, with steel toecaps and thick soles. He wore a short-sleeved black shirt, unbuttoned at the top to expose his chest halfway as he leant back in the chair a little more. He almost blended into it, with his dark clothing and mood. He practically radiated irritation… or boredom… serious boredom.
His green eyes stared blankly at the screen as the coyote fell animatedly off a cliff with a whistling noise, and made a rather impressive impact, but his face never changed in its blank, brooding expression. His blonde hair was in its usual hanging, dishevelled feral style, with slightly curled locks of it hanging around his brow and eyes, his ears, and tickling his neck at the back, not that he ever noticed. His somewhat boyish features did not even alter in the slightest when the roadrunner charged into the scene at the flattened, sign-wielding coyote, and beeped at him.
His hands were draped lazily and casually over the ends of the arms of the chair. His right was empty; whereas his left held a cigarette he wasn't even smoking. The smoke coiled up from the lit tip of the cigarette, filling the air around him with its smoggy, nicotine smell, but he just blinked slowly, and stared right through it, his lycanthropy battling the smoke so that it didn't choke him or make him uncomfortable.
He sighed lightly, his somewhat broad and muscular chest rising and falling a little with the exertion of the exaggerated breath. Exuro cocked his head against the padded side of the chair, flicked the ash off the end of the wasting cigarette, and quirked a brow ever so subtly as the coyote strapped himself to an ACME rocket.
"Moron," he mumbled. "Gives canines a fucking bad name."
"You know how Falx feels about language," grumbled a rough voice from the large open doors behind him. No doubt Exuro's TV-watching had woken him up, and the alpha couldn't help but smile at that. It was seven-forty in the morning.
"Yeah, she loves it," Exuro returned, and eyed the cigarette for just a moment, even as Gladius walked around to rest down on the three-seater somewhat edgily. "Especially that kind." He glanced sidelong at Gladius, who rolled his eyes openly, making Exuro smile all the broader at his slight victory. 'Once upon a time' – to coin one of the cheesiest phrases ever created – Falx had been alpha alongside Gladius instead, not Exuro. The two had never been close, and the new alpha had discovered that this was because Falx had never really appreciated Gladius in that manner. He never 'did it for her' apparently, which only increased the younger werewolf's mirth whenever he saw the now-scarred omega.
Gladius looked to the slouching Exuro, and sighed loudly. "You're not even smoking that."
"I know I'm not," was his blunt response, and he watched the rocket go amazingly wide, slamming into a cliff. He shook his head slowly, subtly from side to side. "I changed my mind after lighting it. You can have it if you want it." He smiled slyly.
Gladius rolled his eyes again, even as light footfalls were heard, and arms snaked around the front of the leather chair, running caressingly down Exuro's partially exposed chest, the nails scraping slightly, but not painfully. He felt the silk of her gown, and smiled, even as she craned her head over the top of the chair. He bowed his up to meet hers, and granted her the kiss she desired. He found she was most affectionate after a good night's rest… not that they'd got in before four in the morning, of course. So… in reality, she hadn't had all that much sleep at all.
Mostly just to amuse Falx, Exuro flicked the wasting cigarette butt towards Gladius, who growled and swatted it away, before picking it up and extinguishing it roughly in the ashtray on the table, near the alpha's crossed boots. Exuro grinned mockingly at him, and Falx laughed lightly down his ear, as she nibbled on it slightly. After that, she weaved her way gracefully and seductively around the chair, and perched herself over him, her face near him, her long fingers tracing slowly and precisely through his tousled hair, her ice blue eyes watching the roadrunner disappear in a cloud of bird-shaped dust. She smiled just at the corner of her full, red lips, and Exuro watched her for a moment, even as Gladius huffed, stood up, and headed for the kitchen adjacent to the entertainment-cum-living room.
"Someone's a sour-puss," Falx purred and breathed a heavy sigh, rubbing her face alongside Exuro's possessively for a moment, and tickling the area at the base of his skull, under his hair. He closed his eyes and moaned quietly.
She certainly knows how to push buttons, he thought in his contentment. "He's just pissed… as always."
"Good point," she murmured, and smiled again as the coyote exploded. "That coyote is a real–"
"Jackass?" Exuro finished, and she didn't even need to nod for him to know she agreed. He opened his eyes as she stopped teasing at the back of his neck, and kissed his temple instead, asking, "Seen Lacertus this morning? He's getting lazy."
"I'm not lazy," yawned a voice from behind them. Exuro didn't need to look to know the other lycanthrope was leaning arms-crossed against the doorframe in nothing but boxers and a bathrobe, black curled hair falling around his face, brown eyes intent on the cartoon. Lacertus had certainly kept hold of his human adolescence. Exuro wasn't sure what had happened to his, and he didn't really care. Falx was staring at him, almost pleadingly, and he cocked a brow, smiling mischievously at her.
With a light, playful growl, she used one finger to tilt his chin up, and kissed him passionately and hungrily, fiercely, once again. Her warmth flowed into him, and he ran a hand lightly up her partially bare arm, running over the red silk of her gown as she shifted slightly on his lap, one of her hands straying to the belt on his pants. He broke from the kiss with a light laugh, and said, "Ah, not now, Falx… sorry."
She pouted impressively, and he kissed her lightly, whispering, "Later," against her lips as they parted. She almost purred, and leaned against him, as the cartoon ended. Exuro couldn't remember where he had put the remote, even as Lacertus padded past, and into the kitchen, returning moments later with a bagel, and from the smell of it, toasted. It was plain, and Exuro had observed that the other young member preferred them as such. He hopped over the top of the couch, and planted himself where Gladius had been sitting, flicking through the channels with the enthusiasm of road kill. He barely stayed on each channel for more than two seconds before flicking, and Exuro tried not to take notice of the flashing screen.
"Dammit, Lac'," he finally growled, quite literally on the abbreviated name. "You gonna cut that out or do I have to do it for you?" Though he didn't move a muscle, he had finely honed the skill of being imposing in the most unthreatening of positions… such as slouching with his lover on his lap, in her bathrobe.
Lacertus' brown eyes met Exuro's green ones, and he swallowed the mouthful of plain bagel he was eating, before he shrugged, and muttered, "Sorry. Nothin' on anyway. Saturday shows suck."
"How the hell do you know?" Exuro retaliated, temper gone for the time being. In reality, he and Lacertus coexisted rather well for males in the same 'pack'. They were more like brothers than anything… but it went deeper than that. More than once in the past, Exuro had protected that which he considered to be his second in command. "You never stay on one channel long enough to let the picture come into focus." Lacertus grinned at him youthfully, sly and cunning, and took another bite out of his half-bagel, the other half on his raised knee.
Gladius hadn't emerged from the kitchen yet, and Exuro looked around Falx. "You see him in there?" he asked Lacertus, who nodded, chewing hungrily. Exuro often wondered where the other werewolf's monstrous appetite came from… in both human and wolf forms.
"He's not dead or anything is he?" Falx questioned, toying with the first fastened button on the shirt of her alpha lover, her pale eyes downcast distractedly. "'Cause that'd be a… shame." Her sarcasm was like dripping venom, and Exuro's eyes were filled with delight at her tone. He loved her when she was like this… it was Falx at her best.
"Nah, he's alive," Lacertus muttered, shrugging, and mouthing 'shame'. "He's just staring out the window like he normally does." Lacertus was silent for a moment, staring blankly at the deactivated TV screen, before he turned on the stereo with the remote, letting a heavy beat blare out through the room, as he simply said, "Freak."