Notes: Sort of a part two, continuing on from the last chapter/snippet. Inspired indirectly by the Trickster Boys and their exploits at a fictional pagan gathering.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and thanks for your patience about updates.

A large purple monster lounged in a corner behind the buffet table. It was a full body suit, with large goggles for eyes and no discernible holes anywhere else. Presumably there was a zip somewhere hidden in the luridly coloured fake fur. Shilo couldn't imagine anyone dedicated enough to actually have themselves sewn into their costume, but she wasn't going to rule that out either.

She stood by the punch bowl, Strawberry Shortcake in shades of blue and the youngest person present at this particular soiree. She could see other girls around the place - dressed in tiny outfits meant to represent various animals, the only evidence of which was either a fake-fur tail or cute little ears on a headband - but the youngest was still at least two years older than she was and getting paid for her time.

Shilo was not getting paid.

She looked over her shoulder, trying to find the Graverobber in the mess of upper class middle aged men and their trophy wives and independently rich socialites and their boytoys. The crowd in the club was a riot of colour and flashing jewellery. White teeth bleached to ultraviolet brightness. She saw a grey-haired man in a Superman costume staring at her and pointedly looked away.

"So what's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"

Shilo turned in time to catch the cheesy smile from the young socialite and just knew the poor boy was going to put his foot in it at some point. He looked drunk. He probably was drunk. And at least five years older than she was. "Does that line ever work?" she asked, purely out of curiosity.

"Not really," he admitted with another grin. "But you have to break the ice somehow, right? I haven't seen you at one of these things before so..."

"It was a spontaneous decision," Shilo told him, not sure it would go down too well if she told him how exactly she'd actually wound up at this party. She'd been wandering about with the Graverobber when they'd spotted a group of moderately well-known people walking along the street in one dazzling knot of rhinestones and tailored costumes. It had been Graverobber's suggestion to just casually tack themselves onto the end of the party and see how long it took them to notice they weren't meant to be there.

So far not even the bouncers had even blinked. Shilo was begining to think that perhaps Graverobber actually had been invited (plus one, perhaps) and he just hadn't told her.

"Are you here on your own then?" The kid asked.

"No." Shilo looked around again, unable to spot the Graverobber in the crowd. Superman was glaring at her new companion. "I just seem to have lost my..."

"Date?" The boy suggested. "Employer?"

"Father." The voice piped up behind the boy, who jumped. Shilo turned back again to see the Graverobber in his respectable lawyer costume looming up behind the tipsy youth. "Shilo, are you going to introduce me to your friend?"

"Oh. Um... Some guy that hasn't introduced himself, meet my," she hesitated, caught his smirk, and decided to just go with it, "my father. Dad, this is some guy who hasn't introduced himself yet."

"It's always a pleasure to meet Shilo's friends." The Graverobber smiled and came to stand beside her. He snaked an arm around her waist then placed his hand firmly over her breast, clearly territorial and trying his hardest to scare the kid silly.

"Um..." The kid looked at Graverobber's hand, then away. He backed up a step. "Uh, I think I'm going to go talk to someone else..."

"That was mean," Shilo said when the kid had melted away into the crowd. "And weird. Dad."

"I don't know what you're talking about." His smirk said otherwise.

"You're disgusting."

"You haven't said that in a while." The Graverobber grinned down at her, then bent to kiss her blue lips. "Say it again?"

"I hate you."

"Now you're just flattering me."