fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
That is just the vote to refuse the meeting. We can't control her reaction.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Almost certainly. Which is going to be fun. The meeting is going to be fun, especially if it's private enough to unleash our anima. She might be too strong to be under effect of DPE, but she'll probably rapidly change her preconceptions anyway.
EDIT: Also, we should arrive to the meeting in Black Rider
[X] Refuse the meeting, you do not need more complications tomorrow
-[X]"If you have less respect for my time than the Queen Of Winter then why should I have any respect for yours?"
-[X]"If you have less respect for my time than the Queen Of Winter then why should I have any respect for yours?"
[X] Agree to meet with Lara before meeting with Mab
Mab actually has some idea of what she's dealing with (a peer wielding way too much destructive power around). Lara almost certainly doesn't.
[X] Agree to meet with Lara before meeting with Mab
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Why in hell are y'all so eager to meet her on the same day we're supposed to meet Mab?
If anything goes wrong, it could completely fuck up the actually scheduled meeting that we've known about for months and have actually prepared for. Depending on what happens and timing, we could end up meeting Mab while injured or low on Essence.
If anything goes wrong, it could completely fuck up the actually scheduled meeting that we've known about for months and have actually prepared for. Depending on what happens and timing, we could end up meeting Mab while injured or low on Essence.
[X] Refuse the meeting, you do not need more complications tomorrow
Mab takes priority, Mab is something like 4-5 levels above her.
Mab takes priority, Mab is something like 4-5 levels above her.
"You do what I say, not the other way around."
TLDR petty power games.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
[X] Refuse the meeting, you do not need more complications tomorrow
Mostly because I want full essence for Mab.
Mostly because I want full essence for Mab.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Refuse the meeting, you do not need more complications tomorrow
-[x] "So, you can't make room in your schedule to meet with me last minute, but you want me to make room in my schedule even more last minute, about a matter that you yourself just said you wouldn't have talked to me about for weeks if it weren't for my meeting with Mab, who you also say isn't actually important. Is that what you're telling me right now?"
-[x] "So, you can't make room in your schedule to meet with me last minute, but you want me to make room in my schedule even more last minute, about a matter that you yourself just said you wouldn't have talked to me about for weeks if it weren't for my meeting with Mab, who you also say isn't actually important. Is that what you're telling me right now?"
Im not.
Its an assumption that it would be a CoD; they aren't restricted that way.
Bound spirit was well within the capabilities of Victor Sells, the starter villain back in Storm Front. The effective head of the White Court can afford to hire talent to do much better than that. Much better.
Assuming this is Lara Raith.
But the new update suggests it is. Or if not her, someone in her inner circle.
Not sure what you mean by as bad.
Leinth is an elder, a hitman and troubleshooter for House Skavis and the nobility.
Lara Raith is the real head of House Raith and the shadow head of the White Court. They arent really in the same tier of personal or organizational threat.
We know that the byzantine nature of internal White Court politics means different Whampire factions keep information from each other for an advantage. Families are usually loyal to each other, but not always; the main branch of House Raith are tight, but Madrigal Raith and his sister Madeline canonically are disloyal to them.
Sarah Greene almost got killed as part of Madrigal Raith attempting to hide information of his fuckup from his own family using a member of another family he could pressure.
If this is Lara Raith, there's a good chance she doesn't know what Leinth does.
Eiko knows we use cyberdevils.
That doesn't mean all Emma-O's forces do.
The issue is scale.
Personal cellphone =/= random computer hardware.
Fetishes aren't new; sorcerers make them.
Old Man Mathews had a bunch on his walls. Kueijin summon spirits.
Summoning and sticking a spirit in something isn't new.
But its one thing for them to believe that Molly can summon and keep a cyberdevil with her, but quite another to realize its so easy that she can do it at will with no prep time, and stick them in all modern technology. Even Old Skavis Leinth was worried when they saw us HMP Greene's computer, because in his experience summoning these things is a non-trivial affair.
COMMENTARY
Okay, this is probably Lara if she's proposing Thomas' saloon as a meeting place. Only other person would be Nemesis Justine, but probably not. Doesn't change that there's something very weird going on here.
Why would she suddenly change her ongoing policy of watch and see? And not just that, but call personally?
The fact that she's making a personal call, instead of asking a minion to deliver a message, suggests that she doesn't want other people, including members of her own staff, to know about it.
Why?
On the other hand, Thomas' hair saloon and cafe the Coiffure Cup is canonically located in the Park Tower skyscraper on the Magnificent Mile, in the heart of Chicago's business district.
Its really not a spot where supernatural people choose to start shit at 9AM on a Tuesday morning.
Molly's Urge is curiosity. No reason not to go.
Does mean we miss school today.
This would have given us much more information if we had activated All Things Betray for the Perception buff.
Molly has Rendered Villain Dispersal.
An hour of rest in a bottle of bleach gives her 4m of Essence back. Even if she burned all her Essence and got no secrets from talking with Lara Raith, 3x hours of Essence would regenerate all her Essence from 0, and heal 3L of damage to boot.
This is not a concern
Because some things can be time sensitive, like when Sarah Greene almost got murked.
Because shit like this is not Lara Raith's usual M.O, and it suggests there's some urgency involved.
Because we can meet Lara Raith in the morning and Mab in the afternoon.
Because Curiosity is Molly's Urge, and more information is always useful.
We dont have to agree to anything.
Presumably she didn't KNOW we were having a meeting with Mab.
The only people who knew initially were Gard, Lydia, Dresden and Old Man Mathews. Then we told Bob and our parents. None of whom have any incentive to blab Mab's business as street gossip.
I suspect no-one knew we were going to meet Mab until we went to Mac's bar with our dad.
Then Mac announced that the bar would be closed on Halloween, which often means Accords meeting.
She presumably heard and put two and two together along with other intel.
Especially if her watchers noticed Molly buying stuff to make a gift.
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1)Politics and appearances.
She is the effective ruler/current victor of the White Court's power struggles.
She has to worry about how things look to other Whampires, as well as the rest of the supernatural world.
A meeting at a Whampire-affiliated business raises no political questions for her.
And she knows that we trust Thomas with our money, and so have no reason to fear there.
2) Security. Our building(s) are located out in the poorer, less policed, more violent parts of Chicago.
Thats why it was so cheap to buy. That and being a recent crime scene.
If someone was going to make an attempt on Lara Raith, that's a much easier place to try.
As opposed to Thomas cafe in the middle of Chicago's business district.
And its worth recalling that its less than a month since Emma-O sent a strike force with a greater alums here that attacked our people and kidnapped them. Maybe five months since Lt Greene's body was dismembered in the warehouse that we bought.
Security concerns are entirely reasonable.
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[X] Agree to meet with Lara before meeting with Mab
I'm honestly curious about what she going on.
I'm honestly curious about what she going on.
That's not how it works. Being able to give free samples to Thomas was early edition weirdness, since that point it's been established that the target has to view themselves as a subordinate and the exalt had to accept them as one.
See the jades:
Lara is loyal to herself, her family, and her court in that order.
VOTE
[X] Agree to meet with Lara before meeting with Mab
RATIONALE
We dont know that Lara Raith overthrew her father.
Thomas, Harry and Bob know, but as far as I can tell, they haven't actually told Molly about this IC.
Isabella is probably too young to know, as are the Whampires we recruited.
Just from what we know IC, she's the White King's eldest child and heir, Thomas' elder sister and a major player in White Court politics. She was the boss of the vampire lady who tried to buy Black Rider at auction, and presumably the person who tried to have Michael warned about Molly's feel.
Also, this is not how she canonically operates.
Cold calling Molly out of the blue suggests some sort of urgency, and both Molly and her family and friends and minions live within the blast radius of any White Court weirdness.
Furthermore, we have four Whampire minions, five if you count Thomas, to worry about as well.
Also, costs us nothing I can tell.
We have Rendered Villain Dispersal. 15 minutes of resting in a bottle of bleach will recover 1m of Essence and/or bashing HL. 1 hour of rest will recover 4m of Essence and 1 lethal HL.
We can go all out in social combat and do it again in 3 hours.
[X] Agree to meet with Lara before meeting with Mab
RATIONALE
We dont know that Lara Raith overthrew her father.
Thomas, Harry and Bob know, but as far as I can tell, they haven't actually told Molly about this IC.
Isabella is probably too young to know, as are the Whampires we recruited.
Just from what we know IC, she's the White King's eldest child and heir, Thomas' elder sister and a major player in White Court politics. She was the boss of the vampire lady who tried to buy Black Rider at auction, and presumably the person who tried to have Michael warned about Molly's feel.
Also, this is not how she canonically operates.
Cold calling Molly out of the blue suggests some sort of urgency, and both Molly and her family and friends and minions live within the blast radius of any White Court weirdness.
Furthermore, we have four Whampire minions, five if you count Thomas, to worry about as well.
Also, costs us nothing I can tell.
We have Rendered Villain Dispersal. 15 minutes of resting in a bottle of bleach will recover 1m of Essence and/or bashing HL. 1 hour of rest will recover 4m of Essence and 1 lethal HL.
We can go all out in social combat and do it again in 3 hours.
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Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
It's a huge mistake to meet with Lara before we meet with Mab. We have something she desperately wants and for all she knows, our meeting with Mab will secure the Winter Queen as our backer, partner, or client, with any one of those potentially making it all but impossible for Lara to move against us in any real way, assuming she wants to apply pressure to get her hands on what we have.
Lara preventing us from having the meeting with Mab is all it would take to torpedo what she thinks would put us out of her reach, then we'll have an offended Mab to deal with and the convenient White Court waiting to offer us protection.
Sure, none of this could actually happen this way, but Lara is working with bad info along with a misunderstanding of who she's dealing with and her own complete moral bankruptcy.
Lara preventing us from having the meeting with Mab is all it would take to torpedo what she thinks would put us out of her reach, then we'll have an offended Mab to deal with and the convenient White Court waiting to offer us protection.
Sure, none of this could actually happen this way, but Lara is working with bad info along with a misunderstanding of who she's dealing with and her own complete moral bankruptcy.
Molly's daughter of a Knight. Friend to Dresden who is known to be strongly involved with the Fae.
And has been publicly seen as the companion of Lydia Rhi, the daughter of a former Breton death god who served as Mab's hatchet man for most of the 20th century.
I have serious doubts that anyone in Lara's position would make that judgement.
There's a small chance that we're either talking to an impersonator
Or Nemesis.
But either way, best way to figure out what's up is to talk.
===
For reference, this is Park Tower Chicago, where Thomas saloon is canonically renting a business space is located:
Thomas wasn't being very careful. I would have expected him to move around the city like a long-tailed cat at a rocking chair convention, but he sort of trudged along, fashionable in his dark slacks and loose, deep crimson shirt, his hands in his pockets, his hair hiding his face most of the time.
Even so, he attracted more than a little feminine attention. He was like a walking, talking cologne commercial, except that even silent and standing he was making women look over their shoulders at him, while coyly rearranging their hair.
He finally stalked into the Park Tower, and went into a trendy little boutique-slash-coffee shop calling itself the Coiffure Cup. I checked a clock, and thought about following him in. I could see a few people inside, where a coffee bar backed up to the front window. A couple of fairly pretty girls were getting things set up behind the counter, but I couldn't see any more than that.
I found a spot where I could watch the door and loomed unobtrusively—which is easier than you'd think, even when you're as tall as I am. A couple of women whose hair and nails screamed "beautician" came in later. The boutique opened for business a few minutes after Thomas got there, and immediately began doing a brisk trade. A lot of evidently wealthy, terribly attractive, generally young women started coming and going.
It put me in a quandary. On the one hand, I didn't want anyone to get hurt because my brother had exerted himself so furiously on my behalf. On the other, I didn't particularly care to go in and find my brother lording it over a roomful of worshipful women like some dark god of lust and shadow.
I chewed on my lip for a while, and decided to go on in. If Thomas had… if he had become the kind of monster his family generally did, I owed it to him to try to talk some sense into him. Or pound it in. Whichever.
I pushed open the door to the Coiffure Cup and was immediately, pleasantly assaulted by the aroma of coffee. There was techno music playing, thumping bouncily and mindlessly positive. The front room contained the coffee bar, a few little tables, and a little podium next to a heavy curtain. Even as I came in, one of the young women behind the bar came out to me, gave me a bubbly, caf-feinated smile, and said, "Hi! Do you have an appointment?"
"No," I said, glancing back at the curtains.' "Um, I just need to talk to someone. One second."
"Sir," she said in protest, and tried to hurry into my path. My legs were longer. I gave her a smile and outdistanced her, pushing the curtain aside.
The techno music grew a little louder as I went through. The back room of the boutique smelled the way boutiques always do, of various tonsorial chemicals. A dozen styling stations, all in use, stood six on a side, marching up to a rather large and elaborate station on a little raised platform. At the base of the little platform was a pedicure station, and a young woman with a mud mask, and cucumber slices, and a body posture of blissful relaxation was lounging through a pedicure. On the other side, another young woman was under a dryer, reading a magazine, her expression heavy and relaxed with that postcoiffure glow. On the main chair on the platform, a deluxe number that leaned back to a custom shampoo sink, another young woman lay back with a blissful expression while having her hair washed.
By Thomas.
He was chatting with her amiably as he worked, and she was in the middle of a little laugh when I came in. He leaned down and said something in her ear, and though I couldn't hear the substance of it, it came across in an unmistakable just-us-girls kind of tone, and she laughed again, replying in a similar manner.
Thomas laughed and turned away, practically prancing over to a tray of… styling implements, I supposed. He came back with a towel and, I swear to God, a dozen bobby pins held in his lips. He rinsed her hair and started pinning.
"Sir!" protested the coffee girl, who had followed me into the room.
Everyone stopped and looked at me. Even the woman with the cucumbers over her eyes took one of them off and peered at me.
Thomas froze. His eyes widened to the size of hand mirrors. He swallowed, and the bobby pins fell out of his mouth.
All the women looked back and forth between us, and there was an immediate buzz of whispers and quiet talks.
"You have got to be kidding me," I said.
"O-oh," Thomas said. "Ah-ree."
One of the stylists glanced back and forth between us and said, "Thomas." (She pronounced it Toe-moss.) "Who is your friend?"
Friend. Oy vey. I rubbed at the bridge of my nose with one hand. I was never going to get away from this one. Not if I lived to be five hundred.
Thomas and I sat down at a table over cups of coffee.
"This?" I asked him without preamble. "This is your mysterious job? This is the moneymaking scam?"
"It was cosmetology school first," Thomas said. He spoke in a French accent so thick that it barely qualified as English. "And night work as a security guard in a warehouse where no one else ever showed up, to pay for it."
I rubbed at my nose again. "And then… this ? Here I'm thinking you've created your own batch of personal thralls while running around as a hired killer or something, and… you're washing hair ?"
It was difficult to keep my voice quiet, but I made the effort. There were too many ears in that little place.
Thomas sighed. "Well. Yes. Washing, cutting, styling, dying. I do it all, baby."
"I'll bet." Then it hit me. "That's how you're feeding," I said. "I thought that took…"
"Sex?" Thomas asked. He shook his head. "Intimacy. Trust. And believe me, next to sex, washing and styling a woman's hair is about as intimate as you can get with her."
"You're still feeding on them," I said.
"It isn't the same, Harry. It isn't as dangerous—more like… sipping, I suppose, than taking bites. I can't take very much, or very quickly. But I'm here all day and it…" He shivered. "It adds up." He opened his eyes and met mine. "And there's no chance I'm going to lose control of myself. They're safe." He shrugged a shoulder. "They just enjoy it."
I watched the woman who'd been under the hair dryer come out, smile at Thomas, and pick up a cup of coffee on the way out. She looked… well, radiant, really. Confident. She looked like she felt sexy and beautiful, and it was quite pleasant to watch her move while she did.
Thomas watched her go with what I recognized as his look of quiet possession and pride. "They enjoy it a lot." He gave me one of his brief, swift grins. "I imagine there's a lot of husbands and boyfriends enjoying it, too."
"But they're addicted to it, I'd imagine."
He shrugged again. "Some, maybe. I try to spread myself around as much as I can. It isn't a perfect solution—"
"But it's the one you've got," I said. I frowned. "What happens when you try to wash somebody's hair and it turns out that they're in love? Protected?"
"True love isn't as common as you'd think," Thomas said. "Especially among people rich enough to afford me and superficial enough to think that it is money well spent."
"But when they do show?" I asked.
"That's why I've got all the hired help, man. I know what I'm doing."
I shook my head. "All this time and…" I snorted and sipped at some coffee. It was amazing. Smooth and rich and just sweet enough, and it probably cost more than a whole fast-food meal. "They all think I'm your lover, don't they."
"This is a trendy, upper-class boutique, Harry. No one expects a man with a place like this to be straight."
"Uh-huh. And the accent, Toe-moss?"
He smiled. "No one would pay that much money to an American stylist. Please." He shrugged. "It's superficial and silly, but true." He glanced around, suddenly self-conscious. His voice lowered, and his accent dropped. "Look. I know it's a lot to ask…"
It was an effort not to laugh at him, but I managed to give him a hard look, sigh, and say, "Your secret is safe with me."
He looked relieved. "Merci ."
"Hey," I said. "Can you stop by my place tonight after work? I'm putting something together that might help people if someone else starts something like those White Court bozos just tried. I thought maybe you'd want to be in on it."
"Um, yeah. Yeah, we can talk about it."
I sipped more coffee. "Maybe Justine could help, too. Might be a way to get her out, if you want to do it."
"Are you kidding?" Thomas asked. "She's been working for a year to get closer to Lara."
I blinked up at him. "Hell's bells, I thought she was acting weird," I said. "She came on all zonked out, like the mindless party girl, but she dropped it a couple of times, where I could see. I just put it down to, well. Weirdness."
He shook his head. "She's been getting information to me. Nothing huge, so far."
"Does Lara know about her?"
Thomas shook his head. "She hasn't tipped to it yet. Justine is, as far as Lara is concerned, still one more helpless little doe." He glanced up. "I talked it over with her. She wants to stay. She's Lara's assistant, most of the time."
I exhaled slowly. Holy crap. If Justine stayed in place, and was willing to report on what she knew… intelligence gathered at that level could turn the entire course of the war—because even if the White Court's peace proposal went through, it just meant a shift in focus and strategy. The vamps weren't about to let up.
Even so, he attracted more than a little feminine attention. He was like a walking, talking cologne commercial, except that even silent and standing he was making women look over their shoulders at him, while coyly rearranging their hair.
He finally stalked into the Park Tower, and went into a trendy little boutique-slash-coffee shop calling itself the Coiffure Cup. I checked a clock, and thought about following him in. I could see a few people inside, where a coffee bar backed up to the front window. A couple of fairly pretty girls were getting things set up behind the counter, but I couldn't see any more than that.
I found a spot where I could watch the door and loomed unobtrusively—which is easier than you'd think, even when you're as tall as I am. A couple of women whose hair and nails screamed "beautician" came in later. The boutique opened for business a few minutes after Thomas got there, and immediately began doing a brisk trade. A lot of evidently wealthy, terribly attractive, generally young women started coming and going.
It put me in a quandary. On the one hand, I didn't want anyone to get hurt because my brother had exerted himself so furiously on my behalf. On the other, I didn't particularly care to go in and find my brother lording it over a roomful of worshipful women like some dark god of lust and shadow.
I chewed on my lip for a while, and decided to go on in. If Thomas had… if he had become the kind of monster his family generally did, I owed it to him to try to talk some sense into him. Or pound it in. Whichever.
I pushed open the door to the Coiffure Cup and was immediately, pleasantly assaulted by the aroma of coffee. There was techno music playing, thumping bouncily and mindlessly positive. The front room contained the coffee bar, a few little tables, and a little podium next to a heavy curtain. Even as I came in, one of the young women behind the bar came out to me, gave me a bubbly, caf-feinated smile, and said, "Hi! Do you have an appointment?"
"No," I said, glancing back at the curtains.' "Um, I just need to talk to someone. One second."
"Sir," she said in protest, and tried to hurry into my path. My legs were longer. I gave her a smile and outdistanced her, pushing the curtain aside.
The techno music grew a little louder as I went through. The back room of the boutique smelled the way boutiques always do, of various tonsorial chemicals. A dozen styling stations, all in use, stood six on a side, marching up to a rather large and elaborate station on a little raised platform. At the base of the little platform was a pedicure station, and a young woman with a mud mask, and cucumber slices, and a body posture of blissful relaxation was lounging through a pedicure. On the other side, another young woman was under a dryer, reading a magazine, her expression heavy and relaxed with that postcoiffure glow. On the main chair on the platform, a deluxe number that leaned back to a custom shampoo sink, another young woman lay back with a blissful expression while having her hair washed.
By Thomas.
He was chatting with her amiably as he worked, and she was in the middle of a little laugh when I came in. He leaned down and said something in her ear, and though I couldn't hear the substance of it, it came across in an unmistakable just-us-girls kind of tone, and she laughed again, replying in a similar manner.
Thomas laughed and turned away, practically prancing over to a tray of… styling implements, I supposed. He came back with a towel and, I swear to God, a dozen bobby pins held in his lips. He rinsed her hair and started pinning.
"Sir!" protested the coffee girl, who had followed me into the room.
Everyone stopped and looked at me. Even the woman with the cucumbers over her eyes took one of them off and peered at me.
Thomas froze. His eyes widened to the size of hand mirrors. He swallowed, and the bobby pins fell out of his mouth.
All the women looked back and forth between us, and there was an immediate buzz of whispers and quiet talks.
"You have got to be kidding me," I said.
"O-oh," Thomas said. "Ah-ree."
One of the stylists glanced back and forth between us and said, "Thomas." (She pronounced it Toe-moss.) "Who is your friend?"
Friend. Oy vey. I rubbed at the bridge of my nose with one hand. I was never going to get away from this one. Not if I lived to be five hundred.
Thomas and I sat down at a table over cups of coffee.
"This?" I asked him without preamble. "This is your mysterious job? This is the moneymaking scam?"
"It was cosmetology school first," Thomas said. He spoke in a French accent so thick that it barely qualified as English. "And night work as a security guard in a warehouse where no one else ever showed up, to pay for it."
I rubbed at my nose again. "And then… this ? Here I'm thinking you've created your own batch of personal thralls while running around as a hired killer or something, and… you're washing hair ?"
It was difficult to keep my voice quiet, but I made the effort. There were too many ears in that little place.
Thomas sighed. "Well. Yes. Washing, cutting, styling, dying. I do it all, baby."
"I'll bet." Then it hit me. "That's how you're feeding," I said. "I thought that took…"
"Sex?" Thomas asked. He shook his head. "Intimacy. Trust. And believe me, next to sex, washing and styling a woman's hair is about as intimate as you can get with her."
"You're still feeding on them," I said.
"It isn't the same, Harry. It isn't as dangerous—more like… sipping, I suppose, than taking bites. I can't take very much, or very quickly. But I'm here all day and it…" He shivered. "It adds up." He opened his eyes and met mine. "And there's no chance I'm going to lose control of myself. They're safe." He shrugged a shoulder. "They just enjoy it."
I watched the woman who'd been under the hair dryer come out, smile at Thomas, and pick up a cup of coffee on the way out. She looked… well, radiant, really. Confident. She looked like she felt sexy and beautiful, and it was quite pleasant to watch her move while she did.
Thomas watched her go with what I recognized as his look of quiet possession and pride. "They enjoy it a lot." He gave me one of his brief, swift grins. "I imagine there's a lot of husbands and boyfriends enjoying it, too."
"But they're addicted to it, I'd imagine."
He shrugged again. "Some, maybe. I try to spread myself around as much as I can. It isn't a perfect solution—"
"But it's the one you've got," I said. I frowned. "What happens when you try to wash somebody's hair and it turns out that they're in love? Protected?"
"True love isn't as common as you'd think," Thomas said. "Especially among people rich enough to afford me and superficial enough to think that it is money well spent."
"But when they do show?" I asked.
"That's why I've got all the hired help, man. I know what I'm doing."
I shook my head. "All this time and…" I snorted and sipped at some coffee. It was amazing. Smooth and rich and just sweet enough, and it probably cost more than a whole fast-food meal. "They all think I'm your lover, don't they."
"This is a trendy, upper-class boutique, Harry. No one expects a man with a place like this to be straight."
"Uh-huh. And the accent, Toe-moss?"
He smiled. "No one would pay that much money to an American stylist. Please." He shrugged. "It's superficial and silly, but true." He glanced around, suddenly self-conscious. His voice lowered, and his accent dropped. "Look. I know it's a lot to ask…"
It was an effort not to laugh at him, but I managed to give him a hard look, sigh, and say, "Your secret is safe with me."
He looked relieved. "Merci ."
"Hey," I said. "Can you stop by my place tonight after work? I'm putting something together that might help people if someone else starts something like those White Court bozos just tried. I thought maybe you'd want to be in on it."
"Um, yeah. Yeah, we can talk about it."
I sipped more coffee. "Maybe Justine could help, too. Might be a way to get her out, if you want to do it."
"Are you kidding?" Thomas asked. "She's been working for a year to get closer to Lara."
I blinked up at him. "Hell's bells, I thought she was acting weird," I said. "She came on all zonked out, like the mindless party girl, but she dropped it a couple of times, where I could see. I just put it down to, well. Weirdness."
He shook his head. "She's been getting information to me. Nothing huge, so far."
"Does Lara know about her?"
Thomas shook his head. "She hasn't tipped to it yet. Justine is, as far as Lara is concerned, still one more helpless little doe." He glanced up. "I talked it over with her. She wants to stay. She's Lara's assistant, most of the time."
I exhaled slowly. Holy crap. If Justine stayed in place, and was willing to report on what she knew… intelligence gathered at that level could turn the entire course of the war—because even if the White Court's peace proposal went through, it just meant a shift in focus and strategy. The vamps weren't about to let up.
Park Tower (Chicago) - Wikipedia
Its a mixed business and residential building in the heart of Chicago.
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To be fair MIS is a big deal yes it gives perfect control over the hunger not a unique thing, but more then that it stops the passive daily drain just from existing. If their a way to detect a Wvamp's energy level Thoma's energy suddenly going up and up, is something very obvious to those that can see it.
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