Red Haven

[Veroe]

((Closed for Myself and SweetP4U))​

IC: Harrison and Kieran

The city of Haven was divided east and west by the Red River. On the East side was the affluent heart of the city: the financial district, city hall, the theater district, the local football and baseball teams' stadiums, even all the five stars restaurants. The west side was for the undesirables. Not of different color, but of different races. Hundreds of years ago mankind discovered vampires, werewolves, elves, and faeries were all very real. And after the centuries of holy wars to eradicate the monsters a peace was made, a covenant that has lasted ever since.

But prejudice endured where direct hostility has faded. To escape the repression of the old world the other races immigrated to the new world and help build a new country of freedoms and fairness. Yet now in the twentieth century, the other races are citizens of America, but relegated to near second class citizens.

Here in Haven most live on the West side of the river. Most just trying to live their lives in peace making an honest living. Here on the Westside, one man ruled: Kieran.

He was a vampire millennia old, and here in this city depending on whom you ask Kieran was a crimeboss, or a community activist, or social crusader, or feudal lord. All were true and none were completely accurate to sum up the complicated man climbing out of the limo behind Harrison.

He smoothed his hands over his jacket as Kieran's bodyguards formed a protective ring around them. Harrison was Kieran's personal assistant and manager. He kept track of all his appointments, his businesses, all the details to keep his friend's empire rolling. He looked up at the building they were entering and shivered with dread.

He was not ready to for this.

"Do you really need me here with you," He asked as Kieran sauntered out of the limo.

The man placed a bolstering hand on his shoulder. "You need to get out and face your fears eventually, Harrison. She is only a woman, afterall."

"Only a woman?" To call Lana Veridian only a woman was like calling a lioness only a little pussy cat. She wasn't a hybrid like he or Lily. Lana Veridian was a 100% pureblooded Succubus. And if she found out about him and his ability...what it would mean for her own powers...the temptation she'd pose to him...

Jesus Christ, he wanted to avoid her at any cost.

Kieran led them through Lana's nightclub. Loud music assaulting their ears and Lana's servers carried trays of her cocktails. Harrison could feel the imprint of her power, damn she was so strong, he could sense the drink in the hands of a woman taking a sip of one. It reached out to him and unbidden the power of the drink was amplified before Harrison could retract his own power. The woman collapsed screaming out in soul-shaking orgasm.

Kieran led them past the bar and dancefloor to the elevator up to the top floor. Lana's floor. Harrison pulled himself into a tight ball. If he was lucky Lana would be too busy jousting with Kieran to pay any attention to him. She and Kieran had a lot of history...it was possible she wouldn't even notice him.

The elevator slid to a stop and the doors opened. Kieran continued to saunter out of it as if he owned the building-well, technically he had paid for 15% of this place when Lana had set up shop here. His bodyguards and hers glared at eachother as he strode through the doubledoors to her office. She sat at her desk waiting for him like Cleopatra awaited Marc Antony. And she was a queen of her kingdom here, but Kieran was Caeser.

He came up to her and sat atop her desk peering down at her. "You heard about what happened?"

At her response he nodded, "They are going to come for you, probably Covenant cops first, but the murder of the Mayor's daughter is going to enrage the normal police too. They'll look to use you to get to me."

Harrison stayed near the door ready to run if she so much as looked at him. Why did she have to be so beautiful? Her aura...her energy...reminded him so much of Lily, his dead wife.

At her reply to Kieran's words Talon leaned forward giving her that practiced seductively sauve look, "I've come to help you."

 

[Sweetp4u]

Miss Lana Ver'idian

Slender fingers cradled pen as she shift those soft sea green orbs between shipping manifest and lab stock reports. Something wasn't adding up here, and it reeked of inside job. Sanctuary was situated only an alley width away from her lab building and storage facilities. Everything was within two minutes and thirty-six seconds away from her penthouse. So how did someone get into her secure system and out again with a few vials of her juice with no alarms, no whistles, no witnesses! NO VIDEO? It just did not add up.. but one single box of six vials of orgasm were missing.

It made no sense! Frankly, it was pissing her off. To find her box and her broken, emptied vials on the scene of a crime.. Apparently included the mayor's slut of a daughter and unnamed others..

Lana glanced up from her desk at the chime of elevator to see the last person on this miserable planet she wanted to see this day. Bold as brass, cocky stride and all came breezing back in as if he still held shares of Ver'idian stock. Where confusion was once shining in those bedroom eyes, now reserve and cold reflected back at the beast looming with sexy hip to her desk top.

"Do you have an appointment, Sir?" She mocked him with a wily smirk, pen tossed casually to desk top as it were plain that no work would get done until the "king" himself was finished with her interrogation.

"You heard about what happened?" Silken and yet rough, that damn voice was honey to her ears and sand paper both at the same time. Were he gloating or genuinely concerned?

Fuck technology..

Gaze shift to the suit hovering by the elevator, "Accountant?" She happened to guess, a bit more than irritable with the thought HE would bring someone to over see her company.. Any damned excuse!

"Lawyer." Was his response to her question but he still had THAT tone of voice, and he expected some sort of answer she would suppose... And withheld because it sure made her tingle in places to piss him off at times.

"Ah..." Eyes on Harrison as she ignored her former lover. "Your name, Sir?" She called with a purr of feline satisfaction.

"Lana.." Was the warning to come so soon?

Large wide innocent green eyes turned to Kieren and bat prettily up at his less-than patient gaze. "Yes?" oozed honey and teeth as she grin, yet her eyes did not follow suit to mock, she was just TOO damned tired today for this crap!
"Look.." She huffed out with tiresome 'I'm indulging you' tone, "I am tired, the sun is up and I have yet to rest. I am going over manifests and shipping orders. I am not sure which human made it into my club last week, but word is spreading.."

It was GREAT for business and HELL for business all just the same. "They seem to think I am making illegal drugs, like some sort of date rape candy for the kiddies to crave..." Which was true but not quite as simple as that. "I have always ran legit, you know this, damn it!" Two fingers lift and pinch the bridge of her nose and slide up, eyes closing as she tried to go over what she knew those law enforcers would be lashing her with, for hours to get their version of the truth. "It is moderated, it is measured and triple checked from processing to bottling. It is again checked upon placement at the bars here in the club." A slim shoulder shrugged up and back down, again eyes peeling open to eye the lawyer.

"I suppose he is here as consult?" A hand lift and indicated Harrison in the rear of the room. She shift then in her seat to eye the lawyer in the back with more interest, his eyes were too far to really see clearly but he was very good looking.. "Is that?" She knew that she recognized the guy from some where but ...

 

[Veroe]

IC: Kieran and Harrison

"Do you have an appointment, Sir?"

Kieran studied her. Lana as always looked remarkable in a suit with an open neckline to teases the dark silk blouse straining to cover the cleavage underneath and a dark skirt and stockings that encased the long length of her legs like they were painted on her. In this moment it was classy, but Kieran knew from experience that Lana could turn the corner from classy to slutty and back on a dime at any second if the mood struck her. She was like that. The divide between the independent and professionally competent woman and insatiable and unrelenting sexpot was paper thin when it came to her.

She also had gorgeous tresses of hair the color of the most sinful milk chocolate flowing around her head and down around her shoulders to the middle of her back. She had puckered kissable lips and the clearest hazel eyes he had ever come across and Kieran was a connoisseur of beautiful women so he would know. Those eyes now were narrowed in suspicion and her eyebrow raised in annoyance.

He remembered the night she had called him "Sir" and meant it. These days the only thing she meant for him was the slap in the face the morning after. He hadn't seen her these last couple of years, but he didn't need a psychic to know she'd been avoiding him just as much as Harrison wanted to avoid her.

"You heard about what happened?"

Her eyes shifted singling Harrison out like any good predator did to the weakest of the herd. Kieran felt a stab of protectiveness which was ridiculous since he'd been the one to drag Harrison out here to finally meet her. Or perhaps it wasn't protectiveness for his friend but possessiveness towards a woman he still had unfinished business with. That was also ridiculous he and Lana when they were together were nothing anywhere close to exclusive and that was a long long time ago.

"Accountant," She asked irritably eyeing Harrison.

At her regard Harrison took a step back away from her and into her office's doors.

Kieran leaned in closer to peer into those beautifully sharp eyes, "Lawyer." That wasn't exactly right, but she'd already see Harrison as a spy for him. No use telling her how much he'd grown to depend on him, and the fact he was giving her the finest champion in the arena she may be challenged in over this.

"Ah..." She said eyes not averting from Harrison, "Your name, Sir?"

Kieran noted the purr to her voice as she asked his friend that. She was intrigued with him...good.

Harrison swallowed wanting to make a run for it as she leveled those piercing eyes upon him. They felt like drills boring into his very soul the same way Lily's gaze had outside the jailcell window so long ago. He kept his powers tightly buttoned up buried so she wouldn't figure out exactly what he was.

His hands nervously straightened his suit jacket then his tie answering with only the slightest touch of his Texas cowboy origin in his voice, "Harrison, ma'am, Edgar E. Harrison." He corrected the waver in his voice in that and then took a breath to steady himself. "I'm...I'm at your service, apparently." He glanced a look towards Kieran that said: "Someday I'll get you for making me do this".

"Lana..." Kieran put in warningly at the notions that must be swimming through her head. Would she try to use Harrison just to spite him? Like a child ripping a toy from the hands of another?

"Yes," She said her feline gaze returning to him. She smiled innocently up to him, but Kieran noted that it never reached her eyes. They remained...irritated.

"Lana," he repeated his warning from before, "I-"

"Look," She cut him off in a tone that said she was merely just humoring his presence here. "I am tired, the sun is up and I have yet to rest. I am going over manifests and shipping orders. I am not sure which human made it into my club last week, but word is spreading.."

"You have no idea how your...product got onto the scene of a murder?" That from Harrison. Kieran hid a smile. Good, he was starting to work the problem the way Kieran had trusted he would.

"The Haven PD think you're some sort of exotic meth-cooker, Lana," He picked up a glass of clear liquid she had sitting on her desk and swirled it around before taking a sip. He felt a lazy satitated contentment wash over him as he swallowed it. He recognized this variety. She called it "Afterglow". He offered her own glass back to her. "I don't know what the Covenant cops will do about it, but the local police are going to want you thrown behind bars and throw away the key. I won't need to remind you how the sexually repressed culture of the humans out there have always treated Succubi, do I?"

"They seem to think I am making illegal drugs, like some sort of date rape candy for the kiddies to crave..." She confirmed using two fingers to pinch the bridge of her nose, "I have always ran legit, you know this, damn it!"

He nodded, "I know your clean, but you know it won't matter, Lana. They want us...you put in our place." He drummed his fingers on the expensive mahogany surface of her desk. "I think they might try to charge you with something they know won't stick to scare you. Then they'll be on you twenty-four/seven to testify on whatever case they can manufacture against me to be cleared from them."

"Miss Veridian," Harrison called from the door, "It's a matter of what your culpable of. The fact that the Mayor will be lighting a fire under them will make them anxious to put anyone related to this case in jail to look like they're in control and doing something."

She lifted her hand towards him but addressed Kieran, "I suppose he is here as a consultant?"

Kieran nodded to her, "He's the best, Lana. Trust me. Just listen to what he has to say."

Her eyes narrowed looking at Harrison. "Is that?"

Harrison felt a cold shiver run down his spine at her question. Did she recognize him? Did she know what he was? Did she know what she could gain from him. Jesus, why had he even come into the same room with her? Kieran had to help him distract her some more.

Kieran raised up from her desk and headed towards the door. "I'll be downstairs enjoying a few drinks maybe one or two of your waitresses and let you two discuss it further."

As he shouldered his way past him Harrison shot him a look that said: "Don't leave me alone with her, please".

But Kieran didn't heed it. The door closed and he was alone with the last person he'd ever want to be alone with. Harrison turned back to her a hand irrationally reaching behind him for the door knob.

If she made any move towards him...

"Well let's get started, Miss Veridian," He said trying desperately to hide within the armor of his professionalism, "Have you identified the missing product from your stores?"

 

[Sweetp4u]

Lana

Under normal circumstances she would've made a remark on the placement of her, twisting it into a very blatant sexual reference.. Normally. Tension skittered down her nape and tensed shoulders worse than they had been before. Someone was out to burn her, and as egoistical as Kieran is to think the universe revolves around him, she could not discount his train of thought with normal dismissive narcissism on his part. An imposing figure such as he, had more media, stalkers and fan clubs than any thirty entertainer on the planet. So it were highly probable they were sniffin' at her doors to find an 'in' against the ancient. If she threw in the business aspect and burnt bridges, politicians and world leaders, he was this planet's most wanted 'man'.

"They would know that using me to get to you was foolish if they knew you.." It nagged at her as it was not even a guarantee to ruffle his feathers to antagonize a former business associate and lover. No.. this was something else. Something more. Be it about her, Kieran or their mutual past.. Could just as easily be about sanctuary, or the demons living within, safely. Could be over real estate sales, political ties, gaines.. She could sit here for the next ten hours simply listing reasons, motives, people and be no closer to the WHY of this whole ordeal. Perhaps karma was a bitch and rolling back finally with the tide?

She watched a perfectly tailor tight end saunter back out the way he had come in and felt a stirring within. Eyes would roll and head, gaze lower to her desk top as she shook her head at herself. Ever the slut.. A smile twitched as the doors swung open and shut, leaving her, Harrison and two goons.

"Leave us." She directed her men, knowing they would re-position themselves at the bottom of the elevator to await her summons. The small bottle sat on her desk top, near empty but not quite as it held a little sample of her within it. "Yes, Mr Harrison. This." She said simply and lift the bottle for him to examine. "Two of Orgasm and Two Afterglow." It were potent stuff, they could cut each a thousand times and blow their fucking minds off of each human crazy enough to drink it. "It isn't harmful, if you're in good health. It isn't addictive nor have any lasting nor negative side effects. It simply makes you feel .. good." She held it out for him to sample. "You can get a taste of it, if you like. A small drop will do nothing but relax you.. but so would good music or a comfortable chair."

He didn't seem to want to come near her or into her office, so she stood and moved about the desk to lean against it, heels crossing as she settled her round ass to the desk's edge. "Come in and sit down please, no need to strain my voice or your ears.. Nor stand about uncomfortable." She indicated the chair before her and to one side. "Some one stole them from my lab next door. Someone who could get into the building and out again without detection." She hoped the humans came for her, she'd have a real party then with sampling the skeptical and prudish. That thought made her grin in such a way that had anyone really been watching her face, might've heated a bit at that thirsty glimmer upon her face.

Eye lift from the chair back to the handsome man lurking just out of reach. "Did Kieran tell you something about me, anything at all?" She had to ask as he seemed dead set on that damned foyer. She knew damn well she was not offensively smelly and she looked professional and collected. Had she pissed him off unknowingly?

Strange man.

"I insist.." She motioned again to the seat, "Please don't make me resort to standing over there with you to have a simple conversation." She gave him her best , warmest smile and innocent eyed pleading look

 

[Veroe]

IC: Harrison

"Well let's get started, Miss Veridian," He said trying desperately to hide within the armor of his professionalism, "Have you identified the missing product from your stores?"

"Leave us," She said to her two goons. Harrison stood watching as the two large men filed out leaving him completely and utterly alone with Lana Veridian...Jesus Christ he was not ready for this.

"Yes, Mr Harrison. This." She said lifting a nearly empty bottle with a black label bearing the Veridian brand logo in gold. "Two of Orgasm and Two Afterglow."

"So four bottles in all," He nodded pulling out his handy Tablet to take that down as notes later, "And how dangerous can they be in the wrong hands?"

"It isn't harmful," She said offering him it to taste, "If you're in good health. It isn't addictive nor have any lasting nor negative side effects. It simply makes you feel .. good."

He could feel it, her: a lit match just eager to light him aflame like spilt gasoline. The look on her face was so much like the look on Lily's whenever she had dragged him out to do something more adventurous than he would normally have done. His late wife had that same look in her eyes back in Rio De Jenero in 1903 when she had brought up a pretty little Brazilian waitress to share in their bed for the first time.

"You can get a taste of it, if you like," She offered, "A small drop will do nothing but relax you.. but so would good music or a comfortable chair."

Harrison shook his head, "No thank you Miss Veridi-."

She stood up then causing her name to get caught on his tongue. She began to step around her desk raising his pulse rate with each step. Her hips swaying all the way to the front of the desk where she perched herself her desk on the same spot Kieran had. One long leg crossed over the other doing some distracting things to the tight skirt and the amount of stockinged thigh that he could see.

Why did she have to be so god damned sexy? He wasn't prepared to be in the same room with this creature.

"Come in and sit down please," She suggested gesturing to a chair she'd be well within reach of, "No need to strain my voice or your ears.. Nor stand about uncomfortable."

His feet was leaden and shivers of terror raced up and down his spine at the thought of being that close to her where he could reach out and touch her, where he could smell her with every breath he took. He shook his head, "I'm fine over here, Ms. Veridian." He finished his note he had made of how many bottles she had missing and suggested to move the conversation closer to an end and firmly on a professional topic, "And how do you think those bottles wound up at the crime scene?"

"Some one stole them from my lab next door," She answered, "Someone who could get into the building and out again without detection."

That came with an eager and hungry grin coming across her face that he could feel in the depths of his balls, "Lan-err-Miss Veridian?"

She looked up to him at that. "Did Kieran tell you something about me, anything at all?"

"A long time ago one night in Hong Kong over the very first bottle you ever sold, but he really didn't have to," He said glancing away from those hazel eyes down to the notes he had made on his Ipad, "You have quite the reputation that precedes you, Ms. Veridian."

"I insist.." She motioned again to the seat, "Please don't make me resort to standing over there with you to have a simple conversation." She gave him her best , warmest smile and innocent eyed pleading look.

Harrison looked at the chair like it had conspired to get even closer to her. He swallowed anxiously at the thought of being that close to her. He bit his lip but lifted his heavy feet to walk inside the room, but he didn't sit down. He stopped at the other end of the chair so it would serve as a buffer zone between them.

He looked at her. Jesus, why did she have to be so beautiful, and replied, "Now shall we start discussing what they may try to charge you with. Your liquor license will probably be the most tempting target. If they can prove the young woman had your drink in her system and that you sold it to her they may try to scare you with pulling it from you."

 

[Sweetp4u]

Lana

"She.. was never here, Mr. Harrison." Rolled off her tongue, quietly spoken, almost caressed as she was lost in her own thoughts; watching him make his way .. with a graceful.. yet.... hesitant stride. ...

Why though? Why it caught her attention, no idea. She was completely lost, maybe it was due to just how awkward and strange his reactions were... How he hovered as if a frightened bird!

Fuck, I love it when they freak.. and while he may not be able to read minds.. and she didn't care either way, her smile she turned on him was almost feral, thirsty and a bit catty in her thoughts and where they were leading her.. Astray of course!

"She was not quite legal and I know everyone... well.." She paused to look him over with a blatant perusal. "Almost everyone.." Flash of pearly whites and near fangs made her grin wolfish as she undressed him with her eyes. Lowering to his 'package' and curios just how big he may or may not be.. Not that it matter, she could always adjust to fit right..

Perhaps he's gay or he is worried she'll get his ass fired? .. Had to be the later, he didn't seem the type to her..

"I would not let in the human mayor's daughter.. is that whom she were?" A frown then came and near remorse shadowed her eyes but a mere, tiny little moment. She had been lovely, this young woman. "I am fairly sure she wasn't yet twenty-one... So she wouldn't make it in the doorway.." Her hands shift and turned to rest upon the edge of the desk, tightening her jacket and blouse across her breasts as she shift once more.

Now.. was he a leg man? Ass? Breasts? Or would he simply adore all of her? Yet he was still much too far from her! Shit, most men tripped over each other to get near her...

Narrowed eyes fixated on him, seeking some sort of vibe.. a sensation or feeling off the man. And with those thoughts, she lapped her rose lips and smiled up into those handsome eyes. .. Yet she felt nothing! .. Could feel no heat nor even cold, he had no scent about him other than the human trappings of deodorant and cologne. But no earthy man scent, no scent of arousal at all..

Huh... That is very .. very odd.

Slipping free from her perch, she wound about the chair before he could dodge too far and up behind him, brushing her suit and body 'accidently' against him. "You're in a hurry to depart?" She queried, wondering why he refused to sit near her.

 

[Veroe]

IC: Harrison

He looked at her. Jesus, why did she have to be so beautiful, and replied, "Now shall we start discussing what they may try to charge you with. Your liquor license will probably be the most tempting target. If they can prove the young woman had your drink in her system and that you sold it to her they may try to scare you with pulling it from you."

"She.. was never here, Mr. Harrison." The way she said that sounded, in a purr. It felt a caress of her fingers up his spine.

"Y-you're certain of that," He asked trying not to show how much he enjoyed that purr to her voice.

Her smile was predatory and his breath caught in his throat. Did she know? Had she figured it out?

"She was not quite legal and I know everyone... well.."

Her gaze swept up over him and Harrison tensed. She was assessing, undressing with her eyes, weighing and measuring him up. He had seen Lionesses do the same to Wildebeests in the Savannah. He had seen people do the same to a piece of meat in the butcher shop.

Did she know about him?

She continued her gaze lowering to center over the lump of iron weighing down the crotch of his trousers, "Almost everyone.."

She didn't know. Relief flashed through him at the realization, but soon dissipated at the sight of her grin. He had intrigued her, enticed her...a conundrum...a mystery that could very well be too tempting for her to unravel.

Jesus, he was not ready to be alone in the same room with her.

"I would not let in the human mayor's daughter.." She said with a frown and regretful shadow in those dazzling hazel eyes, "...is that whom she were?"

"From everything my 'friends' over at city hall tell me, it looks like she was," He nodded pulling the notes he had made earlier up on his Ipad and turning it so she can get a look at a picture of the mayor at some fundraiser flanked by two identical teenage girls smiling wide political smiles. "The one on the left."

"I am fairly sure she wasn't yet twenty-one..." She replied, "So she wouldn't make it in the doorway.."

"Good," He nodded uncomfortably trying not to notice that she had ever so 'casually' readjusted her suit drawing his eyes to her cleavage. Then herding it down her body when she shifted her weight an act that pushed that tight skirt up higher on her thigh. It revealed the end of her stocking and in between that and the hem of the skirt was a line of the bare skin of her thigh.

He swallowed trying to pull his eyes away from those legs. It really wasn't fair, he'd always had a weakness for women with long sexy legs, and Lana's ought to be registered as lethal weapons.

Harrison swallowed again as she rise up from the chair and began to circle around the chair that had been shielding him from her. He tried to step away but she was faster and she came up around him. He could feel her breasts pressing into his back, those legs that went all the way up press against the outside of his legs, and the front of that tight skirt press into his back pocket.

"You're in a hurry to depart?"

She was so close, too close. He wasn't ready for her. He was trembling trying to rein in his own reactions to her provocative move. His power was rolled up in a tight little core so far down she'd have to dig to get an iota out of him, but under this sort of strain, he didn't know how long he could sustain.

"Ms. Veridian," He said trying desperately to sound stoically unaffected-a lie of course the erection throbbing in his pants proved that, but he had to get her to back off or else he may do something he would regret, "I think it's best if we keep any relationship we have strictly professional."

He shrugged her off and took a step away from her. He lifted the Ipad realizing that that was a bad move since the tablet had been shielding the tent in his pants she had caused to be clear to her gaze now.

"Uhh..." He said searching for something among his notes to deflect this back to less shark-infested waters, "...According to my 'friends' at city hall the mayor is livid about the murder of one of his daughters and want someone's head on his chopping block."

 

[Sweetp4u]

Lana

Her face, that self satisfied grin, said it all as lusty gaze slid from the bulge in his nice expensive trousers back up to his stammering rushing lips that spewed out the most blatant bullshit she'd ever heard. So he was on edge around her and most definitely NOT a gay man, judging by that nice package tenting for her. Did he worry she would 'suck him blind' of all emotion and sensations? It bared consideration.. something about her made him highly uptight and uncomfortable.. yet aroused none the less..

"Of course.." Seemingly agreeable to 'keeping it professional' but the overtures in her tone said a completely different tale. Wrong time to turn on her charm however, very wrong time. She had but glanced at the picture he had shown her, however the girl was not the same one on the left, but on the right. Not that it mattered, one girl was dead and one family picture would forever be devoid of her, so pointing out the small detail seemed too petty to voice.

"And he feels blaming another victim of this heinous crime for his loss is going to solve it.." A rhetorical remark, she spun about him with a brush of shoulder and a smile as she found her desk top once more and slid to it's flawless surface. "Is it his election year?" Came and went with a thought, as it still did not make any sense to her at all, this whole fucking set up. She just could not help herself, despite the mental reminder to behave, she had to cross her legs and force her skirt hem even higher up her shapely thighs. Had to let her hand brush down the top and up side to give a very weak tug upon said hem before slipping down to grip that wooden top once more in each hand.

"I suggest letting the Covenant in to investigate just how thorough we run, so they can too see this was a set up, to stage a scene for whatever purpose.. That I am unsure of." Why tie the pair of them.... Her mind churned and burned over every avenue she could think of and then some that were completely 'out there' in the realm of possibilities. She were never a killer and so for her to think like one, would be impossible.

"Maybe we're over thinking it?" Brows pulled together as another frown creased her lovely face. "I do believe we're the 'scape goat' to whatever revengeful act this person wanted played out against the Mayor himself.." Again it made no sense but rarely did these things. Politics were Kieran's place, not her own. He liked mind games, she liked sex.. two completely different realms to Lana.. though Kieran was very good at combining them both.

With a hand shifting back a bit, she would lean backwards to tap a manicured nail to file just behind her bottom. "In there is the reports from several reliable sources, test results both from this side of the River and from the human half, of the effects and conclusions of just how safe my mixtures are. One for the Covenant and one for the human's Chief of Police." She made no move to lift nor hand them to Harrison, let him get them, if he dared to. "We should sit down later and discuss a public statement." Thrown out there and baited like a pro! Her grin was nearly innocent as she gave him another sweet smile.

 

[Veroe]

IC: Harrison

"Ms. Veridian," He said trying desperately to sound stoically unaffected-a lie of course the erection throbbing in his pants proved that, but he had to get her to back off or else he may do something he would regret, "I think it's best if we keep any relationship we have strictly professional."

She made a self satisfied and seductive grin that would melt the polar icecaps. She looked down towards the obvious proof that what between them would never be just 'strictly professional' and said knowingly, "Of course.."

"Uhh..." He said searching for something among his notes to deflect this back to less shark-infested waters, "...According to my 'friends' at city hall the mayor is livid about the murder of one of his daughters and want someone's head on his chopping block."

"And he feels blaming another victim of this heinous crime for his loss is going to solve it.." A rhetorical remark, she spun about him with a brush of shoulder and a smile as she found her desk top once more and slid to it's flawless surface. "Is it his election year?"

"Last year," He informed her trying to keep his eyes on what his fingers were doing on his Ipad instead of following the motion of her legs as one raised and crossed over the other raising the hem of her skirt up dangerously to reveal the more of the smooth skin of her sexy thigh. She had legs that went on and on for miles. Then Lana reached down and gave a halfhearted tug on the hem and he saw enough of her thigh to where the hip met her hips and looking down at his tablet was forgotten.

He found himself wondering what kind of panties she was wearing. He found himself wondering if she was wearing panties as all.

"Uh...there's a lot of politics to it too," He repeated wrenching his eyes away from her thighs, "You probably didn't pay it any mind, but he was heavily criticized during the reelection campaign for his perceived lenience on us other races. It's not just the fact it was his daughter pushing him. Politically he has to take a very hard stance on this." He sighed with a sad shrug while still keeping his eyes on the Ipad's screen, "So he's going to be pushing the cops to lean pretty heavily on all of us involved in the case."

"I suggest letting the Covenant in to investigate just how thorough we run, so they can too see this was a set up, to stage a scene for whatever purpose.. That I am unsure of." She replied and he made the mistake of looking back up to her when she did.

She hadn't bothered to push her skirt back down, and the leg she had raised over her knee was rocking her foot back and forth subconsciously. It made the muscles in her long lean legs flex and unflex in delicious ways. Lily could drive him wild with much the same "seemingly innocent" displays of her legs in much the same way Lana had "seemingly inncocently" stumbled upon now.

"The covenant would be a crapshoot. They could treat us more fairly than the local cops, or they could very well have their own agenda...still given the attention this is getting they'll be involved anyway and they may be your best shot to clear your business' good name," He nodded eyes never leaving the hypnotically swaying leg. The way she was hunched forward gave him quite a good glimpse of cleavage as well though he was more of a legs man than a proponent of a woman's breasts. This was dangerous territory. He could feel her pulling him in with a desire to come closer-to reach out and touch-like the pull of gravity of a black hole would pull in and swallow up anything that gets too close.

Well here he was struggling against something as unrelenting and undeniable as the force of gravity itself-and her name was Lana Veridian.

"Maybe we're over thinking it?" Brows pulled together as another frown creased her lovely face. "I do believe we're the 'scape goat' to whatever revengeful act this person wanted played out against the Mayor himself.."

"Probably," He confirmed...had he taken a step closer to her without thinking, "Can you think of anyone who may profit if the police arrest you because of this? Do you have any enemies capable of doing this?"

With more difficulty he pulled his eyes away from her and back down to the nice, safe Ipad in his hands. "In any event we need to have on hand all the information you have on the safety of your product."

With a hand shifting back a bit, she would lean backwards to tap a manicured nail to file just behind her bottom. "In there is the reports from several reliable sources, test results both from this side of the River and from the human half, of the effects and conclusions of just how safe my mixtures are. One for the Covenant and one for the human's Chief of Police."

He looked up to see her eyes meeting his. He got it then. If he wanted to review the file he'd have to get closer to her do it. He felt his heart stutter in his chest. To do the best job he could for Kieran he needed to peruse those reports, but he couldn't get that close to her without risking being way too close to her...he was already on shaky ground with a few feet between them.

"We should sit down later and discuss a public statement." She said giving him another one of those "seemingly innocent" smiles. He imagined a spider giving the fly the same smile as it flew into its web.

"Yeah...later," He agreed. He needed to look over those reports...but he couldn't get that close to her...she might do something, and he just might let her. Jesus he wasn't ready for this.

He hung between his need to do his best at his job, and his need to stay the hell away from Lana Veridian. Moments passed with him standing there and her sitting on that desk looking sexy as hell with that "seemingly innocent" smile on her face, challenging him, inviting him, enticing him to come to her.

He needed to see those reports. He swallowed and raised his hand, trembling in the air between them. "Ms. Veridian," He said shakily, "The Reports, please?"

 

[Sweetp4u]

Lana Ver'idian

Damn self control.. hungry eyes raked him over and to the grown bulge once more. The temperature in the room was growing moment by moment, as were the dampness of her sex. She could inhale him, almost taste him in the air and that leaking scent he was trying so desperately to hide and control behind cotton and leather belt. If she had to guess, she was almost positive she could have him stripped naked in under forty seconds.. Shame he wasn't up to it.. Or so he presented.

Now tell that to his raging hard on.

Shifting eyes darkened with her arousal, lift once more to his bowed head and calculated further. She had many enemies as she had many lovers. "Who wouldn't hate me, Mr Harrison?" She purred her words, not with intent, unable to mask the desire in her growling under tones. "When you are seemingly young, beautiful, wealthy beyond Midas and you pleasure all those you may pass in a room with a mere scent or touch.. You make enemies, Mr Harrison." Her skirt hitched higher, her legs shifting as she did not fail to feel where his eyes would wander and caress. A crooked smile stayed on him as he fiddled with his little tablet.

She could picture him within her bed, his impressive cock buried deep as she and he broke the bed for a few hours.. at least! The picture so vivid, she could feel her aura wrapping in little tendrils about him as if it had a mind of it's own. Hauntingly she tossed her mane back from her face and fixed him with a daring stare, lips twitching up at one corner , "I only bite if you ask me.. nicely.." Her fingers slid to the files behind her, picking them up and tucking them before her. On lap, pressed to her breasts as she waited with folded arms. "You are a surprising man, Mr. Harrison.." She relented after a short pause, much to her own shock.. but there was something blocking him from her, mentally speaking... he just had TOO much resistance to her.

And to find out why was her newest endeavor.. on top of perfecting that French Kiss and finding out who was trying to bring down her mini empire and fuck up her good damned mood.

Hades made no sense but they had a very complicated history and she is, much to HIS disdain, quite difficult to control. She had closed the portal between them twenty years ago and had never been back nor answered any of his summons.. There was a reason for it too... She just wasn't going to tell anyone that reason and be glad he had grown bored with trying to control her.

"But since you will not come, and get it.." Her double meaning quite clear and her amusement at toying with him, puns and all, shone as she slipped from her desk top and sauntered about that chair once more to stand before him. Her head tipped back as eyes went up to find his. Shifting her head to haunch over and peek to find his eyes and get him off that damned tablet screen. "anything good on there?" Her laughter twitching her lips but she held it in check. "Here are those files.." She knew they would smell of her and he'd carry it with him through the rest of this day while she had a date with her pillows and silk sheets.

"My bed awaits me." Whispered invitingly but yet she stepped back from him and shoved the files under his nose, over his pesky tablet and forced a "now go away" smile. "Do feel free to use the office here, or there is one next door, quite empty too." Her bedroom was one floor up, her entire penthouse was the top floor, much like Kiernan's place, only hers was far more tasteful than his.

 

[Veroe]

IC: Harrison

"Can you think of anyone who may profit if the police arrest you because of this? Do you have any enemies capable of doing this?"

"Who wouldn't hate me, Mr Harrison," She purred in a way that felt like her hand was pumping his long-neglected libido. "When you are seemingly young, beautiful, wealthy beyond Midas and you pleasure all those you may pass in a room with a mere scent or touch.. You make enemies, Mr Harrison."

"I can imagine," He said trying not to look at the hem of her skirt that still seemed to be climbing higher and higher on her thigh as if by a will of its own.

He needed to see those reports. He swallowed and raised his hand, trembling in the air between them. "Ms. Veridian," He said shakily, "The Reports, please?"

Lana flipped her hair over her shoulder making him imagine what it would feel like slipping through his fingers. She speared him with a challenging look to her eyes. "I only bite if you ask me.. nicely.." She reached back and took hold of the files. Then she moved the files and tucking them tight against herself.

The top of the manila folder just reached high enough to cover the lower half of her bust line. It invited his eyes to explore the tantalizing glimpse of cleavage revealed by her blouse's plunging neckline. The bottom edge of the files rested right on the hemline of her skirt that seemed to have finally risen all the way up her thighs to bunch up at her hips.

She was forcing his hand, throwing down the gauntlet: daring him to come and get close enough to touch her to get the files.

"Ms. Veridian," He pressed his voice still a little shaky speaking to her, "The files. Please." She could easily reach out and hold the files out for him and he could reach out and take them. That way the minimum safe distance between them will be maintained.

Was he really trying to make an appeal for mercy from an aroused Succubus? He remembered making similar entreaties to Lily that never went his way, but always came before one of those moments that was...very memorable. Chains, toys, threesomes, moresomes, and even moresomes, public displays of-affection. He had always been in the position of trying to convince his wife to be reasonable and not be so...memorable. But Lily like Lana here was a Succubus, and Succubi tended to get their way especially when they were both aroused and/or intrigued by someone.

He knew that look that was in Lana's eye, he'd seen a similar one many times. So Harrison knew he'd find no mercy from her here now. It didn't help that she was sex and sin in flesh and blood form. He was starting to ache for her in places that hadn't ached in years-not since Lily-He locked his eyes back down to the Ipad screen to get himself settled back down.

"You are a surprising man, Mr. Harrison.." She stated after a long pregnant moment between them, "But since you will not come, and get it.."

The double entendre to her words was clear to him and he tried not to be seduced by the open invitation implied by it. Shivers ran up and down his vertebrae with the silken caress of her words. The Ipad wasn't working. It was no defense against her voice.

Movement caught his attention and she had somehow risen from atop her desk and took the two strides between them and around the chair serving as a buffer between him and her. He reacted like she was a ghost or something trying to lean away from her.

"anything good on there?" Her laughter twitching her lips but she held it in check. "Here are those files.."

Fumbling he took the folder from. Why did she have to smell so good? Was that perfume or just her? "I...thank you." He took a step away from her. The folders smelled like her. His thumb ran over the edge that had covered her breasts but he stopped himself midway.

What was she doing to him? He loved Lily. Lily was gone. So naturally he would never love anyone ever again, period, end of story....so why were thoughts of bending Lana over that desk and him gaining some long-neglected respite to the hunger that was Lily's alone within this other woman's arms.

He wasn't ready for letting go of his wife like that, but part of him-some traitorous forever-to-be-damned part of him-wanted Lana to press the issue all the way tonight. He wanted to let it go at long last, and he'd never forgive himself for feeling that way in her presence here.

But if she did press it here would he stop her? If she did press it did he want to stop her? Yes, no, maybe? He didn't know.

He wasn't ready for this.

"My bed awaits me." She whispered with a tone of invitation to it.

That traitorous part of him wanted to take up that invitation in her voice. That traitorous part of him wanted her like he had wanted only one woman before.

She added, "Do feel free to use the office here, or there is one next door, quite empty too."

"...Mine does too..." He said dreamily before fumbling to take hold of the folders and Ipad, "...In my own apartment....that is...I mean..."

In that moment of clumsy fumbling he nearly slipped on controlling his aura. Her power resonated with his own-he instantly reeled it back in, but did she feel his energy the way he had felt hers-she must have. He'd just lit up a big neon sign screaming what he was to her.

"I have to go now...We'll talk about this tomorrow." He fled then. Harrison just turned and ran away from her like she was the coming light of dawn. Into the elevator and out the front door. He took a cab and went straight to his place.

For a long time he paced up and down his apartment. Fretting over what he'd do now-that Lana knew, and how was he going to get her out of his mind. The folders in his arms still carried her scent which was seriously not helping. The image of Lana bent over that desk kept entering his mind. The sound of that invitation in her voice-Jesus, he needed to get her out.

He ripped off his expensive tailored suit like the battered and ineffective armor it was. Turning on his shower and twisting the faucet down to ice cold. He stepped inside letting the water cool him off. He stood there for several minutes trying to get the image of her off his mind.

It wasn't working. She was still affecting him. In frustration he leaned against the shower wall and peered down at his still hard erection. It was all her fault. Lana was temptation given shape and substance. He closed his eyes begging forgiveness to the spirit of his dead wife and reached down to close his hand around his throbbing cock. He began to stroke up and down. He tried to imagine Lily's hand was the one doing the pumping of his length, but inevitably it became Lana's. The invitation in her voice kept playing through his mind as he came to the point of climax.

 

[Veroe]

IC: Kieran

He had seen Harrison run out of Lana's place and take a cab back to his apartment. He felt bad about forcing Harrison into this. Harrison was one of the few men he could honestly give the title of friend to, and he did an outstanding job for Kieran as his go to guy for legal issues, but he was hiding his way through life without Lily.

Hopefully Lana would pull him out of his shell like a chef with an oyster knife. If anyone could do it he could count on her.

He finished getting dressed and bent down to pull the sheet up over the two naked women that had entertained him. The redhead had been one of Lana's waitresses named Jill or Jane or something, the blonde was a patron from downstairs in the bar, a werecat that he had bought a whole bottle of orgasm for named...well he couldn't remember her name now, but he did remember that she had come to Haven to make it big as a singer and was finding gigs here difficult to land. She had told him between shots of orgasm that she come to Lana's to try and have a word or two with her or her manager about booking her. He pulled out one of his business cards and wrote a little note for Lana's ever-busy manager encouraging her to give whats-her-name a chance. He tucked the card into her hand where she'd wake up and find it.

One of the more convenient things about Lana's business here was that it offered rooms in the floors above the bar to rent. He and his two new lady-friends had hit it off downstairs so he paid for this room on the sixth floor and entertained the both of them for the last few hours.

Alas now it was time for Kieran to leave them and Lana slept in the penthouse at the top floor of the building.

He checked to see if the iron dagger-the only thing he still had from his life before becoming a vampire way back when this simple weapon of a hunter in the land now named Romania was the cutting edge of mankind's technological ability. He kept it for sentimental reasons and used it for his strength and speed it was as deadly in his hand as any other weapon would be.

He opened the window and looked all the way up to the top of Lana's building. Climbing up the outside of it wasn't difficult-not for him. Within minutes he reached her bedroom window. She was fast asleep. He shifted to the window of her living room. It had been centuries since he'd broken into anyone's house, but after a few minutes the window was pulled open and he stepped inside. He closed the window behind him and lay down on the couch facing the door to her penthouse. Outside it was her bodyguards. Good men, competent and intensely loyal to Lana, but not him.

There was someone out there who had murdered an innocent young girl and implicated Lana. His instincts honed by millennia of experience told him that someone intended her harm. He and his old iron dagger would very much like to have a few words with that person.

It wasn't because he was in love with Lana. He'd been alive long enough to recognize the traditional concept of romantic love as the juvenile fantasy it was, however he had a long long list of women whom he had somehow grown fond of: Elde, Brengwaen, Cytherea, Takala, Atgas, Kuwanyauma, Akenehi, Aislinn, Running Deer, Malini, Vashti, Morena, Yukiri, Zahara, Lavinia, Astryr, Osane, Guan Yin, Isobel, Oriana, Lily, Franceska, Amy Jo, and last but not least Lana. Lana's was the last living person who's name was on that list. He'd hate to go to Lana's funeral and cross it off. Too many of those names had been crossed off because he was not there. No more.

Though vampires and succubi were both creatures of instinct, and there was no way she did not awaken as a man who'd just spent the last several hours having sex with two passionate women lying down in the next room. She'd smell it in a manner of seconds. He counted how long it took for her. Undoubtedly she'd be furious at his 'intrusion', but he would live with her fury as long as he knew she was alive.

He had counted to twelve when he heard her storming into the room. He opened his eyes to meet hers and smiled cockily to her. "So what did you think of my man, Harrison?"

 

[Sweetp4u]

Lana Ver'idian

A sharp gasp filled the room, as did the sound of hand slapping desk to grab hold as waves of pleasure battered at her most unexpectedly. Desperate fingers clawed at wood as thighs trembled and center exploded into a molten heat. So intense she wasn't sure she did not have a puddle on floor and trickle of excitement slipping down inner thighs.

Hawk like gaze would lift as head reared up and back, eyes turning near black as her nostrils flare to intake air in to starved lungs. He fled, his body barely visible in the crack of elevator as doors hissed soundlessly shut, dividing them.. protecting him.. Saving him from the retribution of such a wallop packed punch he dealt her on his flight out.

A shakey hand lift, it's knuckles brushing across lower lip as eyes lower to the wet there, thinking perhaps she bit her lip again? But no, it was just saliva, "Drooling already.." laughed softly from her shaken form as she straightened herself up, tugging her skirt down as eyes cling to that steel pair of doors. A fist, bunched and pressed before graceful fingers unfurl and palm presses to the thrumming ache between quivering thighs.

If she were not thousands of years old...

If he had no run when he had! Narrowed eyes, hungery and hunter'ish swivel from door and desk top. "Fucking men.." A curse, not spat out but purred with a resentment, a pleasured rumble of cheshire cat fetish decorated that startled beautiful face. If she were to guess, she would say that someone has been abstaining from sexual intercourse for quite some time and while he is mixed blood, he is most definitely her type of guy. Lapping dry lips, her smile returns in full force, mind already working over and over the finer details of their meeting and now that she knew....

Narrowing those hungering eyes to the pressing hand, finally hand withdrawls but all the while promises of what Harrison would get in pay back whispered it's brazen promises.


Saturated panty lay in bathroom hamper, she lay tossing and turning as sleep evaded and eventually took her to some what of a rest. Haunted memories of men, of Hades and past best forgotten torment her at first, but give way to wild fantasy of Harrison beneath her. Perhaps she too had been good for far too long? She can almost taste him on her tongue and feel him beneath her, the bulk of his lean form between thigh and that ticklish rasp of men's unshaven face brush cross face, breast.

And again a loud gasp fills the room as she jerks upright in bed. Panting, sweaty and needy, she can feel her own essence seeping into her bedding, almost begging any male within breathing space to fuck her six ways to sunday!

"Jesus!" rushes out, again she wets parched lips and inhales, an attempt to calm and soothe tortured dreams, aching flesh and that is when she senses and scents another in the room.

"Kieran!" Growls under her breath, "that son of a loathe-some whore.." Cursing, she crawls from her bed butt naked and storms into the next room. Angry words spitting out before her mouth even moves to lend them voice, she fixes him with a hateful little glare, "You reek of cunt!" Irritated beyond words he would venture into her private chambers as if he owned the damned place. "Fucking shower before coming here at least." Snapped out in irritation, her arms folding under her breasts as she gives him a cold scowl. Why was he here and what the hell did he want?

Harrison?!

"Are you serious?" She can not seem to wrap her mind around his question. "Kieran, I have had absolutely little to NO sleep and you crawl in.. where the hell did you get in anyway?" She asks as she turns about on her heels to look around her place. She thought it was sealed and safe! She turned, her back to him as she studied ducting over their heads. Shadows hiding most of her, she continued to gage the size of ducting and knew some how, that was not it. He was much larger than any damned air conditioning duct work. She was never a morning person and she was ten times more grumpy without sleep than with it. Add in the cunt tease Harrison slapped her with, she was in a fine mood to sharpen her claws.. So why the hell would he come here knowing this about her?

"You are not ill are you?" She spun to ask, as nothing else made sense to her. Can vampires even get sick? She eyed him over, moving closer to peer at him as a mother might inspect their babe for injury.

 

[Veroe]

IC: Kieran

"You reek of cunt," Her voice was harsh slashing across at him like a bullwhip, "Fucking shower before coming here at least."

He had counted to twelve when he heard her storming into the room. He opened his eyes to meet hers and smiled cockily to her. "So what did you think of my man, Harrison?"

The look on her face in response to that was priceless, and he chuckled, "He's withdrawn from the world. You can crack through his shell, but be gentle he's a friend of mine."

"Are you serious?" she exclaimed, "Kieran, I have had absolutely little to NO sleep and you crawl in.. where the hell did you get in anyway?"

He watched her look about searching for an answer then glare back at him. In answer he nodded to the window. "You should invest in better locks."

"You are not ill are you," She asked him then.

He laughed at that. Yes. Yes, he was sick to death of going to funerals for those he cared about, but he wouldn't tell her that though. The both of them had grown comfortable with the veils between them. Ripping those veils down now would be just too awkward for both of them.

She had stepped forward and peered down at him speculatively as if seeing if he was truly okay.

"I just had a wonderful time with two lovely ladies, and a refreshing climb up the side of your building." He smiled up at her disarmingly, "I'm just fine Lana."

He reached up and stroked her cheek, "Now go try and get some sleep, okay?"

 

[Veroe]

IC: Ian Blackpool

The city of Haven was a lit powderkeg just waiting to blow up in somebody's face. Every covenant agent knew it too. No one had wanted this assignment. So apparently Ian had somehow drawn the proverbial short straw.

So here he was driving a rental car, one of those huge-assed gas guzzlers blokes drove here in the states, next to his new partner. He glanced over to her. He had never worked with her before, but she was a forensic empath. Ian wasn't certain how he felt about that. On one hand he'd worked with other forensic empaths and they'd been very beneficial to closing those cases, but on the other hand he'd worked with other forensic empaths and they tended to burn out on this job really really fast. He didn't have the time to hold hands or be a sympathetic shoulder for her to cry on, or to constantly play the total arse and rein her in when this new forensic empath started identifying too closely to this case.

In short he was too old and jaded to be a glorified babysitter. So as far as he was concerned his new partner was a liability to this case until she proved she was of a benefit to it.

Humanity had discovered the existence of the other races during the middle-ages, and at the time the catholic church was at its height in power and influence. So they had spent centuries going on crusades to root out and expunge the obvious servants of the devil like vampires, werewolves, and witches. Of course they didn't take too kindly to Christianity's efforts to exterminate them so they put aside millennia long gripes to fight off the Christian knights waging a war of genocide. For centuries atrocities were committed by both sides as the war for survival was fought to no quarter. Then around the sixteenth century a truce was forged and the covenant was written. A long and detailed peace treaty detailing the integration of the other races into human society and an agency internationally recognized to ensure and maintain peace and order and justice between the two. He and his new partner were two of these agents.

Haven was a city divided east and west by the red river save by a narrow spit of land at the river's mouth called Littleneck island. During the gilded age the rich fatcat robber baron of the city had developed Haven's famous steel empire centered on Littleneck using cheap labor of other races-why Haven had the second largest population and by far the widest variety of other races to be found among American cities. However anti-trust laws and the great depression made Haven's steel industry a thing of the past. Now all that was on Littleneck island was deserted foundries and abandoned warehouses. The building still used by squatters and all manner of less than legal enterprises and unsavory customers.

It seemed odd to him that this would be where the mayor's daughter would be murdered. Nine times out of ten when the victim was related to someone in a position of fame or power it was a message being sent to that person, but if that was the case why Littleneck island? There had to be at least half a dozen places to do the murdering that would better send the killer's message to the mayor.

Unless of course, it wasn't intended for the mayor.

He stopped the big-assed car on the street behind police tape and patrol car and CSU and the coroner's van. He opened the door for his new partner careful not to touch her skin to skin. She needed to stay unclouded by the emotions of others in order to do her job here, and he didn't want her to be distracted by his mixed feelings he was having about baby-sitting her. He walked over to the group of people inside the deserted foundry. They were centered in the corner nestled among the long-gone-cold gargantuan smelting vats.

A balding man in a cheap suit came towards them barking, "Hey this is an active crime scene, you're not supposed to-"

Ian pulled out his wallet and flashed his badge, "-We're Covenant agents. Under article fifty-two section E of the covenant you are bound by treaty to share all findings in your investigation with us."

The man in the cheap suit glared at both of them, the words he wanted to say caught in his throat about anyone horning in on his career-making case. "I'm Johnson, the lead detective."

"Thank you detective," Ian said brushing past him to step closer to where the Crimescene technicians were hunched over taking pictures.

He glanced over to his new partner. "Are you prepared for this?"

There was a body bag they were lifting onto a stretcher. He let his new partner walk off to ask the coroner her questions. While Ian looked back to Detective Johnson, "Have you any suspects yet?"

"Hell yeah," The balding policeman nodded, "A vampire we've been trying to nail for years. His name's Kieran and runs pretty much all the rackets on the other side of the city and..."

Ian looked around nodding to the detectives invective. The CSUs were taking pictures of blood splatter on the cold smelting vats. "I assume you have evidence that this vampire was here."

"...We found cases of alcohol made by a known associate of his over there." Detective Johnson pointed to a corner.

Ian stepped over to the plain white case and the bottles labeled Veridian: Afterglow. "And this associate sells this alcohol?"

"Only in her own club," Johnson conceded like someone was pulling his teeth, "She's a succubus that our guy has been seen with several times before."

"Your theory sounds a little thin to me," Ian said rising back up to look at the spatter pattern on the wall, "For instance this isn't how vampires or succubi usually kill."

"Its an attempt to hide that they were here," Johnson asserted.

"The blood splatter..." He pointed it out to the detective. "...Vampires revere blood. It's a precious resource to their minds...so when they kill without draining their victim dry it'll all be pooled out carefully around the body as a final insult to that victim." He pointed to another blood spatter pattern on the opposite wall. "I've never heard of a vampire so casually wasting blood like this. It's always the whole focus of how they kill."

Under the blood splatter there were several scratches on the wall beneath it that were in a familiar cross-hatched pattern.

"He has a lot of other kind working for him."

"How many are werewolves," He asked kneeling to examine the scratches more closely. "This is from Los Lobos dela Blanca."

The whitewolves were a union of several wolfpacks back during the fourth crusades in Madrid before the covenant was signed. It was one of the four major organizations or organized crime syndicates, depending on who you ask, werewolves belonged to all over the world these days.

"Narcotics cleared out a synthetic moonshine lab down the block a week ago to feed the demand for underground wolf-fights."

He gestured for his new partner to come take a look at the scratches in the wall. Without touching it he traced three of the diagonal crossing scratches. "This is Los Lobos' mark." He traced a horizontal scratch crossing over the territorial werewolf mark. "This however isn't..."

He looked to her, "...I would bet that this was made by our killer. They're shallow...made by fingernails...think you're up to getting a feeling from them?"

 

[Sweetp4u]

Lana Ver'idian

Playboy... it was all he was or would be, to the outside world of woman. He had two faucets about him and no more.. or so he tried to convey to all. Play boy or business shark.. Shark being far more mild than he were true to his nature. So why the climb up and in here of all places? Eyes would narrow on him but a moment as her thoughts lazily churned about, as if trying to read his mind. As if he would ever allow her, or anyone such access.

His touch.. soft, caressing and endearing almost in reverence. The warmth that spread was staunched as quickly as it came and perhaps an overly tired mind conjured up such notions. Really? She had to shake that off, she never thought anything of Kieran but business savvy and a friend. And so, she straightened back up and away from him, coiling herself in. Her senses were dulled with the need for sleep, but she would see to those windows soon enough.

"I was sleeping just fine, thank you.." She bit off what she wanted to say, old habits being what they are. She wanted to rile him and chase him off and away, she was much too vulnerable to be around Mr. Playboy right now. She almost invited him to sleep with her, and while she may fuck often and many, she slept with no one. Ever. That told her she was vulnerable and tired, clearly not thinking straight. Pity, her pity went out the window, as she knew that couch was most uncomfortable and yet highly stylish.

The shades were drawn, shuttered and closing off, the vixen smiled ruefully down at him, "Shame to reek so, I was having the hottest dreams.." A slim should did a one-sided shrug before she turned on heel, silently swaying her bottom back to where she had came. "Peaceful rests, Kieran." a soft whisper reached cross the near blackened room, yet one could hear the smile in her words.

Might be weary, tired and grumpy but forever would she be a sex kitten, succubi.. have to be dead not to.

 

[Sweetp4u]

Kathryn Winter (kate)

Another case like the last few, near impossible to crack open and find the psycho responsible for the heinous crime committed and they send in Kate. Kate was promised leave after the last massacre took it's toll on her, and yet here she sat with some guy she's never had the misfortune to meet prior to this very afternoon. Covenant had their codes and duties, she sworn to uphold them all and do them to the very best of her ability, but when was enough, enough?

She paid him little mind as he drove, their silence not so awkward for her but a relief. He didn't want to get to know her, or tell her about his life. He made no comments or remarks of her, her skills or his opinion of said skills that he knew nothing of. He reeked of human to her, but she wasn't quite sure how she knew that about him as she too was merely human.

Another baby, but not quite as bad as the last case. Instead of newborn triplets, this was a young woman. Mayor's daughter and an identical twin, but she was not even legal age to drink and there for, still a babe in Kate's eyes. No, she didn't long for small talk and was more than grateful to be saved from such.

Her focus was limited, intentionally so. She wanted to know nothing of Detective Blackpool, nor anyone else in the neighborhood for that matter. She focused on the soft music the radio play while gnawing her thumb. The bit of pain was distracting, yet she could focus on that, rather than the energies about her trying to batter it's way into her conscious mind. She wore black leather gloves, a black button up jacket with turtle neck beneath. Her jeans were low riders, with badge on hip as well as gun, but not even a hint of flesh below her head was seen. A hint of wrist now and then when she opened the door or shut it, and of course her face was bare and make up free. Red hair in a tight pony tail at the back of her head, like her posture in the seat, controlled.

She let herself out of the car when they arrived, moving in stride to follow his lead, as he seemed more of a people person than she. He would mistake this for meek or mild mannered, but it was purely for focus' sake. Every thing he mentioned, motioned to, pointed out and spoke aloud, she listened to, and agreed with. Vampires could be flamboyant at times, eccentric at others but wasteful, never.

"Vampires do not use surgical steel to..." Brows knit as the impression came swift and strong, "Dissect a human. They need it from the source, not contaminated." As air, soil, even perfume would contaminate fresh blood. Why they never fed off anywhere but the vein. Her face did pale a bit but she caught only a brief impression, the killer had taken their time to cut just so precisely.. as if it were a love of biology and not intent on murder.

"Werewolves?" This caught her attention, "Wolves have their teeth and claws to use.." She hunkered down nearest him and pulled her left hand free. She could see the crossing marks, "Their size is impressive. It would have to be male with large hands to make those, but the latter layer .." She had a hard time finding any spot that the were's marks, girl's blood and human nail marks did not all three cross. Grim lines made her face cold, hard as eyes continued to follow each and every mark, note every droplet, to focus on finding any spot on this damn wall not obscenely molested in some fluid or other.

"I'm getting no impressions of any kind of sexual residue here, not in a very long time. Succubi didn't do this. Either it would be devoid of emotions or suffocating in it and all I get is ...... It's just violence and chaos, pain of course." She murmured absently. Her finger tips moved to hover but not touch the wall, unsure of how much forensics had been done yet or not. Last thing she needed was a mark on her record for flubbing this up with how much shit she was getting into on her own steam.

Shaking her head, only to sag a bit on heel into mud and grass, tired and frustrated. Was she losing her touch or was there just nothing remarkable that stuck out here?! The ground was covered in so many shoe prints, over lapping and kicking debris about, who knew what was here before everyone showed up. Each time she near a blood splotch, it was the same, a sharp sting of pain, burning and incoherent blubbering, perhaps sobbing but nothing was clearer than that. A sting, a constant sting of pain, not stabs or grunts from beatings.

"They used surgical instruments is all I am getting from here. Perhaps the girl's body or clothing will tell me more." She muttered and rose swiftly up once again. "We need to see first arrival pictures before they moved her." If they had those, that is. Who knew what happened to "preserve modesty" in this situation. Being that she was the mayor's daughter, they might have helped defeat themselves before the Covenant even sent them this way. She really didn't wish to sink skin deep into this bloodied mud mess, she didn't crave that taint on her skin or in her mind. Not yet... Just a little more time first.

Thumb and forefinger press to her closed eyes and massage the bridge of her nose, quite contemplation roll through her mind, wishing she'd drunk a little more last night to stop the fucking dreams, the horrid nightmares that have been plaguing her lately. Ian seemed well versed in this shit, maybe he wouldn't need her after all? There was a small window of hope. "They put a rush on those labs?"

 

[Veroe]

IC: Kieran

He reached up and stroked her cheek, "Now go try and get some sleep, okay?"

Her eyes narrowed at that as if trying to dig beneath the front he was showing her. Like that little dog that pulled on the wizards curtain in the Wizard of Oz to reveal the true man behind it. Only she gave up on the unearthing of his true motives and pulled away.

"I was sleeping just fine, thank you.." she retorted.

He had never seen her sleep. Not when she was in the same bed, in the same room, with him back in the twenties when they had been an item. Now almost a hundred years later for the first time he wondered why that was.

"Shame to reek so," She said with a rueful smile, "I was having the hottest dreams.."

She shrugged, turned and walked off giving him a sight he had not seen in decades. The sexy saunter of an aroused Lana Veridian. That perfect heart-shaped ass swaying back and forth with each step back to her bedroom door like fingers giving him a come hither gesture to his rapidly reviving cock.

But the way she said her next words, "Peaceful rests, Kieran."

That little cocktease.

He smiled ruefully. How was he going to rest with an aroused succubus in the next room and a suddenly iron-hard and yearning for said succubus erection in his pants? "Good night Lana."

She retreated back to her bedroom and it left him alone in the night. Time passed with nothing happening and erection for her not flagging with stubborn persistence.

It wasn't fair of course. His plan had worked. He had used Harrison and the two ladies earlier to distract Lana just enough to allow him up here to guard her without her figuring out just how much this unnamed threat to her frightened him. See, success was his, so why was he the one suffering here?

By morning he still had no answer. He got up and used her shower. With one of her towels wrapped around his waist he crossed over to the front door. He opened it find her surprised bodyguards and one of his aides with his luggage.

Kieran leaned against her kitchen counter still in only her towel. His luggage to one side and his phone in hand. He loved his phone, such an ingenious invention. His first call was to Harrison telling him to get his cowardly ass back over here or else. Then he called Deagan. The werewolf Alpha didn't like him of course, in fact he hated all vampires. Millennia of slavery of his people by Kieran's tended to do that to a man's opinion. The rest he'd leave to Harrison.

His eyes raised from his phone to see Lana up and watching him.

He smiled in what he hoped was a disarming gesture, "Good morning sleepy head. Hope you had some pleasant dreams last night."

 

[Sweetp4u]

Lana

Had expected to lie in a state of rest, aware yet seemingly asleep. Had expected to hear him, smell him all throughout her night, thus robbing her of peaceful sleep. Yet, that had not happened. Never in thousands of years had she slept with another being near her which could do her harm while she lay vulnerable. She woke with a sudden awareness that he was still here, and her eyes weren't playing any sort of trick on her. For there he stood, ass against counter and long sure fingers stroking over his phone as he read or skimmed through whatever captured his attention.

She could smell him, and only him now as he had washed their stench from his form... and oh my! What a form... Parts of her melted and sighed as that perky little tingle roared to life in an instant. And while he made morning pleasantries at dusk, she scoped the very appealing terrain that was Kiernan. Small pert nipples on sculpted pectorals, and that happy trail from naval to.. well it does go all the way down, was not helping in the least bit this evening.

"Morning.." She barely muttered, moving to him and up against him as she lay practically across him to reach the machine behind him. "Coffee.." Was all she could grunt out as her finger flipped the switch on, pushing then from him with a caress of hand. Cold to touch, yet not unappealingly so. She inhaled and filled a pair of lungs with the richness of him, exhaling slowly as she shift in a circle to give him her back. She was hungry, and his barely covered ass was so enticingly close. Perhaps she would do well to force herself a human's breakfast .. a bagel would do in a pinch. She hadn't thought of feeding in awhile, residue did it for her daily.. Yet she came home and stayed home alone..

She sighed a bit forlornly at that, maybe one of the girls were up downstairs? She hadn't thought of Kiernan as a food source in a very, very... add about ten more verys to that, long time, and yet as she turned to brace across from him to the wee island behind her, her mind went there instantly. "Still here?" sounded hard, grumpy and quite rude in that growly tone of hers.. His fault and that damned lawyer.

 

[Veroe]

IC: Ian Blackpool

"Your theory sounds a little thin to me," Ian said rising back up to look at the spatter pattern on the wall, "For instance this isn't how vampires or succubi usually kill."

"Its an attempt to hide that they were here," Johnson asserted.

"The blood splatter..." He pointed it out to the detective. "...Vampires revere blood. It's a precious resource to their minds...so when they kill without draining their victim dry it'll all be pooled out carefully around the body as a final insult to that victim." He pointed to another blood spatter pattern on the opposite wall. "I've never heard of a vampire so casually wasting blood like this. It's always the whole focus of how they kill."

"Vampires do not use surgical steel to..." Ian's new partner, Kate, interjected. Her brows were tight and expression rigid. Ian had seen that face on the two other forensic empaths he'd worked with before. She was taking in the emotional impressions left within the room while also trying not to be overwhelmed by the sheer force of them like opening the flood gates of a dam during a storm to save the structure itself. "Dissect a human. They need it from the source, not contaminated."

"Good point," He nodded to her, "They'll use knives to puncture so they can drink the blood like beer straight from the tap not slice the victim open so they can play doctor Mengela with a scalpel."

Detective Johnson looked very annoyed that Ian and Kate were slicing through his working theory on this case. He groused, "He has a lot of other kind working for him."

"How many are werewolves," He asked kneeling to examine a series of scratches on the wall beneath a blood splatter arc more closely. "This is from Los Lobos dela Blanca."

Kate turned to look over to them. "Werewolves? Wolves have their teeth and claws to use.."

"I don't believe it was a full moon last night," He said over his shoulder to her, "Though a wolf on moonshine would explain the ferocity involved here, but this feels more targeted and deliberate to me."

"Narcotics cleared out a synthetic moonshine lab down the block a week ago to feed the demand for underground wolf-fights," Johnson put in, "We've been trying to tie them to Kieran for the past eight years."

He gestured for Kate to come take a look at the scratches in the wall. Without touching it he traced three of the diagonal crossing scratches. "This is Los Lobos' mark." He traced a horizontal scratch crossing over the territorial werewolf mark. "This however isn't..."

He looked to her, "...I would bet that this was made by our killer. They're shallow...made by fingernails...think you're up to getting a feeling from them?"

He watched her take a good look at the diagonal scratches while pulling one glove off of her hand. "Their size is impressive."

"When transformed wolves can grow as much as seven or eight meters tall, and somehow gain up to a hundred more kilos," He nodded to her, "And all of it muscle too."

"It would have to be male with large hands to make those, but the latter layer .." He watched her expression grow even more rigid like a suit of armor or barricades falling between her and the horde of darkness of their killer those scratches would invade her with.

""I'm getting no impressions of any kind of sexual residue here, not in a very long time. Succubi didn't do this." She told them.

"Are you sure," Detective Johnson glowered at her, "Who is this woman anyway to be so certain..."

"She's a covenant agent, mate," He said reaching in to pull a cigarette out of his pocket and putting it in his mouth. He didn't light it yet. He knew how to act within a crimescene, but the cigarette being between his lips helped him think, "And I agree with her. Because when Succubi kill they prefer to do it someplace more posh than this shitehole."

"Either it would be devoid of emotions or suffocating in it and all I get is ...... It's just violence and chaos, pain of course." kate murmured looking but not touching the horizontal scratches. "They used surgical instruments is all I am getting from here. Perhaps the girl's body or clothing will tell me more."

"This is an odd one," He said absent-mindedly reaching for his lighter before remembering not to contaminate the crimescene with his cigarette's smoke. "Maybe our bloke is a troll or an orc, that would explain the viciousness, but he seems too intelligent for that-too premeditated...we need more to narrow the identity of this one down."

"We need to see first arrival pictures before they moved her." Kate said rising to her feet.

Ian turned to look over his shoulder, "Detective?"

Resignedly Detective Johnson offered a digital camera to her to view the pictures they'd already taken.

He got to his own feet peering over Kate's shoulder as she scanned through the pictures on the camera's memory. "What do you think? My gut says the vampire or succubus didn't do this."

"Now wait just a minute...," Objected Detective Johnson.

Ian feathered his cigarette dismissively, "You are free to pursue either or both of them in your own investigation, but right now until we uncover evidence that implies they were actually involved here both are merely persons of interest in this case."

After they had reviewed what the local police had found he and Kate got back into the big-assed gas guzzler people called cars here in the states. "First rule of policework: Let the evidence inform your theories not the other way around." Finally the lighter came out and he was able to light his cigarette. He took a good inhale and blew his next words out in a puff of smoke. "I think we should visit this vampire and this succubus in the morning. If she can shed some light on how some of her booze showed up at the crimescene we might get our first lead on our guy."

 

[Sweetp4u]

Kate Winters

How she made it to the car was anyone's guess, but she walked briskly, almost woodenly behind her new partner to grope for the handle and get in as quickly as her legs would carry her.. without having to run. Stomach pitched and coiled, fighting to keep her calm and professional appearance intact was rather rough given the insane amount of horror trying to cripple her mind, rob her soul almost of any sort of...

"First rule of policework: Let the evidence inform your theories not the other way around. He seemed so confident, so self assured and hard. Too hard to be crippled by a mere scene such as what they were just standing within. He hadn't seemed to even bat an eye at those photos. But someone cleaned it up before the police arrived. Where were the organs that had been strewn about the girl? Pieces of her had hit the wall and slid down, yet no pictures depicted any such thing.

"Sorry?" Ground out in question, she could hear him.. sort of. The buzzing in her head was maddening, to say the least! Why was some child's rhyme whispering through her head, hissing .. Disturbingly slow, softly sung with malice and contempt? She caught bits of it, a line here, a line of the second verse next. It echoed within her mind, first lovingly sung and then rolled over like the cadence of a choir each taking their turn. She knew the song, was an old one and a human's song.. So why?

Do you know what day this is,
What day this is, what day this is?
Do you know what day this is --
The second Sunday of May.

The calendar says it's Mothers Day,
It's Mothers Day, it's Mothers Day.
The calendar says it's Mothers Day --
The second Sunday of May.

And so I think I'll tell my mom,
I love her so, I love her so.
And I'll find ways to show my love
The second Sunday of May.

And laughter filled her head, and yet it was no laughter of children nor merriment.

Frantic fingers groped the window handle and yanked and shoved down until the window was receded into the door and her head was outside the car. Jesus! Cold air, needed some fucking air in this god damned dinosaur of a vehicle! The ground swam by but it went unnoticed, the colder air helping as it bathed her forehead and nape.

"I was hired on to assist, not solve." She groused out in a hoarse rumble, lapping her lips as her stomach righted just a bit more towards less likely to throw up in this car than definitely going to hurl in this damned tank. "I tell you want I feel, see or sense. It is up to you to make sense of it. It is why I am not from here and you, well you have more knowledge of this rat trap than I." She used the sleeve of her sweater to wipe her forehead before settling back against the headrest, eyes still firmly shut, teeth grinding to keep her stomach behaved.

Minutes ticked by letting him have his say before she went on with what she had to get out...

"They cleaned the scene before police arrived. Not sure if the girl was eaten, literally speaking, or if they put humpty dumpty back together again." Crass? Perhaps, but was what she had noted and it wasn't any impression residue of psychic means. "Who cuts open a child and pulls out their innards? I've never come across this in any... Well, there was organ harvesting for awhile, before they figured out how to just grow unused parts.. But.." She shook her head a bit, shrugging her shoulder at the same time. This made no sense to her..but did it ever?

"Was just a fucking child for christ sake! What was done.. and who she was related to? Come on, everyone here on both sides of the river knows those twin girls' face. And the poor thing they took..... she was just .. she was, innocent!" She snarled out that last as her eyes shot open. "Really, innocent. As in pure. I thought maybe ritual sacrifice, but to whom? What deity in these parts? She wasn't .. they didn't use her sexually." She shut up then, getting a bit hot around the collar, gripping the door arm rest and her seat, if she had the killer in front of her, she'd execute the son of a bitch without batting an eye. Was hard to form words around the rage swelling up inside her, clawing to be spat out and let loose from the enormous well of emotions.

More moments passed as she tried to calm, but she wouldn't let him speak, hurrying to put in..

"So why the children's rhyme, disembowelment?" Thumb found her mouth as she bit at it, thinking, watching blankly at empty building after empty rotten building went by. "Out here was just convience for space, privacy. The clean up of the scene before those photos were taken, that.. They will deny it but I know .." How did she explain to someone who wasn't like her, exactly what it was she knew and how she knew it? She was walking on thin ice as is, so why was she letting this one get to her? She had been told to STOP letting them get to her, she had to behave professionally and not get emotionally involved.

Fucking hell. What did they want from an empath!? Emotions and empathy are sync! Idiots. They were all just. fucking. idiots. She could lose her job if she told any press about anything she saw or suspected. Hell HE could get her fired for repeating it to any superior, without hearing Kate's side of it.

She turned then to fix those hard green eyes on her new 'partner'. "If you report on me every damn thing I do, say and tell you.. You will find yourself partnerless real quick and going at it alone. They're seriously on my ass to do my job in an unemotional manner as possible.. that IS NOT possible for an empath. I will give you what I get, you decipher what is key to the investigation. The means to get there, any will do. But officially, find logical and simple unemotional links to forge that bond in that chain of evidence they need so badly to fry this son of a bitch.." She paused then, knowing he'd ask, "Because if you don't give me your word on that, I will be little use to you on this endeavor."

God! She said it! She finally laid down the black and white!...... Lord help her if she fucked it up already with him! Her career was on the line, but she would rather be pushing a mop right now than continue on this farce of a job unemotionally. It JUST doesn't work that way! She cut him off once more before he could speak, wanting him to hear it ALL before he let loose on her.

"I hope you get it.. I really do. Because if you do not know how I do what it is I do, you won't understand anything I do, I say or how come I know what it is I tell you.. And, it can happen that it is just off enough to one side, to be something else than what it was I sensed. Its a guessing game based off residue of emotions.. I sense what the victims felt, smell, some bits of hearing and even fewer fragments of sight... In a nut shell, my strength is their emotions." She shut up finally as she rushed through all that, praying to a god she didn't believe in that he got it.

 

[Veroe]

IC: Kieran

Kieran leaned against her kitchen counter still in only her towel. His luggage to one side and his phone in hand. He loved his phone, such an ingenious invention. His first call was to Harrison telling him to get his cowardly ass back over here or else. Then he called Deagan. The werewolf Alpha didn't like him of course, in fact he hated all vampires. Millennia of slavery of his people by Kieran's tended to do that to a man's opinion. The rest he'd leave to Harrison.

His eyes raised from his phone to see Lana up and watching him.

He smiled in what he hoped was a disarming gesture, "Good morning sleepy head. Hope you had some pleasant dreams last night."

She was still nude. He remembered well how the honest even casual lack of modesty she carried herself with had attracted him to her when he had first moved into Haven and started forming his network of associates throughout the city back in the twenties. Her hair was a mess by only the way people's hair got messy from a long and satisfying slumber-the mess of her hair wasn't pretty but again Kieran found it a very sexy mess.

That was a good way to describe the two of them together-a tangled mess but a sexy mess.

He lowered his phone as she padded casually over towards him.

"Morning.." she repeated stopping directly in front of him.

They looked at each other for a moment.

Kieran cocked his head towards her fridge, "Breakfast, sunshine?"

She leaned forward. Breasts he hadn't felt in decades pressed against his chest making his breath catch in his throat. She still smelled like sex and candy and blowjobs and all manner of sinful things. It was enough to make a man nostalgic for the good ole roaring twenties where the two of them ruled this town like a king and queen. Back when they worked together and fucked together before mistakes were made and the relationship soured.

His hands found her hips pulling her hard against the tent forming around the towel around his waist. Lana's eyes never left his and inhaled the scent of him. She had objected to the smell of the two women last night...maybe she was reacquainting herself with the pure scent of him. She used to do that all the time when things were better between them.

She reached over and flipped the switch turning on her coffeemaker. "Coffee.." She grunted to him then pushed off of him again.

"Coffee is good," Was all he could say, "Coffee sounds damn good."

She turned away from him and leaned back against the kitchen island. It gave him a rather spectacular view of that tight sexy body of hers, long legs, cute little ass, firm breasts and a face that would make supermodels weep with envy. What had he done to make her push him away all those decades ago? The question he'd given up on getting an answer for still haunted him. That it was probably his fault, no matter who it was that warmed his bed long enough the destruction of that relationship always could be blamed on something he had done or failed to do. Lily and Lana had lasted longer than any of the other names on his list of names he'd never forget because as succubi they had understood him at a level most women never could.

So why had it blown up in his face with Lana? Usually he could pinpoint what he had done, but not with her...one night they had played games in bed. She had called him 'Sir' and meant it. The next she was throwing his things out and when he had demanded an explanation she slapped him across the face saying it was over between them. Ever since any overture he had made to her seemed to only increase her enmity.

And he had given up on the two of them. It had already reached a point that it was getting too much more than just having fun. He had assumed she had kicked him out unceremoniously on his ass because neither of them was the more than just having fun type...that similarity between them was probably why it had worked so long for them as 'fuckbuddies'-he believed the modern term for them was.

"Still here?" The question sounded grumpy.

He put his phone down on the arm of the sofa and padded over to her. Kieran crossed his arms with resolve. "I'm not going anywhere this time, Lana."

 

[Sweetp4u]

Lana

Breakfast.

The light green orbs wandered down over abdomen and to naval and that tucked bit of towel barely holding the terrycloth obstruction from her hungering gaze. She had felt him thicken beneath the faint bit of weight she lay over him, intentionally tormenting him. Her. Yes, she'd love some breakfast. Love to suck it from him until he begged for mercy and to relent. A faint smile lift her lips at that thought, biting her lip before turning her eyes upward from that swelling cock she did miss quite a bit.

The why of it all washed over her like an iceberg. Hades.

"Uuuuuuh huuuuuuuh..." Drug out softly, skepticism heavily applied. Sweeping a glance to his suit case and phone. He had all he really needed, he could camp out as long as he wished to.. Or until she threw him out, again. That memory skittered and was squashed quickly. Reopening old wounds would do neither any good. "Suit yourself.. But don't get in my way when I bring my meal home and keep you awake all night!" A perky little pep-talk smile flashed before she ducked into the bathroom of steel and glass with the sexiest black marble floor she'd ever seen. That type that reflects and looks almost liquid, cold as any fridge and slippery when wet.

"Water, hot." She spoke aloud to the system and her shower kicked on. Looking to the mirror, she eyed her mop of hair and sighed. She could glamour her hair perfect and even clean herself without having to use human facilities, but it had become habit and energy saving on her system. It helped her quite a bit to take on human habits, meant she was aging even less and saving energies best used else where...

Like fucking Kieran in the next room..

Stepping into the flow of heat, another loud groan of pleasure rumbled out as eyes closed and head was pushed under the full spray. Water was nice, it helped block out invading energies and hindered sound, sight and let her center herself on herself. Which was her favorite subject, next to.. Well.. Listening to her strange heart pattern always intrigued her the most. Something in it's slow beat always reminded her of jazz clubs and the blues. It relaxed her to listen to it. Something she hadn't done since she gave birth.

Another bad memory of Hades, something that was beginning to bother her. She hadn't thought of that bastard since she was force out of his throne room nearly one-hundred years before. She knew he would lurk about or his spies would be, he promised that much and more if she let Kieran back in like she had nearly done before. Bastard would do it too, he might be leaving her be but she would bet her fortune that he had his thumb up her ass even as she stood washing in her own bathroom.

"Off." Spat out, her shower ruined, her morning breakfast nil and now she couldn't even find the right frame of mind to enjoy a good pre-work morning orgasm in her own blasted shower! Angrily the towel was murdered off the rack, shoved up and down her body briefly before wrapping her wet hair up into a turban style hold. Lotion was applied, it was some fruit scent that made many people around her hunger and smile, peaches or something.. Her assistant had gifted it to her, would have to recall to ask where to get more soon.

"I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're camping in my penthouse when there is a perfectly matched one not far from here with your name on the door?" Again she merely spoke as if he were right next to her, his hearing wouldn't allow for much to be spoken or uttered without notice. Bottle scooped up into hand, she sauntered her half dried naked arse back out to stand before him and smiled, "Do my back?" lotion bottle offered up.

 

[Veroe]

IC: Ian Blackpool

After they had reviewed what the local police had found he and Kate got back into the big-assed gas guzzler people called cars here in the states. "First rule of policework: Let the evidence inform your theories not the other way around." Finally the lighter came out and he was able to light his cigarette. He took a good inhale and blew his next words out in a puff of smoke. "I think we should visit this vampire and this succubus in the morning. If she can shed some light on how some of her booze showed up at the crimescene we might get our first lead on our guy."

He turned to regard her, and it seemed she wasn't paying attention to him. Kate was looking out of the windshield but he could tell she was still back in the crime scene. He sighed internally. After a few years and too many cases where a crimescene such as that one were all too frequent he had learned to maintain a level of distance. When he had been new forever-ago every case was a scar to the heart now over the years doing this job the scars became too many and too thick. The death of the young girl was just another case to him now. Certainly terrible, but the effect it would have driven him as a younger man was lacking now that he was older and an uncaring jaded arse of a wanker Covenant agent.

Ian did feel for her and the other forensic Empaths employed by the covenant. For them distance and callouses over their hearts weren't an option. For Kate Winters it was always personal.

"Sorry?" She asked not having paid him much attention.

"You need to time to level off, love," He asked in response. He watched her fingers clutch the lever for the car window like the world was spinning around her and it was the only source of purchase. Lowering it to stick her face outside and take a deep cleansing breath of air. "I was just suggesting we should look up this succubus in the morning to ask her how those bottles could've found their way to our crime scene."

"I was hired on to assist, not solve." She groused out in a hoarse rumble, "I tell you what I feel, see or sense. It is up to you to make sense of it. It is why I am not from here and you, well you have more knowledge of this rat trap than I."

"Don't give me that," He rumbled, "Yeah, that's what it says in your job description, but we both know you do much more. I've worked with empaths before. You remember Reyes, O'Connelly, or Reinhardt? Lots of cases couldn't have been closed without they're direct involvement. I've learned to listen to they're insight on the tough ones or the baffling ones, like this one here."

He flicked some of the cigarette's ash into the big-assed car's ashtray. "This bloke we're after...if I didn't know any better I'd say he was the human variety of psychopath, but the strength behind those gouges in the wall...something doesn't add up in this whole bloody mess...It's got me bolloxed, and I hate being bolloxed. So I need you on board on this to get me unbolloxed, understand?"

There was a long pause with which she wiped sweat off her brow. Yeah, she was definitely leveling off. She must have been wading through some seriously bad juju in there. She would need time to detox the emotional poison.

"They cleaned the scene before police arrived. Not sure if the girl was eaten, literally speaking, or if they put humpty dumpty back together again." She told him, "Who cuts open a child and pulls out their innards? I've never come across this in any... Well, there was organ harvesting for awhile, before they figured out how to just grow unused parts.. But.." She shook her head a bit, shrugging her shoulder at the same time.

"Someone I need to find and put away or put down," He told her firmly, "My question is: will you help me do that?"

He started the land-barge of a car and pulled them on to the bridge over the river from Littleneck Island to the Eastern shore of the river and their hotel. The city of Haven at night had a terrific skyline at night. All those lights lit up like Christmas...you'd hardly think something so beautiful could explode right underneath them. Americans had issues with racism towards African-Americans, Native-Americans, Latino-Americans, Asian-Americans...etc...etc, and those were fellow human beings not other species like vampires or Succubi.

"Was just a fucking child for christ sake! What was done.. and who she was related to," She asked out of the blue.

He shrugged flicking some of the ashes from his cigarette's into the landbarge's-as he had chose to refer to their car-ashtray before returning it to his mouth for a fresh drag of sweet sweet centering nicotine. "All that could be just a bloody coincidence." He didn't believe it though. Ian was just serving as devil's advocate here now.

"Come on," She replied, "Everyone here on both sides of the river knows those twin girls' face."

"They were fairly famous among the locals." He conceded pulling the landbarge out onto riverside district of Haven heading up Washington Avenue. Their hotel was on 12th Street which was six cross-streets up from Riverside Park. "They weren't even a year out of high-school and already on the first page of every rag in this bloody town. We should talk to her sister about the victim, see if she had any enemies or seeing someone...our bloke perhaps...someone strong enough to do that to her."

"And the poor thing they took..... she was just .. she was, innocent!" She snarled at him eyes opening wide. They stopped at the redlight at the intersection of Washington and Ninth. Only three more streets to go. "Really, innocent. As in pure. I thought maybe ritual sacrifice, but to whom? What deity in these parts? She wasn't .. they didn't use her sexually."

He chose to let that go without comment. Empaths needed time to level off. Sometimes that required the need to vent without some stupid git blathering at them over their outbursts.

Hans Reinhardt always locked himself into his hotel room and let it all out in very loud rants in German-sometimes he'd wreck the place like he was some rock'n'roll star. Adelle O'Connelly got really OCD during cases brushing her hair exactly forty-three times, setting her tea, the salt and pepper shakers, her fork and spoon in precisely the right spots when they ate at places...etc, and then when the case was done and the spirit of the victim avenged her OCD was miraculously cured until the next dead body. He had enjoyed working with Miguel Reyes. It had been great because he had no eccentric personality quirk. He could pass himself as just any other Covenant agent. For him it came out in how he treated his wife and little girl. Justice was funny. Reyes was a legend in the Covenant. The longest tenured forensic empath ever, with an equally legendary number of closed cases. He had been shot to death by his wife who was sick of the beatings to her and their daughter whenever he came home from work. Justice was funny that way.

The point was they all needed ways to deal with it. Was this how Kate Winters worked through it? Looking out the window in silence until blurting something out like she was slightly mental.

They had reached the light at twelfth, and was waiting behind one of the famed Haven trolleys when she said, "So why the children's rhyme, disembowelment? Out here was just convenience for space, privacy. The clean up of the scene before those photos were taken, that.. They will deny it but I know .."

"Know what," He asked leadingly and flinching. Ever since the shitstorm with Reyes their superiors at the Covenant had wanted him to report anything unusual a forensic Empath did or said. Which as far as Ian was concerned was very much like reporting on fish for having gills and fins. It had always been the case in his experience that their empaths were eccentric or unusual, but that came with the shitty job they did.

"If you report on me every damn thing I do, say and tell you.. You will find yourself partnerless real quick and going at it alone. They're seriously on my ass to do my job in an unemotional manner as possible.. that IS NOT possible for an empath. I will give you what I get, you decipher what is key to the investigation. The means to get there, any will do. But officially, find logical and simple unemotional links to forge that bond in that chain of evidence they need so badly to fry this son of a bitch.."

So that was why Kate Winters was on the shit list. Those arsehole beauracrats had been on to her to fit in their impossible mold, and he was put here to snitch on if she steps out of line. "And if I don't?"

"Because if you don't give me your word on that, I will be little use to you on this endeavor."

He turned onto Twelfth street, "I told you I've worked with three other empaths before, Winters. I know its hard, but I can understand you better than that prick detective back there."

"I hope you get it.. I really do. Because if you do not know how I do what it is I do, you won't understand anything I do, I say or how come I know what it is I tell you.. And, it can happen that it is just off enough to one side, to be something else than what it was I sensed. Its a guessing game based off residue of emotions.. I sense what the victims felt, smell, some bits of hearing and even fewer fragments of sight... In a nut shell, my strength is their emotions."

He pulled up to their hotel and docked the landbarge in the nearest spot. "You feel better having got that off your chest?" He opened the door and climbed out of their so-called car and walked around the humongous thing to open her door for her. "C'mon, I need some tea...forget that: Americans can't make a decent pot of tea...coffee or if you think you can handle it: something stiffer. Then we can start talking about our what we want to ask the succubus in the morning."

 

[Sweetp4u]

Kate Winters

They hadn't asked him to report on her behavior.

She really had no idea what to think or even say after her long winded speech. He thought she was venting the madness from within, but he had no idea the rending tears at her soul from doing this job. Some horrors had gotten to her so much so that she found even her sexual desires had dissipated into nothingness. Sleepless nights, nightmares, guilt and horrors made her angry, jumpy at times and violent at it's worse. Talking to him was the sanest thing she did anymore. And he thought she was obviously off her rocker.

So be it.

She gave a grunt and shake of her head, stepping from the old beater to eye the motel they were to camp out in during this investigation. Cracked stucco, blackened windows in places and half the sign's bulbs were blown. It were cheap and out of the noticeable way, but cheap was the deciding factor for budget reasons she'd surmised as she glanced about the place. Adjusting her jacket to hide her side arm, she moved towards the large trunk to get her own bags.

Succubi were... hard to put into words what they were like, but being around them rubbed her a little wrong. She had a healthy appetite once for sex, not now.. but once before. Now they made her uncomfortable with the feelings and emotions they swamped off with intent and hungering need. Needful things indeed..

Eyes all around would meet her own as she glanced at each and every person in sight, hating sunglasses each time they barred her from connecting. She hated not knowing their thoughts or seeing their eyes, made her edgy.. expectant. Perhaps it were nothing more than residue off the latest? But she felt raw and exposed.

"Can we hurry up please?" She spoke through tight lips and even tighter expression. "I'd like to get inside and settled." Fuck the drink, coffee or even questions, she just wanted off this damn street.

==================================================

The usual meeting place was thankfully undiscovered and quiet. The old oak stood sentry within the clearing and was rumored to once be the center piece for the coven's meeting place. No longer, it was swallowed by swamp and moss years ago, but that sentry still held it's secrets and spaces.. Perfect for leaving missives. No one had followed her, but she had to go through much to lose the detail ghosting her. Nothing else made sense and the hurting was almost crippling yet she had no choice but to come tonight. She had to get word to him, she needed him right now.

"We need to meet A.S.A.P. Will be open." Her lips pressed to the paper before it's lined white perfection was smashed into the narrow opening of the bark. Moss pulled from her pocket was stuffed over and let to hang, but it was her bare arm rubbing against the tree, scenting it for him, that would let him know she had been here.