A typical night for a Nosferatu in Port Obscura goes something like this: wake up, tend to any responsibilities, skulk about, feed if necessary, skulk about some more, maybe visit the city's nest, in which case they may proceed to skulk about in packs instead.

A typical night for a Nosferatu in Port Obscura, going by the name of Grave, on the other hand, goes a little something like wake up, tend to the pets, have a lovely conversation with a dead man, skulk about, feed if necessary and skulk about some more.

Tonight, however, the latter of the two patterns has been broken. Broken in an absolutely spectacular manner, even, as Grave slips through the grating that separates his little block of sewer from the catacombs only to be attacked by his usual conversational partner. Twice.

It is not a terribly pleasing way to begin his evening.

In fact, so displeasing is it that he soon follows the entire encounter with a rather righteous bout of storming right on up the two flights of stairs from the lowest catacombs, past a good number of empty caskets which had not been empty the previous evening and out to the ground level exit from the mausoleum. Even before he gets there, the doors have been thrown open wide and what he sees beyond them is even less pleasing than what he found downstairs. Open burial plots, shambling corpses. A great deal of the cemetery - his cemetery! - is really quite a mess.

As if he needed any more displeasing events to start his night off right.

"Mary, mother of God," Grave practically splutters in aggravation, too frustrated to even apply a Mask. "If you're going to dig yourselves out of my lawn, you could at least have the decency to get out of my lawn entirely!"

It's probably a very good thing that the better part of the normal folks around the area are out of town tonight.

"I don't understand this country."

This is not a new thing for Alida to say to Marc. It is, possibly, a new thing for her to say in English, in public, at a small restaurant not far from the arts district. It is definitely new for her to have a list. Written, in French, on the table as she picks at her fruit.

"When closed at night, the fear is that this would shut off rather than open up part of the city centre," she quoted, frowning. "It was in the newspaper and I cannot understand what they are afraid OF or what is closing or why anyone cares. Why is most of their money done in increments of fives but the taxes aren't? Why do the dollar and half-dollar coins look so much like the quarters of a dollar? How do you get anything done here? No one says please, or thank you, or good evening. They say Hi. Hi doesn't mean anything! Television commercials scream at consumers and are louder than the programs."

It might be a mixed blessing that she's decided to start paying attention to the world around her.

In the course of an average 11 PM  to 7 AM shift, a person can only do so many things to keep himself occupied before there's nothing left but the L.A. Times crossword puzzle.  He can make the schedule, which he has done (Poppy can't work Tuesdays anymore because she has a night class, he's actually going to have to fire Drew because even the most apathetic of managers can only ignore the coke residue in the employee bathroom so many times), he can restock the cigarette cartons, he can clean every single mirrored surface in the store until the reflection of his ridiculous eyes is inescapable, he can even occasionally wait on a customer.  Mostly he is refusing cigarettes to minors, whose stray thoughts produce a variety of expressions he doesn't bother to control.

Frequently, this makes them go away faster, and Liam is all right with this.  At 3:09 AM "Ziegfeld Follies hit song of 1913" (eleven letters across) is eluding him, and in the strange way where he never really feels much of anything, he is content. 

From experience, he should know this indicates a massive upheaval of some kind shortly incoming.