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Adam Fenn (neonate) wrote in thisdarknight, @ 2016-07-04 14:59:00

dark and lonely, lonely man
Who: Adam Fenn & Bastion DeLacroix
What: Adam gets a tour of his new neighborhood. A first attempt at feeding goes awry.
Where: Jackson Square, then through the French Quarter
When: Evening.
Warnings: None.
Progress: Gdoc, complete.

An hour after waking, Adam descended to the lobby of his new home. He did not notice the sidelong looks and barely concealed whispers that still followed him. His hands were in his pockets, his eyes on the floor before him, his mind on the book he had just hidden away beneath his borrowed bed. He had not yet fed, but hunger already stirred low in his belly, and he was busily repeating to himself passages from Skinner's work on discriminate feeding. Tonight was for exploring his new neighborhood and hunting on his own, and Adam meant for it to go far better than it had before.

The crowd milling about in the lobby was small, but they parted to make way for him all the same. Belatedly he noticed the meaningful look one kine cast at him. He quickly averted his own gaze, fighting the sense of embarrassment that welled up, unbidden. He felt markedly better when he reached the steps outside the Bourbon Orleans. He took the stairs two at a time, long strides carrying him down to the sidewalk and the bright streets beyond. A Kindred woman entering the hotel caught his gaze momentarily, but then seemed to pass over him as she ascended the stairs that he had come down.

The nighttime version of the French Quarter was no less busy than that of the daytime: tourists still milled about, snapping photos and hoping to gain a ghostly visitor in the results. Music still filled the air, and despite the fact that there was no sun, it felt as though little had changed other than the darkness that now gently wrapped the buildings, broken only by the soft glow from street lamps.

Moving away from Jackson Square, a tour group was rounding Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo.

"Show of hands, who's heard the name Marie Laveau? Really? REALLY? Wow, you guys do not watch enough TV." The scrawny tour guide, shoulder-length hair tied up in a bun, elicited a few chuckles from the group he was guiding. The tourists all held bat-shaped fans, proclaiming themselves currently being entertained by the French Quarter Phantoms.

"How many of you have heard of voodoo? Now that's more like it," he said with a friendly grin as several hands shot into the air. "Well Ms. Laveau was New Orleans' most famous voodoo priestess. A creole by birth, she was a beautiful woman who took up voodoo and used it to become infamous in these parts. She could cure your sickness, give you a healthy baby, even put hair back on your head -- did I mention she was one of the best hairdressers NOLA's ever seen?"

On cue, the group laugh-tracked at his joke. The man waited until it mostly died. "It's unclear if the magic she practiced was just that, or window dressing for the network of spies she built during her lifetime. She made connections with the servants and slaves of the nobility, so it seemed like she had precognition. The ability to tell what Jean-Francois had for dinner yesterday at his mistress's house probably came in incredibly handy.

"With her fame and fortune, she established this shop. I wanna take a minute to let you guys go inside and explore -- no more than ten, OK? We'll meet back out here. Let me know if you have questions." A pair of girls approached him, which he allowed with a smile, looking attentive while the rest of his group disappeared up the one step into the dusty looking shop.

Adam hung back, standing at the corner of the sidewalk as the tour group moved away. He watched the guide and his would-be groupies for a moment, drawn to the young man in a way he thought he understood. Like attracts like, his mother had often said; Adam had never found that to be more true than in the days since his Embrace.

He watched the girls subtly touch their hair and look to the guide from beneath lowered lashes, drifting closer to him even though they scarcely seemed to move. He could not help but smile. Their pleasure was evident, their attraction to their shepherd genuine. Adam moved closer only when at last, blushing and laughing, they moved inside, having left a room key and number in the hands of their guide.

"You're a natural," Adam said, sidling up next to the guide. "Looks like you definitely know how to make the tourists happy. Is it too late for me to slide in?"

The tour guide's eyes widened slightly, glancing back to the shop for a moment as though to do a quick headcount. He looked back to Adam with a slight look of concern. Something in his demeanor changed, shifting from a skin that he obviously wore around the kine that he entertained.

"If you're looking for an easy meal, this isn't the place," he replied pointedly, reading Adam like a book insofar that he was Kindred. Beyond that, he was having difficulty discerning the neonate's true intentions.

Adam raised his hands. "Oh, no. That's not…" He shook his head. "No. I'm new in town. I really do just want to check the place out, if that's all right. You'll barely know I'm here." He stuck out his hand. "I'm Adam."

The man glanced at Adam's hand, then back up at his face, a brow arching in judgement. He did, after a second, clasp it quickly, clearly somewhat uncomfortable with the physical contact. "Bastion. You can hang out in the back, but no questions. You didn't pay, so you just get to listen."

He was cut off from saying more as the tour group began to expel from the shop, laughter and conversation preceding them. Bastion immediately slapped a smile back on his face, the human suit zipping back up over his form as though it had never left.

"Let's see, three...four... Are we missing someone?" One of the girls he'd spoken with earlier turned back around for her friend, whom she had to go back into the shop and drag out once she'd completed a purchase. Bastion nodded, glad to carry them off onto the next location. He began to usher them up Bourbon Street and away from the slowly growing insanity of the drunken crowds there.

"Now we're going to descend a little deeper into New Orlean's darker history," he started, pacing backward a few steps directly in the street. He waved his arms, encouraging the group to keep to the sidewalk; at one juncture, he pointed up.

"You'll see we have a lot of haunted houses here, so much so that our real estate investors make a point of saying whether a location has a spirit in residence," he explained, as the sign gently swaying above their heads proclaimed that the house was in fact not haunted. "Lots of folks actually want to live with a ghost, and sometimes that affects a house's value. I don't know about you, but the idea that someone's going to run the tap at night and spike my water bill gives me the willies."

Soft laughter echoed through the crowd as they continued forward. "Some hauntings, though, are a little darker than that -- and that brings us to the LaLaurie Mansion." They had turned down a corner and were now facing a large, imposing looking grey brick structure. Tall windows lined each of its three floors, but were covered with curtains to block any looky-loos. "Delphine LaLaurie lived here in the 1800s. Anyone watch American Horror Story?"

The two small hands of the girls who had spoken with Bastion before shot up. He grinned and chucked his chin at them. "Good, someone's keeping up. LaLaurie was played by Kathy Bates, but what happened in this house wasn't any kind of theatrical run."

Here his voice sank lower, taking on a more somber tone. The group hung on his every word, unconsciously leaning forward. "LaLaurie loved to throw parties here, but one night, things seemed to get out of hand when a fire started. The local fire department rushed over to help save the mansion, but in doing so, made a gruesome discovery." He paused to point back at the house. "In the kitchen, where they had found the source of the fire, they discovered a slave chained to the oven. It was later pieced together that, rather than be forced to be near that intense and overwhelming heat, she preferred to die, and nearly burned down the house with her.

"This, however, was only the first of many gruesome discoveries."

A small furrow marred Adam's brow as he peered into the curtained windows. The oppressive atmosphere of the mansion was impossible to miss. He could not help but wonder at the thoughts and motivations of the tourists who crowded all the closer as Bastion spun his tragic tale. The echoes of anguish that hung in the air were as dense and impenetrable as fog. He frowned at the backs of the crowd, and moved closer to their uneven edge.

The people near Adam glanced at him, some moving away due to an unknown force. But the two girls who had been earlier enticed by Bastion giggled, smiling coyly in Adam's direction. Since this whole scenario was at the back of the crowd, it went entirely unseen by Bastion. Their sidelong glances passed beneath Adam's notice as well, as he found himself more curious about their guide's stories than he cared to admit.

"Further exploration into the house revealed an attic of horrors," Bastion continued. "LaLaurie and her husband had been conducting terrible experiments on slaves, the grotesque horrors I won't burden you with now..."

He trailed off, his words punctuated by a few awws and general sighs of discontent from the gathered crowd. Bastion shrugged.

"Well, if you insist. It was never quite defined why LaLaurie did what she did, other than perhaps for her own sick enjoyment. Men and women hung from the ceiling in chains, while others were kept in close-quarters cages. One man had his mouth sewn shut, and when it was opened, excrement came pouring out." He waved his hands to simmer down a few outcries of ew and holy shit that's gross. "Hey, I warned you. Others were missing limbs, or eyes, and some had parts sewn back on where they didn't belong.

"Now, take all of this with a grain of salt -- the rumors at the time may have overemphasized her crimes, but it's clear that LaLaurie was probably guilty of her crimes. I say probably because she was never tried in court, let alone charged. She and her family escaped from New Orleans, and she died in France a few years later." The crowd murmured among themselves, and Bastion directed their attention up the street. "Now, who's ready for some vampires?"

One of the two girls standing near Adam approached him, smiling, as the group began to move to their new location. "Hey, we didn't see you with the group before."

He blinked as though roused from some deep reverie. "Um…" He shifted on his feet, looking over the crowd and back toward Bastion, unwilling to miss anything from this potentially vital next part. Still, he was even less willing to appear impolite, particularly in the face of such company as this. He looked down to his fellow tourist, a soft smile on his lips. "I was a little late," he said. "Didn't want to interrupt."

"Are you from around here?" The second girl moved to his other side, pressing close.

"We're just visiting, but this place is so awesome," the first countered. "This is our first tour, but we've got another ghost one lined up tomorrow. You should come with us!"

"Kay, everyone, hold up here. How are those Hurricanes holding out?" Bastion's voice broke into the girls' chattering. Several cups were raised, and a general air of languid excitement hovered over the crowd. "Remember, it's buy one, get one free when we get back to the bar. But for the moment, let's take a look at the Old Ursuline Convent."

The tour group found themselves on the street opposite from a low lying set of off-white buildings, ringed with a thick concrete barrier on all sides. A metal gate was closed for the night, preventing any curious souls from a closer look.

"This was built in 1752 for the Ursuline nuns, who provided a lot of care and assistance to the sick and the poor of this area while it was still developing. But it's most famous for the undead it was said to have housed.

"So it starts like this," Bastion said, winding one hand in the air like he was rolling back a tape. "You all might think dating is hard today, but at least we have apps, right? Back then, they literally had to ship women -- ladies, don't give me that look, I'm definitely not condoning it -- from France to here so that men would have wives and could start families, which created a stronger, established city.

"Unfortunately, not everyone was looking all that great when they got off the boat from France. One particular group of young women were said to have been very pale, and when they exited the ship, covered themselves from the sun as they were transported here to the convent."

"You know, you look kinda pale," one of the girls said to Adam in a whisper. A hand brushed his arm. "I'll share my Hurricane with you when we get back to the bar. When you're in NOLA, you gotta have a drink!"

"Yeah, I don't know why we decided to wait," the second girl said, keeping her eyes on Bastion.

He laughed, almost sheepish, his eyes flicking briefly away from them to the convent beyond. He shifted only a little, encouraging her fleeting touch. His interest remained firmly on the building before them and the small details concerning its former occupants, but he recognized an opportunity when it was so tidily presented. "Um. Sure. I'll stick around for a bit. This is my first tour in New Orleans, too. First time in the city, actually." He tipped his head toward Bastion, following the second girl's gaze.

"He's pretty good, though, for a tour guide. Is he leading the one you're doing tomorrow, too?"

"I dunno, I hope so," the second girl replied, her eyes glued fast to the man they were speaking about. The first girl pressed a harder touch to Adam's arm, sliding her hand into his.

"Personally, I hope you're there," she continued, clearly having lost interest in the tour at hand. A faint blush crept to his cheeks, thankfully muted due to his current state.

Bastion's voice continued to break over them all. "So it's no surprise that rumors started circulating about a group of vampire women taking up here at the convent. Tuberculosis was a very real threat in those days, a symptom of which is coughing blood. And those windows up there?" He pointed to the top row of shuttered windows, which looked strong enough to withstand any storm.

"Locals believed they'd been nailed shut to prevent the sun from harming the newest residents to the city. As far as I know, there weren't any real vampire attacks reported, but hey, maybe if you keep your eyes peeled, you'll run into a vampire nun.

"And that, folks, brings us back to the bar -- you'll recognize the street right down there. Before I can let you go running off, though, I have a survey I'd like for you to all fill out, if you have time..." He pushed forward into the crowd, plucking some small pieces of paper from a back pocket, along with a handful of golf pencils. "Also, yes, I do accept tips, and no, not in the form of alcohol. That's frowned upon here."

He started passing out the papers, making a few sidelong glances toward Adam and the girl who had apparently attached herself to his arm. He scowled.

"I think he's jealous, Jessica," the girl who'd had her eyes on Bastion said. Jessica laughed.

"Go give him a twenty, Lisa, then he'll like you lots." Lisa blushed, clearly unsure of approaching Bastion on her own.

Adam sucked his teeth. "Come on, now," he said. "Give the guy a break. They probably have a no fraternization policy or something." He laughed, trying to distract his hanger-on from his gentle but decisive dropping of her hand. He pushed his hands into his pockets, drifting just far enough from Jessica to hopefully lessen Bastion's ire.

He flashed a bright grin, one he had been told in the past was particularly good at getting him what he wanted. "Uh, why don't y'all fill those out really quick so he can get his good reviews or whatever. I'll meet you inside. Sound good? Won't take but a second."

Jessica's happy demeanor soured with Adam's rejection. She pouted, but accepted one of the surveys as they were passed around by the group. As she filled it out, she cast another smile in Adam's direction, a last attempt at a fishing lure. "I'll have your drink for you when you come in; we'll be right at the bar."

She and Lisa wrapped up their surveys, and even walked them directly up to Bastion, to whom they offered more smiles and laughter. Bastion never wavered in his happy exterior, waiting long enough for the girls to disappear back down the street to the bar where the tour had started, and then moved back over to Adam.

"Hey, man, what did I say? You don't just get to come in here and start hunting, not without permission, all right?"

Adam's brow raised, his eyes boyishly wide beneath. A shadow of embarrassment still lingered on his face, yet he did not look prepared to completely back down. "Take it easy," he said. "I barely talked to her, I swear, and only after she came up to me. If it'll make you feel better I won't even go in. But I do have permission to hunt here. I'm gonna be in town for a while, so we'll probably see each other often enough. I didn't mean to get us off on the wrong foot, okay?"

Bastion dragged teeth over his lower lip, his brow furrowed. "You do? From who? You talked to one of Savoy's lackeys? Because I'm pretty damn sure that doesn't count."

"No. Um." Adam rubbed at the nape of his neck. The embarrassment returned, and his faded smile turned shy. "Ant-- Savoy is my Sire. So..."

The other man's eyes bulged wide, his hands around the survey slips tightening. "You, what? Fuck. Fuck." He stepped back and away from Adam, whose visible confusion was only steadily increasing. "You. You stay there, I...I have to turn these in. I..."

He stopped, pulling himself together by scrunching his eyes closed. He seemed disappointed upon opening them to find Adam still present. "Follow me, and please don't tell him I was being an asshole to you. I just...I gotta turn these in and then..." One hand was released from the papers to shake a finger in the air near Bastion's own face, and then he turned away from Adam, shaking his head. He headed toward the bar, shuffling the surveys in his hands but not with enough presence of mind to read what any of them said. He did not turn around to see if Adam was following.

Adam followed at a slight distance, feeling thoroughly off kilter. Bastion's reaction raised a number of questions, likely none of which were appropriate to be asked here. From the corner of his eye he saw Jessica trying to catch his attention with what were probably less subtle gestures than she herself thought. He smiled at her and raised one finger, silently pleading for patience. He trotted up behind Bastion, peering over his shoulder.

"Listen," he said. "You weren't an asshole. I get it, I'm new, and boundaries are apparently a big deal here. You were just being cautious."

Bastion was busy putting the surveys into a lock box, after having dispensed the golf pencils onto the bar's counter. Two of them were rolling away, and Bastion was distracted from collecting them by Adam's presence.

"Overly cautious, under cautious, both can get you killed. Look, you want one of them? You want both? They're yours. I can find something else." His mouth settled into a grim line as he finished dispensing the surveys. "I don't even know when this fucking happened, you think they could send a newsletter or something out. Bigwig spawns, news at eleven. News fucking flash to me..." He pushed off of the counter, looking to step away from Adam again. He stopped, a hand in the air once more as he thought better of it. "Do not repeat anything you hear coming out of my mouth. Not that anyone is going to give it much credit, but I'd prefer to err way to the left of safety."

The neonate laughed. "Seriously, man, relax. Please." He sidled up close to the counter, as near to Bastion as he dared for the time being. "Like I said, I'm new. I've only been…" He shrugged, uncertain how to word what had happened to him in a way that made sense. "This. For a few nights. You're the first one I've run into outside of the hotel. As far as I know, anyway. I don't know if it's common knowledge or what, or if I shouldn't have said anything at all. I'm sorry if this isn't the way this is supposed to go. I'm still kind of figuring everything out."

"Shit. Seriously?" Bastion eyed Adam in a new light, considering something that he didn't say aloud. "I have no idea how this is supposed to go. Shit." Pulling teeth over his lips to peel back dead skin once more, he raked a hand through his hair.

"Look, we'll just...start over, all right?" He extended a hand. "I'm Bastion."

"Adam." He took Bastion's hand, giving it a firm shake. It was the first act in days that had felt somewhat normal. He smiled, a tiny sigh of relief slipping free. "The tour was great, by the way. Is any of it true?"

Bastion shrugged, a small smile moving over his mouth. "The Ursuline convent shit? Not that I know of. Pretty sure some Kindred back in the day was having a good laugh over it. The LaLaurie crap, though, that's no lie, you can look it up in the history books." He glanced about, noting that they were well alone in their corner of the bar, and that seemed to ease more tension off of his shoulders.

"So Savoy let you out at just a few days old? Gotta say, I'm a little surprised. Guy never struck me as the ol' pop type."

"Yeah? How does he strike you? You seemed pretty tense back there, but he's been really laid back with me so far. A little forceful, maybe..." His muted, boyish smile returned, embarrassment rising once more as Adam thought back to the night of his turning. The memory still caused him more uncertainty and discomfort than he wanted, but this, like so many other things now, was a fact he would have to learn to work through. "But very helpful."

"Yeah...yeah he can be, when there's something in it for him," Bastion replied, not choosing his words as carefully as he should have. He immediately began to backtrack. "I mean, he's not a bad guy. He let me stay around here, which is probably more than I would have gotten from the other two. You know about the other two, right?"

There was an arch to Adam's brow that betrayed a question he did not ask; not yet, at least, while a low current of anxiety ran beneath so many of Bastion's words. "He told me a little," he said. "But not much. Mostly in relation to staying in the French Quarter. Which, judging by what you've said and how he worded it, seems like a very strict rule. Are they really that bad?"

Bastion shrugged. "I mean...we're all monsters." This seemed to catch Adam off guard; his brow knit, but he held his tongue for now. "But yeah. Territory's a big thing among Kindred." He kept his voice low, eyes darting toward the two girls who were watching their conversation with a rapt fascination. "Wandering around is worth a warning, but feeding's a huge no-no. Plus for you, I mean, you're his blood, so Laveau and Meunier would take that as a pretty serious offense.

"Besides, there's plenty of options right here in the Quarter, so you won't need to go very far," he continued, jerking his head in the direction of the two girls. They noticed the attention and smiled, a small cloud of giggles rising over their table. "Just gonna get pretty boring pretty quickly, stuck in this small space."

"Oh, I don't know," Adam said, flashing a small, bright smile in the girls' direction. He took Bastion's warnings to heart, but they were easy words to gloss over in the merry din and dusky light of the bar. "It seems alright for the time being." He looked back to Bastion. "Indefinitely though… yeah, I can see that. So what do you do when the walls start closing in?"

"Find a drunk kine, get hammered, then go home and listen to my podcasts," Bastion replied, shrugging. "Probably not what you expected, huh?"

"Not at all." Adam chuckled. "And how exactly does that alleviate boredom? No offense, but I'm not sure that method is going to work very well for me."

"To each his own, yah whippersnapper." Bastion spared another glance over at the girls' table, then looked back to Adam. "You fed tonight?"

"Nope. And I've stuck pretty close to home until now. I could use a wingman, and I think Lisa has a serious crush on you." He arched a brow at Bastion. "I think she was a little jealous earlier, you talking to me and not her. Maybe we should set that right."

Bastion pressed a hand to his chest, looking like he was about to cry. "No one's ever asked me... to be their wingman before." He dropped his hand, his next words amused. "Yeah, I bet you could use all the help you could get. I am not, however, a professional at this. Fuck, I'm only five years older than you, but I guess that's enough time to have a decent amount of practice under my belt." He blew out a sigh, despite not needing to inflate his lungs for air. He nodded.

"All right," he finally said. "Follow me." He moved away from Adam and the bar, expecting the neonate to be following at his heels.

"Ladies," he smiled as he approached the girls' table. Lisa's face turned a dark shade of pink, while Jessica looked all too happy to see Adam again. "Sorry about the wait, we were just clearing up a few things."

"It's not a problem," Jessica replied, patting the seat next to her. Adam slid in beside her, scooting over until his hip was flush to hers. A plastic cup filled nearly to the brim with an orange-red liquid was gently pooling water around its base on the countertop. "Sorry, the ice started melting, but it should still be good." She winked. "I taste-tested it for you."

"So thoughtful," Adam said.

Bastion bit into his lip, head bobbing to some unheard melody. He glanced at Lisa, who managed to eke out a small smile. Sliding into the booth next to her, he gently laid his arm across the top of her seat. He glanced back at Adam.

"I was just telling Bastion here how much we enjoyed his tour," Adam said. He smiled over at his host. "I'm trying to talk him into an after-hours version for special, first-time guests to New Orleans, such as ourselves. I have a sneaking suspicion he's got more interesting stories than the ones we just heard."

"Oh, that sounds like a good time," Jessica replied, her hands instantly returning to his form. Lisa managed a nod, her own body turning into Bastion's with repressed want.

"It definitely will be; you wanna finish drinks here or on the way?" Bastion glanced about the table, a humored look playing about his face as he glanced from the untouched Hurricane to Adam.

"My vote's for on the way," Adam said. He looked to Jessica, soliciting an answer he could already guess. Across the table, Lisa blushed, and took a lengthy sip of liquid courage. Adam slid toward the edge of the seat, taking Jessica's hand the moment she offered it. His fingers laced with hers, playfully squeezing her warm skin.

Lisa pressed closer to Bastion, her face still pink with liquor and lust. He offered her a tempered smile with just his lips, wrapping the arm across the seat around her shoulders.

"Then let's go."

The four squeezed out of the booth with Bastion and Lisa taking the lead as he led them up St. Phillip and toward the Treme. He stopped and turned them as they got to Dauphine.

"So...anyone heard of the Sultan of New Orleans?" Lisa, cuddled up to Bastion, shook her head as they came to a stop outside of a dilapidated two-story house with the requisite Spanish balcony and wrought iron framing. Bastion glanced at Adam, pausing to wait for him and Jessica to catch up.

"This is the place."

"Looks like shit," Jessica replied, sticking close to Adam's side.

"Considering what happened, I get why no one wants to live here," Bastion continued, eyeing Jessica. "You guys wanna go inside? The story's better from in there?"

"Do you have a key?" Lisa asked timidly.

Bastion shook his head. "No, but I also know how to not get caught."

Lisa leaned away from him, eyeing the house and suddenly feeling very unsure. Bastion laced his fingers through hers, making her look back to him. When his gaze caught hers, something seemed to change. "It'll be OK," he said, his voice strangely musical. "Just stick with me." Lisa nodded, her mouth gaping a little. Still holding her hand, Bastion made his way up the small staircase to the doorway; perhaps not too surprisingly, the door didn't give when he tried the knob, but the second attempt opened the door with the sound of metal scraping on metal.

Bastion grinned back at Adam.

"Lisa... I..." Jessica looked as unsure as her friend, torn between not wanting to be outdone and suddenly unsure of her friend's safety. She tugged at Adam's hand. "This is a bad idea."

"Oh, come on," Adam cajoled. He gave her hand a boyish, excited little pull of his own, his thumb sliding soft over her skin. When she looked up to him his smile was warm, his eyes bright with its light. "When will you get the chance to do something like this again? We'll be in and out, and you'll go home with a great story to tell." He kissed her hand, an unspoken promise lingering in the press of his lips. "Just for a minute or two, okay?"

Jessica looked from Adam to the house once more, her eyes trailing over its exterior. There was nothing there to persuade her, but the sight of the handsome man awakened something deep inside. She tried on a small smile, clearly still not completely swayed, but willing all the same.

"OK," she replied. "Let's go." They followed their friends, finding them in the entry hall.

"Almost thought you guys weren't coming," Bastion said, eyeing Adam and the girl accompanying him. Lisa was nearly stone quiet at his side. The interior of the building wasn't better than the outside; the floor looked like it was rotting, and decorative paper was peeling from the walls. A chandelier hovering over rising staircase looked precariously perched.

"Welcome to the Gardette-LaPrete House," he continued, sweeping a hand out. "Home to a sultan's brother who had run away from his home country after betraying his blood. The man held parties here nightly, much to the annoyance of his neighbors. Music and incense were rampant; you can kind of still smell it."

"I think I smell asbestos," Jessica replied, raising a hand to cover her mouth. Lisa had no comment, but her eyes did roam over the space.

"Yeah, well, clearly housekeeping hasn't made a call in a while," Bastion said, locking gazes with Adam and raising a brow, asking a question that was unclear.

"Let's keep going," Bastion encouraged, dragging Lisa further into the house. "Like I said, parties every night. Lots of noise, always sounded like they were having a good time. Up until one night, when everything suddenly went dead silent. The next day, the neighbors noticed a different kind of smell."

Jessica clung to Adam's side as they moved further into the decrepit space. "I don't like this," she whispered, more so to herself than anyone else.

"It's all right," Adam said. He nodded toward her friend, only a few paces away, and plainly unbothered by their surroundings. "We'll just stick together, okay?" He tried to be soothing, to draw upon the disciplines newly available to him, but inexperience and his own uncertainty made an unwieldy combination. One instinct told him to let her have her comfort and leave, as she so clearly wanted; another, fresher instinct told him to keep her by his side. His smile slipped a little.

"Knocking didn't get an answer, so the police were called. The sight they found was enough to make all of them lose their lunch. The entire household had been massacred, with each body being dismembered and mutilated. Guessing the guy's brother held a long grudge." He pointed to a smear on the floor. "I mean, that could be blood for all we know."

He wrapped an arm around Lisa, pulling her close. "But that wasn't even the worst thing that happened. They couldn't find the owner in the house, among all the dead. It was later discovered that he had been buried alive in the front yard."

Jessica's face twisted up; the story combined with the awful building was clearly not what she'd had in mind for the evening.

"So, uh, I'm gonna go show Lisa one of the bedrooms upstairs," Bastion said, raising his brows meaningfully at Adam. Lisa smiled dreamily, following Bastion without complaint. Jessica watched them go, disappearing up the fragile looking staircase with no small amount of trepidation. She squeezed Adam's hand a little tighter.

"Is this seriously fun for you? This place is giving me the creeps."

Adam shrugged. "A little, yeah," he admitted. "I already did the pub crawl down Bourbon Street thing. This is just another side of the town. A creepier one, sure, but way more interesting than cheap beads and expensive shots, right?"

He smiled down to her, tugging gently at her hand, pulling her into the broad square of his chest. "Besides, I'm here. What's gonna get you?" He felt a small pang of guilt, but hunger easily won out. He tipped her chin up, pressing a small and hesitant kiss to her lips.

She smirked into his affections. "Yeah, I guess that's true." Leaning into him, she rose up on tiptoe to meet his lips, her palms resting on his chest. He drew her closer: one arm low around her back, one hand at her nape, cool fingers toying with her hair.

She smelled like smoke and alcohol and fresh, clean skin beneath; Adam breathed her in, his tongue sliding over hers. His thumb framed her jaw, tipping her head farther up. Her pulse was a drumbeat beneath his fingertips, a rhythm he could not help but answer. He sucked lightly at her lip, trailing kisses down her cheek to the column of her throat.

Jessica's head moved back, quieted and calmed for the moment by Adam's touch. A few creaks and the sound of the wind moving over the building's walls were the only backdrop. He stroked her skin with the pad of his thumb. Then sharp fangs sank into her flesh, his tongue laving over the wound he made.

The bite surprised her, and before he could truly set to it, she pushed out of his tentative touch.

"What the fuck?" She clapped a hand to her throat, coming away with a red-stained touch. "You bit me! What are you, some kind of freak?" She turned on her heel and headed for the stairs. The anger in her voice turned to worry. "Lisa! Lisa, we're going, now. Lisa, are you OK?" A hand grasped the railing.

Adam flushed, embarrassed; his tongue flicked out over softly bloodstained lips. "I wouldn't," he said. In a few strides he caught up to her, his hand reaching out for the smooth line of her arm. He was thrown, already uncomfortable with the task at hand, his mind and conscience further blurred by rising hunger and the all too fleeting taste of her. Still he reached out with what innate presence was afforded him, remembering the skill with which his own Sire had pushed his fears aside. It was a difficult tool to employ, a muscle that felt it had never been stretched.

"Come back," he said. "She's fine, and so are you."

Jessica stood with a foot on the landing, struggling to continue up the stairs even as she was restrained. His words seemed to place a confusing calm over her, one that her mind did not comprehend. She turned, looking at Adam with uncertainty.

The sound of loud footsteps came from the top of the landing. Bastion stopped, peering over the railing to the scene below.

"The fuck are you doing, Adam? Did you get her under control?"

As though to provide an answer to his question, Jessica did not turn to look up. Adam breathed a sigh of relief, and very nearly laughed at the foolishness of it all. He bit the sound back.

"Yeah," he said. "Sorry." Gently he pulled Jessica toward him, his eyes ever on hers as he did. With his free hand he beckoned her closer.

"C'mere," he told her, his voice a softly accented purr. It had worked well enough in life, he thought; perhaps he could use some of the same tricks now. "Just one little kiss and I'll walk you right back to your hotel. Or you can come to mine, if you'd like."

Bastion watched as Jessica moved back toward Adam. She still seemed hesitant, but didn't put up another fight.

"I'm coming down," Bastion replied, disappearing again to get Lisa.


"Please," Adam muttered, though Bastion was already well out of earshot. With every second that passed Adam grew more uncomfortable with the situation he found himself in. He held Jessica's hand, studying her face, largely passive but still with shadows of lingering unease. Bastion had called them monsters, and for the first time Adam was beginning to feel like one. He sucked the last of her blood from his lower lip, eyes flicking to the stairwell in search of his salvation.

The other man reappeared, leading his prey by the hand. Lisa had the same dreamy smile on her face, and Bastion carefully brought her down the stairs as though she were liable to trip. He huffed as he brought Lisa to stand next to Jessica. There wasn't a mark on the girl, but Bastion was licking his lips all the same.

"Did you get any at all? I'm guessing Savoy didn't go over this? How can he let you out if you can't even feed yourself?"

"Dude, if I knew, would we be having this conversation?" He dropped Jessica's hand, wiping it over his thigh as though that small gesture might make him clean again. "Til now he's just had kine and vitae sent to me. I wanted to get out. See if I could handle this myself." He gestured to the girl. "Clearly not."

"Clearly," Bastion snorted. "Whatever, let's just get out of here before this shit gets worse. I'm not that great at this yet, but..."

He stepped in front of Jessica, meeting her gaze and commanding it. "You had a little bit of a scare tonight, that's all. We came in here and explored the building. Nothing else happened, but you got creeped out and took Lisa back to your hotel." Jessica nodded, accepting Bastion's lie as the truth. "You don't remember our names. We were just two random guys you met on a ghost tour."

Bastion bit his lip, watching the words settle into the girl's mind. A moment later, she seemed to come to, glancing between Bastion and Adam. She reached out and took Lisa's hand, who gripped it in return but still seemed to be in a fugue.

"I'm gonna take her back to our room," she said. "I think she had too much to drink." Bastion nodded, glancing at Adam with raised brows.

Adam raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. He bit his tongue, not trusting his own words. He took a step back, eager to put distance between himself and the mess he had made. He watched the girls go, still silent, still shamed.

"I'm gonna go," he said, when at last the creaking door closed behind them. "Thanks for the help. I'll be sure to let Savoy know you looked after me."

Bastion patted his hips, watching the door close behind the two girls. He was silently hoping that the spell he'd woven over them would hold, and that they wouldn't have the police poking around in his tour group tomorrow.

"Hey," he said, attempting to catch Adam's gaze. "Look, we all fuck up. My Sire was...is...look, she definitely wasn't super helpful. I ended up attacking a guy outside my bar, and it took a hell of a lot of clout from Savoy to cover the whole thing up. I was a neonate, so he cut me some slack, but I guarantee you that Meunier or Laveau would've left me staked out for the sun.

"So, yeah. It could've been worse, OK? Don't turn all Louis de Pointe du Lac on me."

Adam smirked, his nose softly wrinkling. "Definitely kill me before that happens," he said, "assuming someone else doesn't get to it first. Have a good night, Bastion." He gave his fellow Kindred a small nod as he passed by him, too caught up in his thoughts to offer anything more.

The Malkovian watched him leave; once the door had closed behind him, Bastion's head tilted back until he was looking up through the chandelier, which moved slightly despite the lack of a breeze.

"I'm not here for that shit," he said, glaring at the chandelier. It stopped swinging, as though chided. Bastion frowned, then started for the door himself. He had another tour group in a half hour, so there would be plenty of time to find a new source of food.