Horse Guards Parade (Let the Games Begin)

[Sansa]

Buckingham Palace loomed behind the brightly lit arena, the sunset not bothering the thousands of locals and tourists who were watching the Olympic beach volleyball round robin play. Two seats were empty for the last two matches of the evening, their occupants unavoidably delayed. One because he was dead. The other was simply waiting for full dark.

***

Sansa put down her violin, silently cursing her inability to get the damned instrument to create the sounds she could feel in her head. She placed it under her chin once more, Air on the G String ready to spring forth once again, but a round of not-so-silent cursing made her pause.

"For fuck's sake, not again!" Liam Dunsirn strode into his room and easily plucked the violin from her grasp. "Fucking classical music at all hours - at least Ewan seems to be able to escape your damn moping."

She thought of a sharp retort, but her lips only curled downward. "Sorry," she said meekly. "It's just... Gabe loved music..." Her voice cracked and she looked down at the hardwood floor.

Liam pursed his lips, gazing down at the top of her bowed head. After a moment he pulled her into his arms, offering the cold bitch a warm embrace. "It wouldn't be so fuckin' annoying if you just knew more than one song," he allowed, rubbing a hand up and down her back as she leaned against him.

They became aware of her Hunger at the same moment, and he carefully pushed her back from his neck. "You're goin' t' waste away to torpor or something if you don't go feed. Go. It's night, it's London, Ewan is out, and you should be too." Liam traced her jawline with his thumb, and hid his irritation as she pulled away from his touch. She was sleeping in his bed, the least she could do was share it. Oh well.

***

Sansa slipped into her seat in the Horse Guards Parade ground, conscious of the fact that Gabriel had bought the tickets for them, and that she would be sitting next to an empty seat for the remainder of the matches. She'd thought of a hundred reasons not to go, but she was also aware that she was wearing her welcome thin at the Dunsirns' flat.

Although, Liam wasn't letting her out of his sight. She had seen him following her into the venue, but instead of being irritated found his presence almost comforting.

[Rod Stafford]

Once again, Rod had overstayed his welcome. He was hunkered down beside the shelves, stealing away precious moments with Euripides, in the full knowledge they would be his last. Mrs. Albright stalked the halls with impatient clicking heels, counting down to the moment when he was to be wrestled from the Classics section and ejected into the shameful gloom of Mason's Yard. In his mind's eye he pictured the silver-haired librarian; marching with purpose, hips rolling in her pencil skirt, and her blouse, a scandalous extra button now loosed, turned up at the sleeves to reveal a set of sinewy forearms built for dealing with defenseless young stragglers like himself. The heavy doors were thrown open and feisty heels stabbed at the scholarly silence like daggers. In an instant, Euripides was returned to his rightful place. Rod kept low, using the table for cover, and winced when he heard the words:

"Mr. Stafford?"

His name rung out then dimished into the stillness. From a quick glance he noticed, with some dismay, that Mrs. Albright had indeed rolled up her sleeves. She brandished a thirty-centimeter ruler with menace and was sporting the sort of skirt which accentuated her curves in all the right places. Her jutting hip struck him like a haymaker. Bag gathered, he skulked the periphery of the reading room until he was within arm's reach of the door. But Mrs. Albright was on the move, prowling the tables with carnivorous intent, and like the proverbial deer-in-headlights, Rod froze.

"I know it's you, Mr. Stafford. Who else in this rush-hour city of ours would stay past closing hours to read the likes of Tacitus and... Euripides? Second shelf up, dear, not the third. And then, of course, there's the aftershave. Paco Rabanne? One Million? Mm, every penny of it. Yes, it's definately you, and somehow I suspect the reason you've lingered every night for the past week is not for the company of crusty old scholars, is it, Mr. Stafford? Well?"

There was the sharp, piercing crack of a ruler meeting the desk, and Rod hopped out like a startled rabbit, where Mrs. Albright was waiting. She smiled with delicious satisfaction. And Rod, despite being gripped in a fever of panic, wiped his brow and fumbled for the closest thing to gentlemanly he could manage.

"Mrs. Albright, I do apologise. I was brushing up on my Greek and completely lost track of the time," he gave his watched a cursory glance, "Oh! And speaking of which, I must be-"

Then, like an osprey to the perch, the librarian clamped her talons around his arm. The gap between them closed and Rod found the ruler had made for itself a precarious home on the inside of his thigh; it had to be metal, and cold. Mrs Albright raised a finely-plucked eyebrow.

"Brushing up, you say?" she said, silkily, "Euripides is Ancient Greek. Mr. Stafford, you have a talented tongue. I'm impressed. But surely a young man like yourself can think of more stimulating pursuits in the eveing? I know I can."

Whereupon the icy ruler started to climb, slowly, like a serpent up a tree.

"Well... Mrs. Albright... this was my last chance... to come here."

"And why is that?"

Where there was once warmth, there was frost, and much to Rod's relief, the lustful librarian broke her deathgrip and retreated a step. Arms folded, she stood rigid, in prickly evaluation of the nervous-looking yuppie, with his creased shirt and loose tie. Those lips wouldn't stay pursed for long, so Rod, foregoing his sense of pride, came clean.

"I'm afraid my membership runs out today," he said, but from Mrs. Albright's chiselled frown it was clear his answer failed to satisfy, so he elaborated, "Between university fees, bills, commuting costs, and... everything else, I just can't afford it."

"But, my dear boy," she sang, through restrained notes of pitying laughter, "After today, you have something much more important than a mere library membership to your name. Don't you think?"

A moment of silence passed, in which Rod gaped at the old woman. She waited, hands on hips, while he parsed meaning from her words and searched her face for some hint of recognition. Finally, struck by an illuminating thought which chased the shadow of confusion from his face, he uttered, "Mrs. Albright?"

"Call me Ligeia. I don't mind that you didn't notice me at the ceremony. It was a big day for you, after all."

"I'm sorry... Ligeia, I didn't-"

Flushed with embarrassment, Rod backpedalled, quite literally, into the large oak doors. And now, with the stench of fear thick in the air, he could only watch as Mrs. Albright swept down upon him and wrapped his best tie in her bony claws.

"And as for that other small matter. The London Library will only be too happy to renew your membership, indefinately, and free of charge."

"I- I don't know what to say! Thank you!" he whimpered.

"That's a good start. But listen to me carefully. This is just the tip of the iceberg. You are now part of a family that can open very large doors. And, with the right people on your side, you will climb all the way to the top," she beckoned him close, intent on halving his Full Windsor, and purred, "I can get you there."

She was sexy in a hawkish Dame Helen Mirren kind of way. And Rod was putty in the hands of a strong older woman, there was just something about them. Perhaps there was a fine line between arousal and self-presevation. The warm whisper of words tickled his ear. She smelled like potpourri and chamomile, the attractive whiff of dusty tomes clung to her blouse, and there was something else, a sharp pronounced aroma with which he wasn't familiar. His nostrils flared. It was heat rub. Rheumatic heat rub. She smelled like an old woman. She smelled like sex with an old woman. Horrified, Rod groped for the brass doorknob and reclaimed his manhandled tie.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Albright- Ligeia! Grateful though I am for your generous offer, I must dash."

"Not so fast, Mr. Stafford," she trilled, and gave a crisp nod to the clock above the door, "It is now a quarter past nine, and because of you I will be late home, late to have my jasmine and lavendar bath, and late for Newsnight. You are a naughty boy, Mr. Stafford, and all naughty boys must be punished."

When Rod spilled out into St. James's Square, rubbing the ruler's sting from his tender derriere, he was greeted by the cool caress of a summer's night. Above, a saphire-inked sky glistened, and the rumble of cars was distant enough to preserve his pensive mood a moment longer. He took a bracing breath. The unseen gaze of Mrs. Albright pressed heavily upon him, urging him onwards. Pall Mall crept into view, where bustling crowds foreshadowed the flavour of the evening ahead. It was a ten minute walk to Horse Guards Parade, where there was an empty seat with his name on it.

[Rod Stafford]

According to the Dickens’s Dictionary of London, "Pall Mall is a street of palaces. Happily it lies out of the din and bustle of traffic, and there is nothing to vulgarise the quiet splendour of its appearance." That particular passage sprung to mind as Rod stepped onto the street in question, where an endless convoy of taxis and cars cut a ravine through the urban jungle. Here, the palaces, greying monoliths of Pierre de Caen, housed princes of society. They called them gentlemen's clubs, where the privileged mingled in dinner suits, courting each other's company by virtue of their most prevalent and valued commodities, power and wealth. Such ugly elitism stirred within Rod a certain disquiet, echoed by the harsh drone of engines, the crunch of wheels, and the buzzing of crowds. It was the natural throb and churn of the city, a noise so oppressive and thick one could drown in it. Departing the pavement, he sought refuge in the gloom of Waterloo Gardens, where the strobed glare of traffic had no purchase.

He found comfort in the shade. The irony of which was not lost on him. His kind thrived in it, hidden in plain sight by the world of darkness they had built up around them, a world he'd spent his last seven years evading. But shadows were persistent, and relentless, and they concealed secrets irresistible to even the most disciplined of minds. His time on the outside was at an end. It started with a ceremony, held in the Round Room of the Maughan Library, a short, understated affair in which oaths were made and contracts signed. Rod was a little disappointed at the time, and then sickened with himself for feeling so, thereafter. Six others were sworn in with him, also in attendance had been seven sponsors, and four representatives, one from each of the prestigious cabals, to preside over the proceedings. One of whom was now known to him as Ligeia Albright, the oversexed over-sixty from the library. He cringed at the memory of their encounter, and the shameful indignity of it, and how it was made once again vivid by the garden's warm peaty musk.

A family was what she called it, but if that was the case, then surely she had positioned herself as its creepy incestuous grandmother. No family tree was perfect, and despite the temptation to prune, one must resist and resign one's self to merely trussing and trimming its ugliest branches. And if his experience served as any kind of indication of what to expect from his new family, then Rod shuddered to think of all the depraved, cut-throat cousins and poisonous, sycophantic sisters that populated it. So his life was about to become even more peculiar, that was the sacrifice he was prepared to make in the humble pursuit of knowledge. Besides, it was nothing new. Strangeness courted him, it hung from him like ill-fitting clothes, but let it never be said that Rod Stafford didn't wear it well. Although, admittedly, there were times he expected to find Ant and Dec lurking around the corner.

When Rod reappeared, he was greeted by the towering Duke of York memorial, which pointed the way to the Mall. After descending the flight of stairs from the stone column, and almost tripping over a young couple who'd selected it for an amorous pit stop, he reached the famous stretch of road synonymous with British pomp and circumstance. And true to form, there were Union Flags all the way to Buckingham Palace, billowing brilliant and bold against the black tree canopies. Even at this late hour, a swell of people trickled from St. James's Park; there was a spirit of celebration in the air, and smiles all around, as kids mounted their father's shoulders to contribute to the epidemic flag-waving, their mother's armed with leaden souvenir bags, there were merry revellers who staggered in song, and tourists uniformed in bright novelty shirts. And, across the road, a great snaking mass of bodies were shuffling into Horse Guards Road, where there came an almighty hullabaloo.

The approach to the arena was a gauntlet run of rowdy fans, quirky volunteers, and overzealous security guards. Caught up in the turbulent tide, Rod found himself poked, prodded, fumbled, and groped in just about every way imaginable. And just as he and his fellow sheep were herded into something close to order, rows upon rows of fast food stalls closed in from either side until they were surrounded - it was a trap. That greasy temptress was on the wind, Rod took one gluttonous gulp and he was doomed. The crowd dispersed, enraptured by the ballet of spiralling steam and sizzling fat, and, caught in its spell, participated in another proud and time-honoured national tradition, the great British queue. But even while waiting in crawling lines, spirits soared, and there was laughter and camaraderie amongst the people. This was a different sort of London. It was a London with a bright, positive outlook, a city that was able to feel good about itself, even under the scrutinising glare of the world's media. And yet, it was only one side of the story. For London, as ever, was a tale of two cities. For most, it was the best of times. And for the rest, well, it was business as usual.

Loneliness was a state of mind. It was the place a person carried with them, from a cold flat or an empty bed, a prison from which no stranger provided salvation. The roar of a fifteen thousand strong crowd blew through him like a winter's chill. In the heart of the stadium, the game was racing towards its conclusion, exciting spectators with the promise of an American victory over Spain. His back to the action, Rod climbed the steps and scanned row after row for that one familiar face. There was a resounding cheer, the Americans had won, and the crowd rose in celebration. All except one. She was a pale beauty, crystalline and still, captured in a photograph that had come to life. Sansa. She was exactly as he remembered her and yet all at once utterly different. They were from different world's in the beginning, in more ways than one, and over the subsequent six years he'd learnt to become a part of her world, and she had become a part of his. And yet, here they were, still worlds apart.

The crowd subsided, filling every seat on the row, except one. The empty seat, it was a sight that resonated with him deeper than he'd anticipated, and in that moment Rod felt a sharp pang of pity for his old friend. Friend. He wondered if she considered him in the same way, if at all. Six years was a long time, much had changed, and it wasn't as if they had much of a history in the first place. Steeling himself, he advanced, sidling tentatively along the length of the row, with a couple of hot dogs cradled in his hands. His approach had gone unnoticed. It was make or break time. Do or die. He took his seat, took a breath, and:

"Hot dog?"

[Sansa]

The celebration around her seemed like theater. Sansa couldn't even bring herself to clap, and found herself sitting like a stone at the edge of a waterfall, the river parting around her before its jubilant tumble.

A voice brought her out of her reverie, and she turned her head slowly, a polite dismissal ready. She ended up mutely shaking her head no to the offered hot dog and sitting in semi-shock as the man helped himself to Gabe's unused seat.

Sansa stared in disbelief, and then managed to put a hesitant smile on her face. "Rod, isn't it? It's been a long time."

[Rod Stafford]

"You remembered. That's a good start."

He was smiling, relieved to have avoided a round of embarrassing reacquaintances, and also quietly pleased because she knew his name. It meant that their first encounter had been at least, in some way, memorable. His own recollection of those early days was kaleidoscopic, a vibrant, jumbled mess of memories, which he pieced together with all the dread and regret of a recovering drunk. It was a long hangover. The day he met Sansa Martin, however, remained vivid in his mind; football, pub brawls, dancing, and drinks - a special evening, by anyone's standards, or perhaps it was just another night in Liverpool. And now, there she sat, somehow leagues apart from the girl in the Manchester United shirt who blushed and snorted giggles into a beer glass. There was apprehension in her smile. The hot dog was withdrawn, leaving Rod to gauge which one to tackle first. Undecided, he cast his neighbour a curious sideways glance.

"Sansa, you are a difficult woman to reach."

[Sansa]

She looked away, down to the sand and whatever between game entertainment was going on, but she wasn't really seeing anything. "We try to keep to ourselves." Sansa bit her lip a bit, not used to thinking about herself in the singular. "Sorry, I mean, I keep to myself."

She sighed, her pale cheeks coloring a bit. "I heard you were in the U.S. That is, Thaddeus told me you were. A few years back."

[Rod Stafford]

"I've been back in England for some time now. America was... eye-opening. A land of opporunity, certainly, but there's no place like home."

He finished with a weak smile, offered as small recompense for the deficiency of detail in his words. After all, it was impossible to think of his time in America without considering the ones he left behind, and their memory was sacrosanct. And it seemed that he wasn't alone in such sentiment: Sansa's plural slip was telling, but it was neither the time nor the place to be confronting demons. Another cheer from the crowd rolled around the stadium, this time to greet the Italian and Austrian teams. Then, in a sudden moment of clarity and decisiveness, Rod tore a chunk from the hotdog in his right hand. The second hotdog was once again offered and once again politely declined.

"Are you sure?" he said, between mouthfuls, "Well, I suppose you could always grab a bite on the way home. Who are we supporting?"

[Sansa]

Grab a bite on the way home. Sansa hid a tiny smile. He reeked of the vitality of life; his words and clothes were vibrant in a way that only Rod could accomplish - even if the latter were much more normal than she remembered.

"I'm not pulling for one or the other. Whoever the underdogs are, I suppose." Sansa pulled her hair over one shoulder, running her fingers through it for a moment. The urge to sigh dramatically was rising. "How did you find me? Not that you were looking, I guess."

She did sigh then, studiously looking down at the court and not at Rod.

[Rod Stafford]

"I was looking, and it was no easy feat, let me tell you. Of course, I searched via all the conventional methods in the beginning, but once those resources were depleted, I sought out the unconventional, whereupon I discovered you'd be found at this exact place at this exact time - which is why I'm presently dual-wielding hotdogs."

The teams were warming up, hopping and gyrating on the sand, while spectators clapped to a steadily accelerating beat. It all seemed rather absurd to a layman like Rod. His face creased with scrutiny. The Austrians were large and bronze whereas their Italian opponents were small, stringy, and desperately in need of a shave. He favoured the Austrians to win, which meant, by definition, they were obliged to support the Italians. Although one glance at Sansa suggested that she had even less invested interest than him. He gave her a grin.

"Since you're about to ask 'Why?' Well, why not?"

[Sansa]

"I'm not the girl you remember, Rod." She turned to look at him, her face smooth and controlled. "Whatever you're looking for, you aren't likely to find it here."

The match started, but she didn't watch, instead keeping her gaze on the human next to her.

[Rod Stafford]

"Sansa, it's been a very long time. If you were the same girl from all those years ago then you'd be guilty of having an extraordinarily dull life, and, from my fleeting experience, I know that is simply not true."

She was like a statue; a captivating and timeless beauty, imprisoned in a cold hard shell. It was astonishing that she managed to blend in at all, the wolf amongst the lambs. Then again, he considered, it was with good reason his kind referred to them as Sleepers. He was undaunted, and shrugged off her discouraging words.

"Perhaps I was just looking for some company and, for better or worse, you are it. Congratulations."

[Sansa]

A number of things ran through her mind. Gabriel had taught her to indulge herself, as long as it did not contradict his desires, and Rod's pulse was strong. She stared at his neck for a moment, and then looked out over the volleyball match. Someone was scoring a point. The amount of high fives and butt pats in this sport was ridiculous.

Why did Rod show up? Was he going to kill her? Not right now, of course, but later. He didn't like vampires. Whatever had been between them previously surely meant nothing under the shadow of her current vampirism.

Sansa looked sideways at him, and he grinned at her, mouth full of hotdog as he chewed and swallowed. He didn't seem to be contemplating assassination. The cheers and riotous crowd surrounding them brought back memories of their first meeting. It was hard to pin down the memories. They were murky, as if her entire mortal life was covered in a thick layer of fog. What was the use anyway? She couldn't go back to being a mortal, and now her immortality was worse than death.

Still... she wasn't going to kill herself tonight. Or maybe she would. What was the alternative? Hours of violin playing, which brought no joy only frustration. The Dunsirn cousins had their own agenda for her, she was sure, though what use she could be still eluded her.

Sansa put on a smile and looked back at Rod. "Do you keep in touch with Thaddeus?"

[Rod Stafford]

That was an amusing thought, and it showed in the curling corners of his mouth. Rod was quick to compose himself, however, rather than risk giving a vampire the impression she'd just become the butt of a private joke.

"Thaddeus isn't exactly the pen-pal type. Small talk and trivia are anathema to him. He deals in puzzles and mysteries and intellectual frontiers; to draw him into a frenzied debate is child's play, but one word about the weather or the latest music and the man turns to stone. Keeping him abreast of the myriad non-adventures of Rod Stafford would be an excercise in futility, I'm afraid."

The Austrians scored another point, and MC Hammer's U Can't Touch This was blasted from the speakers, its throbbing badonkadonk beat filled the parade and bounced irreverently from the Old Admiralty Building. Powerless to resist, Rod bobbed in time with the music - relatively in time. Every play was punctuated by this particular brand of loud in-your-face music. Every single play. And then there was the eternally euphoric commentator, who shrieked and hollered like a hyperactive hog, and was the party solely responsible for the interminable onslaught of Mexican waves. When he settled back into his seat for the umpteenth time, Rod sensed his arm-waving enthusiasm was beginning to sag. He tossed Sansa a bemused look.

"Beach volleyball, Sansa? Really?"

[Sansa]

Sansa gave him a half smile. "It was Gabe's idea." The smile disappeared. "He liked the spectacle."

She looked out blindly at the crowd, her emotions held tightly in check. Then she focused on Liam, who was leaning in on the girl sitting next to him, his wolfish charm probably in full effect. He turned his head slightly and their eyes met until she let hers drift off toward the sand.

[Rod Stafford]

"Spectacle," Rod repeated, surveying the scene, "That's the right word for it."

"Let me here you, Italy!" crowed the commentator, one half of the stadium responded, and he continued: "Let me hear you, Austria!"

The other half of the stadium errupted into cheer, and, presumably encouraged by the enthusiasm, he proceeded to milk it for every drop.

"... Italy! ... Austria! ... Italy! ... Austria! ... Italy! Austria! Italy! Austria!"

On and on it went until the roars of support diminished into a chorus of disingenuous yawns. Rod stirred restlessly in his seat. There was a time when he would've been positively buoyant in the face of such patriotic frippery. His insides knotted at the thought of it. There was nothing wrong with good old-fashioned cheer, he considered, but this was noise for the sake of noise. Maybe he was turning into the true understudy of Thaddeus Petalas at last.

"And what is it you like these days? You don't strike me as the football lout sort... anymore."

[Sansa]

"Then you'd be wrong," she snapped. "I didn't turn into a totally different person, Rod. I could say how I hate that Berbatov left for Fulham but -! It just doesn't matter."

She got to her feet and squeezed past the people next to her, making her way as quickly as she could to the stairs and any sort of exit.

[Rod Stafford]

Rod watched with curiosity as Sansa made her escape. The crowd gave a deflated groan, and the following cacophony of horns and whistles provided Rod with his cue to leave. Wearily, he gave chase, sidling past his neighbour, to whom he presented the second, untouched hotdog. He jerked a thumb at the retreating vampire, and explained:

"Onion allergies."

After a long awkward apologetic shuffle to the stairs, Rod bounded after Sansa, catching her at the security checkpoint. He filed into line behind her in anticipation of the inevitable bout of prodding and probing to follow.

"You're really mad about that Berbatov thing, aren't you?"

[Sansa]

Sansa was ready to tell him off for following her, but instead snorted with laughter at his comment. "No, no... It's just..." She dissolved into uncontrollable giggles and made her way forward with difficulty, trying to hold herself together. On the other side of the security checkpoint she was still laughing, her response vastly over stating the actual humor of Rod's comment, until there were tears running down her cheeks and she was collapsing onto a bench sobbing.

[Rod Stafford]

"Sansa, I'm-"

Sorry? Embarrassed? Confused? Certainly about as much as the bystanders who lingered to watch, with morbid curiosity, the breakdown unfolding before their very eyes. Rod wasn't entirely sure what had happened or what he could say or do to make it right, if indeed the onus was on him to make it right in the first place, but he took a stab at it with a few fumbled words:

"I'm sorry if I... offended you in anyway. Are you-"

Drunk? Dangerous? On day release? It was a striking departure from the hard-faced apathy that greeted him in the stands; in fact, weeping shamelessly into her hands, Sansa made for a pitiful sight. Crouched eye-level, he rested a hand upon her shoulder.

"Sansa, what's wrong?"

[Sansa]

She leaned against his hand for a moment, a part of her desperate for contact, but just as quickly she pulled away. A few gulped breaths later she was straightening up and dabbing at her eyes, trying to dry the flood of tears without spreading her mascara all over her face. "It's Gabriel. He's... he's..."

Sansa sniffed, wiping at her nose. "Dead. He's dead." She looked at Rod, her eyes still wet and her mouth taking a decidedly downward turn. "Sorry, sorry... I'm a mess. I just... don't know how to live without him anymore."

[Rod Stafford]

The cold kiss of flesh against his hand served as a sharp reminder that she was no typical grief-stricken woman. A wounded predator was far more dangerous and unpredictable than the healthiest of beasts. Rod remained vigilant, and shaped his face into a perfect picture of stunned surprise. Pause for effect. Then the melt into sympathy.

"Oh, Sansa, I am sorry. And here I am babbling about sports. I'm a blind fool."

Slowly, he rose, and settled onto the bench beside her. Now that she'd stopped crying, local interest evaporated, and the small cluster of people nearby dispersed, affording them a fraction of privacy. Since she was swift to pull away from him a moment ago, he made no effort to invade her personal space, and instead simply clasped his hands in patient thought.

"I assume this happened recently."

[Sansa]

"Yes," she said simply, the outburst from moments before carefully put away, leaving her more like an empty shell. "I -"

Movement caught her eye, and she turned to see Liam Dunsirn pushing his way out of the event, his head on a swivel. Sansa sighed. "My babysitter is arriving."

[Rod Stafford]

Rod tracked Sansa's gaze across the road to where he spotted a large shaggy man bound onto the street. The expression on his face betrayed every manner of agitation, giving Rod the immediate impression of a man with whom not to trifle, and also of a man not best suited to babysitting. Hence the deflated tone in Sansa's voice, no doubt. Eyes locked on the stranger, who was but moments away from discerning his quarry through the heavy traffic of people, Rod said:

"One of your kind?"

[Sansa]

"No, though he is part of the...Giovanni clan? A Garou." Sansa shrugged. She really didn't know much about vampire politics, other than the obvious Sabbat/Camarilla split. Gabe had always diverted any questions she'd had, and it had brought him pain to think of the time when he'd been Prince of London. She'd stopped bringing it up long ago. "The Giovanni have Kinfolk, he calls it, in their blood, though having the ability to actually Change is - this is fascinating I'm sure but can we just get out of here?"

She impulsively grabbed Rod's hand, pulling him off the bench and walking briskly at a ninety degree angle to where Liam was looking.

[Rod Stafford]

"Bloody werewolves," Rod muttered, "Well, that complicates things. This way."

Sansa was led from Horse Guards Road with a tug of the hand, and the pair retreated into St James's Park, where the thinning crowds were replaced by ranks of thick folliage. In the distance, haunting orbs of light wove deep into the park where the paths were lined with lamps. Occassionally, Rod glanced over his shoulder to the entrance, as they scurried along the gravel path. And then he appeared, a hulking silhouette framed in the brilliant stadium light. He paused for a moment to scrutinise the gloom, and then suddenly advanced, lumbering toward them at speed. Ahead, the path forked.

"Don't run. We go right, here. Say nothing."

[Sansa]

She forced herself to match Rod's sedate pace, turning her head slightly to see Liam getting much closer. His face was creased with what could be described as worry. Ewan would chew him out for losing track of her, she was sure, but she had no where else to go. She would return to their flat before dawn. Maybe.

Liam was nearly caught up, but he paused at the fork and hurried down the left path, quickly moving out of sight. Sansa visibly relaxed, expelling a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

[Rod Stafford]

"Ic astyrian faerblaed wawe fram supdael," Rod whispered, then he glanced at Sansa, "Now we run."

And without another moment's notice, Rod departed the footpath and started to dash across the park, pulling Sansa along with him. Behind them, the wall of trees stirred and groaned in the wake of a sudden torrent of wind. The ceiling of canopies hissed angrily at the disturbance, thousands of jostling leaves like a million tiny raindrops; it was an apalling din. The wind pushed them onwards, over a long shadowy stretch of grass towards another path. Beyond, there was a fence, where the warm golden haze of the Mall peaked through in flecks. They were almost out. In an instant, all was once again calm, and the looming folliage whispered in the gentle summer breeze.

Breathless, and feeling somewhat exhilerated, Rod spilled out onto the pavement with Sansa in tow. It felt like being back at school, hiding from angry teachers in the atrium, and he was grinning like a schoolboy.

"See? What did I tell you? Five minutes in your company and I'm already on the run!"

[Sansa]

She grinned in spite of herself, running her hand through her now tangled locks. "I hope you've been working on your cardio, then." Sansa flagged down a taxi - there were literally hundreds of them swarming around the Olympic venues - and soon they were both safely ensconced within.

She didn't know where to go, so Rod supplied a destination to the driver, releasing her hand as he did so. Sansa sat back, watching the dark skies out the window as the taxi pulled from the curb, melancholy settling around her like a blanket.

[Rod Stafford]

After his sprint through St. James's Park, Rod found it stuffy in the back of the cab, and opened a window to chase away the stagnant air. It was a beautiful evening, and it was nice to be afforded the scenic route home, past Buckingham Palace and onto Constitution Hill. It would be ten minutes until they arrived at their destination, and by then the scenery would have changed dramatically, so he enjoyed it while he could. Sansa was silent, but something told Rod it wasn't the view that was leaving her speechless. He gave her a gentle nudge.

"So, why does a big girl like you need a babysitter in the first place?"

[Sansa]

She started at his touch, her attention abruptly returning to the inside of the cab. "Oh, they just worry that I'll go mad with grief and try to off myself."

She rolled her eyes, remembering her outburst at the game. "Obviously I have it all together, of course." Sansa leaned toward him a bit, the car jostling them closer together, her eyes meeting his. Suddenly she was very aware of just how she'd been neglecting herself, the Hunger rising up inside her like a wave.

Her eyes remained locked on his, her Presence starting to come into play like a snake mesmerizing its prey.

[Rod Stafford]

"Your eyes," he uttered softly.

Rod drooped heavily against the headrest but found himself incapable of breaking his gaze. A pleasant warmth spread throughout his leaden limbs. His surroundings; the taxi, the buildings, the growling traffic, the strobing street lights, and the cool evening breeze; it all melted away. And where his peripheral vision grew dark, Sansa was positively incandescent. He smiled.

"They're so... blue!"

[Sansa]

She hardly paid his words any attention, all of her senses straining toward that faint throbbing like a drum beat under the skin of his neck. Sansa dipped her head closer, mouth opening as she tilted his head to the side.

The taxi lurched to a halt at a red light and she jerked back, her fangs merely brushing his skin without breaking it. Suddenly embarrassed, she huddled against her side of the vehicle, a hand over her mouth to hide her predicament as the effects of her Presence quickly wore off.

[Rod Stafford]

Rod scanned the floor in a drunken sort of stupor, his head rocking in time with the lurching cab, and then he became still. In one breath, his placid features turned rigid, and he seemed to swell up in his seat. Blazing wide eyes snapped on Sansa and there they remained as his hand plunged into his trouser pocket.

"This is fine," he said, addressing their driver.

"We've got a ways to go-"

"I said this is fine!" Rod snapped, and slapped a ten pound note in the tray beneath the driver's partition.

Wasting not another moment, Rod practically rammed the taxi door open and ploughed through into the street, where he paced with long manic strides, waiting. His trembling hand, even after being drawn heavily down his face, was unable to iron out the creases of outrage and disgust.

[Sansa]

Sansa stepped out of the cab, her every move graceful thanks to the Toreador blood in her veins. She felt sick at her own actions, and ashamed. Rod was a friend. Friends don't bite friends...unless asked to.

With effort her fangs retracted, and she watched Rod carefully, trying to figure out what to say. As he paced toward her she said, "I'm sorry. There's no excuse for ...that." She closed her eyes briefly, stepping back as he continued to approach her, and then started looking for street signs. "I'll find my own way home. I'm so sorry."

Her voice cracked a bit at the end as she felt the now familiar surge of panic beginning to rise. With effort she squashed it down.

[Rod Stafford]

"I'm not your fucking supper!" Rod snarled, closing what little space remained between him and his would-be predator, "If you ever attempt such a thing with me again, mark my words, I will kill you where you stand!"

Under the harsh amber glare of the sodium lights, Rod appeared animalistic, transformed with rage. His eyes were wild, his teeth glistened, and his entire body rose and sunk with every ragged breath. He considered Sansa a moment longer.

"Get out of my sight."

[Sansa]

She stared at him for a moment, and then turned and ran. Using celerity to get out of his sight was, most likely, a bad idea when she was so Hungry, and she was soon slumped against a brick building a few blocks away, her body near exhaustion.

Sansa stared with unseeing eyes across the road, her focus gradually turning from the bright lights of a Starbucks sign to the people within. Her Hunger stirred what Gabriel had referred to as the Beast, and she slowly straightened, smoothing her hair and walking toward the street.

[Rod Stafford]

In a matter of seconds she was gone, an indistinct blur vanished into the dark. And in the silence that followed her departure, Rod had only the company of his own boiling temper; the iron tension of his muscles, and the sharp adrenaline buzz. He was alone again, and free to go home and put this whole ugly episode behind him with a glass, or two, of Johnnie Walker. It was a rare luxury to survive vampire dealings with clean hands, but Rod had managed it, somehow. He stepped from the gloom unscathed, and he would, most definately, sleep soundly that night.

"Shit."

Rod took off at a sprint, and as he did he recalled Sansa's off-handed remark about neglected cardio, and found himself making a desperate silent plea that the sudden pain was but the sting of regret.

[Sansa]

Traffic was relatively light, but she still had to pause to wait for an appropriate break before stepping into the street. Sansa walked briskly across the street, part of her brain telling her that a jolt of caffeine would help curb the Hunger while the other half was simply calculating which person she would grab first.

She stepped up onto the sidewalk and pushed open the door to the Starbucks, entering the warmly lit store like a shadow.

[Rod Stafford]

After two minutes, Rod was done. Propped up against a postbox, gasping, he concluded the stabbing ache in his side was decidedly not the pang of regret. Although he felt that too, and in buckets, as he staggered onto a brightly lit street. This was where she'd disappeared. Hermetic mages of his particular persuasion were gifted in the Sphere of Forces, a handy side effect of this was the innate ability to discern the presence of all objects within a limited range; some called this Magical Radar but Rod called those people morons. Moving objects create ripples in the fabric of matter itself, akin to ripples on a pond as opposed to, say, blips on a radar. The faster the object, the more prominent the ripples, which, even after a distance of six blocks, made his runaway vampire easy to follow. But this was where Sansa stopped and she was nowhere to be seen.

Bolstered against his wheezing fatigue by what was, in all likelihood, some imagined sense of responsibility, Rod pressed on. In his search, he approached a smartly-dressed middle-aged couple, along with a group of boisterous teenage girls, all of whom were quick to dismiss him in their own special way, although to give the old couple their due, at least they didn't spit cider at his feet. Perhaps it was to be expected, he thought - a strange man approaches, breathless, and glistening with sweat, declaring himself in pursuit of "an attractive young woman with dark hair and pale skin" - alarm bells will ring. Nevertheless, the hunt went on, for what he lacked in success he made up for in determination.

Shortly thereafter, he passed the warm glow of a coffee shop, and with a heartbeat skipped, he spotted a familiar face within.

[Sansa]

She was clutching a paper cup filled with hot coffee, holding it in front of her on the little table as though it was a lifeline tethering her to reality. In a way, it was.

The door opened, the little bell chiming, and she looked up from staring at a woman who was texting away on her phone to see Rod step inside. Sansa's eyes widened, and she stood up abruptly, ready to flee once more.

[Rod Stafford]

Rod expected such a reaction. He held up a hand and gave the slightest shake of the head. It was late, and there were but a handful of weary patrons left nursing their drinks, but that was no excuse for them to abandon all discretion. Sansa was vulnerable, and was in need of basic human contact, amongst other things. So, when he arrived at the table, Rod leaned in close, and slowly put his arm around her - if she resisted, it would look nothing more than a lover's tiff to the spectators; either way, they were saved.

"Come on. We need to get you out of here."

[Sansa]

She was stiff under his arm, but she managed to nod and let him slowly draw her out of the coffee shop. The cool evening air washed over her skin, but she felt trapped, caged within her own body.

"I shouldn't be around you now, Rod. I can't... I just can't."

[Rod Stafford]

The unfinished statement hung in the air between them, punctuated with silence; an ugly little confession in itself. It was everything in Rod not to react, not to recoil from the craven wretch clutching to his arm and cast her to the ground with the rest of the filth. The charade had to stand and so he held her close.

"I'm taking you back to my place. We're not far from it now. Hold on."

Mercifully, they escaped the damning glare of the busy street and found themselves on an unremarkable sliver of residential gloom, where the pavement was empty and the roadside packed with family cars. There was an urgency in Sansa's steps which he appreciated, being minutes away from home, although he feared what instincts motivated such a pace: was it fear, or something else? The silence started to make him anxious.

"It's not bad for student accomodation, really. Besides, the location is what's important. Although it does get a little cramped - not tonight though! It's two-for-one night at Tootsies so we'll have the place to ourselves. I'm missing out on tequila for you. I hope you appreciate that. Hey. Still with us?"

[Sansa]

Rod's words filtered in through the haze of her mind, a whisper louder than the rest. Sansa nodded, still tense. "I appreciate this, but maybe I should just call Liam..." Or find an alley full of homeless bums, like I'm used to. Talking about her feeding habits would be mortifying, so she kept quiet.

There was nothing magical or thrilling about taking advantage of those with nowhere to go. Gabe insisted it was a necessary result of his exile from the Camarilla, but Sansa had felt filthy after every meal. Looking down on eyes that reflected pleasure after she fed from them. Forcing herself upon them... having to swab the neck with disinfectant before partaking... It had been at least a year before she'd become accustomed to the routine, but she never enjoyed it.

She started as Rod walked them up to his building, blinking sharply to bring herself out of her reverie. She didn't even know what he'd said in reply to her comment about Liam, but they were still heading up to his flat.

[Rod Stafford]

"Oh, no."

Rod froze at the foot of the stairs. He glanced up at the front door, and then at the windows, they were aglow, framing shadows, and oozing the low throb of bass. There were voices, lots of them, and laughter. He retreated a step, and-

"Woah! Steady, bud!"

Rod narrowly avoided toppling a tall lanky fellow armed with crates of beer. It was Sully, his housemate. Weaving hastily past the couple, he bounced up the stone steps and deposited his heavy burden on the floor. Sully was, despite appearances, a fitness fanatic who just happened to be cursed with a twiglet for a body, as well as a comedy nose, and a disgusting overabundance of personality. He was the sort who thrived on laughter, which was fortunate because he'd just bleached his faux hawk, and now he was shining a wide glossy grin his way. The grin was not returned.

"What the hell's going on here?"

"They're renovating Tootsies, mate," explained Sully, who, upon detecting Rod's hostility, switched to his business voice, "Abbie and Sarah invited their lot over. Alan's here... Mark... Rich, Vinnie, and Sconehead."

"I don't believe this..." Rod took Sansa by the hand and led her inside.

"Mate, if I'd have known - Sully, by the way - mate, you don't normally... you should've said something, I mean. Mate?"

The music was so loud he felt it in his chest. His grip on Sansa tightened. It was a clear run to the staircase, but they were ambushed by Abbie, who appeared from the living room with her best friend, Jacob's Creek. She leaned against the doorframe with a clumsy thud, the blow cushioned by a mountain of crimson curls, and looking very much like the cat that got the cream, she said:

"Rod, who's your friend?"

[Sansa]

"Sansa," she offered, giving the redhead a friendly wave. She bobbed her head a little to the beat of the music and grinned up at Rod. "Looks like you're not missing out in tequila after all."

The warmth and laughter around her seemed to loosen the tension in her muscles, and she perked up, looking past the curious woman into the living room where other people were talking and carrying on. "Doesn't Rod bring many girls over?"

[Rod Stafford]

"Yes, I am, and no, I don't. Now, come on!" Rod said, irritably. He started up the stairs but was stopped dead in his tracks. Sansa held fast, anchoring him to the spot. She gave him a sweet smile.

"Who are you talking to?"

A new face appeared. Sarah. She was a squat and formidable young lady with bare feet and a mighty cleavage. One curious glance at Rod and his companion from over her thick-rimmed glasses prompted a casual "Oh. Well, that answers that question."

"Sansa, we- what?"

"Yes, and I believe you both owe me a tenner," chirped Abbie.

"Wait, what question?"

"I'm skint 'til next Friday. You know that."

"Mate, it's one thing you don't bring anyone home, but you don't even look-"

"Sully!?"

"Don't worry, Rod. I knew," said Abbie, sagely, "Not with that walk."

"Oh, we can tell by someone's walk now, can we?"

"But the jury's still out on you and your trotters, Sarah."

Sully wisely escaped. And under the cover of Abbie's machine gun laughter, Rod gave Sansa's hand a squeeze, she looked up.

"Sansa... please."

[Sansa]

She smiled up at Rod, and nodded. "It was lovely to meet you all." Sansa waved again, and then latched onto his arm as he quickly pulled her up the stairs. Someone behind them made a quip about him acting a bit too eager, and then he was shutting the door to his bedroom behind them.

She let go of his arm and wrapped hers around her body, hugging herself as he took a few steps away from her. "Don't tell me I'm the only girl you've ever had spend the night." She was thinking back to the day they'd met, though the sleepover had been quite innocent as far as she could remember.

[Rod Stafford]

Rod paused, took a deep breath to steady his nerves, and then went about making all the neccessary preparations. Soft lighting. Curtains drawn. He draped his jacket over a chair and brushed out the creases. His tie was snapped off. His breathing was shallow. He was sweating. Besides his writing desk there was a stack of folded newspapers, ready for recycling. He took one and unfurled some of its pages across the bed and floor. After taking a moment to scrutinise the scene at range, he fumbled loose his shirt and discarded it. Only then did Sansa recieve his attention.

"Take a seat on the bed, please."

Hands clasped in thought, he zeroed in on a rucksack at the foot of his bed and rummaged noisily through its contents.

[Sansa]

His actions only served to increase her anxiety, until, that is, he took off his shirt. Sansa sat gingerly on the bed, newsprint crackling beneath her rear, and regarded him dubiously as he dug about for God knows what.

"Rod. What the hell are you doing?"

[Rod Stafford]

"Plating up."

When he rose, he had something in his hand; a shaft of wood twelve inches in length, sharpened into a fine point. It was a stake. When he took a seat next to her, he noticed Sansa had turned rigid, and what remaining colour had drained from her face. Maybe a more compassionate man would've acknowledged her fear and sought some way to put her mind at ease. Rod afforded her no such luxury. Instead, he coiled his free arm slowly around her back and clamped his hand upon her shoulder, tight to control the tremble in his fingers. Their eyes met and he spoke softly.

"I will give you fifteen seconds. Just... one second more," the tip of the stake was pressed firmly against her chest, "Sansa, I want you to know... this isn't for you. You're a loaded gun. The safety is off. Just... do it."

Counting his breaths, Rod found a spot on the opposite wall and focused all of his attention upon it, like it was the most important thing in the world.

[Sansa]

She wasn't sure why she hadn't leapt through the window or broken his arm at the first sight of the stake, but perhaps the old trust she'd built with him made her hesitate. Once she understood what he was saying, Sansa relaxed a tiny fraction.

The stake and the newspaper was just insulting. What did he think she was, a crazed animal? And as she looked into his eyes she saw that yes, that was exactly what he thought, and another tiny sliver of her heart died. She licked her suddenly dry lips, and her fangs extended as the pulse of his blood beckoned to her Beast.

If she had any choice she would have refused in disgust, but he was there and she was in no condition to go stumbling out into the night, and her hand tentatively touched his chest (he flinched) and traveled up to his collarbone and then shoulder and she leaned forward until her nose touched his neck and she exhaled against his skin -

There was a knock at the door and then it opened, Abbie poking her head in. "Someone's at the door for you, Rod - oh! ...Sorry?" Rod and Sansa separated as though they had been yanked apart, and Sansa turned her head so her long hair mostly hid her face. Abbie took in the newspaper scattered underneath them with a look that spoke volumes.

[Rod Stafford]

"Abbie!"

Rod was up like a shot, rigidly pacing the room as if that's what he'd been doing all along, half-naked. In his panic, he'd dropped the stake, but one carefully placed footstep sent it rolling under the bed and out of sight. What a sight they made. Sansa looked coy for all the wrong reasons; Rod looked undressed, also, for all the wrong reasons; and Abbie didn't know where to look for all the right reasons. Then, finally recalling her words, Rod retrieved his shirt from the floor and quickly made for the nearest exit.

"For me? Someone, you say. The door... at this time of night. Good gracious. Well, I... I... I'll go see them... at the door then, shall I?"

Fighting a losing battle with his buttons, he stepped out into the corridor and was able to shake off his bewilderment long enough for him to remind Sansa to stay put. And then he was gone.

[Sansa]

She sat awkwardly there on the bed, newspaper underneath, as Rod zipped out the door and thundered down the stairs. Looking up she found Abbie still gawking, and offered her an embarrassed smile. "He's got a bit of a kink."

"I guess so," the redhead said, having the decency to also look a bit uncomfortable. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt."

"No, no, it's ok. Don't worry about it. Actually, if you don't mind closing the door and coming over here?" Sansa scattered Rod's carefully laid papers off to the ground, leaving a spot for the other woman, who obediently did as directed, Sansa's Presence leaving her little choice in the matter.

[Rod Stafford]

When Rod descended the stairs he noticed the house was much quieter than before, gone was both the music and laughter. He paused at the living room, where a quivering cluster of bodies was packed up against the window, whispering with excitement. Sully was at the front door, talking to somone, hugging himself against the evening chill. The low tone in his voice and the frequent shifting of weight from foot to foot betrayed his anxiety. And when he noticed his fellow housemate, he looked relieved and promptly fell back from the front line. Rod was greeted by a tall imposing man in uniform.

"Mister Stafford, I am Constable Redmayne. I apologise for the disturbance but this is a matter of some urgency."

The name was highly appropriate, given the police officer's appearance; he was a large bearded Scotsman with bright ginger hair. Rod was quick to spot that his gaze was not so much on him as it was the scenery behind him. He was feeling frustrated and impatient, and wanted to be rid of the latest nuisance as quickly as possibly, but being no stranger to deception, he played his part with aplomb.

"Oh?" he said, with a note of concern, "Whatever may be the problem, officer?"

"You were present at the Horse Guards stadium this evening, were you not, sir?"

"Indeed I was."

"And at ten fifteen you left in the company of a young woman."

"Well, I-"

"You were spotted, with the same woman, coming out of St. James's Park, where you both got in the same taxi."

"Wait, you followed me?"

Rod glanced outside, searching up and down the street. Constable Redmayne climbed a step closer, forcing him to retreat inside, and continued:

"We have been informed you arrived here with a woman matching our description: brown hair, blue eyes, slim, about five foot seven..."

"What's this about?" Rod asked, spearing Sully with a glare, and then, irritably, back to the policeman, "What is it you want?"

"Sir, we have reason to believe the woman you brought here tonight is a wanted criminal, believed to be extremely dangerous. And under the Public Order Act of 1986 we wish to search these premises, and can do that with or without your consent, sir."

"No, you can't do this," Rod said, unfolding his arms, ready.

"Rod, come on, mate, just do-"

"And who is this 'We' you're talking about?" snapped Rod, shrugging off Sully's hand, "Are we in the presence of royalty?"

"Sir, please stand aside."

"Rod, please!"

"Sully, phone the local station - check with the police! Do it!"

There was an urgency in Rod's voice, and a desperation in his eyes, as he pleaded with his friend. A second man appeared, also in police uniform, he climbed the stairs to assist, but Rod side-stepped to block his entry and clamped his hands on the flanking walls. In an instant, he was wrestling with both of them, hands flailing to find purchase on their uniforms and bring them down. His efforts were in vain, and from under the scuffle, his voice rang out in fear.

"Sully! There are no police cars outside!"

[Sansa]

Abbie was soft and compliant as Sansa brushed her coppery curls away from her neck, gasping as fangs pierced skin, but her moan turned to one of pleasure as the Kiss was given. Sansa felt instantly rejuvenated as the warm iron taste of blood filled her mouth, pulling Abbie closer and drinking deeply.

Not too much, a faint thought suggested, but the Beast was starving after nights of being barely fed. Sansa pulled back slightly, then slammed back into the other woman, knocking her back on the comforter and straddling her as she sucked from her neck.

A single drop of blood fell on the bed.

[Rod Stafford]

There was a scream from upstairs, a long piercing cry of fear. It was Sarah. Then an almighty crash, followed by the sound of harsh voices and heavy boots coming through the kitchen. Redmayne was on the move, bounding up the stairs with his accomplice in tow. Rod scrambled to his feet. In the living room, people shrieked at the sight of the intruders, blinded by their lights. Sully had followed the others upstairs, calling out to Sarah, and Abbie. The ceiling quaked from the footsteps thundering above.

Dazed, Rod pursued the trail of chaos, "Sansa?"

"Here! Here!" came Redmayne's voice, "This one's a witness."

When Rod arrived at his bedroom, he caught one last glimpse of Sarah before she was killed; she was huddled in the corner, a flicker of confusion on her puffy wet face. Then, with the cough of a supressor, the ancient wallpaper was dashed with blood. Sully cried out, and Rod had just enough time to react, barrelling headlong into his friend as two more shots pierced the wall where he once stood. They fell in a heap in the narrow hallway outside. Again, Redmayne called for reinforcements. Sansa was alone.

[Sansa]

Sansa had barely noticed when the door had opened again, but Sarah's scream snapped her out of her reverie quickly enough. She hurriedly licked at the wound she'd created on Abbie's neck to close it, and rolled off of the dazed woman as Sarah gathered her breath for some more shouting.

Abbie was slowly trying to sit up, a goofy smile on her face when the bedroom door banged open once more, knocking into Sarah and sending her against the wall. Sansa was suddenly aware of everything - screams downstairs, Rod calling her name as he came up the stairs behind the two policemen who were directly outside the room.

"This one's a witness," barked one of the policemen in a Scottish accent, and Sarah's brains were splattered across the wall with no fanfare. Sansa threw herself at the man, her hand on the gun before he could compensate and wresting it from his grasp as he had already started aiming at the bed and Abbie.

He was inexplicably grinning, and Auspex barely warned her in time as his other hand tried to shove a wooden stake into her. Sansa vaulted backward, gun still in her hand. "Hide!" she barked at Abbie, who managed to roll off the bed and just out of sight as the second man peppered the room with gunfire. Sansa grunted as several hit her, but the damage was minimal. She drew on the strength that her recent feed had lent her and used Celerity to dart away from Abbie's minimal shelter to try drawing fire away from her.

The second man was occupied with a scuffle in the hallway, but the ginger had anticipated Sansa's move and met her by the dresser, stake in one hand and a machete in the other. The stake jammed into her ribs, piercing her lung, and she twisted away, the machete buried into her shoulder rather than cutting through her neck.

[Rod Stafford]

On the floor, Rod tore himself free of Sully's writhing limbs before he succumbed to the same fever of panic. Fear was a contagious malady, and even as he struggled to his feet, it felt like falling. Every sense flared at once, transforming the fully orchestrated horror into a thick soup, in which myriad voices swam and drowned. And as Rod watched the armed assassin step into the corridor and raise his weapon, only one instinct made it to the surface, stronger and more vivid than any other: he did not want to die.

"Berstan aeledfyr!"

The pistol backfired, mutilating the assassin's thumb. He dropped the smoking husk of his weapon, and backtracked, nursing a bloody stump. Rod charged his would-be murderer and sent him careening over the banister and onto the staircase below. Fortunately, for both him and Rod, his landing was softened by the body his colleague, and both tumbled down the rest of the stairs in a chaotic heap. The fourth of the intruders, who had narrowly avoided being pancaked by the pair, lifted a submachine gun to the ceiling. In full retreat, Rod protected his face from the geysers of plaster and wood errupting about his feet, and ran into the bathroom, where he joined Sully in a chorus of "Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!"

[Sansa]

She tore at her attacker's throat with her hands as he yanked on the machete which was stuck in her humerus. He had a kevlar wrap around his neck, frustrating her efforts so she settled for punching him as hard as she could in his chest.

He staggered back, the machete in his hand dripping with her vitae. Sansa screamed as she pulled the stake out of her side, doubling over a bit, and then she whipped it toward him, throwing it like a knife. The blunt end hit him in the shoulder with a loud thud. He was going to draw his back up pistol out of his ankle holster.

Sansa darted around him, still strong enough to be faster than the human eye could track, and slammed into his back, sending him crashing onto the bed. He was quick to react, already rolling to a position where he could attack once more, but the curtains of the nearby window snagged his right arm and for a moment he was pulling on it, knees on the bed, outlined by the ambient night light from the street.

She hurled herself at him, knocking him backwards out the window in a crash of broken glass.

[Rod Stafford]

"Sarah. Abbie. They- Oh, god."

Sully slumped against the wall; words tumbling over parched lips, frayed with breathless anxiety. The bathroom was blue with moonlight, which glistened and swam in Sully's wild eyes as he searched for some glimmer of salvation. His eyes fell on Rod for the first time, and his face sank, raw with grief.

"They killed her, Rod, like an animal. Oh, Jesus Christ!"

On the other side of the door, came the uniform drum of footsteps upon the stairs. Rod sunk under the burden of his housemate's weight, his spindly legs having surrendered the battle altogether, and promptly led him to the window. Sully was dumped unceremoniously upon the toilet seat while Rod worked the old wooden frame out of atrophy, and by the time the window groaned open, their attackers were surely upon them. The night air stuck him like a knife. In the distance, a stampede of hysterical youths, whom he recognised as his former guests, were vanishing up the street. It was with handfuls of flesh and cloth, and a sudden explosion of scuffling, that Rod threaded his friend through the window and onto the roof of the shed outside. And then he was almost upended by the pull of Sully's vice grip.

"Rod, come on!" said Sully, there was confusion upon his long, tear-stained face, "Let's go!"

"Get off me, Sully. I'll be right behind you."

"But-"

"Sully!" Rod cried out, as he heard the bathroom door burst open behind him. He tore himself free at last, and Sully, released to the will of gravity, tumbled into the garden. When Rod turned, he was faced with the glaring spotlight of some unsightly weapon, and braced himself. He was too late.

[Sansa]

The not-policeman still had the presence of mind to unload his back up piece into the window and brickwork of the building as he fell to the ground, which placed him firmly into a category of 'terrifyingly competent.' Sansa caught another bullet in her backside as she flipped back over the bed, but she literally didn't have time to worry about that at the moment.

She knew what was going on in the hallway, and as Abbie was still hunkered down beside the bed and the threat in the room was gone, Sansa burst out of the bedroom. She leapt onto the back of the man pointing his machine gun into the bathroom and ripped off his throat protection.

He went down in a heap under her weight and velocity, and she tore into his neck with bloodied fangs, sucking out the warm life giving liquid.

[Rod Stafford]

Bullets barked in protest, stitching holes into the bath tub and shattering tiles all the way to the ceiling. Rod fled out of the line of fire and pressed himself flush against the wall, where he watched, racked with both horror and relief, as Sansa tore her way though the intruder's neck. The gunfire stopped. Careful not to disturb the vampire as she indulged in her sangineous feast, Rod took a tentative knee and prized the submachine gun from twitching fingers. Its grip was warm against his palm; warm, and slick with sweat; this guy was a rookie. But a rookie what?

Denied time to ponder the question, Rod snapped upright with a start as another stranger staggered into view at the end of the corridor. He sported a grizzly beard, and a weathered cap which obscured his eyes, grey tangles of hair sucked upon his jacket like greasy snakes, and his clothing betrayed a throwback from the punk era; all sun-bleached jeans and heavy clunking boots. Still dazed from having been flattened by his murderous comrade, the stranger advanced a noisy step, then slumped against the wall to take a shot at the vampire.

It was a technique he'd used many times before, one, in fact, he'd used only earlier that evening to escape Sansa's werewolf babysitter; there were no words required, just the ability to refract light in an unchanging medium. An impossible feat, if you were to ask astronomer Willebrord Snellius, but not for a willworker. The strange ramshackle assasin raised his weapon, a compact crossbow, no bigger than a pistol, and fired a bolt into the floorboards with a reverberating twang. In the time it took the intruder to recover from his misfire, Rod took aim with the surprisingly heavy submachine gun, and gave the trigger a squeeze.

Click-click.

Their eyes met for an instant and then the intruder was gone, already reloading his crossbow as he dodged into the bedroom. Rod followed in hot pursuit and, unaccustomed to the checking of one's corners, became the recipient of a heavy blow to the back of the head. He stumbled forward sluggishly, and face-planted beside the bed, where, from his unique perspective, he spotted Abbie; her empty eyes glimmered in the gloom.

[Sansa]

Sansa lifted her head as Rod shoved past her, all pretense at neatness forgotten as warm arterial blood ran down her chin. Her eyes stared at the space where a window had been, her wounds already healing as her vitae was replenished, and sounds filtered in through her ears.

Footsteps on the first floor, one leg dragging, but ultimately heading out the front door. A thump and a soft noise of body hitting carpet in the bedroom.

She was standing in the doorway behind Rod's attacker before he'd even moved from hitting Rod in the head, but he was quick, and as she put her hands out to snap his neck he was turning and shoving his crossbow at her torso. Sansa shouted "No!" with all the Presence her fed state could muster and his finger froze on the trigger.

She slammed her hands down, breaking his arm, and then threw him across the bedroom into Rod's wardrobe, which exploded into a mess of wooden pieces and tangled clothing. Sansa crouched over Rod's body, heard his heart still beating, and then launched herself at the intruder to finish the job.

[Rod Stafford]

The sounds of violence provided little more than a watery backdrop for Rod, as the cold snap of reality took root in his bones, and blossomed, filling him with grief. Abbie used to stare at him like that from across the living room, he noticed everytime, and everytime she disguised it with a well-timed flick of her curls before returning her attention to the television. His cheek pressed against the thinning carpet, where he waited for that familiar flick of hair, and the coy averted gaze. But it never came. Then something else caught his attention. Rod blinked away his sorrow, and snatched at it from under the bed.

For all her ravenous enthusiasm, Sansa's charge propelled her backwards into the wall. Rod then came crashing down upon the man, as he lied broken amongst the fragments of cupboard, and buried the stake deep into his chest. The horrified shriek sent tremors through the wooden stump. Rod held fast, hissing through his teeth, poised over his victim like a hawk over its prey.

"Traitor!" cried the man, spitting blood onto his chin, "You are a traitor to your own kind."

He had a thick Russian accent, and moaned pitifully when the stake scraped against his ribs. His death was inevitable but, as Rod was keen to remind him, his suffering was not over yet. And although his breathing was ragged, when at last he spoke again, his voice remained surprisingly strong.

"Dere's a cull coming, boy, and you have sided... vith de beasts. Argh!"

"I am on no-one's side!" Rod spat, "You killed my friends!"

"Your friends... dey vere just collateral damage..." his words were starting to rasp at the back of his throat, he smiled: "Deir blood is on your hands."

A roar, wild and full of rage, errupted from Rod as he tore the stake from the Russian's chest and plunged it into his throat, silencing his last gargled scream.

[Sansa]

Sansa stared at Rod, her eyes wild and her mouth open, panting as the Beast urged her to go and take more blood. Blood. Rivers of it, pouring into her until she was full to bursting and then taking in even more until the Beast was all that remained -

She blinked hard, biting her own lip with a sharp fang as the Russian slumped to the ground, his heartbeat silent. The only sound was the thump of Rod's pulse, and Sansa turned toward where Abbie had been hiding.

"No!" she cried out, falling to her knees beside the young woman, rolling her lifeless body over and seeing the bullet wound in her back. There was a hole in the brickwork of the outside wall, where a bullet had bunched through the mortar. "No, no." Guilt rose up like a tsunami, and then anger, and she stood up, looking out the broken window to where the 'policeman' had fallen. There was nothing on the ground except broken glass and a smear of blood.

[Rod Stafford]

In the dying moments of his murderous rage, Rod sucked hungrily at the air, as if it could possibly quench the inferno within. Blood was everywhere; on the walls, on the floor, on his hands, arms, and face - he was robed in the afterbirth of his kill. His hands started to tremble, and it spread like a fever throughout his body, until the ghastly corpse was drained from his sight, awash with glistening watercolours. Rod rolled off the body and slumped against his bed, where he silently wiped his eyes dry. Sansa was still with him, and after a moment, he acknowledged her presence. When he spoke, his voice was hollow and hoarse.

"Sansa, what happened to you? Gabriel, I mean. How did he die?"

[Sansa]

She tore her eyes away from the window, and stared blankly at Rod. Then she shook her head slightly, her shoulders slumping a bit. "He was attacked in our flat while I was out. Two men, both locals from the accents."

Sansa knelt beside Abbie's body and gently closed her eyes. "Mortals, that is, not vampires. I killed one of them, the one that staked him. The other..." She paused, remembering forcing her blood into the terrified man's mouth. "The other I let go."

[Rod Stafford]

He nodded in understanding.

"It follows you around, doesn't it? This world of ours; it clings to you like a second skin, and no matter where you go..."

The Russian's cold blood was dripping from the tip of his nose. He dragged his hands over his face, which only served to coat it with an even spread of crimson, and cradled his chin upon steepled fingers. He shook his head.

"No matter where you go."

Downstairs, there was the sudden sound of footsteps; a firm and steady beat upon the wooden floor. Rod was immediately on his feet, and one look at Sansa confirmed that she heard it, too. The footsteps stopped, and the house was eerily silent, and then they resumed, softly, up the carpeted stairs.

[Sansa]

Sansa tensed up, her enhanced senses working overtime as the newcomer continued up the stairs. She couldn't smell the metal of any firearms, but that didn't mean that this was a friend coming over to help hide the bodies.

Her thoughts tracked sideways to Liam Dunsirn, and if he'd be any help with this mess she was in, but she quickly squashed those ideas in favor of the more immediate threat of who is that and what do they want. She celerated to the side of the door, just out of sight and ready for just about anything to poke it's head inside.

[Mr. Plainview]

It was the sound of the finest Italian leather upon the most threadbare of dusty floors; an abrasive clash of standards, like sea bass and cola, or caviar and french fries. The pace was casual, painfully so, of footsteps not belonging to a house fresh with corpses. Louder they became, until in the open doorway appeared a man in a beige three-piece suit. He paused for a moment to scrutinise, with evident distaste, the body on the bathroom floor. Then, with a smart quarter turn he eased his weight onto a walking cane, and found Rod sitting amongst the bedroom chaos.

"I hope you don't mind. I let myself in. The back door, you see, it..." he paused to run a finger down the wooden doorframe, after inspecting it for dust, he gave a thin, reptillian smile, "Wasn't quite there. Mr. Stafford."

[Rod Stafford]

"Mr. Plainview!" Rod uttered, stunned.

One quick glance at Sansa, and one almost imperceptible shake of the head, was enough to withhold her impending pounce. In the presence of a gentleman so handsomely dressed, Rod found his own presentation sorely lacking and absently fumbled with the unbuttoned cuffs of his shirt, decorating them with bloody fingerprints.

"This is a surprise!"

[Sansa]

Sansa took a step sideways so she wasn't right by the doorframe, and then pulled away from the wall slightly to get a better view of the newcomer. Something about him reminded her of an old memory... Roland Salisbury, the current Prince of London. She hadn't seen him in years, but the air around this Mr. Plainview and how he held himself was very similar.

Not a Kindred, though. Sansa became conscious of her very bedraggled appearance (blood dripping off her long hair, down her chin and neck and soaking her clothes), but stood tall anyway.

[Mr. Plainview]

"How reassuring," he replied, with cutting insincerity, "After all, it would not do for someone in my position to be... predictable."

Thereupon, he stepped inside, and studied his surroundings vague curiosity. When he spotted the blood-drenched body on the floor, he gave the barest roll of the eyes. On his second pass of the room, his inspection stopped with the vampire, which prompted at last the barest flicker of interest. He gave her a smile like creased paper.

"Miss Martin. A pleasure, I'm sure."

[Sansa]

Sansa raised an eyebrow at being addressed by name. "What position is that, exactly?"

Her eyes tracked to the window where the cool night air was blowing inside, and then she turned her head toward Rod. "Your friend you helped out the window is probably calling the real police right now." If he didn't get killed in the alley by the man I threw out the window. A lot of defenestration going on tonight.

[Mr. Plainview]

"Oh, I'm counting on it."

His hand dipped inside his jacket to retrieve a gold pocket watch. It rested gingerly upon his finger tips while he watched over it. Then, using the tip of his cane, he gave the floor a light rat-tat. More footsteps upon the stairs, heavier, faster. Although preoccupied with his watch, Mr. Plainview could practically taste the sudden apprehension in the air, and sought to assuage the doubting pair.

"Friends of mine," he said, and on cue, three suited men strode past the bedroom, "For all its splatterhouse charm, I don't imagine the Met would look too fondly upon this particular mise en scène."

[Rod Stafford]

"You mean... you're here to help us?"

There was a quavering note of nervous relief in Rod's voice, and it sickened him to recognise that in himself. He was not six years old, and had not been caught with his hand in the cookie jar - there were corpses on the floor. It seemed Mr. Plainview had elected to not answer his question. When Sansa spoke, concern for Sully surfaced from his thoughts, which simmered like a broth in the aftermath of the violence. He had to believe he was alright. Mr. Plainview's associates were at work in the bathroom, their words a murmur through the sturdy Victorian walls; Plainview himself could very well have been waiting for a bus, judging by his body language; Sansa carried the blood-soaked look off well, which was more alarming than it perahps should've been, but it left Rod feeling at something of a handicap in dealing with the situation. From London to Chicago, and back again, he was no stranger to drama and death, but it didn't get easier with experience.

In his shell-shocked state, Rod at least had the presence of mind to establish for Sansa one or two of the myriad facts absent from the equation:

"Mr. Plainview is an..." he paused to select the right word, "Acquaintance of mine. We've met each other before. Once. Today."

[Sansa]

"That's reassuring," she said quietly, her body language stating that she was not reassured at all.

"I should go." She looked down at her clothes, and then up at the ceiling, a little sigh escaping. Mr. Plainview couldn't stop her from just vaulting out the window, but then was she going to use Celerity all the way back to the Dunsirn flat? She would be back to needing to feed by the time she got there.

Of course, there was the matter of the night having tracked past it's midway point, inexorably drawing them toward sunrise.

[Mr. Plainview]

"Indeed you should, Miss Martin. But first, take off your clothes. You too, Mr. Stafford, let's not be shy."

If there was any duplicitous humour in such an outlandish request, Mr. Plainview hid it masterfully. In fact, judging by his tone, he may very well have asked for the time, but that he was still studiously inspecting his pocket watch made such a fantasy highly unlikely.

"Also, towel yourselves off on something, if you'd be so kind. Let's not be trailing gore throughout the house. You have thirty seconds."

[Rod Stafford]

There was but a moment's hesitance before Rod obliged the peculiar request. His ruined shirt was cast aside without ceremony and with an inelegant hop he disposed of each of his favourite shoes. Sansa was immobile, and looked to be on the verge of violence or protest - it was difficult to tell. After a swift trip to his dresser, he offered her one of his towels wearing a look that could only be described as deeply apologetic.

"Sansa, please. He knows what he's doing. We have to trust him if we're going to get out of this mess unscathed. Besides, I'm sure we don't have to go in the nack. Do we?"

In that moment, Mr. Plainview must've felt Rod's gaze pleading with him, and sighed:

"You may keep your modesty intact."

[Sansa]

Sansa complied with the request, peeling off her blood soaked shirt and shimmying out of her jeans, her sandals left neatly on the carpet. Standing in a mismatched bra and thong, she used the towel to dry off her hair as best she could.

She could think of a lot of different things to say but in the end said nothing, suffering the indignity in silence. Sansa felt a little warm thinking of Rod's eyes on her ass, but didn't look at him to verify what she imagined as she ran the towel over her hair again.

[Mr. Plainview]

"Five... four..." Mr. Plainview paused and listened intently, there were sirens approaching, "They're improving!"

This appeared to please him. The pocket watched snapped shut and was replaced inside his jacket. When at last he took stock of the all-but-naked couple before him, he frowned, although less bloody, they still made a rather frightful sight. There was movement behind him; one of his colleagues, a goateed cockney in a navy blue suit, cleared his throat for attention.

"All is in order as per your request, Mr. Plainview. Me an' the boys- I mean, the team is ready to depart. Sir."

"Very good. Return to headquarters, Mr. O'Connell. You will be debriefed shortly. Now, where was I? Ah, yes."

Once his trio of snappily-dressed associates had taken their leave, Mr. Plainview returned his attention to Rod, Sansa, and then the bedroom at large. First he gave them both a quick once over, head to foot, then apparently satisfied, he scrutinised his surroundings down the length of his nose, as if he were in deep contemplation about the colour scheme. Again, using the tip of his walking cane, he tapped the floor twice, and the room shattered. All around them the bedroom fell apart in large shards; the ceiling, the walls, the furniture, and then, with a soft hiss, the shards disintegrated into a fine grain. When it struck the floor, the shower of sand simply fell through it, and all that was left behind was Rod's bedroom, untouched by destruction and death, exactly as it had been found. Mr. Plainview gave them both a look of pained consolation:

"I grant you, that was rather Nanny McPhee of me. Shall we?"

And with that, he left the room.

[Rod Stafford]

Given Mr. Plainview's unfathomable composure, Rod had expected something to happen, but he had not been prepared for that. He spun, stunned to find his bedroom completely restored to normality; gone were the fragments of wood, in their place there stood a fine wardrobe; gone were the bullet holes and the discarded weapons; gone was the blood; gone were the bodies of Abbie, Sarah, and the Russian - and gone was Rod's concern. After a couple of rotations, he stopped to share an astonished glance with Sansa, and without a word, the surprised gaping mouth stretched into a delighted child-like grin, and he dashed out after Mr. Plainview in nought but his underwear. He caught him on the staircase, given his decidedly leisurely pace, and negotiated each step with all the barefooted grace of a bounding dog.

"Mr. Plainview! I have to say it was a real pleasure to see you at work, sir! That was the finest display of co-location I have ever seen!"

[Sansa]

The transformation of Rod's room was nothing short of breathtaking. But once the two men left the room, Rod following Mr. Plainview like a teenage groupie, Sansa realized that her bloodied clothes and sandals had disappeared as well. Towel still in hand she walked out and down the stairs, catching up with the pair as they walked out the back door into the garden.

"I was thinking of borrowing some of your roommates' clothes," she stated, in case anyone cared what she thought. "Gallivanting around London in my knickers isn't exactly my cup of tea."

[Mr. Plainview]

Such a display of adulation was, in Mr. Plainview's opinion, unbecoming of a gentleman. However, despite his best efforts to ignore him, so effusive was Rod's praise, that he couldn't resist a thin sliver of a smile. It had been, after all, a rather excellent piece of work. His good mood was to be shortlived, he realised, upon spotting his associates engaged in a scuffle with a young man. When he was at last pinned against the wall, and silenced, Mr. Plainview addressed his lieutenant.

"Mr. O'Connell, I believe you were instructed to return to headquarters."

"This sleeper 'as gone phoned the police, 'asn't 'e?" grunted Mr. O'Connell, as he struggled to keep his hand clamped firmly over the man's mouth, "Nah 'e's seen us an' everythink!"

When Rod saw what was going on, he advanced, his face set in stone. The slap of a walking cane against his chest stopped him in his tracks, and before he could lend voice to that damning glare, Mr. Plainview interjected:

"Here you have a choice, Mr. Stafford. Your friend-"

"Sully."

"Your friend, Mr. Sully here, is a witness to all that has befallen you and this household tonight. My... colleagues and I have gone to great lengths to eliminate all incriminating evidence relating to these events. The question is this: do you trust Mr. Sully enough to protect you and Miss Martin when the authorities arrive? Or, if you prefer, we can adjust your friend's memories of this tragic night, permanently."

Hereupon, Mr. Sully started to really put up a struggle and his muffled cries threatened to alert the neighbours. Rod looked troubled as he considered his captive roommate, but time was no longer on their side, for it seemed police sirens were closing in from every direction. Now, for the first time, there was a sense of urgency in Mr. Plainview's voice:

"Mr. Stafford!"

[Rod Stafford]

Rod bristled to see his friend handled like that, especially when it was by a pack of such glorified thugs. What he must've been thinking: his home raided, his housemates murdered, and now this, his friend, reduced to his underwear, in the company of suited men intent on covering the whole thing up. His head was pressed flush with the brick wall, scraping his cheek, and in the waning moonlight, his red wet eyes spoke volumes. In the end, the choice was obvious.

"He was drunk when he called the police, and was mistaken about the shootings. Abbie and Sarah left with the others but they just... never came back. He has never before seen me, or Sansa, in his life," Rod swallowed hard, "Sorry, mate."

"Sounds good enough for me!"

Evidently pleased with the news, one of Mr. O'Connell's friends clasped Sully about the jaw, and gave him a headbutt. The back of his head made a deep thud against the brick wall, and he slumped to the ground, dazed. The thug who'd attacked him promptly found himself on the recieving end of a right hook and collapsed into O'Connell's arms. Rod, who looked ready to follow up with a haymaker, was consequently restrained by the third of Mr. Plainview's suited understudies, while Mr. Plainview himself was hissing like a boiling kettle amidst the fray.

"Stop it, both of you, for God's sake! He was just doing his job! Miss Martin, please get in the shed!"

[Sansa]

Sansa didn't know what to think, but really, if they were going to kill her then they were going about it in a weird way. She stepped nonchalantly into the shed, looking around as she did so. It was a bog standard garden shed, complete with a composty smell and empty flower pots, but she didn't have time to fully enjoy her new surroundings before everyone else was piling in behind her.

Rod was still shoving the others, intent on getting their hands off him, and Sansa looked at him from the other side of the small shed as the door was pulled closed. She was surprised to find that she felt a little nervous, with what she assumed were mages shoved in so close around her that she had an elbow in her ribs and someone was standing on her foot.

[Mr. Plainview]

By a miracle, the entire party managed to squeeze inside the dank little shed, but not without a substantial amount of pushing and shoving. The wail of police sirens built to a climax and the neighbouring house was suddenly ablaze with blue flashing light, and with not a second to spare, Mr. Plainview closed the rickety wooden door. When it was reopened, the shed was filled with the glare of florescent lights, and the soft buzz of conversation. Out filed Mr. Plainview and his three associates into a large office; it had a high ceiling and stunk of freshly varnished floors, ranks of large oak desks divided the room into three rows of three, some were occupied by men and women who wore headsets and were only interested in the new arrivals long enough to give them a cursory glance. One glare at O'Connell and his boys sent them packing, and Mr. Plainview stepped aside to make way for Rod and his vampire friend.

"Mr. Stafford, if you'd be so kind as to refrain from attacking my staff, I'd be most grateful. Miss Martin, I have some questions to ask of you, so if you could please join me in my office."

[Rod Stafford]

Thankful though he was to be out of the cool night air, Rod became painfully aware of his own state of undress as he shuffled after Mr. Plainview. Regardless of his views on Sansa and her kind, there was no way he was going to leave her to the mercy of these people, whatever their plans. His office was at the end of the room, behind a heavy wooden door, where there was carpeting, leather chairs, bookshelves, and a fireplace - that this was Mr. Plainview's office came as no surprise to him whatsoever. Once inside, he sought refuge by fireplace, which was already crackling with warmth.

"What is it you want with Sansa?"

[Sansa]

Sansa's hair was still sticky with blood and her skin was stained with it, though the streaks where she'd wiped with the now absent towel were drying to a dark brown. She was conscious of her bare backside as she followed Rod into the office, but the people around her didn't even look.

She stood just inside the warmly decorated office, folding her arms in front of her chest out of displeasure not modesty. "I have been fairly patient with these shenanigans, so far," she said, though a person with Mr. Plainview's abilities could probably boil the vitae out of her body before she could cross a room. Maybe he would, too.

[Mr. Plainview]

On his desk stood an ornate decanter, from it Mr. Plainview poured himself a glass of scotch - it was telling when a man elected to decanted his scotch, a wholly unneccessary practice, except for what it actually said about the man himself. And that, he didn't mind, for in Mr. Plainview's line of work, appearances were everything. Hence, the scotch went unoffered to his guests.

"Have you, indeed," he said, with a thin, humourless smile, "You asked me earlier what it was I did, and now I will answer you: I am a caretaker, Miss Martin. In this case, that means I clean up your mess. Your turn."

He settled into the large wingback chair that sat behind his desk.

"Why were those men after you tonight?"

[Sansa]

"I have no idea," she said honestly, then thought for another moment. "My... partner was attacked at our flat a few nights ago." Her lips twisted but she took a deep breath and pushed through the stab of emotion. "The two humans who killed him were still there when I got home. I... returned the favor to the one who was responsible for his murder."

[Mr. Plainview]

It was more information than he'd anticipated, a veritable outpouring, in fact, compared to his expectations. And he lapped up every bit of it, so much so that he'd neglected his poor glass of scotch, a shortcoming he was swift to remedy. He studied Sansa from over his glass, she was surprisingly accomodating for a vampire - it was a thought that had the wheels of his mind turning.

"And are you aware of any other recent instances of vampires being targeted like this?"

[Sansa]

She shook her head, a crusty strand of hair falling in front of her eyes before she swept it back behind an ear. "I don't socialize much."

The understatement of the year. She might as well have crawled out from under a rock two days ago for as much as she was aware of Kindred politics or gossip. Roland was Prince, that was about it as far as her information went. Up until now it hadn't bothered her, but she was beginning to realize that Gabriel had placed her at a distinct disadvantage. He'd had good reasons, she figured, but it still... it was unsettling.

[Mr. Plainview]

"I see. Well then, allow me to illuminate you. Over the last three weeks, there has been a sharp increase in the number of vampire attacks across London. By which, I am referring to incidents in which vampires are the victims, of course. If we were to keep tabs on every instance in which one of your lot gets the munchies, well, our work hours would be highly unsociable indeed."

Affording himself a momentary reprieve, Mr. Plainview enjoyed another sip of scotch, but not before offering Sansa the most miniscule of toasts. So, she was an alienated vampire, much as he had suspected. What a boon to the institute she would be with the right amount of encouragement and, more crucially, the right friendly face. The glass was deposited on the desk to indicate she now had his full attention.

"These attacks are being carried out by a well co-ordinated and highly-organised group of hunters, of whom you encountered but a small fraction, I'm afraid. They specialise in hunting vampires - they know your weaknesses, your feeding patterns, and it seems they have a highly-sophisticated means of tracking you, too - if tonight is any indication."

[Sansa]

"Wonderful." She looked down at her near nakedness, and then back to the alcohol sipping Mr. Plainview. Rod, it appeared, was happy to warm himself at the fire and let them talk, or perhaps he just was afraid to interrupt the man who was obviously his superior or something, Sansa had no idea how mage hierarchy worked.

She had no idea how a lot of things worked, actually.

"I'm not sure what you want me to do with that information. They managed to track me when Rod did... something that allowed us to avoid a Garou's eyes and nose. Is it magic?"

[Mr. Plainview]

"Mr. Stafford is a fellow willworker, yes. You would be right to call it magic."

Mr. Plainview made certain he was quick to answer her questions, for the impression he was getting was of a woman who had never been propely inducted into her new world. That was cruelty, regardless of one's background - much like abandoning a domesticated animal to the mercy of the wild. He considered her words further, then frowned in thought.

"If these hunters are able to trace magic then there are even graver implications to consider - they may have enlisted the help of another supernatural."

There was a knock at the door. When it was opened, there stood Mr. O'Connell bearing in his arms a small mountain of clothes; a university student catalogue of tee shirts, sweatpants, hoodies, and trainers.

"Thought the lady could do wiv sam new ki', Mr. Plainview," he said, dumping the clothes upon his boss's desk, "An' Mr. Stafford, o' course. I fink I go' your measurements righ', Miss Sansa. Picked you aht a lavely little top wiv pink-"

"Thank you, Mr. O'Connell, you may go now."

When the nuisance was at last gone, Mr. Plainview visibly sagged with resignation, and he met Sansa's gaze, "Apologies."

[Sansa]

Sansa's mouth twitched, an urge to giggle bubbling up inside her caused by the sight of Mr. O'Connell and his fashion suggestions. She was fairly sure, however, that if she started laughing she wouldn't be able to stop, so worked hard to stop another episode of hysteria from occurring.

"It's okay," she said after a moment, and quickly crossed to the desk and pulled on the smaller pair of sweatpants. The lovely little top with pink writing on it (LONDON 2012 it proclaimed) was tugged over her head and smoothed down before Rod could even rouse himself from the warm hearth.

[Mr. Plainview]

"Miss Martin, there is one more thing to consider. The increasing number of attacks co-incides with the advent of these... olympic games. Our sources inform us there was an identical pattern in Athens, and later in Beijing, which suggests things will only get worse for you and your kin over the coming weeks."

Mr. Plainview strode from his seat and straightened his jacket. He crossed the room and stood by the door, indicating to his guests, in no uncertain terms, that it was time for them to take their leave.

"I would ask you to keep Mr. Stafford notified of any such incidents in the future, if you would be so kind. While we may not play for the same team, don't let that suggest we're not often on the same side. Thank you for your time, Miss Martin."

Again, the thin smile, but this time it came with an extended hand.

[Sansa]

She shook his hand automatically, a learned response to a politely offered hand. Sansa walked out of the office, Rod trailing behind reluctantly, and found herself in the large room full of desks and people who were much to busy to waste time looking at a disheveled person in sweats and trainers.

Sansa looked over her shoulder and saw Rod talking to Mr. Plainview. She tugged on her filthy hair, and wondered how angry Ewan Dunsirn was going to be if she showed up covered in dried blood.

[Rod Stafford]

Glad to be once again dressed on the right side of acceptable once again (although his t-shirt was an uncanny throwback to his admittedly looser sense of style, emblazoned with rainbow-coloured pony, it read: "Brohoof is magic!"), Rod no longer had that self-conscious Elephant Man kind of shuffle about him anymore, and he felt able to approach Mr. Plainview with some level of dignity - which was just as well, because he had to get close.

"There's one more thing you need to know," he muttered, "Gabriel Rodermark was staked."

And as the implication of his words took shape in Mr. Plainview's eyes, he left, closing the door behind him. Outside, he was barely afforded enough time to offer Sansa a sheepish glance before they were approached, this time by a blonde woman with an orange face and a quick step.

"Mr. Stafford, my name is Mrs. Thatcher, I am to show you to your new accomodation. Please, follow me."

[Sansa]

Sansa didn't want to be at Rod's mercy any more, but she followed him and the Oompa Loompa he was trailing out of the big room of desks and down some stairs and through a hallway and then they were out in the cool night air. She could smell honeysuckle, and while they walked she realized that they were somewhere on the Strand campus of Kings College.

No one seemed much interested in talking and she considered making a break for it, but something stopped her. Making an enemy of Mr. Plainview would probably be a bad idea, and he seemed to think she should stay with Rod for the immediate future. Not to mention if she was still being tracked by vampire hunters leading them straight to the Dunsirn's door would be fairly rude. As they entered some student housing, upscale but certainly with that college dorm feel, she felt for her mobile only to belatedly realize that it had been vanished along with her clothes and shoes.

[Rod Stafford]

It was starting to feel like a package holiday, what with being ushered around by perfect strangers, and it didn't help that the campus was so upmarket that it was almost a hotel. The foyer was blissfully empty, disturbed only by the soft clicking of shoes upon the tiled floor, and the elevator didn't stink of piss - that was when you knew it was a classy establishment. Mrs. Thatcher had explained en route that this was to be his new place of residence while he was with the college, partly because of his newly acquired position within it, and largely, he suspected, because his last home became the site of a massacre. Their guide was silent thereafter, and he was glad of it, for she oozed an intolerable mutton-dressed-as-lamb air of superiority - his people patience was wearing dangerously thin.

"Your room, Mr. Stafford. You can see yourself in, yes?" she handed him a key, considered Sansa for the briefest instant, and shrugged, "Anyway, good night."

Inside, they were greeted by a narrow living space with a sofa, coffee table, and shelves, to the left there was a kitchenette tucked away behind a breakfast bar, and to the right - Rod opened the door and turned on the light - a bathroom complete with its own modest shower space. He turned on his heel to face Sansa, who was lingering in the doorway looking somewhat lost, and kept stealing glances down the corridor to the lift, and presumably, to an escape.

"Look, before you go, you can at least wash the entrails from your hair."

[Sansa]

She didn't need to be invited in, but Sansa found herself strangely unwilling to properly cross the threshold. "What... what if they follow me here again?" She looked up and met his eyes, a haunted look in her own.

[Rod Stafford]

"They won't. Besides, this place is protected. You're safe here."

Under the shadow of her doubts, Sansa was a pitiful sight; she wore anxiety like an old shawl. How changeable a creature she was, thought Rod, when she could stand in his doorway crusted in the blood of her enemies, and quiver. There was simply no way he could allow her to leave looking like that. He took her hand with a wry grin, and pulled her inside. The door was closed before objections took flight.

"Go and have a scrub. I'll put the kettle on."

[Sansa]

She nodded mutely, crossing the living room and ensconcing herself in the bathroom. On the other side of the closed door she could hear Rod puttering about, no doubt locating a kettle for some tea. It felt oddly comforting, and she turned on the water in the shower, stripping off her borrowed clothes and stepping in while it was still cold.

Sansa gasped, scrubbing at her limbs with a hard bar of soap and hopping about a little while the water began to warm up. The cold helped clear her head, but she was grateful for the heat when it came, letting the hot water cascade over her head. The water swirled pink down the drain until the application of soap and shampoo cleaned up the remaining residue from the evening's brutalities.

Sansa didn't linger, wary of using up all the hot water before Rod was able to wash up, and pulled on the sweat pants and t-shirt she'd been given after she was done drying off. She cracked open the bathroom door, putting on the vent fan to deal with the swirls of moisture in the air, and cautiously stepped out, her barefeet padding on the floor as she looked for Rod.

[Rod Stafford]

The kettle was spewing steam and there were empty cups on the breakfast bar. Rod stood in the open French doors at the end of the room. Beyond, an exquisite panorama of the Thames, an artery of black glass weaving sharply into the heart of the city. Roads shimmered like rivers of gold on the other side, further along the London Eye dominated the horizon, a blazing ring of blue, and further still stood the Palace of Westminster and its Clock Tower, which pierced the night sky like a patriot's sabre. It was another sleepless night for London, and yet, from where he was standing, the city seemed strangely at peace.

There was a refreshing chill on the wind, the sort to excavate the mind of all care, and Rod hugged himself against it as he came to rest upon the balconette railings. It took him but a moment to familiarise himself with his surroundings. If he glanced to his right, he saw the Victoria Embankment in all of its arboreal splendour, and nested behind it was Charing Cross Station, its glass-domed roof peaking out from amongst the trees. And should one look further, were one indeed capable of percieving wavelengths beyond the limited range of visible light, such a gaze would draw a straight line which intersected first the Ministry of Defence, and then Horse Guards Parade, St. James's Park, and Buckingham Palace, and make a beeline through the proud estates of Belgravia, and the grey urban ranks beyond, until it arrived at a tall, unremarkable, leprous house in Jubilee Place, which was surely swarming with police, and was home to one very confused and lonely young man. Such was Rod's relationship with the great city.

He was stirred from his solemn reverie by the soft patter of feet. And then he became aware of the indignant rumble of his forgotten kettle. He retreated from the window with a curse, and hurried across the room to make good on his promise of tea. Sansa looked surprisingly refreshed for someone without a pulse, there was a sheen to her still-damp hair and a warm glow in her cheeks that wasn't before there. She looked normal, and making a couple of teas, and pausing to consider things like milk and sugar, he felt normal, too. That was aside, of course, from the patina of dried blood that flecked his skin, but being a gentleman, he'd at least taken the time to wash his hands first. The cups were loaded onto a tray along with spoons, a milk carton, and a few sachets of sugar - the standard welcoming kit for any English residence - and then deposited onto the coffee table.

"So, I wasn't entirely sure how you take it," Rod confessed, and promptly collapsed onto the couch, "Do you take it?"

[Sansa]

"No," she said. "I mean, I like to hold the warm cup in my hands." Sansa poured herself a scant cup and demonstrated, holding it between both hands as if it were the Holy Grail. She curled up on the end of the couch opposite Rod, the tea steaming lightly in her grasp.

"It's all just pantomime. I used to try to drink it, but it makes me sick." She brought it to her closed mouth and tipped the teacup enough so the hot liquid touched her lips, and inhaled the steam before taking the cup away. "Gabe makes - used to make fun of me because of it."

Sansa faltered a bit, but continued, "He said that in a few years I won't care at all about tea, but it is still oddly comforting."

[Rod Stafford]

"Old habits die hard," Rod said, with a shrug, "There was a time when I was obsessed with building my own psaltery. It took my housemates six months to talk me out of it. And even now, there is still a part of me that mourns the loss of the epic, and songs around the hearth."

His smile disappeared behind the cup. It was a fond confession, a memory sweetened by time and experience - nostalgia had a way of making the shameful palatable. On the sofa, Sansa was a portrait of the mundane, curled cat-like against a cushion, nursing her tea - but that was all she was, a portrait; a replica. She did not hold the tea cup, she clung to it. But what a melancholy companion was nostalgia for the undead. Rod was an intelligent man, capable of unravelling scientific mysteries and philosophical conundrums in a busy afternoon, but, of all the mysteries he encountered, nothing vexed him more than the paradox of the woman he once knew and the woman who sat before him. Haunted by his thoughts, of the memory of a night not unlike that night, he contained his questions no longer.

"Do you ever get angry about what happened to you, Sansa?"

[Sansa]

She was quiet for a minute, watching the steam rise out of her cup and disappear. Sansa shifted so her back was to the arm of the couch, and looked at Rod.

"Yes. I do." She lifted the teacup halfway to her lips and then stopped, frowning and putting the cup on the coffee table. "My memories are a little patchy of that day, but I remember ...dying (http://www.sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?t=15578)."

Sansa chewed her lower lip. "Elizabeth Atkinson, one of Gabriel's ...'friends,' took me to a warehouse where he was meeting with a group of Garou. She wasn't supposed to, but she did, probably because she was a vindictive bitch." She didn't sound bitter when she spoke; she seemed detached from what she was talking about, almost as if it had happened to someone else.

"And everything went sideways because the Baali crashed the meeting. The Garou gathered thought it was a trap. Our car was destroyed by a ..." She shook her head a bit. "That's a fuzzy bit." She paused again, but Rod remained quiet, letting her talk.

"A Garou came running at me." Sansa remembered seeing the whites of the creature's rolling eyes, as it rushed without thought out of the hell of the warehouse. It had been terrified, she knew now, but at the time... "It slashed my arm and tossed me aside. I hit a car, or something. Gabriel told me my back was broken. I was dying.

"And then he was there. With me." She shrugged, hugging her knees to her chest, the almost forgotten ache of his loss flaring up again. "And he brought me back."

Sansa wiped at her cheek, finding a bit of red on her hand from a tear she hadn't realized was falling. She reached for a kleenex and dabbed at her eyes. "And yes, sometimes I resent it. But if I had the chance to choose to stay with him, to pick this life had the circumstances been different and he had offered it to me later... I would have said yes without hesitation."

The whispers rose in her head for a moment, and she remembered rubbing her vitae into the mouth of the hunter she had let go. Sansa frowned, shaking her head a little to clear her mind.

[Rod Stafford]

"That's love for you," Rod said, staring absently into his cup, "It brings out the madness in each of us."

Perhaps it was a little cold, even for him, to so readily dismiss the romantic oathes of a vampire, but Rod was still reeling from Sansa's shameless confession, and found not within him the capacity to care. In one brief clumsy sentence, Sansa had successfully dispelled any sense of sympathy she'd conjured with her inherently tragic tale. His fears were confirmed. Sansa could have her resentment, for what it was worth. For Rod, there was only regret, which was as equally useless, but no less palpable in his voice, in his eyes, in his heart.

"You were right, Sansa. You're not the girl I remember. Truly, I am sorry for your loss."

[Sansa]

"Fuck you too," she said, tiredly. She didn't have the emotional strength to fight with him over his cold dismissal of her.

Sansa stood up and got up, but she could feel in her bones how late the hour was. "I'll get out of your hair, Rod. I wouldn't want to subject you to my company any longer." She would just go out into the pre-dawn and look for a place to sleep the day. Or maybe she would just watch the sunrise. She was across the room with her hand on the doorknob before he could blink.

[Rod Stafford]

"Far be it from me to impede a good dramatic exit, but there are vampire hunters at large out there, and we're not long off dawn."

There was within him a raging embittered voice that protested his words with venomous incredulity. It drew battle lines against the part of him that, against all odds, somehow remained sympathetic towards the vampire waif, self-pity and all. Perhaps he felt, in some abstract way, responsible for her miserable fate. It had to be something like that, something hatefully subconscious, like repressed guilt. Whatever feeling it was that compelled him to rise from his comfortable sofa, cup in hand, and stroll after his wobbler-throwing guest, he hid it well. He took another sip of tea, and with a glance at her feet, he remarked:

"Also, you seem to have forgotten your shoes."

[Sansa]

She looked down at her feet, as though they belonged to someone else. "I suppose I have."

Sansa took her hand off the doorknob. "I... I'm sorry about your friends. I didn't know... I tried to protect her." She didn't look up from the ground. "Wasn't good enough." Can't save anyone, it seems.

[Rod Stafford]

"Yes. Well, there's plenty of blame to go around."

Rod spoke with a sort of clipped reserve, not unlike Mr. Plainview, when he was forced to consider the evening's tragedies. It had been a long and exhausting night, and if he was to indulge Sansa's morose conversation a moment longer, there was a very real danger his tea break would be spoiled. Since it appeared that he had successfully defused Sansa's tantrum - with the shower afterglow gone, she looked as drained as he felt - Rod retreated, and lead the way to the bedroom.

"Let us get you settled in for the... the day. Help me with this wardrobe. We'll put the matress inside. Somehow, I imagine simply closing the curtains falls short of your sleeping requirements."

[Sansa]

She nodded mutely, the uncomfortable silence stretching on until it was truly awkward; the mattress moved easily with her help and was stuffed carefully into the wardrobe. Sansa looked at it, and tried to be thankful for any accommodations at all, but all she could think of was her cozy flat with Gabe and her bed and the light proof curtains, the Stradivarius violin that the hunters had smashed, the puzzle she'd been working on and her pillow.

Rod handed her a blanket, although he probably thought it was wasted on a thing that didn't really sleep. She forced herself to meet his eyes, and nodded. "Thank you." Then she stepped inside the wardrobe and pulled the doors shut, closing herself up in the darkness.

She curled up on her side, the blanket covering her, and waited for dawn and the deep death-like sleep it would bring.

[Rod Stafford]

Even in his heady state of weariness, Rod didn't fail to identify the surreal nature of the scene: his guest easing herself gingerly into the padded wardrobe, the doors sealing her inside like some cheap oaken tomb. It was a sight that should've repulsed him, but instead he managed to appreciate the element of bizarre comedy which went with it, hand-in-hand. He drew the curtains and left the room, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

He sat until his tea was cold, watching cold light stretch itself across the floor, and soften. Through the open window, he heard the distant drone of the city; it was the sleepy start before the mad rush. The very thought of it made deadweights of his limbs. And yet, sleep eluded him. He rose heavily from the sofa and drifted across the room. Then, careful to not make a sound, he left the flat. The corridor was deathly still. The elevator made barely a whisper. Everything around him, inanimate or otherwise, appeared to be acutely aware of the sacrosanct need for silence. When he stepped out into the street, the air was stagnant, as if frozen by the cold.

The wind was cutting. And, all around him, the roads, pavements, cars, buildings, windows, and faces were saturated in a deep blue haze. It was oppressive, withering the streetlamp glare into small timid orbs. Finally, following his feet, he arrived at his destination: a solitary red telephone box. The graceless old door gave a creak as he entered. Inside, it gave the impression of a tool shed that had seen years of neglect, and smelled as such. It was blissfully quiet. That was until Rod lifted the reciever and it started to drone miserably. He deposited a fifty pence piece into the coin slot, paused, his finger hovering over zero, took a breath, then dialed. Once, twice, three agonising times the ringing tone bleated into his ear, and then, on the fourth, there was a click.

"Hello?"

It was a woman's voice, coarse from a broken sleep. Rod stared blankly ahead at the grey little number on the screen. The reciever was pressed against his face like it was trying to burrow through it.

"Who's there?"

There was a faint hiss, the stiring of bedsheets. Rod closed his eyes and made no attempt to speak. The phone might have been a pillow. Outside, the wind blew, rattling the glass. After a long pause, the woman spoke again, this time with clarity.

"... Rod?"

His eyes opened at the mention of his name, and he considered suddenly, as if for the very first time, the pocked mouthpiece in front of him. He tilted the reciever away from his ear, a tremor in his hands, as if to address the phone personally. He regarded it with trepidation, a pained look upon his face. At last, he licked his dry lips to speak.

"Ro-"

The reciever was buried into its cradle with a clatter. He pressed his head against the cold metal box, and screwed his eyes shut, snorting rapidly at the dank air. Again, he took the reciever, and this time smashed it against the metal. When he discovered his efforts had failed to silence the treacherous taunting dialing tone, Rod collapsed in convulsion of desperate heaving sobs, and shielded his eyes from the first shimmer of sun upon the Thames.