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Krave, Echo Bay, California, Saturday Night
Krave was a warehouse in an industrial area, seemingly innocuous except for the parking lot full of cars in the middle of a Saturday night.
And the bass you could hear thumping through the walls as you approached the building. Also that.
A bouncer greeted the brothers as they approached, and then eyed Arden. "She human?"
"She's my friend," Gray said, which got him a narrow-eyed, suspicious look at the non-answer.
"Is she old enough to be here?"
"I dunno, man," Raiden told him. "You know we don't know that human age shit. She's in college?"
The guy thought about it for a moment, then said, "Eh, close enough. 21 is a stupid number, anyway. All right, Gray's friend, here are the rules. No fighting. Anyone in a fight will be made to leave. If you get in over your head, someone's hassling you, they won't back off, tell an employee."
"But first tell 'em you're with us," Raiden put in.
"Yeah, that works, too." He paused, then said, "There are no other rules. Have a nice night." He stepped aside and opened the door in one motion, gesturing them into the club.
At first glance, it might seem like any other nightclub. Music with bass that rattled your bones, green, blue, and purple lights flitting across the packed dance floor, bar stations along the walls, a sweet and smoky smell like incense hanging in the air. But when one looked closer, it was...different.
On a couch to the right, a woman exposed her slender neck as a man sunk his teeth into her throat, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Another man bit the opposite side of her neck, and her blissed-out expression said she wasn't having a bad time here. Another woman flitted around the room at an impossible speed, and when she stopped for a moment to talk to a group of people, small translucent wings trailing a glittery substance were visible on her back. In the corner, two men were making out, and when one slapped the wall clawlike fingernails were visible, protruding from his skin.
There were beings with blue skin and some with green. Some had small horns jutting from their heads, while others had tails. Men danced on raised platforms in various shades of undress. Gray gestured to one of them, a slender, gorgeous Nephilim with bronzed skin and dark hair, just as the dancer released his wings, shades of green mingling with the black feathers. "That's Daman." So Arden had sort of kind of met all seven brothers after all! Gray turned and grinned at her. "Welcome to Krave."
(For that totally-a-human-she-swears. NFB due to distance. Part of this post adapted from book one of my dumb Nephilim books, Galen.)
And the bass you could hear thumping through the walls as you approached the building. Also that.
A bouncer greeted the brothers as they approached, and then eyed Arden. "She human?"
"She's my friend," Gray said, which got him a narrow-eyed, suspicious look at the non-answer.
"Is she old enough to be here?"
"I dunno, man," Raiden told him. "You know we don't know that human age shit. She's in college?"
The guy thought about it for a moment, then said, "Eh, close enough. 21 is a stupid number, anyway. All right, Gray's friend, here are the rules. No fighting. Anyone in a fight will be made to leave. If you get in over your head, someone's hassling you, they won't back off, tell an employee."
"But first tell 'em you're with us," Raiden put in.
"Yeah, that works, too." He paused, then said, "There are no other rules. Have a nice night." He stepped aside and opened the door in one motion, gesturing them into the club.
At first glance, it might seem like any other nightclub. Music with bass that rattled your bones, green, blue, and purple lights flitting across the packed dance floor, bar stations along the walls, a sweet and smoky smell like incense hanging in the air. But when one looked closer, it was...different.
On a couch to the right, a woman exposed her slender neck as a man sunk his teeth into her throat, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Another man bit the opposite side of her neck, and her blissed-out expression said she wasn't having a bad time here. Another woman flitted around the room at an impossible speed, and when she stopped for a moment to talk to a group of people, small translucent wings trailing a glittery substance were visible on her back. In the corner, two men were making out, and when one slapped the wall clawlike fingernails were visible, protruding from his skin.
There were beings with blue skin and some with green. Some had small horns jutting from their heads, while others had tails. Men danced on raised platforms in various shades of undress. Gray gestured to one of them, a slender, gorgeous Nephilim with bronzed skin and dark hair, just as the dancer released his wings, shades of green mingling with the black feathers. "That's Daman." So Arden had sort of kind of met all seven brothers after all! Gray turned and grinned at her. "Welcome to Krave."
(For that totally-a-human-she-swears. NFB due to distance. Part of this post adapted from book one of my dumb Nephilim books, Galen.)
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Funny. She thought that would work better. It gained her maybe a foot as common sense warred with whatever was wrong with people, but soon hands were grasping once more. "Stop it!"
Fear was fighting the alcohol in her blood and burning away the haze in her brain, but it was far too late for that. Chaos - literally - reigned.
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"Hi," he said to Arden, and then bent to scoop her up in his arms so they could exit this mess. "MAKE A HOLE!" he demanded in a shout designed to carry across a battlefield.
Daman had winged down from his suspended dancing platform and landed beside Gray, ready to provide backup if anyone decided to not cooperate with making a hole.
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Again, there was a waver through the crowd, torn between trying to keep her and listening to the very big Nephilim and for a moment it seemed like Gray and Daman would need to interceded anyway, but even Chaos couldn't completely trump self-preservation, and people fell back. They kept watching, however, and as Raiden moved, they followed, albeit at a slight remove.
"What. Is. Happening?" Arden whispered. "Why are they like this?"
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Konnar met them on the edge of the dance floor, looking, shall we say, much less friendly than he had previously. "Follow me, please," he said, and led them to an elegantly appointed private lounge with its own bar and sitting area, where Alastair was waiting, sipping a glass of red wine and looking completely unruffled as if he'd been certain all along that they had everything completely under control.
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It had felt like she'd been in a zombie movie. She was okay with never feeling that way again.
When Raiden set her down in the lounge, she stayed put, looked around with amber eyes, noting how people arranged themselves, especially Gray and Raiden. Did they stay by her, did they stand closer to Konnar and Alastair, or did they range themselves away, curious but neutral?
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"Completely ordinary human, huh?" He didn't have to sound so amused about it, even if you'd never guess it from his face.
Gray tugged Arden with him to sit on the couch across from Alastair, because hi, if they were at the principal's office here obviously they were at the principal's office together, and Raiden got immediately distracted by the dish of chocolates on the coffee table.
"Okay, I didn't know that was gonna happen!" Gray protested, and Raiden shoved the dish at Arden.
"Want one?"
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There was still a lot of hurricane left in her system.
"Excuse me, but, um. I still don't know what happened?"
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Konnar came back from the bar, or rather the minifridge behind said bar, with a bottle of water, which he handed to Arden before taking his customary seat in the chair at one end of the seating arrangement. "That makes all of us," he said. "Nothing quite like that has ever happened in my club before, and there was only one new variable tonight, Miss Finch."
"It's something that could have happened to Bellamy," Alastair put in. "Before he got his power under control. However, he was having a threesome in his room...and still is, I believe."
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And Konnar got another murmured, "Thank you," as she took the bottle, cracking the cap and taking the smallest sip before closing it again.
"I'm not an Avatar of Lust, though," Arden said, shaking her head. "I'm not an Avatar of anything. I'm just...just...me."
She looked around, giving Gray an agonized expression for a second before she forced out the next words, feeling like each one was fighting her the whole time.
"Just a sylph."
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"Fiction," he said. "In this universe, at least. Air spirits from the work of Paracelsus. Sixteenth century."
Raiden had sat down on the couch on Arden's other side and was now steadily making his way through the chocolates. You'd had your chance, Arden.
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Arden again gave Gray a mutely grateful look, but shook her head slightly. She'd already gotten him in enough trouble tonight, even if technically this one wasn't on her. "And in my universe, we're uh. I'm not sure. I think some kind of genetic aberration or something? My mother was a djinn, and my father was human, and I'm not either. Or even half of either? I'm a completely different thing. An elemental." She nodded to Alastair. "An air elemental. I do stuff with, um. Air. And wind. Which, um, is also air, I guess..."
Brilliantly put, Arden.
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Gray was just going to step in here in his friend's defense. "Arden was orphaned at a young age, and she doesn't know any other sylphs. Apparently they all got murdered where she's from. Her home universe is really murder happy."
"Ah," Alastair said, and that was all. Just 'ah.'
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She took another drink of her water. "I don't know why, but the first law of the Otherside - the name of supernaturals in my universe - is that elementals are to be exterminated on sight," she said, miserable. "I don't know if...I think I might be the only one left? I don't know. And most of my training was devoted to locking all my power down and burying myself so far under shields that nobody could tell I was anything other than human. Because pretending to be human is the only way to keep me from getting found by the Duskwatch and getting killed outright or, uh. Being given to a vampire for a blood pet, though, uh. My dead body has to be produced in three days...nobody needed that much detail, oh goddess, I'm so sorry, I'm just rambling and more than a little drunk, but I really don't think that was me! I've never done anything like that before and I wouldn't even know how. Or what!"
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"She's telling the truth," Alastair told Konnar. "She didn't know that was going to happen." And also, transparently, Gray was telling the truth about Arden's home universe being murder happy.
"Hm," Konnar said. "Very well then, Miss Finch, you are not heretofore banned from Krave. But perhaps stick to mocktails from now on."
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"I...I...that was really me?" More tears stood in her eyes and she looked to Gray to see if he agreed with that. "Because I never--I wouldn't ever--" She was still only partially aware of what had happened.
How was she so bad at drinking that she started some kind of sexy riot?
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"Well," Gray said, "now you know that you have a weird reaction to alcohol? And possibly also ambrosia."
"You gave her ambrosia?" Alastair asked, sitting up even straighter, which seemed like it shouldn't have even been possible. "Gray."
"It was just a little bit! And it's better that it happened here than in whatthefuck murderworld!"
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"Mocktails," Arden said fervently. "Definitely sticking to mocktails."
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And he'd thought the situation of the Nephilim was bad.
Gray wilted a little, because it looked like he wouldn't be getting laid this month, either, and Alastair gave him A Look. "Don't you even start."
"You didn't really think she was human, did you?
"Of course not, but that's not the point."
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And then to Raiden and Alastair. "And for lying. And, uh. Asking Gray to lie to you, too."
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"I thought you just turned into a cloud of smoke like that lady Bells banged and I didn't get why Gray was being so cagey about it," Raiden admitted. Oh, look, all the candy was gone now.
"Gray and I are going to be having a conversation about need-to-know information," Alastair declared as he stood up, and if Gray looked extremely miserable about that, the good news was that it wasn't Arden's fault. The bad news was that he couldn't exactly explain that to Arden at present.
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She just wasn't sure if they'd consider them good enough, at least in light of this whole mess.
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He would find out eventually, if by 'eventually' one meant 'a few years from now when fate hit him with a celestial steel chair.'
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"Well...there's a couple of reasons," she said. "First, I do my best to always tell people that I'm human. I'm not great at lying, so the fewer people who know my secret that I have to keep track of is easiest for me. Also, the Detente says that telling anybody about the Otherside means that both the person who told and anybody that was told is in violation of the Detente and will be executed if the Duskwatch ever finds out. Which means nothing to me..." because oh noes! A second death sentence! What are they gonna do? Kill her harder? "...But I don't wanna put anyone else in danger. Even if it doesn't matter?"
Yeah, she didn't think the other Nephilim would care about what the Duskwatch would do if they ever found out.
"But, the biggest reason is because, um, Bellamy knows Grimm. Grimm helped raise me so she knows what I am, but I'm absolutely not supposed to be telling anyone. Because helping an elemental is also a death sentence, and so by telling people what I am, I'm also putting her in danger. So if she finds out that I'm telling people what I am, she'll freak out and, best case, she'll tell Callista where I am because I clearly can't be trusted to be by myself. And Callista..." She looked away. "My legal guardian. I. Uh. Ran away from her last year. For reasons."
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No one else had thought that, but they didn't say that.
"Miss Finch," Konnar said, almost gentle, "I just want to point out that we are in a different universe. And I think I speak for everyone here when I say that none of us want to go to your universe." A beat, and then added as an afterthought, "No offense meant."
"I could go there," Gray muttered.
"Please do not," Alastair said.
"Oh, what are they gonna do? Stab me? They probably don't even have celestial steel."
"'Probably' is doing a concerning amount of lifting there."
"Furthermore," Konnar continued, pretending he couldn't tell when the brothers were having a mind-to-mind conversation by now, "Bellamy does not generally issue repeat performances, so I wouldn't worry overmuch about him and your...Grimm."
"She was fancy, though," Raiden pointed out.
"So I'll tell him not to," Alastair said, unconcerned by Grimm's fanciness.
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