Dinner Date?

[Josephine Sterling]

Josephine had been busy while she waited for Juan. She had slipped her crimson robe over her clothes, so that it might save them from stains, and then had found a sheet to wrap poor Thomas' body in. With it, she managed, over many minutes, to drag his body to the basement where she left it, and her robe, locked away, the only key in her possession. Then back to the bathroom she went to check her clothing for stains. It was important to appear presentable. Not for herself, of course, but for the kine. In all honesty, she would be perfectly comfortable walking around with only a raiment made from the Priest's blood, but the Kine, as she'd well seen tonight, would panic at the sight. No, there was nothing for it. Appearances must be catered to.

So, it was only once she was satisfied with her appearance that she went outside, to wait on the steps of the Moore House for her companion in sin for the evening. As luck would have it, he was the one who had been waiting. With a stately stride she approached his car and opened the door with her handcuff clad wrist.

"Good evening, Senor Cordoba. Thank you so much for meeting me. I promise that you'll find the evening an entertaining one. Perhaps an educational one as well," she said with a smile laden with promise. "Now then. Where shall we hunt? We must find someone expendable."

[Josephine Sterling]

"Ah, but there are also many eyes along that way, as well," Josephine commented. "Do you wish for this vehicle to be known to those who might miss our prey this evening? I was thinking, perhaps, we might go with someone even less reputable than jazz musicians, someone who's associates might be less inclined to call upon the fair officers of the law. Do you know of any who might walk the streets, beneath the void where the city's lights have eaten that of the moon and the stars?"

[West]

Continuity Note

Since Josephine now has Vitae as is no longer a risk to not Rise, this Scene isn't linked, and all the preceding linked Scenes go into the books!

[Josephine Sterling]

"Excellent," Josephine replied with a vicious smile. "It's so nice to be with one who knows their way about town. That would be my location of preference, if you do not mind."

[Brownlee]

She joins him in the BMW and the two depart for downtown.

It's a smooth ride, which Josephine can't say about any of the evening's other . . . festivities. Each movement of her wrist echoes back a scrape of broken steel link on binding steel cuff, a cold metal reminder of poor pathetic Galilei, swaddled in the basement of the empty Moore House--swaddled, not shrouded. New born, not dead and buried, she can almost hear Thomas' noxious optimism.

The wheel slides like velvet through Juan's cupped hands as the 325i hugs the road as sure as if she were on rails, silently accelerating through straightaways, cresting hills, and drifting through turns with absolute ease, like the perfect machine she is. He knows they're near when he spots Reverance and continues past. He sees an opportune parking spot along the way: convenient, concealed, no soccer-mom vans on either side to ding the doors. He swings in and puts her in park, turns the key. Southside Park, in all her squalid splendor, lay beneath the black of night all around.

At a glance, the park is empty, save for a plastic shopping bag animated by the breeze, tumbling past like an urban tumbleweed. The water on the surface of the pond ripples--black, but glimmering with moonlight. A few dark shadows of what might be ducks bob gently there, sleeping quietly. An iron fence stretches around three sides of the pond, between it and a plot of well-kept grass that marks the outer boundary of the park. A stretch of sidewalk files through a break in the fence leading into the unknown, or the unseen anyway--a perfect place for a romantic, albeit perilous, lovers' stroll. Beyond the shadows looms a darker shadow, a performer's pagoda, perhaps? And somewhere off to the left of it, a flickering flame, a camper's fire, though the park is far from any sanctioned campground.

Lovely little place with a peaceful ambiance, save for a few uncomfortable facts: Josephine's gut-wrenching, nerve-shaking hunger, that jittery frantic need known all too well to addicts, and all the questions Juan has been courteous enough not to ask, gentleman that he is: about the rush, about the broken hand cuff, about the painful transparency of her need.

[Josephine Sterling]

"Indeed, it would be marvelous if they might be alone. I suspect that there might be more than one, but the only real trouble would be if there are more than two," Josephine commented, opening the door and stepping out of the car.

"I like your plan. Let us walk slowly, together. And if I might make a request: speak softly please," she murmured, summoning the world into greater focus, greater profusion in her skull, filtering in through every pore of her skull and skin.

Josephine actives Auspex 1.