The Viper Goes Hunting

[sully]

Reserved for Suneater

Eva walked casually out of the dark alleyway, wiping away the blood around her lips with her fingers and sucked on them softly, not wanting to waste a drop. She heard the echo of the drunk's soft moaning reverberating behind her, a kind confirmation that she had not gone to far. It had been a hell of a last few days and the universe had seen fit to provide her with the sleeping drunk as a consolation prize. Four fucking nights of stalking the streets for that fucking human and Eva had nothing to show for it. She hadn't failed this badly since Budapest and just the mere thought of that mission made her wince. There's no use feeling sorry for yourself, you crusty old bitch. Eva thought bitterly to herself. Still, she decided she had had enough for tonight and needed to unwind. She checked her phone, finding that she was closer to the White Rabbit than she'd initially thought. Eva knew the human occasionally visited the spot, due to his ties with the Black Prince, so perhaps she'd get lucky and find him there. And if not, she could still enjoy the atmosphere of the place and perhaps meet someone who had more information.

As she walked towards the White Rabbit, cigarette planted firmly between her teeth and her hands stuffed deeply into her maroon leather jacket, Eva's mind turned once again to the man she was hunting. Benny had only given her his first name, Luke, and told her he'd been a human victim of the Project Twilight. The Rat had not explained further, but Eva could imagine what horrors the man had gone through and wondered how different he was now, not just physically, but mentally. Though she loved her line of work, it had opened her eyes to the worst of humanity. Project Twilight was not the first pseudo-science horror factory she'd come across, and she'd met her fair share of their victims. The body can heal, but the mind sometimes simply cannot. If Luke was trying to take down the facility than he was not truly gone. But that didn't mean his scars were healed.

Eva's train of thought came to a halt as she arrived at the White Rabbit. The Bruja bouncers gave her a scathing, apprehensive look, as they had continued to do since her first encounter with them. She winked to them as she walked in, enjoying their small flinch backwards. As she entered the club, Eva removed her maroon jacket and handed it to the coat check, revealing her slightly scandalous, but mainly lazily put together look. She wore a black sports bra and baggy black sweatpants tucked into her black combat boots. Her abnormally pale skin seemed to reflect the lights of the bar, giving her skin different hues as various spotlights swung past her. Over the past week since her arrival in the city Eva had begun to make a few acquaintances  at the bar and spent her first hour at the bar moving around, speaking to each in turn. Eventually she became a bit tired and slid into an unoccupied booth. While the bar wasn't dead by any means, it was quieter than other nights she'd been there. Eva tossed her packet of Marlboro blacks onto the table and began to chain smoke, savoring in the sour air of the smoke as she watched the various supernatural and mortal creatures roaming through the bar.

Perhaps tonight would be the night she found her prey. But at this point, her belly still full of boozed soaked blood and the smoke cloud hanging around her, Eva was content to simply let the night pass if that was how it must go.

[suneater]

Anyone who didn't know him probably would have written Luke off as some sort of bar manager.

He had been tucked away in a dark corner of the establishment since a little past sunset, rifling through stacks of mismatched paper and occasionally scribbling in a simple spiral-bound notebook. A tumbler with three fingers worth of whiskey sat on the table amidst his work, barely touched. He sipped from it intermittently but didn't seem to have much in the way of interest. Whatever task he was immersed in seemed to have absorbed his focus, leaving him oblivious to the comings and goings of patrons and Jake's staff alike.

If there was a system to whatever he was up to, watching him wouldn't reveal it. He'd pushed two tables together to give him space to work, space sufficient to array the many piles and single sheets across the combined surface. He kept a mechanical pencil tucked in his mouth while he shuffled things around, and there were two pens nearby that he employed occasionally as well - one red, one blue.

He wore the gray sweatpants that had become ubiquitous in the past half-decade, a form-fitting black tank top, and a thin, pale blue hoodie. The gym-wear didn't have any of the hallmarks of actual exercise, making it likely that he either planned to work out later or didn't plan to work out at all. He was also wearing a black leather glove on his right hand, which might have been eccentric enough to draw a little notice- though maybe not, in a place like the White Rabbit. With his handsome-and-very-alive features and sculpted physique, people tended to assume that he was just another willing donor (particularly if they were aware of Jake's proclivities).

Nearly three hours after he'd begun he stood up and stretched laboriously, lacing his fingers together and thrusting his arms up overhead. The movement caused his tank top to ride up slight, exposing a pale ribbon of chiseled abdomen. He rolled his head from side to side on his neck and then scooped up his whiskey and headed toward the bar, sipping en route. His features betrayed neither pleasure or disappointment after he swallowed down the amber liquid; they were neutral in a distracted way. He left the table in its state of chaos, apparently not feeling any need to hide what he'd been working on.

He drew up to a corner of the bar and leaned against it, his forearms at the edge of the counter, both hands clasped around the tumbler. He waited calmly for the bartender to notice him and come over.

"Seen Josh?" he asked her quietly.

She shook her head. "Not tonight. Isn't he off-duty?"

Luke nodded. "Yeah, but I was hoping he'd stop by. If he comes in, let him know I'm looking for him?"

She smirked. "I'm sure he'll be thrilled to hear it. Sure thing, Luke." She turned and moved back to her duties.

Luke pushed off the counter and made his way back to his mess. Rather than sitting, he stood over the paper-covered table and took it in from an overhead view. He seemed to be paying the whiskey a little more attention now, sipping more regularly, actually depleting it. He sighed before setting the tumbler down and starting to collect the papers. They had been in some kind of order, it seemed, because he worked left to right, top to bottom, until they had all been assembled into a single untidy stack.

[sully]

Eva swore angrily under her breath as her prey stepped out from its hiding place to her right. She rubbed her manicured, black painted fingernails against her temples wondering how badly she'd fallen to allow a man of such stature to slip into the bar unnoticed. Or, the even more frustrating possibility, Luke had been in the bar long before she arrived. Doesn't fucking matter now. Get your head in the game. She lit a cigarette and shuffled her way out of the booth and began walking over to the bar.

As she weaved her way between the various bar patrons, a horrible and sad fear hit her. Perhaps her inability to find Luke had been because she was afraid of what he might be able to tell her. In the week since Benny had informed her of her sire's disappearance and likely death in the Facility, Eva's mind had become fixated on the perverted experiments and insidious acts of torture Bogrov must have, and could still be, enduring. She was afraid that Luke's description would give more fuel for her nightmares, giving them a realistic quality she wouldn't be able to shake.

About half way to the bar, Eva froze in place. Perhaps she'd finally reached her breaking point. Perhaps it was time to give up this life and find something new. How was she to lead the network Bogrov had spent centuries building when she couldn't even muster the courage to get desperately needed information? Eva felt that if she could cry, she would have done so and possibly been unable to stop. She was about to turn around and leave the bar and possibly the City itself, not caring what it would mean for her reputation with McCloud and Benny. But then, a voice spoke softly and kindly in her head. Life's hard my love. And it will be especially hard for you, though I'd trade anything to make it not so. But you must never give up... Promise me Eva. Eva hadn't thought of her mother in a long time. She'd decided decades ago it was just too hard. But this time, the voice brought no pain. It evoked only courage and anger towards herself for allowing her spirit to dip so low. She was the Gadyuka, feared by governments and spies everywhere. With this new found conviction, Eva resumed walking over to the bar.

She arrived at the bar as soon as her prey left. Deciding it was better to approach him in his secluded corner of the room, Eva veered to the other end of the bar and took her time ordering a blood cocktail. She wasn't hungry, but thought Luke would find her less intimidating if she simply appeared as an average patron. After the bartender finally handed her her drink and she tossed a few dollars on the counter, Eva walked briskly over to Luke's table. Sliding into the seat across from, she said through her heavy Russian accent "Been looking for you Lukey-boy! Care to share a drink with me?"

[suneater]

Luke registered the stranger's presence just before she sat, and his hazel eyes flicked away from the notebook he'd been methodically scribbling to give her a brief, brutally efficient appraisal. Eva might recognize the traits of a trained observer employed instinctively in Luke's rapid assessment. He remained seated - motionless, actually, or as motionless as a human being could be. His chest rose and fell, his nostrils flared, small muscles beneath his facial skin moved, but he was otherwise totally still as she joined him at the table without invitation.

He deliberately closed the notebook and set it atop the stack of papers that sat nearby. He regarded the small woman skeptically, closing his fingers around his tumbler and drawing it across the table to him. He settled both hands around the thick glass, but his eyes never left Eva. His handsome features formed a passive mask, betraying not a mote of what was going on in his head while he took stock of her.

"Why don't you just get to whatever your point is?" He sounded... tired. Maybe weary was more appropriate. As if Eva was only the most recent in a string of people who'd sought him out and bothered him. As if there was a pattern he'd gone through before that he just wasn't interested in repeating. The thumb of his left hand- the hand not covered in black leather- swept up to run along the rim of the tumbler glacially. His posture, which, even when he was theoretically unobserved earlier, was pure military, relaxed. Not completely. Just enough- a settling of the shoulders, a softening of the core.

He was still looking at her. His left hand settled around the glass again, drawing it just a fraction of an inch closer to him, then moving it away the same distance. He seemed to just be filling time until she got on with it.

[sully]

Eva let out a deep, raspy cackle as Luke stared her down impassively. It was rare to meet someone as blunt and forward as herself and she was looking forward to what their conversation would become. She swung her legs up, placing the heels of her boots on an unoccupied area of the table. "Appreciate a man who likes to get the point. After three nights in a row of looking for ya, I'm more than happy to skip the pleasantries." She spoke confidently, bordering on cocky, but there was also an underpinning of fear in her voice. She knocked back her drink and signaled the waiter to bring her another. "As a fellow employee of the Black Prince, I thought it logical to compare notes. I'm fairly new and I'd like to learn from someone who has a bit more experience.", smoke bellowing from her nostrils as she spoke.

"And perhaps..." she began, fiddling with the large iron ring on her right hand, running her fingers over the ornate carving of a boar. Eva stared directly back into Luke's eyes and said, her voice devoid of the confidence it had only moments ago, "You could tell me about Project Twilight."

[suneater]

He reacted not at all when she kicked her feet onto the table, other than to track her movements with his eyes. He didn't seem to have interpreted the rapid action as a potential threat. His expression remained mannequin blank while she explained herself and carried on. His middle finger and thumb clamped around the tumbler gently and he lifted it to his mouth, taking a reasonable swallow before he set it back down again.

His gaze flicked from her eyes to her hand as she began fidgeting. He remained impassive even after she'd finished, but then one of his eyebrows hedged up.

"If you're on Jake's payroll, why didn't you just ask him where to find me?" There was only a little snottiness in his voice, and his lips bore a hint of a smirk. "Three nights is a lot of time to waste chasing rabbits." He shifted slightly, his posture loosening further, his body language reading contentment. He lifted the whiskey again, but didn't drink immediately.

"Why don't we start with your name? That's step number one." His right index finger jutted out on his gloved hand. He ticked off his middle finger as well as he continued. "Number two is what you're actually doing for Jake, because if he hasn't seen fit to tell me, I probably won't like it." He took another long sip from his glass, then finally added his ring finger to the mix, finishing his count. "Three is you convincing me I should tell you anything about Project Twilight."

Amusement gleamed in his eyes as he regarded her, and he was smirking, but Eva might see the potential violence hidden behind his seeming mirth. There were hints to pick up, things that a common observer would never catch- the way his hips had moved slightly when he'd "relaxed", indicating that there was still plenty of tension in his legs, ready to propel him forward at any instant, or the way that his left hand, clasped around the tumbler, was gripping in a way that was better for throwing than drinking. If she picked up on any of it at all, she would only sense his readiness- not his intent.

It seemed he planned to hear her out.

[sully]

Eva gave a half-hearted shrug at Luke's first question. He was absolutely correct that she could have simply asked McCloud for Luke's location and the Prince could have provided the exact minute Luke would enter the bar.  Benny could have also easily given her the human's location, but the Rat had chosen not to and Eva had understood why. It was not how the Nosferatu operated. Their clan made a living off trading information, but they also believed that sometimes, you had to go and find and take that information for yourself. This was another test from her employer to see if she'd been worth hiring. Eva could only imagine the amusement Benny had enjoyed while watching her wander the City aimlessly while Luke sat warm and comfortable at the White Rabbit. "I could have," she responds after a moment, "but it is not how things are done."

Eva saw no issue in letting the human know her identity or her reason for coming to the City. It was directly related to Project Twilight so there was no reason not to be honest. Besides, she had begun to notice that Luke was beginning to tense up, but she could not be certain whether he meant to attack her or was simply preparing to defend himself if she turned on him. Psssh it does not matter. He is only a human, and this cramped booth will work to my advantage. she thought calmly to herself. Eva lights a cigarette and places the pack and her lighter on the table, signalling Luke to partake if he so chose. Between long drags and exhaling of bluish gray smoke, Eva explains; "My name is Eva. I am an intelligence operative in charge of a group known as Khodoki Teney. My predecessor and sire came to this city a decade ago to investigate Project Twilight without my knowing. I've searched for him over the past ten years, finally arriving here after receiving a message from one of McCloud's other employees. Turns out, he most likely got himself killed in the Facility. This ring" she lifts her right hand and shows off the ornate ring on her middle finger, "is all Benny was able to recover. In exchange for this information, Benny, and by extension McCloud, have asked that I assist them in the upcoming election, although they haven't seen fit to tell me exactly what my role will be. I also have to assume they want my help in taking down Project Twilight since that will be excellent press for McCloud."

After skulling her drink, Eva turned back to Luke and said simply "I want to know for certain whether or not my sire is dead. I want to see the proof with my own eyes. And I was hoping your... experiences in Project Twilight might help me find a way to get in and uncover what I need to find out. And maybe even take them down for good..."

[suneater]

Luke listened with interest. The smirk bled away as she spoke, and Luke took a more earnest slug from his glass as she spun her story. By the time she finished, his brow was fully knit. His gaze had gone just a little unfocused, as if he was paying more attention to his own thoughts to her or his other surroundings. He blinked and let out a slow sigh.

"Sorry to hear about your sire." The words were genuine, though not exactly brimming with emotion. He finished off his own drink in one solid gulp and then settled the glass on the table and folded his arms across his chest. "I really don't know how much help I can be. I barely remember being there, or most of my life, for that matter. They messed me up real good." He reached up and gave his right temple a tap with his gloved index finger for emphasis. "The facility I was in is empty. Gutted. Haven't seen or heard anything from them since I ended up here." He sighed. "Jake is trying to help fix whatever it is they did to my head, but we aren't having much luck."

He leaned back a bit in his seat, waxing thoughtful for a few seconds. "Have any pictures of your sire? Sometimes things will trigger my memory, or I might be able to place if I've seen him in one. They're... basically just fragments though, so I wouldn't get your hopes up."

[sully]

Eva nodded solemnly as Luke relayed his information on the Facility. She took out an old iPhone and scrolled for a few seconds before pushing the phone over towards her companion. The photo was of an fat, squat Russian man smoking a cigar and laughing at something outside the frame. "I doubt he would have stood out, but worth a shot." She said flatly. Raising her hand, Eva called a waiter to the table and purchased another round for both Luke and herself.

As the waiter, a young Brujah fledge by the look of him, she turned back to Luke and asked "I know you've probably heard this enough, but I am sorry for what happened to you. Life's a fucking prudish old bitch ain't it?" She leaned back against the old padded cushion of the booth and continued to monologue, "My sister was born as beautiful as the fucking sun and I was born a deformed freak. My father locked me away for most of my life until I became my sister's indentured slave. And even when I finally thought I'd beat her by becoming immortal, she went and got herself bit too. Now she's the head of some bougie French dance school in New York, making millions per day from all her different "art projects". Her voice dripped with venom as she spoke about her sister, her face twisting slightly, her mask briefly flickering in her rage and jealously. Eva looked at Luke and sighed, concluding with "Basically, I know what it's like to be fucked over. Perhaps not as bad as you obviously, but still... So what's up with your arm?"

[suneater]

Luke eyed the photo for several long seconds. At first his features were blank, and then it looked like he was concentrating, but finally he just shook his head. "Nothing."

He arched an eyebrow when she ordered him a drink, but didn't disagree. One of the more unfortunate side-effects of his augmented physique was an utter resistance to alcohol, but it was her money. He mostly drank for the taste, and to blend in while his duties kept him in the bar proper. He listened to her story, frowning faintly as the details emerged. It was a little like a fairy-tale; one sister imprisoned in the castle, the other courting suitors. Only in this case they apparently both drank blood.

"You look fine to me," he countered quizzically. Two things were obvious from the reply; firstly, that he was in no way hitting on her, just confused about the state of her deformity, and second, that he was blatantly changing the subject from his arm. Even as he regarded her, his left hand crept to his right shoulder and scratched gently before returning to the table in front of him.