He lit Jake’s cigarette with a small, normal looking flame and continued to observe the vampire before him as he himself was being observed. Jake's pout was cute, but his eyes were as cold and calculating as all serpents were.
“Threats? There is no need for such theatrics Mr McCloud, we are both civilized, law abiding creatures after all.” His tone was slightly mocking as he leaned further back into his seat. What he really wanted to do was get out of it and walk around the room. A room without windows or view of the sky. Why must everything be so damn coffin like with these creatures? Not that the demons were any better. Zeus’ bunker was nothing more than a cement crypt filled with demonic shadows and dead air. He needed space and fresh air to breath and an open sky at his back, even if it was viewable only through glass.
As for Zeus, well Jake had asked if he had felt betrayed and he had answered honestly, he didn’t, but, he had felt slightly used and he didn’t really appreciate it. He was no creatures tool and certainly not someone’s tame stalking horse. Zoheret was a special case, but Zeus? He owed him no special courtesy or allegiance.
“ I don’t know the history between you all and so I am assuming your earlier comment about only Zeus having a valid grudge against you is about your little land grab from earlier this year, and not some long ago and boring past transgression that quite frankly I don’t give a damn about?”
The question was rhetorical, but he gives Jake a moment to indicate that his assumption was correct or to indicate nothing at all before he continued.
“If so, my advice is this. You don’t owe Chtahzus'aak a damn thing. The West was Leaderless when you errr, tried to expand your borders.” He carefully omitted the fact that the West was actually under Ward control at the time. That was for someone else to use, if they thought of it. “You claimed the West by using the blood, terror and fear of the demons that lived there. Zeus has claimed it by using their sorrow, grief, their thirst for revenge…and their need for justice.” He looked at Jake with a raised eyebrow, silently acknowledging that he himself had taken the North the same way, by using the fear and confusion, the unrest Jake’s power grab had spread throughout the entire city. Albeit the North was already a broken district, neglected, it’s people abused and overlooked long before Jake killed the first demon in the west, however, his actions had been the tool Saraekiel had used to lay the final nail and then reused to forge his claim
“Infact, little birds have told me that the western demons were and are quite wroth at Chtahzus'aak, for it would seem he sat huddled in his bunker, safe and sound with his horde of personal demons as you laid waste to the West, and did nothing to stop it.”
He pushed up and out of his seat, the need to move and to relieve the pressure of the chair pressing against his back had become more then he could bear any longer. He started to make his way towards the closed door and the elevator when he finally made his point
“Here is some food for thought, Mr McCloud. How upset would the demons of the west be if they learned that Zeus had the opportunity tonight to argue for your termination, that he could have stood here before the entire City Council of Leaders and used the very laws you all made to demand your removal from power? To even argue for your very death. But instead, he once again did sweet fuck all for his so-called people?” He turned before he reached the door and once again looked at Jake, catching his eyes with his own thoughtful gaze.
“Or, more to the point, maybe you should give some serious consideration as to why he didn’t. If what you say is true, and the only way you all operate is by stabbing each other in the back, and only from the shadows at that.” His smile when he offered it was playful, but his eyes were hard and cold. “I say those that operate only from the shadows aren’t tacticians Mr McCloud, but merely cowards. It’s those that know there is a time and place for everything and aren’t afraid to make the necessary strike that you should seriously worry about.” Jake was free to take that however he may.
He snuffed out the cherry on his stolen cigarette and stuck what was left of it behind his ear, mirroring Jake’s move from earlier, before he turned and opened the door behind him. His fingers drumming ever so slightly on the doorframe before he glanced back over his shoulder.
“Tell me Mr McCloud, do you serve whiskey at that bar of yours? Good whiskey?”