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It's a party every night at the Hellfire club. There's the real business of running/ruining the world, of course, that takes place in hushed tones and back rooms, disguised as more drinking and partying. But for the rank and files— the Pawns— it's nothing more than a social club, a place to recreate safely in the company of social peers. Some of the great, wealthy, and powerful of New York send their scions to represent them at this most exclusive of orders. There's no aristocracy or intolerance— all that matters is personal power and ability to excel.
Roberto's doing a party trick at the bar, involved a business card, a shot of water, and a shot of whiskey. To the amazement of everyone around, he wiggles his fingers, makes a gesture, and tugs the card aside— water and whiskey swap spots, much to the groans of dismay from a wealthy young man attending with his girlfriend. A wad of Benjamins trades hands, and Roberto downs his shot to the applause of the onlookers.
"Hey, good sport amigo," the Brazilian man says, shaking the other fellow's hand and laughing easily. The crowd breaks up and Roberto flicks a comb through his pompadour, making sure it's /just/ right, and orders a mojito from the bartender.
*
Even places like The Hellfire Club, the bland version of the sinister place, need people to see. Not just the be seen sorts. Scions of the Thirteen Colonies and those additional westward expansions and purchases are all well and good. Project their power, shall they? But it's hardly exciting to rub shoulders with Victor, Edward, George, and John when you have shared the same collective experiences since your great-grandfather's time.
Enter the need for fresh blood. Fresh distractions, whether it's the winning pitcher for the Yankees' farm team or that prize-fighting boxer on a hot streak. Or it could be the latest trophy-wife slash arm-candy to be.
Women more than men might recognize Elizabeth Braddock, the ingénue of a dozen magazine covers and rumoured late of some shoot at the New York Public Library's primary hall. Gentlemen might know her for entirely different reasons. But there the gamine model pauses at the door, her credentials perfectly visible without ID: her face is her calling card. The posture she adopts is at once demure and impatient, effortless and posing for everyone in the line who wants inside. "Braddock," she repeats, giving a certain level of stress to the surname. And if those provincials should doubt, she reminds them that her people have been at this game for, oh, fourteen centuries give or take. "Lady Braddock."
*
The woman called "Clea" has been sitting at the bar. Is she a Pawn of this club? … It isn't clear, her role being mysterious. She is wearing a corsettish top with a bare midriff. She has plans to design one for Ms. Frost. For now, though, hers is purple. Her skirt below it is a more eye-searing purple-and-pink pattern, pencil-tight. She sits at the bar, off to the side, watching Roberto as he produces that trick - and joining the applause even as she thinks to herself—
'These are parlor-tricks, but the principle behind them is no less wonderful. I suppose they've parlayed their parlors into success in this world, as it is…!'
"How /did/ you make that work?" Clea asks Roberto, leaning inwards with a jangle of heavy red crystal earrings. The firm Pronunciation behind them (more or less) makes Clea glance, but no more. Not yet!
*
There was no less drama over the arrival of the Enchantress than a visiting royal. As she strode up to the doors in a heady mixture of gold and emerald green. A silken dress that trailed around her ankles with each movement, the pattern a mosaic of gold threaded through with sparkling verdant green. Two slit ran up and up, her thighs, revealing criss crossing strings of gold to encase her legs in and hold her heels on. A low plunging neckline was shadowed over by a heavy necklace of more gold-work, dripping with matching emeralds. More glittering jewels hung from her ears and from around her wrists—even her hair with a headband of matching hues.
She swept up to the entrance with a self-assured smile, passing a car to the guard and watching as he bowed and scraped and asked if she was there on business. After a shake of her head, the doorman was ushering her in—pass the Lady Braddock, and anyone else in line.
*
The doorman isn't the sort to be budged by impatient socialites. But Braddock- that's a name that carries weight. And Betsy has the sort of poise you can't fake or sustain under a sincere examination, and he bows slightly and pulls aside the velvet ropes to admit her. After all, you can't get into the club if you don't know where the door is— and you can't know where the door is unless a Club member tells you.
She sweeps in near Amora's entrance, and there's an empty space at the bar where Roberto's audience is clearing out. He grins at Clea's question, lounging indolently against the bar, elbows behind him— suit jacket unbuttoned, his trousers fashionably tight and belled, and his shirt a paisley pattern with a high collar. The very height of fashion.
"Ahh, you know, I knew this engineer at Harvard who explained it to me once," he says, with a heavy Portuguese accent. "Something about fluid density. It's just a fun party trick, si? I love your skirt, that outfit— far out," he tells Clea. "I'm Roberto de Costa, what's your name?" he inquires of the designer, sidling up to her stool.
*
It equally helps that Elizabeth Braddock's equally prestigious father holds a rather eminent position in the London branch. It pays to be original. The young woman inclines her head to the doorman. She could well dismiss him in a flicker of those frosty eyes, her entire bearing pristine and cold as a winter's night. Until the small inflection of a smile matches with a forward bow, modest but present. "Thank you."
It pays not to aggravate the help unnecessarily. The interior beckons, dark and plush and promising. Its very essence speaks to opulence, excess and wealth. Basically everything in Amoraland. That woman is measured from a distance. Ms. Braddock navigates purposefully, an excess of grace turned towards cutting a neat line of cocaine through a sloppy crowd skewed in tables and booths for maximum mingling effect. Her hips sway slightly as she walks, a distraction from the wandering look skimming over all the interesting people. And she meets… purple and pink skirt. An instant affinity for that trumps Portuguese card games and emerald queens, though she has marked them. Her psionic awareness floats around her, picking and sorting, but her smile is for Clea.
"Forgive me." That tone of voice apologizes without apologizing at all. Do you have a flag? She's just invaded. "I simply must know who designed that. Pucci? Van Dyne?" A flit of her finger draws the pencil shape.
*
"Oh, do you like it? I made it myself," Clea says as she raises up her glass, pivoting round with a shift of the hips and crossing her legs at the knee. (She's wearing calf-length boots, patent leather…ish, but they seem to have the same pattern as her skirt. Somehow.) "My name is Clea. It's a pleasure to meet you, Roberto."
Then she downs her drink. It was brown. Now it's not! "May I have one of yours? - I mean," she continues, with what might be the ghost of an accent, "A drink like the one you're having."
Then! Approach vector from Ms. Braddock. Clea looks at her, apparently not recognizing her from Adam, or, more accurately, Eve. Her eyebrows lift though and she rests a hand down at her hip, turning slightly. "Oh, this? I can't say it's either of theirs. I haven't even met Pucci. No, I make these myself. Do you like it?"
"Not to repeat myself," she asides to Roberto, which may be a joke.
*
Amora amuses herself for a little while with some fawning men in passing, but at the sight of a familiar face in Clea, she lights up. A few swaggering, hip swaying, steps later and the tall and busty blonde comes up behind Clea. A manicured hand, of course painted green, reaches out to try to settle on Clea's shoulder as she comes up behind the woman. "Daaaaaarling! You look glorious! How /are/ you doing?" She gushes, her lidded gaze landing on the other two Clea had been speaking to.
"Who are these lovely creatures that have stolen your attention? You /must/ introduce us." She smiled, rubied lips pulling back to flash white teeth in a grin.
*
"It's far out, I love it," Roberto crows, applauding Clea with a broad grin on his swarthy features. A short mustache and he'd look like Errol Flyn with a few too many days in the tropics under his belt. "Oyey, it's perfectamente, me encantado mucho con tu ropas," he says, in a beautiful, lyrical patter of Spanish.
"Hey, hombre! Dos mas— two more mojitos!" he says, holding up thumb and forefinger. He flashes Amora and Betsy curious, appreciative glances, a bright grin creasing his features once more, and two more fingers fly.
"Make it four, eh?"
He turns back to Lady Braddock, offering her a genteel handshake, and making an elegant leg to bow over her hand— palm up, dusting knuckles with a kiss unless she pops him for it. He turns, and offers Amora the same consideration, clearly shameless about flirting with all company simultaneously. "Ladies, buenos noches, good evening— Roberto da Costa, at your service," he says, with a florid bow that'd be hammy if it weren't so perfectly executed.
*
"Delightful that you do it yourself." Inspired by a hundred years of refined breeding, Elizabeth can sling a compliment with the best of them, and still leave the masses mildly unclear whether she is descending from her arch pedestal on high. "I think it's quite the thing. Such a wild, sumptuous sensibility going on."
Refined words betray her as an Englishwoman, mores than the fine young cannib… Queen on the throne. Utterances are enunciated, not drawled, with a clinical precision. Nothing shabby there, nor unctuous. Her hand is extended to Roberto, given for him to greet properly according to her station. "Charmed." Oh yes. Very.
"And what divine treat is this?" Her fingers curl, passing against the structure of her jawline, an effortless caress that costs a few thousand quid a day to have. "Elizabeth Braddock. How refreshing not to trade on what cards that turns in my favour." English sardonic wit at its finest. Oh, but for those of other dimensions, it's another matter entirely if they have crossed through the Otherworld. They're enmeshed in all manners of favours under the auspices of a certain guy who rhymes with Berlin.
*
And here comes Amora! Clea gives her a slightly wry smile, and even imitates some of the people she's seen, kissing the air towards one of Amora's cheeks, briefly. "Drinking heavily and learning about fluids. Have you met Roberto?" Roberto leans in to offer hand-kisses and drinks. "Well, you have now," Clea says decisively.
As the drinks come, Clea holds it with both hands, raising it to her lips as if it were a chalice and taking a meditative sip. "Clea," she offers, actually, before the sip. That hushes her up for a few moments, and then she lets it run down her tongue and into her throat and breathes out.
"It's quite delicious," she says, to Roberto. Amora is given another look as if to verify this. Then back to Elizabeth: "I've heard it's a little like that in London, too. I've never been there, of course, but I've seen it." Clea is a little unclear on how much of England IS London, of course, but there's no reason to give THAT away just yet.
*
Roberto's flirting is well received and Amora offers her hand with a flourish and an appraising gaze that rolls over his person with a lingering gaze. She smiles as he kisses over the top of her hand and she accepts the offered drink. The rings on her fingers clicking against the glass. She releases a soft sigh of gratitude, sipping at it delicately after taking a sniff.
"A pleasure to meet you, Roberto. I'm Helen." Her mortal guise was in place, and as such she used the name she had taken. As she nursed her drink her gaze slid over Elizabeth with a fraction of curiosity and an arch of her golden brow. Her own accent was achingly similar, but some how off, and it showed when compared to someone actually from England. If a linguist were present he'd be scratching his head for want of answers.
To be continued.