1964-09-10 - Snakes of a Kind
Summary: Work's to be done!
Related: If there are no related logs, put 'None', — please don't leave blank!
Theme Song: None
tanya roy lucian 


The mood in Lux reflects the dying days of summer. A certain fire to the air encapsulates vibrant unrest in the streets, electronic chords mashed and sliced in newfound ways something of the uneasy news repeated on the airwaves. Airwaves occasionally broken by the peculiar language no one really understands, or Mandarin Chinese, Assyrian or English.

Whatever the mood, Lucian isn't at the bar. He isn't at the piano, which couldn't produce the shimmering, dark acoustical reverb of experimental electronica anyways. He stalks through his realm, light of foot and dark of eye, considering destruction and pain and every flavour of vice because he can.

It's the prowl of a caged animal, perhaps something far more dangerous than that.


A smidge of detective work on Tanya's part has led her to the doors of Lux. A club, yes, this much she learned by reading signs and some word of mouth locally. The fact that a certain rather scary individual with a certain rather scary history works here?

Firstly, priceless — if proven to be so. Secondly, to prove it. She glances back at Roy with a nervous smile.

"Indulging my curiosity might become a bad habit," she teases even as she begins to step down the stairs. Dressed in a more professional attire than usual (though mind that the pencil skirt easily shows knees and the blouse is open to reveal collarbone and easily more), her heels click-click on the way. "Just a drink," she adds; "I want to see if he's here or not. If so, Roy. The stories, Roy." Her voice is modulated to uncharacteristic softer pitch and she slows upon descending the last half-flight.

All entrances and exits are marked. The clientele is noted. The weight and heft of the bar stools guesstimated for potential weapon use. Shielding could be found there, there, and there if a shoot-out were to begin. On the main floor itself, Tanya then pauses, adjusting her purse's strap as cover for further contemplation of the place as a whole. Seems ritzy.


"No, this is fine, this is what I want to be doing with my Sunday night," Roy says, in a tone of total disagreement. But he's tromping down the stairs anyway; a collared shirt, jeans, and a decent leather jacket, concealing a number of weapons discreetly out of sight. "Going into a known underworld dive bar to find one of the most dangerous assassins who ever lived and asking for his autograph."

"If I was a less secure kind of guy, I might be a little insulted. We could be out kicking ass. Or staying in," he says, pointedly. "Is this your way of telling me you're shopping for a new guy?"


Lux's assassin bouncer-bartender-Boy Friday may be its least fearsome employee. Whether he's on shift remains very much unclear. The three Germans via West Berlin perform all kinds of contortions on the rig they've set up on the floor. Two of them never once look up from their work, flicking switches and shifting wires in their cradles as male connectors and female connectors are smoothly slotted hither and fro. The distortions are part of the ambiance for the most part, even if the haunted whine from a thumping back track that won't be popular for another four years at least outside an exclusive scene has the crowd mostly enthralled. The alcohol does the rest.

Lucian doesn't at all look threatening. White button-down shirt and black trousers do not a terrifying visage make. It's possibly the fact he remains reading through several prepared dossiers on the move that disturbs, so out of the ordinary. Either way, it's the descent down the stairs which attracts his attention. The distinctive patter of the new arrivals warrants a look and the bouncer in question, slim and dusky and possibly half-Indian, shrugs a shoulder in his direction.

"Welcome to Lux," he murmurs in passing. Oh, dread underworld bar with a dread underworld lord hemming and hawing over which delightful antique sword to buy. Or beg or steal.


"If I were looking for a new guy, I wouldn't beat about the bushes, Roy," replies the Mamba tartly, arching an eyebrow in his direction. "This is an adventure, anyways, if you've already decided he's that damn scary."

Tanya quits fiddling with her purse when addressed by the gentleman in the fancy attire. It's a distracted greeting and she points at the red-head beside her and adds quickly and quietly, "You'll want in on the latest lead that I have with the child slavery ring anyways." Maybe she spoke loudly enough for Lucian to hear in passing — maybe not. Regardless, he's addressed next with a more sultry twist to Tanya's general demeanor and smile.

"Thanks, we appreciate it. Is Jack around?"


"You? Direct? I'll believe it when I see it," Roy mutters— but when Tanya looks away, a small, satisfied smile crosses his face.

He stays right off Tanya's shoulder as they walk into the club. She's the more personable of the two anyway, and Roy's the more paranoid. His head stays on a swivel, and he's angled slightly to minimize the chances of someone coming up behind them. While she talks, he's checking everyone for weapons and counting paces to the emergency exit doors.

Other than that, he helps out by backing up Tanya's cultured, charming demeanour with his flat and implacable features.


An adventure indeed. That might draw up a lesser soul, prompting curiosity or a smidgen of offense. Not from that particular cat, though. Flashing cufflinks at his wrists signal the shifting of the papers back into one hand, a carefully curated selection largely ignored. Lucian delivers that briefest of surveys, the fathomless lament of his burning eyes drawing in the light to drown Tanya's reflection. Maybe. And maybe not. "He is occupied, unfortunately. I should hate to disappoint."

His teeth are hidden by that faint and precise smile. "Is there anything else you would like?"


There's something in the blonde man's gaze that brings Tanya's attempt to cajole information from him extremely short. Checked sharper than a thoroughbred jumper at a tall hedge, she stares at Lucian for a few endless seconds before her faltering smile gains some life and courage again.

The flinty spark of her humor brings her to the word choice. "Shame that he's not in. I was hoping to speak with a former colleague." Her olive eyes shift to Roy, most stoic of sorts. "Might as well have a drink while we're here? Discuss things like kicking ass?"


Roy is unnerved by Lucian as well, though he could never articulate why and wouldn't mention it even if he understood it. /Something/ about that man is… off.

He exchanges a conversation made up of small glances with Tanya, and nods at her. "A drink," he agrees. "Maybe he'll turn up."

He looks around. "Like a mercenary tooth fairy," he mutters, under his breath.

Mostly.


Precision defines so much of what Lucian does. No needless motions, no untoward words, no false threats. He picks every word with care unless off the cuff, and there isn't alcohol or dancing devas or Lilim enough to convince him to tread that path presently. The faltering smile and failing looks produce an elongated degree of consideration, the mildest tilt forward. "You're a former coworker of his? What a fascinating curriculum vitae you must have." Not resume. The V he intones is sharp enough to stake any bloodsucker in a two block radius by calculated symmetries.

"By all means, I do encourage you to skim over the menu and find the poison that suits you best. Though, alas, we don't serve much in the way of common kinds." Not by a longshot. The chalked sign left by Ana, a strawberry blonde defining hourglass, reads '3 days since someone asked for something boring.'


"Don't be jealous," whispers the brunette aside to Roy.

Mostly.

Tanya takes a moment to admire said signage, with the snark level 11 in its communicated message, and then gives Lucian a glance that remains somewhat wary, even if she's got that half-lidded sensuality on near-full display.

"I didn't expect anyone who hired Jack to do anything boring, that's sure as hell. Plus, if you hired him, then you know," she adds with a congenial degree of turn to her head, as if admiring the club owner in a new light.


Roy bumps Tanya with his elbow in response to her whisper, though it's a subtle gesture. He finds himself unable to stare down Lucian, which makes him profoundly uncomfortable, which serves to make him irritated. The devil wears cufflinks easily the cost of a car, and that way of his— too still, too self controlled— Roy mutters something under his breath, an old Navajo incantation against demons and things that bump in the night. It's often spoken as an afterthought— blessing someone after they sneeze.


"Oh, perhaps I am a man of impulse and enjoy hiring people directly off the street." Lucian cuts a neat figure and moreso when he tips his head, the rakish spill of the pale hair catching bronze highlights from the edison bulbs overhead. It gives his skin a golden tone otherwise absent, a contrast sharper than by any collusion with abundant shadows. "Why bother with the unnecessary vetting when opportunity rises for someone to present their talents?"

He's got some snake oil to sell a few towns back west, as it happens. He might have a few words for the rain dance to bring a blessing on parched crops.

His brow ticks up. "Not the sort most would've taken for a windtalker."


Windwalker? Tanya turns a frown on Roy, though it's equal parts annoyed and intrigued. The twinkle in her eyes flicks to Lucian and indeed, there's that low level mental caress, a flickering tongue to taste the air about them.

"You're aware of Jack's talents and you still hired him…?" Color her dubious.


Tanya would sense how Roy suddenly tenses behind her, eyes going wide then narrowing at Lucien. The banter between Tanya and Lucien was pretty par for the course— always talking in circles— but the idea that Lucien understood his words clearly shocks Roy. No one outside a very small part of the Navajo tribes speaks that language, the tongue of the Dine. It's a sacred language.

He acknowledges Tanya's look with a touch to her waist— but he never takes his eyes off Lucien.


Summon whatever courage one requires as Lucifer transitions the weight of his focus from the Mamba to Roy. "Nizhonigo alheehosiilziid. Dine bazaad shil ya'at'eeh." He flicks his fingers in an easy gesture, rolling his wrist to indicate the bar. They were headed that way, of course, and he's not about to forfeit their path simply because a man is startled and a woman asks about employment.

"I am aware, yes. He's a hard worker, competent in telling cognac from armagnac, and knows when to defuse problems." That in turn suggests so much.


What on earth language is happening here? It's nothing she's heard before, not in all her questionable years of handling targets. Still, Lucian catches her off-guard and triggers a rather unladylike snerk to suddenly escape.

It causes a need to clap a hand over her mouth. Tanya drops her chin, seeming to compose herself, and leans her weight to one side, bumping her hip up against Roy's side.

"Defusing problems." She seems to appreciate echoing them back, a smirk easy on her mouth. "What a quaint way to twist it. Looking to hire?" The twinkle in her olive eyes hasn't faded a watt. She can do direct, it seems.


"She's for hire. I'm not convinced yet," Roy says, uneased by Lucien's command of the sacred language, but forging ahead. "Not interested in joining the Retired Assassin's organization. But…" he glances at Tanya.

"We hear sometimes that work comes through here. Honest work," he says. "Government subcontracting, private enterprise. That kind of thing. Thought you might have a line on ways we can … fight the good fight," he says, grimacing a little.

This venture was largely Tanya's idea, and Roy's reticence shines through.


"Talent is never something a smart manager overlooks." Manager, proprietor, half a dozen titles full of regularized importance and that's the one Lucifer selects. It's something of a come down in the world. "Mind, the actual nature of the work varies. Not everything on the front lines dealing with the public." His shoulder rises slightly. The spectacle of his explanation leaves enough unsaid. "Though you have a way of putting a cherry on the offal."

That's one way to describe things. His smirk thins out a little. "Honest work happens, yes. Some simple labours. Some difficult ones, of course."


"Hmm…" The thoughtful sound drops and then leaps up once again even as Tanya folds her arms. A stray finger taps on her chin as she considers Lucian. She's fully aware of Roy beside her and the fact that he isn't jumping up and down at such an offer.

"I think I speak for us both when I say that difficult doesn't bother us. I'd rather not deal with the public. I get tired of being called a bitch by people with no more brains than gum scraped off the bottom of a bar table." She shrugs. "I'm interested. What's the catch?"

Because there's always a catch.


Lucian smirks faintly. "What catch?" His hand rests flat to the marble countertop at the bar, his rotation to face the pair poised as though expecting a painter or a photographer to leap out. "I expect the obvious. Loyalty, discretion, and capable work. As any employer does, really, though I brook no failures on that account. I'm not particularly interested in paying for the talents and services of someone who can be persuaded elsewhere, or drawn away from the work. Moonlighting, as it were."

He smirks, as it is.


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