Happenstance
There hadn't been time to call in any of my new team, and frankly, at this early stage, I wasn't entirely sure that I could rely on them in a situation that I hadn't planned out and strategised thoroughly. And so, it was on my lonesome that I strode into the lobby of the W Hotel in Westwood, having broken out the nattiest and least action-worn clothes that I still posessed. I would have preferred to be carrying my Ithaca shotgun, but it wouldn't have done me any good to be stopped on the spot by the security force of one of the trendiest and most luxurious hotels in Los Angeles.
The news from my informant had been vague, but worrisome-- a beautiful woman had been seen at the two newest and most difficult to enter nightclubs in as many days, both times appearing to use some sort of unseen influence on both the outside bouncers and on some of the patrons within. I kept a constant stream of payouts to doormen and security guards to keep an eye out for strange activity, and it had proved a wise investment more than once.
So, I visited the most likely nightclub, looking for the woman. Few vampires had the talent to place humans in thrall, and it made an already dangerous creature into a deadly and difficult predator. It would not be an easy job, and if it were our old friend Drusilla, then her madness only intensified her threat.
It turned out I was just a hair too late to catch my quarry, but after a rather persuasive session introducing one of the bartenders to the back of my fist, I was able to track her back to her very expensive hotel.
The desk clerk, on the other hand, required less violent coaxing into revealing the hotel room I required, and I entered the elevator with a phone number scrawled on the back of a business card and a date for the next Saturday, both of which would be forgotten by morning. Arriving at the penthouse level, I stepped out of the elevator to a mercifully empty hallway.
Finding the room I needed, I slid my pistol from its holster behind my right hip and tested the weight of the stake in its spring-loaded sheath beneath my left sleeve. Taking a deep breath, I braced myself and kicked in the door.
((Open to Emma, just because I couldn't resist))
The news from my informant had been vague, but worrisome-- a beautiful woman had been seen at the two newest and most difficult to enter nightclubs in as many days, both times appearing to use some sort of unseen influence on both the outside bouncers and on some of the patrons within. I kept a constant stream of payouts to doormen and security guards to keep an eye out for strange activity, and it had proved a wise investment more than once.
So, I visited the most likely nightclub, looking for the woman. Few vampires had the talent to place humans in thrall, and it made an already dangerous creature into a deadly and difficult predator. It would not be an easy job, and if it were our old friend Drusilla, then her madness only intensified her threat.
It turned out I was just a hair too late to catch my quarry, but after a rather persuasive session introducing one of the bartenders to the back of my fist, I was able to track her back to her very expensive hotel.
The desk clerk, on the other hand, required less violent coaxing into revealing the hotel room I required, and I entered the elevator with a phone number scrawled on the back of a business card and a date for the next Saturday, both of which would be forgotten by morning. Arriving at the penthouse level, I stepped out of the elevator to a mercifully empty hallway.
Finding the room I needed, I slid my pistol from its holster behind my right hip and tested the weight of the stake in its spring-loaded sheath beneath my left sleeve. Taking a deep breath, I braced myself and kicked in the door.
((Open to Emma, just because I couldn't resist))