Moon Over Bourbon Street<br/>Something Wicked This Way Comes<br/>Ximen, Heirarch of New Orleans<br/>Frederick, Heirarch's Provost<br/>Malachi, Chief Sentinel<br/>'Burin' Elijah Warden, Thyrsus Free Council<br/>'Vulpes' Prof. Elliot Van Graaf, Obrimos Guardian of the Veil<br/>S.J. Jones, Acanthus Free Council<br/>'Damon Jones' Tsutomu Fujimoto, Mastigos Silver Ladder<br/><em>'Obsidian' Reine Valentine, Moros Adamantine Arrow</em><br/>'Áfriorda' Elizabeth Brown, Thysus Mysterium<br/>August 22nd, 2005<br/>Royal Sonesta Hotel – Private Suite<br/><br/><br/>Reine listened, her head tilted to the side as she listened to everything.  Every question, every answer and all the uncertainties.  All that mirrored her own.  Her head swiveled, eyes round in disbelief as Ximen spoke briefly on the Bound.  The entire time her eyes were glued to the woman as if to ask...no demand that she was joking.  Even as she watched the woman leave, she was left with more questions than answers.  Answers that would not be given.  Not yet.<br/><br/>She closed her eyes and sifted through all the bits of her knowledge.  Everything she remembered Choronos saying to her on the oddities of Death and the things that made Death look twice.  Brought forth from her reverie by Nick's voice at her ear.  The startling grays snapped open and her face lost it's smooth demeanor for a mere moment.  She was really on edge and had yet to indulge herself of certain needs.  She did not bother looking at him.<br/><br/>"What are the Bound?  I've never heard that term," Nick asked, his curiosity finally getting him to open his mouth.<br/><br/>"And you wouldn't," she whispered in a hiss.  She pulled together what she knew and threw it out there.  It wasn't much, the Bound were better left unspoken but not forgotten.  So when she spoke, it was in that hushed tone of the storyteller, the hint of her Creole birth coming through, "You get told when you are young that the Bogey man don't sleep under your bed, that the monster, he ain't in your closet.  That at least it what is told to good little Sleeper children.  Not me.  My Meme, excuse me, my Grandmere, she tells me of lots of things.  She says to me, "Reine, you be afraid of the dark, girl, out there is things worse than Baron Samedi hisself."  Now what could be worse than the Baron, I thinks.  I seen many things before becoming a Mage.  You can't sit in the shadows and deal Death without seeing a few things that be odd.<br/><br/>But those are differnet stories I not be tellin'  like.  But us, we like children here now too.  Except the tales and whispers, they more like nightmares to keep you up for weeks.  The Bound, sure, they are big and mean.  Nastier than Cerberus who be guardin' the Gates of Stygia but I'm thinking more.  Choronos told me once that the Bound hunger.  To stay in this world, to exist, they need us....hunt us even.  We are prime gator tail.  Taste like chicken if you get my meanin'.  Our magic, it sustains them, makes them more?  He says, if they ate themselves up enough of Mages, then there be no stoppin' them.  He says, that the Arch, they may be powerful enough, but there would come a day when even they would have a fight on their hands."<br/><br/>She rose from her seat as if she had liquid for bones and set her glass, with it's melted ice on side table and walked towards the door Elliot had just walked out of.  She stood before the girl and her dog who had asked who was going with who.  She smiled, though one of her smiles could chill the soul of a man, this one had a hint of warmth.  Maybe from the drink she just had.  "I think we all stick together for now.  What's the purpose of gathering us together, giving us ominous portent and the splitting us to the four winds.  Nah, I think this Magister, he gots plans and that is meant for all of us.  I think I could use another drink, my nerves are shot.  I believe Du Monde sells a bit of the spirit."<br/><br/>Reine may have said her nerves were shot, but she did not outwardly appear it.  She walked into the hallway and turned halfway.  "So you all coming, or you waiting for a more spectacular invitation than this one.  Something with Gold lettering, mayhap?  We have a date and I don't think the man likes to be waiting.  Storms awastin."<br/><br/>She motioned for Nick to follow her and he fell in step behind her.  He knew she was irritated, could hear it.  Maybe one of the few that could.  She was always so smooth.  He had a million questions he wanted an answer for, but damned if he was stupid enough to ask her.  He would just watch and listen.  He was good at that.