Lixi listened as Crowley began to go on about the historically known facts about Sehkmet's worshipers, but she didn't feel like listening to the watered down facts he'd learned in museums, and she had a feeling Adja wasn't concerned with that part either. She stood and crossed the room to retrieve a large, flat, light gray piece of slate, and talcum stone from beside it. She knew she could have easily asked for a pen and paper, but when talking about the ancient world they just didn't seem appropriate.

"Alister dear, she's hardly looking for the tourists information." she interrupted his talk of how she was popularly worshiped in the upper kingdom and which pharaohs promoted her worship, and began to draw as she spoke in the same song like voice she'd held most of the evening. "Sehkmet, was said to be the great lioness daughter of Ra. She was the fierce warrior goddess, and was said to guard the Pharaohs in battle, which is why her priestesses would often accompany the pharaoh to war, as his personal body guards. These warrior women were faster, and more adjile than their male counterparts, and were said to be as deadly and fierce as ten comon soldiers. From the times I fallowed them into the thick of a fight, I say the common myth doesn't give them credit. But what made them so great wasn't their training, or their skill, it was the way they revelled in the fight."

"You see, they believed that the greatest honor they could receive was to serve as Sehkmets hand in war, to help satiate her blood thirst by spilling the enemies life out before her. They taught that the desert was formed by her breath in a gust of her enraged roar, and that to spill blood on the sands which she had made was to worship her completely. After battle, they would celebrate with the great drunken feasts of indulgence. It was said that after battle, the only thing that could quiet Sehkmet's wrath was over indulgence in wine, soothing music, and other such revelries. And to be sure, their feasts were incredible. They said that this was so, because after a great war in which Sehkmet was so infuriated with all man kind, her father had to trick her into becoming drunk by turning the Nile river into beer mixed with pomegranate juice so that it looked like blood. She was said to have drank till she slumbered heavily. So, at their celebrations, the people would play music and dance in their revelries, serving pomegranate wine, not unlike that which we drank tonight at dinner, to the priestesses of Sehkmet untill they fell soundly asleep from their drunken state."

"The people would then carry them to bed, where they would tend to them, watching over them and worshiping them as the living embodiments of the goddess till they awoke the next morning, when they would pray to them to beg Sehkmet for her protection and to stay her hand and not bring her wrath upon their people again. The priestesses were never aloud to know the touch of a man, however, so only women were ever aloud to be near to them. Men were required to enjoy the feast from the outer porch of the temple, which was aptly named 'the porch of intoxication' when it was ordered built by one of the later Pharaohs."

When she finished talking, Lixi turned the tablet around to show Adja the charcoal drawing of the traditional image of Sehkmet that she'd seen so many times on the walls of the old temple. A tall women with the head of a lion, and the traditional sun disk above her head.

Yoake drunk in the explanation. "Wow," She said finally. "You've seen a lot of history, huh?"

She looked at her black-and-purple painted clawlike nails. The question that had been nagging at her was finally making it's way out. Finally, she voiced it.

"Why on Earth--or in Hell--would the deomons want to mix human and demon DNA? And why are they murdering everyone I get close to?" She asked. She wanted dearly to explore the temple and learn about all the ancient history and mythology associated with it, but she wouldn't be able to really enjoy it if she didn't get her questions off her chest. "And are there any pants in this place?"

Adja's eyebrows furrowed in thought during Lixi's recounting of the Sehkmet. The drinking and feasting ritual seemed to strike a cord: there seemed to be a theme to this place. She imagined that when it was still a hotel there was a similar decadence about it: not simply in architecture, but in the treatment of the guests as well. Well, as decadent as Cairo could be in 1903. Indeed, the reason Cairo even existed could very well be simply because of the Sehkmet and their use of the energies through time. The difference now was that there was no underlying desire for bloodshed, though she was sure that if she should venture into the inner-sanctum of the sub-basement, she would have found that not much had changed. Crowley had twisted it to his uses: which could not have been easy. On the surface, Adja could see why his followers treated him like a god; his presence was warm, but commanding. This was his space, much in the way that she had made her tiny study her space, but on a much grander scale. And no matter how much she tried, she couldn't persuade people to believe her findings even there.

She understood now: Crowley was an energy worker, just like her, or at least that was what she comprehended him as. Immortality aside, and she would have her own questions about that as well, he simply knew how to work the magic that was already present.

There would certainly be more questions, but Yaoke had asked her own. There would be time later. As Crowley had put it, he had all the time in the world. She had her doubts, though, that Crowley would have much knowledge of the works of demons.

Lixi had still been lost in thoughts of the cat women and their feasts of indulgence for some time even after she'd put the slate down. She'd stretched before draping herself across Martin's long legs, not unlike a cat herself in that moment, if for no other reason than having been lost in a memory of the people before. She didn't say it, but she had considered joining their order when it was offered to her. Had it not been for Samathael's willing abandonment of the home that she'd never intended for him to leave, she probably would have. She wondered now what would have happened if she had. Could she have preserved their rituals, and their customs? Carried them through into the modern world even? Or would she simply have died along side the rest in some great battle or at the hands of the Pharaoh who finally ordered them all slain.

Yoake's question drew the first frown across her face in hours. She'd suspected what the girl was, but hearing her admit to being an abomination was another thing all together. As much as Lixi avoided the angels, she avoided the demons even more. If they had interests vested in this girl, it couldn't bode well for their group. Can't blame her for what she is though. She's as much a victim in this as her adoptive was.

"Beat's me as to why they made you darlin'. But as for why they killed your loved ones, well, probably because that's what demons do. If they want something from you, or just have something against you, they won't just kill you or threaten you. They go after what most matters to you. Look at what happened with Joel up on the roof. He may as well be a demon for as horrid as he's become. That's just how they work. If they want something from you, they find a way to either take away, hold ransom, or chase off that which is dearest to you."

At the memory of the roof, she rolled over like a sleeping cat that had been woken by an unpleasant noise, and wrapped her arms around Martin, more aware than ever of how foolish she'd been to take him up there. She knew Joel would pick up on her attachment to him, but she also knew she couldn't have made him stay behind if she'd tried. She closed her eyes, trying not to think about it, and rested her head against him as she'd grown so fond of doing.

"Half demon then is it?" Crowley cut Lixi's pessimistic speech off, intrigued by what the girl had said. "Well that is rather remarkable. I'm afraid I don't have any answers for you dear girl, but give me a while and I may yet be able to.... well... conjure up one who might."

Adja's eyebrow raised skeptically. She wondered if Yaoke had been paying attention. Why would Allister know much of anything about her half-demon heritage? All of his knowledge seemed to be about Ancient Egypt, and all of it rooted in the fantastic grandeur of the myth rather than the harsh reality of slave labor and poverty. The cult had only been in existence since the 1900's. Allister couldn't have been old enough to know the work of demons. One century was a child in comparison to Lixi.

And, as she suspected, he didn't know. But she was curious what he meant by 'conjure.' Did he intend to summon a demon? Was that... safe?

At Lixi's sudden movement, Martin curled an arm around her back. He had no idea what she was thinking, or why she suddenly seemed so sad. He ran his hand across her back comfortingly, and kissed her on the forehead. After about a minute or so, he realized that it must have been because she had mentioned Joel. Was she really that scared of him? Did she really think that his awkward, breakeable body would have been able to protect her? It scared him a bit to think that she relied on him that much.

You think pretty highly of yourself for someone that spends most of his time thinking about boobs, Vuture sneered. Now that they were out of the dining area and free of the excess energy that had been drowning her out, she felt the need to remind him that she still existed. She had, essentially, been asleep during dinner. Fighting against the roar of Crowley's cultists had proven a futile battle. By the by, judging by her frame they're not nearly as big as you imagine them.

Martin breathed shallowly and put his attention to the voice in the back of his head. Can't just let me be happy, can you?

Not if you being happy means deluding yourself.

The energy was calmer in this room, not amplifying the workings of peoples minds as much, but she still caught onto the shift in Martin's emotional state if nothing else. She hadn't meant to set him into a state of worry, she'd only wanted comfort from the thought of loosing him. She opened her eyes and glanced at Crowley, who was already up and heading across the room to a large cabinet in the back. She sighed at the thoughts of what he might try, but knew the answers were pertinent to their newest friends. Guess it can't be any worse than an apocalypse.

Turning her attention back to the obviously preoccupied Martin, she sat up as straight as she could to put herself at eye level with him, which wasn't hard given his slouch. She reached up to push a stray strand of hair out off his forehead, studying his face for a clue to his worry. As usual, she couldn't get past Vulture to get a glimpse into what may be bothering him. "What is it? What's troubling you?" She questioned softly. She knew this wasn't a matter for the rest, but Yoake and Adja seemed to be watching Crowley, and he was clearly concerned with only one train of thought, so now seemed as good a time as any.

Crowley had opened the large cabinet, and begun fumbling through piles of herbs, ingredients, candels, charms, and other ritualistic items. Suddenly he stopped, set it all down, and came back to Yoake with a large flat item encased in a black velvet bag, and a small, ceremonial dagger, made of soft white gold, with swirling paterns of shimmering pearl inlay in the handle. He sat down at the low table in front of the group, moving the hookah and it's accessories off the table.

"Yoake, come here. I have some other questions that will need answewred first if we're going to look into origins of your past." he pulled a large metal tray out of the cloth bag, made out of the same white gold as the anthame dagger. It had a mirror covering the entire flat botom of the tray. It's straight sides came up about three inches high, with a curled lip around the entire top. The lip had pearls inbedded in it all around, accept at 4 equal points, where instead of pearls, were broad, tappering holes for 4 candles, which Crowley pulled from another small velvet bag. "Adja, would you be so kind as to assist me? I think you'll find this processs most informative. There's an ancient stone well in the courtyard where you all came into the compound, would you take the gold pitcher from the table by my cabinet and go fill it from that well? I would be most greatful. Now, Yoake, tell me, what do you know of the demons who've come after you, who've created you? Do you know anything of them? How they looked, how they moved, how they sounded, the manor in which they kill? Anything at all could help."

"Vulture's back," he said quietly in her ear, so not to alert the others. But on further analyzing what it was that Vulture said, he smiled a bit. It was kind of funny. "I think she's jealous of you." In a much less subtle way than usual, too. Normally she just stuck with basic insults about how stupid he was, or things that were related to her angelic nature. But this was petty, catty. It was like an ex-girlfriend judging the new girlfriend. He chuckled.

You couldn't be more wrong, she defended. I'm just preparing you for the incoming disappointment, since you seem to be overlooking quite a bit of her obvious flaws. You'll thank me later. With the threat against the world so far away now, Vulture's goal seemed to be more focused on keeping her host in check rather than feeding him information or trying to keep him alive. It was much more difficult now than it was before he had met Lixi.

Adja nodded and took the pitcher from the table. Gaudy thing... She was more than pleased to help, if it meant that she could learn more about the magic of this place. She retraced her memory to where they had entered the building earlier that day. Oh goodness... had it really only been that long? The days seemed to drag on and on forever. But with the relative cool of the night outside, it was clear that at least this day was coming to a close now.

In the courtyard, she immediately spotted the well that Allister was talking about. She also saw the entrance to the temple where they had come in. Lixi had closed the entrance, she remembered vaguely, but she still expected demons to emerge from the darkness of it. Once she realized she was staring, she shook that feeling and approached the well. She lowered the bucket deep down into the void of it until she heard it hit the surface with a faint slosh. Turning the crank as hard as she could, with the bucket now full, she pushed to draw the water back up to the top.

With the water clear to the top, she set it on the stone ledge to retrieve the pitcher. The surface caught her eye: it was clear, smooth. She could see the stars of the sky in it. So many stars... and she recalled the vision she had seen the last time she scried. But that vision wasn't there this time. What she did see... was a cat peering at her with two acid-green eyes. She didn't know she was scrying... at least she didn't recall trying to. She took a step back. There was a cat sitting on the protective roof of the well. It looked up at her as if she were a nuisance, then jumped off the well and sauntered into the darkness of the night.

Adja made a mental note to investigate this later, filled the pitcher, and navigated her way back to the room where the others were.

Lixi returned her hand to his cheek with a rather wicked smile, and gently stroked his jaw line with her thumb before leaning in to kiss him briefly. She knew Vulture didn't like, but that so long as Martin was conscious, the strange old thing within him wouldn't be able to use his body to hurt her, so the physical closeness to him was made doubly enjoyable. She leaned closer after the kiss, putting the hand she'd touched his face with on the back of his neck and entwining her fingers ever so lightly in the soft hairs at the base of his short pony tail to gently pull him closer, then quietly whispered in his ear.

"Did she tell you about her and i's little accord from the brief time we spoke? Where she agreed not to deliberately cause me any problems in exchange for helping you get accustom to her as I've still been trying to do?" the last part was said in almost a low, cat like yowl, meant as a reminder to Vulture of there agreement. She pulled away just far enough to press her forehead to his, their noses touching slightly, and spoke again. All the brief severity that had been directed to Vulture was gone, and the tender musical tone this place seemed to give her was back. "If she ever does make you doubt me, ever leaves with questions as to my intentions or nature, please, will you ask me about them? For you, love, I'm an open book. I'll tell you anything you wish to know of me, or of the world as far as I have knowledge. I'll even show you anything I'm capable of conjuring images of or taking you to. You need only tell me what it is you desire to know."

She stopped and thought about what she'd just said. It was an offer she'd never extended to anyone before, and she was rather shocked at herself for it, but the truth was she'd meant it.You're only setting yourself up to fail... what are you doing? Throwing this offer to a human, who knows how long he'll even be around for? She could turn him, sway him to use anything you show him against you... this is foolish, even for you. she scolded herself heavily, but refused to retract the offer. Maybe it was time to stop hiding, and put a little trust into at least this one person. "Which reminds me, I've something to show you here as soon as we know Crowley isn't going to call anything to heinous into being. I've a feeling his rituals will be of far more interest to your sister than to you, and the place ii have to show you will be much more intriguing to you than to her." She kissed him one more time before turning to look back at what Crowley was doing.

Yoake nodded. "On this plane, they preferred to take a humanoid form, but they always kept their horns, clawlike nails, fangs, and glowing yellow eyes." She said. "Apart from that, whenever they used a glamor to make themselves look human, they literally looked like any other person you'd meet on the street. As for how they killed...." She shivered. "They like causing as much pain as possible and didn't know the meaning of the word moderation. The more bloodshed and gore, the better. Whenever they could, they'd kill those close to me right in front of me. Long story short, the lot of them were always fucked up." She was hugging herself now, unconciously. "I'm sorry, I don't really know what they look like without their human forms. They never took them off when I was around."

I'm no expert on demons, but that does sound rather like the ancient dragon men that people of the eastern continent used to fear and worship, but I'm afraid anything beyond that is out of my expertise. Well then, dear child, we shall just have to see if we can't shed some more light on that subject once Adja returns with the water. Crowley motioned for her to sit at the table across from him and picked up the anthame dagger. "Now, I am sorry for what I have to ask you to do next, as it may cause some discomfort, but I assure you, it will be most beneficial to the process. Would you be so tolerant as to let me see your hand? I need to retrieve just enough of your blood on the tip of this knife to place a symbol on this tray of reflection with it.

Yoake stiffened. She hated when she had to have blood drawn, due to her aversion to needles, but having it done with a knife...the girl felt like she was about to bolt from the room that moment. She may be half-demon, but needles and having her blood drawn just...it didn't rub her the right way. At all.

"All right," she sighed, moving up to the other side of the table, accross from Crowley. "And if I flip out, I apologize in advance. I've got a serious...er, aversion to having blood drawn...."

((wrote a post... Mene ate it. Re-writing, possibly abridged))

No, Vulture had not explained that deal. "I've only known that she ain't my conscience for the past twelve hours and shit keeps happening, so she ain't said anything about that," he said. With the way that Vulture moved, in and out of his conscious mind at no particular pattern, there wasn't much he could do to ask her. And between the occurrences on the roof, the all-encompassing magic in this place, and all the things that were happening in-between, she didn't seem too obligated to tell him much. He would have to have a talk later.

Martin could not quite grasp what sort of a sacrifice it was for Lixi to be so open with him. He had his secrets, too, but they were less to the magnitude of hers simply because... well, he was human. And she already knew somewhat who he worked for and the business that he dealt with, so when it came to the details of his life it was only just a matter of asking the right questions. "Long as we're puttin' things out on the table," he said, moving closer to her ear. "When you took me to the oasis, in that thin piece of cloth you were wearing... I was totally thinking about your boobs."

Adja returned with the pitcher to a squeamish Yaoke. She reflected upon how she had come full-circle: after studying as a nurse she was desensitized to needles and blood, then after her time at the institution she became overly-reactive to them... and now after seeing someone's heart ripped out of their chest and then burned she felt that a little bit of bloodletting was in the grand scheme of things a rather small task. She recalled some of her nurse's training, how to get someone to keep from squirming under pressure of the needle, and set the pitcher down. "Would you like me to help?"

"Yeah," Yoake said. "Get me really freaking drunk so I pass out and don't feel the blood being drawn."

((Gotta love Yoake's optimism.))

Crowley simply nodded and motioned toward Yoake's arm, glaring at Lixi and Martin when a loud giggle from Lixi inturupted his concentration. He waited for Adja to take Yoake's arm, then grasped the half demon's hand tightly, and begin chanting something in a lost language. His eyes rolled back in his head, as if her were fully in a trance, and his grip tightened on her hand. Quickly he drew the knife across the thick muscle below the thumb in the palm of her hand, then used the side of the tip portion of the ornate blade to swipe away the blood the quickly formed. Still in the trance like chanting state, he released the girls hand, and drew a symbol that looked to be some form pf chinese or japanese onto the mirror with her blood.

Before Crowley had begun his ritual, lixi had only giggled at Martin's coment, a kissesd him gently for it. She'd been planning on saying more till the chanting started. As soon as Crowley set into his altered state, she took Martin by the hand and quickly lead him to a small bench far in the back of the room. She tried to be as quiet as possible, not wanting to interupt. "Sorry, his workings have always had an ill effect on me. The gods he usually comune with still view me as little more than a pawn of a rival, so mostly I find it best to stay at a safe distance."

Back at the front of the room, the mirror began to glow with a white hot light, just before Crowley dumped the water in. When he did so, all other light in the room extinguished, including the 4 candles around the mirrored tray. The only light left came from the strange, unearthly glow coming out from under the water. A small voice, much like crowley's but quieter, whispered into Ajda's mind. Look child, look in. I'll need to stay in this trance. Look for me child, look for the origin of the blood, fallow it through the mirror, tell me what you see.

When the glow started, Lixi closed her eyes, and turned away. The glow barely reached them, but it still made her feel sick. "I'm an outcast from anywhere I go it seems, even here, in the closest place I have to a home, I am not truly welcome. What a life this is." She whispered quietly, and gripped his hand a little tighter.

Adja sighed. That was not what she meant by "help." "Getting you drunk will only increase bloodflow and put you at risk for things worse than simply 'passing out,'" she said, taking hold of Yaoke's arm. She slid her hand up the forearm from the wrist, feeling for any scars or hard spots that would be a bad place to place the knife. "Besides, I have a feeling that you will want to be conscious for what is going to happen next, so neither drunkenness or anemia will be of any use to you. It would be best if you concentrate on the far wall, over there." she flipped her arm over to bare the white, fleshy part, of her arms, and tapped along the vein to make it more visible. "Patient's ready, doctor," she said, immediately catching her freudian slip. "I mean... Mister Crowley."


((And now I have to go to work. Will respond further when I get back. -____-))

"Okay," Yoake said weakly. She really, really hated needles. And having her blood drawn. And yet, for some insanely odd reason, she had no problems drawing the blood of demons--provided it was with her sword or rifle. But still, she whimpered involuntarily when the knife made it's cut, even though she was studying the cieling vehemently. The only keeping her from running out of the room right then and there was the fact that Adja was holding her arm down.

On Crowley's command, Adja fixed her eyes on the glow of the water. She began to see in that in-between space where auras and energy lie, and here eyes began to have a glassy look in them as though she were going to the brink of consciousness. Scrying was much easier this way, in this place. But this was different: she was being guided this time, lead by the hand by an ancient man chanting a long-dead language. She was not here to see the future as she was the last time. This was about the past. The present flitted by in glimpses, as did much of Yaoke's later life, pausing only briefly to linger upon the brutal deaths of her foster parents before speeding back to her conception and birth.

This vision was not only more vivid, but she actually felt as though she were in the room of her memory as time slowed. "I'm in a hospital," she said with a small voice. "But not a normal hospital. Darker, forgotten..." The place was gritty, covered in grime, and certainly not sanitary. She suspected that it was any one of the abandoned asylums that dotted the country. There were medical instruments on the wall, as well as other implements that she didn't recognize. There was no doubt that they belonged to the demons. She heard yelling. "There's a demon in the room," she said. "He looks like a man, but he has no shadow. And he's speaking in Latin..." But who to? A small, shivering man stood in front of the demon, speaking in English... or at least that's what it seemed to be in this vision. He was wearing a doctor's coat, but it was certainly not a clean one.

"I know you're impatient," the doctor said, adjusting his glasses nervously. "But the gestation period is nine months. If we had found a way to use a demon ova, it perhaps it would have been quicker, but we did not have that luxury, so all I ask is for your patience." The demon garbled a question at him, clearly not observing the requested patience. "No, no... even after the baby is born, there will still be at least twelve years before it is ready to be used to your purposes. Human children are fragile, Chu Kwai. If you touch the child and it is not ready, all our work will be for naught." The demon was angry, and spoke with a harsh grit of a voice when it opened its black mouth. It took a lunge at the doctor. The doctor jumped back, almost expecting it. "You want to kill me? I don't fear you. But if you want this child to be receptive to your plans, you will want me alive. It will be a demon, but it will be human as well. Its mother will die, that is for certain. She is dying as we speak just by carrying her at only five months. If the child is raised by demons, then it will only know the world of the demons. It needs to know the world of Man if its ever going to aid in conquering it. So if you would please: allow me to proceed, and please be patient. There is still much work to be done...."

And there is where the vision ended. It snapped her back like a rubber band, and she was in the darkened room again. She lifted her eyes, able to feel them again. The conversation she had just seen could have been taken many ways, but she took a stab at interpreting it the best she could. "It sounded like they were going to use you as a messenger, or a medium, between the demons and the human world." She thought about this a bit further. "You said earlier: there are some things that humans can do that demons cannot, like touch iron. But that doesn't seem the only reason. It seems that you were meant to be a bridge." She shook her head, unable to reach a full conclusion. The vision was informative, but hardly answered the question to why everyone close to her died.


Martin shifted his hand, interlocking his fingers in hers. He didn't feel sick from the light, but it did make him feel uneasy to be near it, as if it was going to jump out and pull him in. He felt safe in the dark, strange as it was. Even when he was doing the job, his designated spot in the office was always in the corner, away from the action, unnoticed until he was needed. He hardly spoke up, even when things involved him. Silence and darkness. Up until now, loneliness too. But even though that had changed, the rest stayed constant, consistent. He smiled. "All outcasts gotta go somewhere," he said. "We'll find out where that is sometime."

Yoake nodded. "It still looks like they weren't planning on me having a human soul by the looks of it though." She said. "Um, can you let me have my arm back please? I'm starting to lose the feeling in my fingers."

Adja only realized that she was still gripping the girl's arm when she mentioned it and let her loose. "I do recall you saying that," she said, remembering the conversation they had had in Yaoke's quarters. It was difficult not to wax philosophical. "Are you entirely sure that you have one," she said, carefully avoiding eye-contact. She knew that this was probably a sensitive subject, but it was an important thing to ask oneself. She had questioned the manner of souls, if she harnessed one, even the very existence of them, many times in her life. Sure, she believed in them, but she often questioned her own beliefs. And with a girl who was conceived through unnatural means... it was considered by many people who held the belief that that situation was quite questionable in the subject of souls.

"I've often asked myself the same thing." Yoake replied, pinching the cut closed to stop the bleeding and flexing her fingers to get the blood flowing again. "The way I see it, as long as I believe I have a soul that is at least aligned more with humans than demons, then it probably is. There's a good chance that my soul is like me; half human, half demon."

She was silent for a few more moments, thinking. Then she asked probably the last question anyone was expecting. "Adja, what's it like to be able to see your own baby pictures?"

"I don't have any," she said. Her own past was not as full of turmoil as Yaoke's, but it wasn't without its own sadness. "When we moved to the States, we had to pick up everything and leave within one night, so we only had time to pack the things that were most important. There weren't many photos of us as a family to begin with, and the ones that do exist are probably lining the streets of Montpellier." She said it with a stony face, rehearsed, but it was no secret that it made her feel empty regardless of how much she tried to hide it. "If its any consolation, the doctor who helped birth you seemed very concerned about you. He seemed to want to make sure you at least had a normal childhood," she said. She wondered what had happened to the doctor: if he had continued to help raise Yaoke, or if he had been killed as soon as his purpose was fulfilled.

Lixi slammed a hand down violently on the bench beside them and spoke up. Her tone far more agitated than it had been with anyone shy of joel. "Half demon soul? That's so ridiculous it's not even worth contemplating. Demon's don't have souls. If you have a soul, it's a human soul. End of story. The day a demon gets an immortal soul... oh god... what if, what if that was what they were trying to do... no. No." Lixi had stood up suddenly and begun pacing during her rant. She suddenly realized how crazy she must look, and sat back down beside Martin, hanging her head and resting it in her hands.

Crowley had ceased his chanting and stood up. He held up his hand in a calming gesture toward Lixi. "now Lixi calm down dear. One thought at a time. Why don't you take your friend and step outside. I need Adja and Yoake to look through a book I have to see if any of this looks familliar from Adja's vision or from Yoake's past. he walked to his cabinet once more and retrieved a hefty book. He'd spent a great deal of his unnaturally long life putting together a compenium of creatures, demon's, demi gods and dieties that he'd encountered.

Lixi took Martin's hand and complied. She was growing less comfortable by the moment. She stopped by Yoake and whispered to her, "If he starts trying to conjur or comunicate with anything again, get us first. I don't like it, but I would feel better being present for it." Once they'd left through the door Adja had used to get the water. She didn't close it behind them, but did at least pull i t mostly closed. Outside she leaned against the wall beside the door. The warm night air felt better coming through the long open corridors than the stuffy air in the smoke filled room. From further down the sounds of people laughing and making pleasurable noises came drifting through the air. She smirked breifly, and leaned her head back against the wall. "So... boobs huh?" She mumbled trying to get her mind off the idea of a souled demon. "I was sitting on your lap with my legs wrapped around you, and you only got as far as those?" She laughed and smiled warmly at him. The energy of the place was more present out here, and it set her to ease.

((good luck retrieving your post ^^; ))

Lixi's tirade about demons not being able to have souls made Yoake feel a bit better, knowing that the odds that there was a shred of demon in her soul was less than half a percent. When Lixi told Yoake to call her if Crowley tried to summon or conjure anything, Yoake gave a small nod of understanding.

"You mean Wilkinson?" Yoake asked Adja. "He was the only one there who at least acted like he gave a crap. Of course, once my demon 'caretakers' deemed that I didn't need him around any more, he dissapeared. Still haven't found his body." She stared at the cut. "It'd be nice if I knew what my birth parents looked like, so I'd be able to determine which one I look like."

Yoake stared at the encyclopaedia-sized book. She blinked a few times. "Okay, I've seen and read some hefty books, but that looks big enough that even Hermione Granger would prefer to leave it alone." She said.

Adja let the Rowling reference alone, reacting only by rubbing the bridge of her large nose, then moved on from there. "Yaoke, I want you to focus, please. What your parents look like is insignificant. We're trying to find out what your purpose on Earth is. Its kind of important." There was weight to what Lixi had said: a demon with a human soul... what would that mean? Something that she had said, or that she had come across. The basic definition of a soul was 'free will,' to move about in the world with no alignment or obligation to anything but the Earth, and even that was questionable. When had they mentioned that? It was with Rithe... yes... they had said that angels and demons couldn't be reincarnated because their souls could not be reborn. Was that right? Her mind was mentally twisting string around thumbtacks, trying to call forth the research that lie across the Atlantic. So a demon that had a soul... could be reborn again if it died. Someone with a very definite alignment that could be reborn over and over again: a replenishable resource to the demons who simply died when vanquished.

But not now. Now she needed to find the demon that the doctor had been talking to. She gazed upon the book, wondering how old, how invaluable this tome must be if it held all the encounters of one centuries-old man's frequent encounters with the Unknown. She fought the urge to want it, but still found herself lusting after the knowledge within it. She shook her head, trying to force herself to focus.

It had looked like a man: a tall man, a dark man that cast no shadow and was almost a shadow unto itself. The doctor had addressed him... called him by name. What had it been? She carefully flipped through the pages, being particularly ginger with the more aged paper, which were somewhat in alphabetical order (although not quite, much to her personal frustration) until she came to "Chu." The image on the page was not the tall, dark man that she had seen, but Yaoke had said that they often took a humanoid form when they were around her. The image was, instead, simply a shadow; easily mistaken for a black splotch on the page. "Chu Kwai," she said. "The doctor had called the demon 'Chu Kwai.'" She scanned the page for information, but all that it said of the demon Chu Kwai was that he was the creator of freaks. She turned to Yaoke. "Have you ever seen anything like this... but somewhat like a man, casting no shadow?"


Martin was lead out into the warm air of the night, feeling a bit less like he was intruding on some sacred ritual now that he was away from the voodoo or whatever it was they were doing. Even with all the evidence present and laid out for him to see, it was hard to believe half the things that were going on in there. The odd light from the water, sure he believed that that was real. But Adja said weird things all the time. If he believed all of them, he probably would have been sent away, too.

Between a half-skeptic and what the spirits probably saw as an interloper, he was glad to have the reprieve from the tension in the room. After a moment, he noted that this would be a good time to smoke. He padded himself down in the usual places in search for a cigarette, only to disappoint himself when he realized that he was still wearing the green tunic. He sighed. "Damn."

But he smiled. He wasn't used to girls taking his little perverted jokes as compliments and the openness that she had with him was more than great. "I'm a simple guy," he said. "I like to take things one step at a time."

DLixi watched Martin search for his cig's and shook her head with a soft laugh. "You do realize that even with as smooth as the shisha was that you just smoked, you probably just imbibed about 3 full flavors worth of nicotien, right? The water filters out the tar and the combustables that make it harsh or bitter, but the chemicals are still there, fused right into the steam of the water so you absorb it even faster." She wrapped her arms around his midsection and stretched up to kiss his cheek. She felt clearer now than she had all evening, and Vulture's presence aside, she still felt more comfortable with him than the rest of the group. "Thank you, by the way..." Lixi had stood up straight again and away from the wall before she'd wrapped her arms around him, now she smiled warmly and playfully pulled him along a few feet down the open sided coridore with her arms still around him. A few pillars up, there was a break in the low stone wall that ran between the pillars, and two shallow steps down into the narrow, decorative rock garden that filled the small open space. They were still close enough to see the door, but she wanted to see sky, and stars just then.

Inside, crowley watched the girls intently. He kept silent though. Any revelation would have to come from them. All he knew had been in the book about the demon group Adja refered to, so untill it came time to again work the ancient rituals of summoning, all he could do was observe.