the temptation.

He'd thought that forging Gods from intangibility had been an impossibility too, until recently. The cost of that, is the thing AJ's avoiding looking at, standing in the corner of the room, at Vicky's back whilst they talk about liquor, and humanity.

"What would you remember of human experience, Vicky? Give me the poetry of that." Drunken philosophy is a horrible hole to drop into. But he's got half a bloody mind to ask her if she thinks she can speak for it; to step into shoes she hasn't, for a while, to understand the gravitas of mortality, bed and hearts and the like. AJ considers power to be a subjective quality, in most. He's got it, beyond magic; he's got it in the telephone, and the status. He's got it in the banks, and the airlines. A name that he's inherited, not earned.

He laughs then, sudden and shocking. A world that spins around him, in his stupor.

There's no plans for him to offer samples, so he draws the line quietly as he drops back a mouthful of brown. There's no polite cheers, because they aren't polite and AJ's not planning to start with her.

"I remember.." shapes, feelings, grief. But no memories, they've long since been replaced. "Bits and pieces. What I do remember is love and how it feels exactly the same now that I've been dead for thousands of years." She chuckles, punctuates the thought with a sip of her own. She's talking, of course, of her love of her family. The Astor name is prominent - but she wonders if AJ cares about them the same way she cares for her siblings.

She watches her blood trickle a red dapple onto the plate, like she's dribbling sauce onto a steak. It makes her stomach curl. She can't help the flush on her cheeks when the Vampire kisses the wound, either, nor how it deepens at the second.

She eats, surprised at the flavor still. Viktoria doesn't eat, often taking to her younger sister's habits of only sustaining herself through the vein. Blood bags are even looked down on in the Lomidze household. After being alive so long, why would any of them want to take shortcuts?

She looks away, cheeks flushed, and at the recommendation, Sadie looks up, and though her expression twists at the mention of blood, its all cradled in a smile.

—

She'd felt a little odd, rummaging through a pantry as big as the one in this house. The food's all fresh though; probably thanks to the seemingly invisible staff that keep the place up and running. It's an endeavor, and she feels herself continue her bashful blushing while Viktoria tends her. Sadie makes a quick thing of lentil curry to put over rice, and some salmon patties, and then finally a set of stuffed peppers - easy things - even if the peppers take the longest; they get to bask in the smell and warmth of a kitchen doing what it does best.

Sadie soon finishes plating the food, and a lot of the food itself is not something she would have eaten as a human - too much color and spice. When she was human, only the truly wealthy could afford something with the variety of things put into this dish. She reaches out for Sadie's hand, holding it over the plate.

"Needs a final touch, my love." She presses a sharp thumbnail into the palm of Sadie's hand, dripping red over the curry, peppers, and salmon. She presses a kiss to the small wound once she's done, flicking her tongue over it like she might have done elsewhere in nights previous. Then another kiss to her knuckles.

When was the last time she'd tried real food? Hard to say.

"We're all very bored," she follows up, still flipping through the music pages. "Fran is listless, 'Sana is hungry for revenge..." Thoughts of the witch pop up then, and she rolls her eyes. "The Augury girl is her own sort of church mouse." Small, cute, easily held in the hands, extremely fragile.

"I didn't kill him, I let him go!" She protests, scandalized, shaking her head before taking a large, false breath, if only so that she might project better as she sight-reads from the hymnbook.

"All who hunger, gather gladly; Holy manna is our bread. Come from wilderness and wandering, Here, in truth, we will be fed. You that yearn for days of fullness, All around us is our food."

The last line sees her fangs stir as she grins at the priest. It's all nicely sight-read, and all nicely sung, but as that last passage echoes off the inside of the stone and glass, she looks up from the book, planting it back in the slot behind the wooden bench before her, strolling from behind the pew at their captive audience.

The ribs would be delivered to the grave-witch soon.

She keeps slowly walking towards the priest as Caska sings the hymn. She could easily just remove head from body, but she blinks past him so her sister can see him from the front. A hand rests on his shoulder as he whimpers. "I hope you find solace with your own church mouse, then. But yes, a game." She tilts her head. "So, daughter, would you like a choice cut to sup on?"

"Sure you've had a lot in your bed and your heart, love, eh? Grieved plenty." Depressing. Mood killer. Vicky didn't give him the impression when they'd looked at grisly paintings in Nouveau that she pined for a partner to hold her unbeating heart. AJ's convinced that every vamp he knows is either pining, or brooding. Fucking tragic. So he laughs, too, despite the subject. "Sounds shit."

What might be shittier, in his stupor, is the pause he makes every so often to assess if a shadow is real or a falsity. Movements that aren't human-like, nor beast like. Graceful, but damning in their suddenness. A spider that's too fast to track. Gone beneath the furniture; the snow; the streetlights.

She draws him back, standing in the threshold of the house.

Ah. Invitation. What a nuisance that bloody is.

He bets he could fabricate a spell to fix that problem for her, sometime. He's done grander things than that.

"In you come, Vick." Jacket thrown over the lounger, as he rolls up the sleeves of a dark shirt and hunts for the liquor in the kitchen. For a moment, he pauses, steadies himself on his feet when the ground looks too close, and then goes back to emptying bottles from the cupboards and onto the island. "Whatever takes your fancy, love."

There's a flash of a moment where her gaze tints AJ in a green light, and she turns her head away to shake away the jealousy. He's having his own... issues, it seems. The way his head shifts, the way his gaze locks on nothing, the sway in his step.

The invitation comes, and she steps over the threshold with a smile. She follows him towards the kitchen, light on her feet, to watch the way he moves. Perhaps not just the liquor in his system. Perhaps something more. She wants to carve his mind out and study it.

She had the conduit. The blood, the ribs; the tie between life and death. Ancient, and old. The first of its kind, or near enough.

A willing cold one and the chance to equal the playing ground for herself and her brother. "Vampyr." She mutters, beckoning the woman closer. Maja is under no impression that her languages would best an ancient, so in case she dares let Janet trick her into an incomplete ritual, she asks the Lomidze. "Translate. Be precise."

prima ossa, primus sanguis et vas inter regna, Vas primum absente luce sculpe, et lineam in tenebras iacta.

She would not get this wrong, if it is to cost her an almost life, by the end of this. Maja turns around and presses on either side of the dead creature's ribs, feeling for the lowest of them; easiest to remove, she believes. It would take a while to slice away, and even longer to hack them from the cage. Lomidze may need to break them, herself.

Maja grins, because she is not sure friend is a word they would use. The creature is the other side of death; the duller sort, but helpful in the case of sacrifice.

"Yes. I take two." Decided. She thinks it is better, to draw the runes around and soak them in the blood; she would develop the version of the spell, with her talisman in mind. She needed to call Ivar, to get him to detach his, for them to stand a real chance of transference between lives.

Maja's not sure how long she would be able to keep the channel of hers open, before it would snap itself back, and cancel out all her intended preparations, otherwise.

"The first bones. The first blood. And a vessel between kingdoms. First, sculpt the vessel in the absence of light, and cast a line into darkness."

Viktoria understands the first instruction, but not the second. She has no time to question before Maja is feeling around her waist for her ribs. With little to no reaction, she waits for the next task she needs to complete. Taking in a breath, she lifts an eyebrow in response.

Probably got Vicky to call him one of those, too. But AJ had known he'd been right — thinking the Airbnb is on this street. Port Shitly's got a hold on him, now. So much so, he's got the roads mapped. (Shocking, actually) He's not unpacked that just yet. Part of the reason it'd been so bloody easy dropping back bevy after bevy.

His hand smacks her shoulders, "Atta girl." with a drunken chuckle-slur he hop-skips over a storm drain. If he maintains contact with her, then he's reminded that she's not one of the periphery shadows he's got talking bollocks in his ear. Moving between the snow, as if it isn't there at all. Bloody creeps don't know who they're taunting.

Astor's charm's so potent, that he didn't even realise he'd said a penny to her.

"Bold, Vicky." He teases, trying to match her step (and failing) "Isn't no who."

A what, maybe.

He's a man whose made a killing with secrets. So airing them to the dead-still-walking isn't going to do him favours. AJ doesn't live in regret, he burns the scripture that gave it a name. And the hearty laugh that spills like liquid gold, is not mockery, but amusement to the audacity. Love would have been less complicated than the real thing he's drowning. "I'm not twelve, Vick. Love. Fuck." he's going to choke on his drink, if she keeps coming at him with comedy gold.

But they continue their frigid trek down to the rental, Viktoria's hands in her pockets as she remembers winters of old, of what it would have been like when she'd traveled to northern wastes to hide and feed, when the sun finally penetrated through the clouds and she'd had to hide from it. An old tune sits on her breath, lowly humming as he goes about his drunken explanation.

"Not too married to the boardgame," she says, head down, almost immediately regretting the phrasing. "I'm never any good at that kind of strategy."

She sits there, hands in Viktoria's, and she shakes her head, forcing her to look at the other woman. "I'm... boring, Vik - I like.. gardening, reading on a back porch. Stuff that's... you know... a little lonely, I suppose. Never been much for games, never really been a drinker. Most of her life has been much of what it is now - go to work, come home to do work, go to sleep. "- not to mention a little hard to do right now," she says with a tip of her head towards the cold outdoors.

A woman who prefers to stay at home, clean, cook is something that fascinates her. What about those activities makes fulfills her, what about them makes her satisfied? Sadie is right, though, she could never be in that position. She is the fun one - maybe. Viktoria would, of course, give that label over to her younger sister, but perhaps if compared to the human standing in front of her..

She offers a laugh and bends down - capturing Sadie's lips in her own. Just a quick thing. "I adore that you find joy in the slower aspects of life." Maybe once upon a time, it would have appealed to her, too. Time truly feels relative to her, at the end of the day.

Lomidze offers her insights, nonetheless and Maja — ever the intrigued, listens. "I will make your blood the conduit; you have this," Maja gestures to the mention of her riddling dilemma that had brought her to the vampyr's door to begin with: the ancient that bleeds but has not known the shores of skull and fog. Lomidze is all those things. "— you see, you are yet to know the grey realm; it is only for you to visit once." At the end of it all, there is no coming back for her once she arrives at the shore.

Reading the verse again, Maja begins to wonder if the blood is enough. If the body needs to come attached, with the realised implication that there is no quantity. Did the dead need be the conduit itself?

That complicates their potential arrangement, if it did.

Under her breath, she curses the grimoire's owner, Janet whoever, for making a puzzle of a spell, so those who did not speak nonsense languages were tracing cursive lettering as if it would transform to simplicity. She thought she'd liked Janet, at first. Now, she began to plot returning to the grave she'd thrifted the book from, and defile the remains of that entire bloodline. One ritual at a time. Her brother came first. Their linked lives were going to catch up to them, without intervention. She felt close.

But appreciation would not serve them. Intention, would. "Maybe your ribs, you still have marrow? Yes, one, two," she keeps analysing the book, murmuring to herself, mostly. "You can keep them, after."

Her one question might need to become two, if Maja needs to cut more of the old, dusty vampyr. Her library, not as dirt-ridden as Maja had first pictured; well looked after.

"Coven," That's free, she supposes. "Garnett." a beat, as she lifts her head and steps around the peering vampyr, searching the lengths of the aisles, to know if there was anything that aided; rogue trinkets, or curioso's that the Lomidze of her existence had collected. (There's always at least one thief per home) Maja glances over to Viktoria, adding with more glittering pride, it's dark: "Familie. Grimhjarta." The vampyr could drink from whatever orifice, if that's her only price. And if it is worth the cost, she could drink until Maja were no more but crumbling over to the other side, clawing through the dirt again, and alive once more.

For a spell of this risk, she would have to know how close she was to success. "Du ville lært mer i blodet mitt enn du ville gjort med ordene mine, vampyr."

Her eyebrows raise the idea of the witch taking her ribs - and giving them back. Would they grow back? Potentially. In all her years as this undead thing, she had sustained many wounds and many broken bones. Regrowing or having them taken is a new experience. It excites her, she thinks. And if she gets to keep them afterwards, then they will reattach.

An offshoot of Garnett from over the sea? Interesting. That means life energy. Healing, death, the like. Makes sense, with the way she speaks of her own magic, with the markings she barely understands in the books. She's seen a fair few here and there, and seemingly every larger coven has its signature. Grimhjarta. She will research that name later.

Just bloodied paintings and shit champagne.

Astor's more kicking at the snow, than he is stepping through it. Balenciaga's are soaked through to his socks, and ringed fingers rattle against the glass bottle with every near slip between iced hands; the gloves are off. Yet, he's still eying the movements of limbs that aren't there, made more blurry in the intoxication.

She's observant, in the way she turns back and forth to follow his wandering gaze. If heightened senses can't detect the gestures from something other, AJ's settling on ignorance for the rest of the evening; he's drowned enough of the voices, that he's only a few more shots away from silencing the shadows too.

"Is that a question, love?" Rhetorical. The dead could lie for all he cares, he'll be able to tell if she's got enough of wealthy pallet to understand what he does. He just needs to find the house he's paying for, first.

It's on this road, he's certain.

He shows her the number on the phone, and she leans forward to meet him, lest he lose his balance again. "It's not far." She says, simply, and wonders if he'll let her sample some of the other delicacies he might have hidden away.

It's not his home, she doesn't think - one of the vacation rentals of some sort. But still, she wonders if the invitation will extend. A night of drunken stupor sounds fun, in a way.

She looks at the priest, who, bereft of further self-incrimination, has begun reciting prayers, looking between the two of them.

The priest stumbles over another prayer in answer to her little sister, and Viktoria rolls her eyes.

"My churchmouse would have started praying herself. I haven't had the ability to rid her of the delusions they raised her with." Though, she does like the idea of letting her keep them and sending her further down the path of depravity. "She's too scared for our games. What of your escapades? I know your friends are in town. And that one Augury girl."

Sadie's eyes look over Viktoria's face, along Viktoria's cheek, the trace of her gaze following the trail of where the Vampire's thumb slides along her own. Viktoria asks her to stay - stay a little longer.

A wave a guilt wraps her up with the question. She'd prided herself for years on being the one who didn't do this. Who had stuck it out.

"I shouldn't-" she murmurs. She shouldn't but it's not like she doesn't have the perfectly acceptable excuse. Does Jordan suspect, she wonders? That there's anything more than a hen's friendship between her and Viktoria Lomidze?

It is the weather, surely.

She keeps him out of her talks with Viktoria, but it's never been a secret, and Viktoria's been in her home, seen pictures of them pretending their happiness.

But with him back from his business trip abroad, it's come back around to her feeling like the monster between the two of them. Staying with a friend, that's how she'd characterized her time with Viktoria to her husband, and with their house still under repair, they were living out of a hotel, save for when business took him out of town, which led to moments like this, where the Eastons' hotel room laid empty and Sadie haunted these halls with wandering thoughts.

Sadie can't help but sag under the firmness in Viktoria's fingers, reaching for the teacup and sipping at it, letting it warm her chest the way the blanket warms her shoulders.

She looks up to Viktoria, and marvels briefly at how the light catches her. She knows so little about her, but she does know that the way low lighting casts shadows on her finger makes her think of heroines from some of her favorite classical literature. "I feel really... adrift," she finally gets it out. "Like I don't belong any of the places I'm supposed to be in."

It's a really broad and vague confession, but it's true. They'd slept together - she'd slept with Viktoria. She was no better than Jordan - worse actually. Her patience with school is failing. Her patience with Jordan is failing. Shit teacher, shit wife, shit lover.

Her words make her lips twitch downwards, and she leans in close to press a gentle kiss to her temple. Does the husband see the marks on her skin she leaves? Or does he simply not see them? She knows better than to try something tonight, when she returns to him on the morrow. Instead, she'll give her affection that she deserves and must not receive elsewhere.

"I am sorry, sweet girl." The key word she'd uttered is supposed to be. Viktoria knows that she belongs elsewhere, in this world of monsters and magic, but the poor girl can't see it for herself. She cups her face and pulls her attention to her, stroking a slender thumb along the apple of her cheek. "You will always have a place here, with me, and my silly books and video games." A bit of humor, and she smiles to show it.

All of Christendom is hollow, she thinks, save for the faith men and women impart to it, and Lomidze had a proud tradition of showing the error in misplaced allegiances to this lot for time immemorial.

"I for one find the quiet gratifying. Imagine a thunderous voice, booming its disapproval as we enter."

A priest comes up to them through the center aisle, busy with his evening work of tidying the apse. He looks from one to the other, and is babbling welcomes and platitudes. Çaska takes his weathered old hands and smiles into his eyes. "Don't mind us, for now," she chirps, her eyes blackening as her pupils dilate. "Be silent though, and give us your confessional. Every little secret."

"I was more speaking of the whole 'burst into flames' myth of it." She's amused, though, and it's clear in her tone. She watches Caska do her compulsion of the old priest and leans against one of the pews as he starts to rattle off his crimes - working from the most recent to his earliest. She's not surprised by the words that come from his mouth - most of these men are corrupt to the core.

She throws a look over her shoulder at the Lomidze's curious nature, leering over to see what's inked inside an old tome. Maja spreads open the book, and thumbs the pages with the precision of a well read scholar. Tips of fingers, treading carefully over the edges of thick pages of the grimoire. Absently, it's one part provocation, one part intrigue: "Forstår du magi, vampyr?"

Maybe an unfair question. There are limitations to even the dead's keen senses. "Under all, you must give, if you desire to take. Every power has a counterweight." Maja begins, even the kind that runs in the veins of the living dead. "You." An example, "Exist at the cost of indulgence. Glutton. Balansere." Grimhjarta themselves, bleed for theirs.

Maja continues, long after Lomidze has named her price of exchange. "I cut you wide, flesh and blood. An anchor. The weight. Old blood opens door for bones to find new hosts." Maja grazes a thumb down the length of old text, navigating a language not her first to memorise the order of ritual. It's not clear, explicitly, if it will allow her to trade her spare revival to equalise her brothers, but it could.

Her smile is light as she regards Maja, studying her with a lingering gaze. "But no, I don't understand it as you would. I appreciate it, more than anything." No one has yet disproved her theory of drinking magi blood and what it could do for vampires. Too stubborn to let her ideas lie, and now she's entertaining a witch that she does not know in her library.

Being cut wide doesn't particularly sound fun, but her curiosity often wins out over logic or fun. She clicks her tongue against the back of her teeth with a nod. "One, then." And they could make a trade for the other, if it comes to that.

Sadie cranes her head to see the built fire and it's flames flicker in her eyes. Fireplaces are so cozy and safe; she'd loved theirs back home, and wishes for all its quaintness that the new house had one as well, but with her husband out of town so often, she's practically living here anyways, so she'll enjoy it.

She moves over to the warm cup of tea, and places it in front of her, pulling the books away, shutting them. "Drink, love." She murmurs, holding her hands out to the fire before draping them over her shoulders, rubbing at the tension she finds there.

The cold chills the body but she doesn't feel it sinking into her; a vampire is always cold, and the only betrayal of the season is the quiet of the evening and the fact that a handful of shops darker earlier; her sisters had chosen this haunt wisely though, it is built around its nightlife.

The Sorority House's novelty has worn off now, and Çaska has stopped living there exclusively now that their elder sister has... taken time to herself.

"Oh, can we play with a priest? For old times' sake! I do so love hearing the pious tell on themselves." None have ever been half so interesting at Tzimitrescu, but it's always good for a laugh.

Viktoria regards her youngest sister with a bright smile. "A priest? You speak directly to my soul, dearest."

Which is how, exactly, they find themselves arm in arm at a somewhat beautiful building. The architecture, she can admire. What's inside, though, turns her lips up into something of a disgusted snarl. This late, there's bound to be no one here but the priest, guarding his confessional.