enjoythe_ride | beyond the rift } { won't you spare me over another year

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beyond the rift } { won't you spare me over another year

Josef Soltini was one of the first people Bela met when she came to Chicago. He greeted her, explained as best she could, and over the months in between, her became her friend, her employer. Josef was a part of her life here, whether she wanted it him to be or not, and now he was gone.

Death isn't a concept that Bela is unfamiliar with. In fact, she's very familiar, intimately so, and it's why she's distanced herself so much from people. Losing them hurts, even when it's by her own hand, and not being connected to them makes it easier to let go. But Bela can't run away in this Chicago. She let herself get close, and that was her mistake, but for now that isn't her concern. Josef is dead, and she has a hunch it wasn't from natural causes. And that?

That makes her angry. And an angry Bela Talbot is a dangerous thing to be up against.

When she reads the announcement in the journals, she leaves a brief comment for Sonny before grabbing her coat and making her way to the club. She isn't calm, in any sense of the word, but there are answers there. She knows there are, and she's not going to stop until she has them and something is done about them.

What she does might not be pretty, but at least it's something.

When she makes her way into the back office, and when she sees Damon, she stops. He was closer to Josef, odds are he knows more about this than she does. She makes her way closer, and her tone indicates that she is just as pleased with this as he is.

"What the hell happened?"

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Sonny did not write that journal entry until hours after the torture happened. They did not really get any information out of either of the guys, but it felt good. It does not stop the blood lust that had been rushing through Damon, despite the fact that he broke every bone on that man's body before tearing out his heart from his chest. There was a feeling of satisfaction, but it didn't last very long and was quickly

He compelled some women, took them back to the club for a few hours while he drank. It's a wonder he didn't kill any of them, but he let them all go with the key in his pocket as reminder of what Josef left for him.

It took Damon some time, but he made it up to the office and got out the box, reading the letter on top of it. It doesn't help. Nothing really helps, and now everything Josef owned is his and he doesn't know what to do with that. There is a near empty bottle of alcohol on the desk.

He's drinking and sitting in the chair, staring at the letter when Bela walks in. Damon folds it up, shoving it in the box.

"You'll have to be more specific," Damon says in a dark voice as he looks across the desk at her. He is well aware what she means. This is Damon at not his worst but far, far, far from his best.

He takes a long drink from the glass in his hand. "Drink?"

She can tell that Damon isn't in the best state, so that keeps her from pushing the issue as oppose to handling things a bit more diplomatically. She rolls her eyes at the question, which honestly is almost polite when it comes to Bela when she's frustrated. She moves her hand to shed her coat, draping it over one of the chairs before sitting in it.

"Please," she sighs as she sits, crossing her legs as she shifts to get comfortable in the seat. "And you know what I mean."

She's not in the mood for games. And if he continues to frustrate her, she may very well shoot him, but for now she's being nice.

Damon pours another glass of whatever the hell it is that he is drinking. He didn't pay any attention to it. There's no ice up here, but he slides the glass over to her, setting it in front of her. He drinks from the glass in his hand as he looks at her.

Some part of him is telling him not to delve into too much information. It's for the safety of everyone including Elena, including Bela. However, he also knows he can't do this alone and he has vague 'could trust' feelings toward Bela when he does not trust the Crowbar in the slightest.

"Josef had a lot of enemies," he says carefully at first though his tone of voice is still dark, still dangerous. "They were shot up on the sidewalk by one of them, not just the shoot you in the head, bang you're dead kind. But shoot you full of holes to send a message kind."

He shuts the lid of the box. "And he... apparently knew he was going to die."

"Brilliant," she sighs as she takes the glass, taking a long sip before she continues speaking. "So nice of him to keep us in the loop."

Not that she actually expected him too. It's more frustration than anything else, and she has a lot of it at the moment. As she speaks, however, the wheels in her head are turning. People who use machine guns are not her forte. She usually deals with the more subtle side of getting rid of people.

She takes another sip of the drink, before looking back over at him. "What do we do?"

Damon downs the rest of his drink, getting to his feet and rolling his eyes. "Ah, you know, dying's something that happens to you every day. He probably didn't want to bore anyone."

He would have done the exact same thing, but Damon will take anything that he can be mad at at this point to ignore the hurt which refuses to go away. Damon glances over to her from his position.

We. More people involved, more people to lose. "He was killed over an artifact that this group needs. They didn't get it. The people who came to collect have been.. taken care of," Damon says, and then he settles his hands on top of the desk, staring at her, and there's the anger, the frustration, the danger in his expression. "But the people who pulled the trigger are still alive."

More people involved, but Damon couldn't keep Bela out of this if he tried. Well, no, he could actually compel her to stay out of it and it would work, but that would not only lose him a friend, but a very useful ally. Bela earned her bread and butter on helping people get payback, and she made a very good living at it.

But then Damon says artifacts, and the ball is right back in Bela's territory. Artifacts, relics -- that was her bread and butter too. She'll ask specifically about the artifact later, but for right now, she needs to know more about the people pulling the trigger.

"Do we know who these people are?"

Damon doesn't want to compel anyone else today, much as the urge is there to rip something else apart. He knows he's down to him, and he needs all the allies he can get, because he can't do this alone. It was the whole point of getting involved with Josef in the first place.

He turns from the wall to look at her. His gaze is hard, not violent, just-- just not exactly stable either.

"They call themselves the Society. They're like the Illumanti. Their view of the world should be the view of the world, and they will do anything to make it happen. No one is supposed to know about them, and if you do, you die."

If they find out that you know.

Secret societies? Lovely. That's always what she wants to hear. She takes another sip of the drink, her finger brushing against the rim as she digests the information. Now she knows, and while she hears the words and knows what happened earlier this evening, she's not concerned. Barring Rift interference, Bela knows how to keep her secrets.

"So what is their view of the world? Or am I better off not asking?"

It's the best thing ever. Granted, when he first got involved with it, he was glad for it.It gave him something to do that he actually cared about because of the threat they represented to Elena, all wanderers.

"Everything Chicago isn't. No wanderers. Angels vs demons. Werewolves vs vampires. The way of the world. Nature over... choice." Damon's jaw locks further as rage threatens to slide up through him again. It won't help. Not right now, not when he doesn't know how to find them. A monster came after those in the car, but he doesn't know for certain if they were all killed.

Edited 2011-09-27 01:13 (UTC)

"Lovely."

Even though it's anything but. To think that Chicago's the best of what this world has in terms of pro-Wanderer sentiment, and not war torn by a conflict as old as time -- the idea that Chicago is the safest place to be -- that makes her uncomfortable. Mostly because she never feels safe in Chicago, and she isn't sure if she ever will. There's too much unpredictability. But if it's the safest place to be, then she wants to make sure that things stay that way.

"Do we know who these people are? Who the members are?"

"Isn't it just?"

There's the most sarcastic expression on the world on his face as he smirks very bitterly and takes a drink from the glass that he has refilled.

He shakes his head.

"Other than basic factions, angels, demons, vampires, and werewolves that are really fucking old?" Originals and now this. Some people really live too long. "No."

"Angels and demons means they could figure out a Wanderer spy before they even got through the door." She's mostly mumbling to herself, thinking out loud as oppose to keeping the thoughts in her head. "Vampires and werewolves make things a bit more complicated."

Then there's a beat.

"They believe that all these factions should be at war against each other and yet they work together?"

"Exactly. They have a lot of power, a lot of knowledge, and almost all the cards," Damon says, rolling his eyes just slightly though he doesn't mind the mumbling. It distracts him from everything else. "In my universe, a werewolf bite kills a vampire."

He doesn't know if it's the same here. He doesn't really want to find out.

"For the greater good," Damon says in answer, tightening his hold on the glass in his hand. "They have some tentative truce while they 'fix' the world. But it still leaves room for all kinds of squabbles, violent ones. One card for us."

"Mine has more of a demon problem than anything else. In theory angels exist, but I wasn't there long enough to see them. Vampires are nearly extinct and werewolves are rare, if anything."

If they want to compare what they know, Bela is game for that. Her expertise isn't in the monsters, it's in the practical, the objects that can do damage.

"So it seems the answer is to get them to turn on each other."

"Well. I've done all the learning there is to do about the species here."

If artifacts, objects are her thing, they would actually make a good team in that sense. Especially since his expertise lies where hers falls short and vice versa.

He swallows back the bitter feeling in his throat. "So it would seem," Damon says with a bitter smile as he turns back to her. "Lets see. You, me, and..." He makes a face, rolling his eyes as he does not remotely trust them, does not even know that Bela knows of them, "The Crowbar against the big powerful Society. Always love near impossible odds."

It's not like there's a choice. It's not like certainty of death would stop him.

His annoyance at the Crowbar amuses her. "I know the Crowbar," she sighs. "My guardian works there. I think they could be very helpful."

Whether or not he agrees or disagrees with that is his prerogative.

Damon stares at her for a long moment as if he's half disbelieving that something lucky is actually happening to him right now after the endless train of This Sucks Beyond Belief.

"Seriously? I have no relationship with any of them, and they don't like me."

Most people don't like Damon. He gives off that I'm an asshole impression.

"But that's-- that is good." That she has a previous relationship with them and is now working with him. It might actually mean that he doesn't have to worry about them screwing him over. Maybe.

"Really? You have such a charming personality." She's only partially being sarcastic. She likes you, Damon, if that counts for anything.

"I'll talk to John, see if there's a way we can combine our information on this. Though I doubt he knows that I worked with Josef." It's a rather small world, when it comes down to it.

"I know. It's a mystery," Damon murmurs, glancing at her and then back at the drink he's pouring in his hand. It does count for something, and he likes her too. And he doesn't like very many people.

He nods. That is a load off of his back considering... they really do not like him over there, but he knows it is necessary to maintain contact with them if there's going to be any hope. Not that he is someone to say thank you, but he's feeling... that sentiment. Right about now. "He left everything to me."

She's happy to take that off his shoulders. She's known Damon long enough that when he's forced to make nice with people, it doesn't always work. She knows the Crowbar, and while she doesn't necessarily get along with everyone there, she gets along with enough.

At the second statement, her voice softens. She's not good at sympathy, but she can manage it on occasion. "You two must have been closer than I thought."

Damon trying to make nice with people usually ends up with him doing something that they cannot forgive him for. Because he doesn't think about other people the way that everyone else does. He calculates information, and he takes the course that has the most desired result at almost any cost.

He grimaces at that. It's half grimace, half bitter smirk. "Yeah, well. I'm over it," he says, which is a complete lie and anyone can tell. He rolls his shoulders back. They're tense. "There's been enough wallowing for one day. I want to find these people and kill them...." That's a sharp pain in his chest. "And move on."

Bela echoes the sentiment more than she probably should. She wants to see these people dealt with as well. It's a rare occasion when her wants and goals fall in line with the greater good, but she feels the need to take advantage of it when she can.

"Then I suggest we get started." She downs the rest of her drink, before leaning forward to place the glass on the desk in front of her. "What's this artifact they're looking for?"

This is one of those times where both of their wants and goals line up with something that would be better for the greater good. Really, it's like a miracle has happened.

Damon nods at her, finishing the rest of his too and moving over to the desk beside her to set the glass back down. "They're looking for several. The artifacts have the power to bring them down so they don't want it out in the hands of other people. Kinda fuzzy on the details."

"Interesting. Do they have anything in common? A certain owner that connected them or a similar kind of magic?"

Because if Bela could start looking for these, well -- it's productive and what she's good at. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

"They were all owned by very old angel, demon families. Each of the factions were supposed to have one," Damon says, shaking his head.

He rubs his fingers between his eyes for a moment as if working off a headache. "They were all made by the same witch to protect the information that could destroy the Society."

This definitely had her line of work written all over it. This is what she used to do, better than anyone else. For once she actually might be useful around here.

"How did they lose them?"

"It's less that they lost them and they got passed on over hundreds of years and ended up in some cases in the hands of people who aren't exactly with their families way of thinking anymore," Damon says quietly as he looks over at her.

He shrugs just slightly. "Sonny's family had one, and he found his. Josef's family had one. He gave his to Sonny too, because they were working together."

"So it's more the Society is looking to reclaim them. And if we wish to gain the upper hand, we need to find out what other families have them and steal them."

Doable, as far as she's concerned. But they'll definitely need the Crowbar's help for it. If the Society is as widespread as it sounds, they'll need all the hands they can get.

"And figuring out what exactly they are and if the people currently in possession of them have any idea of their actual worth, but... yes."

That's about the whole of it as far as he knows, and Josef was pretty open to him about those developments since the Society directly involved Elena's safety.

There's a slight smirk on his face as he stands in front of her. "Sound like a party?"

"I think it sounds like a blast," she smirks. Actually, the fact that she can do this makes her feel more useful than she has in a long time. "Did Josef have an research on these artifacts?"

Damon smirks in return. He is feeling slightly more reassured but it's a little marred at the moment by everything else. At least he knows he isn't in this alone, which he has been fine with for hundreds of years.

"I'll get you what he had on it," he says as he is certain Josef had plenty of research on it as that's how he is. "It might take me time to find it, but I will."

She nods. "And while you do that, I'll get in touch with Sonny and John. See if they have anything more that can help." She has a strong feeling that even with all the research in the world, finding them isn't going to be a walk in the park, but it's at least a start.

Damon lifts up his drink with a slight smirk that doesn't really stick on his face. "To kicking the Society's ass."

He is so eloquent. Only not.

And he toasts her. If she is out of her drink, he'll refill it for her.

To killing the people who killed his friend.

"Cheers," she says with a smile, before raising her own drink and taking a sip. "And sooner, rather than later."

She knows these things take time, but she's impatient. Always has been, especially when it comes to losing people.

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