Jack cracks his neck a few times after getting off the ten-and-a-half hour flight to Las Vegas, with one stopover at another airport, and heads out of the airport.
His mom gave him her emergency bank card to use, with the promise that he wouldn't go nuts with it, along with $500 in cash just in case - at least he can get a hotel room for the night after finding this Mythos place.
Taking the directions Taylor printed up for him while she was at work at the library, he quickly flags a taxi down and gets in - he needs to head to the strip, and go from there.
About an hour later, Jack looks around to find a street name before setting off down a nearby alley after paying the taxi driver.
Twenty minutes and two wrong turns later, Jack pulls the papers out and uses the light on his phone to look at them again. Before he can even read a single line, though, two men even taller than him and even more solid suddenly flank him. They smell like stale sweat, sour beer, and cigars, and they each look like they haven't bathed in a year. Jack would gag at the smell if he weren't suddenly very certain of the need to not give these two any reason to think he's an easy target - call him paranoid, but he seriously doubts these two are normal human beings.
One of the thug-like men asks "What're you doing here, kid? Lost or something? What you think, Farkas?"
The other snatches up the directions, reading them in the dim light, and says "Naw, Boris, he's looking for the club."
Farkas and Boris share grins, revealing gigantic teeth in their heads, and Jack's suddenly very sure these two aren't human by a long shot. He gets a whiff of something distinctly musky underneath the sweat and cheap cigars, almost wolf-like, and freezes when each of them grabs him by an arm - he's seriously getting frog-marched by werewolves?!
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Fiore Rhian keeps her face free of the disgust she feels as a familiar pair of clomping footfalls nears the semi-circular couch she's sitting on next to Antonino - Boris and Farkas, hired muscle for the club and just enough collective brains in their heads to not cross the Vampire that wouldn't feed off their Werewolf blood but would break their necks in a moment's notice if they anger him.
And, thankfully - in this very specific instance, anyway - there's no better way to anger Antonino Styx than to take what he considers his. And she's his toy - his pet, as Dakkar Styx called her thirteen years ago.
Can I keep her, Father?
If you want to keep this thing as a pet, Antonino, then it's your responsibility to look after it.
Turning her darkening thoughts away from her first memory, Fiore pulls the slender party dress straight and crosses her ankles, leaning into Antonino and raising the cocktail glass to her lips as they come into view. Antonino glances at her in mild confusion, right up until he realizes who's coming towards them - then, he puts his arm around her in a casual show for them.
Boris and Farkas have never been subtle about their desires regarding her, seeming more animal than man in that regard - while her Allure tends to make most men and some women profess their 'love' for her, much to Antonino's ire, it brings out a more animalistic side in affected 'Wolves. Especially these two, who seem to combine the worst of humanity with the animal nature of their wolf-halves - as if a pair of murderers or psychopaths got bitten and turned into Werewolves, she's always had the distinctly uncomfortable feeling.
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And then they get within five feet, dirty, ragged clothes and scraggly beards completely at odds with the dressed-up nightclub…and they have a kid between the two of them.
Tall, about as tall as either of them really, with a solid build that would make anyone other than Boris and Farkas think twice about trying to mess with him. A hoodie that doesn't do quite enough to hide how his eyes have gone wide or how pale his skin currently is - in short, how scared he is while trying hard to hide it.
Smart.
Showing fear to predators such as them is akin to giving yourself a death sentence - 'Wolves, especially wolves like these two, only respect power and eagerly attack at the first sign of weakness.
Antonino raises an eyebrow, wordlessly asking them why they've brought the boy to him.
Farkas says "Found him searching for the bar, had these on him. What do you want to do with him, Boss?"
Boris forcefully pushes him onto the open part of the couch, across from Antonino and Fiore, and Antonino takes the pages from him. Then frowns, before glaring at the two 'Wolves and saying "These are directions to the club. What, exactly, did you think they were?"
Boris shrugs, saying "Wasn't sure, boss." They can't read, never needed to - they can recognize the name of the club, but that's about it.
His gaze flicks to Fiore for a moment, and Antonino bares his teeth at them and growls out "Get. Out. Leave the boy, and just get out." Translation: Get out before I tear your throats out with my fangs.
Somehow or other, the two of them have just enough collective brainpower to recognize when they're in imminent danger and get out as ordered. One of them says over his shoulder "Careful if you get a whiff of him, boss. He reeks."
Jack whips his head around, outrage replacing his fear for a brief moment - because they are hardly ones to talk! They walk around stinking of sour beer, stale sweat, nasty cigars, and wolf musk! And, from Antonino's expression, and that of his companion, it's obvious to them as well.
Antonino pinches the bridge of his nose, letting out a long, slow breath, and then glances up at Jack before giving him a smile coupled with a flash of bright white teeth.
Jack figures that smile usually comes off as charming, but right now, having been flanked by two werewolves for the past ten minutes, it just looks more predatory than anything else. Especially with the lip-raising he just did a moment ago.
Antonino smoothly says "Apologies about them. They occasionally take their job as security a bit too seriously." He picks up the two pages from the table by the corners and throws them in the trash, making a note to have the surface sanitized - anything Farkas and Boris touch is instantly contaminated with their filth and stench, as their solution to covering up their wolf musk is to be as disgusting as physically possible. While it does cover up their natural wolf-scent, it makes them unbearable to be around for any extended period of time - especially when coupled with their infuriatingly-low intelligence.
Jack frowns, still stinging a bit over the comment about reeking, and mutters "I'm not the one who hasn't bathed in anything other than sweat and cigar smoke for the past decade..."
Antonino tilts his head in acknowledgement, then says "They also don't have much of a filter, I agree."
Jack warily leans back on the couch, glancing around at the club before turning back to Antonino - this close, it's plain to see that Antonino Styx is not human by any stretch of the definition. He's far too pale, no trick of the light there, and Jack could swear his canines were shaped a little different from a human's when he glared at his two werewolf 'bouncers' earlier.
He's not going to ask it...but, most likely a vampire then.
Wonderful!
First dragons are real, then Werewolves, now Vampires…it's not him that's crazy, it's the entire world!
And, Jack realizes with no small amount of horror, he's just been dropped in front of a Vampire in the middle of the night and probably looks and smells like a McDonalds Happy Meal to him!