Kenneth smiled broadly and shook his head almost laughing, “Now Miss Das, if I told you that it wouldn’t be a surprise.” Kenneth kicked his chair back and away from himself and moved around the elder. She turned around as he stopped and turned back around to face them. With one hand in his pants pocket he looked like Crocket from the nineteen eighties show Miami Vice. He leaned over and whispered to them so as just to be heard over the loud music from the club. “What I do is my business.” He looked pointedly at Ansuya, “I have killed, and I will continue to kill, it’s part of who I am. But before you condemn what you only think you know, understand that there are those of us who, in our own way, work for something better. I just expect to get paid for my services.” Smiling at them he raised his hand in farewell as he swept his jacket aside and followed it around to walk away from the group.
The guy’s got guts, I’ll give him that. William watched Kenneth’s back as he almost strutted out the door of the strip club. The man didn’t seem to have a care in the world. He wondered if Kenneth actually understood how close he had come to dying. William shifted his gaze to the elder who was still standing where the vampire had left her. She wasn’t looking at anything but her brow was furrowed slightly.
“What is it?” William asked.
Ansuya looked over at the enforcer, her deep brown eyes bringing their weight to bear on him. “Our guest’s parting comment troubles me.” She looked down at the wolves that were under the table. “I’ve heard rhetoric like that before.”
Charles asked, “Whatever he was talking about, do you think it will affect us?”
The raven haired elder supported her chin with one of her hands, “Depending on the meaning, it could affect us a great deal.” She looked at Charles, “What concerns me at the moment is the possibility that his boasts are real.”
Katherine looked back and forth between Charles and Ansuya, “The part about him killing us before we mature into werewolves or learn how to be shape shifters?”
Ansuya nodded, “If the parasites have learned how to predict who among us are to be Shape shifters and can find them and kill them before we can get to them then,” Ansuya looked over all of them, “they could, quite possibly, cause our kind’s extinction.”
“Could this be the reason why I was the last shape shifter to enter the city safely? And why there hasn’t been any other new Shape Shifters to join us?” William asked quietly.
Ansuya turned her attention back to him, “It’s not out of the realm of possibilities, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions based on what one vampire has told us on a chance meeting in a strip club.” She smiled wryly at the five of them. “Their kind lives in the shadows and survives off lies and half-truths, but it is something that is worth looking into at any rate.” She turned back toward the girl that she had led to her seat. “Right now, we have more pressing matters.” Ansuya looked around the room facing the exit, “It’s time to go.” The elder walked toward the exit casually.
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The five of them got up and followed her. Nicolas led the stripper by the hand toward the exit. The two wolves fell in with the group, Alexiares was right beside Ansuya while Aceso was trailing behind the group.
Ansuya got to the exit and waited for the small procession to catch up. As soon as the bouncer saw Nicolas leading the stripper he became stone. “Lacey, you know our policy about you girls leaving with the guests, it aint allowed.” He said sternly, “Now get your cute butt back in there.” He said pointing back to the main lobby area.
Ansuya reached up and pulled his arm back down, “She left on her own.” Ansuya said calmly, “You saw her leave and she told you that she wouldn’t be coming back.” The bouncer nodded slowly in response to the elder’s words. “Serve me now and do not let anyone exit this building for at least four minutes.”
“No one will leave here for at least five, unless it’s over my dead body.” The bouncer replied proudly.
“Thank you.” Ansuya intoned as she gently gripped his shoulder. She turned quickly and led the rest of them out of the building.
Once outside Alexiares had his nose to the wind and Ansuya was searching their surroundings. Alexiares moved around to the back of the building. Ansuya having satisfied herself that there was no one around she followed the wolf. The rest of them followed her. Nicolas was having a hard time with the apparently love sick stripper who was moving like she had lead in her shoes. It was kind of funny watching Nicolas wrestle the girl back around the building, trying to get her to move with any kind of urgency.
Ansuya looked over the group and the slow movement of the stripper was not lost on the elder. She looked over at the girl, “Take off your shoes.”
The girl looked confused and a flash of pain seemed to cross over her face. She glanced down at her six-inch platform heeled shoes and looked back at the elder apprehensively.
Ansuya took a few steps toward the girl. “Those things will slow you, and the rest of us, down.” She let the full weight of her glance bore into the girl’s eyes. The stripper turned her head away quickly, relieving herself of the pain of the elder’s stare. Ansuya spoke to the girl who was almost cowering under her presence, “Where we are going, we will need to move as fast as possible, those things on your feet will greatly decrease the chance of us getting to where we need to be alive.” She took a small step back away from the scared girl, “Are those shoes worth your life?” she demanded.
The girl looked at the elder and back down at her shoes. This was the first time that William had seen anyone question Ansuya after she had given them an order. It was possible that Ansuya wasn’t using her abilities on the girl, and she was starting to come back to her senses. On the other hand, it could be that this girl was just that material, and her shoes did mean more to her than anything else. If that was the case, this girl’s time, however long or short, in the City Under the Mountain was going to be particularly painful, and not just for the girl either. William shook his head and glanced up at the night sky.
Ansuya looked at the girl who was still cowering looking forlornly at her shoes and shooting glances out the corner of her eye at the elder. Ansuya didn’t say anything more. She stood, watched, and waited.
Slowly the girl bent over, sticking her thinly clothed butt in the air and undid the clasp on one of her shoes and then the other. She gingerly stepped out of them and reached down to pick them up. Before she could however, Ansuya grabbed the girl’s hands. The girl looked up at her with a scared, shocked expression on her face. Ansuya looked at her not unkindly, “Where we’re going, you won’t need those.”