She meandered up the street, having gotten directions from some vamp chick on where to find Valentine De 'laCroix's gallery. She was tired, scared, but a teenager; she was not about to let anyone know.

Teased, dyed red hair was beginning to wilt in the fog and mist of the night, and her roots were showing badly. Platform, knee high boots were tightly buckled and jingling like a jester's bells as she quickly walked up to the gallery door.

Lyric paused to think about this crazy idea for a moment, completely at odds with what this teenage half-Fae normally did. Was it wise to be knocking on the door of a known crazy at night, and a vamp, no less?

She had to, she had no place to go and she knew that Valentine knew her mother. Lyric needed to find answers, she needed to find Lilith or her Aunt Eve. Valentine might know where they were.

Lyric sucked it up, smoothed her plaid skirts, adjusted the fake wings of netting at her back (a sore point with the half-fae, she desperately wanted wings), and knocked loudly on the Gallery's front door.

Startled so much she jumped, Lyric turned to face the vampire behind her. Her mouth gaped like a fish, then once she managed to recover her composure, curled up into her usual sneer.

"Danu. It's Miss Danu. I'm here because my Aunt Eve told me about you. I'm here looking for my Dead-Beat Dad and my Run-Away Mom. You seen either of them lately?" With a scoff, a snort, and a large pink bubble blown from the gum she was chomping on, Lyric noticed something in the eyes of this vampire that suggested that maybe she had flapped her lips a wee too much.

Standing straighter, she cleared her throat, shuffled those platform boots, and fidgeted with the shredded tips of her fake wings. "I mean, I just want to know why she left, you know? She dumped me off with ole Grandma, and then scramed. I never got to see her, I guess. I just wanna know why." Blushing, the girl fell silent, and lowered her once challenging gaze to her toes.

Sensing a solemness in the vampire, Lyric quelled her sarcastic tongue and spoke softly, "Nowhere yet. I came here as soon as I found where you were. Well, I hit the bar, first, but then straight here. You know, for courage."

Her courage was waning quickly, and she fought the trembling in her body. She led herself down the path of denial, thinking all the while it was because she was cold and it was getting dark.

A cool hand rested on her shoulder, steering her through the shadowed and overgrown gardens, and towards an open french door. Lyric moved to step into it and was halted with a squeeze. She paused, then was steered past this door, momentarily blinded by the guazy purple sheers that billowed out in her path. She freed herself from them and was led to a small kitchen door, where she was urged inside. She turned to speak to Valentine, but saw she was alone. Silently, her hostess had disappeared.

Well, time to explore then. Her boots left clods of mud and dirt on the kitchen floor, but from the coating of dust on just about everything there, the kitchen was not a place Valentine went much. Lyric poked about, raided the fridge for a glass of wine (just about the only thing in there) and moved to peer down the hall. She heard muffled, soft voices, and then an urgent, almost fearful one. She shrugged, sipped her oddly flavored wine, and snuck into the living room beyond.

The walls were adorned with artwork, assumingly Valentine's, and it was dark, yet fascinating. Lyric loved it! She could TOTALLY live in a house like this!

Pausing to snitch what eventually turned out to be an ancient chocolate candy, Lyric grimaced, but choked down another handful. She was starving.

Being half human had it's advantages; the major one she saw was being able to eat human food. How boring to only be able to eat and drink growing things and necter! Ugh!

Lyric had this strange sense of deja vu as she listened to the muffled voices. One sounded so familiar, yet it wasn't Valentine; hers was the deeper toned voice.

Lyric sat on the black leather couch and stared at a photograph of a woman bound intricately with silk scarves, her body nude but covered in henna tattoo designs. Lyric could almost smell the incence, the subtle scent of curry and ginger from the Hindi woman's skin. She was lost in the picture, entranced by it. Her wine forgotten in her hand, she was drawn into the scene and from either the spell of the photo or Lyric's own hunger, began to halluncinate. She could hear the cistrum, the bells on the woman's fingers chiming sweetly, and chanting.

"God its cold." the boy muttered then cought the sent of a young girl and began to walk slowly tords that etrancing smell till his head pered into her room. He licked his dry lips looking at her.

He then felt a hand on his sholder and thought. "Awman Jial go me."

Valentine knocked on the door to Lyric's room, but only recieved a blast from a radio in return. At least the girl had taste in music, she thought to herself as the walls shuddered from the onslaught of rock music.

She turned and walked away, shrugging to the pale, exhausted looking Lilith that lay on the sofa.

"She'll get over it. Don't worry. Now you, get to bed. You need rest."

Lyric had returned to what was now her room, officially assigned and everything, and cranked up the radio. She paused mid cd change, head cocked to one side, thinking that she had heard someone at her window. She jerked her head, but saw no one. Shrugging, she went back to singing loudly, and rather well, to an Evanescence song, and slid out of her fake wings. They were a bit bent from her fall earlier, so she sat on the bed to repair them. She paused now and then, swearing she heard what sounded like fighting outside, but, never seeing anything.

Val kicked at her door as she smelled food, and knew it was time for dinner. She wondered what they would talk about. Odd, this family she had now. I mean really, a vamp that cooks in the dark and a Mom that was totally beaten and broken down from some asswh*les that ended up flayed alive. Just what would they talk about? Lyric smirked, and giggled, then headed down the hall to meet her Mom and Val.

The boy laughed loudly as he walked down the hall then like the nosie boy he was he opend the door to Lyrics rom and leand against the door fram waching her sing as she fixed her wings.

Using telapathy he said. "Oy its time for dinner dontcha know." forgeting that hewas in a rather short towle he crossed his arms waiting for her response.