Club Atropos was hardly subtle, but be damned if it wasn't the perfect spot for New Orleans' Elysium. Darkly-treated wood lined the eaves, and heavy velvet hung from the windows, the latter mostly for visual affect. All of the bouncers seemed indistinctly large and cold, with heads shaven and eyes hidden behind plain, wraparound sunglasses that seemed terribly expensive for security at a goth club in an ailing city. The grand terraces and rooms had more than a few different types of dealings, although one often seemed a blind for another vice, which in turn disguised the club's 'off-off-off-menu' services. With more than a few mouths fed from the club's coffers, its safety remained secure.

This reason, in particular, was what brought the abominably tall, monochrome collection of angles named Tegan Milburn to the club that very night. She dressed for a funeral that occurred about 100 years too late, in a high-collared blouse, selenite brooch, and long skirts that made her gait appear like the languid rolling of a gastropod across the cobblestones. Though the skies remained clear, her long, insectile fingers clutched her chiropteran umbrella with seeming delicacy, yet simultaneously resembling the bone-breaking grasp of certain breeds of lemur. Circular, cobalt-tinted lenses sat on her harshly-angled nose while fully obscuring her eyes, with raggedly-cut, straight black parting around them to crawl at her mid-back, from the staight part hidden under her weathered, stovepipe hat. She gave off no warmth, neither physically nor emotionally. The normally damp, live air of the port city seemed to dry in her passing, and almost any attempt to jeer or guffaw at her severely out-of-place appearance fell dead on speaker's tongues, just as their eyes averted to some other, more lively vista.

Tegan's retinue adopted a more subdued character to each of them, both a bit formal for clubbing and undeniably not local, yet still casual enough to seem reasonable for the lingering heat of a Louisiana mid-autumn. Both stood at least a head shorter than the gaunt, morose tower that accompanied them. The one fellow, dressed in a collarless button-down and blazer, walked with a stature that seemed counterintuitive to the short, but otherwise unkept beard and shaggy hair that danced around a brow that had, at one point, been darker than its current faint olive. Without fail, he orbited himself to the opposite side of either his companions or the oncoming crowds when passing windows, while making it seem almost as if his repositionings were a purposeful appreciation of his surroundings. The other, a woman with a pixie-like crop of blonde hair, seemed to bear a weight and patience through taut shoulders, which remained bare from the sleeveless, tan waistcoat that seemed almost brazenly fitted to her curvature, while still clipped and demure. A peacock's train of colors spread over her eyelids, reflecting and refracting magnificently, to contrast with the pale peach of her skin. In spite of the dour dress of her companions, her splashes of color, her poise, and even her wardrobe seemed to speak more of a dragonfly poised to snatch its prey than a scintillating flower.

The trio's approach reflected, for the most part, in the bouncer's sunglasses. His brows knit behind the shades as he checked the IDs of two underdressed, and likely underage club kids in line, all mesh, make-up and pleather, both tense to the point of nearly shivering while putting on their best, completely ineffective faces of feigned disinterest. "... Awright, g'wan in." His monotone was well-practiced, as was the hard thud of the ID's edges into their palms, yet the fire behind the actions seemed dulled by the three that gained on him, perpendicular to the line at the club's side. The couple lit up like children, for just that split second, before setting their ennui masks back into place over their exaggerated mince into the club.

Tegan pressed the point of her umbrella in between the street's cobblestones with the precision of a surgeon as she set her hands atop it, leaving three yards between her and the doorman, as if she'd read somewhere that leaving space made people comfortable. Her stillness, along with the odd, murmuring chatter of the people in line, proved her incapable of such, instead simply making those around her less uncomfortable than they might have been otherwise. The small, sinuous fellow in the designer blazer filtered toward her side, scanning with deep dark eyes the faces of each and every person in line, with his hands at his hips and knees akimbo, in some old soldier's manner of crowd control. The pixie-bot, in her turn, stepped almost uncomfortably close to the bouncer, coppery blue eyes dancing from his ankles, to his thighs, on up to his lips, before finally meeting his eyes, with a faint smile ticking into place. Her voice was tuned like a dulcimer, clipped, resonant, with the vague sussurance of continental French at its edges. "Good day." She simply watched him, expectantly, with nary a word or indication of what, precisely, she expected.

The bouncer knew this game. From the moment Tegan's silhouette loomed in the intersection, he understood the dance steps, assured of them by the short fellow with the body language of a seasoned cavalryman. For all of his gruff exterior, his affectless demeanor, his fingertips still trembled and his tongue dared to wet his lips before swallowing. To the Professionally Dull Old Money thirtysomething couple that itched behind the velvet rope to score some coke and key party partners, he appeared nervous, almost terrified. The twitch of the pixie's nostrils and the tick of her head to a tilt hid her slight smile to him; he shivered not from fear, but from excitement. Still, he set his jaw hard and jerked his head to the rows of the pulse-bearing, yet soul-dead. "Back of the line, folks."

The blonde shifted her shoulders and twisted her hips, angling herself just slightly to his shoulder... incidentally the one where he had taken a bullet in a scuffle 18 months ago. His shoe leather creaked as his toes curled, the big monster of a man squealing with admiration internally, while appearing still as the immobile, if slightly rattled, block of ice to any onlookers. "Oh, I think you misunderstan, monsieur..." The dulcimer struck again as the pixie watched the doorman's face. "Perhaps you might--"

"Call Your Manager." Tegan let her own deep blue lenses drop, just a hair, just enough to show the twin, spherical voids set in her sockets. Not a single drop of white shone on them, not a single glisten of reflection. Her eyes were where light went to die, and her voice the raspy, posh croak of the Ragnarok bird, cawing for the doom of all things. The combination of the two hit his brain like a brick as he swung up his walkie-set phone, the familiar triune of beeps chirping in hummingbird heartbeats after the words died on Tegan's lips.

"Mr. Faustin, we have some people see you out here..." He stopped for a single beat and turned his head away from the line, adding in a quick addendum. "... they're from the Home Office." He let go of the button and kept his chin high, looking to the waning moon, from just past full, rather than besmirch the trio before him with another cursory glance.

Beebeebeep! "... I'll be right out."

As the bouncer set his phone back into place on his belt, he closed his eyes behind the sunglasses, and indulged in a satisfied sigh through his nose. "... He'll be out in a moment. Just sit tight."

Tegan pushed her lenses back into place and, ever-so-slightly, tipped her head toward him. "... Good." The dance had been completed, and he had performed splendidly.

Tegan watched the door with her folded parasol pointed down, one hand on the hook and the other atop it as she waited. She was long, she was angular, but the woman was only ever stiff in her speech. The length of her skirt and the timbre of her movements made it seem as if she'd traded her legs for a snake's coil in some Faustian bargain. She dressed either twenty or 130 years too late, and it she owned it all like some terrible steampunk Erynos that hated all but the cool caves of Hades.

"... Thank... God no one so far has walked by reeking of Lynx and hair ge--" A small pack of young gentlemen in ill-fitting, airbrush-style shirts loped by in a small cloud, quieting their discussions on games with dire titles as they passed the club... only to resume in a pubescent warble of bigoted epithets once they reached teh end of the block. Tegan's eyes still hid behind her sunglasses, yet the creases across the bridge of he nose and the deep, sour turn of her mouth were inmistakable. "... God, we shall have words."

The manager appeared with little fanfare from the club's entrance, giving the Bouncer an amicable clap on the shoulder. He wasn't much to look at, initially. His figure seemed a tad on the blocky side, perhaps hidden by the long straightaway of his sportcoat. He was dark, likely of Caribbean descent, bearing a square door-knocker beard and a short fringe of locks that reached his shoulders. He seemed almost identically-dressed to the Bouncer, in black slacks, turtleneck, and sunglasses. The primary differences were the belt buckle, showing Michael slaying the Serpent, and a simple silver cross that hung to the middle of his chest, with a frighteningly well-rendered Christ nailed to it. He stopped short of moving into the street lights, but nevertheless gave the trio a stoic smile and beckoned them in with a slow curl of his fingers. "Please," His voice showed little force in its command, but held much in the way of a simple, subtle inroad to the Inquisitors, clear yet soft and low. "Follow me."

The Pixie, closest to the door, followed first, skirting around the outside of the Bouncer with a plush, lippy smile and a serpentine whip of her head as she slinked after the manager. The Soldier swung his stance to bring his back to the line, with his face turned right to Tegan, in a silent, invisible treatise, both inquiry and request.

Tegan sighed through her nose as she tilted her umbrella, tucking it beneath her arm as she went to pass through the door. Once more, that serpentine stride brought her oozing forward, past the delineating shadow, and into the club's confines. While she dared not relinquish her parasol outside, she did deign to take off her hat upon entry.

The Soldier was slow to turn. Large, dark eyes took stock of the cafe across the way, and settled on the spindly, bearded man ushering his friend, a tall man in need of a haircut and some B12 vitamins, out from their seat and towards the park. For a split second, he and the hirsute hick shared a glance, a dire, quiet thing that saw the Soldier fade into the shadow, and the river rat put some extra hustle in their departure to the park, with his companion still muttering quietly about a "wobble in the Deep Shadows."

This was still yet to be the longest night of their respective weeks.

Atropos' interior was absolutely preposterous with draped cloth, each awning. and every hint of ceiling covered with billowing fabric, yet a few themes prevailed. Richer, more opulent fabrics framed the archways that led to the private booths and secret little alcoves where the more questionable trades of goods occurred. The brighter, more garish curtains spilled out to the dance floor and bar; the majority of patrons seemed to frolic gleefully down these paths, with a few here and there dropping out from the velvet corridors freshly 'renewed' from the club's stores. A third variety of cloth ran dull, barely worth acknowledging. Sackcloth, carefully flecked with brown, barely saw any movement from anyone but a few members of security and the occasional club-goer, though admittedly those who seemed to lack both the pink pigment in the cheeks and the sheen of sweat of their fellows.

Tegan and her cohorts fell in line behind that last, unassuming set of curtains behind the casual stroll of Atropos' manager, their steps measured, directed. The Pixie still let her head whip with avian precision to spot some of the customers passing, simple, directed glances that ended just as soon as the subject of her gaze felt a hint of agitation. The Soldier acted to part, shoulders square and chin up. Tegan's fingers flexed open, then closed around the handle of her parasol. Whether or not she took a hungry glance outward was best left to idle conjecture. "My hope, Bishop Faustin..." She rasped to the Manager in her rattling, affect-less voice. It was likely never pretty, but her monotone shot any hint of warmth out of it. "... is that our briefing may fit its very name. Our flight was long long and thirsty, and my companions have an embarrassing amount of investiture in concluding this."

Bishop Pierre Faustin's lips pressed together as he tried his damnedest to keep both his shoulders and his neck from tensing up from the casual tone that the Inquisitor took. "Discretion is the cardinal rule, in these parts." While they weaved through the passage towards a spiral staircase, he faintly dipped his head to the right. Down at the other end, a lean man in an out-of-place, light gray suit leaned against the bar, young of face with golden blonde hair, bearing a single streak of white at the temple. "The wolves have started circling..." he muttered in what may have seemed to be metaphor, before taking a sharp tick of his chin to the left a few yards down. There, a tousled-haired, narrow fellow in Lennon specs and a well-fit, black T-shirt bearing the Eye of Providence chatted with a young lass, dressed in little more than a bikini top, shorts, and a smile. "... and usurpers hold fast to the moorings after God's judgment falls around us."

Perhaps naught but Tegan took a sour cast to her lips at the religious tone that Bishop Faustin took, yet all three looked askance through the shadows that blotted out the stairwell. Tegan's parasol seemed to grow a touch longer, a touch more curved of spoke while the Soldier let his shoulders go loose, his brow creased with a gargoyle's passive glare. Once again, the Bishop stepped within, swinging out his arm to welcome them further into the twists and turns that Club Atropos had to offer. "Come, my friends. Let's discuss matters privately."

The Pixie's eye remained on the messy-haired man for just a tic too long, enough for his conversational partner to notice. That gaze, unflinching and insectile in its disturbance, didn't end until she passed through the doorframe, with her darker companions guileless in her wake.

No change in pace transpired as the quartet ascended to the higher floors, in spite of a complete lack of any light fixtures or windows to offer light. Both Tegan and The Soldier traipsed as normal, as if this unlit state were more home to them than even the faint hum of moonlight of glint of stars. Faustin's tongue, a thin, split ribbon, slipped from between his lips and flickered intermittently, guiding him up the path to his upstairs abode. The Pixie, ever the alien, simply wound herself in nearly silent steps, each one motivated more by touch than by sight, with no less precision than her companions.

"Augh thank the bloody heavens." Once Tegan slipped around the corner, all of her clipped mien and haunted demeanor disassembled. Her free hand, in one smooth motion, slipped off her hat and drew off her sunglasses, the latter now resting in the former. Her umbrella stirred, writhing... before finally falling to a mass of wriggling, black pieces that sank back into the darkness from whence they arrived. Jet black eyes, void of reflection, peeped out from beneath Tegan's thick lashes, and the points to her ears stuck noticeably out from her curtain of hair. "I hope you haven't prepared us some preposterous line-up of squirming young girls on ecstasy as our dinner. The last Cobra we came to visit had the most gauche ideas about the nature of our sect. The folly of youth, I suppose."

"Oh, speak for yourself, Tegan." The Pixie's head snapped towards the Weirdling with a wry little smile drawing over her lips, enough to set fetching, if calculatedly so, dimples into her cheeks. Her voice was just teetering on the lower end of feminine, more a smoky purr than musical lilt. "I could do with a few... exploratory seasonings with my food. Not to scoff on the grace of whatever hospitality you choose to show us, Father."

"Patience, patience. All shall reveal itself." As they reached the top of the stairs, Bishop Faustin pushed open the heavy wooden door before him, some medieval antique shipped in only for the weight, the creak... and perhaps the multitude of nail-marks permanently scratched in horrible latticework across the wood. "You'd be surprised at the degree of faith that a flock can drum up when faced with the promise of damnation."

The hallway into which they spilled was barely lit, just three well-shaded bulbs for the narrow corridor that spanned the length of the club, the warmth utterly oppressive beneath the persistent hum and gurgle of a small army of hidden dehumidifiers. Tegan thanked the heavens for a spot to set down her hat and glasses atop a long table set beneath a mirror, which reflected all but the Soldier in its rounded border once they passed. "Right. Yes. Eating bible-thumpers for tea, then. Now, I must ask... why in the world have you called in the Sabbat Inquisition, and why are we talking to you, and not the Archbishop?"

Bishop Faustin beckoned with a casual flick-flick of his fingers as he started toward the far end of the hall, away from the dehumidifiers' hum, and toward the deep swelter, where a few, quiet sussurations of sheets, skin, and breath brought the walls to swell in an invisible pulse. "The Archbishop's more interested in... prancing around like a spastic for the Camarilla. It's like watching a child knock something over just to watch Mum and Dad get cross. Problem is, the Archbishop turned 300 last June, so... Bob's yer Uncle." He simply stopped before the door, his hands resting together, as the clamor of hands all scrambled to open the door, and release the deep scent of myrrh, sweat and wine into the hall. "From what we've gathered from our Lunatics and Furies, Hell itself has decided to drop one of its own into our fine city, and we have Infernalists, Hellfire Clubs, and worse sprouting up like flies around Golgotha." He gestured within the room, to the bobbing heads of the youthful throng within, all well-pampered, all well-oiled, all dressed in naught but simple strips of silken cloth that draped just so across them, slender fingers reaching out towards the quartet in between caresses to each others' flesh. "But, for now, we dine."

To the partially-clad throng of youthful bodies, all doe-eyed and quivering in anticipation for the Bishop and his visitors, only Collette, the Pixie, seemed to react, with a full-body swivel and a serpentine flash in her eyes. "Oh, what busy nights await us."