Author's Note: Second edit pass complete! Check out my bio for details.
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~~Julias~~
A taxi would not do, not for this.
Perhaps it was too ridiculous, too absurd, or just too over-the-top, but Julias took great delight in the magnificent limousine they were in. Other Kindred would arrive in their usual ways, but the Prince expected a certain level of presentation for her ball, and Julias got that. There was something beautifully innocent in the mindless indulgence of expensive vice, jewelry, and wearing someone on your arm.
Jack was in the limousine with him, and both of them were in tuxedos. His childe looked so cute in his suit. Like all young neonates, they wore more modern clothes, but the older Kindred such as himself were more partial to clothes that managed to capture the majesty and allure of the older age. Himself, his tuxedo carried hints of the early 1900's with its open jacket, inner vest with a chain in the pocket, and tie. He was sure there would be even older, but even more compelling clothes combinations at the ball.
And to make the trip even more luxurious, the two of them were sipping blood.
"How does it feel to be visiting the Black Hall?" he said.
"Dude, Julias, I... crap man, I had no idea the Prince owned the Black Hall."
"I imagine she doesn't talk about it much? The Prince has vast corporations under her thumb. Which ones, we're not entirely sure. We know she owns some of the major old money corporations, which is natural, and her influence spreads as wide as Xnomina's, just quietly and secretly."
Jack frowned. "Secretly. She never told me about any of this."
"Hey, don't blame her. Centuries of habits die hard. Someone like Antoinette has built a base of money and power over many webs over many decades of careful manipulation. And she's a Dragon. The Ordo Dracul are made of secrets."
If only Jack knew. Julias chuckled, sipped more of their blood, and watched the city go by in the window. Xnomina was built on such secrets and manipulations, and that rabbit hole went deep, but neither he nor his peers knew what sort of secrets Antoinette built her empire on. It was one of the reasons she ruled the city; she was the better businessman.
He looked over at Jack. The kid was also looking out the window and drinking in the sights of the city. Black Hall was on the outside edge of the Elysium district, and while it only rose a few stories high, the building was massive. The building the Invictus held their balls and ceremonies within paled in comparison to it. Black Hall could hold thousands.
And when the limousine pulled up to the red carpet -- an actual red carpet -- there were guards in suits and unknown pedestrians who'd gathered to watch. They didn't know what was going on, as Black Hall events were never announced to the public, but still they gathered. The guards weren't Kindred, but Julias didn't think they were ghouls either. Antoinette had her fingers in everything.
Once they were out on the carpet, he stopped to admire the sight. The carpet didn't have any stanchions; the guards standing around it were enough to keep the random pedestrians from storming the carpet. And even without the guards, the look on the kine's faces was clear: intrigued but intimidated.
They took pictures, and recorded with their smart phones, but the pictures would always come out just a little too blurry or at the wrong angle. Such was the way of the Kindred beast.
The building itself was made of massive columns of that black marble the Prince seemed to love so much. Subtle curving dragons of long body were carved into the pillars, and the pillars themselves were part of a overhang half-circle that the carpet was underneath. The walls of the building were a similar, weird mixture of ancient and modern architecture, with more of that black marble color and cracks of white throughout its surface, like lightning. The windows were as tall as the walls, which was at least thirty feet, but they only showed the dark curtains on the other side.
To a kine, the building must have seemed like some sort of dark, mysterious, but grand and majestic Taj Mahal. To the neonates showing up, it must have seemed like the Queen's palace. They stood in awe, with their mouths hanging open and staring up at the grand entrance. It was the first ball the Prince had held openly for all covenants in years, and it was for all members and all ages; that meant a lot of neonates who'd never seen those massive doors, with black gates before them coiled with white dragons.
Jack too stood in awe, but maybe not as long as the other neonates. The kid regularly went deep into the Prince's tower after all, and Julias assumed such architecture was common within its depths.
A ball, a big fancy party, for Kindred was always an interesting affair of sizing each other up and trying to predict each others motives, strengths, weaknesses, and vices. They didn't mix or mingle like kine, but circled each other and faked social niceties. It was the Danse Macabre after all, and while he tired of the webs of deceit elders weaved, he had to admit he enjoyed the more innocent play of a gathering. He was good at it. Poker on a larger scale.
When the guards opened the massive gate, all eyes were on him and the small vampire at his side. He gave his childe a wink and just smiled at the crowd of Kindred before him. He was Julias Mire, youngest vampire of the Invictus council of Dolareido. They knew who he was, every last one of them, and that really stroked a Ventrue's ego.
The crowd was already well over a hundred. He recognized many; Maria and Michael were already there; so were Natasha and Jessy, and even some high ranking Carthians were already there. The dress code was hard to pin down, as it was both a black tie event, but everyone brought their own mixture of their era. Maria and Michael were dressed in proud and obvious throwbacks to their time, which from the eighteenth century meant corsets, jackets, frills on dresses and jackets alike. The other Kindred, not so old, wore clothes more suited to the nineteenth century, such as vests and fancy dresses with exposed shoulders. The difference compared to the younger Kindred, such as Jessy, was that of modern tuxedos and sleek white dresses.
And then the fresh neonates dressed for sex, with the new, suit-like tuxedo, and the modern dress's exposed thighs. He couldn't blame them; they were young, and young Kindred usually found solace in their new ability to fuck with impunity.
The Prince wouldn't be there yet; it would be a social faux pas for the host to arrive on time. But he was curious to see how the ancient Kindred would dress.
It had been years since he last stepped into the Black Hall. He'd forgotten how massive it was inside, as the gate opened into a large stairway that spread outward and down into a colossal room. There were no windows; instead, there were giant walls of white marble cracked with black lines, and the walls had ornamental arches carved into them. Always dragons. From the ceiling hung massive cages of black with the same dragon decoration as the front gate, but within the cages was white fire. Columns were spread throughout the ballroom every twenty feet, like a forest of kingly marble. At the other end of the room, a split stairway rose to reach a balcony that lined the upper wall of the massive room in a complete circle. The walls curved in to join the ceiling where, in the white and obsidian marble colors the Prince held so dear, there were two dragons painted coiling in each other.
It truly put the Invictus ballroom to shame.
He recognized another Carthian: Mike, the young neonate he'd bent to his will only months ago. He offered the young man, so clearly out of his element at the ball, a small nod of acknowledgment. Not an apology, but an offering of respect. It was better.
