Happy Birthday, dear Antichrist...

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

((Open RP in the library.))

To some, it would be quite a boring way to spend a birthday, but Damien Thorn was quite enjoying his time in the library. Many of the mindless impostors and traitors had asked him why he was spending his time in a musty school for magic, and now he knew that he had found the ultimate answer in the pages of a well-worn text.

The Fidelius Charm, a very complex bit of magic that binded a secret to the soul of a person who kept it. Once bound, the secret could only be revealed by the Secret Keeper, and only if they so chose. A person who had not been told the secret could be standing right in front of what they were searching for, and still not find it. Damien had something that he very much wished to keep away from prying eyes.

It was this charm that kept him quite happily occupied on his thirty-fourth birthday, with a bottle of brandy ont he table and his dog by his side to keep him company.

Comments

[lady-h3ath3r.livejournal.com]

A woman in a black lace gown glided out from the stacks and stopped by the dark man's chair.

"Excuse me. Would you have any idea where they keep the books on binding spells?" She shrugged apologetically. "I'd ask the librarian, but there doesn't seem to be one."

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

"No," Damien said, without even pausing to look up from his book. He did have a faint idea, but it was not his responsibility to provide help to strangers. The dog, however, rolled over on its side to look the woman over.

[lady-h3ath3r.livejournal.com]

"Thank you," she replied equally brusquely, and was about to walk away when the Rottweiler turned its attention to her.

She met the dog's stare evenly and held her ground. "Nice-looking collar," she observed, though it would be hard to say whether it was directed to dog or master.

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

The dog's master ignored her, but the dog seemed to be enjoying the attention. It wagged its stump of a tail at her.

[lady-h3ath3r.livejournal.com]

Lady Heather started to take a step forward, then glanced at the man in the chair. "May I?" she asked him, gesturing toward the dog.

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

Damien sighed. "If you must." There was no harm in letting the woman pet the dog, and after she was done, she would leave.

[lady-h3ath3r.livejournal.com]

Heather was accustomed to provoking a vast array of reactions from men, but complete indifference was not among them. Even the gay men looked, if only at her clothes.

She stooped to one knee, making sure her spike-heeled black boot and a generous length of bare thigh were visible through the slit in her gown. Then she extended a hand, palm up, and crooned softly to the dog.

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

The rich Ambassador had enjoyed being challenged by Kate's wit and playing the gentleman to Sugar's damsel in (financial) distress. A woman who displayed her sex appeal and intentions so freely, however, held no interest for Damien. A woman like that he could have any time he wanted; there was no work involved. The obvious display of leather and flesh left him feeling mildly disgusted, as of she had performed a lewd act rather than bending down to pet the dog.

Nero did not mind a bit, and gave her hand a tentative sniff before allowing himself to be pet.

[lady-h3ath3r.livejournal.com]

Oh, great. Another judgmental type. Detective Brass with money and breeding, to judge by the quality of his clothes, casual though they were. If there was anyone Lady Heather had no use for, it was the holier-than-thou.

So she gave Nero a thorough petting and stood. "Good day. Lovely not meeting you."

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

Judgmental he was, although probably not in the sense she had in mind. "Indeed," Damien said, flipping the page of his book. He hadn't looked at her once through the whole conversation.

[lady-h3ath3r.livejournal.com]

Heather scowled as she headed back into the stacks. Hopefully this one was safely in Gryffindor with all the other moralists, where she'd be unlikely ever to run into him again.

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

"We really must stop meeting like this," Reilly joked drily. "Good book?"

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

Upon hearing the voice of his rival, Damien closed the book he had been reading and pushed it away, as if he had finished it just at that moment. It would almost seem coincidental that the book was pushed far enough away that Reilly would be unable to read the title without straining.

"It will do," Damien said, nudging the brandy in Reilly's direction. Defeat must taste bitter; offering the man something to wash it down with was the least he could do.

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

"Ahh, thank you. An even better vintage this time, I see." He summoned a snifter with a few taps of his wand and poured. "What shall we drink to, Mr. Thorn? Are we celebrating, or licking our wounds in defeat?"

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

"I imagine that your wounds would require quite a bit of licking at this point," Damien said. "Do help yourself, and you might as well be generous. It is only a manner of time, after all."

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

"Eat, drink and make merry? Always a sensible plan." He smiled slyly. "But we still have nothing to drink to. What is the occasion for such a distinguished bottle?"

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

"Good taste," Damien said curtly. He somewhat wished that the doomed man would wise up, kill himself, and save everyone the hassle of committing murder, but that did not seem to be the case. Until Damien could get Reilly off the grounds, either through deception or force, he was resigned to at least humoring the man while he was on protected ground.

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

Reilly raised his glass. "To good taste, then, and the wherewithal to indulge it." He took a swallow of brandy.

"Do you know, I rather need something good to read at bedtime? Once I find a sufficiently dull tome, a few pages and I'm out like a light. But I've finished 'Hogwarts: A History' already. Have you anything to recommend?"

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

Damien blinked, halfway through his own swallow. "That was a fascinating piece of information about you that I never needed to know," he said, carefully setting down his snifter. "Now that you've told me about your sleeping habits, please do not feel free to move on to dietary habits, or anything else, really.

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

"Well, it was less a piece of information than a request," Reilly pointed out. "Read any not-so-good books lately?"

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

"Of course," Damien replied. "You can't have a library this big without having a few books that should have never seen the light of day. I can recommend one about a boy named Ephraim who becomes a great Wizard, or something like that." He knew damn well that wasn't what Reilly had in mind.

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

"A penny dreadful? I suppose every culture must have them. Those I used to save for long train journeys." He took a sip of brandy. "No, I was thinking something on the lines of nonfiction, the more obscure and impenetrable the better."

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

"Do you have any plans for a long journey soon?" Damien asked, changing the subject. "I hear the trip to London can be rather boring. Have you had a chance to go yet?" He managed to pull off a curious yet innocent expression while asking that question.

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

"Once, to pick up some proper clothing and other supplies. The trouble with coming back from the dead is one never really has the chance to pack," he observed.

"But I found a few interesting wizards to converse with on the train out, so that wasn't so bad, and I had new books to read on the way back. It's not a trip I'd care to make very often, though. This London is so different from the one I remember..."

Reilly looked away and applied himself to his brandy again.

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

Was he getting sentimental? Oh, this was too good. "I suppose that's the problem with dying," Damien said. "Do you suppose somebody even bothered to bury you?" he asked.

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

Reilly took a swallow of brandy. "There will have been a memorial service, certainly. I was married, you know. As for my actual remains, probably not. Dzherzhinski could depend upon the flora and fauna of the Hills to take care of that." He cocked an eyebrow at Thorn. "Ah well. We all come to dust in the end, now, don't we?"

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

"You did," Damien said. "It is a pity that humans were made so weak. As for myself, I'll sleep quite secure in the fact that there is nothing you can do to to stop me. I'm afraid that dust isn't in my future any time soon."

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

Reilly's eyebrows rose. "Stop you from what? And here I thought we were getting on so well."

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

Damien felt a monologue coming on. It seemed to be one of the downsides of being evil. "From achieving my purpose. From overcoming the wretched Christ, and all of his sniveling, weak, and mindless followers. From reclaiming this world in the name of my Father, as it always should have been. You will not stop me from showing mankind the true glory that awaits for them; the purification that comes from eternal salvation."

He had gripped the edge of the table, and his knuckles were turning white. "I don't know who you are, or what your mission is here, but you will not succeed. The fate of the earth is sealed, and now, at this school, I have found the secret to securing my eternal reign. Finally, at the very least, you will not stop me from grinding your very soul under my heel."

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

Reilly gaped for a few seconds at the sudden rant, really the first display of passion he'd seen from Thorn since their meeting.

Then he burst out laughing, helplessly, and rose to his feet.

"No, really, that's just too much. A writer of pulp fiction would cringe in shame had he written such a speech." He set his brandy snifter down on the table. "I thank you, Mr. Thorn, for the drink and the entertainment. Do enjoy your day."

And with that, he started toward the door.

[chance-silvey.livejournal.com]

Ah, a familiar face. Chance grinned. "Didn't know they allowed dogs in the library. How's it going? Still ulcer-free, I hope."

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

"They seem to allow dogs anywhere here," Damien said. "At least, nobody has said a word to me." He motioned to the large black dog sitting beside him, who was eagerly wagging his tail. "Chance, meet Nero. He's been a bit starved for attention, I'm afraid, so he might be a bit too friendly. As for the ulcers, I've been doing quite well in avoiding them. How about yourself?"

[chance-silvey.livejournal.com]

"No such thing as too friendly, as long as he doesn't jump," said Chance. Nero might be a formidably large dog, but he wasn't the thin starveling sort the ghul resembled, and she didn't think Damien wouldn't have control of his pet. Otherwise the dog would've been running all around the stacks by now, and probably barking up a storm. Had to be a decently-trained dog. She knelt to let him sniff her hand, as Joe Matthews had taught her. "Doggy introduction," she explained. "Can't launch into a scritch before they get to know your smell, my grandfather always said. I've been steering clear of the ulcers myself. Actually I can't think of a damn thing those runes said that have had any relevance to my life whatsoever."

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

The dog was the size of a small pony, and it obviously was well-cared for. "Thin" was not a word that would describe Nero. He sniffed her carefully, examining her hand intently. With a soft whuff he moved away from her hand. Chance had passed inspection.

Damien had been watching the dog. When it seemed satisfied that Chance was no threat, he smiled. "I think he's done. If you scratched him behind the ears now, you'd have a friend for life." Damien pushed one of the chairs away from the table, giving Chance a place to sit near the dog if she wanted it. "We could try pulling alphabet blocks out of a bag the next time," he said. "Maybe we could spell our fortunes."

[chance-silvey.livejournal.com]

Chance had to chuckle a little at that. She took the seat offered, and gently scratched Nero's head. "It'd be the same principle, wouldn't it? Just a more familiar alphabet. And the blocks would be easier to handle. Though it'd take a shitload of alphabet blocks to spell much of anything. That'd get heavy to drag around. The prof would need to equip us all with little red wagons."

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

"Maybe if you're trying to tell your future via Scrabble, where you have to leave the blocks on the table," Damien said. "If you land 'death' on a triple word score, does it get to be a more interesting one? Imagine the points you'd get for something like 'asphyxiation.' Anyway, what I was thinking was that you could just toss the blocks back in the bag, and write down your letters. That way, if the forces of fate decided that, say, you're going to become an antitransubstantiationalist, you'd have the letters for it." He smiled as Nero leaned into her hand, trying to get her to scratch behind the ear. "Unless, of course, you're already one, then you probably don't have to worry about that."

[medievalhippie.livejournal.com]

Merlin, who had been doing his best to catch up on fourteen hundred years' worth of history, was surprised and not entirely happy to see Damien here. Even without the fact that he and the man shared an uncanny resemblance, Damien perturbed him; what was worse, he did not know why. Damien was powerful--he could sense that much without even trying--and what was worse, his power seemed to be nothing of the good.

"Bit of research?" he asked, regarding the man closely as he passed with an armload of books.

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

Damien would also agree that Merlin was a man of great power, and that it was a power very different from his own. The unknown unnerved him; it meant something was outside of his control. This would not do.

He noticed the armload of books, and wished for a second that they were anywhere but here. A nasty fall from a ladder, a collapsing bookshelf, or even one of the biting books here would be a way to finish off a man without drawing attention to Damien. Alas, none of it would stick.

"Light reading, actually," Damien said, giving the man a cold glare.

[medievalhippie.livejournal.com]

"Might I ask what about?" He knew full well Damien wished him either dead or a thousand miles gone, but that was hardly going to stop him--setting down his books, he took a seat opposite Damien, regarding him curiously. "I have not done much reading of actual magic here, yet--there is too much history for me to learn first." He spoke pleasantly, but he was clearly watchful, searching Damien's face--and how strange was it, that they should look so similar--for some clue as to just what the man was on about.

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

"You," Damien said. It was a lie, but it would be worth it for the reaction. Damien made a mental note to actually follow up on this. "It's amazing how pedantic these wizards were. One books spends a whole chapter on your coat. Tell me, were feathers in vogue before you came up with the idea, or did you start a trend?"