Border, KS

“You’ve always been too damned squeamish.” The cultured voice pronounced. His voice slithered with disdain, as if he were addressing something so far beneath his contempt he felt there should have been a law against their interaction. “I thought the children of Winter were supposed to be a hardier lot then you seem to be. You argued against using the Hound, and you’ve always supported his insane idea that we shouldn’t kill too many mortals.” He sniffed, and even that sound managed to convey a depth of arrogance. “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected much from a bas-”

Walter had been leaning around the whole time to get a better look at the situation, and so when Tennyson began to move he had to keep himself from whistling in appreciation. Walter had thought he was getting a handle on how fast these people could move, but he also remembered that his primary antagonist—Ninja Grandpa—was apparently not a seasoned warrior. Tennyson was. In the blink of an eye he was gone from the spot he had been standing in and was instead next to the tall man with the cultured voice, holding a very long and very slender blade to the other man’s throat.

“Do not, if you would be so kind my lord Earl, finish that sentence. Because I like this shirt a lot, and blue blood will stain the same as peasant red. I’m no less sidhe than you, and you will not like my reminder.” The man who had unleashed such havoc in the Police Station had a knife’s edge smile on his features as he spoke, and all the calm courtesy of a sharpened razor. “Ah…no protests. I’ve had about enough of you, you vicious inbred shit. The fact that you continue to confuse principle with weakness is something we will have to work out later. In a dark alley. With an iron pipe.” His voice was the very heart of an icy storm, and Walter was almost surprised that he didn’t see frost gathering on the lapels of the other man’s coat.

The alleged Earl was a tall man with strawberry blond hair in a ponytail. Slender like a knife’s edge, Walter was certain he would be annoyingly handsome, and he wore is designer suit well. He sniffed, apparently disconcerted by the knife in his throat but not enough to put him completely off his game. “He has decided that he is tired of waiting for them to come, and wants to up the stakes. This will up the stakes, certainly.”

“This will turn us in to monsters.” Tennyson responded angrily. “There is nothing good about this, and stop smirking.” Walter watched Tennyson stalk away angrily, although he kept his blade in hand. The Earl let his shoulders sag for a moment when he did not think anyone was watching, his relief evident from the little bit of tremor that ran through his arms. Tennyson turned back around quickly, and Walter was forced to pull himself back before he was spotted. “I’m going to go see the old man and figure out what the hell he was thinking. If I’ve find you’ve started killing children before I get back, I will carve your balls out for cuff links.” Before Walter could formulate a plan to jump him he turned to enter in to a storage closet, and the flutter of wings announced that Ninja Grandpa wasn’t the only one who knew that particular trick.

Walter, Tania, and Morgan shared a particular look as they realized that Tennyson had gotten away, at least for the moment. That look was composed largely of scowls, and largely communicated various profanities as appropriate for the person. But their eyes snapped back as the Earl resumed speaking. “Now that the uppity bastard is gone, would you please take a gun and go brain some of the sleepers so that we might draw out the foe?” The contrast between the high class accent and the euphemism ‘brain’ caused a bit of whiplash, but not so much that Walter wasn’t intimately aware that he was ordering his brawny looking minion to where his children were. “Carve my balls out, will he?” The Earl snorted dismissively.

“Well, I could do it instead.” Walter offered as he stood up and fired his taser, impacting the murderous nobleman in his royal treasury.