...
Demons are like obedient dogs; they come when they are called.
Albrecht spends his days leisurely soaring around like a hawk on hot hair. Today is no different, he floats in large sweeping, dizzying circles. He worms his way into clouds and out of them with no particular interest of coming down unless something dramatic and personal were to happen. His associates know to never bother him, especially on flights. The House of Vintari operates like a well-oiled machine with or without his presence at the compound.
His leisure is for his pleasure but what he really likes is control over everything he has his hand in. He could be working but work is for his all of his slave labor. And sure, they are unwilling just as much as they are unpaid (which is very) -- but they are still afraid. Naked without personalities, neutralized without much hopes or desires - yet still so terribly afraid of the black-winged ophidian beast. Of what he will do to them --- of what he has done to them in the past.
He haunts their nights.
Terrorizes their days.
And reminds them all,
Time and time-again,
You will never be free.
For the captives bound to him, by him, this was (and still is) mostly true. Seldom few ever get out - and of those few, even less live to tell their stories. All the threatening and the killing isn't because he revels in the brutality of it - it is because he is terribly-terribly selfish. There is never a need to be identified by an old slave who defects to their old habits and truths only to devastate his black empire. He desires invisibility for invincibility. As far as Albrecht is concerned, his family name is as much golden as his eyes are.
The House of Vintari is known for its distribution of fine art, rare antiquities, and a fourth generation of jewelers and metal smiths. It is not known for its slave-trade, money laundering, and various other illicit mayhem that pollutes society the same way fire smoke does: Subtly, and without much thought to those surrounding upwind of the rat king. He has been poisoning them all for years now, the ruinous underbelly of Novus has been alive and well and Albrecht has always kept very high stakes in it.
As of recently, however, the holy roller's reputation has been obliquely threatened by unseen forces. A year and a half ago, a slave went missing. Not just any slave, his own personal favorite. Albrecht had spent a fair amount of time (and money) on her -- one he had mistakenly grew to trust. Now Eulalie, the slave, was out there somewhere and his tension (although he hid it well) cut into him deeper than any knife. She knew things about him that could put him away for life, or cost him his own life if she told the right person(s) of all that Albrecht had done. Not just to her, but several others.
High up here in the clouds he thinks about things like that.
But,
--he also thinks about his next dinner party,
--about whether or not he should bring the fine crystal out.
He thinks about Ezra too,
--and wonders if the man is smooth talking his way into Friday night's gathering by visiting with Albrecht's chosen guests. Albrecht didn't forget to invite the golden boy, he did it with intention just to see how skilled his younger associate is at being a part of Who's Who.
From this high up, this menace casts only a pinprick of a shadow against the world of sand beneath him, and horses look like sand fleas. There is a chance he looks down and sees Eulalie but from this distance it is undecided what it is he sees. Besides, she cannot possibly be that foolish if she was smart enough to evade him before. It is inconceivable to him to think that she would show her face anywhere knowing that he is still out there -- and searching. It had been a fluke that she saw him at the festival and he missed her entirely. Even now, gazing down, he does not detect her presence.
So instead he humors himself with how small the speck of a horse several miles down looks. he envisions himself as an eagle with talons that raze and tear. How easy and how fun would it be to be a true raptor and not just a metaphorical one with his midnight pilferage of late night lone travelers? How easy his job as a collector would be if he could just pick up his quarry with two mighty arms and fly off with them rather than hunt them on the ground like the jackal that he truly is.
His concentration breaks unexpectedly, the latch on his throat piece gives up its ghost. It must be the chill from flying in such thin, cold air for so long -- or a fingers of Fate slipping the catch because she can. The emerald laden necklace slips from his possession without any warning. It falls fast and true and it couldn't be more perfect timing. The heirloom, is the first thing he thinks, a beloved piece of art given to him at a young age and kept more preciously than anybody or anything he has ever known in all of his villainy. He worries more about it being carried away than he does for the creature it will narrowly miss way down below.
Immediately, the ophidian flier tips, wings acutely angling down so he is forefeet first into a nose dive. The choker lands hot and heavy just a few feet from the traveler in the sand with a deep thud. Three feet over and it might have put a hole the size of a goose egg through their head at the height from which it escaped Albrecht.
It is Eulalie's doom, not far behind it, something big, dark, and completely terrible-looking follows at break-neck speed and blacks out her view of the sun the closer he gets.
ALBRECHT
this is what you came for. this is what you get
