The Immigrant Song

At first Georgie pretended like she didn't care at all and focused on the undeniably tasty crème brûlée, but one of her strong points was noticing tiny details, and she happened to notice that Ms. 'I-have-a-British-accent-so-I'm-better-than-you-Cohan' handed Rome a little piece of paper before she turned away from them. As soon as Rome read the paper he hid it and grabbed the spoon in front of him.

"You got her number already?", Georgie asked dryly without looking at him.

Rome cleared his throat. "Yeah...can't change the fact that I'm so popular", he said with a joking voice, but Georgie didn't smile. Instead, she turned to Elenna who shoved down scoops of her dessert. For some reason she seemed pissed.

"Are you okay?", Georgie asked.

"Hm?"

"You seem...tense."

"I'm not. I'm just enjoying the pudding", Elenna replied coldly and was just about to return to her dessert when Georgie touched her arm.

"First of all, that's not a pudding, it's crème brûlée, and secondly, you eat like a wild animal. That's not a nice picture..."

Elenna rolled her eyes, then frowned as she looked in the direction of Ms. Cohan. Georgie tried not to smile. It seemed like they shared the same feeling of distrust towards that woman.

"Would you two stop staring at her like this?", they heard Rome saying. "You look like you're thinking of really mean ways to torture her."

Georgie and Elenna looked at Rome, then at each other. "Doesn't sound so bad actually..."

"Come on, give her a chance. She's the hostess, remember?"

"So? That doesn't mean that we have to be nice to her", Elenna mumbled. "And neither Georgie nor I want to sleep with her, so we don't need to butter her up with compliments."

Georgie nodded. "I agree with you, dear sister."

Rome grunted. "She could be a good source of information."

"How convenient that she's attractive too, right?" Georgie didn't even try to hide the sarcasm in her voice.

Elenna raised her eyebrows. "Yes, really convenient..."

"It's really nice to finally see you two agreeing with each other...no, actually, it's creepy, but that doesn't mean you two can get all Holmes and Watson on me and snoop around in my business." He looked past the two girls at Callum who pretended that he wasn't listening to their conversation and politely finished his dessert.

"If we're Holmes and Watson, who is who?", Georgie asked Elenna. "Am I Holmes?"

"Why?"

"Because Holmes is the taller one."

"And he's the smarter one, so that would make me Holmes."

"Excuse me? I went to Yale, okay? And I'm so not Watson."

"Why?" What is so bad about Watson?", Elenna raised an eyebrow.

"He's depicted as small and fat."

"Did you even read one of the books?"

"No, but I watched the 1980s TV series, and Watson is definitely the unattractive one. So I can't be Watson", Georgie replied.

"I can't believe we're seriously having this conversation...", Elenna mumbled.

Rome chuckled. "Well, ladies, I hate to interrupt your very sophisticated discussion, but it looks like the auction is about to start. It's showtime!"

“But I haven’t finished my pudding yet.” Lenna complained but one stern look of Georgie made her shut up. “Sorry, but it was just so good.” The stupid Ms Cohan was still close to them, for some reason Lenna really didn’t liked her. Callum offered her his arm. “May I escort you to the auction room?”

Lenna giggled. “I didn’t know Scots are such Gentlemen. I always thought they are wild, dirty tough guys, like in Braveheart.”

“I’m sorry but not everyone in Scotland is like that.”

Lenna had the book in which all objects where in, the sword was object number 36, they started with a couple of tables and boring chairs Lenna was not at all interested in them. Even though Georgie seemed to be, she whispered something boring in her ear, Lenna just smiled and mumbled. “I guess.”

But then the old books were about to be sold and her heart started to beat faster. “Georgie, please I do everything but can I have one of these books. Please?” Lenna was holding Georgie’s hand and looking pleading at her.

"Can I ask you something, Elenna?" Georgie fixed a strand of her hair that -oh shock- did not sit perfectly.

"Yes..."

"Do I look old?"

Elenna frowned, wondering if her friend was asking a trick question. "Ahem...no. Well, maybe in the eyes of a 6-year old but-"

"So I don't look old, right?", Georgie interrupted her.

"I guess not."

"Okay. Do I look fat?"

"Why are you asking me this?" Elenna seemed confused.

"Just answer the question."

"No, you don't look fat."

"Do I wear something red?"

"Ah...no? Why are you-"

"And do I have a gray beard?"

"What?" Elenna stared at her friend.

Georgie cleared her throat. "So, if I'm not old, fat, wear a red suit and have a gray beard, why do you act like I'm Santa Claus?"

"Because you have the nice, shiny credit card that is absolutely dying to buy those books for your little sister who does not have such a nice, shiny credit card!"

"Dammit, you look like Bambi whose mother just had been shot!" Georgie sighed, then held up her number. "I can't believe I'm spending so much money on an old, dusty book! I could easily buy another Louis Vuitton purse for that amount of money."

"A what?"

"Forget it." When Georgie saw that somebody else tried to outbid her, she flashed the man an evil glare, and he quickly took his offer back. Nobody else offered more, so she got the book. "This is insane. Spending so much money on a book! My uncle would be so proud of me..."

Elenna grinned. "Thank you, Santa, I owe you."

"Oh yes, you owe me indeed."

Rome tried not to look as uncomfortable as he felt. Okay, it wasn't like fifty grand wasn't doable, but that ate up a good chunk of the money that was meant to be used for the sword. And it would take too long to get more money transferred from wouldn't-you-like-to-know to his checking account.

Damn it, Rome sulked to himself, I'm endangering the mission, I shouldn't have come, feeling like Luke Skywalker on Endor. At least if Raws was here, he could blame him. Oh, wait: he could blame Raws because he wasn't here.

As the auction began, Georgie snatched the paddle from him and bid a few thousand on a book for Elenna, who, after Georgie out-bid the other, like, two interested buyers, looked like it was Christmas. She was about to leap up and run down the isle, but Rome grabbed her arm and held her in her seat.

"This ain't The Price is Right, chica," he whispered. "They took down our number and will wrap it up and put it in the car for us. Just relax."

"But I want to look at it now!" she whined.

He patted her knee. "You can look at it on the drive home, okay?"

"I hope you have a bit of liquid cash to spare," Georgie whispered in his other ear. "I only took out what I needed. Not that I think a few thousand is going to make a difference in our case."

"Um. Yeah. About that--" Rome began nervously, when the auctioneer drew out the Viking sword.

"And now, a recent find. Not even in the papers, yet, and let us try to keep it that way, shall we?"

As the man droned on--the Scottish guy paying too-close attention to it--Rome leaned down to Elenna again: "We sure that's it?"

"Positive."

Rome took a deep breath as the man started the bidding at $50,000.

Rome was holding up his paddle, hoping nobody else would be interested in the sword and bid higher.

"50.000 dollars from the gentleman with the number 23. Do I hear more?", the auctioneer looked around.

"55.000!", someone yelled from the back.

"60.000!", Rome said, holding up his paddle again.

The auctioneer looked at him. "60.000 dollar from-"

"70.000!", an older woman said.

Rome and Georgie turned around to look at her. "Come on, what on earth would that old lady want with a sword like that?", Rome grunted.

"Rome, the paddle!" Georgie grabbed his arm.

"What?"

"Hold it up!"

"Okay, okay!"

"70.000 from the lady with the number 45. Do I hear more?"

"75.000", Rome said, feeling worse with every increasing dollar.

"80.000!", an old guy held up his paddle.

"This is freaking annoying!", Rome turned to Georgie. "Why are these people interested in a sword?"

"Don't ask, just out-bid them!" Georgie bit her lip as she watched more and more paddles going up. Elenna sat next to her, both arms crossed, obviously very tense.

"Can't we just, I dunno, tell that auctioneer guy that we absolutely must have that sword?", Elenna looked at Georgie.

"That's not how it works, I'm afraid."

"Or we could grab his hammer and beat the sh*t out of him!"

Georgie raised an eyebrow. "You watch too many violent movies, little sister..."

"No, I got it!" Elenna grinned. "You could offer him a personal lap dance if he gives us the sword!"

"For Christ sake, are you-"

"Can I watch?" Rome just heard the magic word 'lap dance' and turned to them.

"No!" Georgie blushed. "And you, focus and do your job!"

They were already at 200.000 dollars, and they simply couldn't get rid of some obstinate people.
As they reached 500.000 dollars, Rome cleared his throat and leaned closer to Georgie.

"Are you willing to go further?"

"We have to!"

"See, there's a problem..." Rome couldn't tell her that he was about to give a huge amount of money to Bela in order to get information about his brother, so he needed Georgie to cover the rest.

"500.000 dollars, do I hear more?", the auctioneer asked.

"One million!", someone said. Someone with a rather familiar British accent. Everyone gasped and turned around, looking at Bela who held up her paddle.

"What? She can't do that!", Elenna said angrily. "She's the damn hostess!"

"The hostess can participate in the auction as well", Georgie explained, then she looked at Rome. "I can't just spend one million dollars on a sword."

"Can't you ask your uncle or something?"

Georgie huffed sarcastically. "No way."

"I thought he's generous..."

"There's a difference between generosity and wasting money", Georgie replied.

"It's not wasting money, we need to get that cursed sword!"

"I know." She sighed. "We have to figure out something else..."

"I'm still at one million", the auctioneer said. "Do I hear more?"

It suddenly got very quiet in the room.

"One million going once, one million going twice..." He slammed down his hammer. "Sold to the young lady for one million dollars."

"Great!" Elenna bit her lip. "What now?"

She looked rather shock.

One million dollars, that’s a 1 with six zeroes behind it, for a sword, no not just any sword a very old Viking sword found in America and on top of that a death bringing sword. That is just great. And if that wouldn’t be bad enough it is sold to Rome’s girl of the night. Phase one ID the object: check; Phase two steal it: not check; Phase three bid for it: not check again; all we can try now is mug, but Rome will feel bad to hit the annoying British chick over the head.

Lenna leaned closer to Georgie so Callum couldn’t hear her. “I hope Rome is really that good in bed so Miss-I’m-British-and-irresistible is well occupied and we can start phase four."

Lenna looked at Callum, he seemed angry not to be able to afford the sword. She started to wonder why he wanted it so badly. Who was he really? What did he do here?

((Cue the music ))

When was the bidding going to stop? Richard was getting a bit irritated waiting at the door, though he’d been there less than a minute. Though it was better waiting than walking in halfway through a bid. There, that was the hammer dropping. Richard opened the door and entered the room before the next item was brought forward. Opps. Wrong door. He’d hoped to enter at the back of the room, rather than right at the front. Well, no harm done.

He spotted where Hendricks, his current employer, was sitting near the front and moved to join him. Thankfully Hendricks had saved him a seat

“I’ve double checked Mr Hendricks. The crest is the same one your family used to own. With any luck returning it to your home will settle the spirit and break your curse of bad luck.” Richard whispered to Hendricks as he sat down.

“And if it doesn’t?” Hendricks asked nervously back.

“Don’t worry. We aren’t out of options yet.”

“I hope no one else is going to bid for it. With this haunting and bad luck I’ve very little accessible funds left.”

“It’s not actually worth much and it’s not pretty to look at. We should be alright.” But something was making Richard uneasy. It wasn’t the sale, it was the fact he felt like he was being watched.

After they just lost the sword to that snobby Miss Cohan, Elenna turned to Rome to ask him what their next move was going to be while Georgie sighed and looked around. Most of the people were at least over 60 and looked like the kind of people her uncle always brought home for dinner. Important business men, lawyers, doctors... and her dad?! Georgie held her breath when she caught glimpse of a man who did not look similar but exactly like her father. Her heart started pounding fast and she closed her eyes for a second, hoping that she was only hallucinating and the man was gone as soon as she opened them again. But he wasn't. He was focused on the auctioneer who just got out another item. He seemed to have noticed her staring at him -she did it rather obvious- and when their eyes met Georgie felt a shiver running down her spine. Her father was dead for thirteen years, and yet there was someone looking like his identical twin.
There was only one reasonable explanation... She grabbed her purse where she kept a silver knife, holy water and salt. Whatever it was she was dealing with, she wouldn't let it run around in the body of her deceased father.
Georgie took a deep breath and tried to control her emotions which was almost impossible, but she had to focus.
When the auctioneer got out something that looked like a crest the man held up his paddle.

Damn, there must be something wrong with that item!Georgie bit her lip. Obviously the sword is not the only cursed object...
There was no way she would let him get whatever he was after, so she grabbed the paddle that Rome was holding and held it up.

"What are you doing?", Rome and Elenna asked but she ignored them. She turned around to look at the man who was obviously not very pleased that she was after the same item as he was. He held up his paddle again, and so did she.

"Georgie, what the hell are you doing?", Elenna tried to take away the paddle from her.

"Let me do this, okay?!"

Both Rome and Elenna held their breath when they heard the upset tone in her voice. Georgie took another look at the man who seemed to hesitate, since the price was only going higher and higher. He held up his paddle in a last attempt but had no chance against Georgie's enormously high bids. He talked to the man next to him who only shook his head, then they heard the auctioneer slamming the hammer. "Sold for the young lady with the number 23."

"Are you insane?" Rome stared at Georgie but he didn't get the chance to start a discussion because she got up, holding her purse tightly.

"If you will excuse me...I have to take care of something."

"What?!"

"Don't follow me!" Georgie turned around and walked away, looking sternly at the man before she left the room. If he was really after that item he would follow her.

Georgie leaned against a wall in a corner, her knife hidden in one hand, the little bottle with holy water in the other. It didn't take a minute until the door opened. Before the man spotted her she was behind him, pressing the knife in his back.

"If I were you I wouldn't move or I'm going to run this knife right through your back", Georgie said coldly.

"I don't know what-"

"Shut up, I'm talking!", Georgie hissed. "Do you think that's a joke? Do you think it's funny to walk around like this in front of me?"

"I'm sorry but I don't know what-"

"There are about 7 billion people on this planet, and you possessed a dead man? How sick are you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about!" Georgie got out the holy water. "Turn around."

He slowly turned around while she still pressed the knife against him. She heard her heart pounding against her chest as she looked into a face she hadn't seen for thirteen years...but there was something different. Those were not her father's eyes. They actually looked more like...hers. Before her emotions could gain the upper hand over her she splashed the holy water on his face. She tried to hide her surprise when nothing happened.
"So, you're not a demon, hm?"

"I never-"

"You're a shapeshifter, aren't you?"

"No, I'm-"

"Get out of this body, you bastard!"

"I'm not-"

"Georgie?" Rome and Elenna appeared behind her. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Stay out of this!"

"I'm a hunter, okay?", the man said before she could cut him off again.

"Bullshit! You're a bloody mosnter,that's what you are!"

"Georgie, what's going on?", Elenna asked.

"He's using my father's body."

"What?" Everyone of them looked surprised at her.

"That's your father?" Rome looked from Georgie to the man she was threatening with a knife.

"No, he's not! He's just some disgusting creature using my father's body for some sick reason!"

"Listen to me for one second!", the man said. "I'm a hunter and I'm here for a job."

"Cut the crap! Do you really think I'm that stupid?"

"I don't, I-"

"I had enough of this!" Georgie pressed the knife right against his chest. "I know exactly how to kill things like you."

"Georgina Gilmore!", Elenna yelled. "Calm down, okay? Maybe he's saying the truth."

The man frowned. "Your name is Georgina Gilmore?"

"Why the hell do you care?"

"That was my mother's name."

"Of course it was your mother's name, because you chose to run around in the body of Adam Gilmore who happens to have a mother with that name!"

"Who? I don't know any Adam, I only knew Georgina and Edmund Gilmore."

Georgie was silent for a moment. "They are my grandparents."

"Your grandparents?"

"Okay!", Rome interrupted the two. "What the hell is going on here?"


(OOC: Calvin, if you want me to change anything let me know. And sorru it took me so long! )

“I would like to know that myself!” Richard took a deep breath and tried to work out what was going on. It wasn’t the first time he’d been accosted by hunters, but normally that came much, much later. Was it somehow possible that somehow he could be related to this girl, this Georgiana? There were a few similarities there he supposed. At least he friends seemed to be as confused as he was. That was one small comfort.

Richard tried to weight up his options. He could disarm Georgiana, but was just as likely to end up with the knife in his gut before he got his arms close enough. Well, that left talking.

“I really don’t know who this Adam is. My name is Richard. And this is my own body. I was born in ’68. My parents died seven years later.” He just hoped the extra details would help convince the poor girl that he wasn’t some kind of body snatcher.

“And,” he added as an afterthought, “if I was some evil monster that had taken your father form and had enough knowledge to use your grandparents names, would I really have paraded on front of you and then walked unwearyingly into your ambush?”

Richard sighed; this whole situation would be humours if it wasn’t for the knife in her hand. He turned his head to address the man who was accompanying her.

“Could you please take the knife off her? It’s rather worrying the way she’s waving it around.”

(OOC: Your post was great, I suspected it would be the GG name that would really set things off! Until I get to know the other characters a bit better though I won't be haveing them talk much in my posts! )

Rome approached Georgie carefully and touched her shoulder. "Hey G, ease up a litte, okay?" He noticed how pale she looked, almost sick, but he kept his thoughts to himself because he knew how sensitive she was when it came to her appearance. He slowly put his hand on hers and wrestled the knife from her. Georgie didn't move, she didn't even seem to notice that Rome had taken away the knife from her.

Richard sighed. "I really don't know what I did to offend you, but it's pretty obvious that there's some sort of confusion here."

Elenna stepped forward and looked at Georgie. "Maybe it's just a pure coincidence that-"

"What?" For the first time Georgie turned around to look at the others. "That he happens to have parents with the names of my grandparents, and that he happens to look pretty much exactly like my father?"

"Well, that sounds kind of freaky, actually."

"Oh, really?"

"Maybe you have distant relatives who happen to have the same names like your grandparents?" Elenna tried to find something that would make sense, but Georgie didn't seem convinced.

"I don't have distant relatives, Elenna. My uncle showed me our family tree, and there is not much left of my family. Actually, my uncle, my aunt and I are the only Gilmores left. My grandparents died in 1975 and-"

"Your grandparents died in 1975?", Richard asked. "So did my parents."

The two stared at each other, followed by an awkward silence.

Elenna sighed. "Okay, do I have to point out the obvious here? Your grandparents, Georgie, died in the same year his parents died. On top of that he looks like your father. There might be a possibility that your grandparents didn't have two but three sons, and you don't know about this. Which would make you...", she looked at Richard, "her uncle."

Another awkward silence followed, the auctioneer's voice behind the door was the only noise.

Georgie took a deep breath. "I have one uncle, Elenna, and he plays golf, reads The Wall Stree Journal every day and collects antique pipes. Oh, yes, and he's about twenty years older than him. So if my grandparents had another son they must have been very old."

Rome cleared his throat. "Some old people are just more...active than others."

Georgie shot him a furious glance, and he quickly looked into a different direction. "I'm just saying..."

"Can I see your wallet, please?", Elenna looked at Georgie.

"Excuse me?"

Before Georgie was able to react Elenna had already grabbed her friend's purse, opened it and took out the wallet.

"What are you doing?"

"Wait...here it is. I know that you keep this in your wallet." She took out a small photo, scrutinized it with raised eyebrows, then looked up to Richard. "Yes, there's an undeniable resemblance."

Rome looked over her shoulder. "Is that you, Georgie? With your dad?"

"Lenna, give that-"

"Here." She ignored Georgie and handed the picture to Richard who looked more than surprised. Before he had any chance to say something Georgie snatched the picture away from him, put it back in the purse and got out her cell phone. "I'm going to call my uncle", she said to Elenna and Rome. "Might take a while." She turned around and left the building.

Elenna looked at the door Georgie had just disappeared through, shook her head and turned back to Richard.

“Christus!”

Nothing happened. She held her own purse close to him and waited for it to vibrate, but still nothing. She pulled his arm to her, took the knife from Rome’s hand and before anyone could say anything she mumbled. “I’m really sorry.” And pulled the knife over his arm that blood was dripping down. She hadn’t cut deep.

“Lenna what the hell are you doing?” Rome sounded shocked and took the knife from her, Richard didn’t look less shocked.

“I’m really sorry, but since we are all in the same boat imagine someone who looks like your father would show up. You would do the same, as a hunter. And I’m really pretty sure that he is just human.”

She handed him a tissue from her purse.

“So what are you doing here? I guess you are not here for pleasure. Oh and I’m Elenna Fee, this is Romulus Remington, Allison Wesson and Callum Murdoch.”

Just now Lenna realized that Callum looked as if he just had lost his mind, well the scene must look completely idiotic for everyone not in their business.

Rubbing his arm where it had been cut Richard surveyed the group. Aside from the boy in a skirt, who had that look he’d seen many times, the ‘what have I walked into’ look, they seemed wary but not hostile in any way. In fact Elenna seemed almost friendly.

“I wish I could say it was a pleasure meeting you all but given the circumstances… Don’t worry about the cut, I know you’d need to make sure.”

To be honest part of him wanted to be furious at this inquisition but on the other hand the girl was right. How would he feel in the same situation? And at least now, if he explained his hunt, he might get the crest back with little difficulty.

“Yes, this isn’t a pleasure trip. I’m in a middle of a hunt.” He saw Elenna and the man, Romulus, exchange glances.

“What kind of hunt?” asked Elenna.

“A recovery job. There’s a family heirloom that my client needs to return to his family home to appease a spirit and break the family curse. At least returning it should allow the spirit to move on. Trouble is your friend Georgina bought the crest. Does that mean you’re on the same hunt, or did she just buy it to have a nice little chat with me?”

"Oh, she totally bought it to piss you off," Rome grinned and offered the man a hand to shake. "I only married her to feed my sado-masochism," he added with a wink.

"And no matter how much we needed to be sure or whatever," he went on, turning a glare on Lenna, "we don't just cut random strangers. I'm sure this is all some misunderstanding. He's probably just some black sheep of the family no one wants to talk about." To the man he said, "Joking. Can I get you something?" Rome asked the newcomer, flagging down a waiter.

Somehow Romulus had managed to ease the tension. Which was a relief, given that the awkwardness was so think you could have cut it with a knife.

‘Now that’s a bad choice of metaphor for the time being,’ Richard thought.

“Thanks. A glass of, well, anything really. I’ll let you do the ordering. And seriously, no hard feeling about the knife. A little warning would have been nice but that’s not important now.” Despite his words there was a little steel behind the last sentence. Looking at the arm, the blood was close to spreading on his shirt, so he pulled his sleeve up and out of the way. Followed by the other arm to balance the look, not quite thinking that displaying his tattoo wasn’t the most ideal behaviour in polite, rich society. Looking up Richard took the proffered glass Romulus was holding out.

“Cheers. And would you be able to talk to your wife once she’s calmed down and ask if she could pass on the crest?”

"Oh, absolutely, man, consider it yours, I'll talk to her. Um, waiter, another drink for Mr. Murdoch here, and um, yeah, perhaps you two can get acquainted, I need to have a brief confab with the sister-in-law here, if you don't mind, thanks."

Rome took Elenna by the elbow and pulled her aside.

"Okay, chica, we got one more shot at this. The usual drill is: the staff wrap it up, label it, and take everything to a back room to wait when we say we want to leave. We need to get in there, or maybe trick them into giving us the wrong package, but the whole place will heavily guarded, and she looks like she runs a tight ship, so watch out. I can't help you more, though, because now I have two, no, three reasons to run interference with Ms. Cohan. First, she is really friggen hot. Second, now she has our package, and if she's busy elsewhere she can't look after it. And third, uh, yeah, there was no third. Just the two. And P.S., I have a hot date with our sword-stealing hostess in fifteen. You leave without me if you need to."

Rome kissed her forehead and pulled her in for a one-armed hug as he thought about the many different ways this could all go epically wrong.

Although it was freezing cold outside Georgie hadn’t bothered to take her coat with her, she didn’t actually notice the cold anymore. Two minutes after she got off the phone with her uncle, Rome turned up behind her.

“There you are, princess”, he said, trying to lift the spirits a little but Georgie didn’t show any reaction. “Jeez, I had no idea you had so much Emma Frost in you. Does Professor X know about you?”

She looked straight ahead, still showing no emotions at all. “The entire time he knew he had a little brother who had to be adopted after my grandparents died, but he was too busy with his career…”

“Hmm,“ Rome frowned sympathetically.

“He could have at least told me”, Georgie said coldly. “I know he never had a close relationship with his parents, and when they died he just started his career and had no time to take care of a little boy but he shouldn’t have kept the fact from me that I actually have another uncle. I’ve seriously never been so pissed at him in my life.”

“And I’ve seriously never heard you saying ‘pissed’ before”, Rome said.
Georgie finally looked at him. “I used so many bad words the past hour, I think I can start recording an album with one of those rappers who use vulgar language in their lyrics.”

Rome chuckled. “Rappers always use vulgar language, that’s the whole point. ”

“Whatever!”

“Ahem…there’s something I need to ask you. It’s actually more a favour…”

Georgie raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“You know that thing you just bought at the auction?”

“That ugly-looking crest?”

“Yes, that one. You would do Richard a nice favour if you could return it to him.”

“He seriously wants that thing?”

“It’s actually a cursed object, and he needs to return it to the family that owned it before.”

Georgie pursed her lips. “I not only spent thousands of dollars on an ugly crest, but on an ugly and cursed one. Brilliant.”

“Looks like it. So you don’t mind to give away this ugly and cursed thing, do you?”

“I guess not.”

“Perfect.” Rome quickly looked at his watch. “Okay, I have to go now, Lenna will tell you our plan.”

“So, we still have a plan?”

“Of course we have one. “ He winked at her. “See you later.”

Georgie waited until Rome disappeared in the building, then she went inside and looked for the others. She spotted Elenna with a glass of wine in her hand and took it away from her.

“First of all, you are not even 21 yet, and if you get too drunk there’s a possibility you might throw up on your pretty dress. Secondy…”, she turned around to face Richard. “You can have the crest, see it as some sort of early Christmas present. When I was little I gave my dad a stuffed unicorn with a Red Sox cap for Christmas, and since I made the unicorn by myself it looked more like a pregnant donkey. Anyway, if I had known that I had another uncle- which you really are, by the way, your older brother who is a chief prosecutor in Boston confirmed it- I would have gotten you a present like that as well, but since I did not know that you actually existed you never had the chance to become the proud owner of a stuffed unicorn slash pregnant donkey. I’m sorry for that.” Georgie finally managed to put on a smile. “So, you can have your crest. Welcome to the family.”

She was waiting at the top of the stairs, as predetermined. No one else was around. Her cheeks were flushed a guilty-excited shade of pink. He felt a little warm himself.

"Bela," he greeted. He was a few steps below her, looking up. She looked like a queen.

"Romulus. I'm glad to see your wife did not keep you. Or any of the other various women you had hanging on your arm tonight."

"Ah." Now he forced a blush to look like he cared more about sleeping around on his 'wife' than he actually did. "You won't tell anyone?"

"We can make this quick, if you prefer, Mr. Remington--"

"No!" Rome leapt up another step toward her. He took her hand, a little desperately, a little hungrily.

She laughed. "As you insist," she said, velvety smooth. "This way." She turned and walked up the last few stairs and proceeded down a long, dimly-lit hallway. Her dress had basically no back, and it was really sexy, but he just couldn't forget the other two very important reasons why he was here: distraction and Raws. Distraction, sex, and Raws. Sex, distraction, and Raws.

She stopped, finally, at a door, opened it, and turned back to him invitingly.

"So, Romulus," she purred. "Business or pleasure first?"

Left alone for a few seconds with Callum, Richard tried to engage him in conversation.

“Feeling a little out of your depth? Don’t worry. All of us felt the same when we first got a glimpse of what’s actually out there. Well, except for the occasion strange person who believed in it all before hand.”

Callum just looked at him as if Richard was the crazy one. Thankfully they were re-joined by Elenna, and a few moments later by Georgina.

*****


Richard tried to clear his whirring brain. So he WAS related to Georgina and her uncle, his brother, had known but not said anything to her or sought Richard out. That was a lot to take in at once.

“Honestly, I think I’d have preferred the unicorn.” Richard gave a smile, hoping that the near hysterical feeling he was having about the whole situation wasn’t showing. “But a job’s a job. Thank you. And a Merry early Christmas I suppose.” He put the glass down after making a little toasting motion. “I’m afraid the only present I can offer you at the moment is my help with your own hunt. At least, I assume that’s why you’re all here. Though if you were after an item as I was my help may be a little redundant.”

Normally this kind of offer and delay would annoy him. But these were exceptional circumstances to say the least. And so far his quota was looking good.

Now that Lenna had to do normal conversation she was a little shy. What do you say to the Uncle your sort of sister didn’t know about and on top of that looks like her dad? She was rather quiet and let Georgie do the talking.

Gosh I wish I had a book.

“Lenna are you listening I asked you what the plan is?” Georgie looked at her impatient.

“Oh yes the plan.” It took a few seconds for Lenna to go back being a hunter in an annoying dress. “Rome is with the hot British chick that bought our sword, he is distracting her. So we’ll try to get the sword when they wrap it up. I think our best shot is to tell them Callum is an employee of the chick and is suppose to handle it. As soon we have it we get the hell out of here and Rome will better be on his way out as well or I’ll kick his ass. Anyway he says he can’t help us more as distract her, we have to get around the guards on our own. So um Richard we are thankful for every help we can get.”

Lenna smiled shy at him, wondering what irony it is that he is a hunter too. She never thought the Georgie’s family were hunting for generations.

Maybe there is some kind of hunter gene people that are more adapted to hunt monsters. It must be weird and nice to know that since generations are hunter in your family.

“Okay, that actually sounds like a reasonable plan, I really hope it works out this time”, Georgie said, turning to Callum who still looked like he wanted to find a deep hole where he could hide. “I know you’re confused but we would be very grateful if you could pretend to be Miss Cohan’s employee in order to pick up the sword.”

Elenna nodded and looked at him with pleading eyes. “Please, Callum…”

He looked from one hunter to the other, probably thinking what he had done wrong in his life to deserve this. “You want me to pick up the sword, and nothing else?”

The girls nodded again.

“No weird … things that I have to do?”

“No, just a bit of lying”, Georgie said with an innocent smile.

“And a bit of stealing”, Elenna added.

Callum sighed. “Okay, I’ll help you.”

“You’re awesome!” Elenna grinned, but when she realized that everyone looked at her she blushed. “I mean, thanks man.”

“Okay, let’s go to the room where they wrap up the artefacts before we’re running out of time”, Georgie said, winking at her friend who had still flushed cheeks.

After they found the door to the backroom where the objects were wrapped up a man came towards them, looking warily. “Can I help you?”

Georgie put on her nicest smile. “You can indeed. Miss Cohan sent her employee Mr Murdoch”, she nodded at Callum, “to pick up the sword for her, since she is busy at the moment and not able to pick it up herself anytime soon.”

The man frowned. “Is that so?”

“And I want to pick up a crest. My paddle number was 23.” Georgie still smiled at the man who looked at his list of artifacts and the paddle numbers. He took a last look at Georgie, then turned around and came back with the crest that was already wrapped up.

“Thank you.” She quickly took it before the man could say anything else, then handed it to Richard. “I hope that thing doesn’t curse me because I touched it. Otherwise you owe me…big time!”, she said with a lowered voice so that only he could hear it.

“Well, about the sword…”, the man said. “I’m afraid I cannot hand it to you as long as I have Miss Cohan’s permission. “

"But we have her permission."

"I need to see it. Either a note written from her or something else that proves her permission", the man explained. "After all, we don't want our artifacts in the wrong hands..."

Lenna had stood a little from her friends away, just in case this would happen. She turned around and started looking for a maid/waitress/slave/whatever-you-call-the-girls-that-bring-drink-here. As soon she found one, she approached her. “Hey!”

“Hello Miss, may I help you?”

“I was wondering how much to you earn tonight?”

The brunette waitress looked confused at Lenna. “Well as salary I become $100 but I made until now $500 in tips and the party has an open end, so I guess I can make at least the same amount again.”

“Well I have…” Lenna opened her purse and pulled out a bunch of bills out of her purse. “I have $2000, it’s yours when I get your uniform and you go home oh and on top you can have my dress.”

The waitress looked confused at her.

“My boyfriend said he always wanted to do it with the maid, but the maids in his parent’s house where old, like 40 or some even 50 which is gross, so I promised him to get a real maid uniform and we can do it here. I gonna play the maid.

The real maid giggled and nodded. “Deal but I don’t want your dress, no offense but it is not my style. We can get changed in the staff changing room.”

While Lenna got changed she checked that the symbols where still on her hip. she brought all her things to the car and went then as maid to the backroom again. On her way she got a tray with filled water glasses. And made sure Georgie saw her so that she knew that Lenna got a plan.

“Gentleman our lovely hostess Ms Cohan asked me to make sure everyone of her help tonight is well hydrated, so please take a glass of water.” Lenna smiled sugar sweet, while everyone including the guards took a glass of water.

“Wasser in euch, mache sie betrunken!”

Lenna giggled flirty, “What do you think guys, is this skirt too short?” And it worked everyone was drunk and started flirting with their words, their eyes, and their hands. She was surrounded by them all, behind her back she signaled Georgie and the guys to get the sword, now!

Gross they better hurry, I'm not sure this spell last longer then a few minutes and I'm not sure I last much longer than that either.


Spell translation
Water in them make them drunk!


((OOC: Sorry for the delay))

Business or pleasure first? What kind of question was that?

Rome was, as a rule, a pleasure-first kind of guy. And, whoa, man, if she wasn't pleasure wrapped up in Dolce & Gabbana (because she certainly wasn't wearing anything underneath!). Pleasure and danger. Rome had an admittedly bad danger sense when it came to beautiful women. Or perhaps he had an actually good danger sense when it came to beautiful women, the same way moths were good at sensing flame.

He drew the pleasure out as long as he could, to give the others time to make their move. Not that he was focusing on anything outside this bedroom right now, or even anything beyond this bed.

It was almost half an hour later, when she had lit a cigarette and Rome had come to his senses, that he even remembered this wasn't just a pleasure cruise. Oh, yeah.

"So what can you tell me about my wayward cousin?"

If they weren’t about to steal a sword and had more than just very limited time Georgie would have filmed Lenna because she looked so hilariously funny in her little maid’s dress, and the expression on her face was priceless. However, they were about to steal a sword and they had to hurry up before Lenna’s spell stopped working or Rome couldn’t hold off Miss Cohan for much longer.

“Okay guys, let’s try to be as inconspicuous as possible.” She shot Callum a side-glance. “Although that skirt draws a lot of attention.”

“Kilt”, Callum said dryly.

“Yes, that’s what I meant.” She looked at Richard. “Ready?”

He nodded.

“I can’t believe I meet my uncle for the first time in my life, and the first thing we do together is stealing a cursed sword. That’s what I call true quality time with your family”, she said sarcastically, turned around and walked to the wrapped objects that nobody was looking at because everyone was distracted by Elenna who started telling very lame jokes and still made everyone laugh.
Callum, Richard and Georgie started looking for anything that had the shape of a sword but it was hard to tell since each one of the items was wrapped up in so much paper that it was difficult to make up any shapes at all, so they had no other choice than to unwrap pretty much everything in front of them- at least the bigger objects.
Now there was a problem. Although Georgie was not someone who ‘went antiquing’ in her free time and collected old, dusty things, she still got easily distracted when she got her hands on pretty objects such as the antique, golden framed hand mirror she was looking at right now. This would be the moment when Elenna usually stepped in and said something like ‘Dude, put that back, we’re not shopping!’, but since Elenna was busy and neither Callum nor Richard knew about Georgie’s propensity to buy lots of things (in other words, they dealt with a high-class shopaholic) they didn’t really notice that she was already very distracted by all the objects in front of her.

“Jewellery!” Georgie’s eyes brightened. “That’s so pretty! I’m sure it’s from the 20s, it looks like-“

“Ahem…” Richard cleared his throat. “We’re looking for a sword, remember?”

“Oh…right.” Georgie quickly put the necklace away and smiled shyly.

“I think I found it!”, Callum said, a bit too loud because all of a sudden various heads turned.

“Hey guys, look over here!”, Elenna said nervously as she realized that the men did no longer focus on her but on the guy with the kilt and the two others who had the word ‘thief’ practically written all over their foreheads.

Lenna sighed, she had such a great plan worked out, but it got spoiled. “Okay work B didn’t worked either, let’s try plan C. Feuer!”

Two large fire balls appeared on her hands. She slowly got a hang of this, and using fire was by far her favorite weapon. She threw one behind her friends to set the stuff that was sold on fire, while she kept the other one. It split into four and started circling above her head. The drunkenness of her admires were gone but they were busy in trying to save the artifacts.

“Come on move it we have to get out!” She pulled the fire alarm, which caused the sprinklers.

“Wasser du bist hier nicht erwuenscht, verschinde!”

She giggled when every bit of water run against gravity out of the room and partly back up into the sprinklers. When she would had the time, she would have watched the water run, it was weirdly pretty. Georgie took her hand and pulled her along. But the picture what they now saw was priceless they all took a moment to watch it, rich chicks of all ages were running around panicked losing fake eyelashes, fake hair and god knows what else was fake on them.

“Richard how quickly can you finish your job? We really can need any help we get, we don’t know how to get rid of the sword yet.” Lenna’s fire balls were circling around her waist now, to avoid the water of extinguishing them.

I hope Rome gets out in one piece!

She threw once in a while another fire ball against curtains, paintings and other easily burning things. Lenna never thought that she maybe shouldn’t have used her powers here, in front of a hunter, a civilian and probably a dozen security cameras.



Spell translation
Fire!
Water that isn't wanted here, back off!

“Don’t worry, it’s not that kind of curse.” Richard had whispered to Georgina as she handed him the package. But now Callum’s exclamation had drawn the attention of security and…

Wait a second…

What?

The?

HELL?

Even as a hunter there are somethings you don’t really expect to see and a fellow hunter throwing fireballs around was one of them. Normally that meant some kind of Deal had been made with some kind of nasty creature. But then, she was with a group of hunters, so if she had made a deal she wouldn’t be so open about her abilities. Unless, unless they were all in it.

“Erebus take it,” muttered Richard. If that was the case then he’d have to be very, very careful. In either case, the important thing was getting that sword away from the bystanders.

“My job’s just to get this thing back to where it belongs, not much I can do with it here. Where did you see it Callum?”

But Callum already had the package in his hands and was unwrapping it frantically.

“Careful, don’t touch it.” Richard might not have known much about curses, but he knew the basics.