(Untitled)

[lionguard]

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[mjeevas]

He didn't bother hiding his lack of drink, sitting back to watch the dressed up men and women litter the room with laughter while another flushed couple spoke from across his table. He'd already spotted one of the doors the booze came from and wondered briefly at how this place was still open. There were most likely alarms to preempt any of the raids, sure, but the reports had shown the building being watched for several months now. Despite it, the last time this establishment had been raided it had still been impossible to close it down without the liquor stash that'd been expected to show

[lionguard]

People seemed to think the speak ran itself on little more than luck and freeflowing liquor. Let them think that if they cared to. Let them laugh at the raids; he'd rather have the police considered slow and inept at their jobs than to reveal how many hands he had on the inside or how many eyes were always watching on his behalf. One of his girls slipped in at his side just as he finished his whiskey, putting another in its place; her dress was shimmering blue, fringe tangling around her legs as she bent close to him to whisper about a man downstairs asking questions about the murders

[mjeevas]

The more he listened to the man speak, the more unsure he was of what the hell was meant to have gone on. There was too much inebriated rambling that made him feel as if the man didn't know anything at all. Glancing past him, Matt caught the bartender watching him, a bare glance, but he broke off from the other conversation to move toward the bar again. It was there that Leon's men closed in and asked him to come upstairs. His eyes slid away and scanned through the room again, knowing that the man he'd come with would see this if he was still in the room. He caught him in one of the glances around the cigarette smoke filled room and wondered if he should resist. Another look at the men's faces made him decide against it and he fingered the gun he carried while he walked with them out of the room, as if making sure it was still there

[lionguard]

The men downstairs caught him, words exchanged for a moment or two before he turned with them and moved towards the stairs. Leon watched it all and was at least pleased that there hadn't been any scene about it, that his men hadn't needed to lay hands on him. It was always a smart idea to preserve courtesies for as long as they could be preserved. And then sometimes the time for courtesies was over, and someone's blood needed to be spilled--still, it needn't always reach that boiling point

[bloodredknight]

His sister had been one of the first. Maybe it had nothing to with the speakeasy, maybe it was just one girl, too young so young in the wrong place at the wrong time. Didn’t matter though, she was dead all the same. Who knew delivering flowers bakery could be so dangerous? That’s what he thought until he found out it was under a speak.

The least he could do was found out the bastard that killed her.

Which lead him here.

Ran, better known as Aya this part of town, peered into the mirror in front of him while he eased his hair newly freed from the frying crimp of the iron curler into fashionable waves. It was almost frightening how easy it was for him to pass as a woman, to pass as her. This sham, this charade that he was running was crazy but it was one that got him into the heart of the speakeasy and close to its owner. Because no one kept Leon’s girls closer to hip than Leon himself. That is…one he noticed you.

Aya was worth note. Not many places could boast a red-haired oriental and a sword dancer on top of that. It was

[lionguard]

There was something about the dressing rooms that eased him, the girl's talk and laughter, the feeling of being surrounded by his own people. Though lately there was no place in the speakeasy where he felt entirely safe, not when even his own people were suspect, when the murders could have just as easily been inside jobs, someone trying to cut his feet out from under him. Leon moved restlessly past rows of women working industriously at their hair and faces before the lit mirrors, responding to greetings and flirtations with little more than curt nods. His girls knew a mood of his when they saw one. Most of them were fairly subdued themselves, too heartbroken over the death of the emcee to try and draw him out of his own blackness

[bloodredknight]

When the door opened without a reply to his call he knew it had to be Leon. Rivalries in the speakeasy between the girls went without mention, they crested and fell out with the days of the week but Aya kept himself carefully from them if he could help it. At first there was resentment though it edged off into dull tolerance as he refused to change his stance. Aya was a frosty one. She kept to herself, though when a few girls ran themselves into a tough spot she was surprisingly tender with advice and the first to share her tips. Some girls took offense to that, others didn’t. Aya kept gentle tabs on the ones who did, just in case anything might happen to them before the murderer was caught

[lionguard]

Leon looked him over, brooding. Everything about him was colored blood red: hair, kimono, lipstick, even fingernails. It was easy to imagine this waifish man cast as the angel of death who seemed to haunt his club as of late, but appearances were, after all, deceiving. There were any number of reasons he could have come here to pretend to be a woman in Leon's speak, but the stories of the entertainers really weren't so unique, when stripped down to bare essentials; to a girl, every one of them had come here to escape something. A husband, a baby. Poverty or abuse. Some past sin, some irreconcilable guilt. He wondered what Aya's was. The man dressed like a woman; why shouldn't he have the past of a woman, too