Down Underworld [Ani]

Sam watched cars pass by on the road outside of the kitchen window; it did not seem as busy as it used to be. The sound of footsteps caused him to turn around in time to see Zoe emerge from the corridor and into the kitchen, his eyes opened widely in surprise as he has never seen Zoe look as good as she did now. “Wow…” he gasped as she came closer to him to fix his jacket, he followed her hands with his eyes as they grabbed his clothing and fixed them up, she asked him a question whilst doing it, but he was too distracted to answer it immediately. “Err… I don’t have a serious tie, they either have cats or boats on them, this looks good anyway” he said whilst staring into her big blue eyes, for the moment he had forgotten what it was that they were supposed to be doing, it felt like just the pair of them and nothing else was important.

“Thanks” he said as Zoe fixed him up, Sam couldn’t help but steal a quick kiss from her before moving to the table and lifting his pendant off of it, he slipped it over his head and tucked it under his collar. “So how are we supposed to get to this ball of yours? Taxi? Walk? Inter-dimensional Portal?” he asked, he was genuinely interested, he assumed it would be some kind of strange portal, he would find it hard to believe that creatures from the underworld would be able to hold a ball in broad daylight.

Smiling slightly, Zoe looked amused.

“What? Your acting like you’ve never seen a girl dressed up before. Careful or that face will stick.” Zoe teased him slightly, standing on her tip toes so her fiancée could kiss her easily. However, Now Sam had dark red lipstick on his mouth causing Zoe to laugh at him slightly. Pointing to her own mouth she asked grinning, “Been up to something scandalous as of late?”

Itching the back of her neck, Zoe shrugged. “Something along those lines I would assume Mr. Lock. The locations are almost always different.”

As it was, it was very easy to get there. It was only a fifteen minute taxi ride and the driver attempted to flirt with Zoe, whom she ignored until they got to the right place. It was at a casino, a very fancy one at that. The door men wore suits and eyed the two as they walked in. From there it was an elevator ride, down, down, down. Then there was a ding and the doors opened. The first thing that assaulted Zoe’s nose was the stench of alcohol; it was flowing quite freely apparently. Then the colors, deep reds, blues, golds and many other shades known to mankind, however they where all of the darker shade. The woman had low necklines but where decked out in fine jewels and cloth where as the men where in suits and hats. Demons, Vampires, and other creatures floated around the room. One vampire had his host. A beautiful woman, clinging to his arm, sporting fresh puncture marks. Zoe’s skin glowed faintly and seemed to glow faintly silver where as Sam’s tattoos would soon turn gold. There was no hiding one’s species here.

Sam was almost half tempted to leave the lipstick on his face in the name of humour, however for the sake of his reputation, he didn’t want to be known as “That guy that wears lipstick” so he used his forearm to rub at his mouth until it had all wiped off and there were no traces left. Sam ears perked up as he was called “Mr Lock”, no one ever calls him that, he’s a very casual person and will usual stick to a first name basis with most of the people that he met.

As it turned out, they were in fact taking a taxi, Sam was slightly disappointed that he didn’t get to use a inter-dimensional portal as he was quite a fan of portals. The pair sat in the taxi for around 15 minutes with a rather out-going taxi driver, Sam found it quite amusing that he couldn’t put two and two together and figure out that they were a couple, he also applauded Zoe’s silence in the matter, not even giving this man the time of day. The ball was at a fancy casino, Sam would be caught dead walking into a place like this, this place was far too upper class for him, but this seemed to be his one day free pass into the lives of rich and successful people. The pair walked past some burly looking men at the front door, no doubt the security who would be called upon if things began getting too out of control inside. He stepped into the elevator alongside Zoe who had been rather quiet the entire way here, and it was even more awkward as they were both trapped in a small space for some time whilst a faint jingly song played in the background. The elevator stopped and the door swung open, alcohol was the first thing Sam could smell and it almost made him gag, he was fine being around it, but he would never drink anything like it. Zoe walked out first and Sam followed alongside her, he assumed that she would know where to go and what to do, so he just followed her around as they both surveyed the large room, a plethora of colours surrounded the walls and the women were wearing some questionable outfits, but he knew these were no ordinary people. A new smell entered his body, a smell of an array of different creatures, Zoe had the same smell, but only very faint, this room was full of similar people so the aroma was multiplied immensely. He began to feel slightly strange, a strong Nether aroma followed a lot of these creatures around, no doubt they have all killed plenty of people in their lifetimes, and they all smelled of it making this event more bearable for him, it was only a matter of minutes when he could see the markings along his chest beginning to light up and show through his shirt. “Err… is this normal?” he asked Zoe who was now searching the room, he wasn’t quite sure if this was an event thing, or a Titan thing that was happening to him.

Sooner than later the tattoos began to glow a gold color.
“Yeah, it is. A warlock must have been tinkering around here earlier. It’s just that we can’t hide our species. Nothing to be concerned about-“

“Zephyr!” A man boomed from over at the bar. “The Huntress of the West Winds has returned!”

Zoe stiffened, she hated her hunting name. She hadn’t used it years, yet it still seemed to crop up. That was Nathaniel. About Sam’s height with thick biceps, dark, wavy chocolate brown hair, topped off with glacier grey eyes. He had a faint down world accent that gave him the sound of someone dark and a potentially dangerous romantic. Nathaniel swooped in, dislodging whomever he had be talking to at the bar.

Past Nathaniel, Zoe could see arches and an orchestra playing. Very old fashioned indeed. There was faint silver scarring around Nathaniel’s neck but the rest of it was hidden by the collar of his shirt.

“Hello, Nathaniel.” Zoe, tilted her head to the side, her hands clasped in front of her dress. He smiled again, displaying his Arae fangs. His skin was also glowing a faint silvery color but his was less noticeable on his pale coloring. “ This is my Fiancée, Sam. Sam this is Nathaniel. The host to this shindig.”

“Interesting…” he said to himself as he ran his finger along one of his golden marks, it felt weird seeing it as a different colour, but he also found it all quite intriguing. His attention soon turned to something else as he heard a loud voice coming towards him, “Aww, The Huntress of the West Winds? I am truly honoured to be in your presence” he whispered to Zoe as this stranger made his way over to them.

The stranger headed over to Zoe and so did he to see what the fuss was all about, that was when he was introduced to the man, he placed his hand politely on Zoe’s back as he learned the name of this new person. He extended his hand and shook Nathaniel’s before returning back to normal, “Nice to meet you Nathaniel, this is a really nice place, great place for a ball, kudos to you for organizing all of this, sorry if… Zephyr and I were a little bit late” he said, poking a little bit of fun at Zoe with her possible new nickname.

Zoe and Nathaniel began conversing as he began looking around the room, “Can’t hide our species’ huh?...” he thought to himself, this gave him the opportunity to see a range of species. He began looking to his right, seeing several pale gentlemen in suits with partners with recently bitten necks. His vision turned to a group of scruffy looking humans who already seemed to have had their fair share of alcohol. Sam turned his head to the left to see a group of strange, winged beings who did not look particularly happy to see him. Now that he thought about it, he seemed to hold the attention of a lot of the patrons at this ball, but not in a good way, it appears that Titan’s do not have the best reputation when it comes to the underworld. Sam turned back to Zoe and Nathaniel who were in mid conversation, making it quite awkward for him as he didn’t exactly know what they were speaking about.

“Shut up,” Zoe growled softly under her breath so only Sam could hear her. Nathaniel remained oblivious as he, once again, tried his flirtatious advances in the native Arae language. But said advances where ignored as Nathaniel could not feel quite as Zoe did.

“Thanks but no Thanks Nathaniel,” Zoe took Sam’s hand and led him away from the Arae. The multiple pairs of eyes followed them as Zoe took refuge next to the dance floor. She hated it here, very much. “I suddenly remembered why I don’t like these things.” She mumbled to Sam over the low thrum of the music. These dances where old fashioned and had some class unlike the weird modern day dancing, at least, Zoe thought so anyway.

Sighing, Zoe rested her head against Sam’s arm. A few Fey where actually here, which surprised her. Fey generally did not come to these things.

Sam bit the inside of his mouth as he was told off by Zoe, trying his best not to burst out with laughter, he managed to hold it in however. Sam was perfectly happy with where he was right now, but Zoe had a different idea, he felt her grasp his hand and lead him away from Nathaniel, who he said goodbye to as he was taken away against his will. Sam felt very much the centre of attention as the pair walked through large groups of people to wherever Zoe wanted to go, they stopped by the dance floor. Sam could hear Zoe moan quietly to herself and to him and he suddenly felt bad for making her come to this place, he should have just let it go, but he was so curious about what it was going to be like that he almost forced her to go, with all of these eyes on him and not for a good reason, he too was beginning to think that all of this was a bad idea.

He felt Zoe rest her head on his arm and he had a slight lump in his throat, he felt rather selfish right now and all he wanted to do was to try and make this a fun time for Zoe. “Ahh, sorry I made you come to this thing, you said you didn’t want to go and I should have just left it alone, not persuaded you to come, to be quite honest with all of these eyes on me, I’m not particularly having a fun time, but at least we can both hate this ball together” he whispered to Zoe as he pulled her in close for a hug, while at the same time swaying to the music that was booming throughout the entire casino, he closed his eyes and rested his chin on Zoe’s head, at that point he didn’t care if the whole casino was staring at him, he was happy.

“No, it’s fine. I’m going to have to start going on more of these excursions if I plan on getting back in the game.” Zoe tickled the tips of his fingers for a fraction of a second before he reeled her into his arms without much difficulty. He was pretty brave to show such affection in front of all these people and creatures, or stupid. Either way Zoe didn’t care and she snuggled in; curling up against him as together they swayed slowly on the spot.

However the comfort was short lived as the music switched to something a little faster paced. The orchestra players had trooped off and an actual band had slid into their place. Zoe looked over his shoulder to see who was playing. A few strands of dark curly hair had fallen into her face, not seeing anyone of particular interest Zoe tried to resume her comfortable position.

Sam was very comfortable swaying side to side with Zoe in his grasp, that was until the slow music had changed to something a little quicker, Sam was not a great dancer, the most he could do is hold hands and sway, he had a hard time dancing with his close friends, let alone a large room full of strangers and even worse, monsters. To save himself the embarrassment, Sam had to come up with a quick excuse, “Hun, I’m going to run to the bathroom real quick, I’ll be back as soon as possible” he kissed her quickly on the cheek and made his way through the crowd towards the bathroom, he wiped a bead of sweat off of his forehead as he opened the door to the bathroom.

Sam of course did not need to use the bathroom, but he needed to make a quick exit from the dance floor, the journey did prove useful however as he got to look at himself in the mirror, he unbuttoned his suit and opened it slightly to show his shirt, but more importantly, his golden markings that snaked across his body, he was intrigued by why they were showing up and he actually didn’t mind the look of them. He buttoned his suit back up and turn on the tap to let the cold water flow, the door creaked open behind him, but he didn’t turn around to acknowledge the patron entering, it’s an unwritten rule in the male society that you don’t make eye contact with another man inside the confines of the male bathroom. Sam cupped his hands underneath the running water and tossed some onto his face, cooling it down; he wiped his face again and opened his eyes to see no one behind him, but he could see a foot in his peripheral vision, he laughed as he flicked his hands in an attempt to dry them, “Must be a pain being a vampire huh? How do you know if you look good with your hair that way or what your new shirt looks like?” he turned around to see a group of very pale gentleman standing in front of him, none of which were laughing at his humour, “Look fella’s, I don’t want any trouble ok? I’m just here with my fiancé, trying to have some fun, ok?” Every pair of their eyes were on him and none of them had blinked, they also hadn’t replied to him so he assumed they were just deploying some sort of scare tactic. Sam shrugged and made his way towards the door before having a hand slam onto his chest and nudge him back to where he was previously standing. “Listen here Titan” one of them said, putting a large emphasis on his race, “Your race needs to learn their place, our kind kills to survive and feed, your kind kills for the fun of it, it was a mistake for you to come here, and it would be wise for you to leave your fiancé for good if you know what is good for you.”

Sam found it hilarious that all of these vampires were able to keep a straight face with a speech like that, Sam certainly couldn’t. “I don’t want to fight you guys, but if you threaten me or my fiancé again, I will have to destroy you… mmkay?” he asked cheerfully after giving a particularly dark message, Sam tried once more to leave the room, only to have the same hand slam into his chest. He sighed and whispered “Alright, that’s it…” He grabbed the hand on him and twisted it, hearing the vampire groan in pain, he then continued to land blows onto his face until he crumbled to the floor, the other two vampires bared their fangs as they leaped forward towards him, Sam pushed one to the right and through a stall door, he then used his other hand to grab the head of the other vampire, he used his momentum to slam his head into the mirror which actually looked quite humorous as it looked like Sam wasn’t actually holding anything. Sam let go and the vampire fell backwards, off of the sink and onto the floor, that was when Sam had realized what he had done, his entire trip away from home was to learn how to keep himself calm in certain situations, apparently the one situation he could not prepare for is if someone threatened the safety of both him and Zoe. He walked backwards until he met the wall, he then knocked his head onto it several times in disgust at himself, another sigh to prove his point and one more look at the three vampires scattered along the bathroom. “You guys are just lucky I don’t bring this whole bloody place down” he said as he slipped the door open slightly to hide the contents from the people outside, now it was just a question of finding Zoe in this field of strangers.

Nodding slightly, Zoe watched Sam make his way over to the men’s bathroom before being swallowed up by the crowd. Realizing she was a lone female by the dance floor and made her escape quickly back over to the bar. A single woman by a dance floor was always a bad idea. But Nathaniel was also there as well. Hng… Zoe wanted to leave badly and that’s when she spotted Sam looking for her.

“We should leave,” She murmured to him, quietly. “I don’t like the vibes I’m getting from here.”

“YOU!” One of the vampires had stumbled out of the bathroom, his nose streaming with black blood. An accusatory finger pointed at Sam. The entire club fell silent.

Zoe’s eyes flicked up to Sam, arching an eyebrow. “You started a fight?” She let him flounder for a few seconds before, “without me?!”

It was a good thing that Sam was fairly tall, it gave him the ability to look over most of the crowd in front of him, it certainly made things a lot easier to locate Zoe by the bar. He shimmied through everyone, expecting another fist to fly out of nowhere and bring the fight to the entire room. Sam slipped his right hand into his pocket, the knuckles on them were quite bruised and one sight of them could tip anyone off of that he had just beaten somebody up. Sam came up behind Zoe and took a deep breath, going over his fake story in his head once again. “Hey hun, how goes things?” he said casually, to his surprise Zoe wanted to get out of this place, this actually worked out really well for him as he needed to make his escape as quickly as possible.

“Aww, are you sure? Well I do feel bad about doing this to you so we should leave now, right now, like… this very second.” Sam reached down with his other hand to grab hers so he could lead her to the exit, that was when his cover was blown. Clearly he hadn’t knocked one of the vampires unconscious and he didn’t blame him for making a scene in front of the entire ball, but now all eyes certainly were on him and he didn’t like where all of this was going. “Uh…oh…” he whispered to himself, things were not looking good. Zoe’s judgmental eyes slowly made their way towards him, “Well I technically didn’t start the- whaaa?” Sam knew that Zoe was all for a good fight, hell he was in a bar fight on the first day they had met, but that was against a gang of bikers, this fight would be against demons similar to her. Even with her help, he doubted that the pair of them would be able to survive against everybody in the room. Neither of them were dressed for the occasion either, fighting in a nice suit would hardly be Sam’s first choice in armour… unless it was spandex of course, that would change everythi- back to the matter at hand! Sam and Zoe were almost back to back as everyone in the room slowly moved towards them, Sam felt bad for getting Zoe involved, but he now knew it would be impossible to get her to leave, he would just have to face the consequences that came with his mistake.

Zoe smirked at Sam’s reaction, “Obviously you don’t know my humor that well. We need to fix that.” Then the demon turned her attention to the gathering crowd of leaches. Nathaniel was watching from the bar, taking a sip of whatever was in his fancy alcohol glass. He would have to intervene eventually… right?


The demon was backed up to Sam, pulling her Chinese chopsticks out of her hair. The thick black tresses fell down around her face. Removing the sheathes off the sticks she revealed two short handed daggers, quite thin. There Zoe went, breaking the rules of no weapons. Then she dropped to a crouch, blades of sliver flashing dangerously.
Nathaniel sighed and made his way over to break up the standoff.

“Boys, enough. Leave the titan be as well as the beautiful female. Now, shoo.” Nathaniel wiggled his fingers at them and arched an eyebrow at Zoe. The vampires seemed to droop at the loss of a hunt. Zoe just quietly slid the daggers back into their sheaths and fixed her hair.
“Let’s go,” Zoe told Sam and she lead him out, quickly and quietly.

Sam could tell that a lot of these demons have wanted to get their hands on him for some time now, and now was their perfect opportunity, when everyone was on the same wavelength. Sam could feel Zoe moving around behind him, he quickly peeked to see what it was she was doing, he watched as she took small daggers out of the chopsticks that was in her hair, "If I knew we were going to be sneaking weapons in, I would be standing here with just my bare hands!" he thought to himself. Luckily for him there was someone prepared to stop this fight from happening, the host of this whole thing. Nathaniel appeared out of the wall of demons and told everyone to back off of the two, he appreciated the help, however he did not appreciate how forward this man was towards his fiancé even when he knew the relationship status she was in. Sam gave him a quick nod of acknowledgement before turning back around to Zoe who sheathed her small daggers and put them back into her hair.

Zoe had the right idea of leaving as quickly as possible before all of the demons changed their minds and decided that the fight was back on and Sam quickly followed. Sam let out a sigh of relief inside the elevator ride back up the surface, it was mostly silent in there as Sam inspected his knuckles to see the extent of the damage, it would sting for the next day or so but there wouldn't be any permanent damage. The pair walked by the two guards who were guarding the entrance and continued walking until they were both on the street outside. "Well... That ball didn't go very well did it..." he said finally, he felt quite bad about the whole situation, not only did it cast a bad shadow on him, but on Zoe aswell and she was the last person he wanted to get involved with the Titan issue.

Stiff-backed, Zoe exited the Casino, very anxious to leave the Ball, vampires, and Nathanial behind. The farther they walked away, the more relaxed she became and she took Sam’s hand before squeezing it lightly.

“Its fine, it could have been more dangerous I suppose,” Zoe flashed him a smile before hailing a taxi. Sliding in she rested her head on his shoulder and removed the ninja chopsticks from her hair, allowing the dark waves to fall down and obscure her neck and shoulders.
“But at least it was eventful. ”

Sam hopped into the taxi first and Zoe soon followed, she rested her head onto his shoulder and he leaned over to her as well as he explained the route for the taxi driver to take to get them home. "That it was, I do feel bad about it though, I don't really know what came over me, I'm sure Nathaniel isn't too pleased about it either, hopefully I can make it up to him somehow" Sam said with regret in his voice, although now that he thought about it, it wasn't really his fault, it was self defence, but if he would have stated that claim in the middle of the ball, there would have only been one person that believed him and she would have been standing right next to him, it was probably easier to explain the whole situation to Nathaniel the next day, when everyone had a clear head about the whole thing.

The taxi stopped and Sam paid for the both of them, they both exited the vehicle and made their way into the house, with Sam leading the way. He was immediately greeted by both Darcy and Amber who were happy to see them home in one piece. Sam twirled his key around on his finger as he tossed it into the bowl in the hallway, he could finally take his clothes off, but he was too lazy to do it all now, he simply took off his suit jacket and hung it up somewhere before unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. It wasn't until Sam had re-entered his home when he realized how hot and stuffy it was in that casino, he began to cool down quickly and poured himself a glass of water to make the temperature change much quicker.

Zoe had walked into her room to change, slipping into some light gym shorts and a loose blue t-shirt. Much cooler and less constricting than her dress she had been wearing. She padded quietly into the kitchen and washed her hands, desperate to get the stink of the Underworld off her. The tile was cool on her bare feet and she had resumed the classic ginger Zoe look.

Sitting back on one of the stools, Zoe watched Sam drink his glass of water. When he was done she offered him a smile. Showing him the ring on her hand Zoe asked, “How are we planning to do this? A large or small wedding?”