[b]T[/b]he breeze had only gingerly caressed some stray tendrils about her face before she felt something wrap about the base of her neck. It tingled at her fingertips and up her arms, prickling the hairs to attention, curling along her nerves and seeking out fate lines of its own. It felt like a sensual scratch on her psyche, numbing the present. Her pupils gasped beneath the dark sunglasses before her neck tensed and forced a rigid gaze on the ceiling. Her lips parted and she barely whispered, not speaking to anyone in particular…

[i][color=gray]"Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein. "[/color][/i]

[b]T[/b]he glass that had surprisingly remained between her fingers this long chose to shatter at the exact moment Johnny lunged clumsily for the door that she had yet to acknowledge. It was the shattering and yelling that finally jarred her focus. Her breath came out like a hiss as the room seized up and collapsed back upon her, her lungs betraying a trembling fear that the glass no longer could. Shaking fingers reached quickly to rub at the symbol on her neck, security blanket and sanity source still intact.

[b]R[/b]eality seemed like a teasing tide, washing over her only to recede and leave her in her own mind, with the ever nagging company of the arcane. Even as Noah was being admonished she could feel the changing fate lines in the room, crackling and dissolving and reattaching. That pesky little voice in her mind pleaded with her to give in for a moment and see what would wash over her as she stared into a ceiling that appeared more and more like an ordinary ceiling, but apart of her was searching beyond still, calling out...or being called out to. She wrung her twitching fingers around her purse strap and allowed her eyes to mimic her fingers with jerking glances about the room beneath the dark shades. Her lungs were still leaping in her chest when the Madame surged with power. 

[b]O[/b]ther than the awkward cadence of her lungs and her convulsing fingers and twitching blank eyes she seemed to shut down. Until she began to repeat, like a feather barely coaxing the air, the directions the Madame had given them. 

[center][/center]
[sup][i][color=gray]“new Gods dwelling, desecrated by the fallen light.

[center]new Gods dwelling, desecrated by the fallen light.[/center]

[right]new Gods dwelling, desecrated by the fallen light.”[/right][/color][/i][/sup]
[center][/center]

[b]A[/b]s the fate that seeped from the Madame began to infect the lines of those in the room she started to back towards the door. It crept around them and her eyes followed pensively as she inched towards the door. She bumped into one of the others and only then did her eyes release the lines long enough to bolt for the door. She didn't even wait for the others, but speed walked out of the bar, grabbing a recently opened beer from a patron on her way out. When they exited they would find her leaning against the outdoor wall of the bar, greedily inhaling on a cigarette between sips of beer. She continued to obsessively flick the cigarette while her tan hikers boot tapped nervously and she seemed lost in thought.