Corinth's Hotel Room

There was a knock on his door. Corinth looked into his room from the balcony he was resting on, his feet propped up on the rail and the small bottle of tequila that he swiped from the Halliwell estate sitting on a table beside him, unopened. He wondered who it was and decided that it could only be Lumina, but what could she want at this hour? He was freshly showered and was wearing loose pants and a t-shirt. Grabbing one of his guns, just in case, he opened the door and peeked out first, before fully opening it.

It was Lumina. "Everything ok," he asked, unsure of her visit. Looking her up and down, she was dressed down, much like he was, and it was good to see her in a more relaxed state. "Come in."

He tossed Bale onto the bed and turned to the kitchen area, grabbing two small glasses before heading out onto the balcony. He reclaimed his seat and motioned for Lumina to sit in the second chair opposite the table.

"What brings you out tonight," he asked placing both glasses down and picking up the tequila bottle, cracking the lid open and pouring them each a shot.

"I just wanted to... You know, chat, to know you a little better since you're leaving tomorrow. And talk about where we're leaving off our investigation."

"Leaving off? I've already told you my theories and how futile it is to chase cold leads that have probably already been sifted through by the other societies." He takes his shot.

"What if,she said, "the sister's didn't use the Ley Lines, but used something else to get their magic? Like they were granted their powers from something or maybe an artifact with magic imbued in it. Or even...blood sacrifices?

He considered the ideas for a moment and then refilled his glass. "Could be any one of those or a combination. Magic is power and people always want more power. If one avenue channel stops working, they try to find another." He sighed. "I don't know what's going on out here, but I do know time is working against us and if it is working with the other societies, more power to them. Let them have this headache."

"Would it be bad if we gave what we've found out to one of the other Societies?"

"No, but that's your call. I don't trust the Illuminate because all they care about is exploiting the Secret World for power and money and they Dragons just like starting chaos to see what will happen. At least with them, sometimes good things come from the butterfly effect."

She thought for a moment and then took her shot, placing the glass back on the table which was immediately refilled, whether she wanted it to be or not. "Do you really hate the name Lumina? You made fun of the name to the Coroner and then you called me Jennifer earlier."

Corinth smiled as he popped the top of his pill bottle and dropped a pill into his glass. "Do I hate the name Lumina," he said slowly as if processing the question. "It's a strange name to call oneself. but it's what you chose, so it's yours. Sometimes you have to use what you got to get around people. If I play you off as an eccentric psychic with an eccentric name, it helps move the lie along...easier to manipulate people. One of the things you'll learn with time." He took his loaded shot and placed the glass back down. "And I called you Jennifer to make it more personal. Thought it might show more sincerity. I'll just stick to Lumina now."

He leaned his head back into the chair and propped his feet back up on the rail. The new alcohol mixing with the old, letting him relax. The fog slowly creeping in on his memories, helping him focus on other things instead of the past.

Lumina took her second shot and then asked her next question. "What time are you planning on getting out of here tomorrow?"

Corinth lifted his head and looked at her. "You really came over here stacked with questions, huh? I don't know." Putting his head back down again. "I guess whenever I wake up and get my things together. I need to get back and process the scene at Stone's house before the Bobbies get to it. It's under Templar control at the moment, but it won't stay that way for long."

She nodded and then thought carefully about her next question, wondering if she should stop there, but the shots were making her feel a little more braver than usual. "Tell me a story?"

He turned his head to look at her, a brow arched. "A bedtime story?"

She shook her head as she poured herself another shot, the bottle almost empty. "No, not a bedtime story. A Corinth story. Tell me a past mission or something.

"Oh...ok." He had to wipe away some of the fog that had folded over his memories, but he managed to find one that might work for her. "Everyone knows New York is full of rats. Small ones, medium ones, and sometimes, very large ones. And the bigger they are, the braver they are. They get less and less scared of people the more they hang around them and the bigger they get." He sighed. "There's an entity we call The Rat King. Not a very original name, but it fits. He controls a lot of the rats in the city. We are not exactly sure how he does it, but we think it might be like a hive mind situation."

"We go into the sewers of New York, which is an adventure all unto itself, one that I wouldn't recommend if smells are your weakness. We crawled through those pipes for hours, eventually making it to one of the old subway tunnels. Deeper we trekked until I don't even know if we were in the same Burrough anymore. Luckily, if you want to say that, we finally came across this thing and it was some weird amalgamation of human rat hybrid. More human traits than rat, but you get the idea. We were sent in to straight up kill this thing. No talking, no negotiations, just wipe it off the map."

"And we did. Killed a bunch of rats too. Burned the place and ashed it up. Wasn't a hard fight. The problem we didn't know about, was that the Rat King can transfer its consciousness or spirit, to another rat. When it does this, it takes time, but it can regrow itself into the hybrid again and then start taking control of more rats. We can't kill it. All we can do is every now and again when we hear that the rats in New York are getting more active and larger, is go back down and kill the Rat King to reset his power. As long as there are rats in New York, they will have a king. Maybe I'll take you on the next one."

His eyes were closed, but he wasn't asleep. "Anything you want to contribute or are you just trying to see what makes me tick?"