Collab with [@Ruby] [center][img]https://www.teahub.io/photos/full/32-327005_sci-fi-black-hole.jpg[/img][/center] When the sensation first shuddered through him, he could not place the change. The warmth seemed to drain out of his world, the burning light of stars a million, million, miles away winking out as he beheld the gemstone carpet of the night sky, rivaled only by the glittering sea of the billion lights of LA. It took him but a moment to wallow in the sense of emptiness before he knew what it was. She was gone, blinded from his senses in a manner he hadn't felt before even meeting her. The bond with her ancestors, far older than his current mortal lifetime, severed for the first time. She wasn't dead, he knew he would know. That was the only think keeping him rooted in place, the scattered ashes of the Hollywood Hills about him as he tried to call to her. "[i]Eva.[/i]" It lacked nuance, or any such detail, simply a pulse of his mind as Henry Locke cast his mind out. He had returned only recently from the badlands, hunting and questions the werewolf packs of the region and finding only murder on their minds. There hadn't been time to pause and refocus, Henry returning to the scene of the blood magic surge which had started the chain of events leading to the Lupine attack, and Rachel leaving to meet again with the Coterie. This shuddering, awful emptiness had been the first thing that had finally driven the sound of her gasps from his mind, and tingling pinprick of her fangs from his skin. Everything cast away in his search. "[i]Eva![/i]" More insistent now, but no more developed, the physical form of the man rooted in place even as he mind cast out. The possible threat to her tore at him, threatening to unleash the starlight within for the second time in too short a period. Could Henry Locke survive if his true self surfaced once again so soon? He did not know, but the thought of losing her was worse. Instead of calling for Heaven's Light, instead his lips moved into a strange rhythm of syllables. Words not spoken since the angels had shattered Babel rushed into the air. The foundation of all human spell work launched into the night, twisting and turning reality into the desires of the speaker. The world shimmered around him, creation distorting and shuddering under the strain, the force of his mind bushing through the barriers, for that's what they were, calling to her, ever onwards, no matter what was arrayed before him. Another recent second, now once again the Hollywood Hills shuddered with the supernatural forces playing across them, as concern drew into desperation. "[i]Eva![/i]" The response was endless, and bright without being blinding. There he stood, Henry Locke, in a vast white infinite, the only dimension of which witnessed was that his feet was set upon something; some floor, even if white and without dimensional boundary...but a floor none-the-less. A floor shared by a blonde, crystal blue eyed angel of a boy child, seated Indian-style before him. His voice smooth and undeepened by puberty or manhood, yet perfect white teeth held the undeniable feature of fangs. Henry Locke had met the boy once before; when he assisted Eva and her Coterie in ending the child's madness and paranoid-fueled reign of chaos and destruction on Los Angeles. Now Christopher Houghton just smiled up at the man. "Oh, hey, Henry. Remember me? Well I'm still here. Eva and I made-up. Turns out I was kind of jerk...heh, sorry about all that. Are you looking for her? She's here, somewhere. 'Void Engineers' she calls them. Or do they tell her to call them that? Mages, I say, proper magic and all that." Covered in a pool of red, the body of Eva was there, beside Houghton, on the same 'floor' of infinite white nothingness in which the child sat, and the man stood just feet away. The red seemed to shift and shimmer in a light that came from no true direction, no real source; it was just was. Like the child, the man, and the woman. It shimmered when her body shifted, barely a fidget, but enough to send the red rippling in a line between shadow and shine, her dark hair long and spread out on the white nothingness around her head, eyes closed. The boy smiled, pure boyish charm and the warmth of youth, "I think it's velvet, or silk," he said, meaning the red that covered her. What it actually was, rather than what it appeared as now, was lesser known. The boy didn't seem to care. "She talks a lot to the oldest ones left. Well, of my line, I guess. Her's, too, come to think of it..." "Henry." Eva existed between awake and asleep, her voice a delicate thing, weakened by weariness and barely awake. "You came. Are you alright?" The Henry Locke the outside world knew would no doubt be surprised at the clemency this version of him within the spellwork provided the young child, the apparition of Houghton receiving and understanding smile from the man as he approached the vision of Eva, kneeling beside her, one hand brushing through the fabric. “Mages that don’t believe they’re mages. Another failure of mine.” He breathed softly, ignoring the question posed his way for the moment as he instead grounded himself with the not quite real touch of his fingers on her. “I am fine, you were gone, in a way your bloodline hasn’t been ‘gone’ since it begun. Sadly for them, I wrote the magic they tried to hide you with.” There was the tiniest teasing infliction to his words, but not enough to suggest it was a joke. “Are they hurting you?” “Only with tedium and the long, slow, death of procedural adherence.” Her sigh was dramatic, and the kind of thing that made the red sheet over her body lift and deflate noticeably…much slower was the creeping of the wicked little smirk over her pink lips and sleepy features. Her voice was deeper than normal, just a degree or two, as the weariness became something she just wasn’t going to snap out of. A single bright brown eyes peeking half-open, head tilting just enough to take a look at Henry. His image kept the little smirk right there on her lips. “I’d be more worried about their health and safety; with sticks THAT big up their individual and collective asses…” Christopher erupted in the laughter of a child; just as much at the mental imagery as the fact that Eva had said the word ‘ass.’ With both her eyes once again closed, she stifled a half-yawn and gave the barest hint of a shrug, “They’re scared. On some level they think I’m insane, but they believe me. Maybe not believe IN me…but I’ll take what I can get from these people. It goes well enough, though.” His arms pulled around her near-sleeping for as the silk danced, her smirk and Christopher's laugh bringing a smile to his own, as he hauled her to him, her thought-form draped into his lap that was not truly there. "Well that's alright then, I'll take boring and listening over enraged and fighting." He answered, one finger stroking her cheek, before adding; "Or perhaps I'm only saying that because it's not me doing the talking, I have been known to hunt down the odd scrap." Perhaps an understatement given the nature of their meeting. In many other turns of the timepiece Henry Locke had never bothered to fight for the Sunset Lounge, had rode on out of Los Angeles and never looked back, leaving Christopher to his games. His stubbornness this time around had lead them together, the burning hope of the world pinned on the spark of his grim determination to show an immortal child he didn't give a fuck. Said child received a glance at that. The stubborn nature of their dispute flowed both ways, without either it would have fizzled out before it begun. Perhaps a second thing to thank the Kid for, beyond her. "I'm here, love. I'll help the others, they need me, but know I'm always here." His accent twisted around the word in such a way that has always thrilled Americans, but when he spoke it to her there was a truth beyond the old colloquialisms. "Plus, can't let you be bored for long, you'll never let me live it down." “Please,” she said, her eyes wide open and fully alert, staring into his, for the first time. “They need the help. Especially the newest one, I don’t think he even realizes he’s one of us yet. I’m told all eyes are on them, and you. All eyes. Be safe until I get back–then we can do the crazy shit.” "I think whatever ancestor he has spurring him on to seek the Lord's purpose would probably protest being chummy with this particular angel." The words were teasing, despite the cosmic surroundings they inhabited and the force of will, on both ends, necessary for the conversation. "I'll do my best, try not to make the mages feel too stupid." With a parting glance and a smile, the unreality bled away into nothing, and Henry stood alone once more.