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You shrug. <span class="mu-g">"With the group, no. With the deity, in passing; Aztec leopard god. What's this got to do with anything?"</span> You ask, impatience beginning to win out over curiosity.
<span class="mu-g">"Well, the matriarch of that cult is <span class="mu-s">Abuelita Blanco</span>, a majorly mysterious broad by all accounts, but a member of Karloff's aristocracy. She's some kinda vampire, reclusive, a proper Crone, and our dear Emilio? Is one of several direct descendents in the area. The women are eventually offered the chance to become bloodsuckers, while the men folk are expected to attend to daytime business and assist with the rituals, you see. There are seven or eight Mendozas, not including Blanco herself, and a dozen or so other members of the cult, living and dead."</span> He gesticulates with his left hand while holding his wine glass in the other. <span class="mu-g">"THAT is his affiliation with the Circle, more or less a member in good standing. It's a particularly inclusive branch, I suppose. That's also why he happens to own a couple of trifles worth sending Vincent to expropriate for my ends, eh? But still low enough on the totem pole we aren't steppin' into a mess by relievin' the poor bugger of some sneakers. Best of all, Karloff has the whole Mendoza clan on some assignment at the moment, somethin' about a runt on the loose. Has em' distracted, out of the house, especially in the evenin'."</span>
You nod along, and finish your own glass as you listen, then pour another. Also convenient that it seems this cult is after Silas as well. Blood sorcery... So crude, so pedestrian, so terribly unlike the magic you command. Making agreements with the various aspects of reality and then invoking or honoring them to produce the desired results: it's just good business. The Circle's craft vulgarizes the dynamic significantly, relying on pain and willpower to compel change, to rend one's desires from the world with the rough instincts of a butcher. You sigh, and nod again, refocusing on Rupert. <span class="mu-g">"I see. Certainly doesn't seem at all beyond Vincent's talents to pursue, and if I do decide to assist him, I expect it will be short work... How often are you still enlisting him for work like this? He's burned a lot of bridges these past few years. I don't know of him taking commissions from anyone else."</span> You eventually ask.
>Cont'd
