Addiction was the cousin of obsession and Matthew had been marinating in his own for nearly seven years.

It only took once, one rare rush of interest in a person for something other then their participation in the bedroom for a face to start bothering his idle thoughts. It didn't happen often as Matt wasn't in the habit of making any fledgling fangs to clutter up his ranks, attention, business or fun.

But there had been something about the Innkeeper that he'd latched onto. An age and a secret that the man tried to causally wrap around himself. Their talk had been short; polite but friendly and strictly about whether or not it was okay to bring things in from the outside. He was willing to admit that there was a possibility that he was wrong but the compulsion to keep a weathered interested eye was stronger then his already low self-restraint. His whole life and unlife had been about doing and getting and tasting, feeling, learning, seeing whatever he wanted. Within the rules, of course, so heavy to drag around for the past 460 years, but he'd managed.

With such a broad network of connections at his hand, Matthew put men on the Innkeeper with instructions to never contact, but to track general movements.

When the Innkeeper left a year later, Matt was notified and a subsequent inquiry gave him the rest of what he needed to know.

New York. One of the Capitals of American Finance and a place where Matt had already been set up in, for nearly 75 years. It was his office, if the globe itself was his home.

Caius hadn't been interacted with by any of Matt's sources but he was marked. Watched from afar. Something that had started as an idle curiosity had crossed the line into obsession. A long one, by human standards, but for the Vampire, it wasn't more then a turn of the clock.

His patience for lurking and watching had ground to unbearable nubs of resolve. He had waited seven years. He found no solace from his thoughts in the arms of his whores and the haze of his drugs; the blue eyed Innkeeper had finally stolen his peace. The small fury that thought had sent Matt into was the death of the two poor women that were unfortunate enough to be his bedmates. That fact alone was frightening. The last time Matthew killed whores, he was a fledgling and had been sent off to Germany.

Vampires his age and rank weren't supposed to do that anymore. Lucchi would be pissed.


The next night, Matthew tracked down which seedy bar his wayward innkeeper was playing at and took a seat inside. His suit might be more expensive then every stitch of clothing in the place, fitting him specifically well, but he loosened everything up, lost the blazer, loosened the tie, rolled up his sleeves and mussed his hair. With a cheap tasteless beer in hand, and a pair of scuffed converse he'd mugged off of some homeless guy (what homeless guy has converse, oh right, collage kids don't quite count), Matthew almost fit into the crowd staring up at the Immortal.