Mardis Gras was a time of opportunity! Tourists in search of adventure ripe for the picking! It was one of the few times he left his office and walked the streets.  Tattoos covered by his colored blazer.  His slick brown hair covered my a tiphat decorated with bones.  He sat at a table outside a local restaurant watching the crowd,  keeping an eye out for any souls of interest. He sipped on a drink of some sort,  locals eyeing him as they walked by.  Whom would catch his attention? Who would seek him out first? It was an entertaining game of waiting,  one he may just be playing for the last time....

It had been done time since Ciaran settled in New Orleans.  . He had been hauled "The Shadow Master." A title that meant less than nothing to him,  but it kept the superstitious folks coming right to his door! He didn't even have to seek out new souls! Though admittedly,  most of them were unimpressive.   Maybe he would leave soon! Maybe he would set his place on fire.  Who knew? But if something didn't catch his attention soon,  he would do SOMETHING drastic!

Rafferty frowned at the proffered clothing, sensing the magic within the fabric. The glacial blue eyes moved from the cloak to the vampire lord, Rafferty's expression unreadable. He took the cloak without remark, though waited to put the cloak on.

The Redcap had little to fear from the humans, having spent centuries among them. A true wolf in sheep's clothing. Rafferty's own magicks allowed him a certain... anonymity from divination, to the point he had long since stopped looking over his shoulder. Beyond that, the vampire lord's own expansive evil and power would no doubt cloak Rafferty's own presence. The many years among his food source had taught him well.

'I am surprised to hear you shy away from such things, given your rather extravagant display of revealing yourself. Or was there another purpose that I am unaware of?'

The summoning of the dullahan-driven carriage had elicited a sharp hiss from Rafferty; a noise that sent the bones about his person bristling in a clatter of noise, the rattling of bones like haunted cackling. The redcap sent a snarl at the headless horseman before taking a seat within.

As he entered the carriage, blue eyes noted the lack of a corporeal form of the vampire lord. Rafferty was weary about entering such enclosed spaces, and would have said something if it would have done any good. In truth, the redcap just about parted ways with the newly awakened vampire to avoid the close proximity.

Seated, Rafferty placed the cloak next to him, folded in half; the burlap sack sat atop the cloak before too long and he wrapped the cloak around the sack. He murmured as his fingers wrapped a string around the clothing to secure it. The knot done, he allowed a forefinger to circle the knot of the strong, as well as 'opening', murmuring to himself all the while. Bringing the aforementioned finger to hover above the knot, his thumbnail came to puncture the flesh of his first finger, a single droplet of blood allowed to escape to hit the string.

Rafferty had to give up some of his own tricks at this point, or risk being rude. He was not a strong practitioner, though he could summon up some quick, dirty magic; the redcap's strength was more in rituals, of conjuring and bindings.

He had briefly thought that his meanderings had called this ancient spirit forth, that the human had just been weak enough to fall for its call. Rafferty was protected from possession, from being charmed. Those fetish items that clung and pierced his body were years and years of research, of dead ends and rabbit holes. Even to this day he was seeking old relics. The vampire lord had been something of an accidental find, and Rafferty was thankful that the human had been around to satisfy whatever immediate hunger that the vampire lord felt.

'I appreciate the gift,' Rafferty said as he looked up from the burlap sack, his eyes were too much like ice for the faint turn of his lips to mean anything. He would be a fool to ignore advice, especially if the being who could turn the moon red was speaking those words.

Rafferty was not scared of being found. He was scared of his secrets becoming exposed.

Rafferty watched as the vampire lord did... something; the weather voiced its pain at being stirred by the evil creature that so bent the weather, nay, the astral body that dominated the night sky. It made Rafferty feel a hunger of a different sort: greed. It was short-lived, greed being a beast not even he wanted to deal with. Not anymore. He was a proud creature, perhaps moreso than his fellow kin; his need to constantly saturate, to bathe, pools of blood no longer held sway over his mind.

No, Rafferty was free, though it was a broken freedom. He did not need to kill so often, to wash himself in blood; that feeling a gnawing hunger now, a restless wolf pacing in a cage. He could feel that the hunger grew; a pounding in his ears that grew louder with the days that passed. The heartbeat within the burlap sack seemed to laugh at him, mocking him with his sense of entitlement; as if he were any better than the rest of his kind.

He stared down at his left hand, the right holding the sack; the faint rattle of bones carrying on the wind, drowned out by the gathering storm. The nails were long, sharp; a few broken and jagged. All were gently stained a dark, deep red, almost black.

'Pay... tribute, Lord?', Taking his eyes away from his hand, Rafferty frowned. 'As well, few places in this world can be called villages anymore. You may gorge yourself to your hearts content, Lord. I would rather starve than share.'

The Redcap had been a solitary hunter for many centuries, a self-imposed exile to be certain, but secrets could only be kept by three if two were dead. Vampires were hard to kill, and Rafferty was not so sure a vampire lord, perhaps even a vampire god, could be killed by the likes such as he.

Better to destroy it than let it come into another's hand...

Rafferty smiled, showing too many teeth.

Between the time they had crossed the castle's threshold, the Wild Fae picked up a burlap sack, which was slung over a shoulder; an evil radiated from within, pulsing faintly. For the vampire lord, it would sound as if a heartbeat, the pulse a faint cry; A cry that was echoed by hundreds of others, fainter, ever fainter, until that first beat pulsed once more with its cry. It was a cry that had lost meaning to time, the emotion and passion within it gone and broken. It was a pitiless sound, hollow and empty. The beating would have been hypnotic if not for that emptiness. The burlap sack was woven with enchantments as well, warding patterns sewn into the heavy fabric; the fibers of which supporting finely crafted spellwork. The sack was the red of dried blood, smelling of copper. Rafferty had spent many months making this, his proudest work save what lay inside. Even the bones upon his person had latent magic stored within, awaiting his command. Despite the magic woven through the sack, the sack itself gave off no power, or so little as to be overwhelmed by the minute amount of power within it. The sacks entire purpose was to muffle the power of what was inside.

He was no natural when it came to magic, but anyone can be persuaded with the right encouragement. Indeed, he had found men and women who taught him secrets; taught him dead and alien spells; who gave him books and resources to further his goals. There was no shortage of dark wizard and hags that needed a child or a virgin, or just a sacrifice in general.

Of course, those that helped had to die as a consequence.

Perhaps the lord vampire would enjoy it.

The idea of bringing it out around the lord of the night, of revealing this most prized possession, even hidden as it was, had seared his soul. Even now, Rafferty wanted to strike down the vampire, to run and seek solitude elsewhere. His secrets were not to be discovered by another, especially one who had a food source so close to his own. Rafferty shook his head, ignoring the rise of paranoia and animal panic; to ease that hunger pacing with boredom so, the jowls of it dripping with anticipation. Despite his reservations, he could not leave it here, unattended, and the lord was weak. A prolonged fight would not be in Rafferty's best interest, but it could be managed. He put those thoughts out as well. The redcap had bigger things to worry about.

Survival.

Rafferty closed his eyes, lungs expanding with the fresh, crisp air of the night; the usual noise of the night had died slowly at first before silence just reigned as the two creatures of the night made their way into the trees. Before too much longer those silenced noises resumed albeit at a muted level, as if scared to offend.

'You'll forgive me once more as I find myself unable to answer. I have spent much of my time as a barkeep for a friend, in a little pocket dimension. I have been eager to leave, to gaze and graze upon the cattle,' Rafferty voice took on a husky tone, the last word bitten off. His tone was smoother, the accent not quite so thick as he spoke again, 'I have been long from this world much like you have been, though perhaps better off.'

The Wild Fae adjusted the burlap sack that had been slung across his left shoulder; the bone wristlet rattling. The sound seemed to quicken the so faint heartbeat, a spike in an otherwise dying heart, or what felt like a dying heart. But, the redcap allowed himself to lean against the tree, his arms crossed as the sack dropped rather unceremoniously at his feet. His hands lifted the beret from his golden hair, the roots shown being a dark, deep red that was almost black. He picked a few insects --- insects that Rafferty speared with a clawed forefinger, flicking it into the darkness--- and leaves off the cloth hat.

'Truth, Lord, I came here to hunt; you had feasted upon my meal and I am loathe to travel with you, loathe you. I may not have needed him such as you did, as you do, but we both have our hungers to satisfy.' His tone was matter-of-fact.