"Oh" On the darkened screen of her Samsung Blair sucked a breath through her teeth "Dear"

"Wha?" Faith, bent over a shaving mirror with a pair of tweezers and a pinched eyelid, glanced where D!Online was playing on a tablet Koki had set up for her "He looks like an Elton John performance threw up 'n then congealed on 'im"

Faith cocked a wry smile and then looked concernedly at Blair in her phone's darkened reflection. If Faith wanted to actually see herself more often than not she had to set up an alternative, reflective outlet for Blair.

Blair was also watching the coverage on D! of what rumour had it was a welcoming party for an unconfirmed human noble to house Barbas, King Barbas, the first house of Lucifer. Which was very interesting, whoever this noble was, they were destined to be real royalty. alongside Faith. Blair smacked the pert bow of her lips "No! No! Start from underneath the brow and then brush up. Yes. No! Don't. The outer arch Faith"

"Do you think its a guy or a girl" Faith asked carefully rubbing at her eyebrow with a baby wipe. Barbas had invited journalists from The Omen, rolled a carpet for B-list celebrity D! Presenters to poke arriving houses with microphones as bulbs flashed like fireworks, sold the full, glossy spread to next week's PopSulphur and invited two thirds of 21st Century Lynx to Placenta.

Invitations had been sent to every first order member of every house of the sixty nine. D! and Lynx's vultures poised to immortalise on camera each house representative in attendance. Faith had been ticking off a checklist. At last count twenty four of the sixty nine had shown face.

Lower legion labour had petitioned for national arrest and so today would be plastered to screens with bated breath. From D!'s helicopter, on Faith's screen, was an indistinguishable mess of hundreds waving flags of Barbas' sigil herded into the dessert space neighbouring Placenta, where screens the size of billboards had been set up with Lynx's live footage. Whatever else was happening in the underworld for the general consumer of news it was nowhere to be found in the press.

"It's a girl. Her name's Bea. She's Itlaian. You know this? No I know this. Now you know this. Short sighted" Blair trailed off in an inaudible slur "You know the videos you found. The slave one?"

Faith shook herself indignantly "why is this a subject now?"

"You know"

Faith grumbled throwing a tube of mascara down "the one with loads of guys? In the cage? Or the inmate one? Or, was it the one with the bar? You know she had quite short, blonde hair?" Faith, mortified, threw out her arms "Why?"

Blair scoffed "Wait till we meet Bea. Crawls room to room! Licks their knuckles! Kneels at their feet. Begs for things you never want to see. T's jus'" Blair shook her head "very juicy, all the time"

Faith made a whimpering sound "Juicy in what sense?"

"The literal one" Blair drawled

Faith threw down her wipe "That's awful!"

"Mm. Bad to come. Villainous leper-dom. Losing them makes your heart hurt. Prickly in the cheek area. Trembling sickly blood bleached of sugar. What do they commune too, Faith ?"

Faith dropped her kohl pencil examining two lip glosses "I don't know" Faith sighed. Blair would undoubtedly tell her.

"Each other. Partly. Sharing of the self with the whole. The other part? God, donates the IC needed to level to that of the house name holder. Connects their young to the whole"

Faith felt herself still examining Blair "Wow. You could almost be useful to me" she drawled

"Joins them! Physically. Mentally, spiritually! They can hear each other think! They want to take us into their House. Make us one of them. Look it up. I'll look it up" Faith's screen seized lighting and then landing on wikipeadia "To commune: to share with the collective"

"That doesn't explain anything" Faith frowned "Like a commune?"

"Cults. Paternally warped. Couldn't say if Marc wants to screw you or nurse you"

Faith choked out a hysterical laugh "Right then. So if they're connected their well-being is dependent on each other, right? So if one dies they all drop off? Or their happiness not, necessarily, their heartbeat? Like Gremory couldn't survive without Alanaha but because he was stopped bringing her back he had to split her up into offspring so that he could survive because without 'em he'd have gone insane. Talk unhealthy attachment on supernatural steroids"

Blair glowered at Faith silently. Faith felt her temper fan "What even is Shiesera? What proof have we got that's even a thing? We're just taking everything Gremory's said as gospel! It's like they've told us: you're nocturnal, so we're sleeping during the day and living by night! Suggesting we're dependent on them. I'm not losing my self to this. I'm not even risking losing you" Faith brandished a make-up brush loaded with a silver-pink highlighter at the screen.