It's getting on toward quitting time for the day -- at least for some people. Maybe not everyone in a hotel that presumably operates 24/7, but probably for James who does not have to man the front desk. Thus, when Conni came to ask for him, she only has to wait a few minutes before he comes down. He appears wearing a suit that even for a lawyer looks a little formal, but he seems comfortable in it even if it doesn't necessarily fit the locale. He looks around, a sort of intense expression on his face, before he sees her and starts that way. "Hi," he says once he's close enough. "Thanks a lot for meeting me. How's our friend?" It's not hugely crowded at this moment, but there are certainly people around who might hear what he's saying.
Conni has dressed up for the occasion, the tall Dane looking quite elegant and not too out of place in the hotel. She has her hair tied up in a ponytail and is wearing a figure hugging white bandage dress along with black shoes. She is sat at one of the little tables that dot the lobby of the Hilton, each surrounded by a couple of very comfortable looking leather chairs. She has a cup of coffee in front of her and an artist tube is leaning against her chair.
Looking over the top of her coffee cup, she eyes James carefully and then nods to the empty chair across from hers. "Please join me, they do excellent coffee here." Waiting until James is settled, she then continues. "Our friend is well enough given the circumstances, although I didn't want to risk taking her outside with this curse business still going on." She takes a breath and then a sip from her coffee. "Thank you for your assistance the other day and I apologise for leaving in a hurry but it seems the most expedient course of action."
James nods, sitting down in the chair opposite when she invites him to do so. He leans a little bit forward, clasping his hands and resting them on the table. "It's one of the perks," he says with a small smile, really just the pulling upward of one corner of his mouth. The coffee, one assumes. Even that smile fades when she goes on, though, and he continues, "I'm glad to hear it. And yes, that does seem sensible." He nods again, shifting just slightly in his chair before he settles. "No need to apologize. You did the right thing. It probably helped ensure that no one was seriously injured."
He pauses, tipping his head to one side as he studies Conni. "I don't know what you've been able to get out of her, if anything at all," he says after that brief moment. "But it's clear to me that she didn't summon those things by herself. She's being manipulated by someone else. I believe it's someone, or several someones, the Council has been trying to track down. If I'm telling you something you already know, then, sorry." This gets a little wider smile, even if it's wry. "I think she could potentially lead to them, though."
"She seems devoted to this master of hers and she has a driving ambition to learn magic but she's been seriously let down in the past." Conni takes another sip from her coffee and then sets the cup down on the table. "From what I can gather, she's being manipulated as you say but there seems to be more to it. I can't tell if this curse is from her master or these entities that turned up the other day. She is very much heartbroken over the loss of her brother and husband and I think it's possible that someone is using that pain to steer her. It's all very confusing though." Conni lets out a sigh and then settles back in her chair. "There was a party several months ago at the hostel, while there, her husband was engaged in a sex ritual. I think he managed to conjured up a tsunami to take out a competitor but was in the process killed by the backlash from the spell. What I find odd is why wasn't he teaching our young apprentice to be magic? Sadly, she hasn't said much in that regard and I don't want to pry too deeply. That said, it was obvious to us both that whoever is teaching her, they are leaving some rudimentary lessons out and possibly on purpose."
James' frown deepens the more Conni speaks. It's concerning, to say the least. However, he nods here and there, tapping his fingers against the backs of his hands absently as he processes all that's being said. "It's certainly probable, especially if her husband wasn't fully trained, either. Of course, even when you are, harnessing that much magic is risky at best." His hands unclasp and he reaches up to rub his face, letting out a sigh of his own. "Yeah," he says. "Not trying to cast from inside a circle is Intro to Magic stuff." His hand falls as he looks back to her, "It's not good all around. Getting rid of the curse is important, of course. But on top of that, she's certainly skirting having broken the First Law with the amount of deaths, even if she hasn't outright broken it herself. I don't know if the Council would be that discriminating. They might be more lenient if she helped lead them to whoever's really pulling the strings. But that's not a sure thing, either."
"Do you really think so?" Conni raises an eyebrow as she regards James, a pleasant smile crossing her lips. "Given how short staffed you are these days, I'd guess they'd Soul Gaze her and then take her head within the hour. Given that she's under a curse of some sort, it would also be the quickest way of dealing with that." Conni's gaze drifts down towards her coffee cup, her eyes focusing on the dark liquid. "She's been soulgazed and she does seem to have blood on her hands but it also showed that she's quite literally a puppet in all this. Possibly a battery of sort, given enough knowledge to raise power but not to use it properly." Conni lets out a sigh and then raises her gaze to meet James' eyes briefly. "Either way, I'll not be handing her over for an execution. I honestly believe that she can be helped and I'm still rather concerned with something your friend mentioned the other day. Something about Wardens taking in Changelings? If the remaining Wardens are that far of their remit, I can't trust them not to get sword happy. Sorry." She offers James an apologetic smile before reaching for her coffee once more.
James shrugs. "I'd //like// to think so," he admits. "And I agree with you that she can be helped. If I just wanted to turn her over to the Council, I wouldn't be meeting with you by myself." He places his hands on the table, and doesn't //quite// meet her gaze, but close enough to make it feel like he is, while still not risking the possibility of a soulgaze with her, himself. Or at least, hopefully not. "The fact is that if we don't find the person or people who are really responsible for this, a lot more innocents are going to be hurt or killed. If they don't have her to use, they'll find someone else. At least now that it's her, we have a link." He falls quiet, studying her face for a moment or two. "Do you know what the Doom of Damocles is?”
"You're aware that Monoc Security and myself are covered by the Accords? Lydia is under our protection at the moment and given time I think she might be convinced that her master is up to no good." Conni pauses for a moment to take a sip from her coffee and to gather her thoughts. "There is no way that I know of to trace a curse back to its source and unless Lydia has something on her that belongs to her master, tracking them will also be difficult. I do care about other people being hurt and if they've just lost a battery, it's going to take them some time to train up a new one don't you think? As for the Doom of Damocles? It sounds rather White Council and grandiose but I've no idea as to its meaning."
"You may be covered by the Accords, but she's a practitioner using magic," James points out. "Black magic. Not runic magic. The Council obviously doesn't want a war with you all. But they will feel that this is their purview, not yours. And honestly? They're correct in this instance." James shrugs again, leaning back. "Considering the 'training' these things gave her, I don't think it would take that long. But it would set them back at least a little bit, yes." He lets out a little huff at her last words, but he doesn't necessarily seem to think that she's wrong. "It's a sort of...magical probation," he says. "If you can get someone who is a member of the White Council to speak for you and agree to take on your training, then you're spared unless you use black magic again." All traces of the laugh, such as it was, is gone now. "The upside is that as I said, she'd be spared. And she's be properly trained, which is what she wants and what I believe she deserves. The downside is, a slip means death. And death to the person who spoke for her and trained her."
"I'm assuming you'll be going after the Fae that beguile and kill next? Or the Black Court? As it stands, the Council will have as much luck getting Lydia from me as they'd have requesting the Fae hand someone over or the Vampires. You'd have had to see her cast black magic, which you haven't. You saw a frightened woman approached by entities who wanted something from her. That's it." Conni smiles for a moment and then drains the last of her coffee. She listens in silence as James explains the 'doom' to her, setting down her cup when he is done. "Okay, so let me see if I have this correctly. You take apparent an Black Magic user in front of a beleaguered and short staffed Council and try to convince them that instead of cutting her head off, it would be better to spend time and effort putting her through probation? You'd of course need someone to vouch for her and to put their own life at risk. I'm not one to gamble but I can't say that I like those odds." Conni lets out a breath and then settles back in her chair. "What is it that you would want with Lydia. Lets see if we can come to some agreement there."
James raises an eyebrow at Conni's explanation of what he'd said. "The only effort needed to put forth is the effort of the person who vouches for them," he replies a little dryly. "And the person vouching for her would be me. So, I don't think they would take their...limited resources...very much into account at that point. I don't have Council duties besides membership fees, which I pay on time, so they like me." It might be a joke, if again a little bit dry. However, he doesn't laugh, and instead goes on, leaning back in his chair and crossing one leg over the other. "I want her to lead me to whoever's ostensibly training her," he says. "//They// need to be dealt with. But I'm just one person, and you're just another person. You're clearly powerful, but I don't know if both of us together would be enough to deal with what we find."
"Okay, I tell you what. I'll get back to Lydia later and try another avenue of questioning, I'll see if she's got anything that belongs to her Master or if he knows of their whereabouts. I did get the impression that she was expecting her Master to come rescue her more than once but seeing as how they've failed to turn up, it's possibly they've dropped her and moved on." Leaning over, Conni picks up her artist tube and lays it across her lap, idly playing with the strap as she looks to James. "Seeing as how you have problems with phones, I'll leave a message with the Concierge if I get something and then we can go about gathering our forces to deal with this problem once and for all. How does that work for you?"
"Well, the master might be worried about crossing you, too," James replies. "All things considered." He reaches up to rub his face again, more thoughtfully this time. "Fine," he continues. "I'd really like to talk to her myself, but in lieu of that I hope that she gives you something soon." His hands drop to the table again, "Thank you for meeting me. I appreciate it." He pauses, again studying Conni for a moment or two before he goes on. "Please make sure you impress upon her that there are real ways she could learn magic," he says. "She clearly isn't stupid, and she has to be figuring out that whatever master she has isn't telling her everything. If she knew there was someone else who could teach her, maybe she'd be more inclined to give the other one up. And if we could deal with them ourselves, there wouldn't be a need to involve the Council at all."
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