Xaviers!

The door closing caught the guard's attention and he got up to go look at the door, forcing them all to dodge around him. From the mud room, they ended up in a large kitchen and they had to dodge around serving staff and cooks as the spells continued to fray. One of the serving staff came up out of a door that had stairs down.

Upstairs, following the woman seemed to head them towards the front of the house. The sounds of the party got louder until the hallway opened onto a balcony with a grand staircase down into a large combination foyer/ballroom. There were a lot of people here and the majority of them were glowing.

"Down then," Sean said while also maneuvering towards the stairs as quickly as possible. He tried to skirt the outside of the kitchen because knives, hot liquids, and fire.

"That's what I was thinking," she nods to Sean as she goes for the first opportunity to the stairs.

Narrator wrote:Upstairs, following the woman seemed to head them towards the front of the house. The sounds of the party got louder until the hallway opened onto a balcony with a grand staircase down into a large combination foyer/ballroom. There were a lot of people here and the majority of them were glowing.

On instinct, Diego ducked back into the hall lest someone sense his heartbeat. He tapped his earpiece and whispered, "Sam? Yeah, we've got a graveyard smash situation. I mean... we're rea-ea-eally outnumbered here."

Down the stairs appeared to be a combination pantry and wine cellar. The wine was stored in nice wooden racks and there was a variety of dry goods on institutional metal shelving.

"Dead end?" Sean asked while looking around somewhat in dismay and then pushed his senses outwards trying to determine if there was magic being used to conceal something in the room or if it was in fact just a room.

There actually seemed to be relatively little magic down here. Really no more than what he would guess would be bleeding from the wards and stuff on the above floors.

"...so much for a cellar full of coffins, though that might not be wine."

"Diego says there's a bloody lot of them upstairs, and I think he meant that most of them were... you know."

"Upstairs then? Bringing the fire and brimstone well, maybe some pure sunlight?" Sean asked looking between Sam and Vivienne.

"I don't know exactly what I'm going to do when I'm face to face with them. I feel like a gun about to go off."

"Then all means Lady Raven, let us go off." Vivienne smiled and dropped her glamour as she did she reached out for the liquid in the barrels. With her arm out stretched she slowly closed her fist and pulled, hard.

"Time to crash the party then," Sean smiled as he double checked the integrity of his enchantments before drawing magic to himself. The room lit up for a moment and the air shimmered with heat as a ball of fire and light expanded and then contracted into a small golden sphere in his hand.

Downstairs, Sean could feel the hiding spells unraveling. Even if they weren't wielding fire and... what certainly smelled like wine, they weren't going to be doing this stealthily anymore. Back up the stairs, Sam created a significant bit of consternation from someone who looked like some sort of head housekeeper. That swiftly turned into panic as she was followed by Vivienne and Sean and soon the whole kitchen was in an uproar, which attracted the attention of the two guards from the mudroom.

Upstairs, Diego and Gemma thought they were out of sight when the woman turned around and fixed them with her gaze. "Here for the presentation are you?" She had lovely eyes, the sort one could easily get lost in. "It's going to be a lovely party, you should stay and have a drink," she soothed, beckoning for them to follow her.

"Presen... yes! The presentation! Wouldn't miss it!" he responded after only the briefest panic. Those eyes led him to start walking without further thought. It's his first day, okay?

Sam lashes out with her mind towards the guards, trying to fill them with pain.

Downstairs, the guards double over in pain as Sam's assault rips through their minds just as they were going for their guns. It's easier than it should be, even a non-telepath's mind usually puts up some sort of resistance, but the guards' minds were just open pathways. Before she has too much time to ponder, she comes face-to-face with one of the vampires stepping into the kitchen. He licks a fang and they can all feel his mind pushing against their minds as he says, "Now now, we can all be civil about this."

Upstairs, Gemma seems to be following along as well in Diego's wake. The woman begins to lead them down the stairs to the main party when she's stopped a member of the wait staff who whispers in her ear, "Miss Bianca, there's some sort of disturbance in the kitchen." Bianca hisses a response, "Well, get the security staff and deal with it." The staff person quickly retreats and Bianca turns her coaxing gaze back to Diego and Gemma. "Apologies, the difficulties of managing a big party. You understand. Right this way, we'll get you some punch."

Sean had expected this, books had whole sections covering vampires (though reliability was always a question). He could still feel the pressure and something inside him pushed back, violently.

"Unlikely," Sean said as he released the spell at the vampire. It became of a ray of condensed sunlight causing combustibles to ignite close to its path.

Diego should have realized the jig was up but he was too inexperienced to put up much mental resistance. Though in the back of his mind, or possibly his soul, the thing that unknownst to him occasionally showed in his eyes was being slowly stoked.

"Is everything okay?"

"You want my mind, get in line." Vivienne growled at the mental touch and removed her bracelet quickly. Allowing the prior claim to her mind and body to return. Once free of the vampire she held her hand out grasping the wine and sending it up the legs of the guards and into their guns, flooding them.

Downstairs, the vampire screamed in agony as he burst into flames from the contact with such concentrated light. In a blind panic, he stumbled for the sinks, adding to the things ignited by the beam of light with things ignited by his own flailing. Just short of the sinks, he collapsed to the floor and continued to burn. This whipped the panic in the room into a frenzy and the guards were bowled over as the kitchen staff made swiftly for the back door.

Upstairs, Bianca nodded, "Everything's fine. Probably just a disagreement among some servants. It happens on occasion." She reached back and a servant placed to glasses into her hand. She offered one to Diego and passed the other to Gemma. "Here you go. A little red wine always gets me properly loosened up for a party."

As he took the glass, a distant part of him wondered if he had just heard a faint scream. He thanked Bianca and brought the glass to his lips before hesitating upon seeing his reflection in the glass.

Wasn't I supposed to be... invisible?

"Keep moving," Sam says, heading for the front of the building where the vampire had come from.

In the warped view of the reflection, he could also see Gemma. She was shorter than he was and where she was standing put him between Bianca and herself. She raised her glass as well, but in doing so she brushed a finger vertically across her lips in the universal signal for "Shhh."

Upstairs a familiar face steps into the room, although Diego and Gemma might not necessarily recognize Miriam. Her dress leaves little doubt that she's here to fit in with the crowd as she makes polite conversation with a small group of people.

Diego acknowledged the signal by silently taking a sip that he only pretended to swallow and waited for his cue.

Downstairs, the hallways are narrow, but this part of the house definitely seems older. They can hear heavy footsteps coming their way, but it's hard to get a fix on where from in the maze of hallways. And then they burst out of the hallway and into the large ballroom foyer. A few of the people closest to them turn to look at them, but only a few gazes linger and Sam catches some stray thought about 'brutish security staff showing up where they're not wanted.'

Sean wove through the mess to follow Sam into the next room. The unperturbed crowd and the heavy footsteps had him on edge.

"Do we know where we're going? Or are we just going to clear the whole place as we go?" Sean asked as he looked around watching for the security that would eventually come after they'd lit the kitchen on fire.

"Do you think you could do that beam again, but refract it through the chandelier?"

"Yeah, when do you want your light show?" Sean asked drawing magic to himself.

"Diego said this ballroom is full of them. Whenever you're ready."

"Best take cover then," Sean said the spell condensing in his hand. He aimed it at the chandelier and released the spell at it. The spell was technically just light, so it should just scatter through the chandelier's crystals and go every which way.

The light burst from the chandelier refracting all over the place. Some vampires sizzled or smoked, shying away from the light. A few actually burst into flames, which created quite the to-do as their companions attempted to put them out. For better or worse, they had everyone's attention now, including Miriam's.

Sean smiled slightly even though the refraction appeared to take more than a little bite from the spell. Now though with a bunch of vampires were staring at them he gathered magic again. For a moment his mind was drawn to using he key of Nebuchadnezzar, but instead he drew energy and the air shimmered as he formed a lance of pure sunlight in his hand. Best to show a strong front right?

Miriam almost hisses when the chandelier suddenly bursts into light, the erratic beams of light thankfully missing her. She spins around towards the commotion but raises an arm over her face and backs away a little when all she sees is more bright light gathering in front of a small group of people.

"You make me sick," Sam nearly spits, her mind fanning out with beak and claw. She wanted to peck their eyes out. She wanted to snuff out these false lights and borrowed lives.

Vivienne uncapped her water-skin and pulled Cal from her back as she made herself useful by blocking the door they had come through.

The explosion of light was enough to break Diego the rest of the way out of Bianca's influence. He wasted no time in drawing his stake and sidling around Gemma to close on the distracted vampire. Unfortunately, when it came to stabbing what looked like a woman in the back, he hesitated.

A presence all its own entered the room. "I'm not the one entering another's house unbidden, Battle Crow." The man at the top of the stairs didn't look a day over 27, but Sam could tell he was old. Possibly as old as Erica. "If you had asked for hospitality, I would have given it, but you're breaking all sorts of rules this way."

Bianca recovered herself enough to see what doing and her hand reached out to grab his wrist. "That's not very polite," she hiss-whispers, her fangs showing readily.

"Yeah, well, neither is drinking people," he countered with an instinctual growl. He flashed the claws of his other hand towards the vampire's pretty face, hoping the creature would flinch away so he could break free and press the attack with a kick.

Sean charged the spear with more magic then threw it at a group of vampires at the foot of the stairs. The spear itself exploded sending shards of itself every which way once it hit either a vampire or a surface.

"I don't think we should let them regroup," Sean said looking between Sam and Vivienne his arms lighting on fire as he gathered magic for another spell not wanting to lose pace.