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Having drawn what he wanted from her mind the cat was the only missing link. As it completed the chain of events he decided. She would die. Human, Mortal. The altar below them deep within the earth would feel her warm blood spreading over its porous surface. It would taste her essence as it spurted out from her still beating heart, jettisoned forth in spurts as the muscle contracted in it's frantic, sickly and dying rhythm in his fist. He focuses his eyes on his prey and then the harbinger of death, Mictlantecuhtli's favored servant, the owl enters the picture. The death of the cat, furrows the elder vampire's brow. It is the first motion made since the woman doctor walked in. The owl changed everything.

As her green eyes watched the blood pool around the animal laying at her feet, discarded by the nocturnal bird of prey which now watched the scene in silence Tizoc moves. There is no rush, she is here voluntarily. She is willing. He has all the patience and time in the world.

Into her mind flow his words, "You are not native to this land. You are not of this land. Your people came and ravaged the animals, people, the earth even. They did it for power, control over the physical world. What has brought you here is power, control over the Realm of Shadows. What makes you different than them?"

He comes into view now, standing in full Aztec regalia.

"Finally his words are emitted in a low tone, a deep voice, steady and measured. "Tell me why I should deliver death into your hands instead of you into his."

Tizoc took a breath, usually these were relegated for speaking, this time it was solely to steel his own resolve. The woman before him was not Nahuatl, she was not of those born to the land. This situation he found himself in was of his own making. Personal responsibility was something the teachings of Eztli had encompassed. The foreigner seemed to understand the urgency he felt and did not show. She seemed to understand the sins of her forebears. It was up to him to give her the chance to rectify them of to see another pale face dismantle that which his own predecessors had worked so hard for.

He stopped some twenty yard away, at the end of the hallway leading into the shadowy depths of the factory and tilted his head slightly as if in doubt. He was.

"I am no master. I am a guide. When you need my knowledge you will seek it. When I am otherwise detained you will decide. You will act in the interests of the Blood first, your experiments second. You will be Acheron first, Noemi Michaux Dangeau of Angouleme second. You will aid the cause as you can. You will bring honor upon your true Bloodline and eradicate the sins you carry in your blood."

He hesitates, the feelings not showing on features which may as well be planted on Mt. Rushmore. His stony faced measuring of the woman doesn't waver, if anything growing more intent and intense.

He motions to the three stains on the floor of the concrete haven sprawling out before him. Vega, Kika and Machk all faced a fate the same as what Noemi has to look forward to in these very spots.

"I plan to eviscerate you. To rip your heart still-beating from your body and to damn you to a form of immortality your Christian God will hate you for. Would you still make the same claim? That you are ready to die? Be reborn by the powers of a god your people long consider dead or irrelevant? To become one with death and shadows?"

As he speaks an obsidian dagger slips into his hand from behind his back. He doesn't hide it, letting the razor-sharp instrument of death come into plain view to allow the girl the knowledge of the gravity of the situation.

"I am not your master. I am his hand. Your master is the night sky, illusion, trickery and treachery. He is your reflection and the truth behind it, I am but his earthly representation."

The vampire stalks forward, the obsidian blade in his hand glinting in dim moonlight filtering through dust disturbed by fallen footsteps as he moves forward. His posture immaculate, shoulders squared, every motion fluid and predatory. His gaze had settled, unwavering on her own and remained locked throughout his approach.

His words come out in Nahuatl to her ears, though at the same time they flow into her mind in English, a tongue they seem to share.

"I give unto you, oh Smoking Mirror, Lord of the Night Sky, this flesh. I give her to you whole as she stands, I offer you all she is, flesh, bone, spirit. I gift you this sacrifice whole and willing that you may show her the Darkness. I beg you return her, Flesh and Shadow, given your sight, tested by the gods and found worthy to carry their mantle."

He pauses for only a moment, delving into her mind to ensure she is indeed willing to die for the gift offered by blade, blood and shadow.

Sensing no doubt within her he becomes a blur, coming to an abrupt halt in front of her, blade sinking deep into the flesh beneath the ribs and quickly travelling transversely across her abdomen. His other hand moves up, grasping her hair and jerking her backward to the ground as the knife is discarded and his teeth bite deep into his own wrist, ripping away flesh in a vicious wet, ripping motion.

Fangless, Tizoc can not simply pierce flesh like many others of his kind, the act of breaking his flesh with his mouth is much more gory a sight than his brethren blessed with fangs.

The arm, now sporting a gaping hole where dark blood pools, welling up in place of missing tissue plunges into the rent in Noemi's flesh, pushing upward, tearing through the diaphragm and pushing past soft tissue, and bone alike, his blood being poured into her body as his hand searches for, and finds the rapidly beating fist sized organ his master desires.

The process is insanely quick, but for the recipient would seem to last an agonizing lifetime.

Once gripped by curling fingers the heart, still beaten is given a sharp twist and suddenly, his limb is rapidly withdrawn, leaving the wound made open and hollow.

Into Noemi's mind, Tizoc projects his thoughts, allowing her to see her own beating heart from both her own shocked perspective and his as he brings the thudding muscle to his mouth and feeds while he body begins to die in his arms.

Tezcatlipoca would claim her and Tizoc would see if she was worthy of being given back to the world or if she would be claimed by the underworld.

Standing over the mutilated flesh before him Tizoc watched in silence as the life slipped from Noemi's body, the woman joining the cat in death on the concrete floor of the factory. Her blood flows slowly down his chest from the gory mess that exploded over his lips and chiseled chin as his teeth fought their way through the tough tissue of her heart. The meal consumed he drops the organ on the floor unceremoniously and waits quietly as her spirit fades away and is claimed by his god.

Tizoc is not new to the process which takes a living, breathing human and sends them into the realm of the Shadow only to cast their spirit back into their desecrated flesh tainted and forever changed by the touch of the Smoking Mirror. He has performed this same ceremony several times now.The difference is in the result, once Shadow is bound to flesh, how does the dead creature react when the false semblance of life is forced back into still-cooling limbs?

This is what he waits to see. Vega had come willingly, Machk and Kika less so. Their reactions had been polar opposites. Kika had fled out into the night, Machk tearing off after her. Wakiza had accepted his fate stoically, but Ambrose had been unable to make the bond stick and he had fallen into the Shadow, lost to the grip of Tezcatlipoca forever. This one though... what would this one do?