North San Vincente Blvd | West Hollywood

The city took on a seemingly different atmosphere this time around. The once vivid colors of endless street-lined billboards and advertisements, storefront neon, and urban-themed murals that covered various buildings all but lost their fervor, coming off rather muted through the eyes of one born into darkness. It wasn’t right though. In fact, everything seemed out of order, and the natural progression of things was in more chaos than the woman remembered. Besides, why would she even be thinking of such trivial matters? Los Angeles had been a place of wonder and beauty, hope and loss, industry and destruction, but from one who walks the jagged line of both the living and the dead, it’s aesthetic becomes a dream in which you never truly awaken. Nicole Stathos found herself standing in the middle of it all and feeling everything at once.

“Hey l-lady, spare some change f-for a Vet?”

The shoeless, frail, bearded man dressed in torn jeans, an Army-green jacket, and stunk of urine and cheap wine watched the woman with curious eyes as she simply stood in the alley peering out across the street toward the West Hollywood substation of the Los Angeles Police Department. Not much had changed in her physical appearance, save for a paler skin tone and hair that had been shaved off grew at an extremely slow pace, if it really grew back at all. The three scars along the side of her face still shown however; a constant reminder of the attackers the night of her embrace.

The woman honestly couldn’t remember just how she had made it back to the city after being alone in the wilderness for almost a week. A “test”, if anything else, to prove to herself and her clanmates -wherever the fuck they were- if she was even cut out to be part of the tribe known as the Gangrel. From what she had learned of the clan, they were outsiders among Kindred society, specifically the Sect known as the Camarilla. “Too much politics, not enough action” was the typical response, and yet Nicole wondered what that meant for her future living in a city supposedly run by vampires. Would those outside of her clan accept her, or moreso, would those loyal to the Gangrel accept her. These and many questions still rattled around in her head, questions that Eva couldn’t possibly answer, and that would only be discovered by existing long enough to uncover the answers herself.

“Change.” Nicole muttered, allowing the word to drift, and turned her attention to the other, who hesitated in even making eye contact with her through scratched eyeglass lenses. There was a shadow of something unsettling growing in the back of the vagrant’s mind. Something just not right with the woman standing only a few feet from him. Why was she there? Who was she? The man had questions, but did any of them really matter?

“Um yeah, I have change.” She said, reaching a pale hand into the front pocket of black jeans that hugged her hips and thighs like a glove, and pulled out a wad of folded bills, mostly tens and twenties, which caused the eyes of the vagrant to widen. She slid a few from the stack and held them out. “Here. Take it.” Nicole smiled, albeit a rather empty one. She didn’t quite care about the money so much though, considering it originally came from the evidence locker prior to the undercover operation she had been on the night of her embrace. It was bribery money for sure, mostly to gain the intel needed. But the whole op was a sham she concluded in her mind. It had all been a wicked setup to lure her -the prey- into the waiting arms of her Sire. A creature who had gone missing, or perhaps was killed, before she even had a chance to learn anything.

Still, a few weeks after the ordeal and a “debrief” by Eva, Nicole was puzzled by the entire existence of vampires. Her upbringing wasn’t necessarily religious in a way that profoundly impacted her, but at the same time, how could one’s mind be open to the possibilities of the supernatural actually existing? The belief that any of this was real still haunted her, and yet if this had been a dream...wouldn't she have awoken already?

“Are you waiting for s-someone?” The vagrant’s inquisitive tone pulled the woman from her brief reverie as she continued to keep focus on the brick police station across the street.

Had she been waiting for someone specific? What caused her first stop since returning to Los Angeles to be the substation she previously worked out of while on undercover assignments? She thought for a moment, even allowing a bit of a chuckle to escape her lips, because her only reason for being there was entirely…human.

“No. Just missed this place.” Nicole finally said, immediately shrugging it off. “Anyway, take care of yourself, buddy.” She gave the man a pat on the back and headed toward Sunset Strip to walk and think...


The newly minted Gangrel’s main reason for returning to Los Angeles, was of course, to find her Sire, someone of which seemed more like a fairytale than an actual person. While Eva had to release the woman from her charge, she wasn’t going to allow her to wander the Kindred underworld without a plan. Without resources. Without allies in high and low places. The Toreador wore many faces, yet Nicole wondered which one had been for her specifically. She knew the Elder cared, but to what end? Was it pity taken on a neonate who was otherwise lost in a world she didn’t understand? Perhaps the “Masquerade” was a large part of it, as Eva went through much of the history of the Kindred, including the laws that all must abide by. The Gangrel fledgling knew she would be watched, not only by those appointed per Eva’s wishes, but also much of the city, as news traveled fast within the city that never sleeps, and the last thing the Camarilla wanted was a breach of their world.

As long as Nicole kept herself in check, things would presumably go much better in the long run.

If any name was to stick out in her head, it would be Rachel Fields, one of Eva’s closest advisors within her circle of kindred, and apparently someone who could help get the Gangrel woman established somewhere safe, and at least stay out of any unnecessary spotlights for the time being. The meeting place was a club of renown called “The Sunset”, which -according to Eva- would be a good place to start for seeking answers to more sensitive inquiries best kept out of Kine earshot. And as she eventually made it to her destination, not realizing that the place was fashioned into a sort of hotel, and the woman was awestruck by the beautifully crafted classic-meets-modern exterior architecture.

Was this a vampire aesthetic? She mused, and couldn’t help but notice a few well-dressed couples loitering near the hotel lobby entrance, and gazing in her direction. A few with looks of disdain, as though this “newcomer” was in the wrong part of town, but Nicole ignored the stares and whispers while doing her best to casually walk through the ornately decorated glass double doors and into the lobby, where awaiting elevators would take her to the lounge at the top of the building.

Seeing the inside, she realized that the exterior was only an extension of the beauty and classic feel the interior held throughout the entire hotel. It had a warm comfort, yet cold eyes could be felt while she looked around, noticing a fair amount of patrons, most of which were probably frequent visitors. Although thankfully not everyone was “dressed to the nines”, as there were a few noticeably decked out in street clothes, or casual outfits.

Entering into the lounge, Nicole stepped up to the bar and noticed a tall, muscular man speaking to a couple further near the end, and wondered if that was the one Eva had referred to as “Henry Locke”, who was apparently The Sunset’s long-time proprietor. The physical traits seemed to fit the description given, so the woman slipped onto a bar stool and waited, hoping to be able to speak with him and find out where she could find Rachel, because she honestly had no other recourse at that moment.

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“Look out for her, she’s young, not tested in our world.”

“I’m not running a creche, love.”

“Do you mean that, or is it just another British thing?”

“Take a guess, I’ve a bar to run, something you occasionally let me get back to.”

“Thank you, Henry, try not to think about me too much.”

In truth, he never truly needed convincing to aid the lost and the damned of LA. That would have been the height of irony. No one was as lost or damned as the Archtraitor. The thought brought a slight smile to his lips as he went about the business of working the bar, the brief snippet of conversation with Eva playing back over his mind as he did his best to pay attention to whatever slice of Kindred politics the couple across from him were providing with their incessant need to gossip, to impress. He couldn’t quite pinpoint when exactly he became someone worth impressing in the supernatural underworld of LA, but it hadn’t been overnight.

That’s when she slipped into the next seat over. The woman that looked out of place, yet finally home, all at the same time. The scars that marked her out most of all. They all carried scars, one way or another, these aristocrats of the night.

“Hypocrite” he thought to himself in a voice that sounded distinctly like a certain Toreador, as he passed his way down the bar, cleaning a glass as he did so. It was an awfully typical view of what a bartender ‘should’ be doing, but then, that was half the point.

“Drink?” He asked plainly, his mouth forming the words in such a way that played on the years he had spent in a similar, but different life in the dive bars of another continent. Somewhere else he had become someone worth impressing quite by accident. He watched her for a moment, gauging the reaction of all new kindred to the words. “A drink that won’t have you hurling it right back up on the bar.” He clarified. He was pouring before she really answered. A scotch he had grown to enjoy from back home, laced with enough plasma that a kindred could keep it down without effort. If they were lucky, they might even taste it, beyond the buzz of alcohol which when mixed properly, their kind could still feel. He placed it down, uncaring of whether she took it up or not.

“Henry Locke, I’m told we’re friends now.”

Nicole eyed the drink with curiosity if anything else. While she and Eva had shared various blood-infused wines during their time together at the oceanside villa, that had been about the extent of it, so a concoction based with Scotch would certainly be a new experience. The woman held the glass up to the light, and then looked back at the gentleman across from her.

“You know what? I don’t even like Scotch, but I’ve had a crazy enough few weeks, that I don’t even give a fuck right now.” Nicole motioned her hand toward the other as though she were going to toast, before knocking back the glass and draining its contents in one fell swoop.

“Holy shit monkeys” She choked on the words, as the mixed drink made its way down her throat like a fiery dragon descending into a tunnel. “That’s-” She coughed a couple of times to clear her voice before continuing. “Yeah, that’s just what I needed.” She chuckled, returning the now empty glass to the bar top, and rubbing the bridge of her nose.

“Whew, okay.” She smiled at the rugged man with the hauntingly beautiful eyes. “Good to meet you, by the way.” She then nodded her head. “I’m Nicole. ‘Nikki’, if you prefer. And yeah, I suppose we are friends now.” The Gangrel couldn’t help but feel rather stupid and awkward in the other’s presence, but she also assumed it was the effects of the drink moreso than anxiety welling up just for being there.

Or perhaps it was both.

“I-um, I think I was supposed to meet a woman by the name of ‘Rachel’ here. Do you happen to know where I’d find her?”

“You’re looking for perhaps the one woman more busy in this city than our other mutual acquaintance.” Henry spoke plainly, although he didn’t hide the slight smile of amusement at her reaction to the drink, a somewhat teasing expression utterly lacking in any true malice. “But I presume if you’ve been sent after her, she’ll also be making time for you, I’ll give her a buzz, let her know you’re here.”

Henry wasn’t the only person paying attention to Nicole, however, the couple the man had been speaking with before carrying on their own conversation with far less zeal, carefully watching the pair as they spoke, the tang of fresh blood in the air. There was more than just the usual Kindred nature in this, with the news steadily rolling in from the North, newcomers were both a greater threat and curiosity than ever before.

“We have a fair few rooms here, I only have hillside free at the moment, but you’re welcome to it. Rest, freshen up, whatever. No rush to clear out while you get your bearings.” There was no need to add that this life required you to find those bearings imminently. Anyone who made it passed the first few nights knew that, if nothing else. As he spoke, he removed a sleek looking phone from his pocket, thumbing the screen without turning his attention from those across the bar, passing on the previously mentioned message to Rachel.

“You don’t necessarily look like the type who used to enjoy the company of big city lawyers too much, so, fair warning on that front.” Henry continued with the same hint of amusement, although his eyes were studying the room behind Nicole, noting whoever was trying to listen in without appearing like they were.
“Between you and me, don’t mention to anyone that you’ve come in from out of town.” He spoke a little quieter, his lips barely moving as he did so. “That might get you in even more heat from the old bastards you’re going to be bumping into around these parts.”

Without trying to seem too relieved by the prospects of staying at the hotel, per Henry Locke’s invitation, the offer did ease her mind nevertheless. A mind that still had so many thoughts swirling around that needed an answer, and yet the mental weariness of just the last few days alone began to creep up on her like a looming shadow. But, she allowed a half-smile, and nodded as her host spoke, knowing that she would need to lay low for a bit longer, replace things she no longer had, and just generally figure out who she was and what role she was supposed to play within her new life.

“I appreciate the offer.” She said, glancing around the lounge area, before meeting the man’s eyes once again. “And God knows I could use a proper shower.” She snorted, thinking back to a couple of days prior, finding a campground somewhere up in Northern California where she was able to slip in and clean up before continuing the journey. “And a change of clothes.” Nikki shook her head and smirked at the silly comments, which were apparently brought up by the recent ingestion of a fairly potent drink. “Although it’s not like I have to wash my hair.” She ran a hand across her bare scalp, feeling only the stubble from taking electric trimmers to it, and yet missing the beautiful hair she once had.

“Anyway…” She sighed.

Henry’s comment, however, regarding her being “out of town” did pique some curiosity in the back of her mind, and yet she didn’t even bother to ask about it, and only nodded in acknowledgement as though she understood the meaning behind the “advice”. Perhaps such a statement came as a typical warning to those vampires who were relatively new to the unlife, because someone as green about her existence as Nicole was, even she knew there were always bigger fish in the sea and the neonate was simply a worm dangling at the end of a hook.

“If it’s okay, I think I might stick around here for a bit.” She broke eye contact with the other momentarily, instead staring at the empty glass on the bartop. “I don’t really know what to do next other than wait at this point.”

Nicole didn’t want to have to admit -especially to a stranger- that she was lost, but she was. Despite Eva’s help, it was tough returning to a city you came to know well over the course of many years as a police officer, only to have no real direction in a life you just couldn’t fully comprehend.

“I still have so many questions.” She continued, looking back up at Henry, who certainly played his part as a proper host to listen as long as he could. “But, maybe this isn’t the time to ask, and you have better things to do no doubt. I can wait for Rachel.”

“Take your time here, I’m in no rush to keep rooms empty.” Henry set another glass back down on the bar, admiring the shine in the light for the moment before placing it onto a row of similar, if not all identical, receptacles. “Other needs, beyond a place to stay and a hot shower, can be attended to here as well. Usually there’s a charge, unless I decide otherwise, which I do.” He explained further. Kindred might not need solid food, but they certainly needed sustenance. Henry might not have had a warehouse of thinbloods chained up in the basement, but he had the next best thing; Los Angeles.

“You can ask away, I’ve got nowhere to be, love.” He answered her, slipping more heavily into the accent that spun from his lips, a brief smile feathered across his lips. “They can’t exactly fire me, I can show you the rooms now, if you’d like?” He offered, absentmindedly selecting another glass to shine while he waited, a good enough ruse to subtly keep his eyes on the couple at the end of the bar, trying to pin down their nebulous allegiance in the cold dark.

Her eyes lazily followed the path of the glass as Henry replaced it with the others, folding her hands atop the bar and periodically glancing around the room before meeting with the eyes of the man across from her once again. She didn’t quite know where to start in her line of questioning. Nicole was, afterall, a police officer, and was trained to ask questions about a great many things in order to get to the bottom of an issue. But, did any of that even matter anymore? Was she even a cop? The training was there and the memories retained, sure. But the urge to get back to her previous life was just out of reach. As though she had any real choice.

“How do I find-” The woman paused for a moment, unsure of even how to phrase the question. “I need to know where I came from. What I mean to say is, like...how do I find the one who made me? You know, my Sire.”

She couldn’t help but notice that her voice lowered to almost a whisper on the last few words as though it was some big secret within the confines of the Sunset. This had been a place full of vampires, at least presumably, but at the same time, she didn’t know any of them and they didn’t know her. Eva warned her that Kindred politics was a dirty business, sometimes even more so than that of the mortal realm, and trust was something not easily obtained. Sold and destroyed at a whim if anything else. But there was at least something she felt for Henry Locke, a trustworthiness that perhaps was born out of having no other recourse…?

“If you want my advice, Kindred are always far too hung up on who their sires are. Our mutual friend and her sire? They’re no different. They’d have all lived happier, longer lives if they’d all just decided to let old bonds die.” As Henry spoke, the volume of the Lounge’s ambient music seemed to rise, ever so slightly, just enough to gradually obscure his words from those further than his immediate area. He studied her again, yet another desperate child clinging for something, anything, to steady themselves before being pulled under. This world did not deserve them.

“The kind of Kindred you’re looking for, best to start at the Last Round, a bar Downtown. Gangrel, what you are, and Brujah of a certain...lack of sensibility, flock to the place.” Henry spoke with a theatrical sense of hesitation, as if speaking the name of the place pained him. “I apologise for sending you there, the smell is really something, but the owner, Nines, he’s not so bad, when he’s behaving. If anyone can find a Gangrel in this city, it’s probably him, or someone in his ‘bar” Henry almost seemed to shiver at the final word, as if it were forced out of him. As he finished speaking, however, he rested a somewhat small, if ornate, looking key on the bar top.

“Room number is on the back. Chipped as well, but don’t tell the rest of the clientele that, they like it old school.”

“Sensibility” She echoed, with a wry smile growing. “That’s a tough thing to find, especially in this city.” Her voice raised just a bit over the music, wondering if it was her hearing that wavered or the volume. It seemed that everything was so much more sensitive since her embrace, and she still found herself trying to manage every sense at once. “But thank you Henry, I think you gave me just what I needed. At least a start anyway.”

Nicole slipped the key in the inner pocket of her leather jacket and hopped off the bar stool. “I think I might just freshen up before I get dirty again.” She winked at the other, as she walked off toward the direction of the elevators.

_{E S T H E R P U N I C E U S A N D G R A C E L I U}

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^{L i s a S m i t h W e n g l e r C e n t e r f o r t h e A r t s a t P e p p e r d i n e U n i v e r s i t y}

Sitting in front of the stage was a quiet garden of velourlike chairs. A person sat in each of the red shadows, lined in rows with numbers and a letter. Dark, sparkling girls were twirling carelessly upon the stage with bright lights slowly fading as a backdrop. The theater was quaint, and this was the best way for Esther to see the venue. If she could have been somewhere more eloquent, she would have. Even the contemporary pointe dance was also turning away her interest. Nonetheless, the audience was still amused by the performance.

How dull.

Fortunately, it was not the recital that warranted her attention. It was the woman sitting next to her, “Scott may have enjoyed this recital over the last one I took him to. He prefers the brighter lights, at times,” she spoke nonchalantly to herself while tapping a gloved hand against her arm rest. Her eyes were downcast, watching the movement of the fabric in the darkness.

The thing Grace focused on most at that moment was looking like she was actually interested in the performance tonight. That was difficult, because her thoughts focused on how much time, how much effort, how much training it had taken to put on something ultimately frivolous in her mind. She’d be talking about something else in a moment, but a cover identity was only as good as the amount of effort put into maintaining the facade. Tonight she was Mrs. Kim, board member of a quiet foundation with broad mandate covering many social causes, but a particular interest in promoting free market politics, hence their record of donating to this particular university. A quick scan of the crowd confirmed who was sitting next to her, and a comparison with the old saved records provided further proof of identity. She spoke slowly “Every time I go to something like this I wonder who is actually here for the show. The more money someone spends to be here, the more they are here for who they can find in the audience rather than what they can see on the stage.”

Esther now studied the silhouette of Grace, watching as the blue lights from the stage slowly dimmed into violet gently touched the technocrat’s cheeks. The yellow and green colors sprouted around like electronic flowers, flashing a better glimpse of the woman, “You are most certainly not mistaken. Mr. Grigoriev is supposed to be one of the best in California.” There was a small pause, as a rise in music spoke over her, “He is a well-kept secret in the area, studied and taught in Russia, which makes him quite rare. Withal, the studio would like to make some changes as much as some of our more liberal, freethinking audience enjoy this new age of dance.”

Grace kept looking at the stage and said “There will always be traditionalists, always be those who prefer the way it was in older times. I wouldn’t call myself one of them, but I try to understand their perspective. Those views can be quite persistent, it’s amazing how long some have upheld traditions.” Then she checked that one of her settings on the field manipulator was active, the one that would dampen sound-waves between them and make those around here only silence and background noise from their conversation. She turned toward Esther and said “I know some have held their opinions and traditions from a time before the art of ballet even existed.”

“There are many organizations who have. It is a beautiful mystery as to how they keep such awe in their midsts. The Italians for a brief moment, were able to capture that glimmer, and show it to the world, and yet in not even a whisper, it is slowly being tossed off stage. The 16th century was a spectacle in its day, and one can easily see how many parts of it cannot transcend through the ages.” Esther dawned a polite blushed smile towards the innocent technocrat. "One may of course dream, but keeping one's head in the clouds is not always wise." Her eyes cast downward, again, "Would you care to discuss this a bit more backstage. There is a private dressing room I have the luxury of using."

Without saying a word, Grace nodded her head and gestured for Esther to lead the way. To which, the Kindred allowed a small pause, an ending to the measure of the dance, before standing up and directing the technocrat backstage, where a simple room was allowed for her use. It was private, and if anyone asked about it, there was an airy dismal response that warranted no further questioning. Some rooms were left locked for storage or other various, innocent reasons, and only upper management had access to them. Many organizations had similar secrets.

This particular room was dimly lit with a rose ornamented Tiffany lamp on a side table by the vanity counter. The lights around the vanity mirror were set in their lowest setting. Several old, worn books were stacked sideways on the counter along with other such things, like a set of vintage, mosaic trinket boxes. However, there was a nice couch and a coffee table adjacent to the counter. A blanket and throw pillows were kindly placed on the two seater. There were also other such necessities and wants that dressing rooms tended to have. One of such was an antique table with a pair of mismatched chairs.

After unlocking the door and letting Grace in, the door was shut and locked from the inside. Shortly afterwards, Esther went to turn the lamp on, as a courtesy to her guest. Even if the other woman was not in need of any further help with navigating through the scenery, the vampire preferred the yellow-green and pink tint to glow throughout the room. She made her way, she said, "We have the couch or the table. Whichever you find most comfortable. It's your choice. I have no preference."

When Grace scanned the room she did it with senses beyond normal vision. She saw the patterns of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum, the movement of the air currents, even felt how close the nearest biorhythms were. Everything about the place was plain, static, when compared to modern day spaces, it even lacked the radiating background hum of electronics she was so used to. The plainness marked two things, a lack of need for technological conveniences, and a guileless intention behind it. Slowly and calmly Grace chose a spot at the table. She said,

“Thank you. Now, I supposed we can discuss my business here tonight. My concerns deal purely with information, I’m not seeking anything else from this. I know some facts about your kind, but lack detail in important areas, especially regarding myths and psychological drives. As for myself, I come from an organization that values anonymity, but many of the elder statesmen among your community could probably make an educated guess and arrive at the correct conclusion. I hope these are areas you are willing to discuss.”

Esther followed and politely accompanied Grace at the table while she spoke. The Ventrue's petite frame sat upright in her formal wear and studied the mortal. The same quaint smile was resting on her lips as she listened, and after taking time to consider what the technocrat had said, she asked in a gentle manner, "Mrs. Kim, how young are you?" Her hands were resting in her lap, folded into each other, holding ivory beads between pale, mesh fingertips.

Grace answered without hesitation. “If it matters to you, I am forty three.” She stayed motionless, not even changing the small smile she had. Grace thought it was ironic how the conversation turned to age so quickly, but at the prompting of the vampire this time, rather than the mortal. She suppressed the urge to chuckle a little.

"You are so pretty. I thought you surely must have been younger," Esther replied in kind, brightening her insipid smile, "How long have you been working for the organization?"

Grace said “Thank you for the compliment, but I should mention that the interests I represent are the reason cosmetic surgery exists. Not one of our greatest accomplishments, but I count it as a small net positive for the world. It would not be appropriate for me to discuss how long I’ve been a part of this cause, but know that it is long enough that I have broad knowledge and responsibilities; I’m not a new initiate. I know I am being vague, but I hope this is enough to earn some level of trust.”

"Of course. You are very welcome," Esther said, "You are very brave to admit this." She paused as her usual self was known to do, giving a patient distance between the mortal and herself, while her fingers gently glided over the beads like clockwork, "But, I am afraid, due to precautions, I will need a little bit more information about your organization before proceeding with this meeting, Mrs. Kim. Do you have any children?"

The last question made Grace think a little. She had reached the rank within the union that allowed the privilege of having a family, but had always focused on work pursuits. It was something she thought about doing if there was more down time, particularly with the advances that genetic engineering brought. Raising another excellent operative would be a nice way to leave a positive legacy behind. “I do not. I will not name the organization I work for, both because it’s not part of protocol and because names are less meaningful than they appear. It has had many names of it’s eight centuries of existence, but one goal throughout. English lacks a proper word to describe it so I’ll use a greek term, eudaimonia. The other constant is our belief about how to pursue that end. We see it as something for all mankind, and we work to unite humanity and guide it along that path; the concerns and pursuits of inharmonious individuals are suppressed when they interfere with this. Our methods may be extreme, but you must understand that it is the destiny of the human race that is at stake.”

At hearing Grace's words, her smile faded, "We all do what we may for the sake of humanity," the Kindred allowed a small break in her counting as she considered the woman's plea for eudaimonia, as there was a comfort in hearing her native language being used strongly, "Do understand," she spoke softly, "As many, I am committed to a promise. It cannot be broken under any circumstances. It is very well a sacramental oath." The beads slipped through her fingers, again. Her smile returned with dark, cheery, hollow eyes, "What makes your organization different?"

Grace’s tone was dull, as though she was repeating something she had rehearsed many times before. “What makes us different is we’re succeeding, every conceivable metric tracking human misery is trending downwards, and that is thanks to us. It’s trivial to see the difference if you look at the world before our time and the world we have realized. But I’m not here tonight to recruit for my cause, I just want you to see the value in it, and understand what my underlying concerns are. If it’s not prevent by your vow other traditions, I would like to talk about your kind now. Specifically, I want to talk about your legends regarding the most ancient of them and the time they rise, what you call Gehenna. What comes before it, and what may remain after it.”

The beads continued being counted and graced through the soft, thin fabric of Esther’s gloves as she thought about the question, “I will start in the middle, if you will grant me pardon.” She slipped the beads around her wrist and slowly rose from her chair, and walked towards the counter, where the mosaic box trinkets were sitting on display. She picked up two of the boxes and a small framed picture of the Hodegetria. When she returned to the table, she began reverently setting a small place to light and burn incense in front of the silver plated icon, “I always thought, out of all the women, she is the most beautiful of them all.” She spoke in the same quiet voice and began taking her place at the table, once again, "She was very important to the Roman Empire, and many today believe that she is still just as important. In fact, many will do anything possible to make sure her importance along with the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are known with the same vibrancy."

"Of course, as history has proven, there have been many debates, disputes, and arguments on who the Trinity and the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, truly are," she spoke as her eyes looked downward, remembering her own Embrace. "It was Emperor Constantine who was leading the way for our kind back then, even if he was Baptized after our leaders..." The dialogue continued for a brief while as the Ventrue attempted to gently lift the mask from the false pretense. However, she failed to mention much of anything in regards to Gehenna outside of the mention in the Bible's Jeremiah. It seemed as if she was going in some circle.

They were curious creatures, according to everything Grace had read in the archives and her own encounters with them. Much more than any normal person, the undead were under the spell of their own obsessions and impulses. The nature of the maladies varied, but every one seemed to have deep areas where control failed, whether it was inhuman fury or merely living a life dominated by the same themes, never able to grow interests beyond them. She thought to herself perhaps it was a symptom of whatever happened the their quantum consciousness, losing a part of themselves in the change to their new pattern of life; that theory had no overt references in the literature, merely mentioning quantum consciousness without prior review was potential grounds for disciplinary action. Also similar were the early experiments with biological immortality, where the regeneration caused subjects brain cells keep regrowing in the exact same state, rendering them unable to form new memories or ideas. While she thought Grace kept track of time, and once she hit the pre-chosen point of diminishing returns, she stood up and said

“I offer my thanks for what you have shared today but I am afraid I do not have time to engage further. I was once a historian. After a few years I realized that I could be more useful shaping the future than creating the past. If you believe it would be beneficial to contact me in the future, I can arrange a line of communication to enable that.”

The push of the chair against the flooring interrupted Esther mid-sentence, and the small mad hope to Embrace the Technocrat wilted. The Kindred spoke in a somewhat disappointed but empty tone, "It was a pleasure meeting with you, Mrs. Kim. Thank you for your time, as well. I hope you at least learned something new today. Future contact would be an honor." For now, the Ventrue closed the lid on the incense burner and stood from her seat, as well. It was time to escort Grace from the theater, as there were no further business dealings.

“Call them.”

The tone was easy, but forceful, a command in all but tone. It didn’t have to be, the concept of refusal had been left behind long ago, years before Lubbock had pulled the damaged rat out of his hole in Seattle, a will broken by years of torment, only to find new suffering in freedom.

The labyrinthian streets of Los Angeles stretched out below them, a teeming hive of humanity lit by a billion motes of light, drenching the forested hills in darkness by contrast. Two figures inhabited the clearing, Lubbock stood, pacing around the area, while the other knelt. Surrounding the latter figure, runic symbols which hurt to look at, drawn in blood over the grass, stretched out. At seemingly random points, candles burned, faintly, in the night air. Human fat did not burn terribly well, but, it always paid to follow the recipe with these sorts of things.

“Call them.” The words were more insistent this time, betraying the impatience of a born killer, beneath the veneer of sophistication the toreador expressed. The kneeling figure made no noise. It had been some nights since Lubbock had removed their tongue, mostly in a fit of boredom. They’d lost their eyes long ago, plucked out for the crime of sharing the secrets of Clan Tremere, then cast into the bowls of the Seattle Madhouse. They were the true reason Lubbock had deigned to unseat the ruling parties of the Ivory Tower to the North. A city burned so that he might have one piece to his puzzle. The figure did not refuse, their lips moving to silently express the syllables of a spell, the drying blood stirring around them as the first spell was cast.

“Good.” It was a simple word, but it brought elation from the kneeling figure, a happy smile breaching the grimace of their ruined features. For the first time, Lubbock exuded approval, and to the being utterly caught in the power of his presence, it tasted finer than any taste of blood could have. The toreador approached the kneeling figure, slinking behind them, not breaking any of the symbols. He embraced the Tremere from behind, wrapping long, slender arms around them.

“Is your first wish still the same?” He asked her, the mute female kindred nodding slowly, but insistently, leaning back into the embrace. She rasped something that was almost a yes.

“Then I will burn them all for you. Rest well.” Lubbock spoke to her in a tone that was almost kind, before one finger pressed onto her chest. As easily as tearing paper, her ribcage gave in, Lubbock plucking her heart from her as simply as removing an apple from a crate. The Tremere gasped in final relief, before crumbling into ash. Lubbock was alone for only a few moments, before the pervasive dark of the night was interrupted by four stark motes of red. Stepping forth from these brief sparks, the Tremere of Los Angeles. Well, four of them.

There was a moment of confusion as they regarded the stooped figure of Lubbock, resting, as he appeared to be, at the centre of a large piece of Tremere spellwork. As he made to stand, he allowed some of his aura to bleed through into what would be visible to the trained eyes of more experience kindred. A tiny shred of his vast identity.
“You are not the traitor.” One finally spoke, the tallest. They were all clad in the red and black robes of their particular strain of Tremere, the surprisingly conservative chantry that Strauss lead on the Sunset Coast. Lubbock was disappointed he had not come himself, but then, perhaps he had some inkling of what had awaited his subordinates.

“Not the one you are looking for, no. You are a moment too late for that.” Lubbock rolled his shoulders as he spoke. In the low light, it finally became obvious that the finely dressed figure was covered in the ash of final death.

“You are interfering in Chantry business.” One of the others spoke, a female voice from within the obscuring hood and folds of her robes. Lubbock didn’t turn his attention as he spoke, his eyes dancing between all four Tremere, seemingly randomly.

“That is an unusual way of thanking me for doing your work for you.” He replied, seemingly adjusting his suit, heedless of the coat of ash preventing him from appearing as sophisticated as he had begun the night. The Tremere had begun to spread out, circling the spiraling patterns, their attention divided between watching the Toreador at the centre, and seeking to decipher the purposes of the spell. Naturally, they did not believe this could be spellwork of his design, instead of something their traitor had attempted, and been interrupted.

“Our arts are none of your concern, Toreador, her life was not yours to take.” The tall one spoke again, a long pale limb drawing forth from his robe, the taloned hand raising with a palm up. Already Lubbock could feel the draw of the Tremere’s blood magic. The air crackled with power and he inhaled steadily, through lungs that no longer needed to breathe. The moment the first syllables left their lips, he was in motion. The power of his own, stolen, blood thrummed and the world came to a halt. The air crackled with the force and speed of his form, the sleek, ash-covered Toreador moving beyond even the supernatural senses of his fellow Kindred. Before the first spell could be completed, one taloned hand had rent through the first kindred sorcerer, their precious vitae tumbling into the air, the power in their form sagging.

It was a dance of death, and few had practiced the steps for as long, with such enthusiasm, as Lubbock. He weaved through the crackling power of their air, the might of Thaumatergy sizzling the spaces he had occupied moments before. He was a being of power beyond these modern nights, but even he was weary of the touch of their magic, but they would never halt him. In the time it would take a mortal to even focus on the scene, the fight was over, the Tremere humbled, but not slain, kept on the brink of their unnatural lives.

“The Camarilla have taught you that you are the predators of the night, that human are sheep to be preyed upon, to be corralled and hunted.” Lubbock spoke as he returned to the centre of the runes, as the leaking blood of the Tremere flowed into the patterns already marked into the ground. His own fangs were slicked with their blood, granting him a temporary taste of the secrets they fought hard to keep. “That is a lie. You are the flock, the kine are grass. Bait to keep you in your little herds. Now comes the age of the true hunters.” His pace brought him to the centre, and he turned West, out towards the horizon, the great ocean that cast back the Light of Los Angeles and the Heavens above. As fluid as the water, his tongue switched from the bastardised modern tongue of the kine, to the old language. The intonations of Caine that his mother had taught him, before the Deluge had swept it all away.

“Arise, Ravnos, Arikel calls you, Rise, The Night Calls you once more.” As Lubbock spoke, he felt the pressure of his Sire’s mind within him even greater than before, felt the weight of eons, the voices of all the Kindred who he had consumed, or perhaps consumed him, rise to a crescendo in his mind. Then they were drowned in singular, unflinching, rage. The runes around him grew bright in the darkness, before Lubbock, and everything around him, was consumed in flame.



Henry’s eyes snapped from his view of the city, leaning as he was at the edge of the Sunset’s pool-balcony, his mind on the young kindred whom he had agreed to shelter, as a bright light scorched through the night behind him. He had missed the initial flash, but he knew with one heart beat that it had not been natural. He who had taught the first men the might of magic would know it anywhere, even bastardised by the Kindred and their ways.

The light that he saw, however, was far more mundane. The orange light of a new dawn poured down the Hollywood hills. A moment later and the surge of heated air and ash struck him, the wave passing over him. The clothing on his form singed, and only his supernatural physiology kept his skin from doing the same, kept the rush of air from blasting him from the ledge. Some of his guests weren’t so lucky, sent sprawling down the hillside below, or falling in pain as their skin blistered. This was on the prelude, the heatwave of a detonation, as he watched the hills of Hollywood come alive in flame, he knew the forest fire was not far behind, rushing down towards the city proper.

His phone was already ringing, and he was on the way to answer when enough sensation rocked him. Not a physical one, a pang in his soul, a wrenching dread as one of the many scattered pieces of his essence called out to him.

It was the beginning of the end.

“This one likes to scream!””

“Give her something to scream about, then!”

“Feed them to the flames.”

“Feed them to the flames.”

“Feed them to what do I owe the pleasure, my friends?”

Morgan kicked herself internally, letting out a silent groan.

She had been wandering again.

Where am I..?

“Thank you for meeting with us at such short notice, Abbie,” Rafael was saying, to a woman with soft, almond-coloured skin, “we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”

“Of course, of course,” Abbigale Jadeja gave the pair a slight, almost imperceptible nod, “the unbound never visit me, if it isn’t terribly important.”

Morgan found herself sitting in what seemed to be a dimly-lit warehouse.

Flickering orange lights hung from the ceiling, and rows upon rows of plain crates were stacked up against the walls.

Morgan and Rafael were facing the shapley figure of Abbigale Jadeja, who wore a sleek leather jacket over a flowing, ruffled top, and had her dark hair bound into a sleek beehive.

Suddenly, Morgan remembered why they were there.

“I’m looking for my old mate,” she spoke up, “well...I don’t suppose she's much of a mate, any more.”

“The dead can seldom afford to have friends.” Jadeja replied, keeping her voice neutral.

Out of nowhere, Morgan heard shrill, callow voices swelling in her ears, overwhelming her senses, and shrieking through every fibre of her being.

“Three blind mice! Three blind mice! See how they run! See how they run!”

She could hear laughing...no, screaming?

She could smell burning.

“They all ran after the farmer’s wife! Who cut off their tails with a carving knife!”

An enormous crow, with fiery red feathers, which hissed and crackled, like strands of fire, slipped out of nothingness, and perched on Jadeja’s head.

The bird’s pointy head twitched and jerked, pecking away at the woman’s forehead.

Abigail's lack of reaction to having her skin nibbled on made Morgan think that the bird probably wasn’t real.

The Malkavian gritted her teeth, and desperately forced herself back into reality.

Flames were snarling and spitting, but she pushed through.

“She's been getting into trouble,” Morgan explained, fighting to keep her mind on track, “and she's been...hurting people. I think you can help.”

“Terrible Calantha Teohari,” the crow cackled, in a hoarse, scratchy voice, “with an icy black heart, and eyes so sparkly.”

“What makes you think I can help, little seer?” Jadeja asked, her tone masking a derisive sneer.

“You have eyes and ears where the rat-eaters don’t,” Morgan said, addressing something Jadeja was obviously very much aware of, but deliberately deciding to be coy about, “if the Hidden Ones have any idea where Calantha is, they aren’t talking. We were hoping that you and your family might be able to offer us a hand, crimson crow.”

“Crimson crow!” The bird squawked, “Crimson crow!”

A roguish grin spread across Abbigale Jadeja’s sly face.

“I am open to discussing business,” she told the pair, “but first, will you join me in a little indulgence?”

Jadeja sharply clapped her hands together.

Two figures emerged from the shadows.

One was a strongly-built young man, with his hands bound behind his back, and a gag wrapped around his mouth. There was a look of abject terror plastered across his dismayed features.

He was being prodded along by a shorter, dark-skinned figure, wearing a red silk scarf, and tinted sunglasses.

“I don’t like to talk trade on an empty stomach,” Jadeja cooed, “you understand, yes?”

The scarf-wearing man gave his captive a sharp kick, forcing him down onto the cold stone ground, and presenting him before the trio.

“Thank you, Sai.” Abbigale said.

As wordlessly as he had appeared, the man in the dark glasses retreated back into the darkness.

Jadeja clasped her victim by the throat, digging her long nails into his flesh. Thread-like trails of dark blood leaked out of fresh gashes in his skin, whilst the man let out a muffled yelp.

The crimson crow fizzled out into nothingness, fading with one final squawk.

“Drinking cold blood from a cup isn’t the same,” the Ravnos explained to her visitors, “we are hunters. We don’t just feed on blood, we feed on life.”

Rafael flinched, uncomfortably.

“Your snack doesn’t look very happy,” he murmured, “I think he’ll have quite a bit to say about this.”

“Not for much longer.” Jadeja replied.

The captive wailed in fear, his voice muted by the gag.

“This isn’t necessary,” Morgan growled, “you don’t need to do this to feed.”

“I know,” Jadeja chuckled, “it's much more fun this way, though.”

Morgan rose to her feet, her hands balling into fists.

“Don’t.” She snapped.

“This is my elysium, little lunatic,” Jadeja tutted, “watch where you tread.”

“Come on now, Morgan,” Rafael stood up, placing one hand on Morgan’s wrist, “we’re guests here.”

“This isn’t what we stand for,” Morgan declared, “this is the kind of shit the Camarilla and the Sabbat pull. We’re supposed to be kinder than them, Rafael. We’re meant to be better.”

Jadeja forced the captive man’s head down, resting it on her knee.

“Even the most sane minds shatter after a few hours in my nasty little realm of dread and woe,” she said, “I wonder what would happen to your brain, psycho?”

“Hold on now!” Rafael called out, “this isn’t what we came here to do!”

“It seems the night had other plans.” Jadeja said, releasing her hold on the captive, and slowly rising to her feet.

Three predators stood opposite each other.

The warehouse fell silent.

Tension crackled in the air, like the raging boom of lightning.

Jadeja flexed one hand, her fingernails unsheathing, like the claws of a cat.

“You’ve spat on my hospitality, Anarchs,” she sneered, and now you-”

A ghastly roar shook Los Angeles.

The air itself seemed to shudder and tremble.

Morgan felt as though someone were rattling her skull.

“FUCK!” Jadeja cried out, keeling over in pain.

She fell to the ground, landing in a heap on the floor, next to her captured prey.

“What the hell was that..?” Rafael wondered aloud.

“Nothing good…” Morgan murmured.

Her body was quaking and trembling. Burning unease fizzled through her bones, seething and sputtering.

“Fuck…” Jadeja wheezed again, grasping weakley at thin air.

“Looks like she got hit worse than we did.” Rafael observed.

Jadeja was sprawled out on the ground, convulsing in agony. Her form twisted and twitched with pain.

“We’ll help you,” Morgan said, uneasily, “but you let the kine go.”

On a night like this the normal hum of electronic communications in Los Angeles was cluttered with violent and chaotic bursts of terror. It was easy to witness this from the basement of the switching station, 27 stories of wiring and interconnections, a great river of data just waiting for someone to drink from it. In Grace’s case the noise interrupted the normal lessons she was trying to teach Julie, an overwhelming force she tuned out while sampling the datastream. All of the circuits were at their maximum, but alternate channels let Grace get the calls she needed to make through. News of the fire was spreading fast, and with her subordinate in tow Grace headed out of the basement and to the street outside.

They walked to the skyscraper at the end of the block, a mass of steel, glass and the basic geometric forms of the international style. Grace’s card got them past security and through the white marble lobby, completely deserted except for security guards that time of night. Once they made it to bank of elevators at the back, Grace began to talk.
“It’s almost calming to have something in the present to deal with, a break from unlimited worries of the future.”

Julie answered “Very true. My father used to wake us up in the middle of the night and time how long it took us to get to the fallout shelter. He kept rankings of me and all of my siblings, telling us which of us would make and which of us wouldn’t when the bombs fell. I spent so much time worrying about that it felt weird when the government was at our door, because it was one of the only times that something else was on my mind.”

Julie bit her lip, and then said “If I’m slowing you down, I can do something else. Just tell me how I can help, I know it’s a weird night and I don’t want to be burden”

Grace said “It’s fine, this is an opportunity for some direct experience. If it wasn’t for the fire I’d probably be over at JPL or Vandenberg doing readiness checks right now because that’s where I always end up when something far away makes the high command nervous.”
After the elevator there were stairs to climb, up to the rooftop, above the massive glowing Deloitte sign.

Julie asked “Where are we going?”

“The Helipad.” Grace said.

“There’s a helipad on this building?”

“Forty years ago one of us snuck a line in the fire code that required helipads on top of all the skyscrapers in the city. That’s proven to be useful to us, it may make the buildings look boxier but that is the least of our concerns. So much of this city’s history has been shaped by the hands of someone who fancies themselves an aesthete I’m surprised we were able to slip it in the first place.”

One flight of metal stairs brought them to the helipad where their vehicle was waiting for them It was painted pitch black, and looked close but not identical to civilian models, having dozen of modifications to harden it against electronic warfare, give it a suite of stealth technologies and other technocracy additions. Near silent and invisible to conventional radar, the usual methods of helicopter detection would write it off as no more than an urban myth while it flew through the air. Despite its aptitude for evading normal technology, the files were had a laundry list of incidents where their enemies had managed to use exotic means to spot them, ranging from dowsing rods to divine revelations, conjured spirits and jury rigged tv antennas, a frustrating reminder of the variety of reality deviant threats they faced.

The pilot’s seat was empty until Grace got in. She fished around for a thin cable and plugged it into a socket in the back of her head, giving her full access to the helicopter’s systems. Julie talked as she found her place in the co-pilot chair “I didn’t know we still used these. I thought we went all drone.”

Grace said “We keep a few of these around just in case. Truth be told this could be done with them, but I believe some firsthand experience would help you.” The aircraft rose off the ground with so little sound and a smoothness that made it look like it was being pull into the air by invisible strings. They gained altitude and kept a low flight pattern, just above the rooftops of the skyscrapers as they headed towards the fire in the hills.

The orange glow of the fire filled the sky. Pillars of smoke rose in the Hollywood Hills, a beacon for where they were going. The helicopter glided above the streets, seeing the cars and streetlights like they little shining specks in a tight grid pattern. Grace flew it without lights, relying on the GPS, IR, inertial guidance, and other means to find her way. With all of the data feeding in through the port in the back of her head, she didn’t even need to open her eyes to guide it.

In just a few moments they were flying towards the cloud of smoke. Julie was quiet, absorbing it all and hearing the noise of dozens of fire engines below. Grace said

“You’ll have to address this tomorrow, you know. It’s topical.”

Julie said “Yeah. What do I say? I can’t talk about fire science the whole time.”

“Do what you always do, explain, but do it in a way that will make them feel safe, let them know we have a system and it’s in control.”

“And then what?”

“Then you offer our solution. You give them something new for them to support. A new government office, a new forest management practice or investment in the electrical grid; I’ll have a menu of policies for you in the morning. This is how we get them on our side. Fear drives people, because it’s something they can’t ignore, so offer them a choice between our safe options and only darkness outside it.”
They were flying low to get images of the site of the fire and the smoke was all around. Grace wasn’t bothered thanks to her own enhancements, but when Julie started to cough from it, she turned on the filters to spare her. After she could be breathe clearly, Julie said

“Are we going to try and put it out?”

Grace said “That’s what the fire department is for.”

“But we can help”

“We help by making institutions like fire departments, like intelligence agencies, corporations. If we didn’t trust them then we wouldn’t have invested in them.”

“It’s hard to ignore people being burnt alive down there.”

“It’s what we must do. It’s a tragedy, but not a new one. How many billions died in misery before them, and how many more would’ve if not for our work? At the end of the day we’ll count up the damage, but it will be so that we can move forward. Once this fire is out there’ll be federal redevelopment projects, new policies to push on the politicians, so much work to be done. You have to see the big picture.”

“What you’re saying is that we can’t save everyone”

“Not yet. But some day, we’ll be able to. We have to believe in the plan, believe in the goal, because that is what makes this all worthwhile.”

The helicopter continued on its route, circling in the dark of the night and the light of the flames below, passing over the site of the Sunset Lounge.

Eva wore a gray short sleeved button up, slim fitted gray slacks, and black matte heels with a gray bottom. There was a smart watch on her left wrist provided by the Digital boys and girls. Her hair was straight, pulled back and pinned by a bright red clip. She stood flat against the sand colored back wall of the Los Angeles Emergency Operations Center in light that was dimmed more than it's usual fluorescent glare. She was little more than a gray ghost on a field of sand as far as the almost fifty people in the room were aware. Jeff Berger had been talking to the CEO of Los Angeles County and one of the County Supervisors among a Board of five when he mentioned it was strange there was such an outbreak when the air in the county wasn't all that dry, more humid from an El Nina airflow.

It wasn't natural.

Screens large and larger still covered most the walls. Between Eva and the biggest of the screens was a giant bullpen of neatly rowed desks filled with computers and screens upon screens. The action was fevered but not out of control. This was not a frenetic moment, this was a hive of ants going into a controlled frenzy with a focused outcome in mind. They weren't going to let the fire hit Los Angeles, if they could help it. They called John Ketterman, owner of the largest private fire brigade on the West Coast. The moment county and city officials hung up with him, the phone rang again to tell him every private fire brigade in the state was moving towards LA County.

Rachel reappeared next to her, leaning in with a hint of Tom Ford perfume and excitement, "The Governor hasn't issued any orders to the National Guard in the area but the fire departments are none-the-less moving. This will be the most expensive fire prevention action in history based on the bonus you're providing the private fire companies alone. I wish I knew why we were spending that kind of money."

Eva couldn't help the little smile. "Because something needs to happen in this city."

"What needs to happen?"

The smile only crept larger. "I don't know." The following shrug dismissed the amusement of the smile, "Lubbock. Let Andre know." There were a number contingencies that would be put into effect.

"You're going to have to move up the timeline regarding the Inquisition." Rachel stole a long look at Eva's face as she said it, looking for the reaction that never came. At least, it never showed. Eva's internal grimace may have remained internal but odds were the old coterie mate felt it all the same.

No use in hiding the sigh, "Yeah. I'll have to warn Grace."

"Have to?" Rachel's brows slanted in concern. "I know they haven't been hostile, and maybe you showed them some things, but...it seems unnecessary. It seems like a risk."

Eva's eyes sank in every screen and display in the Emergency Operations Center. "There's nothing left to us but risk now, Rach." She might have reached out to comfort the girl had the earpiece not blinked with cold blue light to indicate a new call. There was a certain amount of fun, and if she was behing honest, pride, as she stood back and watched Rachel appear behind the Fire Coordinators along the third row of desks and monitors in the bullpen of the command center. It was just a few whispers into the ear of a human, and then the Fire Coordinators spread among the room with new information and new plans. With so many private assets bring brought to bear so quickly the actual State and Federal fire fighters could focus on the main fire line and not the pockets of homes inside the hills.

It was no sure thing, but the odds were at least closer to their favor now. Rachel caught up with her in the parking lot, as she sweet talked a guard about why she didn't have a security pass on her windshield and why that was okay. Very quickly they started talking about the vintage midnight black Corvette with the back fin spoiler instead of the missing security pass stickered to it's windshield like everyone else's. Rachel smiled and wished the guard a goodnight as the two climbed into the car and the car started in silence. They talked a little about some weird signals from various Sabbat in the area, Eva tried to explain what exactly Yanci was dealing with in Palm Springs on a movie set. By the time they reached Rachel's car, the girl was no closer to understanding why the actors and the editor didn't just do what the director was going for, although she had to agree trashing a hotel room in a coked up rage was probably a bad impression on your crew.

Eva always knew where she was headed, it was the same place she went on the first Thursday of every other month and right now Lakewood sounded like the place to live if you weren't fond of the threat of fire. In a small one bedroom apartment a dozen or so blocks from the Port of Los Angeles. The apartment complex wasn't very large; the small size and dependency on cement and facade as part of the design a large hint as to the decade of when it was initially constructed. She had owned it for a few years, apparently it was useful of money laundering purposes. Dusty had lived there for a little over threes years.

There were a few Dusty's. Not Dusty, exactly, but kine with which Eva had a lasting friendship. Dusty was from Nacogdoches, Texas, and had grown up helping his father and uncle harvest and replant pine trees. A tour in the Navy, some civilian cargo sailing, and now Dusty helped to manage the unload of cargo from ships into the Port of Los Angeles. In terms of boots on the working floor, Dusty was a bit of a boss. He made around sixty thousand a year, give or take, and worked longer hours than any office 9 to 5 gig. The sun had been hotter than expected today, so she'd heard, and Dusty looked it. In an old black teeshirt that was nearing dark grey around the underarms with a few little holes towards the bottom of the shirt where it had snagged on this crane or that forklift or that shipping crate during the movement of the work day.

He was tall, a goofy kind of handsome, and spoke with an East Texas accent as thick as the sap of Texas pine. He knew a rough Mexican Spanish, though he'd learned it from a girlfriend back home in Texas. Or was it the first wife? Eva had lost count. Usually they talked about Los Angeles, and California beyond, culture and society. It blew his mind, and Eva admitted a real joy in seeing the world through Dusty's eyes. She had never fed on him, he wasn't her type. She had never really thought about it. Next Wednesday she was supposed to see Sarah, the waitress turned restaurant assistant manager and occasional actress, if acting classes and mostly open auditions on the weekends counted as occasional actress.

Eva thought it did. Eva thought it was the heartbeat of acting as an artform. Before the Kid forced everything to change forever Eva would sit in on auditions, and sometimes audition herself. It was a more organic, naturally flowing thing then the 60s and 70s when she and a handful of young actors and actresses got deep into method acting. Those were desert nights, and hallucinations that Eva was certain she'd never match. Now it seems innocent, looking back, given the visions Eva had these days. And they had nothing to do with acting or art anymore.

Eva always brought her own beer. Yancy knew a kindred and ghoul brewing partnership in the Valley that had an especially high degree of knowledge in what worked and what didn't work for Kindred. The glass was dark brown, the bottles unremarkable. Dusty had tried one once, said it gave him a weird headache.

Most nights they talked, but tonight was different. Tonight instead of his back porch they sat on small patch of concrete outside his front door in folding yard chairs. He nursed a bottled beer and alternated between drags on his cigarette and drags of pot on his one-hitter. She had asked him as he finished his cheeseburger when she walked in if he was okay if she handled some business out front. Dusty didn't know what she did. He told her, once, he figured she was some kind of high powered Hollywood exec. When she told him the truth of it all, he didn't say anything until she was completely done talking. Then, after a long moment, he had smiled with bloodshot eyes and politely thanked her for never eating him.

Tonight there were no details, only vague warnings. That was unlike Eva. As unlike Eva as her asking to conduct business outside his apartment. "Just take the vacation. Yellowstone sounds nice. It's away from most major population centers." There were other things in Yellowstone, but Eva hoped the best for the werewolves and the mages and the ghosts and every other bump in the night. He was shaking his head, deep in thought, when the two black Cadillac SUVs came slowly into the parking lot and stopping just feet away from there. Andre slipped out of the first SUV's front passenger side door, his jeans dark, his LeBron's loud, broad shoulders covered in a dark Nike tee with windbreaker on over it. His head motioned to the driver side back door as he came around the SUV, and opened the door he had motioned to.

"Hello Tara."

She was bloody, bruised. Restrained. Eva was soft spoken, sweetly toned and smiling. Whether it was genuine or genuine condescension was anyone's best guess. Andre's voice rumbled quietly as he spoke to Tara and Eva in his low pitch. Tara's voice was too quiet to escape beyond Andre and Eva to Dusty, but Dusty got a decent look at just who the two Kindred were speaking to. The bruises, the bindings.

"I should kill you," Eva's delivery was so plain and matter-of-fact, there was no subtlety, there was no mystery, there was no playful anything. Just black and white, I should kill you. "To not kill you would risk sending the wrong message to others who might be having similar grand ideas such as your ideas of your role in San Diego." Tara had built San Diego into what it was, in the every-day running of a thing. Yancy had spent decades of time in San Diego in the last century, but it wasn't the same as the person who was there and at ground level.

"I'd say you're lucky, because I'm just going to let you go, but I have a feeling I'm not doing you any favors by just cutting you loose." Not after what Andre had done to her places of power and allies. The very Kindred she crossed the Southwest of what was then not even all the United States, making it to San Diego, surviving, leading, eventually working with Yanci and Eva and the Kid. "Drop her downtown."

Andre closed the door quickly, but his head followed Eva as she walked away. Then his eyes fell on Dusty, and suddenly Dusty stopped taking a drag off his cigarette and stopped loading his one hitter with another hit of weed. That was what Eva saw. What she felt within was even more intense, but even if there was no supernatural sense Dusty's sudden freeze alone would have told Eva what she needed to know.

Black matte heeled feet turned on a dime, bringing her eyes directly in line with his. "It's about to get bad. Rachel called you about Lubbock?"

He was irritated. "We didn't do what we did down in San Diego for nothing."

"Dre, you know you didn't. Things are changing. We're out of time. Focus on the Indian Subcontinent."

"I'll focus on Lubbock."

Eva didn't argue, instead just blinking long lashes as he walked back around the running SUV and got in, both black Cadillacs disappearing into the night. She stared as they passed old Toyotas and Fords with mismatched paint near the exit 'gate' (that was always open) of the apartment complex. It wasn't until she heard Dusty's voice that she processed much of anything. And even then, she had lost anything besides the simple sound of his voice. "What?"

"I said, should I focus on India too?"

Eva smiled. "Take the damn vacation."

“Adelaide, darling!” Calantha let out a titter of joy, sliding down next to the dainty little creature, on her wooden bench, “how are you, my love? It's been much too long.”

“All the better now that you’re here, sweetness!” the petite girl chirped, “I’m awfully fond of this new look of yours!”

Calantha giggled with warm joy.

On this particular night, she had a strong jaw, big eyes, and pale, snow white skin.

She was also garbed in leather crafted from flayed flesh and bone.

Adelaide, by contrast, had spent the last handful of centuries frozen in the body of an eight year old girl. She had rather promptly diablerized her sire, as compensation for the inconvenience.

“Have you been busy, darling?” Calantha asked Adelaide.

“A bit of this, a bit of that,” Adelaide waved one hand dismissively, “nothing too exciting. Mass murder loses so much of its charm after your third century.”

The cavern in which the two women sat was heaving with a veritable horde of ghastly, hungry cainites. The Camarilla and the Anarchs considered themselves to be monsters, but the Sword of Cain were a roaring inferno to their flickering match stick.

Clan Lasombra had come to America with the conquistadors, centuries ago, and the California Gold Rush only saw their power and influence grow further and further. Grace Cathedral, was a relic of such times, built in 1849, with the devious schemes of the Sabbat very much kept in mind.

Hidden from the mundane eyes of the kine, a series of dark, winding passageways, and subterranean chambers, loomed beneath Grace Cathedral, to be employed in times such as these.

Calantha and Adelaide were sat in a sort of battered old pew, surrounded by twisted, terrible figures.

On a bench, little more than a stone’s throw from where the pair were seated, Calantha spotted Leila Monroe, a blonde-haired Priscus, who had been hell bent on claiming LA for the Sabbat for as long as anyone could remember, trading words with a gaunt-faced Andy Warhol, who was hiding his haggard features behind thick, dark shades.

“It's a shame about your lot and cameras,” Warhol was saying to Monroe, “I’d have loved to shoot you in the studio, sometime.”

Across from the odd couple, Calantha spotted Isabella Cocolo, a tall, spindly Malkavian woman, with bronze skin, and long black haired, tied into knotted braids. A pair of twisted scars were carved deeply into her cheeks, forming a permanent warped grin.

Isabella was chatting with a grim looking man with an enormous white beard, whose overly-muscular form was squeezed into a much-too-tight leather jacket.

“Quite the gathering, isn’t it?” Adelaide murmured to Calantha.

She nodded in agreement.

Suddenly, out of the darkness, a towering character appeared, and stepped into the centre of the underground chamber. His misshapen body was shrouded beneath a long black cloak.

The monster raised one clawed hand, and the murmuring of conversation slowly petered out.

“It's him…” Calantha muttered, more than a little startled.

El Conde was exquisitely grotesque to behold. Even amongst the ranks of the Sabbat, nobody was quite sure if el Conde was a particularly ugly Nosferatu, or some other, alien breed of monster, all together.

From beneath his dark hood, a pair of enormous, milky white, orb-like eyes glistened. His distended mouth was stuffed full of jagged, razor-sharp teeth, and the flesh around his lower jaw had rotted away, to reveal bleached white bone. Ribbons of bloody, peeling skin hung off of el Conde's bloated face, and his necrotic likeness was overflowing with sickly yellow pustules, which oozed rank, stinking discharge.

"Exalted siblings," el Conde called out, his voice a guttural wheeze, as he addressed the room, "the matter which brings us here, on this most grim of nights, is indeed a dire one!"

El Conde clasped his hands together. His long, bony fingers grew into jet black talons, as lightless as smooth obsidian.

"Ancient, terrible powers stirr in the darkness. Our oldest enemy, dismissed as fiction by the ivory tower, has reared its foul head."

The room was silent, hanging on the raspy words of the pestilent speaker.

"You have all felt, as I have, hideous energies swelling, and thrumming, inside our very minds. Make no mistake; this is the beginning of the end. The final nights are upon us, my siblings, and these dreaded signals are harbingers of Gehenna itself."

The misshapen figure paused, allowing his enthralled audience to consider his words.

"But we shall not roll over and die, like some sickly pup, as the Camarilla, and those which baseless claim the mantle of "Anarch" will," el Conde declared, "we are more than the hapless feast of the antediluvians!"

El Conde spread his arms wide, his morose voice swelling into a roaring bellow.

"WE SHALL TAKE THE FIGHT TO THE BLOOD TYRANTS!" el Conde boomed, "AND WE WILL BLEED THEM DRY!"

You turn me on
You lift me up
Like the sweetest cup I'd share with you
You lift me up
Don't you ever stop, I'm here with you
Now it's all or nothing
'Cause you say you'll follow through
You follow me, and i, i, I follow you

Slowly Nicole’s body slipped under the warm water. Deeper. The coolness of her pale skin covered by the contrasting temperature of the liquid until the back of her head touched the bottom of the tub. Eyes closed. Mind slowing. The world outside was, for the moment, non-existent. This had gone on for more than a half hour. And why not? Vampires did not need to breathe. It was sometimes more of an act of courtesy to their human counterparts, but otherwise unnecessary to Kindred. The woman simply remained submerged, allowing the water to essentially wash away the dirt from her body, but also hoping to cleanse the disjointed memories of the last few weeks. She found herself in deep thought, something that didn’t happen much in her busy mortal years, with very little downtime to contemplate the finer things. But, now it felt as though time was all there was for a creature who allegedly lived forever.

Simple Minds’ “Alive and Kicking” continued to permeate from the radio in the bedroom, as the soothing, melodic vocals of James Kerr melted into the chorus:

What you gonna do when things go wrong?
What you gonna do when it all cracks up?
What you gonna do when the love burns down?
What you gonna do when the flames go up?
Who is gonna come and turn the tide?
What's it gonna take to make a dream survive?
Who's got the touch to calm the storm inside?
Who's gonna save you?

It was the same series of questions she asked herself, in a roundabout way. As a human police officer for the Los Angeles PD, she had an identity. She had a purpose. She was the shield, the adjudicator at times, the enforcer of laws that perhaps she didn’t always agree with whole-heartedly, but kept close to her heart nevertheless. However it had always felt like things were unbalanced in the world. Laws were broken on a daily -some worse than others- and yet what laws were there to keep these supernatural creatures in check? Sure, the Kindred for one had their own laws and Traditions, but was it enough to keep a shadowy society of vampires from doing whatever the hell they wanted? Not a chance. But, Nicole hoped that she would not succumb to the darkness beyond what she could handle. Eva shed enough of a light on the underground world and its denizens that the Gangrel wondered if she there would be any hope of a future for her. Was there a fit somewhere in the puzzle?

The question of her Sire continued to ring true in her mind though. The bearded and tattooed biker who apparently had watched for her for quite some time before deciding to embrace. And who were these others that had taken him away? Eva mentioned a sect known as “Sabbat” who were most likely the culprits, and perhaps Nicole’s sire was somehow caught up with them. It was a bad enough blow to the Camarilla that the Gangrel defected from their centuries-old Sect, but to have joined up with the polar opposite would have been quite the middle finger. Although, from what the neonate derived over the last few weeks since being reborn, her clan was not as stupid and reckless as they were perceived by others to be. They simply longed to be free.

A sentiment Nicole could understand.

The sudden vibrations felt through the porcelain enameled steel tub rocked the woman out of her reverie as her body lurched forward with such ferocity that water flew everywhere in the bathroom, spilling over onto the floor. Nicole instinctively reached for a firearm that was not there, but rather a memory of keeping her Beretta Model 92 on a small table next to her tub in her apartment. However, she quickly realized no table or gun existed, which made her smirk, as she sat for a moment curious about the tremor. Earthquakes weren’t unusual in that part of California, however, it certainly felt different and more abrupt. She stood up, throwing a towel onto the wet floor before stepping across and wrapping herself in a fresh white towel. At that moment, supernatural hearing picked up sounds of distressed voices from the hallway outside of her room. Several of them, as though whatever had happened was most unusual.

“The fuck…?” She mumbled, first glancing outside her window, which overlooked a good portion of the city, but she saw nothing from that vantage point. Nicole then opened the door and peeked out into the hallway, watching as a few of the Sunset’s guests headed toward the elevator, some carrying luggage.

“What’s going on?” The Gangrel asked an elderly couple as they passed.

“You don’t want to be here, miss.” The man hissed, his yellowed fangs faintly showing as anger and fear washed over him. “It...isn’t safe anymore.” His companion hurried them both a long down the hall and around a corner, and within moments the corridor was empty.

“Not safe?...” She closed the door and leaned against it, unsure of her next move other than to get dressed and hope Henry had an answer for her. She rang the concierge’s desk, which didn’t pickup at first, but apparently forwarded to another number who she supposed would be Henry.

Henry was cast from one inferno to the other. The wave of rage burning brighter than any natural flame receded from his mind. It was still out there, but he forced himself from it. A problem for another time. No point worrying about the world and losing track of what was right before you. He ripped his eyes from the Sea once more, the almost endless Sunset ocean, to face the onrushing storm. The Lounge’s position in the upper reaches of the Hollywood hills earned it an amazing view, and a position as something of an escape from the bustle of the city for those who would miss it after only a few hours away. It also meant that a fire of this intensity, already so close, had a more than small chance of sweeping over the grounds before the great churning machine of private and public fire services would be able to act effectively. The initial heatwave that had followed the explosion was long gone, but the latent air itself was starting to rise with a heat that would be uncomfortable for a human, borderline horrifying for a kindred.

Neither concerns plagued Henry as he moved towards the Lounge, pausing only to assist an individual, burned, but not badly, from the heat blast out of the water, instructing them on a likely route to safety, before finishing his journey to the Lounge proper, stepping through a shattered glass door.

He paused as he realised no alarm was going off. People were panicking, moving about quickly, but no one seemed to have thought to put much effort into warning anyone else.

“Bloody LA.” He murmured, before striking a fire alarm as he vaulted over the bar, landing in time to do this, then lift his phone to his ear as the tone blared at him. The number was tied to a room, one he quickly identified as that given over to Eva’s latest project.

“Nicole, this is Henry. There’s a fire, it’s bad. I need you to find something thick and heavy, enough to keep light out. Don’t matter about wrecking my furniture, I’ll put it on Eva’s tab.” Despite himself, he added the joke, diving into the staff area behind the bar, motioning for those of his more serious staff who were still in place to get a move on. No last stands here. “Once you’ve found that, bring what you can carry and meet me on the roof.” He didn’t wait for the response, not because he wouldn’t have, but as he spoke, a tremendous wooden creak resounded through the air, followed by a series of crashes. Further screams went up from those still on the property. Henry didn’t wait to see what was occurring, pocketing his phone, no longer caring if it rang further, before he continued to descend into the staff area.

The door to his office was locked with a biometric device artfully hidden as a simple keypad, something of a project ‘on loan’ from the Technocracy. It wasn’t too precise a technology, but for the difference between Henry and any other being that might seek entry, you didn’t exactly need precision. His hand hit the handle and the mechanism released, swinging wide for him. The office was largely bare, a duffle bag resting on a desk, readied for just an occasion such as this. The large bag contained several firearms and ammunition, but more importantly, a series of physical journals and burner phones he would really rather keep a hold of. Swinging the straps over one shoulder, he turned to regard the wall.

The only thing that might be considered a decoration in the otherwise barren space glared back at him. A blade, simple in design, but not material, was mounted to the wall, the silvered blade bound by a golden hilt. With a sigh, he removed it, sliding it into a harness found beneath the desk, before casting it over the other shoulder. Finally, he set back out into the Lounge.

The heat was more intense now, the crackle of flame starting to fall easily within human hearing, the crashing becoming more common as the fires on the hilltops dislodged trees and earth to cascade down into the street as an almost molten landslide. Beside him, one of the elevators dinged. He turned to face it with a scowl.

“Take. The. Fucking. Stairs.” He found time to berate the socialites that tumbled out in a panic, momentarily halted by the stern discipline that met them, perhaps the first time in their shallow lives anyone had actually expected them to stick to a rule, but before this could blow their minds too much, Henry was moving, taking the stairs upwards at a jog. He really hoped Nicole would have made it up there first, despite the lack of harm it might truly do him, he didn’t relish the thought of hunting through a burning building looking for an enraged kindred, his eyes flicking to the windows to check on the progress of the fire down the hillside towards the Lounge.

The barrage of words on the other end of the phone from Henry certainly didn’t instill a calm within the Gangrel. If anything, her already heightened awareness only increased as sounds and smells became even more pronounced. Even with the mention of a “fire”, the scent of a woodland brushfire suddenly caught her attention, and even a deep-seated anxiety could be felt forming in the pit of her otherwise empty stomach. Was this what Eva had warned her about all those weeks ago when going through the finer points of living as a creature who had no business walking amongst humans? Nicole always imagined something so different from myths about supernatural creatures, being the all-powerful monsters that they were. Lions amongst sheep, as it were. But on a deeper level, she also wondered if they were at more of a risk of dying away from the endless wars against kindred.

“But what abo-” She had no time to respond as the man said his peace in a very short amount of time, and the call was done, leaving Nicole fairly frustrated but with no other choice than to do as instructed. According to Eva, Henry Locke was to be trusted, even with her very life.

Pocketing the cell phone, the woman’s eyes darted around the hotel room for something that she could use. It took but a moment for Nicole to realize what Henry was alluding to however, and quickly yanked the thick quilted comforter from the bed, unsure if it was really what was needed. However, if it was a matter of keeping any possible sunlight from hitting her skin, then that would do for now. Without wasting another moment, she quickly dressed in the dark clothes she arrived in, hoping to get something different once shit starts to settle. There were only so many days that she could deal with skinny jeans, leather boots, and a motorcycle jacket, which was probably less her usual wardrobe anyway. Perhaps cargo pants, comfy sneakers, and even tank tops that smelled less like diesel fuel.

Either way, she had very little else to bring with her, and quickly ran out the door and down the hallway, passing by others who decided it best to cram into the elevators during an emergency situation. But with a half folded up queen-size comforter with an ornate repeating floral pattern printed onto it, Nicole went through the door leading to the stairway, and prompted headed for the rooftop lounge.

She only hoped that she would survive yet another night.

By the time Henry had made his way through the Lounge, fighting against the movement of the crowd to the fire exits, more time had passed than he was comfortable with. The wall of flame picked out in the depths of Night a crescendo of contrast, matched only by the blazing lights of Los Angeles in the distance. Most of the guests would have made it out before the threat would sweep to close, at least, he hoped so, despite his opinion of many.

Nicole had beaten him to the rooftop lounge, as he’d anticipated, and he beelined for her, shifting the large bag across his shoulders to the ground. He withdrew a large bottle of water, before coming to a halt beside her, placing hands on both of her shoulders, forcing her attention to him.

“Do not look at the fire, especially as it draws close. Blanket on.” He moved to seize the heavy covers before holding them over the Kindred, turning her into every cartoon’s idea of a basic Halloween costume, minus the eyes. That would have made the whole thing rather moot. For added bonus, he tipped the bottle of cold water over her. He wasn’t sure if it would do any good, but theoretically the sensation would help delay, if never halt, the beast within her. He mumbled an apology for the indignance, before taking a few steps back to his duffle bag. A red flare gun was pulled from within the confines, and pointed to the sky.

“Come on, you buggers.” He half snarled, before firing, the sky momentarily alight with a bright red flash carried high into the air above him, lasting but a few moments before being lost against the building background roar of the forest fire. It was starting to reach the very first buildings, joining the treefall landslide as they too collapsed under the impetus of flame.

“Focus on my voice, nothing else.” Henry carried on speaking as he returned to the female Kindred, one hand on Nicole’s shoulder. “Not the one in your head.”

Collab featuring @Ezekiel, @Hellion and Tanderbolt


With the noise suppression system active the helicopter was practically silent, floating through the sky like it was suspended on invisible strings. It flew in and out of the clouds of smoke, punching holes through them that shifted and filled in as it passed. Grace and Julie spent the time looking at the screens in the cockpit, reading through chemical analysis of the smoke and the records of energy signatures detected. They were mundane, extremely mundane, enough to rule out suspects like the Verbena and the Nephandi, the speed with which the fire had spread indicated it wasn’t natural, but there was nothing else they could discern about it. Julie had started to drum he fingers on the console to numb the boredom, until Grace started to speak

“Perhaps there is something we can do besides survey the damage.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to get involved” Julie said

“We shouldn’t get involved just because some release of chemicals inside the brain triggers a million year old instinct for empathy. We have more sophisticated tools to guide us, including an algorithm appropriate for this situation. It’s running right now, and will tell us where our efforts have the most impact.”

“How does it do that?”

“It’s too complicated for us to understand, if it stayed within the bounds of human cognition it would never be able to perform as well as it does. What we need to know is its accuracy, which was around the four sigma mark last time it was tested.”

The algorithm told them to focus on one area near the hills, close to the edge where the slope got too steep for dense development. Grace turned on the helicopter's searchlight and swept the area, flittering rapidly from point to point.

As the light from the flare began to trail and die, Henry barely surpressed the urge to swear loudly. He had no particular feelings against such, but remaining calm would likely assist in his efforts to keep a certain Kindred from giving in to the curse of her blood. His concerns were but to rest a moment later when a spotlight blazed into life in the night sky, from a point he was very much sure a helicopter hadn't occuped a moment before, or the noise would have been rather clear. With the flare gun spent, all he could do was wave, atop the landing pad as they were all ready. For a moment he considered uncovering Nicole, but decided it probably wasn't the strangest thing anyone might do with a fire racing towards them.

With the attention of the rescue craft hopefully drawn, his focus moved back to the onrushing fire, peering into the darkness that lay between the scouring motes of light. His expression pulled into a frown, it wasn't clear, even for him, but he certinly felt like he had percieved larger shapes moving among the darkness, pressing just behind, and somehow within, the approaching wall of fire.

"Best land soon..." He muttered to himself, feeling the rush of air begin to play across his back from the closing distance of the helicopter.

Nicole had been in many life-threatening situations as a Los Angeles police officer, from being caught up in the crossfire of city block rival gang wars, to highspeed car chases on the Interstate. And while such cases could never be forgotten, it seemed as though her experiences as one being reborn into a supernatural were rought with nightmarish scenarios. This time around had been no different, and she felt as helpless as a child.

All the woman knew about the escalating emergency was that there had a been a large fire, which apparently was heading toward the Sunset. The thick comforter from the hotel room -throat over her entire body and doused with water by Henry- had cut her off from most of her surroundings, leaving only sound and scent to guide her anxious mind. The sounds of screams, the scent of burning timber, and the rising feeling of dread all seemed to hit her at once.

What was this about? If she'd had a living heart, it would most certainly be pumping at an extreme rate. But what had replaced it was a fear unknown, and flashes of memories she couldn't understand. Memories that were not her own, but perhaps...

Her thoughts were cut off by the sound of the rotary engine on what sounded like a helicopter hovering overhead. She wanted to say something. Anything. But the right words wouldn't surface. Nicole simply knelt down, keeping her body covered as instructed, and putting as much faith as could be mustered into the one known as Henry Locke.

The flare was exactly the kind of signal Grace had been looking for. It came from the roof of a building that she had visited before, but Sunset was not a place she knew well or was fond of. The searchlight panned over the roof for a quick inspection, seeing one figure standing up and another indistinct one beside him. No need to sift through a crowd to find who to evacuate. More lights on the helicopter turned on as it pivoted and began its approach to land. These were not so much for illuminating the surrounding as letting people know where not to stand.

As it descended lower the force of the rotors began to buffet the building, blowing dust and smoke particles around the rooftop. Unlike the skyscrapers downtown, landing on this narrow rooftop was a tricky matter. Thanks to computer assistance and focusing her attention to level bordering on a trance, Grace was able to guide the helicopter down to the roof. The rotors themselves never stopped moving, just in case they needed to make a hasty exit, but once the helicopter was resting solidly on its landing gear, it’s pitch black, unmarked airframe illuminated by the glow coming from the distance, the door to the passenger compartment opened. Behind the darkened windows of the cockpit, Grace spoke over the loudspeaker. “Hello. Are you in need of evacuation?”

"Ticket for one please, conductor." Henry spoke with more humour than he felt, guiding Nicole over to the vehicle, which couldn't be any more 'Men-In-Black' if it tried. He made sure to keep her turned away from the fire as best he could, but it likely wouldn't be long before it would become impossible to do so. "Most of everyone else has got out of here, but I'll attend to that, if you can get her safe, then call, or have her call, this number." Henry waggled a simplistic business card, before slotting it, somewhat condescendingly, into one of the prominent folds of the blanket held over Nicole, assisting her up as best she could, when it became evident these new arrivals weren't about to just lure them in to blast them away. "If there's a matter of payment, the lady on the other end will square that away." He spoke hurridly, less careful than he would like to be with someone who he'd promised to keep safe, but he could feel the tension building. Something beyond the fire was rushing towards them, and he wanted them all gone before it struck.

Henry Locke took a few steps back from the craft, giving it room to lift away without fear of blasting him back, before the roof itself seemed to shudder. It wasn't the fire, that was still a fair few minutes from reaching the structure. Something had bounded out of the darkness, leaping over the flames to land atop the roof on the otherside of the rooftop lounge. It's form was huge, still obscured by darkness, but the growl building in its throat gave it away to those who had experienced one before.

"Ah...fuck my life." He spoke with a resigned sigh, swinging his long bag to the ground, pulling the rifle within as his spatial awareness caught sight of other such shapes prowling closer in the darkness below. "Get in the air!" He called back to the darkened vehicle behind him, before aiming the sights of his weapon across to the Garou as it prepared to lunge.

"Chew on this, you jumped up poodle."

The scent and sound of everything around her swirled into a cacophony of elements she couldn't decipher in her mind, as the literal shroud of darkness kept her safe -allegedly- from the external terrors. Shit that could bring a fledgling vampire to the bring of destroying oneself...or others. She had heard enough about it from Eva during their time together. It was the Frenzy, that wild and untamed creature luring just under the skin, ready to strike at a moments notice if it wasn't for the immense willpower Kindred had to grasp in order to maintain their cover.

Nicole did what she had to do in order to keep the beast at bay, and lucky for her, anxiety of the unknown seemed to be the only real issue at the moment. Not seeing the doom-to-come helped to an extent, but as Henry continued ushering her toward the helicopter entry, she knew there was precious little time before the ugly would emerge.

The door shut automatically as Nicole got on board, leaving the passenger compartment dark inside. Grace waited until the helicopter was off the ground and several hundred feet clear of the building before she left pilot seat. From what she could see was happening on the rooftop, it looked like they had left just in time. The helicopter continued on its path, autopilot did a decent job of taking them towards an uncrowded part of the airspace and maintaining a holding pattern. If anything more difficult came up, Grace was still plugged in to take care of it.

Grace sat still in a seat facing whoever was underneath that hotel comforter. She said nothing, just watching and waiting for her passenger to reveal herself. As far as she knew there was nothing imminently dangerous aboard, yet there were few other details she could tell. A business card that had fallen to the floor when boarding provided a hint, and Grace studied the details, trying to cross-reference and see if it was a familiar design. Behind her ever-present sunglasses, Grace was staring so intently one wondered if she was trying to burn a hole through the floor with vision alone.

Into the heart of chopper, a new scent was revealed. Her surroundings seemed newer, sterile even, as though walking into a big-box electronics store and being assaulted by the smell of technology. Nicole sighed, and slid the comforter off enough to peek her head out, before sliding the rest off as it fell in the seat next to her. She said nothing for a few moments, rubbing the dark stubble on the top of her shaven head, and allowing her eyes to dart around the small space until they fell onto the mysterious woman with the dark shades. The Gangrel was no empath, at least not from any supernatural standpoint, but she didn't get as uneasy a feeling from the woman across from her as one would think.

"So..." She bit lightly on the side of her lip. "Who're you?"

Sure, it was a direct question and part of her felt the slight sense of guilt for not even thanking her "savior" for the quick escape, but her mind continued to race enough that perhaps gratitude would need to wait. She needed answers. It sucked being in the dark.

After seeing Nicole, Grace searched her memories. She had seen her, but they hadn't interacted. The readings of the vital signs showed that Nicole had undergone some profound changes. While looking to see if there was more, Grace said

"Someone you've met before, back when you still had a normal heartbeat. I gave counterterrorism briefing at your precinct. I believe you were in the back, seldom looking at the presentation. You may not remember me, I have a way of making myself particularly unmemorable."

The Gangrel arched an inquisitive eyebrow, silent for a moment while pondering the other's words. "Ah, unfortunately I don't remember you, but there have also been countless meetings and presentations." She allowed a slight snicker, as though that were about the only humorous moment that evening.

"Anyway." Nicole sighed. "I-uh, probably should thank you for the pick up." She leaned her head against the leather seat. "So yeah. Thanks." The woman smiled only slightly, closing her eyes if only for a brief moment. "Although I wish I knew just what the fuck was going on in this city."

Grace looked down and reach for the floor, picking up the plain looking piece of cardstock by Nicole. With an even tone in her voice, she said
"Don't we all. That is a large question, I would like to focus on something smaller in scope"

She held the card up with her outstretched hand and said

"Who this business card belongs to..."

_{P E T E R L A P I N + E S T H E R P U N I C E U S}

---

^{T a y l o r ' s S t e a k h o u s e}

They were seated at the table, again in the backroom of the same restaurant. There was something more appreciative about a more secretive spot for meeting, but a steakhouse had become a strange delight. It had become a lucrative and repetitive spot for meetings, and the proposition for turning one of the evening wait staff into a ghoul seemed more appealing with every passing night. However, no one bothered to sign on the dotted line. There were more important details of discussion.

Others watched the pain of the Ventrue puppeteering a Malkavian into an expensive venue and have him propped like a good, young man. Did the crazy Kindred’s eccentric style demand his audience to turn the other cheek or was it merely the Ventrue's dominance? The Malkavian’s usual silence offered the best answer, as he cooed mostly childish rhymes when trying to address serious issues. Getting the Malkavian to speak coherently was a difficult task that demanded more than a linguist's lifetime of immortal experience.

It was safer to keep him quiet.

“They have not any idea what is happening.”

“But the Dream. It’s an idea and will not go away. Remember Michael.”

“And Mustafa?”

“Remember Sascha…”

There was a silence amongst the Kindred as eyes cast towards the nave. Suddenly, a decorative pain silked its deadly trap through the Malkavian’s mind. The feeling came as a brilliant light, a Road to Damascus. It blinded him momentarily and spun around his humanity like a fly caught in a white web of unmerciful rage. A gaping smile pressed on his face as the hollow words slowly fell from his mouth, “Bye-bye... bye-bye… Quickly die… On the morning will be frost... and you’ll go to the grave-yard…”

Esther turned towards him and reached out a hand to stroke his dark hair, “Grandfather will come?”

The Malkavian nodded in a sad childish way, “And bring the coffin.”

After his words, the rest of the Kindred in the room felt what he was mumbling about. The fire in the City of Angels spread its wings and made flight. The news of the disaster was now a glowing text message as the Kindred also made the acknowledgement between themselves.

“Remember Sascha…”

Meanwhile, hovering in the air...

Sights. Sounds. Smells. They all collided with one another in an instant. It was as though certain danger was looming overhead like a shadow. Like a ghostly serial killer from a cheesy 80s slasher film. Nicole felt like screaming inside, but had to remain calm, especially in the presence of people she did not know. But she had to trust them. Right? The mysterious one in the dark overcoat and sunglasses seemed familiar, even after mentioning a time they had met in the past. Nicole wanted to remember, but present circumstances just made it impossible to focus enough on something that may have happened years ago.

“A friend.” She leaned forward and eventually commented on the context of the card that the other woman held out, and reeling herself back into the current conversation. “Someone I should probably reach out to.” She paused for a moment, wondering if she was being hasty. “Or...maybe not. We parted ways-or rather, I left them to come back to LA…”

Honestly, Nicole didn’t know how Eva would react after she had slipped away from the comfort and safety of the Elder vampire’s home along the coast. Did she even care? Had Nicole been too distant in the later weeks of them being together.

“Either way, it’s probably not important.” The Gangrel shrugged and sat back against the seat once again. “But if you have a place to lay low, then I suggest we head there. I mean, assuming I can trust you and your friend.”
Grace was as motionless as a statue, tuning out the background noise of electronic communications and thoughts of a thousand things happening on the other side of the world. She stared at Nicole. It was harder to read someone’s intentions when they lacked the normal signs of life. Perspiration, heart rate, microscopic twitches of muscles, all of them were things that Grace placed more trust in than the actual words coming out of their mouth. Grace said
“I have safehouses available to me, but they are reserved for those who have proven themselves valuable. Your recent change makes you an unknown quantity, all I have to go off of is that you had a falling out with a friend and a trip outside the city. Even if someone says that their plan is something clear, such as ‘Survive, and try to get Los Angeles under some kind of control’, borrowing a phrase I heard from another one of your kind, I find myself wondering if there is something deeper lurking beneath”
For a moment she thought about doing a further dive through the databases of Nicole’s activity, but doubted that any reports of whose facebook profile she visited most in High School or what auto parts she had been shopping for would reveal anything useful.
“Time is short these days, and I prefer to spend it with those who are both useful and trustworthy.
She could feel the women's gaze even without making eye contact. Her judgement. "That's fair." Nicole sighed after a few moments. Besides, they didn't know one another enough for trust to have set in.
"Do what you need to do, but I'm pretty sure we can't hover above the city forever." She said rather sharply. "Maybe just drop me off somewhere. I know the city like the back of my hand, so if anything, I could find a good place to lay low. I feel like a fucking worm dangling over a furnace right now. I just-”
Her own thoughts cut her off suddenly. Sharply. Like a jab to the brain with an icepick, the memory flashed to the forefront of her mind causing the woman to twitch. She pressed her fingers up to the temples on both sides of her head and squeezed her eyes shut momentarily before reopening again.
“Grace.” She whispered just loud enough for the other to hear, as Nicole’s eyes met the woman’s. “Is that your name?”
Grace nodded when she heard her name. There were only a few possible vectors for how Nicole could’ve found it, most of which gave Grace cause for concern, especially one particular possibility. She said “It is a name I use for some purposes. I thought you said you didn’t remember our prior meeting. Before the fire, what were your plans?”

“I-uh” Nicole couldn’t really find the words initially as she had no idea how the name surfaced. Visions, voices, and memories that were never her own had riddled her mind since the embrace, a few being those of her supposed sire, but the others...so much closer to her. Emotionally connected thoughts that would tug at her nerves and at her heart almost simultaneously. There was only one answer to the puzzle. But could it be?

“Eva.” She finally blurted out, unsure if the very mention of her blood-bonded host would even resonate with the woman across from her. “You and her have some working relationship, yes?”

The Gangrel only knew so much about Eva -at least what she would want the fledgling to know- but since feeding from the elder vampire twice those few weeks prior, thereby developing at least the beginnings of a bloodbond, Nicole felt that much closer to Eva, and vice-versa.

That confirmed Grace’s suspicions. Like the Pacific Ocean, every stream eventually led back to that woman. She chose her next words carefully, and said

“A working relationship is overstating it. We’ve been in contact, but I find myself working around her operations more often than taking part in them. I’m told she’s supposed to know more about recent events, yet what I have received from her is lacking in detail. I have my reasons for keeping my distance, especially concerning those with such deep personal magnetism, to put it obliquely. Become too devoted to someone and you will lose who you are, who you could be. ”

After speaking she thought about what this meant. Was Nicole another piece in some scheme of Eva’s? Was everything just part of it? Was Nicole here truly as vulnerable as she appeared, a rare piece of leverage sitting right here in the helicopter, or was it best to drop her off quietly and safely as soon as possible.

The tension behind the words was thick. The woman seemed to have a similar reaction to Eva as no doubt others have had. Nicole also noticed certain personality conflicts with the Elder during their more serious conversations, and the lack of detail in situations that called for more than a few words. But perhaps it was her way of protecting whatever semblance of secrets she had left, after living for as long as she has. But even the Gangrel neonate wondered just how far their relationship would go, or would it hit a wall.

“I can’t say I disagree with you.” Nicole sighed, looking out through the dark windows of the helicopter onto the bright lights of the city below. “I have no idea who you are personally, other than the few memories floating in my head from the perspective of another, but what I do know is that we aren’t safe up here. Call it intuition.” She shrugged. “Maybe. But I think I can trust you enough to get us where we need to go.”

Nicole didn’t know, but what was the recourse? The city was going through something on a level she could not deal with, at least not on her own. She needed help, and the woman across from her was somehow connected to the many dots forming in the vampire’s new life. She could feel Eva’s presence in a profound way. Was this through the blood they shared? Had it become a homing device? Or a way of keeping tabs on the other? Who knew. But the fledgling kindred’s thoughts focused in on a single place.

“Have you been to the Venice Beach docks?” She asked, still peering out the window. “Specifically, Marina Del Rey. I think that’s where we’ll find Eva. Maybe. I don’t know.” She allowed a slight nervous laugh to escape. “I have no idea what the fuck is going on anymore.”

Grace said “It’s as good a place as any to look.”

Marina Del Rey was a short flight from their current location. Once they were above it and had surveyed the area, Grace noticed an especially large vessel in the water off the coast, that docking records and the prior aerial photos of the area showed it was seldom there, spending most of its time moored at Catalina. Trying to find out the actual owner would be a fool’s errand, but it had all of the hallmarks of one particular woman’s appetite for luxury. Grace reached into a locker by her side and grabbed a small case containing a pistol, which she tossed over to Nicole after transfering a little data through the port on the side with a cable that snaked into her coat.

Grace said “I can’t provide you with a safehouse, but I hope a pistol will be of use. It’s got an electronic trigger lock coded to your fingerprint taken from your police files and it’s ballistics should be untraceable by any law enforcement database. The case has some magazines loaded with nanothermite based incendiary rounds, they will be highly effective against most threats you would encounter. I trust you will use it wisely.”

After Nicole had gotten a solid grip on it, Grace said “Please hold on to any items on your person now, if they are lost I may have difficulty returning them.” Then Grace made a motion, and the belts of Nicole’s seat pulled taut, making it hard to slip out. When Grace’s handwave finished, the door at the side of the chopper opened, and over the billowing wind, Grace said “Miss Stathos, please tell Eva I hope she is doing well.”

Nicole’s seat lurched, and then some kind of force sent it shooting out the side of the helicopter. The second it had gotten clear a parachute began to deploy; it would be followed by more to guide it down safely. The helicopter flew on into the night, vanishing from sight in the darkness.

Before the vampire could even react much to the offer of a pistol that seemingly came out of a high-budget espionage film, the side door of the helo slid open and the seat she was sitting in quickly jerked forward and out, sending her flying through the air. What followed were screams of both confusion and fear that Nicole never knew existed, as the dark water below them drew closer. The chute deployed, pulling back on the seat and its rider, before smoothly floating downward. The woman’s vocabulary consisted mostly of profanity, several words directed at no one, and other choice words directed at the woman who essentially kicked her out of the chopper. This was not how she expected the night to go, and once her eyes stopped darting around and focused on the Yacht below, she also realized that the descent would place her several yards away from the vessel.

“Shit!” She screamed, but before long, the seat hit the water’s surface hard and, upon impact, deployed a flotation device that kept the seat upright as though in the center of a small, yellow circular raft.

“This isn’t how I imagined the night would go.” She mumbled to herself, pushing the release on the seat belts. Nicole took a moment, as she could feel the rage growing inside her, which was something she didn’t need right now. She needed to get to that boat. She could feel what could only be described as anxiety welling up inside her, but she knew she had to keep cool. The beast wasn’t going to win this round.

With not a moment to waste, she slipped into the water and swam as fast as her supernatural strength could muster, which didn’t take her long and the ladder near the rear of the vessel was down. “Oh thank god.” She sighed, pulling herself up onto the landing and regaining her bearings.

"Who is it?"

Andre shrugged, as casually and calm as he would have been if she had asked what time to show up, or if he was hungry. "Based on the lack of serial on the tail...I'd guess organized crime or off the books federal. It's slowing down, turning on anti-air system. They'll hear the lock on."

He moved out of the room, out the back sliding door, and onto the weather deck of the white yacht draped in neon pink lights along the sides of the yacht, the deck bright in accent lights under every stair step and along the railing.

"Someone jumped."

She tasted the presence the moment they jumped out of the helicopter. "It's Nicole."

"Why the hell didn't they just land?"

"Maybe whoever is piloting is afraid of us."

Andre snorted. "Ima turn on the helipad lights."

"Why?"

He shrugged, again, somehow more casual than the last shrug. "Just to be a dick."

It made her laugh, a smirk lingering after the laugh faded away and she took up position at the stern where the water lapped over the polished wooden planks of the step down, where two jet skies were tied off and the ladder extended into the black water of the Port of Los Angeles. A few barges were alit a few hundred feet to the west, an industrial dock and it's floodlights further off in the distance to the east.

"Nice of you to drop by," she said it as she leaned down and extended her hand for Nicole, the amusement heavy in her otherwise soft tone. "Here for the meeting?"

“Despair behind you, and despair surrounding you,” a sadistic, sneering voice called out, “your existence is nothing but suffering.”

The surging silhouette of a shadow stood before her, rippling softly, as though it were being fanned by a powerful gust of wind.

The shadowy figure bore the faint, hazy image of a woman, hidden by darkness.

“There is more than just the past, and the present,” Morgan replied, “there's always the future.”

The Malkavian’s head ached and throbbed. She could feel her skull pounding.

“You know what the future holds?” a dark smile cut through the blackness, creasing the hidden woman’s shadowy face, “misery and horror. The horror of a broken, rotting mind, rife with decay.”

“It isn’t all horror,” Morgan declared, “there are good things waiting for me, too.”

“Madness awaits you, little duckling,” the wispy figure let out a sharp cackle, “you’re going to crumble.”

“I’ll only crumble if I let myself,” Morgan said, defiantly, “there's no guarantee that I can’t fight it.”

“Any moment now,” the shadow woman promised her, “you’ll break apart, and never be put back together again.”

“You don’t know that!” Morgan snarled.

“Yes I do,” the silhouette laughed, “you’ve spent the past hour talking to yourself.”

Suddenly, Morgan felt a deep, lurching rush of cold dread.

She was falling.

Down, down down…

Crashing through the fragments of a cracked mirror.

The world returned to her in icy splinters.

The dull groaning of car engines. The hooting of nocturnal birds. The howling of night wind.

Tarmac beneath her feet. An icy chill against her skin. The murmur of voices, growing louder and louder.

Morgan found herself shambling towards a swanky, apartment, fashioned from polished glass, and smooth wood. Abbigale was propped up against the Malkavian, stopped over, and limping.

“Let us in!” Rafael shouted, calling up at the condo, “we need your help!”

“This is your plan..?” Jadeja muttered, cringing in pain, as she hobbled along.

“Open up!” Rafael demanded, hammering his fist against the door, “I know you’re home!”

The door of the trendy glass apartment creaked open.

“You’re fucking kidding me…” a grandiose voice grumbled.

A tall, slender figure stepped out into the darkness. A long, billowy beard obscured the finer features of his narrow face.

“I told you not to contact me again, Rafael,” the bearded man glowered, wiry eyes burning with scorn, “I believe that I made that particularly clear.”

“This isn’t a social call, Algernon,” Rafael grumbled back, “something is happening to Jadeja, and we need to know what it is.”

Algernon cast his gaze over Rafael’s shoulder, to where the stooped figure of Abbigale Jadeja was doubled over in pain, leaning on Morgan for support.

“Don’t tell me,” the sorcerer murmured, “a Ravnos..?”

A look of moderate shock flashed across Rafael’s face.

“How did you know?” He asked.

“Something terrible is happening,” Algernon Regardie told him, “ an accursed monster stirs in the East. It is too soon to say what the damage will be, but nothing good can come of this dark vivification.”

“Do you know what is going on?” Morgan asked, propping up Abbigale, whilst she hissed and groaned, “we all felt...something, but its nature alludes us.”

Algernon let out a conquered sigh.

“I suppose you three had better come inside,” he grumbled, “but take off your shoes. If you get mud on my carpet, then I’ll stake you, and leave you out for the fucking sun.”

“This is the last time, Rafael,” Algernon Regardie glowered at the Brujah, from over the rim of his blood-filled china cup, “How am I supposed to move on with my unlife, when you keep on popping up everywhere?”

“This is different, Algernon,” Rafael frowned, “this isn’t some 4am drunk dial.”

“Caine knows we’ve danced that dance enough times.” Algernon tutted.

The four vampires were sat in Regardie’s plush living room, in a set of grandiose, high-backed chairs.

Algernon’s room was decked out with a sea of expensive-looking bookcases, stuffed full of the kind of fat novels that Morgan suspected rich people only brought to make themselves seem sophisticated infront of their pompous dinner guests.

“I sincerely hope I haven’t just been dragged along to some bitter, undead booty call,” Jadeja rolled her eyes, “three more minutes of this, and I’ll throw myself out into the fucking sun.”

“Rafael knows all about three minutes.” Algernon mumbled, before quickling vanishing into his cup, to avoid Rafael’s furious glares.

Some distant, ethereal voice began to whisper in Morgan’s ear.

”Primal impulses guide us, Miss Holloway,” the ghost hissed, ”the bloodthirsty beast, and the doting suitor. Killing and courtship are two sides of the same coin.”

“Shagging has brought a great deal more joy into the world than homicide.” Morgan shot back, far more loudly than she had intended.

Everyone else in the room stared at her.

“S-sorry,” she spluttered, “the voices make it hard to -”

“Could you not be a complete fucking basket case, for five seconds, Morgan?” the brujah growled at her, his brow furrowing.

“Don’t be cruel, Rafael,” Algernon chimed in, “she can’t help it.”

The brujah sighed, crossly.

“Sorry. It's never nice, running into an ex.” Rafael muttered, his boot-clad feet resting on Algernon’s coffee table, much to the kindred’s obvious displeasure.

“That's only a problem for me when the neighbour's dog keeps digging up my backyard.” Jadeja smirked, letting out a sharp cackle.

Morgan couldn’t help but laugh.

“From what I’ve heard about you, and your little family, you’d need a football pitch to hide all of those bodies.” Algernon chuckled.

“Don’t encourage her.” Rafael grumbled.

“I’ll do as I please,” Algernon snapped, “now get your feet off of my fucking coffe table.”

Rafael did not comply.

“What's happening to the Ravos?” the Malkavian asked, trying to steer the conversation away from petty bickering, “how is it affecting Jadeja?”

“That pertains to something that all the ”sensible” canaanites are refusing to acknowledge,” Algernon said, with a sour grunt, “an ancient power struggle, between us, and our monstrous progenitors...”

The bearded man continued to ramble and rant, in a dull, briny voice, but Morgan found her attention wandering.

A deep unease washed over her, skittering up her back, and burrowing beneath her dead flesh.

The Malkavian could feel something stirring, out of the corner of her vision. Whispering feet tip-toed across the synaptic corridors of her mind’s eye, and danced through her psyche.

“Someone’s here!” She called out, rising up from her seat, in a sudden explosion of movement.

“Oh for god’s sake, Morgan!” Rafael snarled, flashing his fangs, “pull your head out of Wonderland, you crazy fucking luna-”

The Brujah’s lips kept moving, even as his head tumbled from his shoulders.

Dark blood spurted from the stump of his neck, stirring the beast within Morgan.

Rafael’s corpse slumped back in the chair, minus a head. In an instant, his body began to wither and decay, his clothes hanging loosely over rotting bones.

A fraction of a second later, Jadeja let out a sharp gasp, as the sharp end of an enormous broadsword erupted through the back of her chair, and burst through her chest.

Carmine tears dribbled out of the Ravnos’ mouth, and then she dissolved into a clump of wilted ash.

“What a shame,” Algernon grumbled, taking a sip from his tea cup, full of blood,“I had rather been hoping to engage Miss Jadeja in a spot of Amaranth. She has a kill list longer than the book of psalms, and you know how I feel about murderers.”

A stab of dread lanced through the pit of Morgan’s stomach.

“Oh no…”

From out of the shadows, two figures stepped into being.

One was undoubtedly a nosferatu, riddled in burnt tissue, and warped scars. A single eye bugged out of the scorched remnants of her monstrous skull, and she clutched a pair of garden shears in her hands, still wet with Rafael’s blood.

The second character was a towering, dark-skinned man, with a shaved head, who hoisted his mammoth broadsword over one shoulder, as though it weighed nothing.

“I never got modern kine’s obsession with katanas and ninjaken,” the giant man chuckled, in his deep, booming voice “give me a good viking sword, and I’ll turn your enemies into a bloody stain.”

Morgan glared daggers at the imposter Algernon.

“You didn’t need to kill them,” she growled, “they weren’t a threat.”

“They kept me from you, my love,” the deceiver shot back, “that in itself is a final-death sentence.”

The fake Algernon began to shift, and morph, his slender body rippling, as though it were wet clay. His long beard melted away, and his angular features became round, and heart-shaped.

The original face of Calantha Teohari, which she had first worn all of those years ago, before the Angel had stolen her humanity away, gazed back at Morgan.

Despite everything, Morgan felt her dead heart flutter.

“We could have been together, amica mea.” Calantha murmured.

“Not like this,” Morgan shook her head, “never like this.”

A stray drop of blood flowed out of Calantha’s right eye, and trickled softly down her pale cheek.

“Stake her, Gracie,” the Tzimisce commanded her underling, “I have plans for this wild little rose.”

The nosferatu pulled out a sharp, wooden stake, which looked as though it had been whittled down from the leg of a bar stool.

“When we’re through, you’ll need fields upon fields to tuck away all of my skeletons.”

Collab with @Ruby


Sunset, and the cold fire washed over him as the being that refused to let Henry Locke die took over.

Lucifer

The conversation had lasted an hour and 15 minutes on the dot, according to the smartphone once she ended the call with a touch of her index finger. Jenna Cross was upset, calling Eva in a panic. The fires had shaken what Jenna called "the community." What Cross had meant by that wasn't all of Kindred in the area, but the Thin-Blooded. There had been more disappearances within the community than usual. It was alarming, but nothing like tonight according to Jenna. The fires had caused emergency crews to go into warehouses near West Beverly Hills. How she got that information, in the speed in which she got it, intrigued Eva enough to pose the question. Jenna was coy, and while there was no denying Jenna her impressive circle of spies of and informants speed wasn't usually a hallmark of that.

As much as the thought diverted her mind, when Jenna finally got out with what it was that was before getting emotional.

"There are times I'm convinced you're secretly some fucking elder."

Eva wasn't even wrong, she noted. Just colder than Jenna could be in this kind of moment. Eva deflected with a reminder of Jenna's Brujah sire, yet half an hour later and Eva still found herself at the back balcony on the top level of the Lady Hollywood superyacht and staring into the obviously uncovered: a warehouse filled witThe memory of how he actually managed to get to the ship wasn’t clear. It was a rare but now unknown phenomenon. The worst time had been back in the greatest of wars, lying in the blown out shell of a building in Warsaw, surrounded by rubble and the ruin of his ambition for the human race. He had wanted to die then, to finally let the darkness claim him to whatever fate the cosmic force of his father had arranged for him. Something within him had forced him up, a presence buried in his deepest self which burned with a cold, ceaseless, fury. It had pushed his shattered form up and out, back into the war. His next memory was a month in the future. Nothing concerned him more than whatever it was that the old him had buried deep within the mortal shell of Henry Locke.

The fight had not lasted long. The first Wolf had gone down fast, in a hail of silver bullets it hadn’t anticipated. The next two had been cautious but furious, wishing to rip the human they saw before them apart in vengeance for their fallen kin. Henry Locke was a being of magic and supernatural power, but beneath that, his form was still human. It had taken everything to fend off the encroaching pack, the fury of tooth and claw that even all but the most powerful of kindred couldn’t match. He doubted what had occurred could have been considered him ‘winning’ but he was still alive, there was that. He didn’t remember how he’d made it to the waterfront, how he’d stolen the boat, or functioned enough to steer it. All he remembered was falling from the roof of the h Kindred in suspended and unconscious state. Hung and chilled like sides of meat on hooks zipped up in plastic. More specifically all the missing had been found there. When Eva asked about the others found there Jenna didn't know. Or even pretend to. As angry as she was, Eva advised learning as much as possible darkness at the Pacific ocean where water met sky and stretched into infinity. Am I getting cold? Am I getting lost in that game? The questions came in a never-ending repeat until the words finally hit her:

"Wake. Up. Woman. Damn."

It wasn't rare for Eva to find herself zoned out of reality entirely, lost in the voices, lost in visions, lost in time. She couldn't keep track of everything that was assaulting her at all hours. Even slumber only truly helped her physically. There was no mental refresh. There was no time the voices weren't there. Louder, more active. One absolutely screaming. Others murmuring so quietly it couldn't even be called a whisper. Like they were trying to hide.

Like Lubbock.

Getting snapped out of these states occasionally took persistence. Andre stood before her, broad shouldered and dark skinned, brown eyes tight with frustration. Rachel just waited quietly. Mateo made awkward one sided small talk. Yanci played with her phone and sighed and got visibly frustrated. Andre went farther than any of the others. By the time she was 'back' his large hands were wrapped around her arms and he was near shaking her. She knew. He had done it before. This time was right before he actually shook her. "Yeah?"

He blinked twice, and his shoulders lowered as his entire disposition changed instantly with recognition. "There was a boat. It's radio isn't on we're fairly certain. I decided not to fire until it got close because it probably wasn't a bomb considering Henry was driving. He ain't right and he's doing some kinda...it's making my guys unwell. Like he's sunlight."

"Your guys the only ones?"

Her hands were forcing his head down so she got a better look. She was tall, he was taller. "I'm fine, Eva. Tell me he ain't gonna go Biblical on all our asses or something."

The only thing Andre had any actual fear of: something he had zero defense against. She lied to him and told him they were fine before she was fast down to the First Level, at Henry in mere seconds. Smiling softly with a gentle tone to match as her bright brown eyes encased in the lines of thin eyeliner and the shadow of a faint faint purple surveyed Henry. "I thought I warned you about playing with furries."

It was her voice that brought him back. The thing which wore his skin could always do a remarkable impression of Henry Locke when forced to, but not to her. His weary eyes blinked, and consciousness returned. Everything hurt. His cuts were sealing fast enough to be visible, but he was almost certain his left arm was attached only by skin and good wishes. Henry felt the bone reknitting. It was sore, but that wasn’t the source of his pain. Unlike before, the cold force of entropy that had pushed him onwards had not receded entirely, it could not. It roared through every fibre of his being, keeping the human shell it was buried within alive, lest it burn supernova into life as its willing prison died. The force of it seared through every muscle. When he looked up into her eyes, he saw his own reflected. Motes of fire, the image of a star bursting to life played out trapped within his iris. He would be hurting her in turn, just by being close. No wonder there were no others.

Burn With Me

“When you get to my age, love, you start trying all sorts of weird shit.” He tried to stand and failed. The burning felt worse as he struck the deck again, the presence within pounding at the limitations of his form, he tried to focus on his own words, grounding himself in the now.

“Don’t think the fire was them, but they’re out in war numbers. Give them time to group, plan, if they already haven’t, and they might take the city….if they care to.” By and large it was geography and climate which kept the war between Kindred and Garou from spilling over, but it seems that was coming to an end.

His vision swam, and when he looked again at Eva, it wasn’t her, but the image of a woman he’d loved and lost in a different age, just before he had become who he was now. The last disciple. He blinked, and it was the Kindred once more.

“If I’d known we were going somewhere this fancy...I’d have changed.”

“Fire was the Kid’s sire.”

Her words were casual, her tone was razor sharp; splitting the hair of that bit of news between the two of them. Afterall Henry had plenty to do with the demise of the Kid in Hollywood. “It’s connected, somehow, I think, I just can’t prove it yet.” In a rather unusual move, Eva shrugged and admitted a bare thought: “I’m not sure I care enough to find out how. Depends on how difficult it makes life, to be honest. I never thought I’d be more anxious about an Inquisition than I was about a 4th Generation pissed off at me.”

Her pink lips twisted in a half-smile as she settled more comfortably next to him on the wooden and damp deck of the yacht. “We need to get you cleaned up. There’s a room down on the 1st Deck you can take, just ask the steward--he’s the middle aged Armenian guy in white. If you can’t find him, try the bar. He helps stock. “C’mon. Yance and Rachel are on their way, with everyone else coming later. It’s time for the coterie to talk some things out. Clear some fire warmed air from the privacy of a yacht, we’re not being pretentious with the location.”

A few beats later, and she smirked. “Not this time, at least.”

“Anyway,” she offered her hand, and from the looks of it, he might actually need it for once. “C’mon, the shower is tiny but the wood is nice and the bed is super comfy if you need a few minutes to, uh...do less of the warm and toasty bits.”

“Too hot to handle for you, am I?” Henry’s hand clasped her’s as he stood, the shuddering strain of the motion rocking through him as he did so. He managed to avoid fully leaning into her support, but only just, making it to his feet with a muffled gasp of effort. Once he was up, it was easier, each step reknitting the damage to his form and enabling him to shove the pain down into the depths of his psyche.

“I don’t believe you and yours could manage not being pretentious if you tried.” He spoke as his eyes looked over the vessel as they passed through it. He’d been present before, but not for long. Her idea of understated was a far cry from his. His hand remained linked with her’s as he adjusted to a form not simply about to betray him, before coming to a halt before plunging into the interior of the vessel itself. His eyes still sparkled in the reflection within her own. He’d still want to avoid close confines with the other kindred for now.

“Don’t want to get that ash out of your hair? I’m sure we’ve been in more compact places.” It was definitely poorly timed, but necessary. Beyond the simple want for her, he needed to show her, show himself, that it was still him buried under his skin. At least for now.

Of the five staterooms on the 1st Deck Henry was given the fourth down from the door to the weatherdeck and the stairs. Desks and accents and doors were a dark stained cherry wood, fixtures and switches all the same simple copper finish. The carpet was light and sandy and short fibered yet plush all the same, bathrooms were attached though they were little more than toilet and shower closets with an awkward sink.

Eva was the fifth stateroom from the stairs, the last one, though the stateroom was otherwise no different than the others--save for a slightly larger bathroom for Nicole to shower the funk of the LA Port off and slip into fresh clothes. She never caught Henry emerge, she watched the second helicopter of the evening briefly land. Two women emerged, to her eye’s obvious Kindred just from the surreal ease in which they all but slipped and shrugged out of the helicopter, never once worrying about the blades...a real concern at sea despite the calm state of the waters just outside the Port of Los Angeles waterways. The buoys marking the western edge of the maritime corridor were no more than fifty feet away.

Where Eva sat it was all right in front of her, minus Tina, the bartender tending the yacht’s bar on the 1st Level--the area of the boat arrived at from taking the stairs up, instead of down for the staterooms of the 1st Deck. The 1st Level interior was entirely the bar, and a large lounge with various screens and parallel white sectional sofas, the walls lined with shelves filled with a hodgepodge of books read and shared by small crew and coterie, blue-rays and DVDs, and scripts.

The Captain was no fan of the ship being so close to the wake of larger vessels. They had simply been waiting. As Yanci and Rachel walked around the 1st Level of the exterior to the back of the boat, through the door to the lower level and deck, up the stairs, through the lounge, and into the bar surrounded on most sides by rounded glass. Los Angeles glared in the distance, smoldering with the orange and red glow of fire. Southern California residents knew that particular sky far too well. Tina walked out just before the two arrived.

“Are we sure?”, was how it started. The words were spoken sharply by Yanci, dark eyed and dark featured, her hair in long waves and overflowing her shoulders by a few inches, wearing acid wash jeans near baggy legged and a dark blue wool sweater that stopped at her midriff.

Rachel wore a Prada charcoal pants suit, the pants fitted and finished with a gold plated hollow centered buckle,the blouse black silk and hanging off her shoulders just far enough to hint at curves underneath instead of outright show them; her straight cut bob a dirty blonde and undyed.

The style differences only hinted at deeper differences. And made Eva feel oddly appropriate after a change to black tights with a fine black mesh along the sides shaped like smoke rising up to the thinnest smoke tendril at her knee and a simple white sleeveless shirt simple white Reebok classics on the feet that were resting on the bar. Eva didn’t turn until she shrugged. “As sure as I can be.”

“We’ll be ready if it goes badly,” the tone bordered on cocky as Dre just breezed past the two ladies for a seat at one of the cherrywood tables with matching chairs just off the bar and next to the glass. His clothes were as simple as dark loose jeans, brown boots, and a black teeshirt.

“Which it could. Very badly.” Rachel didn’t look up from the phone, but even she had to admit it.

Mateo was the dandy; purple velvet vest, black dress shirt unbuttoned a few buttons down from the top, dress slacks, calf high boots of polished leather and gold buckles. “We know who they are. We know they don’t know much about Eva.” The exchange of glances between Maty behind the bar and Dre and Yanci, in particular, was fun for Eva. Even if it just kinda meant Maty squirmed for a moment.

Eva had to rescue him. “It could all go very badly. Big gambles are big gambles for a reason. If it works out...we have a chance. If it doesn’t...I don’t see a path.”

“And they may know enough to actually make life suck for a bit,” Matty shrugged, thinking it over, the shrug making his waist length black hair dance for just a second.

“Tell me this isn’t just the next thing, Eve,” Yanci’s gaze wasn’t kind, it wasn’t cold, it was just anxious and darting and scared. “I get the chosen bit, it’s one of our favorite cliches. Those scripts on those shelves are filled with them. We both know how that normally turns out. So what if this goes beyond the pale?”

Eva smiled, if only because what else was left to her? “No clue, Yance. I don’t see a path without their help. So many of them will die if we don’t try. I can’t not try. If you can’t…” Eva’s hands went instantly up near her shoulders, palms out, innocence proclaimed by gesture. “Not to say you’d ever bail. But--”

“--yeah, I get it. I just don’t think it’s good enough. Dre is always superman, until he’s not and he breaks and our security forces break. It’s happened. We survived on luck during the King riots. LUCK. WE WILL NOT GET THAT LUCKY AGAIN. Rachel is afraid we’re the only thing she’ll ever have left in a life she gets to pick, and Matty believes in you. Like I believe in you. But right now I can’t tell if this is really the crazy gambit we want to make or if you’re just being Eva, the first of the Hollywood divas.”

The cocktail table Dre sat at almost did not survive the thunderclap slam his palm struck upon it’s surface as his temper snapped. “WE SURVIVED. Sometimes that’s a matter of luck. That’s the way it works, girl. I’m sorry, but this ain’t helping shit. You been pissed off for months. Life’s never going back to the way it was. That’s not always such a bad thing.”

“The end of the world doesn’t sound fun,” Matty’s voice was a gentle and measured thing after silence hung in the air for long moments, tipping off the curious and problem solving mind behind it, “You’re right, Yanci. I believe she’s right. I believe she’s picked, and why she was is a question we need to ask and answer. I get why she hides from the greater Kindred society. I know what it feels like to not belong to it. Whatever we can salvage...for us, for them...certainly I’m the newest of us yet I cannot help but feel confident in saying this is who and what this coterie is. Just trying is what we would do. Help. Keep ours as safe and normal as possible in the process. We’ve worked for a while to outfox the Inquisition digitally. I’m confident in our work.”

“There’s no stopping them. I have to try to manage it and take care of them.”

Rachel’s pained amusement made Yanci shake her head, and sit down at the other cocktail table. “Okay.”

For now, Eva thought, it would have to be enough. Henry and Nicole were stirring. “We’ll see what Henry has to say.”

“And Nicole?”

Every pair of eyes in the bar went to Eva. If she could have blushed…”I guess so.”


One habit Grace had acquired was a tendency to judge people by where they liked to discuss business. The fact she was willing to meet with someone who chose the lounge of a yacht showed how far things had diverged from normal circumstances. Julie and the helicopter had returned home, Grace had gotten to the yacht by other means. A quick cost-benefit analysis was what guided that decision, the stakes demanded that someone go to the meeting, but the risks involved meant that exposure should be minimized. Julie’s inexperience wouldn’t add enough value to justify the added risk. Even Grace, with her many layers of precautions, felt uneasy standing in the doorway of the lounge. She wore one of the outfits she always did, selected to be as generic and unmemorable as possible, unbranded and composed entirely of shades of black and grey.
As she scanned the room the roster of Eva’s friends looked different from how Grace remembered them from their first meeting, back a sunset, but the intelligence files she had offered no explanation. The one with the most detailed file was Rachel, but it was almost entirely about her mortal life, from the days when she had been seen as a potential recruit to the cause. Old information, but not without value. It would be easier talking to her than trying to understand the network of social interactions unfolded before her; Eva was the center of everything but to understand all of centuries worth of accumulated details and norms was not practical. Grace only had time for what could be measured, not ill-defined social ties. When there was a pause, she walked near Rachel and said:
“Miss Fields, it is nice to see you again. It’s a shame that our interests don’t allow us to work together more often, if certain events had been different we may have been part of the same organization, in the same cohort even. If we had met twenty years ago I’m sure we’d be discussing Harvard’s infamous Math 55 course and comparing our scores on the Putnam Exam, but I do not know if you are the same person those old files depict. I have other concerns these days, and I believe you do also.”
Rachel could internally debate the likelihood of a 'chosen one', but she had maxed out her allotment of eye rolling for the day already--and if Mateo was to be believed being 'chosen' was unlikely to end well; just look at Caine, the logic went. So when the human magic user walked over and began speaking, Rachel actually smiled at the distraction.

Distraction was welcome, interest piqued was quite another thing when Grace brought up old files. "Old files on me? How flattering." Unlike Eva and Yanci, Rachel's tone was nearly void of the emotions the two Toreadors rode upon the unlife with.

But the line of 'I do not know if you are the same person those old files depict'...actually made the Ventrue laugh. A full, hard, if short lived, bark of laughter before quickly returning to her former composure. "Wow. Um...yeah, I'm mostly the same. Except for not being alive, I suppose, and a taste for blood."

"And fangs," Dre chimed into the chat he wasn't part of, but was overhearing all the same, as he stared a hole into the table at which he was seated.

"Ah, right, and fangs. I'm not that old. Eva tells me about the Anasazi people of early North America, Yanci recalls California before it was ever part of the US. Andre is a former slave and soldier of the Civil War. I'm a child relative to that, and too young to have begun to lose who I am to the 'monster' yet. The older you live as one of us, the further away from the human you were you find yourself. There are very rare exceptions; such as Eva. But me? I'm still me. Just less naive."

Grace was happy that the conversation was smoother than she thought it would be. Although they were close to the same age, neither spent much time with the typical concerns of someone approaching middle age in terms of human years. Grace continued with the formal pattern, if things got slow she could always fall back on the few jokes about Harvard and Stanford she knew.
“After this, if things are more relaxed and any of your friends wish to use some their experiences to correct errors with current historical studies regarding those time periods, they are welcome to contact me. I can nudge the scholarly consensus in the correct direction.”
“As for changes, I’m always wary about how reliable anyone can be when analyzing themselves. Memory is troublesome, it’s not as though people can store them in a Merkle tree so they can guarantee their integrity.” Silently, Grace corrected herself. Most people can’t. “Anyway, if you still have your taste for philosophy, this all reminds me of a famous hypothetical.
Are you familiar with Donald Davidson’s Swampman thought experiment? If you take a human and create an exact replica down to the last particle of matter, is it the same person as the original? If the copy remains and the original dies, is that person still alive? And would that copy, holding all of the memories and personality of the original but having experienced none of their actual life, even know anything was amiss? It’s an interesting idea that crops up in all sorts of places, including the works of a particularly irritating British comic book author and self-styled anarchist wizard who has so far managed to avoid our attempts to eliminate him. I’ve yet to see if any of that makes it into the TV adaptation of Swamp Thing.“

"Ask Yanci. At the moment she's managing Hollywood. I do know she's no fan of Mr. Moore; you can't be in this coterie and avoid comic books. For example if you think Kevin Feige is a mere mortal and not a conduit of greater artistic expressions and media minds...well."

Rachel shrugged, preferring to say no more on that subject lest she violate the privacy of Hollywood's creative circles. Especially the more hidden circles.

"I remember first getting exposed to the idea in Star Trek. Now Eva and Yanci have it popping up in modern classics like Rick & Morty." The word 'classics' had a certain exaggeration when spoken; though Rachel was cautious not to go further.

Yanci was quite fond of the adult oriented cartoon.

"As for after this...I don't know. That was the heated discussion we just let go: how suicidal is this? What if the Inquisition knows more about us than we think? What if they care more about studying Eva than helping her save the world? She wants to walk right into an Inquisition higher-up meeting. Lay the situation out to them. Not unlike what she did with you. I think we're waiting on Henry and Nicole to chime in."

"And her."

The addition came out of Eva’s mouth, even as her attention appeared as if it stayed on her quiet chat with Mateo at the bar the whole time. "Yes, obviously, yourself included."

The quiet lapping of waves and the gentle roll of the boat from time to time the only other sounds besides the low dull hum of the yacht’s engines.

Scientific literature was the only media Grace consumed for fun. Not that she’d had much fun lately. The best ones were too classified to share anyway. Grace avoided looking at Nicole, not quite apologizing about the ejection ; that was just a way to make sure that the helicopter and her subordinate were secure while allowing their passenger to get to her destination. She said
“Your chance of success rests on how persuasive you can be. I have reason to believe you are quite effective at that, even if I don’t know the specifics of your methods.” Grace’s belief in that was why she always took such precautions when meeting with vampires. Finding out how powerful they could had only increased this drive to be prepared.
She continued.

“Aside from that, you can try and plan, hedge your efforts to lessen the impact of a failure, but never assume you have a deeper bag of tricks than your adversary. That kind of hubris kills operations. So, what exactly do you want from the Inquisition? Just for them to stay out of your way, or do you see a role for them? I might be able to help but I admit I don’t spend much time thinking about them, they’re kind of like our mentally unstable cousin.”

“Are you all done in there..?” A shaky voice called out, bouncing out of the living room, and off of the bathroom walls.

“Just about.”

Vi licked a sliver of blood off of her hawkbill knife. A sweet tang filled her mouth, eliciting a purr of hunger from her slumbering beast.

“C-can we leave then?” the voice prompted.

A mangled corpse hung from a hook in the ceiling, leaking gore and entrails down into the acrylic tub, staining polished white a dark, sanguinary red.

“I’ll be right with you.” Violetta replied, taking one lingering moment to admire her handiwork.

The cadaver had been gouged and mutilated beyond recognition. Its once feminine features were reduced to sickly, swollen pulp of raw tissue. Her messy ginger tangles had become knotted with congealed blood, and her belly had been sliced open, allowing her insides to hang freely, like sloppy strands of confetti.

Violetta had visited the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam, a few years back, and become enamoured with Jan de Baen’s painting of the corpses of Johan and Cornelis De Witt, after they had been lynched, gutted, and eaten by a mob of angry proletariat.

The exquisite painting had become burnt into her mind, and she had modeled this kill around de Baen’s work.

“Vi!” the voice winged, “you know I hate this!”

“Alright!” She snapped, stomping out of the bathroom.

David the thin-blood was waiting for her, curled up on the sofa, hugging his own legs.

“You asked to come with me, this time, Dave,” Violetta frowned, “you told me you had experience with assassinations.”

“Micat Schumacpurr brought me a mouse once,” David explained, “the little guy was still twitching. I had to finish the job. It still haunts me to this day.”

Violetta stared at her assistant in disbelief.

“Micat Schumacpurr..?”

“He is exceedingly cuddly for such a vicious killer.” David murmured.

With a bewildered sigh, Vi headed out of the apartment, and her underling trailed behind her. They strode down to the carpark below, and slipped into David’s slick, vintage jaguar e-type.

“I get bored in the car,” the thin-blood admitted, running one hand through his dark, shaggy hair, which was a fair few inches longer than Vi’s, “I wanted to see what you get up to.”

“This isn’t a game, Dave,” Violetta told him, sternly, “I enjoy your company, but if you’re going to jeopardize my work, then I won’t hesitate to cut you loose. If you can’t hack it in the field, then stick to being my chauffeur.”

“Yes, Miss Kyborowski.” He mumbled, submissively.

The innate ventrue need to be obeyed, and fawned over, let out a content murmur, deep within Vi’s dead heart.

“Take me to the meeting point.” She instructed.

“Yes, Miss Kyborowski.” David repeated, whilst he prompted the car to life, and set off into the cool Los Angeles night.

David Crampton had been working with Violetta for some time, as her personal assistant, and driver. Vi was perfectly capable of operating a car herself, but she enjoyed being indulged, and had a rapacious fondness for Dave’s antique sports car.

Before Vi, Crampton had been barely scraping by as an underling for Sheriff Teach, and it was common knowledge that his neck was teetering on the chopping block. Violetta had agreed to take David off of Teach’s hands, and found herself a valuable new servant in the process.

Even if he was a somewhat unconventional kindred.

They arrived in the carpark of a rundown 50’s-style diner, about a quarter of an hour later. A gaudy neon sign boldly declared that the restaurant was CLOSED, in garish blasts of vulgar light.

Violetta slipped a cigarette into her mouth, and lit it with the crackling flame of her zippo lighter.

“Mister Soto is waiting for you inside,” David relaid to her, “you two will have the place to yourselves. The staff are all on an extended lunch break.”

“Good to know,” Violetta exhaled a mouthful of smoke, “privacy is always paramount, particularly when things might get messy.”

Crampton shivered uneasily, tugging on his smart blazer.

“I don’t like messy.” he grumbled, anxiously.

“Do you think maybe that's why no one in Elysium takes you seriously?” Vi asked, resting her Solovair-clad feet on the dashboard, whilst she took another hungry drag from her cigarette.

“What do you mean?” David prompted, genuinely confused, “everyone at elysium takes me seriously! Prince Vannevar likes me so much that he invited me to my own secret elysium, where I was the only person important enough to go! I didn’t mention it, because I didn’t want to make you jealous, but if you’re going to be mean, then the gloves are coming off.”

“Just try not to blow up the car, whilst I’m gone.” Violetta grumbled, unlocking the passenger door, and stepping out into the carpark, before tossing the smoldering remains of her straight to the ground, and grinding it underneath the heel of her Solovair.

“Words hurt the most when they come from the people you love, Violetta!” David called after her, his voice cracking with woe, “you wouldn’t like it if I was nasty to you!”

The thin-blood’s cries of misery faded into background noise, as Vi swept up to the diner, hems of her gold-buttoned jacket billowing softly behind her.

Violetta found James Soto sitting in a plush booth, a stone’s throw from a tired-sounding jukebox, and a tacky Elvis poster.

The diner appeared to be deserted, save for the two kindred.

“Miss Kyborowski,” the big man smiled nervously at her, “I heard you wanted to speak with me.”

Soto cut a large figure. He had warm golden skin, slender eyes, and was dressed casually, in a tartan shirt, and fashionably ripped jeans.

“You heard correctly.” Vi replied, icily, as she took a seat opposite him.

James shuffled nervously beneath Violetta’s withering glare. He knew that nothing good was coming.

The scourge pulled a slick android phone out of the pocket of her balmain blazer, and placed it gently on the table which stood between them.

“You’re a fan of Breetiful, the streamer.” She stated, “a very enthusiastic fan, by the sound of things.”

“Bridget and I have been seeing each other romantically, yes,” Soto replied, cautiously, “that isn’t a masquerade violation.”

“No,” the scourge replied, “but this is.”

Vi slowly slid the mobile phone across the table, fixing Soto with a cold stare.

“Who do you see in that picture?” She asked, letting a sharp growl into her voice.

A bright image, framed with the cool white Instagram interface, was displayed on the screen. It showed “Breetiful” and her clique of professional ass-kissers, huddled together in some swanky garden party, beneath an inky black night sky.

James Soto was stood beside her, with one hand resting affectionately on her lithe shoulder.

“It’s just one stupid photo, Vi!” the man protested, weakly, “who is it hurting?!”

“All of us,” she snapped back, “if anyone in the Second Inquisition figures out that a man who supposedly died during the great depression is not only - still alive - but also - still in his thirties -, what do you think happens? Do you think that's the sort of thing they’d just ignore?”

“I’m in one - FUCKING - picture!” he complained, “why does it matter?!”

Vi’s nails unsheathed, burrowing into the table, and digging up cold metal splinters, as they extended with bestial fury.

“This isn’t some random kine you’re porking, Soto,” she growled, “this prissy little cunt is all over the fucking web. Do you have any idea how many people viewed that photo alone? Were you dropped on your fucking head as a child?!”

James bolted upright, rage burning in his eyes, but Vi was quicker.

She grabbed him by the wrist, willing blood into her dead muscles, and yanked him back down, whilst supernatural vigor flowed through every cell of her body.

Soto’s skull struck the table, with a sharp thud. A deep gouge split across his forehead, leaking dark blood.

The beast roared inside Violetta, rousing her red thirst. The sweet scent of fresh sanguine made her fangs extend in their gums.

“What do you want from me, bitch?!” Soto murmured, nursing his bleeding head, “to say I’m fucking sorry?!”

“Oh, I don’t want anything from you, James,” she leered, flaunting her fangs, “this call is for my benefit, not yours.”

A look of fierce terror flashed across the man’s golden features.

“What the fuck are you talking about, Kyborowski?” He snarled.

“The news would have reached you sooner, rather than later, but I wanted to be here in person,” Violetta replied, allowing an uncharacteristic smile to gently grace her full flips, “I wanted to see the look in your eyes.”

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!” James repeated, slamming his fists into the table.

Vi reached out, wordlessly scrolling across on the display of her phone, and flicking to the next picture.

The image of the redheaded woman appeared, the messy ribbons of her entrails dangling carelessly into the bathtub, and smearing the tub with dark, blotchy sanguine.

Soto lurched backwards, gagging. His face broke, crumbling into the image of sheer heartbreak.

“Bridget…” he gasped, “no...please! Oh god, please no!”

The vampire began to weep uncontrollably bloody tears streaking down his cheeks.

“We are not the unruly, Anarchs, Mister Soto”, she told him, “there are laws. This is strike one. You do not get a second strike.”

Violetta grabbed her phone, then left the blubbering mess to wallow in sorrow and self-pity.

Collab with @Bloodrose



Morgan awoke in what seemed to be the back of some battered old van. She could feel the road bouncing beneath her, whilst the truck’s metal walls rattled and shook.

“Fuck…” she hissed, wincing in pain. She could feel the fresh gouge in chest pounding and burning.

Ghostly nerve endings cried out in torment.

The wound was healing, dead flesh knitting itself back together, fighting to seal up the bloody hole that stake had left in her bosom.

“I could never decide if it was more painful to be with you, or without you, amica mea.” Calantha murmured, sitting across from her, in the back of the van.

The Tzimisce gazed at Morgan with tortured, yearning-filled eyes.

“You’re not the one with a fucking hole in your chest.” the Malkavian hissed back.

Calantha was splayed out across a seat, which looked as though it had been converted from someone’s timeworn sofa.

The towering Brujah and the flame-kissed nosferatu sat on either side of her.

“Where are you taking me?” Morgan demanded, still cringing in pain.

“Our little club house.” The nosferatu tittered, in her raspy, grating growl-of-a-voice.

The Malkavian heard one of her hushed, fluttering ghosts whispering in her ear, through the gashes in her mind.

”Down, down, down, beneath the earth,” the voice told her, ”however far light travels, darkness has always traveled further. The sun will wither, and die, but darkness is eternal.”

It wasn’t long before they reached their destination.

The giant, dark-skinned Brujah forced Morgan out of the van, pressing the tip of his mammoth broadsword into her back.

They drove her out into the San Francisco night, and up the stony steps of Grace Cathedral, the Nosferatu disguising herself beneath a dark hood.

“If you charlatans were half as brave as you made out, you wouldn’t skulk in the shadows.” Morgan spat, earning her a sharp slap across the back of the head.

The Sabbat shoved Morgan inside the cathedral, guiding her past enormous white pillars, and rows upon rows of polished pews. A myriad of colourful, glistening stained glass encircled them, passing soft beams of moonlight into the cathedral.

The enormous chamber was deathly quiet, and as empty as a water tank, which had been drained down to the final drop.

“Take her into the pit,” Calantha instructed her subordinate, “bring her before El Conde. Through the will of the dark father, he shall remake her.”

“They call my kind crazy,” Morgan snarled, “but you’re the ones who are fucking insane. Does it hurt, having a brain filled with the Sabbat’s poison and lies? Does the madness ache? Do you suffer?”

Calantha let out a sharp eruption of laughter.

“Madness doesn’t hurt, amica mea,” she cackled, “it makes us whole. I treasure every delicious second of it.”

Calantha Teohari was the product of unimaginable torture, and indescribbably suffering. She had been ripped apart, and put back together, over and over and over again, by her demented sire.

In the decades since, she had glutted herself on a banquet of the most deranged, and psychotic souls. Her favourite pastime was embracing particularly sadistic serial killers, before diablerizing them, and gorging on their essence.

She stalked them, trapped them, and feasted upon their insanity.

Those crooked splinters of malice and monstrosity had embedded themselves within her, burrowing beneath her skin, and drilling into the psychic tissue of her mind.

Morgan doubted that any of her treasured friend was left.

Secret passageways webbed out of the Cathedral, and burrowed down into the darkest echelons of the earth. The Sabbat forced Morgan down, into a spiraling corridor, and marched her through their underground network of hidden tunnels.

“How typically villainous of you,” Morgan chuckled dryly, and without humour, her tone dripping with scorn, “an underground lair.”

“It has its uses.” The towering Brujah replied, curtly, his voice bouncing off of the craggy walls.

Jagged stone underpasses surrounded them, carved out of crooked rock, and engulfed in complete darkness. Without their supernatural night vision, the vampires would have been unable to see even marginally infront of them.

“El conde will transform you, beloved,” Calantha promised, as the group stepped out of the shadowy hallways, and into the Sabbat’s colossal, underground chapel, “we will become one in -”

The Tzimiscie stopped, dead in her tracks.

“Points for presentation, but the substance is lacking.” The voice sounded bored as it rose from the pews lining the chapel. The figure sat among them, his feet up on the row in front of him with a typical lack of reverence as the figure beside him finally crumbled to ash, consumed by his ministrations.

“I remember when the Sabbat didn’t scurry in holes in the ground, when all of Europe bowed beneath the whims of your Popes and Bishops. They called you Anarchs back then. By the Dark Sire, that was a ‘real’ war.” The figure continued as he stood, buttoning closed the jack of the three piece suit he wore, even hidden in darkness. The ash didn’t stick to him this time, tumbling away to leave his appearance painfully perfect.

“I wasn’t going to kill you all, I really do promise, but then I found this little rat, and it really sullied my mood.” Lubbock half-growled as he stooped to lift the exsanguinated body of Andy Warhol from the floor beside him, examining the stricken kindred with a look of pure disgust. “Moden art was such a terrible mistake.” He bemoaned, before casting the body aside, striking a pillar with such force the kindred simply came apart in a cascade of bone and corpse-ash, the last of the undead will holding it together collapsing entirely.

“Come on then, I haven’t got all night.”

Morgan’s head was swarmed with the shrieking, screaming voices of the unseen. Countless invisible kindred cried out, begging her to turn, and run.

“You don’t belong here,” Calantha snarled, striding forwards, with fire blazing in her eyes, “these dark halls will be your tomb!”

The Tzimisce raised one long, slender hand, and her underlings rushed forwards.

Gracie and Tate charged towards Lubbock, the giant Brujah hoisting his broadsword up above his head, whilst he roared like some ancient berserker.

“Calantha, please!” Morgan grabbed hold of the Tzimisce’s hand, slipping her fingers between those of her former lover.

Calantha Teohari was so stunned that she didn’t ressit, caught off-guard by the sudden display of affection.

“Down into the jaws of the beast,” Morgan whimpered, re-conveying what the shadowy voices were whispering to her, bloody tears welling in her eyes,”a child of the minotaur, in the skin of a knight. Dancing on roses of ash, and mountains of bones.”

A burst of panic flashed across the Tzimisce’s pale features.

Lubbock didn’t even move as the Kindred charged him, he closed his eyes, opening his mouth to taste the rage, and the building fear. His tongue lapped around the emotions like a thirsting animal, savouring the hot tangs of their mayfly lives. Then he spoke.

“Kill each other.”

When the words slipped passed his lips, Lubbock’s eyes blazed in the darkness, leeching the colour of ichor into the air itself, the words pulsing through the air like a shockwave, the very darkness itself fleeing from him. The pair of kindred didn’t miss a step, their charge turned on the next motion, barreling them into each other in a tumble of claw,fang and body. To kill a kindred was not a swift or easy thing with brute force, even to another kindred, and the pair were still fighting, cutting visceral chunks of each other away as Lubbock stepped over them.

“You are right, broken thing, your myths and legends, I am them, when humanity was young and barely knew the bones of gods it scrabbled upon, I was there. When you elders croned about the dangers of the ancient ones, they spoke of me.” He continued to walk closer, the burning brightness of each eye a mote to lose the soul in, utterly transfixing the Kindred before him even as their comrades limply still tried to fulfill his orders, dying, bleeding ash on the floor.

“Do you see now? Your Sabbat is not truth, you are just the children who needed the greater lie.”

The pounding in Morgan’s head was like the beating of a hundred thousand thundering war drums. The beast within her was thrashing, and fighting, and screaming in terror.

She felt her dead body growing stiff, and cold. She was frozen to the spot; petrified by the transfixing touch of unadulterated dread.

“We prepared for this,” Calantha hissed, her fangs unsheathing, “the sword of caine has planned for your awakening, monster!”

The Malkavian could feel ancient fires crackling against her skin. The scent of smoke, long since extinguished, flooded her nostrils.

Mary’s dying screams filled her ears, threatening to engulf her, as they had done all those years ago.
Then, suddenly, a single voice cut through the wailing.

Do it for me, Morgan. Do it for Calantha. Do it for yourself. A brighter future is counting on you.

Morgan Holloway let go of Calantha Teohari’s hand.

The Malkavian took a step forward.

“Its my fault that the Angel found you, Calantha,” Morgan said, locking eyes with the mighty demi-god infront of her, “its my fault that you got pulled into this fucked up world of monsters and demons. You could have had a normal life, but I took that away from you.”

The Malkavian drew her claws.

“It's high time I did something about that.”

Without warning, Morgan Holloway soared forwards, racing across the ground, in a sudden burst of swiftness.

Her mind’s eyes opened, and the ethereal fires of London poured fourth. A raging inferno of insanity bled out into the world, bursting out of her head, and smothering Lubbock in a cacophony of cackling madness.

“RUN, CALANTHA!” The Malkavian roared, throwing herself upon the Antediluvian, “RUN!”

For a few glorious moments, Lubbock was drowned in madness. His mind plunged into raving lunacy of a London long passed. His consciousness danced in the flame, pirouetted among the damned and dying of the city he had once called home. Kindred had a natural revulsion to flame, but instead his soul craved it, seeking the glorious final absolution the fire offered. A chance for blessed annihilation. There, in the smoke drenched ruin, he found her. The dallying mayfly spirit of the Malkavian. He felt her desperation, her fear, and most deliciously rare among the souls of his kind, her love. She had been brave, admirably so, every inch of her being had been thrown into this final act and his heart would be stone to be unmoved by such a thing.

Without even a sigh of effort, he scattered her mind. Her being was already an amalgamation of broken shards, barely held together by a fading will. His presence unleashed her entirely, the glass breaking and spiralling away into madness, then nothingness. That was when his physical form took her, his fangs sinking into her neck, pulling her very essence into him in a span of moments, even as his soul still danced in the London of her creation. He would not let a spirit so motivated from something as beautiful as love been condemned to unreality, he brought her into himself, melding her spirit to his, without consuming her. There she would swim until he grew bored of her, or found a final release a fitting reward for her actions.

Reality crashed against him like a dark tide, the cold bite of the living world bringing a snarl from his features as he was himself again. He could not fault the Tzimisce for not being able to flee either. Her lover’s sacrifice had bought her a single second. He was upon her before she could even blink again, a hand to her throat driving her into the ground with enough force to crack the stone beneath them, leering over her, his eyes bore into her own.

“I feel her thoughts, Calantha, did you know at the end she still loved you? After everything you’ve done.” His fingers flexed, feeling the weakness of her bones beneath his grip. The memories were his now, and what had brought fear to the Malkavian inspired only rage in the ancient Toreador. “It is a shame I need your little, twisted, soul.” He mused, before his own features began to swim. To the kindred he pinned, the form of Lubbock twisted, murky, rippling. At first in the now, but then her memories swam as well, being remade as surely as they were in the present.

Eventually female features looked down at her, pinning her just as effectively with hands the colour of one who had been born under the Mexican Sun, long before there had been a Mexico. When Lubbock spoke, it was with the voice of a grandchilde’ not his own.

“Find me, have your vengeance.”

Then the thing that had been Lubbock vanished.

VIoletta pushed open the door to the rundown apartment, and took a resolute stride inside.

She was dressed in a slick, fashionable jacket, which boasted snappy silver buttons, and chic zebra print.

Armando Iglesias, the proprietor of one of LA’s biggest up-and-coming goth clubs, and a bitter rival of the nosferatu Luke Lang, had recently met the final death.

Sheriff Teach had told Violetta that he suspected Lang was behind the kill, and he had been given Prince Vannevar’s leave to deal with the problem accordingly.

“Mister Lang,” the ventrue greeted her target with icy, detached scorn, “I’ve heard some concerning things about the Gorgon Pit, and how you might be connected to its late owner.”

Vi lit herself a cigarette, with the scorching flame of her lighter. She slipped the straight into her mouth, and began puffing away.

“Miss Kyborowski,” Lang grunted at her, through rows of sharp, twisted teeth, “what brings a lovely little polack like you down into the filth and much?”

Lang’s abode was a messy jumble of old furniture, and scattered debris. He seemed to reside in a cluttered cave, that looked as though someone had dropped a bomb in a rubbish tip.

In the middle of the room, an old, baroque table had been turned upside down, and dumped on the floor.

“Nice piece.” Vi murmured, tightly wrapping her hand around one of the ornate wooden legs.

With a sharp crack, Violetta tore the table leg free, in a shower of jagged splinters.

She clutched the makeshift spike in her firm grasp.

“Is there a reason yer stormin’ in here, ‘un breakin’ my furniture?” Lang growled.

“You know why I’m here,” she snapped, “because of Armando.”

Vi took a draw from her cigarette, fixing the nosferatu with a steely glare, whilst she blew out a mouthful of silvery grey smoke.

“You can’t tell me Vannevar is shedding tears over a chump like Armando Iglesias?!” Lang scoffed, letting out a throaty cackle, “that fucker was basically courting the second inquisition with his tatty fuckin’ goth club. I did the prince a favour!”

“The sixth tradition is sacred, Lang,” Vi told him, coldly, “we have laws for a reason.”

“Maybe it was an accident?” the nosferatu leered, “maybe I tripped, and nicked him with my knife?”

Violleta allowed herself one more drag of her cigarette, savouring the rich, familiar haze of nicotine. She cast the burning remains of her straight onto Lang’s floor, leaving it there to smolder, and crackle.

“I don’t like being fooled around with.” Vi said, firmly.

“I ain’t a fool.” Lang snarled back at her.

A potence-infused fist slammed into Violetta’s jaw, with what felt like the force of a frenzied haul truck.

Vi let out a roar of pain, stumbling backwards.

The nosferatu grabbed a hold of her lapel, and yanked her towards him, his breath stinking like an open sewer.

“Fuck you! Camarilla cunt!” Lang growled, hissing at her, like a furious serpent, “who the fuck are you to judge me, you stuck up fuc-”

The nosferatu let out a sudden gasp, as Vi plunged the sharp point of the broken table leg through his chest, and straight into his noxious heart.

Lang froze up, trapped in motion, like a plastic mannequin.

“Suck my dick, sewer rat.” Vi snarled.

She wrapped both hands around the nosferatu’s throat, burrowing her talons into his flesh, and ripped his head clean off, with one mighty pull.

A spurt of dark blood burst out of Lang’s corpse, like the jet of a furious fountain. His body shriveled and withered, contorting with age, as it tumbled to the ground, spewing toxic sanguine out of its twisted stump.

Violetta would have sooner drank from literal vermin than partake in that disgusting freak’s tainted blood.

She gave his mangled cadaver a sharp kick, for good measure.

Suddenly, Lang’s front door burst open.

Violetta spun on her heel, just in time to see David come charging into the room.

“Vi!” He squeaked ,”shit just hit the fan?”

She narrowed her eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“Teach called,” he explained, “I find it kind of hard to understand all these crazy cryptic codes the Camarilla make us use, but…”

“What?”

“It's Isaac Abrams,” David gulped, “he met the final death.”

Of the five staterooms on the 1st Deck Henry was given the fourth down from the door to the weatherdeck and the stairs. Desks and accents and doors were a dark stained cherry wood, fixtures and switches all the same simple copper finish. The carpet was light and sandy and short fibered yet plush all the same, bathrooms were attached though they were little more than toilet and shower closets with an awkward sink.

Eva was the fifth stateroom from the stairs, the last one, though the stateroom was otherwise no different than the others--save for a slightly larger bathroom for Nicole to shower the funk of the LA Port off and slip into fresh clothes. She never caught Henry emerge, she watched the second helicopter of the evening briefly land. Two women emerged, to her eye’s obvious Kindred just from the surreal ease in which they all but slipped and shrugged out of the helicopter, never once worrying about the blades...a real concern at sea despite the calm state of the waters just outside the Port of Los Angeles waterways. The buoys marking the western edge of the maritime corridor were no more than fifty feet away.

Where Eva sat it was all right in front of her, minus Tina, the bartender tending the yacht’s bar on the 1st Level--the area of the boat arrived at from taking the stairs up, instead of down for the staterooms of the 1st Deck. The 1st Level interior was entirely the bar, and a large lounge with various screens and parallel white sectional sofas, the walls lined with shelves filled with a hodgepodge of books read and shared by small crew and coterie, blue-rays and DVDs, and scripts.

The Captain was no fan of the ship being so close to the wake of larger vessels. They had simply been waiting. As Yanci and Rachel walked around the 1st Level of the exterior to the back of the boat, through the door to the lower level and deck, up the stairs, through the lounge, and into the bar surrounded on most sides by rounded glass. Los Angeles glared in the distance, smoldering with the orange and red glow of fire. Southern California residents knew that particular sky far too well. Tina walked out just before the two arrived.

“Are we sure?”, was how it started. The words were spoken sharply by Yanci, dark eyed and dark featured, her hair in long waves and overflowing her shoulders by a few inches, wearing acid wash jeans near baggy legged and a dark blue wool sweater that stopped at her midriff.

Rachel wore a Prada charcoal pants suit, the pants fitted and finished with a gold plated hollow centered buckle,the blouse black silk and hanging off her shoulders just far enough to hint at curves underneath instead of outright show them; her straight cut bob a dirty blonde and undyed.

The style differences only hinted at deeper differences. And made Eva feel oddly appropriate after a change to black tights with a fine black mesh along the sides shaped like smoke rising up to the thinnest smoke tendril at her knee and a simple white sleeveless shirt simple white Reebok classics on the feet that were resting on the bar. Eva didn’t turn until she shrugged. “As sure as I can be.”

“We’ll be ready if it goes badly,” the tone bordered on cocky as Dre just breezed past the two ladies for a seat at one of the cherrywood tables with matching chairs just off the bar and next to the glass. His clothes were as simple as dark loose jeans, brown boots, and a black teeshirt.

“Which it could. Very badly.” Rachel didn’t look up from the phone, but even she had to admit it.

Mateo was the dandy; purple velvet vest, black dress shirt unbuttoned a few buttons down from the top, dress slacks, calf high boots of polished leather and gold buckles. “We know who they are. We know they don’t know much about Eva.” The exchange of glances between Maty behind the bar and Dre and Yanci, in particular, was fun for Eva. Even if it just kinda meant Maty squirmed for a moment.

Eva had to rescue him. “It could all go very badly. Big gambles are big gambles for a reason. If it works out...we have a chance. If it doesn’t...I don’t see a path.”

“And they may know enough to actually make life suck for a bit,” Matty shrugged, thinking it over, the shrug making his waist length black hair dance for just a second.

“Tell me this isn’t just the next thing, Eve,” Yanci’s gaze wasn’t kind, it wasn’t cold, it was just anxious and darting and scared. “I get the chosen bit, it’s one of our favorite cliches. Those scripts on those shelves are filled with them. We both know how that normally turns out. So what if this goes beyond the pale?”

Eva smiled, if only because what else was left to her? “No clue, Yance. I don’t see a path without their help. So many of them will die if we don’t try. I can’t not try. If you can’t…” Eva’s hands went instantly up near her shoulders, palms out, innocence proclaimed by gesture. “Not to say you’d ever bail. But--”

“--yeah, I get it. I just don’t think it’s good enough. Dre is always superman, until he’s not and he breaks and our security forces break. It’s happened. We survived on luck during the King riots. LUCK. WE WILL NOT GET THAT LUCKY AGAIN. Rachel is afraid we’re the only thing she’ll ever have left in a life she gets to pick, and Matty believes in you. Like I believe in you. But right now I can’t tell if this is really the crazy gambit we want to make or if you’re just being Eva, the first of the Hollywood divas.”

The cocktail table Dre sat at almost did not survive the thunderclap slam his palm struck upon it’s surface as his temper snapped. “WE SURVIVED. Sometimes that’s a matter of luck. That’s the way it works, girl. I’m sorry, but this ain’t helping shit. You been pissed off for months. Life’s never going back to the way it was. That’s not always such a bad thing.”

“The end of the world doesn’t sound fun,” Matty’s voice was a gentle and measured thing after silence hung in the air for long moments, tipping off the curious and problem solving mind behind it, “You’re right, Yanci. I believe she’s right. I believe she’s picked, and why she was is a question we need to ask and answer. I get why she hides from the greater Kindred society. I know what it feels like to not belong to it. Whatever we can salvage...for us, for them...certainly I’m the newest of us yet I cannot help but feel confident in saying this is who and what this coterie is. Just trying is what we would do. Help. Keep ours as safe and normal as possible in the process. We’ve worked for a while to outfox the Inquisition digitally. I’m confident in our work.”

“There’s no stopping them. I have to try to manage it and take care of them.”

Rachel’s pained amusement made Yanci shake her head, and sit down at the other cocktail table. “Okay.”

For now, Eva thought, it would have to be enough. Henry and Nicole were stirring. “We’ll see what Henry has to say.”

“And Nicole?”

Every pair of eyes in the bar went to Eva. If she could have blushed…”I guess so.”


One habit Grace had acquired was a tendency to judge people by where they liked to discuss business. The fact she was willing to meet with someone who chose the lounge of a yacht showed how far things had diverged from normal circumstances. Julie and the helicopter had returned home, Grace had gotten to the yacht by other means. A quick cost-benefit analysis was what guided that decision, the stakes demanded that someone go to the meeting, but the risks involved meant that exposure should be minimized. Julie’s inexperience wouldn’t add enough value to justify the added risk. Even Grace, with her many layers of precautions, felt uneasy standing in the doorway of the lounge. She wore one of the outfits she always did, selected to be as generic and unmemorable as possible, unbranded and composed entirely of shades of black and grey.

As she scanned the room the roster of Eva’s friends looked different from how Grace remembered them from their first meeting, back a sunset, but the intelligence files she had offered no explanation. The one with the most detailed file was Rachel, but it was almost entirely about her mortal life, from the days when she had been seen as a potential recruit to the cause. Old information, but not without value. It would be easier talking to her than trying to understand the network of social interactions unfolded before her; Eva was the center of everything but to understand all of centuries worth of accumulated details and norms was not practical. Grace only had time for what could be measured, not ill-defined social ties. When there was a pause, she walked near Rachel and said:

“Miss Fields, it is nice to see you again. It’s a shame that our interests don’t allow us to work together more often, if certain events had been different we may have been part of the same organization, in the same cohort even. If we had met twenty years ago I’m sure we’d be discussing Harvard’s infamous Math 55 course and comparing our scores on the Putnam Exam, but I do not know if you are the same person those old files depict. I have other concerns these days, and I believe you do also.”

Rachel could internally debate the likelihood of a 'chosen one', but she had maxed out her allotment of eye rolling for the day already--and if Mateo was to be believed being 'chosen' was unlikely to end well; just look at Caine, the logic went. So when the human magic user walked over and began speaking, Rachel actually smiled at the distraction.

Distraction was welcome, interest piqued was quite another thing when Grace brought up old files. "Old files on me? How flattering." Unlike Eva and Yanci, Rachel's tone was nearly void of the emotions the two Toreadors rode upon the unlife with.

But the line of 'I do not know if you are the same person those old files depict'...actually made the Ventrue laugh. A full, hard, if short lived, bark of laughter before quickly returning to her former composure. "Wow. Um...yeah, I'm mostly the same. Except for not being alive, I suppose, and a taste for blood."

"And fangs," Dre chimed into the chat he wasn't part of, but was overhearing all the same, as he stared a hole into the table at which he was seated.

"Ah, right, and fangs. I'm not that old. Eva tells me about the Anasazi people of early North America, Yanci recalls California before it was ever part of the US. Andre is a former slave and soldier of the Civil War. I'm a child relative to that, and too young to have begun to lose who I am to the 'monster' yet. The older you live as one of us, the further away from the human you were you find yourself. There are very rare exceptions; such as Eva. But me? I'm still me. Just less naive."

Grace was happy that the conversation was smoother than she thought it would be. Although they were close to the same age, neither spent much time with the typical concerns of someone approaching middle age in terms of human years. Grace continued with the formal pattern, if things got slow she could always fall back on the few jokes about Harvard and Stanford she knew.
“After this, if things are more relaxed and any of your friends wish to use some their experiences to correct errors with current historical studies regarding those time periods, they are welcome to contact me. I can nudge the scholarly consensus in the correct direction.”
“As for changes, I’m always wary about how reliable anyone can be when analyzing themselves. Memory is troublesome, it’s not as though people can store them in a Merkle tree so they can guarantee their integrity.” Silently, Grace corrected herself. Most people can’t. “Anyway, if you still have your taste for philosophy, this all reminds me of a famous hypothetical.
Are you familiar with Donald Davidson’s Swampman thought experiment? If you take a human and create an exact replica down to the last particle of matter, is it the same person as the original? If the copy remains and the original dies, is that person still alive? And would that copy, holding all of the memories and personality of the original but having experienced none of their actual life, even know anything was amiss? It’s an interesting idea that crops up in all sorts of places, including the works of a particularly irritating British comic book author and self-styled anarchist wizard who has so far managed to avoid our attempts to eliminate him. I’ve yet to see if any of that makes it into the TV adaptation of Swamp Thing.“

"Ask Yanci. At the moment she's managing Hollywood. I do know she's no fan of Mr. Moore; you can't be in this coterie and avoid comic books. For example if you think Kevin Feige is a mere mortal and not a conduit of greater artistic expressions and media minds...well."

Rachel shrugged, preferring to say no more on that subject lest she violate the privacy of Hollywood's creative circles. Especially the more hidden circles.

"I remember first getting exposed to the idea in Star Trek. Now Eva and Yanci have it popping up in modern classics like Rick & Morty." The word 'classics' had a certain exaggeration when spoken; though Rachel was cautious not to go further.

Yanci was quite fond of the adult oriented cartoon.

"As for after this...I don't know. That was the heated discussion we just let go: how suicidal is this? What if the Inquisition knows more about us than we think? What if they care more about studying Eva than helping her save the world? She wants to walk right into an Inquisition higher-up meeting. Lay the situation out to them. Not unlike what she did with you. I think we're waiting on Henry and Nicole to chime in."

"And her."

The addition came out of Eva’s mouth, even as her attention appeared as if it stayed on her quiet chat with Mateo at the bar the whole time. "Yes, obviously, yourself included."

The quiet lapping of waves and the gentle roll of the boat from time to time the only other sounds besides the low dull hum of the yacht’s engines.

Scientific literature was the only media Grace consumed for fun. Not that she’d had much fun lately. The best ones were too classified to share anyway. Grace avoided looking at Nicole, not quite apologizing about the ejection ; that was just a way to make sure that the helicopter and her subordinate were secure while allowing their passenger to get to her destination. She said
“Your chance of success rests on how persuasive you can be. I have reason to believe you are quite effective at that, even if I don’t know the specifics of your methods.” Grace’s belief in that was why she always took such precautions when meeting with vampires. Finding out how powerful they could had only increased this drive to be prepared.
She continued.

“Aside from that, you can try and plan, hedge your efforts to lessen the impact of a failure, but never assume you have a deeper bag of tricks than your adversary. That kind of hubris kills operations. So, what exactly do you want from the Inquisition? Just for them to stay out of your way, or do you see a role for them? I might be able to help but I admit I don’t spend much time thinking about them, they’re kind of like our mentally unstable cousin.”

Barely making her way through the doorway leading into the lounge, Nicole simply stared across the room, surveying the posh area and the collection of members, mostly part of Eva’s group. Her Coterie, as it were. The word didn’t resonate much with the Gangrel, as most of the terminology and lifestyle verbiage of Kindred society was still so very new to her, that the meaning was only surface if anything. She remembered Eva mentioning “Family” more than once, when referring to her coterie, so the significance was certainly greater to the Elder Toreador. Nicole’s family -her mortal family- were still back in Fresno, hopefully as secure as could be, with the only knowledge of their daughter as being dead. Perhaps that was the way it had to be.
Forever.

Arms crossed and leaning against the glass walls near the entrance, the Gangrel hadn’t moved from the spot in the last few minutes, unsure of where to position herself in a room of people she mostly didn’t know. Her arrival was...fairly unorthodox to say the least, and Eva insisted the girl take a shower and change first before joining them in the lounge and being subjected to all kinds of questioning by her coterie. Or so Nicole assumed would happen. She was the new blood after all, and could feel the eyes. Even though most were engaged in their own conversations at the moment, a sense of scrutiny could be felt as though the woman had been standing near the doorway completely naked with all of her secrets out on the table. She hated the feeling. Being there was quite uncomfortable for many reasons.
Speaking of…

She saw Grace across the room and screwed her lips up a bit, staring only daggers at the Agent in black for a moment, as an otherwise subdued anger was felt rising from the pit of her stomach. She felt betrayed by the woman. Neglected almost. Tossed out of the chopper’s belly like a piece of meat. But, Nicole also should have expected such a dick move. They were not friends. At least not currently. Probably never.

As if by some saving grace, however, a still small voice in the back of her head essentially nudged her enough to simply “drop the matter”. It was that same stern, yet tender voice she’d heard on multiple occasions in the past. Was it a telepathic connection she shared with Eva, or was it implanted in her memory as a safeguard? Just the thought of such supernatural fuckery was enough to make her head explode.

“I need a drink.” Nicole mumbled, making her way to the bar while fidgeting with the silver button on the slim fitting blue jeans she borrowed, to go with a heather gray long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of white Adidas Superstars, which she’d never had worn if it wasn’t for the fact that her boots were drenched like the rest of her clothing. Free is free. Thankfully, Eva took the liberty of having Nicole’s stuff washed and dried during her stay, although knowing as much as she does about the Toreador, the Gangrel’s previous wardrobe was most likely dumped into an incinerator.

Henry paused before he entered the lounge, one hand pressed to the nape of his neck. He felt the two small pinprick incisions healing beneath his touch, the skin that was all too human when he wished it to be reknitting beneath the surface of his digits. It was a lesson learned even by ancient beings. Never walk into a classroom of kids covered with love bites if you wanted to avoid gossip.
"Fix us one, would you love?" Henry spoke as he walked in, nodding to Nicole as she moved towards the bar. The time between his arrival and now had done wonders on the man's condition. Most importantly, he no longer burned with the barely contained fire of his buried true form, but secondarily to that, his right arm no longer felt like it was hanging on by shreds of skin alone. Bloody Furries.

"Don't get them talking about Hollywood, we'll be here all bloody week." Henry added, towards Grace, as he found himself a seat, reclining back as he allowed the plush surface to take his weight in full. If he focused hard, the feel of fire, fang and claw could be pushed to the back of his mind for the moment. "Do carry on." He finally added, in a voice wrapped in a very different English accent to normal, the well structured tones of received pronunciation masking the Cockney London gangster for the moment.

Nicole could definitely smell -no, almost taste- the scent of the beasts that permeated from Henry Locke, as he passed by and took a seat with the others. It was totally foreign to her, but there was certainly something odd about it, turning up her nose for a moment, before pouring a couple of drinks for her and Henry. She could recall the scent a few times within the two weeks of her journey alone in the wilderness, away from most of the population. Hiding. Trying to understand herself and what she was. The scent was that of more animals than undead. Could it have been the werewolves she had heard about? Lupines, as she had heard them referred to with utmost disdain.
Paying little attention to her current moment, distant thoughts ran away, causing her to overpour the drink and create a small puddle of blood-infused bourbon along the granite countertop. “Shit.” She grumbled, soaking up the liquid with a stack of paper napkins, before taking both glasses and heading over to where Henry was seated

“It’s probably nowhere near as good as what you’d make.” Nicole leaned in to hand the drink to the other before making her way around to where Eva had been seated, and plopping down on a barstool.

“Hi.” She whispered to the Toreador, cracking a half smile. Nicole couldn’t help but feel guilty for leaving Eva as she did back at the villa all those weeks back, but she also knew that the Elder understood how much havoc the Gangrel’s blood was causing within. Being a relatively new vampire was anything but comfortable.

“Look, I’m sor-”