“The Prince will see you now.”

Violetta strode between a pair of double doors, trying to exude the confidence of a fearless boss bitch, even though she felt a sharp stab of unease in the pit of her stomach.

“Miss Kyborowski. Thank you for your swiftness.”

Vannevar’s voice shifted between calm authority and quivering anger, as if his inflection were a coin, flipping from side to side, whilst it tumbled through the air.

“My prince,” Vi bowed her head to the lithe figure, “I understand that Isaac Abrams has met his final death.”

A long glass table stretched between them both. Vannevar sat in a baroque chair, before a backdrop of walls which were adorned with ornate paintings, and dazzling works of art, that would likely have caused the dead heart of a Toreador to start beating madly once again.

“Not by the hand of the Ivory Tower,” Prince Thomas murmured, “although I scarcely think the anarchs will believe that.”

Vannevar Thomas wore an expression of grim gravitas, etched across his sharply chiseled features. A pair of beady brown eyes gazed out of a gaunt face, which boasted a neatly-trimmed goatee, and exuded an aura of archaic regality.

He was Ventrue, through-and-through. No other clan could blend arrogance and affluence with such sleek ease.

Everything about the prince emanated monarchical esteem, from his kingly posture, to the precise fit of his resplendent suit, which undoubtedly cost more than some poor sod’s yearly wage.

“This does not bode well for us,” Violetta agreed, “particularly when enemies surround us, on all sides.”

“Very astute of you, Miss Kyborowski.” Prince Vannevar shifted in his seat, bristling with obvious irritation.

Vannevar reminded Vi of a caged animal, seething behind the tight confines of its suffocating enclosure. She knew that he could feel the walls closing in around him.

“What do you want from me, my prince?” she asked Vannevar, with a respectful bow of her head.

The best way to survive a pompous predator like the prince was to appeal to his hazardously over-inflated ego.

In the mind of Vannevar Thomas, he was still some lofty aristocrat, from an age when the United States was a virgin territory, not an empire in all but name.

“Work with Sheriff Teach,” the prince instructed her, his tone softening slightly, as his pride was soothed, “find out who was responsible for Abrams’ true death, before we find ourselves in the middle of an all-out war with the unbound.”

Violetta gave Vannevar another gesture of unconditional obedience, as though she were a courtier, groveling before some feudal king.

This is what it means to be Camarilla. We are all serfs, scrabbling for our meagre scrap of wealth, and power. Much like the golden glow of the sun, true freedom will never be ours.

Even the most mighty of kindred are slaves to some higher, terrible monster. The pyramid just rises and rises, higher and higher, past the heavens themselves, and into the darkest depths of the void.

The price of knowledge is knowing that none of us will ever be free.

“Where would you like me to start, my prince?” Violetta asked Prince Thomas.

“Teach will take you to the scene of the murder,” Vannevar told her ,”although I imagine the anarchs have already scrubbed away anything useful.”

“I’ll head over there at once.” Vi replied, dutifully.

“Good girl,” Vannevar grinned, flashing his pointed eye teeth, “don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t.” Violletta assured him, her voice firm and decisive.

A musical chuckle eased itself out of the prince’s lips.

“There are fates worse than death, Miss Kyborowski,” Vaennvar promised her, “if you fail me, you’ll find out just how inadequate your perception of hell really is.”

“Sorry for being you?” That Eva’s face could ignite from faux shock and bright smiles from the placid surface of the mystery woman floating before and behind the counter of the bar was in no small part a clue as to why Hollywood was, in fact, Hollywood. Eva could no more hold Santa Barbara against Nicole than she could hold a bad attitude against Yanci, or San Diego’s messiness against Dre.
Eva could only control what she could control, and she knew it.
“We all tend to disappear from time to time,” Maty shrugged even as he delicately helped clean up the clean mess, careful not to let it spoil the purple velvet vest. To say nothing of effortlessly sliding himself into the conversation between Nicole and Eva. “Granted we aren’t all you.” Words spoken so gently as Maty ensured the granite was left clean when mortal bartenders were allowed back in. Not that they minded, Maty knew; they were relaxing in their crew lounge or their own state rooms. Comfy beds there, he had passed out in one once.
“That’s true. The expense to keep Nicole safe and secret far exceeds what the Camarilla had to spend on me, for example.”
Rachel did the math, but it wasn’t what Maty meant. They knew it, even Rachel KNEW it, she just preoccupied herself with other details. Yanci had no such distraction, although even her voice was warmer tones on the subject, “It’s not the cost. They have something…intense, special. Intimate.”
Eva’s back was turned to the scene, already asking Henry how he was feeling as she handed his drink to him after the gaggle behind the bar produced it throughout the mess cleaning and other dramas. If the subject at hand affected her in any way, it simply wasn’t visible. The woman who gave Carmen San Diego a run for her money just didn’t give much away. Except, of course: “The one part was wrong,” she said with a pause, a pause to steal a sip of Henry’s drink and a wince that followed. “The part about Henry.”
“What??” came from most of the room.
Yanci knew. “Oh, that part was telepathic.”
Maty perked, “Nicole had a telepathic thing about Henry?”
“No offense who the fuck hasn’t had a—”
Eva had to laugh, much as she quickly reigned it in. “Nice drink.” A simple smile to Henry, her face actually almost red before she turned away from Henry and towards the bar and most the others. “She smells the lupines on him, but she gets something else. Something that puts hairs on end.”
“Uh,” Dre began, sounding part dumbfounded, “try he’s the literal Devil.”
Rachel found Grace’s suddenly intense gaze, and slowly nodded. Her tone was much more sober than Dre’s on the topic. “As far as we can tell, Henry Locke is some aspect of Lucifer Morningstar. When you bleed starlight and can make ancient Kindred and magic users shift uncomfortably when you get angry and slashy…”
Eva finished the thought, “You tend to stand out. Cheers to you, by the way,” the last bit quietly said as an aside to the man just beside her, Henry, as she tried to raise his own drink to him—until he stole it away from her. Undaunted she stood to her feet in the black leggings and sleeveless white tee, hair in a ponytail that looked far better than any effort that went into it. A ponytail Eva found her left fingertips absently running through as she looked around the bar of the yacht, and took a breath only anxiety dictated she take.
The gentle tug that reclaimed his drink had little in the way of hostility, as playful as the gaze which wandered up and down her as she stood and moved away, an unashamed look hidden from no one in the room, before he grinned more generally, raising his glass to Eva’s soft words before taking a long gulp. “Sometimes even I don’t believe it, then I get stabbed and bleed a little starlight on the pavement. Try not to get any of that on you.”
“Henry, Nicole, Grace: the Inquisition is going to ruin my timing. I can’t do what I feel like I need to do without them providing at least some kind of assistance, or at the very least non-interference,” she took only the slightest break, her eyes watching Rachel sneak Dre a live phone. Whispers between them, whispers between Dre and the phone as Dre hunched forward and kept his head and voice low. “That means we have to deal with them. If they were stupid and this was easy, cool. It’s not, it turns out. According to Maty…well, Maty.”
Eva sat, and the slender overdressed eternal youth with delicate features and waist length long, impossibly straight, dark hair put his hands on the bar’s inside edge, eyes mostly between Yanci, Grace, and Nicole. “The Inquisition is the governments of men finally leveraging their power in smart, targeted, ways that make our secret lives and positions of power…actually threatened. Their specialty is using signal, digital intelligence. It’s everywhere. It finally gets them intelligence capabilities not too far from the supernatural. This gets them very far in both Camarilla and Sabbat territory in the United States, Canada too. In California, outside of San Francisco, it gets them nowhere. Eva was literally part of the first wave of Europeans to make it here. She stayed and built California’s major hubs with a few other Kindred. As Rachel will tell you, there is nowhere in the state government they can go that they won’t find Eva’s influence. Rachel has ensured that influence remains heavy and fast reacting.”
“It leaves them few options,” Rachel picked it up, her own stoic exterior wearing concern like it simply did not often do. Both tone and the expression of her face; this was dangerous, this was serious, this was very possibly the end. Of them all. “They’re meeting to decide what to do about California. They know about Eva now. They realize what Hollywood is. They think they realize what Eva is, organization and the woman herself. They do not. She wants to walk into this meeting and simply tell them, persuade them. Granted if anyone can…”
“It’s a risk we shouldn’t take, but Eva do like her some grand dramatic gestures.” Dre ignored the look his tone would elicit from Eva, herself, not that a look was likely to move Dre one way or another. “San Diego was taken and its controlled, but the Sabbat War Packs along the border are in a frenzy. We’re not trying to hold the southern half of San Diego. It’s a no man’s land, at the moment. San Francisco teams report something very bad happened, probably Lubbock, we haven’t found the Prince. We don’t know where he is. Not sure about the Chantry there, Maty hasn’t heard anything definitive and our rovers report the same. Nothing along state borders. For now.” He shrugged, it was the best that could be asked for, all things considered, he thought.
“I can put in a word, considering who I am, and you might find the Inquisition oddly willing to listen to Henry Locke, as there are some old circles I can still move in.” Henry offered from his seat, his feet resting up for the moment on the back of another chair. “Just maybe don’t mention the full name, they might not be burning as many people at the stake as they used to, but this is still God-fearing America.”
“The fires are still being fought. We’ll be spared critical damage. Lot of our money ‘bout to go into relief and rebuilding. The wolves are still out there. We THOUGHT maybe the Inquisition had gotten a hold of a Sabbat Cardinal, but our people are saying he’s in Los Angeles on his own.”
Yanci blinked. “Alone? Like…no one else with him at all?”
“Alone.” Dre finished the word, Yanci and Eva were already staring at each other from across the crowded space. “Cicatriz the dude’s name. Any y’all fancy a fucking chat with the dude? Our people say he keeps requesting Eva, only Eva, and because Gehenna.”
Eva sat down next to Henry just in time to take a long drink of her very own drink, instead of the ones she kept stealing from Henry’s glass. It was good timing, as ass hit cushion about the time Dre said the word Gehenna. “Alright. As far as I know the world is about to suck. The Third Generation rises, and everyone will lose their minds. I can help Kindred, I can try to help everyone else. I don’t know. Helena has told me I have to find Lubbock, or he’ll find me, and…that will work itself out, she says. Either I die, or he dies. There is no other outcome. She doesn’t seem to have a preferred outcome.”
“How?” Was the only time, throughout the entire gathering, Rachel’s temper snapped. A quick whip sharp demand of how Helena could have such a stance, all things considered. Yanci seemed less angered, more apathetic. More expecting about as much from the Toreador Antediluvian.
Dre was less shy. “That kinda fucking sucks, Eva. You telling me this woman can pick between you, or Lubbock, and she gonna say…fuck it I’m okay with either option?”
“Yeah.” Eva’s tone was flat, void. Those who knew her would hear the sharpness just off camera. “Yeah, Dre, that’s what I’m telling you. The woman can blood control us like we’re toys, and this is what I’m dealing with right now. If it helps I THINK she’s secretly rooting for us. Does that help, Dre? Does that make you feel better?”
“If I could land a hit, I’d fucking…smack you, bitch.”
Eva drank through the very serious threat, and found her eyes on Grace. “You need to be with me when I walk into the Inquisition council meeting at the LA Federal Building. Anyone else want to go?”
“That meeting doesn’t even happen until a few hours. The entry has been taken care of. You’ll just walk in, the rest is up to you. No more than three people with you. Two, outside of Grace. Oh, don’t look at me. No way I’m walking into that room with those people.” Rachel was having none of that look from Eva.
Dre was leaned forward, eyes locked on Locke’s, shaved bald black head nodding upward, “What up, Henry? What’s the plan for these wolves?”
“Should we worry about Lubbock?” Yanci asked it, but Eva just shrugged at it.
“Helena said he’d find me.”
Yanci didn’t seem satisfied, but what part of any of this had satisfied Yanci? All she wanted was to go back to life for the coterie like it had been in the 80s or 70s. Now she’d have to concern herself with running San Diego. “Nicole, where are you going? Wolves?”
“Of course she’s going after wolves,” Dre chuckled, as if it were elementary. “Rachel where yo sexy ass going girl?”
“Someone will have to meet Cicatriz.”
“Eva has to do that,” Dre’s words didn’t leave much room for disagreement.
“Oh, then…uh.”
“Take her, Henry. Show this girl the way, Devil. Ooo SATAN, I CALL UPON THEE, SHOW THIS STUCK UP WHITE BITCH HOW TO GUT A WEREWOLF.”
Dre’s exaggerated and acted out call to Lucifer, tongue in cheek as was, hinted deeper at the coterie drama behind the scenes. Eva didn’t say anything, Yanci didn’t even look. Rachel was a big girl, she and Dre had been awfully close lately, despite opposing personalities. That Dre put a spotlight on her…at least, Eva found herself thinking, it was done with Henry. Henry was already part of their coterie, whether he liked it or not. And judging from below decks, he loved it.
Doing it in front of Nicole? Or Grace? It wasn’t insignificant, though it was unlikely Grace and Nicole would make nearly enough of it. Not that Eva wouldn’t explain it to Nicole later. Naturally. The only thing Eva did say to Dre as she passed by him to get next to Nicole? “Don’t scare the hew-mans, please, Andre. I don’t want to hire more yacht staff.”
To that…Dre shrugged. “Fair nuff.”
The interactions between the coterie mates made Grace think about what it must be like to have an actual social life. She had one once, but that was before she learned just how many threats lurked in the shadows. From then on, it was a simple expected value calculation; the hours it took just weren’t worth it in her present situation. That was what the psych eval people told her, anyway. Just a standard piece of advice they gave, like tell her not to dwell on the past.
Whatever Henry was, it was cause for concern, but firmly in the department of the Void Engineers. Grace was thankful that for once it was not hers to worry about. All she had to do was give him a wide berth, unclassifiable entities like that made her feel like an insect staring down a main battle tank. The Inquisition meeting was easier to process. She knew that building well, one of her cover identities had an office there, and the unlisted sub-basements came in handy for many operations. Trust was a difficult thing for Grace, almost none of the information was possible to verify independently. When she doubted she heard the voice of Claude, her avatar. He said a familiar quote:
“"Information is the resolution of uncertainty."
Asking and acting was one way to do that.
She said
“Given the circumstances, I am willing to assist your plan. I have two requests at present.”
“Tell me what you need arranged walking into that inquisition meeting. Personnel, equipment, intel; a few hours is limited but enough to make a plan.”
“And…”
“Tell me who Lubbock is. “
“I think Grace means: what is a Lubbock?” Rachel was already back on her smartphone, her fingers a blur of texts and screen taps and selections, even as she took in, processed what was going on in the bar and decided to make the one comment about Lubbock. But Grace hadn’t asked Rachel.
As for Eva, there was no mystery to be had here. As unnatural as it was for Eva, she would have to just tell it. Maybe Grace would see that hesitation, that half a heartbeat’s pause in the Kindred leader that highlighted her own anxieties. “Sir Matthew Lubbock. We actually don’t know much about him. British, awakened from torpor in the 17th century. Probably more Roman than British but became the Toreador face of British Colonialism and the cruelty therein once he awoke from torpor. If you’re a Toreador you generally fall into two groups: posers, or artists. Lubbock is decidedly a poser and he’s always been grumpy about it. He became obsessed with, and sired, a young boy who seemed to have artistic potential for days. That young boy became my sire, and my partner as we created Los Angeles together, and later Hollywood. The boy had the potential Lubbock thought. Lubbock wasn’t patient enough or gifted enough to unlock it.”
Eva paused after that, a pause that grew long enough to be awkward. To hint at hidden depths to the story, or fresh wounds...or both. In the end it wasn’t Eva who finished it, but Rachel who stepped in again. “Then the boy grew mad, and had to be put down. It led to a Los Angeles battle royale, which led to Eva going public to the Kindred of the Free State, which led to us joining forces with Henry. That’s about the time you met us.”
Finally Eva recovered her voice. “Now Lubbock wants revenge on me for what had to be done to a childe he had long ago discarded and gave up on. He wants a confrontation with me, he wants it to be personal and violent. And after he just lit my city on fire tonight...can’t wait for him to find me. He may even find me at the Federal building, Grace, so if you see a 4th Generation, a Kindred godling, appear on the field...you get your ass out of there as fast and as safely as you can and call Dre. You’d need an orbital solar cannon to put him down, and very soon your organization will be busy using the ones they have elsewhere in the world.”
Eva felt the Ravnos Antediluvian. She knew what was already happening in India. She could hear it, deep in the back of her mind where it crashed against her subconscious like waves against an ancient breakwater. Blood. Feed. Hunger.
“As far as the actual building and meeting, I can get in that room on my own. My discipline of Presence alone would let me walk in while everyone in the building just ignored me. It will help me appeal to your boss if you’re there with me, hopefully he will assume you wouldn’t be standing there without good reason. I fear the mages more than the Inquisition, truth be told, and you aren’t a vampire. If the others in the room want to ask a question, they’d like to ask you more than they’d want to ask me, odd as humans are. My plan is to allow them similar visions I showed you, along with events unfolding in India right this very moment they can get field reports from their own people…”
“India? Now?” Dre stopped his conversation with Henry and stared. His face said it best: fuck, even if Dre simply shook his head softly and returned his attention to Henry.
Eva eyed Dre, then returned her attention to Grace, never actually stopping just pausing long enough for Dre to react to bad news. “...they’ll know I’m not full of shit. But when they wake up, Grace, I have no idea what to expect and I don’t want to influence them more than I already do just by being in the room. Bring anything you’ll need to ensure your safety and your escape. I don’t see myself leaving the building when you do. If anything, I see them trying to detain me. That’s fine. That puts me in deep isolation when Lubbock comes for me, which would actually mean less collateral damage...and Lubbock’s dumb ass loves collateral damage. See: The East India Trading Company for reference. I’m not wild about the government getting a first row view of a fight between two Kindred of Lubbock and I’s status...but it can’t be avoided, and they’ll be seeing a lot more very soon. Expect the Masquerade to come crashing down within...what do you think, Rachel?”
The brunette briefly brought down her smartphone, considered the question with a hard gaze into the air in front of her for a few seconds, before some small nodding, “About 48 hours, yeah, if the founder of the Ravnos line is awakened and active.”
Eva nodded along with Rachel towards Grace, “So yeah, a few days before society starts doing weird shit.”
“When do we see the first humans publicly worshipping an ancient Kindred? Kindred Governor of a US State in a day?” Yanci had to ask, as casually as she was inquiring about a prop bet.
“End of the first day, no later, right?”
Rachel looked to Eva, who shrugged, “Probably. As soon as they figure out local governments and law enforcements can do very little to nothing to help them, not that most ancient Kindred won’t be victims of the Beckoning by them, but a fair amount have contingency plans to stay put and hold out as long as they can. So I’m told.” Another shrug. What happened, at that point, was secondary for Eva. Primary? Find a way to stop it.
Just when things couldn’t get any stranger, the conversations took off at lightning speed, and Nicole felt as though she was learning how to do life all over again from a group of immortals and otherwise. Her mind was spinning. Information overload? The potency of the drink she nursed in her hands? Perhaps both, but one thing was for sure, she was way in over her head. Already too deep to crawl out of the hole she landed in. And yet, what good would running away do in these end times? The law enforcement officer in her wanted to fight to the bloody end, but the fragile, insignificant mortal side pulled as well, wanting to simply disappear from it all.
The “wolf” comments unhinged the girl even further.
Nicole didn’t like Andre. His expression. His attitude. The crass comments without any thought. But her own opinions about any of the coterie members were inconsequential because she knew who they were down to the core. Perhaps not so much their exploits over the many years of their individual existence, but their character. Who they were now mattered more than who they were before. The connection between her and Eva offered a lot, so much so even, that the Gangrel’s mind couldn’t possibly wrap itself around every wisp of thought or flash of memory that hammered through her psyche like a freight train at times. But, those few remnants she held onto long enough gave ample insight about Eva’s band of misfits, to at least safely assume they could all be trusted without question.

The woman finished her drink and placed the glass down on the bar top. “Wolves?” She cocked her head at the comments as though confused, knowing what they meant, but moreso why they would even suggest it. “I-uh, I don’t know.” Her shoulders shrugged. Nicole didn’t know. Only hearing the stories of the Lupines from Eva, Henry and the coterie, but nothing beyond that other than they were a force not to be fucked with.

“I wish the Gangrel could get their shit together enough to join the fight, but even that I’m not sure of honestly.” She looked away from the others, almost ashamed of the clan she had been forced into. She so desperately wanted to feel the surge of power from the Beast within, enough so to blot out the fear that encompassed her better judgement currently. But, like her clan, even the Beast seemed to be in hiding.

The later remarks about Henry had her curious though, but none of it made much sense. Even the bursts of visions and whispers that were not even her own, but from Eva’s psyche, were a puzzle whose pieces had been scattered to the winds. She only hoped that Henry Locke was on their side to the bitter end.

“Lubbock”, however. That was a name she had heard thrown around quite often since her time with the coterie, but as Grace asked the question that had been on the Gangrel’s mind as well, the drawn-out answers didn’t help to ease her already weary mind. Eva and Rachel went into details about the “madman” himself, and while Nicole’s own fears began to rise, she barely noticed a hint of anxiety from the mortal woman. There was certainly something different about her, something that steeled her nerves to a supernatural point. Had it been her association with magic that shielded her aura, making Grace seem more at ease than she really was?

Nicole sighed. For the first time in a long while, her hands trembled, and she placed the glass down with a thud atop the bar. Thankfully she didn’t have to go far to sit, as she slid onto the nearby stool; her legs almost feeling like jello at that point.

“Forty-eight hours?” She whispered to herself, although the concern and obvious anxiety within her tone no doubt heard by the other supernaturals in the room. “The fuck…”

Everything she had heard, and the thoughts and voices racing through her head -courtesy of the blood bond with the Elder Toreador- weighed heaviest in that moment. Time appeared to stand still, and while her eyes surveyed around the room at the others during the back and forth conversations, they inevitably landed on the dark-haired beauty standing next to her.

Nicole’s trembling hand slid across the smooth glass-like surface of the counter reaching for the other’s arm as her pale fingers curled around tightly. A single thought rose to the surface of her mind:

I don’t want to die.

"Greek." Henry sipped his drink as he spoke, the lingering scent and taste of Eva upon the glass mixing with the liquor to his heightened senses. For a dead thing, she tasted intoxicatingly alive. "Lubbock was Greek, we've met, in prior lives. You're not the first descendent of his I've worked alongside." While his words were spoken generally, the clarification was obviously meant for Eva. "They really didn't exaggerate anything about Helen of Sparta." He mused as if it was meaningless gossip, his eyes settling on the glass before back to Andre.

"Easy there lad, that's a name few get away with calling me." Henry stone faced, although the glint in his eye suggested the hidden mischief, before his concentration settled on the woman drawn into her smartphone. "Take me home, country roads. Not sure what the phone signal will be out in wolf country." He was momentarily serious as he spoke next, "The Garou underestimated me before, if they know we're coming it might not be so easy." The fact he appeared but a few hours ago seemingly on the brink of death didn't seem to phase the man much, even as he drank another heavy gulp. "But I'll take them over having to deal with the Inquisition, never did much like them since Vienna."

“What’s up with her?”

Eva shrugged at Andre’s direct question. “She’s scared, what do you think?”

Rachel tried to hide her smile, Yanci looked bored, and Maty traced the edge of his glass idly, his mind elsewhere while the coterie chattered. Andre smiled, and leaned his large full figure back into the chair. “We all scared. We got literal Lucifer, literal end of the world shit. I’m a god damned slave turned soldier. The fuck can I do about it?”

“Lead one of the larger private security companies in the world,” the tone with which Rachel interjected was, at best, described as indifferent.

“What about you?”

“Me?” The buttoned-up Ventrue blinked. “I’m just trying to spin all the plates. If I stop it’ll all come tumbling down.”

“Also you direct one of the larger money-laundering operations in the world.” This time it was Yanci, not Rachel, with a tone that sounded as bored as she looked.

“We gonna pay off an Antediluvian?” Andre’s tone was serious, gone was the caricature of the loud black man, the thoughtful warrior Brujah having settled into the new change of tone like an old favorite pair of trousers. “What about you, Yanci?”

“Oh, I’ll make a movie about it. No worries.”

As the one who ran Hollywood now, the remark made Andre snicker gently. “Maty?”

“Cheers, mate.” Maty raised his glass in the air, though he never did turn in their direction from behind the bar, leaned into the bar, his upper body supported by elbows. As if he were drinking troubles away. Hiding the dagger sharp smile under perfectly straight and shining black hair that went half down his back. “I’ll, uh...throw some blood magic? No clue, really. I’ll do my part. Whatever that becomes. I’m nothing big or scary.”

“Eva?”
“This only ends one way for her,” Henry’s hands were folded before him neatly, his tilted down and off to the side, his eyes staring holes in the table he said it. His words rang with sadness and truth, and a seriousness so somber that it twisted his meaning into a lie that told the truth of the situation.

Eva stared at Nicole. “You’re already dead, love.” A response, an aside, sourced from a place that belonged to just the two of them: the space between their thoughts, interconnected. “So am I,” she said, with a faint smile. It wasn’t the same kind of dead they were headed for, but to Eva, it was best she not think about that too deeply.

Finally it was Andre who finished it, talking now directly to Nicole. “The ancient Kindred who started all this are monsters. Not the kind that go bump in the night, the kind Lovecraft daydreamed about. All I have are the people in this room, and the warriors I put on those streets. None of us want Final Death. None of us want the world to end. I don’t want to trade Eva for a new world, either. I’ll do what I can, you do what you can. We’ll see what happens.” In a supernatural style of ease the large black skinned Kindred was up and out of his seat, moving for the exit. “I’m going after wolves. Rachel, Henry, see you at the boat. Yanci, Maty, stay in touch. Eva...sorry, girl.”

That Eva frowned, even for a beat of Grace’s heart, turned the night darker. “Where are you two headed?”

“We’ll see the fires stay out,” Yanci answered, and Maty chuckled, as if it were an inside joke. It was, Nicole would hear it: Both the literal and the figurative.

“So, “Eva started to say to Nicole, “..wanna meet a Sabbat Cardinal?”
After business was concluded, Grace walked up next to an open window and ran a quick calculation to confirm the trajectory posed no additional risks. She said
“I will meet you in person before the meeting at the FBI building. During this meeting I’ve been connected over an astral link to a shell body, my actual body is elsewhere. It’s safer this way and saves what little time we have. Do not be alarmed by what I’m about to do, it is a rapid but officially approved way of terminating the connection.”

She reached into her pocket and retrieved a pistol, moving it slowly and pointing it at no one except herself. Eva, Andre, one of the others could disarm her with incredible speed if they thought she was a threat, so it was important not to alarm anyone. When it was directly against her temple and her finger was on the trigger, she said
“The body will decay into a puddle of hydrogel shortly after I initiate the disconnect procedure. It can be removed from the floor with any standard household cleaner. Pine Sol is my preferred choice. I apologize about the abrupt nature of my departure.”

She pulled the trigger and her body lurched forward as the shot echoed through the cabin. Miles away, Grace felt her connection go dark, grateful that the protocol spared her the full pain of getting shot in the head. Her hand, her legs, every part of her body was shaking as her quivering recovered from the interference and the paradox effect after the session. It was only after they stopped that she realized she was drenched in sweat, nothing about the meeting had made her feel better about the situation. She brushed a matted mass of hair out her face and got up, knowing the long night had only just begun.

A Few Days Ago, At A Public Park Near Downtown Los Angeles...

CLANG!

The ball bounced off the side of the rim. Mihal reached out a hand to catch the rebound out of the air as the metal vibrations rang out, taunting him.

He sighed, returning to his position at the free throw line in the nearly-empty park. His shooting practice was going... poorly, to say the least. The layup drills his coach had suggested went well, but of his last twenty practice shots from the free throw line, he had made only nine. His massive form was drenched in sweat, he was exhausted from all his previous drills, and he was getting frustrated. He simply wanted this day of practice to be over. He locked his eyes on the net, bounced the ball on the ground twice, squared his shoulders, and took another shot.

CLANG!

No good. Mihail grunted with frustration, ran to collect the rebound, and in a rage, haphazardly hurled the ball at the net on the other end of the court. It flew through the air in a shallow arc, bounced off the backboard at the other end, and...

Swish!

Mihail watched as the ball went through the net, the basket now swaying in the breeze. A few kids playing two courts over watched as the full-court heave went in. One of them gave him a thumbs up, and two applauded. Mihail just stood there, confused as to why his free throws continued to miss, but this pointless heave had not. He smiled uneasily as the children--maybe twelve or thirteen years old--walked over to him. One of them had recognized him and was spouting off praise in regional slang which Mihail was having trouble understanding as a non-native English speaker. As he began to sign their ball, hats, and other articles of Lakers merchandise, Mihail’s shyness melted away.

Smiling, Mihail handed one of the kids his ball. “You know what a lob is, yes?” The adolescent nodded, thankfully able to comprehend Mihail's significant accent. The athlete took a few steps back, then began to jog towards the net, pointing his finger skywards to signal for the toss. As the ball was lobbed skyward, Mihail leaped into the air, caught it, and spun 180 degrees before dunking it over the back of his head. His display was rewarded with more laughter and applause. The kids took turns lobbing the ball into the air, and Mihail returned the favour by entertaining them with a series of increasingly absurd dunks. After a while, a small crowd had gathered, but Mihail was tired from all the high-flying showboating, and the sun was starting to set. He hadn’t realized just how late it had gotten. It is as mother says: time flies when you are having fun. English wasn’t his first language, but the language of basketball was universal.

“Sorry everyone, the show is over. I need to go home.” A few fans expressed their displeasure at this, but Mihail couldn’t stand here and sign things all night. By the time he completed the last few autographs (he wasn’t a particularly famous player, and so there were mercifully few), the sun had set almost completely. One individual standing towards the back of the crowd was wearing a hoodie and sunglasses. Odd, Mihail thought, It is summer, much too warm for that. He placed his ball inside his gym bag and changed into a pair of more casual walking shoes, then began to make his way back to the condominium he shared with his mother. When I get my extension, I will buy mom a nice place all to herself. And she can retire.

Mihail continued along his normal route, now illuminated by streetlights. The sounds of the city were quiet in this neighbourhood; eerily so. Hardly anyone was out in the streets, quite odd for summer near Downtown Los Angeles. He saw something move out of the corner of his eye. Perhaps a raccoon rummaging around in an alleyway garbage can. Parched, Mihail stopped to unzip his gym bag and get out a bottle of water.

That was when a mysterious figure slammed into him.

Mihail could not see the individual’s face, but did not fall right away. Instead, he was able to push the assailant off of him, running deeper down the alleyway to escape by any means necessary. This attacker was stronger and faster than Mihail had expected, and before he knew what had happened, Mihail was pushed again, this time to the ground. He scraped his knee across the ground as he impacted with the concrete, and was scrambling to get up from the alleyway when he fully saw the man before him.

Mihail’s assailant was pale and gaunt, with long dark hair and a robust goatee. His eyes faintly glowed blood red as he smiled, revealing a set of segmented fangs with a slight red tint. Blood dripped down his chin as though he were salivating. Based on what little Mihail knew about vampires, this one had not properly fed for some time. “Little Dobrescu... do you know how many of us your family killed in the old country?”

Mihail scrambled backwards, clutching aimlessly behind him for his gym bag as he shakily stood on bended knees. He looked around for an escape ladder or fire exit he could climb, but there was nothing here aside from a few trash cans with some broken furniture sticking out of them. “Get away from me!” Mihail screamed, “What the fuck are you?!”

The vampire laughed, then grew deathly serious as he brought a fist across Mihail’s cheek. “YOU KNOW DAMN WELL WHAT I AM!” Mihail’s vision blurred for a moment. By the time he refocused, the bloodsucker was pointing menacingly at Mihail’s neck, the red glow of his eyes becoming more and more intense. Mihail felt a searing pain along the arteries in his neck as the Tremere’s blood magic began to work. “I hear you Dobrescu folks are quite... delicious. Let’s see if that’s true.”

... And then, nothing. No jet of blood from Mihail’s neck, no boiling of his veins, and even the pain began to disappear, becoming nothing but a slight discomfort. The bloodsucker seemed confused, then noticed the jewelry on Mihail’s hand as the athlete began to stand up. It was now glowing a faint yellow. “Ah, I see. Looks like I’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way...”

The beast lunged forward, attempting to grab Mihail by the neck. This time, though, Mihail was prepared, taking a crucial step back before countering with a vicious right-hook to the jaw. Aside from stopping the attack, the punch seemed to do little, if anything. The vampire, occupied with its own hubris, took the time to gloat. “Superhuman durability! Didn’t your daddy teach you anything about vampires? Or did we get to him before he had the chance!” He began to cackle.

The laughter was cut short by a second punch, this time aided by the ring on Mihail’s left land. The vampire reeled back, the symbol on the ring now etched onto the vampire’s face in a glowing orange rune. “How does your own blood taste, bitch?” Mihail screamed in Romanian. The vampire collected himself and lunged forth once again. The famished creature was getting desperate. More dangerous, but sloppy. Mihail knew how to deal with a rattled opponent from his time in the NBA. As the vampire charged, Mihail used his gym bag to shield himself, which would have worked had Mihail not been bowled over, its contents flying out onto the ground behind him. Mihail pushed one leg against the vampire’s chest as it tried to bear down on Mihail’s neck.

Scrambling behind him with one hand, Mihail grabbed a lighter and can of spray-on deodorant which had fallen out of his bag. As Mihail pressed his foot into the vampire’s chest, a puff of floral scent spilled forth from the deodorant. By the time the vampire realized what Mihail was doing, it was too late. Mihail ignited the gaseous cloud with the lighter. A gout of flame erupted forth, engulfing the bloodsucker’s face as he screamed in agony. The vampire reached up to try and pat out the flames, leaving him open for assault. Mihail ran at the vampire and tackled him before picking up his still-burning form. With strength Mihail did not know he possessed, he slammed the vampire down chest-first on a cluster of broken table legs sticking out of a garbage can, impaling him through the heart.

CLANG!

“Fire and stake through heart,” Mihail exclaimed as the vampire burned, “That is what father taught me. Bloodsucker piece of shit.” The rest of the furniture inside the metal bin began to catch fire as the vampire’s entire being was engulfed. As he collected the rest of his belongings, Mihail could hear the monster’s death throes rattle the series of cans. “I put you in trash, right where you belong...” Mihail muttered.

And then, in his moment of triumph, Mihail realized the gravity of the situation, and what he’d just done. To any bystander, he had committed a murder. Panicking, he tore off his bloodstained shirt and shorts and threw them into the burning garbage can, donning his blue tracksuit and making sure that he had collected all his belongings. His heart began to pound heavily in his chest. The police will not see a vampire. They will see me, and a dead burning body... And so, Mihail ran. He ran as fast as he could, fearful that a second vampire could strike at any time, or someone would confront him for killing the first. He had to get home, and quickly, stopping only briefly at a drugstore to get a bandage for the knee that had been scraped bloody by the encounter.

Mihail’s father had killed thirty-one vampires in his life. As that fact bubbled up from his subconscious, a small and newly-awakened part at the back of Mihail’s mind whispered: Thirty more to go.

_{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}

The meetings and public pageantry were getting more frequent and tense. There were rumors spreading like wildfires, and the Dream seemed to be more of of a vision lost to a nightmare, now. The loose leaf information, they were trying to piece together made nothing less of an heretical icon.

Along the dark wooded tables, freshly washed with cloth, the kindred sat patiently, as undead generally found their whole life a giant waiting game, a chess match that lasted generations. This time seemed no different yet different in all of its genre.

"They're drinking others."

"One mind. One body. One soul."

"I-... It's suicide."

"Are the words, 'Beauty will save the world,' not words from a famous Dreamer, as well?"

Esther interrupted the conversation. Her gentle fingers charmed the beads in her lap. "Is this true beauty?" Her inquiry was laced with an inner depth. Her dark eyes narrowed at space that separated each Kindred. She contemplated upon true beauty. There was something perplexing and awesome about the rare Tzimsce, "Their ways are strictly forbidden in Via Caeli." Her quiet voice was stern, "This is the way of the Dream, our road to heaven. They've lost their humanity. Diablerie is a sin. The road of the Beast is paved with sin. The Road of the Beast is not part of the Dream."

"One. Two. Three. Four. Five," Peter began. His head ticked at thin air to the rhythm of Esther's fingers guiding prayers along the beads. "Raz. Dva. Tri. Chet'yre. Pyat." A crooked smile began etching and twisting itself over his lips.

"A hare went out for a w-a-a-lk. Suddenly a hunter appeared, and shot the hare. Bang bang. Oh! Oh! Oh! My hare is going to die. He was b-brought home, and he turned out to be alive..." A laughter tried to escape him.

"Ah," the Brujah interjected through the Malkavian's outbreak, "Was it not Anatole himself who saw this happening? He committed diablerie on many occasions." The Archeunuch sniffed his fingers as he thought about all this, "They whisper to him about Gehenna."

"Octav-io. Octav-iooooo." The Malkavian growned. His hands slowly reached for his head, "No, no, noooo."

"Although, I do understand fully, there was an androgynous beauty of which the Byzantines relentlessly wished to capture," the Archeunuch continued. "And, it is not that of what Sascha has done to themselves." His eyes met with Esther in agreement. "Furthermore, I have the ability to understand why Anatole may appear to have broken some rules." His gaze left the Ventrue and cast carefully at the frantic Malkavian. "Do we not all sometimes?"

The other Malkavian stiffened her shaky posture at the words of Andre. Her eyes darted from the Brujah to Peter and then to her cellphone -- desperately awaiting some phone call from the Camarilla to summon her return. It was difficult leaving her daughter with them, and once she had taken her back, she would be free, again, "I-I-I d-do-do-do not l-like it wh-when h-h-he m-mentions... when he mentions Octavio." She glared at Andre. Psychotic tendencies swirled in her mind.

Mihail’s Apartment, the Night After the Incident

Honour your family. Reclaim your legacy. That same message echoed in Mihail’s mind over and over again, keeping him awake into the wee hours of the night, drifting in and out of a dream state before a massive booming sound shook him fully from his slumber. Goddamned earthquakes! I bet they do not have to deal with this in Miami... Even after the shaking had stopped, the whispers continued. Mihail’s father Grigore had told him about how hunters would receive strange messages in the back of their mind after their minds had been fully awakened to the World of Darkness. But Mihail was not a hunter. He was acting in self-defense, and he had killed the vampire in a fit of rage, almost accidentally.

No, Mihail was not a hunter. He had come to America to get away from that life, to forget about the supernatural, to live the American Dream he had heard so much about. And yet...

Honour your family. Reclaim your legacy. There it was again. Mihail got up from his queen-sized bed, gazing out across Downtown Los Angeles from his 8th-storie condominium. Here he was living in luxury after leaving the Romanian countryside behind. He accomplished every young basketball player’s dream, and was playing for the most renowned organization in the history of basketball.

So why did he now hold this sense of impending doom? As though soon, everything he held dear would come crashing down around him, and he would be forced into the life of a hunter. It had happened to other members of his family before him. Mihail’s mother told him stories of artists, bakers, actors, accountants, lawyers, all of whom were eventually contacted by the Messengers. Many tried to avoid it, but the overwhelming majority upended their lives to pursue the hunt. Some became mages instead, but their goal was always the same: preserve the mortal realm by striking down the monsters who would harm it. Sword and sorcery ran through the veins of every Dobrescu. To deny it was to deny destiny.

Of course, Mihail wanted no part of it. He saw what the Hunt had done to his grandfather Iacob. Over the years, the killing, the violence, the things he’d witnessed, turned Iacob into an empty shell unable to empathize with his peers and obsessed with slaying monsters. And when Iacob could stand the isolation no longer, when even other hunters began to look upon him as though he were the monster, he undertook a suicidal mission, dying in a blaze of glory alongside his targets.

Mihail’s father Grigore had not suffered the same degree of emotional torment from the Hunt. His loving wife was a mage, and the two were able to confide in each other about their supernatural perils. They helped each other to retain a passionate spark of humanity. Perhaps it was this love which made Grigore the best hunter the Dobrescus had produced in decades, far less likely to die on a mission, but far more likely to become a target for retaliation. When the vampires found his residence in Romania, a vampiric hit squad slaughtered him in brutal fashion and crucified him in a grotesque mockery of his faith. Mihail and Malina never figured out who was responsible.

But Grigore could summon fire at will. He could break through flesh and bone with his bare hands, and track a vampire through snowy mountains and treacherous canyons without the use of modern technology. Mihail was just... Mihail. He was fast and strong from the rigorous training of an NBA player, but he wasn’t a supernatural killing machine.

Honour your family. Reclaim your legacy. The voice echoed in the back of his mind once again. The same phrase, over and over. As much as Mihail would’ve liked to say he didn’t know what it meant, he did. The Hunt was calling to him now, as it had called to every Dobrescu before him. A dynasty of sword and sorcery dedicated to protecting the mortal realm from that which dwelt in its shadows; a bloodline so infused with supernatural energy that even as a child, Mihail was able to see the World of Darkness. “Fine, fine,” he muttered groggily to himself, “I will reclaim my damn legacy if you shut the fuck up.”

...

The old tome was dusty and heavy. For once, Mihail was thankful for his gargantuan height as he lifted it off of the bookshelf without aid or difficulty. The uncreatively-named Carte de Vampiri, or “Book of Vampires”, was a history of House Dobrescu’s exploits in the Old Country. The first chapters, written by Maria Dobrescu, detailed the reign of the notorious Vlad the Impaler, and explored how the original Dobrescu hunters exploited divisions between the Tzimisce and other clans in order to limit their power. The house started off as hunters disconnected from any organized inquisition who were hired by vampires to kill vampires, switching sides and allegiances between Tzimisce and Tremere. In the long run, this worked, and by assassinating key members of each clan (often with the aid of the other), their power in the voivodes was greatly diminished.

Vampires of all clans from this point forward would know better than to ally with a Dobrescu, and so the family began to conduct its own, independent operations. These chapters were where the most valuable knowledge in the book began to reveal itself: ancient combat techniques used to slay vampires from seemingly every clan. In House Dobrescu’s prime, they supposedly operated from Kiev all the way to Constantinople, eliminating threats to the delicate balance between mortals and Kindered. Strategic. Careful. Acting with extreme precision. Rarely if ever targeting a vampire in their lair, and avoiding feuds with specific clans at all costs. Many of the Kindered who died during the Romanian Anarch Revolt did so not at the hands of other vampires, but Dobrescu assassins. During this time, the Dobrescus took advantage of their strength by warring against a small group of Malkavians to acquire numerous artifacts and precious texts, some of which were now displayed on the very same shelf from which Mihail had taken his family tome.

Overtime, the precarious coexistence which existed in some areas of the Eastern Orthodox world, sometimes called “the Dream”, began to collapse. Some vampires lashed out. Violently. These individuals would become the Dobrescus’ new targets, leading to more open and violent conflict. These missions were far more dangerous, and Dobrescu Family Tree rapidly shrank as many of their agents perished. Even those who fled to neighbouring Russia and Austria were targeted and killed by various vampires’ clans. It is at this time, with House Dobrescu at its lowest point, where the modern techniques for vampire hunting were developed. Incantations, spells, wards, weapon techniques, all of it was right here in this book. As though he was back in college, Mihail began to take notes on his laptop, making sure to memorize the important points of the different clans’ weaknesses. Most of the information within was on the Tremere and Tzimisce, but the Dobrescus had fought every clan from Kiev to Constantinople: some with greater success than others. The book did not have any information past the mid-1930s, but Mihail knew from his father that many of his extended family were executed for helping Romani prisoners to escape from concentration camps. Mihail had two uncles in Romania who had gone into hiding after Grigore’s assassination, but Mihail did not know if they had survived. For all Mihail knew, he was the last living Dobrescu.

The last section of the book featured no advice, historical analysis, or lengthy descriptions of long-dead vampire lords. It was a kill list, with the names in chronological order, dating all the way back to the Early 1400s. Each name was a target--a vampire that House Dobrescu had either killed, or intended to kill at some point. The entries listed their clan, a brief summary of their crimes, any Dobescru family members who they had killed, and one of four designations: at-large, dormant, dreamer (referring to “the Dream”), or slain.

There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of names. Few of them had survived the Dobrescu hunters. The carnage described by this list was almost nauseating to Mihail. This family tome paid homage to the killers, mages and hunters who incinerated, decapitated and slaughtered their way into history. These were their victims. Yet there was a small bit of pride which welled inside Mihail, something he may not have felt if reading the book before that fateful encounter with the vampire a few days ago. This is their legacy. But it is not mine. It can’t be.

Mihail kept flipping through the book. To his surprise, the record of vampiric deaths carried well into the mid-2010s, though they were far fewer in number. None other than Grigore Dobrescu dominated the last twenty years. Thirty-one. He killed thirty-one vampires. This family’s greatest hunter since the Second World War. In the five years since Grigore’s death, not a single vampire had been slain... until now.

As Mihail looked at the list, and subsequent pages’ row upon row of empty space left to record future kills, the voice in Mihail’s head grew louder and louder, until it was a scream. Honour your family. Reclaim your legacy. Reclaim your legacy. RECLAIM YOUR LEGACY! The sound was unbearable, and there was only one thing which would make it stop. Shakily, feeling as though he’d pass out from the pain in his head, he reached for a pen sitting in a mug on the corner of his desk, and began to write his own entry in the Book of Vampires.

Unknown Vampire. Tremere(?). Attacked me, it was in self-defense. Slain with fire on June 20XX by Mihail Dobrescu, Son of Grigore and Malina.

The voice was silenced. Mihail breathed a sigh of relief.

So... what now?

Deep down, Mihail knew that signing his name had sealed his fate.

Swish.

Another basket, this time from the three-point line. Since the incident a few days ago, Mihail felt as though he could not miss. No matter the ridiculousness of the shot he attempted, he managed to find the bottom of the net every single time. Surrounded by the metal fences of the public courts, he was in his element. On the court, Mihail felt safe, and he was able to keep his worries about vampire retaliation at bay. There had been no direct witnesses to the attack as far as Mihail was aware, and nothing to trace the slaying back to him...

... Right?

Mateo spent hours outside the park before Julie was to arrive. The thaumaturge had flipped through a few leather bound tome's in the secure library on the island before solidifying his backup plan. There were a few defensive tricks, but the real effort was put into the safety not. The thaumaturgy based one, at least. The rest of the safety steps weren't his doing, all things being on the up and up, nor was the discovery. It had been a tip from a Houston based friend, in exchange for information on Eva, that there was a cell of Tremere from the East Coast in the Free State. Likely they were hiding in Palm Springs, going in and out of Los Angeles as needed. They were Eastern European in source, but had tried to put down roots on the New England coast before the Sabbat rampaged through the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Why they were in the Free State was anyone's best guess, the pal had told him, and it seemed unlikely they had showed up just to take out a human. He took the information to the scene and dug around, found the corpse. That led to calling Bronson, California State Police, and one of Rachel's go-to contacts when something that could use an investigative touch came up. Rachel had seen that Bronson's children attended very good schools. The cover story was he was on the take from organized crime, but no one could prove it, because in truth he knew more than most kine about Rachel. He knew there was a someone above Rachel, he just didn't know who or what they were, and while he guessed somehow street gangs were under the same network--he only had guesses and conspiracies.

Once Baltimore had green-lit a program of drones constantly flying over the city, it wasn't hard to get Los Angeles County to try a "pilot program with limited scope." It was no pilot program, and the scope was county wide. Between that and the network of cameras all over the city, there were typically eyes around the city. The drone feed was funneled through the cloud computing company Rachel had started over a decade ago, the one that handled most the public and private requests in the state. It took Bronson less than a hour to get back to Mateo and hand over the footage of the attack and the tracking of the "suspect."

Mateo forwarded the e-mail to Grace, who had forwarded it to Julie. Rachel was too busy, so she asked Mateo to deal with it, not to mention the Tremere angle. Grace was too busy, so she asked Julie to deal with. Mateo could relate. That the man was a low-key celebrity complicated things; Mateo had given Yanci a courtesy call. She was involved in some incident involving a message to Eva, but made enough time to connect Mateo with a contact within the Los Angeles Lakers basketball organization. That, too, had been part of the plan. The rest was Bronson and local LAPD he trusted; six in all. Each covering a park exit.

Mateo was putting away material from the safety net ritual he performed in the back of the black SUV next to the park when Julie was walking up. The sun hadn't been down long enough for Mateo's comfort, but he had pushed through just the same. If nothing else he knew it would matter to Eva that they helped out Julie, and by extension Grace. Eva always had soft spots for kine. It was admirable, he had always thought.

When she arrived Mateo was dressed simply in a wine colored linen and cotton mix button up, the shirt a size too large for his slender shouldered frame, skinny black jeans and big black boots, his hair pulled back and tight into a pony tail. His energy was anxious, field work wasn't something he did a large amount of. There was so cold-faced cool of Eva, no easy swagger of Yanci, nor the hard earned bravado of Dre. He was just him, and he hoped it would be enough.

"Hey...um, Agent? Are you an agent, technically, like Grace? I know she's...FBI agent. But, um...anyway. Target is in the park. Our read is a hunter who is just starting, maybe reluctantly since he's a high paid athlete with a road to fame. We have police around the park, I have a safety net should he try to escape. We also have an assistant GM with the basketball team that will call in if requested and try to comfort the target, if, well, if we can't calmly explain to him what's going on. I do have to tell you that Yanci would like to talk to him, after we get him somewhere safer."

He was forgetting something. He stood there, slightly blank faced, racking his mind because he couldn't--oh, "Yes, and, I looked into the Kindred cell that the attacker was from. It's unlikely to be their last attack, and what's worse for this human is they might be allying with another, much nastier, type of Kindred clan in the area who also has a greivance with the target's bloodline. I don't know if you know what a Tzimisce is, but they've been in the Free State almost as long as we have, and some of them are no fans of this human's bloodline. So..double jeapardy, yay..."

Julie arrived and recognized Mateo from what Grace had shared with her. She raised her hand to waved but then put it down, remembering it wasn’t time to draw attention. She was dressed casually, in work out clothes, better to blend in. She carried a duffle bag with her, full of things that might come in handy. She was anxious but also full of energy, which spilled out in the speed with which she spoke. She said to Mateo

“Oh, I’m so glad to meet you Mr. Mateo, uhhmm, do you use last names? You can call me Agent Julia or just Julie, I’m fine with whatever you want. I don’t know much about the varieties of vampires, so I’ll have to rely on you. I have a lot of other things to study, super deep into quantum chemistry right now. I heard you’ve done a lot of work with blood based primal utility and modern technology, not that different from the heremtic stuff, right? I hope some day you’ll get to read some of our research in the area, it’s sooooo much better than anything of that last century stuff. I’m just getting started and I’ve learned so much, but you look at what they have and I swear, the other day I saw some ones who thought they were tech savvy still saying that Information Theoretic Security was unbreakable, I mean hello, have they ever talked with a Virtual Adept? Do they think we haven’t found anything in the 60 years since Shannon’s masterpiece? By the way, if you haven’t read it, A Mathematical Theory of Communication is incredible, like enlightment in a scientific paper, when she was giving me my first study list, Grace put that at the very top, and I can see why. Oh…. uh I guess I should talk about this basketball guy, right? I brought a dossier, most of it is files we have on his mother. How do you want to approach him?”

Minutes turned into hours as Mihail continued his practice, which he felt was the best one he'd had since the Lakers' elimination from the Playoffs. Although the setting sun was normally his cue to begin packing his things and start heading home, the athlete had been locked in a trance, living in a world which only contained him and the net. When at last he was satisfactorily exhausted and drenched in sweat, so much so that his shirt clung to his body and he stank like a gym on New Year's, he finally decided to call it quits. A few spectators had gathered at the exits. They are wanting autographs... not today, I am too tired. As he wiped the sweat from his eyes, the forms of the spectators became more clear. Among them were six uniformed LAPD officers. Just as his heartrate was beginning to slow down, fear caused it to spike again. "Shit," he muttered to himself, "Shit, shit, shit shit."

Mihail did his best to act natural, opening up his gym bag and toweling off his face. He removed his sweaty shirt and grabbed a fresh one, put away his ball, and took a drink of water, which, perhaps due to his nerves, went down the wrong way, leading to a brief but vigorous fit of coughing. Between the exertion and the prospect of being arrested for murder, Mihail felt like he was going to pass out. His bicycle was chained to the inside of the fence. When he went to unlock it, he glanced over at one of the officers, then immediately looked back down at the bike lock to avoid meeting his gaze. Nice work, Mihail, now they're even MORE SUSPICIOUS. YOU'RE GOING TO JAIL, MIHAIL, YOU IDIOT! He wheeled his bike towards the southwestern exit, trying (and failing) to look as casual as possible. They're probably here for someone else, right? Someone else who killed someone in an alleyway... shit, shit, shit, shit!

Mateo...blinked. "I mean...right. Virtual Adept, duh." In truth, some of what she said had made sense to him. Eva was deeper into the human and mage circles than anyone knew, than even he was supposed to know. That the secretive mystery woman had even deeper secrets than most thought, well. After a little nervous laughter Mateo took the dossier, tossed it in the back of the SUV, and stuck his foot out so the sensor would trip and automatically close the trunk door. "To put it bluntly, this young man has some real monsters after him. My friend, Eva, doesn't like that kind of thing. She thought she had an understanding with this group, but apparently they had forgotten themselves. Not my field, but, well...anyway. You probably want to approach him and talk to him. I'll be there with you, but...he doesn't hunt your kind, so. He may know I'm Kindred, if so we may want to have the human do the talking, at least at first."

He saw her. Past Julie, across the street, through a Starbucks front window. When he returned his eyes to Julie, a literal beat of the woman's heart, and back again...she was already gone. But at least, if nothing else, she had been there. That almost made him smile. "Anyway, shall we?" He was looking past Julie again, to the court, hearing the chatter in his ear from Bronson:

Target has spotted uniformed units. Acting alarmed."

"I think he knows someone is here for him. I'll leave introductions to you."

Julie nodded at Mateo and put on her act. She walked up to Mihail with her duffle bag, looking excited, with a bounce in her step. She intentionally avoided looking at any of the cars around, as if she was oblivious. His height might be the first thing anyone noticed about Mihail, but it was definitely impressive in person. Julie herself was on the taller side, but he just towered over her. She stayed at a distance, but the usual rule of thumb of staying several strides was harder to follow when dealing with someone with limbs that long. She approached him while he was busy with his bike lock, and said
“Hi, I’m sure you’re sick of people asking you this, but you play for the Lakers, right? I was walking around the neighborhood when I saw you, and I have friend back in Utah who is huge basketball fan. I just happened to have my camera with me, and it would be great if I could record a short message for him. I don’t want to pressure you, if you want I can just leave you alone and find a different portion of the court.”
The conversation would occupy him for long enough for Mateo to decide if they were going to go forceful or not. While they talked, she started to look at his bike, studying the materials, running their chemical structures through her head

Mihail jumped a bit as the mystery-woman came up behind him. He looked over at the police, then back to her. Just a fan. Thank goodness. The cops didn't seem to be taking any sort of aggressive action, at least not immediately. Fuck it, might as well make her day before I go to jail. Smiling, he turned to face her.

“No no, I am not a big enough star to get tired of it,” Mihail joked uneasily, “I like being recognized, it is a reminder of how far I came to get here.” Mihail took his ball back out from his bag, along with a sharpie he kept on his person for autographs. Looking this woman up and down (mostly down), Mihail mused that she was taller than some of the people he played against. Good-looking, too... though she looks familiar. “You will record on your phone, yes? What should I say?”

"You could tell them whether you knew what you were doing the other day, bringing Final Death to the Kindred you folded into the waste bin. You see, we're curious. We represent people that know the city, who watch after the bumps in the Los Angeles night. Are you a serious hunter? Would you try to stake me here and now? Maybe fight magic with my friend, the mage here?" He smiled, fangs flashed casually, out of amusement, not malice before he nodded to Julie in regards to the 'mage' line. "Or is my boss correct, and you don't know what the hell you were doing yesterday? You're just riding the blood of your father and the magic of your mother, wishing it would go away so you could become the basketball star in a town that loves them some basketball stars?"

Mihail was paralyzed as the vampire (who had managed to peg Mihail's current situation with near-100% accuracy) beared his fangs. A thousand thoughts ran through his head at once, most of them containing curse words, as he began to breathe heavily. Acting on instinct with all of his adrenal glands activating at once, Mihail threw his ball at the vampire's face as hard as he could, and bolted. The ball flew forth with supernatural force, wisps of flame rising off of it. The sheer power behind the throw surprised Mihail almost as much as the vampire himself did. The Messenger in Mihail's head cut through the river of incomprehensible panic: You are stronger than you think.

Julie was standing back when they had their confrontation, a fake look of confusion on her face. Mateo was getting right to the chase. She didn't want tip her hand just yet as she held her smartphone and took a photo of what was happening, angled too low for a conventional portrait. The flash went off, and then she spoke "Oh no, I'm sorry. Not many people know this, but the chemical compounds used in modern basketball shoes can react when exposed to certain light spectrums. It looks like my camera flash triggered that, and now the reaction has bonded the shoes to the surface of the court. Quite the predicament. Maybe I'll make a video about this soon, I'm sure my channel viewers would like it." She was getting further away as she said this, not wanting to be caught in whatever was unfolding.

"SON OF A BITCH," Mihail swore as his shoes stuck to the ashfault. He took a moment to wrench himself free, removing his feet from his shoes without even undoing the laces. The shoes he had worn when he recorded his first double-double were completely ruined; no point in trying to save them. Rather than trying to escape by climbing the fence, however, Mihail stopped running after a few steps. No matter how hard he tried, he knew he would never be able to outrun a vampire. "ALL I WANT TO DO IS GET AWAY FROM THIS MAGIC BULLSHIT!" Reaching into his gym bag, Mihail pulled out his lighter and spray deodorant once again and prepared to use it as a makeshift flamethrower. "DO NOT TAKE ANOTHER STEP CLOSER, BLOODSUCKER!" The panic in Mihail's voice made it clear: he feared for his life. "IF YOU TRY TO KILL ME I WILL TAKE YOU DOWN WITH ME, I SWEAR TO GOD! I DID IT ONCE AND I WILL DO IT AGAIN!"

The fizzle and flash of light was immediate the moment the flaming ball tried to hit him. It got close, but it didn't quite make it before one of the defensive rituals triggered, half a hundred dazzling balls of light spiraled and flared in hues of white and orange and red, before fizzling out into ever-diminishing sparks, each smaller than the one before, until nothing was visible to the mortal eye.

Mateo stayed frozen. Not as if by magic, but instead by shame. Slowly, very slowly, his right hand came up to the side of his face the ball had been aimed at. Enough of an imprint had made it through, it seemed, as his eyes winced at the burn--the two inch by two inch area of skin that was suddenly far more red than any other part of him. Except for the little shape within that red area, the little shape that was an even darker, angrier, shade of red. The tip of his middle finger grazed it, and his body seemed to deflate in a heavy sigh.

"That's, uh...yeah that's on me." When his head finally moved, he didn't look at Julie, he didn't look at the mortal. He looked across the court, through the fence, past the trees framing the park, past the sidewalk and the street beyond, to the front window of the Starbucks across that street.

Crap. She was gone. Nothing else was said, at least by him. There were various options available to him, but the most reliable was the Paths he knew by heart. The same hand that was raised to his face now rose just slightly higher into the air with a flick of his wrist that, notably, appeared more irritated than anything else. The flight of Mihail's lighter was immediate, and far stronger than Mateo intended. It was only a half blink that would let the observant have any hint that while prehaps Maty meant to do that, he hadn't meant for the light to fly into the sky so fast, with such velocity, that it...disappeared. Mihail's attempts to fire the impromptu flamethrower were in vain. His reflexes, apparently not quick enough, simply launched forward a puff of bodyspray.

The Tremere, to his credit, barely missed a beat. His hand finally dropped back to his side, and his eyes once more fell on the mortal before them. "I admit I hate the stench of Axe, but I don't think it's enough to 'take me down`, whatever that means."

This time he saw her in the corner of his eyesight standing at the fence near an entrance; a vintage Ramones black teeshirt with band name bold and purplish-pink, black skinny jeans, the grey leather All-Stars, and a heathered grey Armani blazer over it, black rimmed purple lensed aviators hiding the majority of her face, her impossibly straight and shiny hair falling like a shadow upon her shoulders.

She didn't say anything. She didn't have to...he could see the smirk she hid.

"Suppose an Axe body spray scented threat answers my question, all the same. You're going to get a call from an assistant General Manager from your club." He saw, again from the corner of his vision, her head shake...just so. Just enough. "Team, whatever. He'll explain your options; pretend this didn't happen, embrace your new state and life as a hunter. Either way you'll be watched until such a time that the world and society begins to break down...then, frankly, we'll have more important things to do. Anything else for our no shoes, no service burdened friend, Agent?"

Prehaps the Mages had parting words of wisdom or a card to give out. Sometimes Maty wished they had cards to give out, but Eva had stopped giving them out after meeting Grace for the first time. Look how that turned out, she had argued, albeit he believed sarcastically.

Julie didn't have much to say, not even looking up from her phone. Paperwork had to be done, and getting an early start would make it easier. The operation was under contol, she still wasn't sure what the exact plan, or how the lady in the Ramones shirt factored in. She thought she had seen her face before in dossier, but didn't remember, all she knew was that she looked cool. Very cool. Like she knew about how to be cool, and what someone could do to be cooler. Like she could tell Julie all of the things that 17 years growing up in a family obsessed with wind patterns after ICBM strikes and ammunition shortages would never teach her. If Julie could write down a personal (in a vague, abstract format wholly unapproved by the Technocracy), she would want to know as much about science as Grace and as much about coolness as this woman. With that, she could find a way to make science (which was already cooler than the masses thought) even cooler. Then she remembered she was supposed to say something, even after she had only halfway caught the conversation. She forced a chuckle at the joke, then said "Uhhhh, we did it. Mihail, you, uh, should expect an email from me. Well, if you're going somewhere where you can get email, anyway."

For a moment, he froze like an elk in headlights, unsure of what to make of the situation. When he realized that killing Mihail was not in fact part of these bloodsuckers' mission, he calmed down... sort of. "Vampires are such bullshit..." Mihail muttered, reaching into his gym bag to get a pair of comfortable walking shoes. As he crouched down to put them on, he continued his frustrated rant: "I work out for two hours every day, sometimes more. I eat a regimented diet, sometimes four thousand calories a day, and I quit smoking, only to be outclassed by a little mosquito who consumes only blood for sustinence." He stood up straight, brushed himself off, and looked around trying to figure out where his lighter was. That was when his eyes settled on Mateo, more notably the NBA logo branded onto his face, forcing the towering basketball player to stifle a laugh. "You have a bit of Jerry West on your face."

"Nice shoes."

Mihail could've sworn he heard the vampire say... "Wait, you WANT me to be a hunter?" The athlete was stunned. "A vampire hunter. Who kills vampires. You, the vampire, want me to... be a vampire hunter. And what's this about society breaking down? ... Wait, who even are you people?! Why is... yes, I recognize you now, you are the YouTube chemistry lady, why are you here? And if you are not going to kill me, what are you going to do with me?"

Julie decided to try out one of those ideas for how to be cooler right now after hearing Mihail's question. "You might say that to unlock the many layered mysteries of the universe, one must be mysterious themselves. Never confuse appearences for reality." She said. She let he silence hang, for no other reason than that's what they did in movies.

"I am a college dropout and non-native English speaker," Mihail replied frankly, his accent creeping in to break the silence, "I do not know what any of this means. Please tell me what is going on, I am still worried I am going to die."

"You're human--of course you're going to die." Mateo had never sounded more matter of fact, completely removed from emotion and purely in the realm of the logical. However as his mind turned to possible explanations...his pale lips smiled a thin smile, a frail, delicate thing born of passing, mild, amusement. Mateo stepped forward once more, his hands spreading out as his head went this way and that, motioning to the world all around them.

"This...is a strange fucking place." The thin smile grew wider, though only briefly, as a seriousness crept onto the Kindred's sharp facial features. "From San Fransisco in the north, to the US border in the south, to the California state border to the east...this is what is known in Kindred society as the Free State. We are outside the traditions and cruel games of the two other dominant Kindred societies. We have pretended to be like them, to some extent, in order to survive. However in more recent history we have shed even pretense--we are the Free State. All are welcome here." His arms spread wide, his smile fully faded as his arms dropped down to his sides, his gaze squarely on the human.

"I am no more than the representative of the Barony of the Free State. The Baron helped create every major city in California, like an immortal Bob Ross subtely using events, trends, and people as colors to create, among others, Los Angeles. They do it for people, for humans, for you, even more than they ever did it for Kindred, for us vampires. Then they decided to embrace and explore humanity like no other Kindred ever had before, or since, and they harnessed the raw potential of the new 'moving pictures' technology to establish, and over time create what the world now knows as...Hollywood. Now that the Baron has focused all their efforts on trying to save reality, let alone simply the fall of human society in the face of monsters that make elder vampires look like kittens, they have left others in charge of overseeing Hollywood, and Los Angeles, and the insanely complex network of agents and assets at their disposal."

By the time he was done speaking, he wasn't even looking at Mihail. He was looking at Yanci, and had to return his eyes to the human as his mind returned to the task of the current, the hunter's question. "We allow hunters. We allow mages. All are welcome in the Free State. Quite frankly, the Kindred you end have it coming, and you're doing us favors killin these Beasts that forgot what humanity even it is, let alone that it's worth risking everything to save. So good luck. I'd start practicing at something more than basketball, if I was you."

His hands shoved into pockets, and his head dipped in acknowledgment to Julie as he turned on his booted heel and marched towards the exist of the court, police officers all over the park slowly walking back to their cars, now, and simply riding off.

For a moment, Mihail stood there, stunned. "What? How can we stop this? Who is going to train me!?" These and other questions he had no answers to, nor did he think he would get them from the disinterested Kindered with the burned face. Doomsday. An apocalypse. Unspeakable horrors unleashed upon the world. Deaths of countless millions, vampires succumbing to the beast the world-over, going on murderous rampages as wraiths and thralls obliterate civilization was we know it. All your friends in Romania, your old teammates highschool and college, dead. Aside from a tiny strip of land in Southern California, saved by the fickle whims of some elder vampire. He thought back to the old texts which his mother had brought with them from the Old Country, and the various family legends and histories he'd learned growing up. He called after Maty and the other Kindered waiting nearby: "Gehenna. You are talking about Gehenna, yes?"

"He is," The woman's voice that sounded almost girlish came from behind and off to the side of Mihail, near a court exit, on the other side of the fence. The umsmiling latina Kindred standing barely five foot five in the Armani blazer and leather All-Stars now stared directly at the human, "tell everyone you can, sound every alarm, and keep your eyes on India in the week to come. That will simply be the beginning. As for the end...welcome to L.A."

Vi only had to knock once, before David the thin-blood answered the door, and ushered her into his narrow apartment.

“Sorry about the mess,” he babbled, side-stepping a small mountain of cardboard boxes, “I keep meaning to unpack, but I just find this easier than hanging everything up, you know? It's not like I’ve got flatmates to worry about.”

Violetta caught a brief glimpse of Dave’s fluffy cat -Micat Schumacpurr - darting in and out of the shadows, before they went scampering back behind a mound of the thin-blood’s unpacked clothes.

“Are you ready to head out?” the ventrue asked her sidekick, not-so-subtly trying to prompt him into action.

“I’ll be with you in a flash!” He promised, scooping his wallet up off of the battered old coffee table.

There was a collection of garish hats, hanging from pegs, on David’s towering coat stand. Vi’ found herself examining a particularly battered-looking trilby, with an enormous scorch mark seared into it, which seemed to have reduced the bulk of the hat to a blackened, goopy ruin.

“How the hell did you manage that?” Violetta asked, in mild disbelief.

“Oh, a cigar burn,” Dave spluttered out, uneasily, “I d-dropped one.”

Vi snorted loudly.

“You should probably chuck that one out,” she nodded at the hat, “looks beyond saving.”

“It was my dad’s!” the thin-blood protested, “I’m gonna see if I can get it fixed!”

“Okay,” Violetta laughed dryly, “let's just get a move on.”

---

”Cammie fucks.”

The dreadlocked, heavily tattooed woman made no attempt to keep her voice low, or her tone civil, as Violetta, David, and Sheriff Teach approached.

Some might have described Teach as “big”, but that was a woefully inadequate label. The Brujah was a giant of a man, bulging with mountains of finely-toned muscle, who stood a solid six inches above Vi, even in her raised platform boots.

Teach looked every bit like the brutish titan he was, and he knew it.

“Surprised you lot showed up,” the dreadlocked woman sneered, once the camarilla party had made their way down the alleyway, and stood infront of her, “killer always returns to the scene of the crime, I guess.”

“Where's Abrams?” Violetta asked, ignoring the anarch’s bravado.

“Through there.” she stuck one thumb behind her, gesturing to a large metal door, which blended into the grimey brickwork of the alleyway.

Not looking to exchange any more biting words with the sardonic poser, Vi, David, and Teach made their way into the back-alley hideout, and found a small, cramped room, which boasted a fairly modest work set up, with a old laptop, and rows of old metal shelves.

The dusty corpse of Isaac Abrams was slumped over his desk, like a baggy puppet. Withered flesh and clumps of ash clung to the remains of a frail skeleton, dressed in a suit which drooped off of its decaying bones.

“How the mighty have fallen.” Vi chuckled, lighting herself a cigarette, and taking a long drag, whilst she gazed down at the cadaverous ruins of her bitter enemy.

“It's weird being this close to him.” David the thin-blood muttered, peeking out from over Violetta’s shoulder.

The ventrue took a step closer, blowing twin jets of smoke out through her nostrils.

A pair of deep black caves stared back at her.

“How did shacking up with the “unbound” work out for you, you pretentious Hollywood prick?” Vi sneered, a knife-like grin hooked at one end of her lips.

“I don’t think he can answer you, Vi.” David murmured.

“There’s no telling how long he was like this, before we got word of his final death,” Sheriff Teach grunted, in his deep, gruff voice, “the Anarchs have probably already scrubbed the scene clean, a dozen times over.”

Violetta knelt down, so that her eyes were level with the necrotic pits of Abrams’ skull. She gave his body a quick look over, resting on the bizarre-looking gun which rested loosely in the dead man’s grip.

The pistol had an almost science fiction-quality to it, what with its glowing neon sights, stocky in-built suppressor, and slickly chiseled grip. The cylinder on the handgun was disproportionately large, when compared to the rest of the pistol, granting the weapon the characteristics of some kind of near future gizmo, which wouldn’t look out-of-place in the hands of Robo Cob, or Rick Deckard.

Vi pried the gun out of Abrams’ clutches, and gave it a look over.

“What's that?” Dave asked, shifting uneasily.

“Probably stolen SI tech,” Violetta replied, admiring the state-of-the-art hand gun, “looks like Abrams knew someone was after him, and tried to defend himself.”

Ever since the attack of Vienna, the Second Inquisition had been an agonizing thorn in the side of all kindred, hounding the undead at every corner, and dealing blow after blow to their vampiric prey.

It was the Second Inquisition’s ruinous attack on London which had shattered Queen Anne’s court, and forced Vi to flee to LA.

With a sharp click, Violetta opened the hand gun’s cylinder, and stared at the unusual cases inside. The pistol was crammed with silver shells, engraved with stocky crimson writing. One shell was missing from the cylinder.

Vi slipped one of the bullets out of the gun, and examined it-between her long fingers.

”INCENDIARY” was printed on the gleaming shell,in bright red.

“Bullets for killing vampires.” Vi muttered to herself.

Then she remembered the searing crater in David’s trilby.

Violetta sighed, grimacing, as she slid the bullet back into the pistol’s cylinder.

“What's up?” the thin-blood prompted.

The ventrue slammed the mechanism shut, and pointed the handgun squarely at David.

“Dave, you dense motherfucker,” she snarled, baring her fangs, “you can’t do anything right.”

The thin-blood raised his hands in shock, letting out a shrill yelp.Teach took a step backwards, stunned.

“What's going on, Vi?” the enormous figure growled.

“You wanna tell me the real story behind that “cigar burn” in your hat, David?” Violetta hissed, “why not just throw the damn thing away?!”

The venture wasn’t one for sentimental attachments, or budding friendships, but she was still unusually fond of her naive sidekick. She prayed there was some kind of explanation, but could already feel the swell of doubt festering in her gut, like a putrid tumour.

David’s mouth bobbed open, like a goldfish, and only a nervous splutter oozed out.

“Do you have any idea how much of a shitstorm you’ve started?!” Vi snarled, “you really think the prince is gonna-”

Something sharp burst through Violetta’ back.

Blood pooled from her mouth, and hot pain exploded inside of her, but she found herself frozen in place, and unable to move.

Her body hit the ground, with a hard thud, her skull bouncing off of the solid floor. She tried to speak, but found herself unable to.

“Nice going, Daaaave,” Teach grumbled, whipping a dark smear of blood onto his trouser leg, “so much for the element of surprise.”

“I didn’t -!” the thin-blood began to protest, but Sheriff Teach shot him a burning glare, which quickly shut him up.

“I’ll take care of the anarch bitch,” the sheriff instructed his underling, “you throw Vi in the trunk.”

“What are we gonna do next?” David asked, nervously.

“What else?” Teach let out a dull chuckle, “frame her for Abrams’ murder.”

Malina paced back and forth nervously, glancing at the door to the apartment as she waited anxiously for her son to come home. Under normal circumstances, it would be foolish to worry about Mihail: he was a grown man whose NBA salary had paid for the apartment they now shared. He was over seven feet tall, and he was generally well-liked by the Angeleno public, barring a few maladjusted Clippers fans. Of course, these were not normal circumstances: that became apparent after the Tremere assassin made an attempt on Mihail’s life.

Ever since the attack, Malina had taken off her normal job performing to ensure that their apartment remained warded against potential vampire attack. Any bloodsucker who entered the domicile would feel their powers begin to leave them. Here Mihail was safe, and while Malina wouldn’t try to confine her adult son to the house 24/7, she had requested that Mihail come home well before dark. Am I being overbearing? Am I being the stereotypical overbearing immigrant mom? She poured a glass of wine from the old country, one which she had opened earlier that month to celebrate Mihail making the All-Rookie team. No, these are vampires we are dealing with, the same ones that killed his father. She took a sip. Damn these bloodsuckers, they are driving me to drink.

Malina’s eyes shot up as the door opened, and behind it, barefoot, was Mihail. He looked exhausted, slightly singed, and extremely agitated, but alive. Malina ran forth, at first appearing as though she was going to hug him. Instead, she took a different approach, her outstretched hands gesticulating angrily.

“Where have you been, mister?!” Malina proclaimed, berating her son in her native Vlax Romani language, “I have taken off work to ward this apartment, because I want to keep you safe, and you won’t even take the most basic measures to--”

Mihail tried to interject: “But mom--!”

“NO BUTS!” Malina spat back. She sent forth a deluge of telekinetic energy, causing the door to slam behind her son with a loud thud that startled him. “I can’t believe after I make this one simple request of you, for your own safety, to be home after dark, that you would--”

“MOM!” Mihail screamed this time, breaking through the frantic worried rant of his mother. “... Mom, they found me. The Baron’s people. They found me.”

Malina paused, looking at her singed, barefoot, panicked son. “... and they did this to you?!” She resumed her angry rant as abruptly as she had paused it: “Oh that bloodsoaked whore thinks she can get away with this, does she!? She thinks she can send her minions to fuck around with my son!?” As she ranted and raved, Malina walked over to a cabinet just outside the kitchen and opened it, revealing a silver-tipped crossbow in a locked glass case. Taking the key from her pocket, she continued: “When I get my hands on that bloodsucking, water-wasting, two-bit succubus bitch I am going to put fifteen bolts in her chest and another ten right in her--”

“MOM! Please!” Mihail grabbed his mother by the shoulders, turned her around, and looked her in the eyes, “Please. Let me explain. They were trying to warn me... I am not what you need to worry about right now.”

Malina frowned, but put the key back in her pocket. “Mihail, it is my job to worry about you,” she said, “I am your mother. I will never not worry. Now please, tell me what is going on. Forgive me, I have been very restless since I took a leave from my job.”

Mihail sighed. “You might want to sit down for this. We can talk in the kitchen.”

The pair made their way to the well-equipped kitchen. Malina began to boil water for tea as Mihail retrieved two large mugs from the cupboard. “Nothing with caffeine,” Malina said, “I would like to be able to sleep after this.” Mihail settled on some chamomile to relax them, and placed a teabag in each mug.

As they sat at the dining table waiting for the water to boil, Mihail began to explain what he had been told: “Gehanna is coming. The apocalypse.”

Malina froze. For a moment, she said nothing, thoughts of the end-times echoing through her mind. These were interrupted by the sound of the whistling kettle. She signed, then stood up to turn off the heat and begin pouring the boiling water over the teabags. “It is as I feared, then,” Malina said solemnly, returning to the table and sitting back down. “It will begin in India, correct?”

Mihail was taken aback. “Yes, that is what they told me...” He paused. “How did you know?”

“I am a diviner, Mihail, I can literally see the future,” Malina said matter-of-factly, “And statistically speaking, it was a 1-in-7 chance it would’ve been India even if I didn’t. Social unrest caused by bloodsuckers is nothing new, but the things I saw... the scale of it...” Malina looked into the distance, as though she was reliving her visions once again, then shuddered. “It may be the end of us all, Mihail, and those who do not perish at the hands of the supernatural tyrants will be made into ghouls, blood-chattel and slaves.”

Mihail drank deeply of his tea, consuming almost half the cup, and sighed. “So what do we do? Is there a safehouse we can hide in?”

Malina shook her head. “I have tried to protect you from this for long enough, Mihail. But it has become inescapable.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mihail,” Malina said, placing her hand on her son’s, “Surely you have noticed by now, that you are capable of things you did not previously think possible. From what you have told me, you are resistant to blood magic. Your clothes are singed, I presume from something you did, as vampires are not fans of fire...” Malina glanced down at Mihail’s cup of tea. “... and you just drank a considerable amount of near-boiling liquid without burning yourself.” She smiled. “Most people have to wait for the tea to cool off.”

Mihail looked down at the now half-empty glass. He had not even noticed, but now that it was brought to his attention, although he felt the heat, it did not harm him.

“The technique is called Firewalk. Your father, he was the same way.” Malina smiled as she began to reminisce, “He would sometimes drink boiling water straight from the kettle, just to show off for me.” She shook her head, the smile disappearing from her face. “It was hard sometimes, watching him obsess over the Hunt. But in his dedication, Grigore found purpose. Sword and sorcery ran through his veins, and it runs through yours as well.”

“I just want to play basketball,” Mihail muttered.

“And Grigore wanted to be an artist; we’ve got three of his paintings in the living room,” Malina retorted, “Grigore did not become a hunter because he wanted to, but because the supernatural became inescapable. As long as supernatural creatures exist, they will try to exert their influence on humanity.” Malina, sufficiently satisfied that her own tea had cooled off, took a sip, then continued her spiel. “Some see the Call to Hunt as a curse. Your grandfather Iacob despised it. He felt as though his life had been taken from him, and though he performed his duty diligently, it slowly destroyed him inside.”

“And?” Mihail snapped back, “This is supposed to make me feel better about receiving the Call?”

“Let your mother finish, Mihail,” Malina retorted, “It was not the hunt itself that destroyed your grandfather. Iacob focused only on what the hunt had taken from him. He rejected his own passions and grew cold and distant from your grandmother and father. And he did not live long enough to meet you.” Malina looked down at her hands for a moment, her eyes lingering on her simple silver wedding ring. “But your father? He was a man who loved life. I could not bring every painting with me, much as I would have liked to, but Grigore used the Hunt to inspire him. Many of his paintings are based on his internal struggles, the losses and triumphs he felt along his journey to become one of the greatest vampire hunters to ever live. He was a good painter before he received the Call. After, though? He was brilliant.”

“Tell me, Mihail...” she continued, “Have you played any basketball since you first heard the Call?”

Mihail nodded.

“And you are better at it now,” Malina concluded, “Your mind is clear. Your hand is steady. You do not realize it yet, but these are things your subconscious has done to prepare you for the Hunt.”

Mihail was puzzled. "Yes, you are right. But how is basketball skill related to hunting vampires?”

Malina shook her head. “Being called to the Hunt does not make you better at basketball. Your father was almost as tall as you, and he was terrible at it. What it does, well...” Malina thought hard about how to explain this, “Hunters are physically outclassed by vampires in almost every way: strength, speed, endurance. But, like a mage, the Call of the Hunt has attuned you to the supernatural world. You can see the little bits of magic which you could not see before, and tug at the strings of fate to bend the world to your liking. In time, you will learn to create fire with your hands, summon up physical abilities that rival vampires, and cut through hardened monster flesh with any common blade. And as you practice this, you will become stronger. Perhaps someday, you may even surpass your fath--.”

“I do not want to be a hunter, mother!” Mihail interrupted angrily, “I don’t... I don’t have...”

“You do not have a choice, my sweet Mihail,” Malina replied, frowning, “I brought you to this country so that you might elude the Hunt, which has killed so many of your kin. But if what you say is true, and Gehanna truly is coming, you have a duty to prepare in whatever way you can. Not just for you...” Malina looked out at the scene of LA at nighttime, “But the good people of this city, and the world.”

Malina continued: “The Hunt is not senseless bloodshed, sweet Mihail. It is resistance. Humans have lived under the Great Tyranny for thousands of years, where supernatural beings control our destiny and lives to benefit themselves. Many of us are blissfully ignorant of this fact, but it changes nothing. They start bloody wars, pit brother against brother, quite literally prey upon our most desperate, and then discard us when we are no longer of use to them.” From her belt, Malina removed a silvered dagger and placed it on the table. Its hilt was carved in the likeness of a three-headed dragon, its necks intertwining to create a grip. “This blade has liberated two-dozen blood-chattel. The crossbow in the cupboard freed a town by killing the bloodsucker controlling its mayor. My sacred wards have dispatched several who attempted to infiltrate my family’s domicile, even before I met your father.”

“What’s your point, mother?” Mihail asked impatiently.

“My point is, Mihail,” Malina snapped back, “That there are many, many people who suffer under the supernatural tyranny. Under normal circumstances, I would say to you that you have a duty to fight back against the vampires. I would say that you need not give up your life’s passions, and tell you all about great basketball players who hunted vampires as they travelled from city to city. But these are not normal circumstances.” Malina drank deeply of her tea. “What I will say instead is that without learning to hunt, you are far, far more likely to die. If there are supernatural abominations roaming the streets in large numbers, if the antediluvians raise armies of monsters and undead to enslave the mortal realm, and you do not know how to fight back against them, you will be washed away in a tide of panic and blood, like millions of others. There is nowhere on this Earth to run. So we must fight.”

Mihail and Malina sat in silence for a minute, sipping tea slowly as they steeped in the harsh truths of the situation. Finally, Mihail broke the silence: “... I know. Everything you said is true. And as much as I hate to admit it, killing that vampire... it felt good. Like I wasn't just a bystander anymore. That I was doing something right. That’s why I want you to train me. As much as you can, in the short time we have.”

Malina shook her head. “Mages and hunters are very similar, but not the same. I can teach you some of the old masters’ techniques, but a Hunter must either learn from another hunter, or from experience. Associating with the Inquisition risks drawing the ire of the Baron, so they are not an option.”

“Does the Baron have any hunters in her service?” Mihail asked, “Her minions, they seemed almost... happy that I had killed the assassin. And they warned me about the apocalypse to come. They said that the Baron was using her resources to save the city, and implied she was on the side of humans, rather than Kindered.”

Malina seemed shocked by the question and the assertions that followed. “... the Baron is an interesting creature,” she mused, “She is not human, but allegedly, she has a warmth to her that other bloodsuckers do not. She has every interest in stopping Gehenna, or at least limiting its effects. The rise of the antediluvians are a threat to her wellbeing and power as well. But be forewarned,” she said sternly, “She is still a powerful vampire. She may work to preserve order in the city, but only because she knows that her kind cannot live without our blood. She is ultimately a creature seeking self-gratification, whose foul mimicries of life give the appearance of an altruist. And she is quite possibly our only hope.”

Mihail nodded. Harsh, but perhaps correct. Mihail took out his cellphone and began to dial the number of the Lakers’ Assistant General Manager. “Then I should see her for myself.”

“Hello? Yes, sorry to call you this late. I know you were going to call me, but I figured I’d speed things along. I want to meet with the Baron...”

Bruno snarled at the giant man, as he came stomping out of the darkness, with the stock-still corpse of a lithe woman slung over one shoulder.

The rod of metal sticking out of her chest, like a gleaming totem pole, suggested that she was a kindred that had been staked, and forced into torpor.

“Still keeping up the gangster bravado, I see.” the enormous figure chuckled, roughly dropping his motionless captive down next to Bruno.

“Gangster doesn’t begin to cover it, you brainless gorilla,” he hissed, fury burning in his chest like red hot coals, “when the family finds out where I am, your half baked little rebellion is gonna go down like the fucking’ Hindenburg.”

“So you keep saying.” the brawny thug murmured, with an amused grin.

Bruno had found himself in the gutted out carcass of what looked to be an old mall. Dusty, unmoving escalators burrowed down into the ground, akin to shadowy tunnels delving into the depths of Hades, and the grubby ceiling was riddled with ancient, exposed beams.

The ground was dusty and faded, and ravaged cavens served as the tombs of long-abandoned shops and stores.

“I’m gonna enjoy ripping that smug look off of your greasy-ass face,” Bruno leered, rattling against the chains which bound him, “right before I smash your head like a watermelon.”

The giant man turned away from the paralyzed hostage, and stomped over to where Bruno was bound.

He glanced down at the gleaming golden rolex on Bruno’s wrist.

“Nice.” the gargantuan figure laughed, before bending down, and snatching it up, with a swift tug.

Red hot rage exploded inside Bruno, with all the sky-darkening wrath of an erupting volcano.

“You just signed your fucking death warrant, asshole!” he roared.

---

Gertrude Aschefeld took a small sip from her flask, relishing the taste of hot coffee.

She sat behind the wheel of her old, second-hand hatchback, listening to a Sam Cooke CD, and softly drumming along on the dashboard.

The back of Gertrude’s car was dominated by a messy clump of teaching supplies, and other stray bits and bobs.

Like her hallowed crusader’s sword, which had one of Saint Lucy’s teeth embedded in the gleaming metal hilt.

That sword was Gertrude’s most prized possession, narrowly topping the enormous messerschmitt that sat on top of her model cabinet at home, which she had built all by herself, in between sessions of marking English homework.

Gertrude allowed herself another swig of coffee, enjoying the way it breathed a rush of soothing energy into her brain. She knew some hunters to prep with much stronger substances, but caffeine was more than enough for her, thank you very much.

All Mrs Aschefeld needed was a nice strong coffee, and a quiet moment of reflection, with a few calming songs drifting serenely in the background.

The English teacher didn’t care for crystal meth roaring through her veins, or a mind burning with anger.She did not relish bloodshed, as some did, but instead viewed it as a brutal necessity.

The hunt filled her with pride, but not because of the act of destruction, or the thrill of battle. She was proud of herself for making a stand, and building a better world for her students.

How many teachers said they would kill for their pupils? Gertrude Aschefeld had, many times, and would continue to do so, for as long as the Lord wished it.

Trudy had been teaching professionally for fifteen years, and hunting God’s enemies for ten.

At the small party her church had thrown her, to commemorate her first five years as an educator, some frenzied, bloodsucking monster had broken into the town hall, and killed three people, before Gertrude had thrust an enormous metal crucifix through its mouth, and reduced it to a withered pile of ash.

One of the victim’s was a young woman called Stacy, who had been due to attend Yale, later that year. Stacy was only at the party to say thank you to Mrs Aschefeld, for staying behind after hours, to help her with English homework.

On that night, as she watched the sun rise in the distance, and cull the creeping darkness, Trudy had sworn that she would never let those abominations kill another innocent child.

Mrs Gertrude Aschefeld had become an instrument of God's wrath, and a relentless one at that.

Once “A Change is Gonna Come” slowly wound down, the English teacher got out of her car, and began assembling her hunting supplies. She fastened her sacred blade onto her back, and slipped the Smith and Wesson - which her husband got her for their seventh wedding anniversary - into a holster on her belt.

After that, Trudy placed both hands together, and shut her eyes.

“Bless your servant, O’Lord,” she whispered, “that I may cleanse the wicked from this land, and shield the innocent from the devil’s evil.”

When she was done praying, Trudy steadied herself, and set about on her mission.

---

Vi and the sour-faced man sat lonesomely, like helpless rabbits, locked in the hungry gaze of a leering fox.

Whatever chains their hands had been bound in, there was some bizarre magic at work, and even a burst of potence couldn’t shatter the mysterious, iron-like metal.

“These cock-sucking puttanas are dead,” Vi’s cellmate snarled, his eyes burning with fierce anger, “they’ve got no idea who they’re fucking with.”

“And who are they fucking with?” Violetta asked, in her customarily impassive tone.

“Bad people,” the grim figure promised, “people that you don’t want to cross.”

Just then, the meek figure of David the thin-blood poked his head around the doorframe, and popped into view.

A stab of icy rage, mingled with out-and-out sorrow, ripped through the ventrue’s dead heart.

“Pieprzony zdrajca.” Vi hissed, flashing her pointed fangs, as she cursed in her family’s native tongue.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Vi.” Dave murmured dejectedly, with the hesitant misery of a child who knew they were about to be scolded by their parents.

“Cut these chains, and we’ll see how likely that is.” Violetta spat, her words seeped in boiling venom.

Anger was not a foreign feeling to Violetta Kyborowski, but she had grown accustomed to biting her tongue, and letting rage temper quietly inside her.

This was different.

Unlife had made a cold, self-reliant woman of Vi, and David was one of the few people that she had allowed to glimpse, even briefly, beneath her rock solid exterior, which she wore like resilient armour, guarding the last vestiges of her sacred humanity.

She had let David see her as she truly was, and he had thrown it back in her face.

“The Camarilla can’t stop what's coming, Vi,” Dave promised, “Teach and I have seen things…”

The thin-blood briefly trailed off, scrambling to find the right words.

“This is an act of mercy,” he explained, with apparent sincerity, “I’m trying to help you!”

“Is that why we’re chained up, you little rat?” the sour-faced man growled at Dave.

The thin-blood ignored him, and focused on Violetta.

“Nines, Therese ,and every other power-hungry Anarch are going to come crashing down, right on top of Vannevar’s pompous little head,” he pressed on, “there is going to be one hell of a war, like we haven’t seen since MacNeil’s revolt, but all of it will just be one big smoke screen, because something much more powerful is-”

“I don’t care,” Vi let out a outraged mixture of a dry laugh and a violent snarl, “you sniveling little ślimak.”

A short silence fell over the room, broken suddenly by a bout of deranged cackling, which exploded out of the sour-faced man.

David seethed quietly, just as the towering figure of Sheriff Teach strode out of the shadows, carrying himself like a hardened medieval warrior.

“Dead man walking!” Vi’s cellmate barked, like a frenzied hound, at the sight of the sheriff“you’re a dead man walking!”

“Do you like my new watch, Miss Kyborowski?” Teach asked, flashing a glittering gold rolex, with a shit-eating grin plastered across his broad face.

The other captive exploded into a hysterical, mouth-frothing string of impassioned italian, displaying exactly the sort of monumental rage that Vi felt searing within her own heart.

“The only reason you haven’t met final death is because David is adamant that you remain unharmed,” Teach explained to Violetta, “Mister Bruno is untouched because he is going to make excellent bait.”

“Va’ a farti fottere!” Bruno growled back in response.

A deep, rumbling chuckle rolled out of the towering sheriff.

“Tell me, Miss Kyborowski,” the goliath kept his gaze fixed squarely on Violetta, “does the name Lubbock mean anything to you?”

No sooner had the words left Teach’s lips, then a cataclysmic bang barked through the air, and the right side of his face exploded into sickly red pulp.

“Holy fudge nuggets!” David shrieked.

Seemingly without notice, a middle-aged woman, precisely grasping a Smith and Wesson, had found her way into the mall, and the look which gleamed in her eyes told Vi that she very much had a score to settle.

The newcomer also appeared to have a great big, fuck off sword strapped to her back.

Her arsenal of lethal weapons was particularly at odds with her long tartan skirt, knitted cardigan, and round spectacles.

“The lord judges,” the gun-toting matron declared, “I act.”

Teach snapped around to face his assailant, half of his face reduced grisly jelly.

The sheriff let out a bestial roar, and flew towards the woman, with his claws unsheathed.

“Untie us, David!” Vi barked frantically at the terror-stricken thin blood.

The middle-aged crusader fired off another round, blowing a hole clean through Teach’s abdomen, and stopping him in his tracks.

With nimble efficiency, she slipped the revolver into its holster, and unsheathed the blade on her back.

Without warning, a plume of blinding, white hot flame exploded into being, wrapping itself around the glistening sword like a serpent hugging a jungle tree.

“Fuck me.” Bruno gasped, beneath his lack of breath.

Even looking upon the glowing blade made every fiber of Vi’s undead being thrum with primal terror.

“UNTIE US!” Violetta roared once more, glaring daggers at David.

Fumbling awkwardly, the thin blood rushed over to his captives, clutching a long, thin key.

A stone’s throw away, Teach took another lunge at the tartan-wearing zealot, only to clumsily leap backward, as a single swing of the fire-glazed blade sent him reeling away, and floundering across the floor.

Dave dropped down behind the two captives, and awkwardly unlocked their bindings, with a sharp click.

The pressure around Vi’s wrists loosened, as the magical chains clattered to the ground.

“Okay, now he-”

Without missing a beat, Violetta grabbed David by the throat, and hoisted him up off the floor, with the preternatural strength of potence thundering through her veins, like a rampaging bull.

“You always were a fucking idiot.” she hissed.

The ventrue spun around, and hurled Dave’s meek form across the room, sending him smashing straight into the unfolding battle between the sheriff and his holy aggressor.

With a sharp thud, all three figures were knocked to the ground, landing in a chaotic heap on the grimy mall floor.

“Time to haul ass!” Bruno shouted, making a mad dash for the exit.

Not waiting to see what happened next, Violetta rushed after the vampire, and the two of them bolted through a dark stretch of deserted corridors.

They smashed through a pair of mammoth metal doors, and came stumbling out into the night. A long expanse of smooth black tarmac and small, rectangular shops greeted them.

With a sudden screech, a slick silver car came skidding down the road, and pulled up right infront of the pair of kindred.

“About fuckin’ time!” Bruno snapped, angrily.

A blacked out window rolled down, to reveal a pale woman, with short black hair, and large brown eyes.

“Where in god’s name have you been?!” Bruno demanded.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” she replied icily, in a faint dutch accent.

“Let's not stand around, huh?” Vi prompted.

The pair clambered into the back of the car, and the driver promptly went speeding away down the vast belt of road, without wasting so much as a second.

Violetta and Bruno reclined on slick leather seats, as the ruins of the derelict mall vanished into a distant spec.

She had no idea what fate would befall David, but she hoped that it was a drawn-out painful one. He had hurt her in an intimate way, and no agonizing hell was terrible enough for that treacherous little worm.

“So,” Vi spoke up, once the mall had utterly faded from view, “who are you guys, exactly?”

“Bruno Giovanni,” her former cellmate told her, “and this is Franziska, a new member of our little family.”

A collab with @Bloodrose


A chandelier of glittering light fluttered through the Morris Library’s largest window, filling the room with the warmth of the early morning sun.

Classes didn’t start for another half an hour, and the Wollstonecraft High School Parapsychology Society had the vast, bookcase-filled room to themselves.

“Did Mrs Aschefeld say that she’d be running late?” Dexter LaTierri asked his peers, nervously picking at the flaky cuticles which spread out of his finger nails, like a
thin sheet of ice.

“You’re the one who's always droolin’ afta’ her, LaTierri,” Trix Schechter called over to him, with a smug sneer on her round face, “you’re more likely to know than any of us.”

Trix let out a harsh laugh, whilst Dex felt his cheeks flushing a bright, scorching shade of crimson. She tossed a scrunched up wad of paper across the room, that thudded against Dexter’s head, with an irritating thump.

“Leave off, Trix!” Umar, a trim figure who stood a few inches taller than Dexter, but still a bit shorter than Trix, interjected, glaring daggers at the chunky fullback, from behind his round glasses, “save your spite for the leeches.”

Just then, the Morris Library’s double doors swung open, and Gertrude Aschefeld came striding firmly into the room, on a pair of high heels that clinked and clanked with each determined step.

“Mrs Aschefeld!” Dexter shot up out of his seat, letting out a gasp, “what happened to you?!”

The middle-aged English teacher looked incredibly worse for wear.

An angry purple bruise, rimmed with inky black, bulged out around her left eye, and her lips had been split by a sharp, grisly cut.

“Blank bodies,” Gertrude said, in a low growl, “it was a fierce battle, but the Lord helped me to triumph over Satan’s minions.”

Mrs Aschefeled took a swig from her canteen of coffee, and stepped into the middle of the room, letting out an arduous groan.

“We’ve had some minor success with some of the weaker blanks out there, but the situation in LA is growing worse and worse, with each passing day,” the English teacher announced to her tiny squadron of aspiring hunters, “things are only going to get more dangerous, and the servants of darkness will not hold back.”

Dexter felt a cold shiver going creeping down his spine.

“Bring it on!” Trix whooped, cracking her knuckles, whilst a sharp grin spread across her plump face, “I’m gonna turn ‘em into fuckin’ ash.”

Gertrude Aschefeld frowned, her eyes glistening with bitter anger.

“You can’t beat our adversaries with bravado alone, Miss Schechter,” Mrs Aschefeled snapped, “and I’ll ask you to watch your mouth, whilst on school premises.”

Some of the cavalier hubris on Trix’s likeness faded away, and Dexter heard Umar laugh under his breath.

“The blank bodies have immeasurable resources and unholy power at their command,” Gertrude pressed on, “we aren’t going to beat them if you’re too busy fighting amongst yourselves to focus on our opponent.”

A murmur of unease rippled through the beginner hunters.

“What's our next move, Mrs Aschefeled?” Umar asked, in a somewhat tense manner.

Gertrude adjusted her glasses, and took another swig of coffee before she replied.

“We need numbers, and we need unity,” she explained, “that's why I’ve made contact with an old acquaintance of mine. Her son needs training, and we need soldiers.”

Trix scoffed callously.

“We’re supposed to babysit some kid?” she glowered.

Gertrude shook her head.

“I know that football is your speciality, Miss Schechtner,” Mrs Aschefeled responded, “but what do you know of basketball?”

_________________________________________

Mihail pressed through the doors to the high school, clutching his gym bag under his right arm as he glanced furtively around the lobby. He didn’t exactly feel comfortable coming to a school to learn about the art of killing, but according to his mother, this institution employed one of the most gifted and powerful monster-hunters in Los Angeles. He was wearing a Dodgers cap, dark tracksuit and sunglasses, which he realized in hindsight probably made him look more threatening rather than disguising his identity.

“Aschefeld...” he muttered to himself, “You’re looking for Aschefeld.” He approached the front desk where a disinterested and tired-seeming receptionist sipped some caffeinated beverage while typing away at her keyboard. Mihail waited for twenty-or-so seconds, then cleared his threat to get her attention.

“... Can I help you, stretch?” the receptionist asked groggily, clearly not happy about working the morning shift.

“Yes, hello, I am seeking for--” Mihail paused, trying to correct his grammar, “I am looking for a Mrs... Aschefeld?”

The receptionist raised an eyebrow. “Gonna need to see some identification.”

Mihail fumbled around in his bag for his green card and passed it to the receptionist. She examined it for a few seconds, then looked back up at Mihail’s face. “... This is a fake.”

“What?”

The receptionist shook her head. “You’re not Mihail Dobrescu. He’s a basketball player, number 45 for the Los Angeles Lakers. I’m calling securit--”

Mihail took off his sunglasses and cap. “Please do not.” He opened up his gym bag and took out a spare jersey. “I am here for an extracurricular program. It is supposed to be a surprise for the students.”

The receptionist seemed a bit shocked. Not totally star-struck per say, but clearly she knew who he was. “... Count Blockula?”

Mihail rolled his eyes. “Yes, that is me.” He loathed that nickname.

The receptionist smiled, “Ahh, the nickname, Aschefeld runs that weird paranormal activity club. That makes sense. How do you know her?”

“She is a friend of my mother,” Mihail replied matter-of-factly, oblivious to the humour in the receptionist's statement, “Can you tell me what room she is in?”

The receptionist directed Mihail to the Morris Library, where he happened upon a congregation of students led by a singular female staff member. He had to crouch a bit to get his seven-foot-one frame under a low-hanging Reading is fun! sign.

“... Are you Gertrude Aschefeld?” he asked in a deep, heavily-accented voice.

A wiry woman, with partially greying brown hair, extended one hand to Mihail.

She looked to be somewhere in the nebulous 40 - 50 bracket, depending on how well or poorly she had aged, and wore a pair of round spectacles over a narrow face, that wasn’t exceptionally beautiful nor ugly.

“A pleasure, Mister Dobrescu,” she said by way of greeting, in a voice that betrayed neither joy nor malice, “I’m Gertrude.”

The angular figure firmly gestured to the trio of high school students.

“These are my pupils,” she explained, “and your new peers.”

A burly young woman, with firm, muscular arms and a protruding belly, gave Mihail a reverent look up and down.

“Count - FRICKIN’ - Blockula,” the sturdily-built teenager beamed, “my big bro won a Benny, betting on your last game.”

Mihail was flummoxed by the sudden warm welcome, but managed to force out a response in his just-barely-fluent English, trying his best to respond to the slang with which he was unfamiliar: “I am glad that Benny was able to win this bet. And please call me Mihail.” He managed a nervous smile and held out a hand to shake the powerlifter’s (at least she looked to Mihail like a powerlifter), then turned to the rest of the hunters. He’d expected them to be older, not a bunch of high school students. Was he expected to learn the basics of hunting alongside them? Mihail felt thoroughly embarrassed, but then again, there likely weren’t many options for training on such short notice.

“... Gertrude, you are injured.” Mihail said, turning to his now-mentor, “... Bloodsuckers?”

The middle-aged woman nodded.

“It was a precarious fight, but I triumphed, and the world is better off for it.” Gertrude assured Mihail.

Whilst she spoke, the English teacher took off her thickset glasses, and lightly polished the lenses.

“Malina was rather explicit about me treating you as I would any of my other apprentices, and everyone else here learnt on the job, so that is how I plan on beginning your education, Mister Dobrescu.”

“Hell yeah!” the chunky young woman chimed in, with an eager smile.

“A remarkably repulsive blank body has taken up residence in the ruins of an old monastery, once belonging to the Society of Leopold,” Gertrude explained, “the demon is sneaky, but not nearly as sneaky as it thinks it is. I was planning on taking my hunters there, to destroy the monster, and I think it will make a fantastic starting point for you, Mister Dobrescu.”

Mihail nodded. “It will not be the first time I have given a vampire their final death, though the first time was very much a... fluke, as they say,” he said hesitantly. He clenched his fist, causing smoke to rise out from between his knuckles. When he realized what was happening, he rapidly fanned his hand back and forth to douse the flames with a nonchalant expression on his face, as though this had happened many times before. Mihail had experimented here and there with his pyromantic powers, but was far from mastering them. “You are aware of the impending... eh, perhaps it would be best if we speak in private about this?”

Gertrude offered a brief, almost imperceptible nod to the basketball player.

“Malina told me,” she explained to Mihail, her voice lowering slightly in volume, “to say I am disturbed is an understatement, but it does explain the alarming increase in activity that we’ve been witnessing.”

“What's up, Mrs A?” one of the students called out.

“Nothing that needs immediate addressing,” the English teacher assured them, “for now, we have an immediate threat to deal with. We’ll talk more later.”

It was unusual for Violetta to dream.

The death-like slumber of kindred was not some peaceful retreat into the embrace of blissful torpidity, but a sudden and discordant leap into the blackest depths of nothingness.

In the clutches of yawning oblivion, there was no light, nor sound, nor thought. There was only a ravenous abyss, that stretched on for an eternity, eating away at time, and space, and creation itself.

But on that night, against all reason, Violetta Kyborowski had a nightmare.

Amidst the never-ending void, she saw a man with a long, flowing beard, sitting upon a pale mountain of wailing skulls. His eyes blazed with the mystical fire of untold souls, and he wore a satisfied smirk upon his face.

“Hubris is the bane of all great men,” the bearded king chuckled, “and death makes beggars of us all.”

High up in the lifeless vacuum, where the sky would be, Vi saw the silhouette of three masks, wrought from the flowing energies of oblivion, that gazed out at the ceaseless sprawl of nothingness, watching over the end of all things, with amusement in their many eyes.

Vi awoke with a jolt.

Her dead heart pounded in her chest, beating in a way that she had not felt since her embrace, and her whole body trembled with palpable unease.

She could feel enraged whispers burrowing deep into the stone walls that surrounded her, and unknown energies crackling in the air, like discharged electricity.

A choir of the damned and forsaken sung in agonizing harmony, crying out for justice, and bloody retribution.

“Bruno is waiting for you, Miss Kyborowski.”

The ventrue spotted a curvaceous, bronze-skinned woman standing in the doorway, watching her with a blank expression.

“I’ll be right there.” Vi grumbled in response, slowly rising out of bed.

She had been supplied with a small but comfortable room, with few furnishings to speak of, save for the comfy single bed, and a stocky bedside table.

Violetta assumed that this little chamber had been reserved for those few visitors that were not an actual part of the Giovanni family, or one of its wriggling branches.

The kindred pulled on her jacket, slipped into her shoes, and was soon trailing behind her guide, as they moved through an expansive corridor, fashioned from polished white marble.

Once again, Vi could feel restless energies boiling in the air.

As the pair made their way through the Giovanni mansion, the ventrue found herself surprised by how lifeless the house felt.

Serpentine hallways were empty, and muted rooms were devoid of the murmur of conversation, or scattered family members.

“I thought there would be more of you,” Violetta thought aloud, “this place feels like a graveyard.”

“In more ways than one.” the woman replied.

Vi would have guessed that her guide was 5’2, excluding the raised heels that she wore. She was dolled up in an extravagant black dress, and flashy makeup, that felt entirely at odds with the silent manor house.

Before long, they arrived in a vast dinette, where the head of the household was stood waiting for Violetta.

“Thank you, Isabel,” the gaunt-faced patriarch gave her a faint nod, “you may leave us.”

The soft clattering of heeled shoes announced Isabel Giovanni’s departure.

Bruno’s dining room was lavish, and well-tended to, without a hint of dust or grime in sight.

A long table, hewn from burgundy wood, stretched across the heart of the room, and a baroque chandelier swooped down from the ceiling, with spider-like limbs that nursed tall candles inside their golden cups.

Each candle cracked with a warm, ghostly flame that spat quivering shadows out against the boldly decorated walls.

“This house has been the Giovanni’s stronghold on the West Coast since colonial merchants from Italy first settled the land,” Bruno explained, in a voice brimming with nostalgic pride, “my sire embraced me within these very walls, not long before Woodrow Wilson was sworn in as president.”

“You’ve been here a while.” Violetta drearily observed, running both hands over the smooth mahogany table.

“And there is a reason we’ve survived this long.” the Giovanni replied, adopting the callous inflection of a steely gangster, who was able to inspire dread through a smattering of thinly-veiled threats and sinister glares.

“But things have been failing lately.” Vi countered.

A look of bitter irritation painted itself in hard strokes across Bruno’s gaunt face.

“You should choose your words more carefully, signora.” the mobster snarled.

Undeterred, the ventrue pressed on in her characteristically cold voice.

“You’re a notoriously close family, but these halls are empty, and even someone as ignorant in the art of death as I am can feel that the spirits here are far from friendly,” she reasoned, “something is very wrong.”

For a moment Violetta was sure that Bruno was going to strike her, but then his grim expression sagged, and turned into one of hopelessness.

He reached one hand into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a slick silver case, filled with a neat row of cigarettes.They both took one, lit up, and puffed away in offhand unison.

“It started a few years ago,” Bruno explained, blowing twin pikes of greyish smoke out of his nostrils, “my childe, Mira, got called away on some family business. Said it was nothin’ I needed to worry about. I ain’t heard back from her, or the rest of the family, since.”

The distress in Bruno’s voice reminded Vi of a wounded animal. She knew that the Giovanni valued family above all else, so being separated from his kin must have crippled the mobster in a way so deep-seated that Violetta could scarcely comprehend it.

Like when David betrayed you.

With a stab of heart-wrenching sadness, she pushed that thought back into the nethermost recesses of her mind.

“Even the rest of the US Giovanni have gone silent,” the gangster murmured, taking a covetous draw from his cigarette, “until Franziska arrived, a few months back, I hadn’t heard from the clan outside of these walls for what feels like an eternity.”

Despite her frosty demeanor, Violetta was not entirely made of stone, and the obvious grief in Bruno’s voice stirred a faint pang of sympathy inside of her.

“Family means a lot to you.” she muttered, in between pulls of her cigarette.

“Family means everything to me,” he replied, “they were my salvation, and my nights without them have become damnation.”

A faint crimson haze welled over Bruno Giovanni’s shark-like eyes.

“I’m alone now.” he whispered to himself.

Ever the enterprising go-getter, Violetta grabbed hold of the opportunity that had presented itself.

"Vannevar Thomas needs allies,” she explained, “the Giovanni and the Camarilla have worked together in the past, and we can do so again. You don’t have to be alone.”

Vi imagined that her sire, Queen Anne, would be rather proud of her childe’s business savvy.

Bruno took a moment to ponder what the ventrue had said.

“Once, I would have spat at the idea,” he grunted, “but these are dark nights, and there are twisted fuckin’ monsters out there.”

The Giovanni vampire let out a conquered sigh.

“Talk me through your proposition.”

---

The scent of petrichor was heavy on the air, as rain poured forth from the night sky, like the uninterrupted tears of a jilted lover.

Franziska Giovanni shielded herself from the downpour with a large black umbrella, striding cooly over sodden ground, in a pair of slick, onyx boots.

A splintering, box-like shell of cracked stone rose up out of the sloppy mud, with tall, domed towers sticking out of what was left of its squat torso. What had once been a rigorously cared for chapel was now a deserted ruin, marred by the explosion that had torn through its labyrinthine passages, during the battle for the Ankaran Sarcophagus.

“Ain’t you a pretty picture?” a harsh, rasping voice echoed out of the night.

In an eyeblink, the hunched figure of a leering zombie snapped into being, who looked as necrotic and rotten as the ruins behind him.

“Henri.” Franziska greeted the Samedi creature with a cold stare.

She was a tall woman, even without her heeled-boots, and stood a fair few inches above the walking cadaver.

“How do you like ma’ new crib, chérie?” Henri grinned, flashing a mouth full of yellow teeth, “I think it has an austere charm to it.”

The Samedi vampire’s flesh was a mishmash of sickly greens and rancid blacks, clinging to his tawny bones, like strands of torn toilet paper. Even before the embrace, Franziska had possessed a fervent love of thanatology, so the fetid being infront of her inspired more curiosity than repulsion.

“My time is precious,” Franziska replied sternly, “and I’m not here to talk about your hideout.”

A sick, guttural cackle bounced out of Henri’s putrid maw.

“Straight to the point then, mon trésor,” the Samedi laughed, “what does Bruno think happened at the Family Reunion?”

“Bruno must have royally pissed someone off, because he hasn’t heard from the inner-circle since before Venice,” Franziska explained, “I think I’m the first contact he has had with other Giovanni in a looooong time.”

The young necromancer had no idea how Bruno had missed so many critical shifts in the Giovanni’s situation, but it looked as though the LA branch of the family had degraded into little more than up-jumped mobsters.

Franziska knew that Bruno had fallen out of the good graces of the Italian Giovanni even before he bungled the Ankaran Sarcophagus job, so her current working theory was that Bruno and his meager circle of childer were so securely on some petty elder’s shit list that they had been deliberately kept in the dark by the wider family, prior to Augustus’ disappearance.

“Ain’t that a stroke ‘a luck?” Henri leered, his thin lips twisting into a decayed grin.

“He doesn’t know anything about the reunion,” the necromancer assured the Samedi, “I don’t even think he knows that the spectres have been hunting him because Augustus isn’t around to hold them in check anymore.”

Henri let out another blood-chilling rip of cackling.

“The poor bastard has no idea!” the hunched zombie laughed, “he left da’ gate wide open, and now the Hecata have come ta’ take everythin’ away from him.”

A collab with @Ruby



=====

The doors of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel opened at nine o’clock at night, although there were next to no one present besides hotel staff and organizers and the DJ at the turn tables until around ten o’clock, ten-thirty. There were some try-hards and some wide-eyed star-chasers, but they had given themselves away. Security would check which of them even belonged, and even scrutinize just what name was linked to their entry on the guest list. If they were irritating, inappropriate, or violated some other Hollywood faux pas it may not matter who had them added to the guest list.

For those present, there was no mistaking when the party really started. After midnight, there was suddenly very little room to maneuver outside the pool. Although the pool itself wasn’t that crowded, she thought, from her perch near the middle of the pool, straddling a purple pool float, splashing about with perfectly straight hair coming down to her shoulders, the plunge-style black bikini top from her shoulders to just under her 36C sized bust, the thin-strings keeping the bikini bottom tied to her frame clung tight to her hips jiggling about as she splashed.

Despite the late time of year, the event coordinator from the hotel assured them all the pool would be fully heated, with gas heat lamps strewn about the rooftop. Eva wasn’t cold, but she wouldn’t be, anyway. No one else seemed cold, not that there were many other people in the pool. Some Instagram models, some girlfriends, some fucktoys. The normal Hollywood pool mix.

Past the pool she could see the dance floor mixed in with the chairs and tables along the back wall, the other side of the wall a small courtyard with benches and chairs swrapped around wide palm trees wrapped in sparkling white lights. Up from the lobby, to the elevators, to the pool roof level, a quick walk from the hall to the door outside. Eva had lingered down in one of the ballrooms before she arrived at the pool level around 10.

The Hollywood Roosevelt was the birthplace of one of her favorite creations: The Academy Awards. Memories of ghosts and golden age Hollywood glamor danced in front of her in the dark, empty, ballroom before she slipped away and made her way towards the back staff elevator. She came out from behind the bar, not a soul looking in her direction.

Around 10:15 she was at her day bed next to the pool, taking the bottom hem of the sand silk sundress, lifting the dress up and over her shoulders, off her body, a little squirm of her hips and some corrections of the bikini top, and the dress was on the daybed. There was no purse, there was no need. She slipped into the pool, the first one of the night, even if no one looked in her direction. Even the second and third people in the pool, an influencer and their Instagram model fan, stepped into the pool giggling about being those crazy people that were the first in the pool.
No one saw Eva. No one saw so much as a ripple in the pool from her splash. She didn’t exist, to any of them, even as the Los Angeles Wildfire Relief Fundraiser kicked into high gear at midnight. He arrived shortly before midnight, an interesting time to show. He wasn’t the only athlete, a few Dodgers, a few other Lakers, a few Clippers, with the odd Charger or Ram. Most of the crowd was Hollywood, agents, actors, musicians, writers, directors, publishers, and a fair mix of corporate executives that spent all day in budget meetings.

It wasn’t until nearly one o’clock in the morning that she found him on a daybed that didn’t belong to him. Maybe it was his size that kept hotel staff from coming up to him and telling him the daybed was reserved. Maybe it was Eva’s supernatural presence keeping everyone blind to every little bit of her presence from notice. But he noticed the chair, and then, he noticed the woman rise from the water, big brown eyes absolutely locked on his as her palms hit the edge of the pool, and pushed her body up, chest pushed up and out until her waist was high enough, her body twisting, sitting on the edge of the pool with her legs still in the water, back now turned to the daybed, and the Hunter on it as the DJ went about mixing electronica and Ariana Grande’s sweet voice, and sinful lyrics.

“Finally, he notices me.” The tone was light, playful; the smile on her lips obvious despite her back turned to the man. Her right hand straightened and combed out her wet, heavy, dark hair to behind her shoulder as she turned her hips to look back in his direction for a moment, the smile having become a silly little chuckle. “No one can hear us, Mihail. Don’t worry about it. No one but you can even see me. I’m making myself so insignificant in their eyes, they don’t even notice me. Not a thing about me, not even my splish-splash good time in the pool. Same process I use to appear human, or like a lowly young vampire.”

She offered nothing in terms of what the opposite end of the process was. Better for him to ask, if he wanted that kind of information. When she looked back one more time, her lips spread again into the start of small grin. Amusement thick in the amber of her voice. “Relax. You have a better chance of fucking one of the Instagram models in the pool than fighting me, I’m just here to chat.”

Although one of the hotel staff, a Jessica Cruz, was a working actress. Blonde, athletic, and with acting talent to spare. Eva noticed her the moment she walked through the bar to the poolside. Not ripping her clothes off and leaving her a mess of sweat and orgasmic joy before draining enough blood for a good night cap, leaving her in a hotel bed to heal and try to remember what happened, had been more of a struggle than Eva wanted to admit, even to herself.

The Gehenna struggle was real.

Mihail was rather groggy by this point. Perhaps the undead were accustomed to running around in the wee hours of the night, as were his teammates, but Mihail kept an early-morning schedule. In truth, the colossal man had started to fall asleep about twenty minutes ago, dozing off as he had waited for some sign of the Anarch, perhaps falsely assuming that his colossal figure would’ve been easily-noticeable for her.

Parties like this were not Mihail’s favourite. Sure, he enjoyed EDM as much as any other Eastern European, but the sheer volume of beautiful models (and handsome athletes, though he denied it to himself) had him flustered. It certainly didn’t help that the vampire who now beckoned to him was eager to emphasize every single sultry sight at the party. The Anarch herself was absolutely beautiful, and her reputation as a smooth-talking seductress preceded her. Although Mihail’s newfound powers inoculated him against charms and domination, he nonetheless felt the supernatural pull of the mysterious kindred.

“How long were you waiting to contact me? You know I cannot see through all your Toreador tricks. Yet.” Mihail seemed a bit frustrated at the cavalier attitude of this mysterious stranger. Given the severity of the situation, he had thought she would try to get his attention right away. Mihail stood up to his full height, tried (and failed) to be inconspicuous about adjusting his swim trunks, and removed his undershirt to reveal a volume of body hair and muscle which was common among professional sports and near mythical everywhere else. He entered the pool and stood a few feet from Eva, getting a closer look at her entire body. He muttered something under his breath in Romanian: “Tatăl meu m-a avertizat că diavolul va fi frumos.”

Despite standing waist-deep in the pool, he still had to arch his neck down to look Eva in the eyes, trying to prevent his gaze from wandering further south. Her stupid, evil, beautiful brown eyes... goddamnit, FOCUS Mihail. “I could not fight you even if I wanted to. The greatest hunters in my family's history have killed vampires like you, but I am not one of them. And if you wanted me dead, you would have gotten your goons to do it for you.” He paused. “Speaking of which, was sending them after me truly necessary? A phone call would have been fine.” His combative demeanor betrayed a deep fear of the events soon to come.

“There are no vampires like me, Mihail, there is only me.”

Somehow, someway, the tone of her voice never once even bordered on arrogant. It was more of a matter of fact; if there were others like Eva, the Free State wouldn’t be a one-off. If there were others like Eva…maybe they could deal with Gehenna, instead of her. But there weren’t. In all the world, there was her, and her disciples.

“Goons?” Her lips grinned suddenly, wide, “I think you mean my coterie? My family, yes? The supernatural beings trying to save this world for humans alongside me? Let’s put a little bit of respect on their names, shall we.” Playful as the grin was, her dark brown eyes stayed on his eyes for a moment, the seriousness behind her words evident. “As for why…maybe you weren’t shit.”

She shrugged her bare shoulders, casually, as she was nearly eye-to-eye with him, her perched and seated on the edge of the pool, him in the pool. “Maybe you were. One of those ‘goons’ runs Hollywood, the other runs one of the largest money laundering enterprises in the world. These are experts in their field, very good at judging the strengths and weaknesses of individuals. To put it a way you’d understand more easily? They had to scout you, before I, the GM, could make a decision on whether to help you, or ignore you. Why did I wait?”
The grin came back, then, as she found herself lightly shrugging again. “No idea. I guess I wanted to watch you, I wanted to take the measure of you, myself. Not something easily done over a telephone. Do remember you’re talking to someone over three hundred years old, Mihail. I’m a little old school.”

Her body slipped back into the water so smoothly barely a ripple was made until she resurfaced, feet from him, her hands up at her hair, pulling it back behind her ears and shoulders. There was a sound of a giggle as she enjoyed bouncing about around him, a splash here and there. A playful, cheerful, 300 year old vampire, afterall.

Mihail sighed, his expression softening significantly. Everything he had been warned about was true; at least in the way she spoke and acted, the anarch was at least somewhat human, and Mihail couldn’t muster any hate or fear towards her. It was far easier to revile someone in the abstract--significantly more difficult when they were right in front of you, being perfectly civil. Even more-so when they were being playful, cheerful, and at least a bit bit sultry. “Coterie. I am sorry. It’s been a rough week.”

He allowed himself the slightest hint of a smile as the immortal splashed about, though it was quickly swallowed by his nerves. “This is a very relaxed place to meet while discussing the End of Days.” Talking to the anarch was surprisingly relaxing. Then again, so was the poison a venomous creature used to paralyze its prey before devouring it. The dissonance was... significant. But whatever trap may or may not have existed, Mihail had already willingly walked into it by meeting her here, and monologuing internally about her supposedly-sinister nature wouldn’t bring either of them any closer to stopping the apocalypse. He waved a hand through the water, returning one of Eva’s splashes back to her before continuing the conversation: an odd but contextually-appropriate way to show his cooperation. “What exactly do you want with me? Am I joining the Los Angeles Slayers as well as the Lakers?”

The reaction was small, delayed by a single beat of his heart. The smile that found her after such a short confusion was endlessly warm, yet small and slight kept to the corners of her high glossed lips in a way that only came with distance. “Given your heart rate and your focus of conversation, I dare say I needn’t recruit you to the overall cause.”

His concern, his anxiety, about what faced them covered her as completely as the water that she bobbed around him in. Did it suffocate him? Did it explain his impatience? “Mihail…” She stopped in front of him, and turned to face up to his eyes. The very rhythm of the dance between tone and pitch of voice hinted in new ways at distance; what she would have said, and what instead she found herself saying: “What I want doesn’t matter. Your path is yours to walk. You clearly believe the danger, you clearly want to do something about that. I have a feeling if I walked away and never had any interaction with you again, you’d find your way into doing something about all of it anyway.”

Dark eyes lit up. her head tilting to the side, as new amusements found her. “Hmm,” the actress began with suddenly furrowed brows, eyes squinting in exaggerated concentration, as if she were but racking her brain on the subject of what she might do with him. “Assuming I get no lip from you? Well…” Her hands retreated to below the water line that rested on her body at upper breast, her eyes wandering back in her head as she drifted away from him at the pace of a stoned sea turtle.

“Fast track your training using magical means. We’ve looked into blood magic that would ‘download’ certain training to minds. It required telepathic follow up from me, in a surgical manner, but it’s possible. Not as possible on a, say, army against the apocalypse scale as we had hoped…but on a more one of one level? Sure. Then I have Andre and his lads do some training at Camp Pendleton with you. Basic fire team, close quarters familiarization. Nothing too crazy, just a foundation.”

Her body disappeared under the water, before popping up again at the pool wall, raising herself out of the pool with a bounce that easily took her body out of the water. The towel draped around the daybed retrieved for drying off, from shoulders down. “Don’t worry, no one gives me what I want without lip. So you find what approach works best for you, and let me know. In the meantime I’ve smelled the roses and had my fun long enough, time I get back to work. Night is young.”

This time, when she smiled with the enthusiasm and warmth along with the playful little brow wiggle, the fangs showed in her perfect smile.
Mihail frowned. The prospect of allowing Eva to mess about with his brain frightened him, and he had most definitely seen this done in a sci-fi movie he’d been told to watch when he immigrated. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), Mihail had an excuse: “Blood magic does not work on me the same way it does others. And I think your very powerful magic will have effects you do not intend if it is used on a hunter.” His speech was stilted due to a mixture of inexperience with the language and nervousness. “It is true what I have been told, you are a very... soulful vampire.” The contradiction was not lost on him.

“I know that there is not much time,” Mihail conceded, turning to face Eva, “but I have learned very quickly. Something happened that day, when the neophyte attacked me. Since then, I hear whispers. Sometimes they sound like my father, sometimes my uncles, and sometimes they are a voice all their own. But these voices come to me when I do not expect it, and they teach me things.” Mihail got up out of the pool. Rather than grab a towel, wisps of steam began to rise off of his skin. He took a few steps towards the vampire, each footprint leaving behind burn marks as the heat from his body began to radiate outwards. “I am only human. We live short lives–”

““--we all have the same life expectancy right now of a few months, at most.”

“Why are you all so goddamned cryptic?!” Mihail asked angrily, “I have spent my entire life running from the supernatural, and it has gotten me nowhere! How am I supposed to protect myself against something I do not understand? Something that I cannot even see?!” He gestured to the rest of the party, somehow still unaware of the conversation between the two of them. “And what about everyone else!? They’re even more confused than I am! Are you going to keep up this charade until the 11th hour, and announce the apocalypse just in time for everyone to know they’re dead!?” As he clenched his fists in a confused rage, wisps of flame peaked out from between his knuckles.

The look Eva gave was long and absent of any and all inflection of emotion. Her expression was closer to Vulcan than vampiric, but when he was done, she actually did let her half-smile return in a more faded manner than it had been worn before. The biggest contrast to him came with her perfectly calm, unbothered tone, “Settle down, Zippo. There’s nothing these people can do. No reason to drag them into it. If they find out it’s because the ancient Kindred have risen unchecked and it’s all over. I don’t know if I can stop it, but I do believe I have a chance to change the endgame. Maybe, together, that’s enough. Maybe not.”

The silk dress went back over her body, her right hand brushing her hair free with a soft, near inaudible sigh as she started towards the bar and it’s service elevator, “C’mon. Henry’s gonna fucking love this. Does sex and drugs and partying bother you? If so, I’m about to be highly amused.”

Mihail’s rage gave way to confusion once again, and the flames subsided. He grabbed his gym bag and followed the anarch, haphazardly putting on a white loose-fitting dress shirt, stumbling into the elevator after Eva as he buttoned it up. For someone who moved with such purpose on the court, Mihail’s movements could only be described as ‘lumbering’. “... As long as my blood stays in my veins, where it belongs, and you actually tell me what it is you’re trying to do. I’m tired of half-knowing things.” As he fiddled with his top button, he added: “How formal is this? One button undone or two?” He was wholly sincere.

“The older we get, the more partial to types of people to feed from we get. Breathe easy, you’re not my type.” She tried not to smirk in amusement as the words fell from her lips. It wasn’t until they were in the elevator that she dropped the ‘invisibility’ act, simply shrugging. “Trying to do? At the moment I kind of want a buzz. Most of my people are out fighting werewolves. More directly, I need to see a Sabbat Bishop. That’s bound to get bloody. Speaking of bloody…”

The elevator opened, and there was a man of average height, unusual good looks with short auburn hair and bright blue eyes, dressed in a tan suit with a dark blue shirt, no tie. He looked shocked, and he was smiling. She almost winced.

“Eva, listen, five seconds.”

“Mihail, this is a Hollywood producer. Former agent. We call this one John.” It was an introduction of sorts, a gesture of her hands in his direction, before she moved past him and started through the Hollywood Roosevelt’s back kitchens.

John laughed, forcibly. “Officially you’re a consultant. Unofficially you can make any door in our industry open with a phone call. So, get your phone out, because Leo has signed on, the script will be ready w—”

“Will be? John I don’t care if Leo is in it, he’s not even the best choice for it.”

John stepped in front of her, stopping her. If Mihail knew Eva, he would have almost felt the anger in her. Instead, he would have simply seen her stop, calmly, and stare at the man. “If Leo isn’t right for this, who is?”

“I’m not doing your work for you, John,” moving past him was easy, his hips were slow and uncoordinated, “and my problem is the story pitch was weak, and you can tell me you have the best hook in the world, I’ve seen what bad scripts do to good pitches.”

“I appreciate it,” the man meant it, even if he said it somewhat bitterly, “Thanks for the five seconds.”

Only when they were past the kitchens and out the pedestrian door of hotel kitchen’s truck docks, when it was truly just the two of them, did she follow up. “Now you understand why I kept myself hidden from sight in that party.”

If Eva had been obvious, every person at the party would have wanted something. If Eva was obviously a means to help avoid the end of all things, every person in the world would want a part of her. The thought filled her with uncharacteristic dread as she considered, again, the prospect of the Sabbat Bishop’s meeting request. The black Cadillac SUV awaited, the driver Wyatt awaiting with the car on and parked against the curb next to the truck dock of the hotel.

Before she opened the door, she turned around, and faced him. “If it came to it, could you protect me? Are you capable of protecting me? One of mine? This is it, Mihail. In or out. You come with me, you’re one of us. You’re one of us, you’re family, and we protect each other. If you can’t do that…if you have any doubts about the path ahead…this is where we part, wish me luck.”

She turned, opened the door, and stepped and scooted across the backseat. “This is the part where you decide.” She said it, smiling, knowing there would be times she would have to slap him with the obvious.

Mihail sighed deeply and crouched down to meet Eva’s gaze. “I do not think you are the one needing protection.”

“Every girl wants protection, Mihail. Besides, you’ve clearly never met a Sabbat Bishop…”

“Well,” Mihail responded, somewhat sarcastically, “who am I to deny the Baroness what she wants?” He entered the vehicle, ducking his head as he closed the door behind him and prepared himself mentally for what fresh hell awaited them at the end of the journey. Almost immediately, he regretted doing so. “... oh God, what am I doing?”

“Believe me when I say God is sitting this one out.”

Collab with @bloodrose


The auditorium was heaving.

A sea of well-dressed dignitaries washed over rows upon rows of plush red seats, like waves crashing down upon crimson sands.

Violetta sat motionlessly in a raised box, overlooking the rest of the audience, with a splendid view of the ancient Italian oratorio that was being performed.

It was said that Francesco of Taranto had composed The False Prophet during his years as a man of the cloth, before he was accused of heresy, and condemned to a fiery death.

The hymn was a cautionary arrangement, that fiercely warned of the seductive powers of the Antichrist, and how he would bewitch God-fearing Christians into commiting ineffable sins.

Much of Francesco’s work had been purged from memory, but fragments of his legacy had survived, and The False Prophet served as the magnum opus of the sacrilegious friars’ nefarious legacy.

Vi found it funny that an alleged heretic’s pièce de résistance was being performed in the so-called “city of angels”.

The ventrue scourge would not have picked the opera as her preferable location for discussing intricate kindred politics, but then again she lacked Geneviève Pointe du Sandrine Dieudonné’s typically Toreador fondness of refined art.

Whilst Geneviève was somewhat unique in the Camarilla because of her compassionate nature, Vi’s own status as an outsider stemmed from her indifference towards the gaudy trappings of high society.

Violetta Kyborowski did not choose the Camarilla over the Anarch’s because of any childish fantasies of privilege and prosperity. She continued to serve the Ivory Tower because she believed in the unquestionable strength that was boasted by a system which had maintained order for over half a millennium.

Without edicts or traditions, the Anarchs were no less senseless than the Sabbat, who pitifully played at being modern day Draculas, in their paltry slices of dominion.

Vi was not some arrogant erudite, or rigid elder. She was a realist, whose religion was the steadfast divinity of the Masquerade.

“Kyborowski, petite puce, you are far from home.” Genevieve’s honeyed tone flowed like treacle as the Toreador entered the box she had organised herself, easily within the parameters of fashionably late. She had a few vices, one of which was the enjoyment of making an entrance. She rarely failed to do so and tonight was no exception. The white, feather embellished dress she wore was hardly risque by the standards of the Californian city, yet still the weave of feathers about her did not overshadow the statuesque figure within, Even though the performance had already begun, eyes from the crowd were drawn to the shimmering blonde as she took her seat, the slight flush to her tanned skin a point of particular envy from many of her fellow kindred who never lost their deathly palour. While she addressed Vi in an overly familiar tone, not even trying to mask the French accent which turned her words to a flirtatious purr, it was reputation and business that connected their pasts, not friendship. Service to the same, now deposed, prince.

For the immediate intervening minutes, Genevieve did not speak again, leaning to press a kiss of greeting to each of Vi’s cheeks before allowing herself to be lost in the music. The temptation to shut her eyes and allow the sound of carry her away was powerful, but that would be an affront to the other sensory aspects of the performance. All of Opera was an art to be appreciated, nor would she rush to business when she could enjoy at least a few moments of her time in this far flung city.

“I take it you wished to meet me for more than my services as a tour guide.” It would not be the first time the Camarilla relied upon her well travelled reputation to save them from blundering into a new local scandal, but in this case, Genevieve was well aware these blunders had already been made. Her eyes did not drift from the performance, but her hushed tone was rather more serious as the matter of true business took the fore.

Violetta had clumsily gone along with Genevieve’s hello kisses, in the same cold and mechanical manner that she played along with the verbose performances of elysium, but she was quick to move past pleasantries, and sink her fangs into that evening’s topic of discussion.

“I have a proposition that will tempt Vannevar,” Vi explained, “but I genuinely don’t know what he thinks happened after Sheriff Teach and I went to investigate Abrams’ murder, and I don’t want to risk final death, all over a misunderstanding.”

She paused to give Genevieve a moment to contemplate what she had said, and also because she knew that Toreador had a tendency to lose themselves in the grasp of particularly impassioned musical performances.

“Teach was part of a conspiracy to instigate a war between the Anarchs and the Camarilla,” the scourge continued, “I don’t know the intricate details, but it seemed to be at the behest of someone called “Lubbock”, not that the name means anything to me.”

Admitting ignorance was not something that Vi tended to do in the presence of other kindred, but Genevieve had a sort of unique benevolence to her, and genuinely seemed to have the best interests of the Ivory Tower in mind. Either that, or she was an expertly cunning deceiver, even by the lofty standards of the Toreador.

“I hope that my allegations will be easy enough to substantiate, upon investigation,” Violetta continued, “but if the prince will not grant me immunity until that time has come, then I will evoke the major boon that is owed to me by Seneschal Rochelle, and implore her to provide me with temporary amnistie.”

“Vannevar thinks a lot of things.” The light dusting of her French accent lent well to the withering tone of Genevieve’s words. In these modern nights she was often mistaken for being of Southern French heritage, something that took her a little effort not to be offended by on behalf of her proud, but long gone, family. The fields and meadows of her youth had been just that little bit too close to the metropolitan centres of France and the rural, but Northern, heritage had all but disappeared. Something else to blame the Parisians for. For a moment the blonde woman took genuine pause at Vi’s ignorance of the ancient Camarilla politics her information delved into, but then she remembered who she was speaking with. They were close in age, and it was all before their time, but Genevieve had been more than an agent for their prince, she had been a confidant, much as she never wished to be.

“Lubbock is not a name I have heard for some time, if that is true, and it is the same being, that is ancient blood. He was a hostage for some time, a ‘valued guest’ in the Court of Mithras following the Treaty of the Rose, his games no doubt predate the Ivory Tower.” Even by the standards of Kindred conversation her tones were hushed, before she added with a return to her more light hearted appearance, “That is, if it is not just some cover for yet another warlord in these sunbaked hills.” It was also possible, of course, that Vi knew this entirely and her story was a fabrication, a lure to get the Prince to meet her, but she doubted that, nor felt that particularly risked much to play along either.

“Unfortunately, you are a convenient face to blame. Your most loyal followers have already betrayed you, but you are prominent enough the Anarchs might accept your head as placation for a Baron.” She shrugged with a sad honesty, the white feathers of her gown ruffling as she did so, but the motion so perfect it almost seemed to make her shimmer more. “I can probably convince him to meet you all the same, you must come prepared to offer something more valuable to him than an easy political win.” She hardly had to explain why the Prince would want such a thing, they both knew him, knew how desperately he needed it. “It will not be in Elysium, not at his court, deniability and such things.”

In a dark world of facades and illusions, Vi appreciated Genevive’s bluntness. However brutal the truth may be,

“I can do better than an easy win,” Violetta assured the Toreador, in her characteristically cold voice, “I wouldn’t waste both of our times if I didn’t have something substantial to offer, Genevive.”

The flat cadence of Vi’s speech did not betray the tension that she felt grasping around her innards, even if there was little doubt that Genevive knew just how precarious Violetta’s footing was.

To the Camarilla, one wrong step was the difference between unlife and final death. Even a kindred as comparatively kind as Gene would be able to sniff out weaknesses like a ravenous bloodhound.

“Bruno Giovanni, and what's left of the LA Giovanni are interested in joining forces with Vannevar,” the Ventrue explained to her Toreador companion, whilst The False Prophet swelled beneath them, “even with the blows that they’ve suffered recently, I’m sure I don’t need to articulate how beneficial the clan of death could be to strengthening our foothold here.”

“A strength, or an anchor to drag the raft down.” Genevieve mused quietly, barely more than a whisper as the music raced through the air around them, not wishing to interrupt, even in such a subtle way, the beautiful cascade of harmony. Her eyes moved to Vi however, pointedly resting the accusation upon her. “They sound as desperate as you, cherie.” The Giovanni were duplicitous even for Kindred, and the thought of binding the Ivory Tower to them was a malignant thought. Still, Vi deserved some honesty in exchange for her own, even if it came more easily to the French kindred than her opposite. “But then, alas, so is the Prince, I will arrange a meeting place, I will try as I can to ensure it is somewhere secure for you both.” Of course, whether anywhere could truly be so for the Kindred these nights was another matter entirely.

Her eyes lingered, however, the intensity of her gaze entirely lacking in hostility. “Your loss bleeds into the air, you should not be alone, but I do not think the Beauty of this place is the kind you can appreciate. What does Violetta do to find herself when rushed out to storm?”

Vi let out a laugh that was both soft and dry, trying not to show the swell of relief that had risen up inside of her, like a rolling tidal wave.

“I hunt,” the ventrue grunted back in response “alone.”

Violetta quietly rose to her feet, casting a swift glance in Gene’s direction.

“Not all of us need to pretend we’re still kine.”

Moving in sharp, militaristic strides, Vi slipped swiftly out of the box, leaving Gene to enjoy the performance in solitude.

“Give my regards to Charles!” Violetta called back over her shoulder, as she vanished from sight.

There are many ways to hunt.

Most often, a hunter tracks their prey, using guile and strength to best absentminded game, in a swift and terrible climax.

But sometimes the predator need not slink through bushes, or veil themselves in shadows.

Sometimes, the hunter lets the prey believe they are the predator, and draws them in by hiding not in the cloak of darkness, but by hiding in plain sight.

Violetta was strolling languidly down an LA sidewalk, donning a casual facade that fought against her stiff and fierce nature, when the blare of sirens came shrieking up behind her.

“Stop there, ma’am!” a gruff voice barked, as a police car lumbered up besides her, and a bald man with an egg-like head leered at her from over the rim of his window.

“We’ve had reports of an armed and dangerous individual in this area,” the police officer told her, his eyes greedily drinking her in, and making no attempt to hide how he was mentally lapping up her body, “it’s not safe to be walking alone at night.”

Drab buildings and trash-smeared streets stretched on for as far as the eye could see, but this isolated pocket of the city of angels felt deathly silent.

“That’s terrifying!” Violetta adopted a gullible facade, “thank you so much for warning me, officer!”

The policeman arched one eyebrow, and slipped into a piggish grin.

“British, eh? My family came over from Ireland, a few generations back.”

Once again, his greedy gaze fixed firmly upon her, dripping with unshackled lust.

“I’m officer Glanville,” he said by way of introduction, “how about I give you a ride to somewhere a bit safer, Miss Britain?”

The phony smile that Vi offered up was painted with a brush of performative gratitude.

“I’d really appreciate that.”

With a soft pop, the car door opened, and the officer beckoned Violetta inside.

The car’s interior was plastered with the stink of coffee, doughnuts, and body odour.

“There station ain’t far from -“

He didn’t have time to finish his sentence, before Vi had pinned him back, and plunged her hungry fangs deep into his neck.

The police officer went limp, whilst the electric rush of crimson euphoria zapped its way through every fibre of Vi’s cold, undead being.

She was floating through heaven, buzzing with a euphoria more rapturous than the first cigarette of a booze-fuelled night out, more orgastic than a hard fuck at the end of a dryspell, and more soothing than a needle bubbling with heroin.

Every Ventrue had a very particular feeding preference, and Violetta Kyborowski’s was the bold rush of authority.

“Sleep well, piggy.” Vi laughed, as she pulled back, licking the puncture wounds in Officer Glanville’s neck shut, with a blood-smeared mouth.

The vampire slipped smoothly out of the car, shutting its door behind her and quickly making her way down the sidewalk, whilst the unconscious policeman lay crumpled in his seat.

Her world became a jungle of dimly-lit streets, and never-ending roads, lorded over by concrete titans that seemed to soar up into the heaven’s themselves, like the blasphemous Tower of Babel.

There was every possibility that some enterprising thug would happen upon the sleeping policeman, but Violetta would not weap for whatever horrible fate may befall him.

Growing up as a working class slav in “Great” Britain had done little to build up a fondness for cops inside her, even before the demon within started gulping up her humanity.

If anything, wishing death upon the bobbies was a sure sign that some semblance of the woman Violetta had been before she became a vampire still remained.

Suddenly, a fierce chill went charging down her spine, like a crackle of lightning.

Vi dropped down into a crouch, a fraction of a moment before a zealously sharp blade whizzed through the air, cleaving the space where she had just been standing.

“Beautifully swift,” a lively voice proclaimed, like a critic praising a splendid performance, “presentation needs work, though.”

Letting out a feral growl, Vi looked up from where she was crouching, to leer at the figure who now stood over her.

His dark skin had the allure of delicious chocolate, and his features were chiseled to statuesque perfection. Long black hair cascaded down his lithe shoulders, and his slick beard was trimmed with artisanal precision.

“Brutish but practical,” the disgustingly gorgeous man observed, with a knife-like smirk,” “a shame that you sacrifice beauty for efficiency.”

Extending from the stranger’s right fist, like a ninja’s slender sword, was a blade of pure, pale white bone, that erupted seamlessly out of an incision in her attacker’s smooth flesh.

“I’ll break your fucking neck!” Violetta hissed.

A deep, melodic laugh strummed out of him, with the deft rhythm of a masterfully played bass guitar.

“But we haven’t done introductions!” he chuckled, “Angelo Castelane - at your service.”

“What makes you think I give a toss?” Vi let out a bestial snarl, charging towards the pompous lunatic, with the dark power of potence howling through her veins.

Just as her fist was about to connect with Angelo, he became a blur of fluttering hair and dark skin, zipping out of the Ventrue’s path, and then plunging his bone-blade into her gut, with god-like swiftness.

An explosion of pain ripped through Vi’s insides, and she found herself tensing up with agony. Angelo twisted his arm, ripping another blazing gash through Violetta’s stomach, and it was all she could do not to weep crimson tears.

“I know Vannevar’s little secret,” the braggart declared, his grandiose voice falling to a whisper, “where is he keeping the screamer?”

“What are you talking about, you deranged prick?!” Vi hissed through clenched teeth.

Angelo thrust the blade deeper into Vi’s belly, sending waves of fire ripping through every fibre of her being.

“Don’t play games with me, little flower!” he leant in closer and closer, some of his cocksure cool shifting into pointed anger, “WHERE IS -“

The vampire was cut off mid-sentence, as a potence-bolstered kick slammed into one shin, shattering bone as if it were glass, and sending the suave blusterer stumbling backwards, his bone-blade recoling back into his arm, and out of Vi’s gut.

It was Angelo’s turn to shriek in pain, limping madly on a leg that had been reduced to a crooked ruin.

“You’ll pay for that, little flower!” he snapped, his serene face warped into an anguished grimace, “I never forget those who wrong me!”

Once again, the vampire became a darting blur, only this time he vanished utterly from sight, and went zig-zagging off into the night.

Vi fell to her knees, clothes soaked with her own blood, and let out a sigh that was half relief and half agony.

“What secrets have you been keeping from me, Vannevar?” she groaned, “You stupid - BELLEND -!”

A collab between Ruby, Lightning Fast, Tanderbolt, and Bloodrose

====

“Get fucked, you psychotic d-dog!” the misled cainite growled, with the defiant fury of a stalwart champion, “you and your m-madhouse pals are a dying sect! You’re fucking d-done for.”

In spite of the hideous wounds that Calantha had beautifully wrought upon her prey, the anarch puppet fought on, gritting her teeth through insidious pain, and burning misery.

Her inner-fire was formidable, and the perfect symmetry of her delicate features was enviable.

If this foolish Toreador hadn’t thrown her lot in with the “unbound” pretenders, she could have made a powerful weapon for the Sword of Caine.

“Silly little morsel,” the Tzimisce let out a sinister titter, an unnaturally-wide smile spreading across her features, revealing rows upon rows of sharpened teeth, her mouth swarming with countless convulsing fangs, like the whirring blades of an electric drill, “you are food for the three-headed dragon.”

Calantha’s hand became liquid, malleable putty, which oozed off of her bone and muscle, and slithered hungrily onto her captive.

The Toreador recoiled with revulsion, thrashing about on the sinewy hooks which bound her to the ceiling.

“F-fuck you!” she snarled, bloody tears dribbling down her dark cheeks.

Bubbling skin seeped into the Toreador’s mouth, and trickled down her throat. She tried to scream, but found her lungs filled with yeasty, mud-like flesh.

“You will serve as a message to your false queen,” Calantha declared, watching with malicious voyeurism, as the helpless cainite was twisted inside out, and remade into an unliving sculpture, “I am coming for her, and no god nor demon will spare her from my furious wrath.”

A pang of cold, mournful pain thrummed inside the Tzimisce’s chest.

“This is for Morgan.”
__________________________________________________________________________

“Tell me again.”

The man looked uneasy, the creases of age in his dark brown skin only seeming to widen as he looked down and to the right, to the mystery woman that seemed as unknowable to him as God. Did she really need him to tell her again, or did she simply want to wear it? Was she even paying full attention?

“The security guard is named Alec Erikkson. He found the scene. He found…well, this.” He didn’t look up again, only gestured. It made little to no sense to him, no matter how many times the mystery woman explained it. That a mystery woman that looked barely old enough to work full time was explaining to him the unexplainable…he was warned about this. All of this.

Somehow that didn’t make it any easier.

Yet she looked like the type. Hollywood beautiful, Hollywood powerful in the white Armani pants suit. Clothes he couldn’t afford, clothes his daughter would have died to wear. Her shoes weren’t dirty, despite the supple and easily stainable white leather heeled boots she wore. Caroline, she called herself, though why a Latina had a name like Caroline…suppose anything was possible in America.
At least Caroline silenced the creature. Gave it some amount of peace. Whatever that was worth.

“I don’t imagine you want us to call anyone.”

Her head stayed tilted up, her eyes casting a thousand mile stare, as if she saw through the sight, instead of simply seeing the sight. Her voice sounded about as distant as her gaze appeared, to him. But, then, he was already deciding to spend half his paycheck to buy the bottle of Scotch that was far too expensive for him. He would need it, after today. Just to sleep. Just to forget. He had what happened when people talked about…the weird stuff.

“…no, George, thank you.” And then there she was; her eyes bright and her gaze sharp, her smile somehow sweet despite the hanging horror, her tone kind. “I apologize you had to see it. It’s a message meant for…the party I represent.”
“God?”

That sharp gaze broke, blinked, and refocused on George in a way that seemed unfathomable to him just moments before: momentary confusion, followed by instant amusement. The smile never left her pretty lips. “Not hot, certainly not cold.”

“Hmm, well…”

“George?”

“…yeah? Oh.” Stop guessing, while you’re ahead. Right. “Yeah, if you need any help or anything just let me know. I’ll be outside the building.”

Caroline nodded, gently, “The team will be here soon. Please see they are fully assisted, whatever they shall need. Thank you, George. We will see that Mr. Erikkson is okay. That will be all.”

Caroline waited until she heard the door close behind George, before she slowly closed her eyes with a deep inhale of air she didn’t need. Of all the Disciplines Eva had taught Yanci Carolina, the one they had spent the most time and effort on was Auspex. She felt lucky to have been sired by a Kindred such as Eva, so open-handed with knowledge, never an ounce of fear in the older Kindred that giving away knowledge may one day endanger her. Luckier still that she was close enough to Caine to use Disciplines as most Kindred could not. As Andre, as Rachel, in their slightly younger Generations of blood, could not.

The Seventh Generation Toreador allowed her mind and her blood to focus on senses of the supernatural. What should have lasted a moment of serene calm ended up a searing pain, as if her mind was shoved through a keyhole so that it could fit, forced to see and experience far beyond what it was prepared or thought able to see and experience.

When it was over, she could feel time had slipped away. The timepiece on her wrist explained an hour had disappeared while she slipped into the uncharted depths of sensation, of time and space, as Auspex took her and dragged her into the shadow. By the time she came back up she knew. Both what had happened, and that Eva wasn’t kidding: the Blood was acting differently. The end really was beginning.
The phone gifted from Mateo and his digital do-gooders was in her hand with supernatural speed, her voice darker and desperate than before. If she had breath to catch, she would have been chasing it. “We have a problem. She’ll want to know…she’ll want to take care of it. Yeah, herself. I’ll send the details.”

__________________________________________________________________________
A sea of old warehouses stretched out beneath the murky blackness of LA’s dark skyline.

Old, fat containers, with dinky metal roofs, curving over squat brick bodies, rose up above little smatterings of trailers, and caravans, once home to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, now discarded in the sweeping enormity of Warner Bros grimy backyard.

Harry Sims liked eating his lunch amidst the ocean of rusted metal, and chipped plaster.

Most folks would have hated working such late shifts, and with relatively little company, but Harry enjoyed the quiet of his own thoughts, and the opportunity to work without someone leering over his shoulder.

Letting out a happy sigh, Harry plopped himself down on an old bench, tucked away beneath the dome-like roof of one of the old warehouses, and began tucking into his sandwich.

Yummy ham, with just a splodge of mustard. The food of the gods.

The old man took a bite of his “lunch”, and felt a soft buzz of serotonin shimmering away in his brain.

A blotch of mustard spilt out of the sandwich, and landed on his moderately-too-tight work shirt.

Harry had put on more weight than he was comfortable with, since his son had made him quit smoking, but he reasoned that ten or so pounds was better than lung cancer.

Self-improvement was a slow, tiresome journey, but Harry was pleased with the progress he was making.

“You’re doin’ alright, old man,” the security guard murmured to himself, “you’re doin’ alright.”

All of a sudden, Harry heard something rustling in the shadows.

With a groan, the old man rose to his feet, putting his sandwich to one side, and reached for his torch.

“This is private property!” Harry called out, and what he assumed was some nosy teenagers, “scram!”

An impossibly pale figure stepped out of the darkness, fair flesh gleaming amidst the night, as if she was carved from a splinter of luminous moon rock.

“I’m taking this little hut.” The strange newcomer called out, in a cold, cruel.

“You can’t be here, m’am,” Harry replied, trying to make use of his de-escalation training, and keeping his voice level, “you need to leave, or I’ll be forced to raise the alarm.”

A vile cackle oozed out of the woman’s full lips.

“Normally I’d make you weep and grovel,” she sneered, “but I’m in no such mood tonight.”

Before Harry’s mind could make sense of what was happening, something blurry flashed across his vision, and the intruder was standing mere inches infront of him.

A sharp, agonizing pain cracked through his chest, and then he found himself gazing down at his own heart, blood drenching the fingers of the pale figure.

Harry tried to speak, but the air had trickled out of him, and his mouth was flooded with the gush of bubbling sanguine.

The old man’s last thoughts were of his sandwich.

__________________________________________________________________________

It took a surprisingly short amount of time for them to discover the location of the criminal. There was a tip left by an old friend in the form of a dead rat left just outside the back passenger door of the SUV the team used. He left gifts, and Eva had to use Disciplines to read the messages hidden in the gifts. If Lubbock had wanted to scare her, forcing that old friend to suddenly reappear would have been the smartest way.

Luckily for her that wasn’t the case; it was coincidence. In his misguided ways, the old friend was just trying to help. The call came five minutes after Eva kicked at the dead rat and forced it down a nearby storm drain. A motion not missed by the man just arriving to the car behind her.
“…the creeper?”

Eva’s lips gave hints of amusement at the corners of her mouth, but little else, “Mm-hmm.” She turned to look at Andre, and nod, since there was little point talking about it openly…there was no doubt the old friend was nearby, listening, watching, or as Andre so succinctly put it—creeping. “Burbank. Old Warner lot. Call ahead, have them shut down tours and give the normal security team the night off.”
“My people then?”

A nod was Andre’s authorization as she abandoned the idea of the car. “Follow behind, come in force.” The look on Andre’s face was that of irritation. Not because of the order, or the show of force, but because Eva going all ‘Flash ‘n shit’ meant she moved too fast to protect. Or maybe Andre just hated being left so far behind, so fast. He didn’t even see her leave, he just felt the rush of air she left in her wake.

“Nothing I’ve learned in my life, on my way to you, makes this easier.”
Her tight fit black semi-formal slacks and the black silk tank top she wore were covered in blood as was just suddenly there, on the ground of the forgotten Warner warehouse filled with aged equipment and old props, the dead mortal’s upper half cradled in her arms, head resting on her arm. “Rest sweetly, young man, I’ll see yours are looked after.”

Mihail shuddered in disgust.

Eva was delicate as she would be with an ancient scroll threatening to turn to dust at any moment as she gently set the man’s head back down upon the blood-pooled cracked concrete floor, standing and letting her eyes wander the warehouse of rack after rack of metal shelving as high as OSHA safety standards would allow. Eva knew the OSHA standards by heart—it’s the kind of odd knowledge an old Kindred picked up when their life’s work was a city, and all the mortals in it, and the art created within. When her eyes finally hit the other Kindred, rage boiled in her darkened eyes under the surface of a face frozen in unfeeling.

“I tire of Lubbock’s game. Would that I could leave him to the fate of all Kindred his age, but this…this game will force my hand to slay him long before he gets a chance to be gobbled by the Ancients. But you…”

If Calanthia thought she was fast, she was due an education. Eva didn’t just move, she didn’t just blur, she went so fast the very air pressure in the warehouse contorted and spasmed behind her, shockwaving before her, shaking each and every one of those metal racks to the point of rattle, and were they not bottled to the ground, to the point of falling.

Inches before her, just as she had been inches before the mortal just enjoying a sandwich. “I should leave you to them,” Eva whispered, towering at the full height of her five foot ten inches and intensity began to burn through the cold exterior. The rage was coming. The explosion was only a matter of time, now.
No one could save Eva from herself at this point.

What stared back at Eva was cold, beast-like barbarity, without even the faintest spark of life glistening in its gaze.

“You took her from me,” Calantha snarled, “and now I’m going to take away - EVERYTHING - you love.”

With a sickly squelch, jagged tendrils of bone erupted out the Tzimisce’s arm, and shot towards Eva, like pale white vines, with deathly sharp points.

“DIE!” the canaanite roared, fury raging through every single fiber of her being.
The collagen and calcium phosphate armaments from the Kindred's arms struck true, hard and deep with sickening sounds of flesh and muscle being lacerated and crunched under the weight. Eva never did so much as budge herself to dodge, and her face looked more bored than pained. The only true hint of discomfort being a sneer on her otherwise finer features.

"...why is your clan so gross?" Words more sighed in resignation and frustration than yelps of pain and discomfort. Such cries came soon enough with the violent Kindred's follow-up attacks.

The rage of moments before was gone, apathy and grim resentment fell upon the Baron of the Free State as her mind retreated to farther and farther depths, like a victim escaping into their own mind rather than be present for the torment of the moment. By that point the noises coming out of her were closer to a beaten shell of an animal, clothes as tattered as her skin and flesh. She had reached out to Andre, she had reached out to Mihail, more to share a vision of what was and to telepathically touch the cheek of each more than a cry for help.

"...look what he's done to you..."

They were the last words. The last real strength left in Eva, and after they were gone went any sign of life. Her bright brown eyes faded shut, and her blood ran like a river delta in various large streams and smaller forks across the warehouse floor. She didn't even hear the vehicles roaring across the back studio lot towards the warehouse. She never saw the light and the sound of the mages. She never knew what was about to happen, that it wasn't death or allies that would take her.

Her last conscious thought was of good-bye, of the regret that came from never being able to save the ones you loved. The worst of the blood that flowed from her torn and defiled corpse was from no wound, but the stream of blood tears that flowed from closed eyes.

In the darkness behind Eva a figure appeared without moving, like it was suddenly spliced into the scene. It was impossible to tell whether it was man or machine underneath the black-painted armor, fully shutting them off from the outside world. It gripped Eva, holding her weakening body in its sharp angled gauntlets, wrapping around her with both arms. The helmet’s narrow visor burned with bright green light throughout the warehouse, and on the head were with two insignia, one a variation of the familiar NASA logo rendered in black and white, another the abstract starlike shape that belonged to the Void Engineers. It made eye contact with Calantha as it began to flicker and fade out of the mortal realm and into the umbra, carrying Eva along with it.

...

Mihail was still getting used to telepathy, as the messages from Eva were sent buzzing straight into his brain. He severely regretted getting involved, but now it was too late to go back on his word. His boss... ally... friend? No, none of those things. Someone he preferred not-obliterated had just been attacked, and looked to be on death’s door.

He and Andre rushed to Eva’s aid to find her lifeless (well, more lifeless than usual) body strewn across the ground. Things were happening too quickly for Mihail to process, and so acting on instinct, he raised his gun and pointed it at Calantha. It was unlike any weapon he’d seen before, picked right out of some sci-fi movie, and he barely understood how it worked beyond ‘point and shoot’. Hopefully that would be enough. “Stop!” Mihail proclaimed, as though that was actually going to work.

In-spite of the ungodly rage that blazed inside of her, Calantha couldn’t help laughing at the mortal’s brashness.

The Umbral trickery which had unfolded so swiftly would need to be looked into, and the Tzimisce was intent on having her revenge, but she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to delight in a bit of torture first.

“How unexpected,” she chuckled, moving towards Mihail on long, spider-like legs, which were that little bit too pointed to be natural, “and how very bold!”

The bone-tacles that had plunged into Eva seemed to snake through their air, coiling about the basketball-player, like serpents playing with their food.

“You’re out of your depth, baby bat.” Calantha sneered.

Mihail attempted to fire the weapon, but had been ensnared before he had the chance. The hi-tech rifle was of little use against an opponent too swift to shoot, and as the grotesque creature continued to contort herself to trap the hunter, he began to breath heavily, the panic and the gravity of the situation he was currently in beginning to set in. As his anxiety continued to mount, he didn’t notice the rising heat his body was giving off, nor the flames which were beginning to surround his person.

Calantha was so caught up in toying with her prey that she almost didn’t notice the sudden surge of heat, until Mihail was suddenly awash in a plume of crackling flame.

Letting out a petrified hiss, the cannite shot backwards, recoiling away from the hunter, with dread blazing as furiously in her eyes as the fire which erupted out of Mihail.

“ABERRATION!” she snarled, transfixed with horror.

“HYPOCRITE!” Mihail replied in his native Romanian, regaining his bearings and reaching down for the futuristic rifle. His hands were now awash in flames, though, and Mihail feared that trying to pick it up would melt it--or worse, cause it to explode.

For a moment, he stood motionless, trying to summon up some other surge of energy, as if unsure what would happen. As he focused on the arachnoid-inspired creature before him, his bewilderment turned to rage. This was no ordinary vampire--it was a Tzimisce, and apparently one who had a great mastery of their forebears' fleshwarping crafts. This was the same clan that his family had fought for generations, and the one that had killed his father, forcing him to flee his home country. Forgetting about Eva and her coterie for just a moment, he shouted: “Are you here for me too?! DID YOU FOLLOW US HERE TO FINISH US OFF!?” He felt something materialize in his hand, an orange ball of fire, new yet familiar in some way. Without hesitation, he reared back his arm and heaved it at Calantha with all his might... as one might heave a basketball.

Even with preternatural strength to aid her, the icy grasp of terror slowed Calantha down, as she sought desperately to dart out of harm’s way.

The blazing sphere of flame smashed into her side, reducing arachnid-esq appendages to ashen tatters, ensnared in a blanket of hungry fire.

The Tzimisce howled like a wounded pup, feeling the same agonising touch of fire that had haunted her late lover for her entire unlife.

“I WILL DRINK YOU SOUL FOR THIS!” Calantha shrieked, stumbling away from the crispy, pitch-black ruins of her charred limbs.

Before she darted away into the night, Calantha Teohari fixed Mihail with a vicious stare, brimming with all of the bad blood and hatred that their people had wrought over centuries of battle.

“You are marked, hunter,” she growled, baring her fangs,”before these final nights are through, you will beg for the tranquility of mercy, and I - WILL - deny you a quick death.”

And with that, the wounded predator became a shimmering blurr, bolting off into the void of darkness.

The day before

Thanks to the aids of wakefulness drugs and cybernetics, days had little meaning to Grace. Her life ran based on an ever growing list of tasks, sunrise and sunset were merely enjoyable diversions, just like the game of correspondence chess she had been playing with one of her superiors. She was in the bunker hidden beneath her purposefully generic home in Irvine when she got the message with the latest move. Her heart sank when she saw that it had gone exactly the way she had hoped it wouldn’t, and even a cursory computer analysis told her that there were no viable options. That was the time when her Avatar decided to enter the discussion, speaking out to her.

“You lost again, didn’t you?”

“I never win against Ray. This time I got to a long end game.” She said

“And then?” He said

“He turned it around and got me to a solved but unwinnable eight piece combination”

“Did you ever think that you lost sooner? That when you were still fighting he knew it was over.”

“You will be hemmed in by those who know more, always.”

She wanted to stare into his face, but she knew he wasn’t really there. She would see him in the shadows or at a distance, only to get blurrier and vanish every time she got closer. It had been a long time since he had remained coherent enough for her to examine him closely. They continued.

“There will always been paths not taken. Unexplored options, branches of the tree that will never be visited.”

Then she decided to explore, probe a little more. Her Avatar was only the product of misfiring signals in the brain, that was what she told people in psych evals, yet it acted in ways that baffled her. When she could see the face it looked like someone she had always admired but had never met, and it seemed to know much of what he did, things Grace had never learned. Wherever this knowledge came from troubled her.

“Meeting you was one of them. The real you, not this version, which is just some image I built up over all the years, thinking you were everything I wanted to be. I wouldn’t settle for anything less inventing my own field by the time I was 32, just like you did.” She said, pausing as she thought about how this Avatar, this inner voice was based on a man she used to idolize, the one whose face she saw in textbooks and whose thesis she read like holy scripture, so much that it had burned itself into her consciousness and left her with this phantom version haunting her.

“I was naïve then” She said

“If you had met me in my last years would’ve found just another old man with Alzheimers. Nothing like your ideal. Perhaps it’s best that never happened.”

“Know yourself, know not just the path you are walking but the ones you could’ve taken. Find out why you are the way you are, and then you will be able to confront your future. As I once said `We know the past but cannot control it. We control the future but cannot know it.` When it looks like every door is closed, when it looks like every present option has been exhausted, then you will find something you never knew you had with you all along.” He said, fading away with every word, until she was alone again.

She didn’t have much time to waste on conversations with her inner self, there was work to be done even before leaving her domicile. First she checked a laser rifle that was due to be delivered to Mihail, someone she had yet to meet but was vouched for by people she trusted. Eva put in a request for a suitable weapon via email. At least she asked nicely. On the gun, everything was still in working order, as Grace confirmed by drilling several holes in the target at the opposite side of the room. The ARASAKA HLR-12X was an older model, one of the earliest works after they moved weapons R&D to Japan. This one had some details of its design leaked when some incomplete memory erasure led to one of the draftsmen they had enlisted inadvertently reusing the design for his critically-acclaimed manga; not the only time it happened but still a smaller breach than those that had occurred when the weapons lab was in Los Angeles. What she didn’t appreciate was that it came with the software updates made in the 90s, the only “helpful” words it got across the implant wireless link before she turned it off were “Hello, it looks like you are trying to shoot a target. Would you like help with that? “ . People without cybernetics would never how lucky they were, and Grace did her best to make sure these settings were thoroughly disabled. She placed the rifle in the case, then sealed the ID lock and engaged the tamper-prevention device before dropping it in the outgoing package bin on her way out of the house. Now the real work of her day could begin.

The agents that raided the occult bookstore just after sunrise wore FBI uniforms, but belonged to a unit that only existed on paper. It would vanish into obscurity it was no longer needed, just like the tax fraud case justifying their raid, and even some of the agents themselves, being only semisentient clones with shortened lifespans. Grace was sitting in the operations van, identifying herself as Alice Chiang, the FBI agent in charge of this investigation. She handled the mundane tasks of coordinating with the LAPD over the radio, but also operated powerful counter-magic, a precaution against anything unexpected. The plan went off as expected, and although none of the high value targets were in Grace’s files were present, they did manage to catch some low level sympathizers. Her schedule was busy that day so she couldn’t stay for the full investigation afterwards, but as prepared to leave Grace watched as the RDs were loaded into the back of a van, off to a place that knew no due process or justice, only efficiency. The luckiest of them might resurface in a mental institution someday, with only a shell of their original selves left.

Grace’s next appointment is a breakfast luncheon for a new fundraising campaign at USC. There she is under the identity of Han Seo Kim, an executive at a nonprofit dedicated to free market ideals. She is here to gather information and build connections, see who of the wealthy and powerful could be useful if brought into the fold officially, and who represents a risk to their agenda. It’s a bunch of empty conversations designed to be unmemorable, so that no one would think too much about who she was or what she wanted. It also provided an opportunity to talk to the administration about certain professors, making discrete complaints and laying the groundwork for campaigns against work that ran counter to the desires of the Technocracy.

It’s not yet 10 AM and For a phone call with a reporter from the LA Times Grace is Eleanor Jia, Rand Corporation analyst and expert on disaster preparedness. The reporter will never see her in person, but trusts her words implicitly. It reassures her to see that someone still trusts experts. They were working on a feature story about the wildfires, and thanks to Grace’s work it will carry the preferred narrative. It will insist that there’s a solution to wildfires, to sea level rise, to everything wrong with the planet that can be found through technology. She is not sure whether she should be disturbed or relieve when she had to use any special techniques to convince the reporter.

Now at 11 AM and after some delays in traffic, she is Rosalind Chen, a consultant from McKinsey, hired by the city of Los Angeles as part of a federal urban revitalization program. She’s in the room with lower level staff, the type of people who will be tasked with actually implementing whatever grand visions come out of this whole process. She likes this type of meeting better than presenting before high ranking officials, that takes more preparation, and it involves so much noise and change in the decisionmaking process little will stick. The staff stared at the map projected on the conference room wall, quibbling over where one zone ends or where to best spend some highway expansion numbers. She hangs in the back, giving out journal articles and Gartner reports about the need for smart cities and their omnipresent web of sensors, promising a brighter, more organized future. She know the reports say exactly what she wants them to say, and advises them about what studies to perform, devising the methodology and manipulating the subtle currents of psychology and probability so that they if the staff runs them all they will find is more support for the Technocracy’s dreams of an orderly and controlled metropolis.

Her Lunch appointment sees heading to an office park off of Olympic Boulevard in Santa Monica. At the security desk she identifies herself as Joan Ito, partner at In-Q-Tel, here to meet with a start-up about a potential investment. She is here not only to validate their new surveillance technology but also to validate their people. Grace sweeps the office with her eyes and a dozen other senses only available thanks to her gift and her cybernetics, searching for signs of anything awry. At the company lunch hour where they have a catered lunch of expensive but uninspired Thai food, she uses those same gifts to examine the employees, trying to gain impressions of their psychological profile and susceptibility to other influences. The whole time she is compiling a list of employees needing further investigation and a writing a glowing recommendation of the company as a useful resource.

As the end of the day approached she was in the bunker again, shut off from the sunset outside and with only the faintest light coming from the overhead lamp. Grace didn’t need more; her enhanced sight worked well in the dark. She was at a desk full of esoteric electronic gear, like an electrical engineer’s test bench covered in wires as dense as kudzu. Several of cables ran off the bench, into the next room and through an opening in the secure door. On the other side was one of the people apprehended at this morning’s raid, all wired up for the next step. Grace didn’t know their name, didn’t know anything about them, but she didn’t need to know any of that to peel their memories from their brain through raw electrical pulses. It was a tedious process, slowly activating the right regions and making little bits of current bleed through the safeguards to expose the secrets. She settled in for a long session, looking at the trinkets from earlier days that still sat in the drawers of the desk, a box of mixtapes of 90s goa trance in one spot, a few vials of “research chemicals” from her college days that even she didn’t know how she made in another. At this point, all those relics represented to her was how little those days were worth remembering.

"She's gone."

The girl felt lost. Her chest tightened into a vice, her head spun into madness and dizziness. Blood seeped in silent sobs, the city suddenly cold and empty, her vision blinded by the crimson blur of blood tears. Her hands reached out, desperate, for the softness of the thick, rich, rug under her feet. She either reduced her body to her hands and knees, or she collapsed where she stood when she heard the words.

"How did it happen?"

There were no words worth speaking. There was no rational reaction, no logical course. Every time her blurred eyes closed, she saw the woman's face, every time her hands pressed hard over her ears enough to numb the voices behind her. It did no good to hear those words, any words, or anything. Not now. It wasn't until she felt the hands on her that she realized she was screaming.

"What's happening to her?"

She felt she was dying. Suffocation for the girl who didn't need to breath; a violent cutting off not from air, or life, but of the very presence that meant all of that and more to her. Suffocation not of the body, or the mind, but the soul. She saw only blood tears staining white plush rug under her as the sheer strength of one of the men held onto her.

"I don't know. It's her sire, not mine, not yours, not yours...what about him? Mihail?"

The very blood in her body boiled at the thought of it. The scream turned inward, her body freezing in silence as her back arched and every muscle and joint that composed her physical frame locked tightly in place, her essence trying to find any and every avenue of escape. Sprint through the ghost yields. Spin through the darkness and beyond. Dive into the well of voices and minds even monsters dared not to touch.

"Where's Grace? Everything stops until we find her. Every agent we have should be looking for her."

Show me, she begged in languages only spirits spoke, in tongues too dark to ever have survived this world. Audibly she babbled the nonsense, feeling but not seeing the others present moving away and giving her space as her eyes faded from the present and blanked white as she drowned in the night of Los Angeles. Inaudibly she prayed the prayers of lost souls, into the abyssal nothingness where the eternal dreamt. She was a child along such a path, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered, now.

"...she's doing something...how the hell am I supposed to know 'what'?"

She would dive and die until she felt that touch. The touch spoke any language they needed, but her's was in the off-colored tongue of the amateur and the desperate. Her body rolled as those around gave her space, her body digging into the floor of the mansion of glass and concrete, the house of the damned in the city of angels. Opened, blinded, eyes saw nothing but the black sun light up the sky over the edge of the sinuous road running the ridge of the Santa Monica Mountains.

"She's losing it. Where the fuck is Henry? He was supposed to come with you."

Without doing too much, she was in a trance. Words were faint and distant sounds, her mind racing quick jerks around hidden twists and jarring turns, titans of evil and the devouring more than she'd been prepared to expect watching her blaze by in search of the light she'd spent her unlife hiding and sheltered from; towards the light. Her frozen frame heated, the unsweltered warmth of love dawning over that last crest, guiding her through nothingness and dimensional barriers she hadn't experienced before.

"What do you mean you don't know where he is? She looks like she's about to snap!"

She felt it, small and round like a tear, press and pass over her cheek; the same star, the Sun of the Morning. Brilliant and once blinding, now easily seen, murmuring a murmur so inaudible that even though she could feel her lips tremble against her mind, understanding was fleeting and like clutching onto grains of sand. It didn't matter. The touch was enough, her eyes opening, her body relaxing as she laughed--as she giggled aloud, staring at the ceiling, then the faces of Rachel, Andre, Maty, and Mihail peering over and down at her.

"...she's not lost." The relief rippled through her, a shockwave of soothing sensations and calming aftermaths. Blood tears dried, and her lips smiling large. "I heard her." Her tone was sunshine as she propped her upper body up with either arm behind her, palms on the blood tear stained rug supporting her weight. "Get Grace. Get Henry. Get our people ready for battle. We're going after Lubbock."

Collaboration by Ruby, Lightning Fast, and Fiber


There was little time to do much of anything. Yanci spent most of her time on the phone, shrugging off Hollywood responsibility to ghouls and trusted mortals. One of those ghouls got most of the redirection sent their way, the one Eva had him ritualize before for protection. All he overheard was plans for a great reveal; some message about the Kindred, some shattering of the Masquerade. Andre spent his time on encrypted channels and having Mihail bring up maps on a secured laptop; the Sabbat was washing over San Diego and making short work of what was left of Tara's people. Andre's people controlled NAS North Island, Oceanside, and Camp Pendleton. Most of LAX was under direct control between Rachel's people and Andre's people; all of them, really, Eva's people.

Mihail was exhausted, burdened by the biological functions which his new compatriots could ignore as he groggily flipped through various computer screens. He wasn’t sure if he technically qualified as a member of said “coterie”, or one of Eva’s “people”, or whatever it was called. He had certain biological limitations others in the coterie didn’t--namely the need to sleep and eat. Mihail had the ability to easily fall asleep in any moving vehicle--something he readily took advantage of every time Eva saw fit to zip her crew rapidly from one location to another. He and Andre had established somewhat of a rapport, and while Mihail was still far too suspicious of any Kindered to consider them a friend, “cordial coworkers” was a start. The rest of them, though? Mihail knew deep down his greatest use to them was an emergency food source, and as such, he kept the rest at a distance.

The Sabbat had stopped outside the Inland Empire area, and stopped dead outside the Pendleton controlled area along the coast. No one seemed certain as to why, thinking between the PMC centered in Riverside and patrolling the Inland Empire, and the US Military infiltrated by Andre's people controlling Pendleton the Sabbat just wasn't ready to start that fight yet. Fighting Tara was one thing. Fighting Andre was a completely different matter. Yanci still seemed convinced, somehow, the mysterious Cicatriz was involved in the Sabbat's stop.

But none of them had heard anything about the Sabbat Cardinal since Eva was taken before her chance to meet with him.

Rachel went through a spreadsheet of important contacts; humans, ghouls, Kindred, and more. Maty watched her work in near awe. She was like a Regent working through the kind of Ritual that would mean disaster and worse for most Tremere. She was a master of her element, and there were few sights as captivating as watching a soul truly in their element. Captivation, however, had it's limits. His feet shuffled him through the vaults of the Hollywood Hills estate and to the inner private Chantry. The Los Angeles Chantry was destroyed, but the fledgling group of Tremere that Eva had protected and funded when most others left after the old Chantry's destruction had put their minds to rebuilding. Given Eva's resources, the process was time-consuming, but possible.

It was one of the few secure locations that held a portion of their supply of what the group was simply calling, 'The Blood.' Eva's blood had been slowly collected in small doses since her return from torpor, since she was convinced she would be a focal point in the hope against Gehenna. Maty thought the woman suffered from 'Main Character' syndrome for the longest time...until it all started to become real. The reality of the end of all things could certainly change perspective, and few perspectives had been changed as much as his within their group. Before he was an outsider among the insiders; he loved Eva as a mind and a soul. She was giving, she was interesting, she was driven, she was accomplished. These could all be rare things in the Kindred world. They had been all but unheard of in the Camarilla world of Houston, Texas.

The feeding, the intimacy, the sense of companionship among their group was more intense than anything Maty had experienced even within the heavily insulated world of the Tremere. It took him time to warm up to it, and he'd admit his background of sadness while focusing on preparation for certain rituals related to Eva's abduction. It was a bitter pill; they should have seen it coming, he was convinced. According to Andre and Mihail, Eva had shrugged off their protection. She would be dealing with a single Kindred, no need for a small army, was her logic so it seemed. They should have known there was already attention on her. That it came in the form of not Kindred, but Mages...somehow made Maty less comfortable. Lubbock they could contend with. The Technocracy? It was a different matter in Maty's mind, and he knew more about their group than most Kindred, given the primary focus of the Digital Draculas had been the Second Inquisition. They'd been working on intel for a long time.

And then, in their own city, she was taken.

The presence of Yanci came faster than he expected. Despite the progress made, that it was time came as a surprise. Returning to the basement of the Hollywood Hills estate, climbing the stairs flooded with the light of light fixtures and the sound of running water from the wall affixed 'waterfall' feature, he wished he had been more surprised to see them in the kitchen. All of them, save the newest addition, were Kindred--yet they spent as much time in the kitchen talking as most mortals seemed to do. At least, on TV.

Andre was arguing for staging their men in the tunnels of the Getty Center; a lesser known feature of the art complex, the underground tunnels that connected all the buildings to allow the safe movement of treasured art and staff. Yanci was dismissing the notion. Both had their logic; Andre was operating under the assumption that they were under attack at all times, now. Yanci didn't disagree with that, rather her logic was rooted in the belief that were was no way Eva would have taken a small army to meet someone they considered a friend, especially during such a tense time. They had all seen Grace's return text, Rachel had showed them. That the Technocracy agent that had met them on a private yacht just days before was now demanding a public meeting...it was a sign of distrust the Coterie couldn't ignore.

The two got more and more entrenched, passionate in their points of view. Rachel saw Maty approach and gave a wry smile.

"Fight?"

"Fight."

"Outside?"

"Outside."

Rachel tapped Mihail's shoulder and motioned with her head; an invitation for him to follow. Or he could stay and join his voice and opinion into the discussion. Rachel, despite her absolutely central and leading role in the operations of Eva's empire, was usually happy to just skate on out on the 'disagreements' between Andre and Yanci. Without Eva's presence to calm heads and slow things down, it only got louder, faster, leading the two quiet and less serious ones in the group to often escape. Fight? Fight. Escape Location? Escape Location. It was more than just a running bit for Rachel and Maty.

Mihail did in fact follow, although it seemed more a means to get some fresh air than anything. He looked ill--nowhere near enough sleep, as even when he got the opportunity to rest his eyes, he was tormented by nightmares of antediluvian monsters and massive pools of blood. He had been told that Hunters were occasionally plagued with prophetic dreams, but he dismissed these. Perhaps because denial was better than facing the truths which these dreams foretold of.

The helicopter was already on the front lawn, leading the pair to approach. The pilot was named Tom; an older Caucasian who liked sailing, cooking, and his longtime girlfriend. A lady he had met through, no surprise, Eva. Tom knew something was different about their group, but his mind truly lacked interest in the intrigue to dive much further. He'd spent a lot of hours talking one-on-one with Eva as he'd transported her around California over the years. Outside of the dock worker Keith, few mortals had spent as much time and conversation with Eva. Eva did like her mortal friendships, Rachel remarked as Tom climbed out wearing a white button up, khaki slacks, hiking boots, and silver aviators, his skin red from the sun and his short blonde hair over-indulged in hair gel.

He smelled like Old Spice. Maty kinda liked it.

"Hey Rachel, Maty. Ms. Eva coming out in a few?"

Rachel's unmoving facial features were, more often than not, a blessing in moments like this. "She's away on a business trip. Just the rest of the entourage tonight, Tom. Getty knows we're coming?"

"Yup, I already have our landing reserved. The pad is ours until you all are done and ready to leave, like Caroline requested."

Maty had forgotten; most people in Los Angeles still knew Yanci as 'Caroline', or 'Carolina.' The name predated both Rachel and himself, they had never thought to ask Yanci or Andre or Eva. The others emerged from the front of the modernist luxury home, paths and drives and trees bathed in exterior 'up-lighting' as the warm winds of Los Angeles washed the scene over in the sound of the plant life rustling in the wind. Tom smiled and waves, making a comment about the super tall guy, and opening the cabin door before retreating to the pilot's seat. With the wind, Maty knew from experience, Tom wouldn't start the engines until everyone was inside. Something about prior accidents with wind and blades.

"We agreed on support helos," Andre announced as they reached the awaiting air vehicle. The interior of the helicopter was royal blue carpeting and grey leather seats. One side was were bucket 'captain' seats, and the opposite seat were closer to bench seating. Rachel and Maty were first in, taking the bench seating side, Andre and Yanci followed; each of them had a good grin at Yanci telling Mihail, "Go ahead, the last seat is yours, Rachel and Maty will huggle together on the other side so your feet have their own seat across from you."

Mihail did not appreciate the joke, but did his best to hide his displeasure.

It was a tease, though it wasn't untrue, it's exactly what happened. Rachel and Yanci talked about the Creep briefly. He was around, they knew he was, he was leaving messages. That's about as much as either of them wanted to say on the matter. Andre reported three gunship helos were in the skies and would stay at a reasonable distance to Getty so that they'd appear as little more than green and red lights unless they were called in. Rachel started to ask about their armaments before decided she'd rather not know. Yanci announced the benefit concert for Wildfire Recovery was already in full swing, but taking place in a different section of Getty.

There was a small security team awaiting them. They wore suits, but their size and demeanor were easy tips that these were Andre's people. That and the red striped clips to the SMGs they carried; not exactly normal high class function security weapons. Maty still wore black blazer over a simple white untucked linen shirt, with tight black jeans and tall black leather boots, a variety of odd necklaces and bracelets worn. Rachel never changed from the plum slim fit business slacks, plum heels, and blush pink colored sleeveless button blouse she'd been wearing earlier. Yanci had changed; red pointed heels, stone washed tight and high waisted slim fit jeans, and a black, long sleeve, tight fitted turtleneck top, a dazzling silver chained, diamond studded, necklace over it. Andre had stayed in his black loose fit jeans, black Adidas Classics, and grey short sleeved button up. A simple silver 'LA' hanging off a simple silver chain around his neck. One of his men handed him a Glock, said something about 'effective' ammo, and then they were off.

They were left waiting as they arrived at the South Terrace and Cardinale Seduto's statue. Maty and Rachel took seats at the nearby black metal chairs and tables of the seating area right next to the Cardinal, while the others stood closer to the statue, and watched the night sky, and the City of Angels.

In all of her life, very few messages had hit Grace as hard as the one Rachel sent. The anxiety felt like a semi-truck sitting on her chest, and it stayed with her all through planning the meet up. This was something she would have to do quietly, leaving as little trace for her superiors as she could. Logic suggested that if the Technocracy did indeed take Eva without telling her, they had their reasons for keeping her out of the loop, and directly asking about it could raise further suspicions, as would talking to them about trying to set up a meeting with Eva’s people. She would go to the meeting alone, without backup, being glad that at least it could happen in public place, a fact that also would give her plausible deniability about why she was there.
Grace arrived at the Getty Center via a rideshare, one that operated as a self-driving testbed; it would leave less evidence after a quick wipe of the logs and reduced the possibility that she was being tailed, but this meant that she would only have what she could carry on her person. As she walked into the door and flashed some event tickets identifying her as Mrs Kim, a Chaebol-connected financier with just enough of a digital presence to appear real but not enough to have any distinctive characteristics. She walked through the cavernous interior of the Getty, just another face in the crowd, dressed in her usual dull business suit and long black coat.
She found the South Terrace less populated, unsure if it was even open to the public; if it was, security had either not seen her or decided to let her pass. As she walked out she contemplated that this meeting (assuming the meeting was even happening and not a pretense for something else) would be different from the last; she was here in the flesh, no remote operated synthetic humans or other tricks to avoid the risk of meeting in person. That terrified her, but even if she found a way to use one of those without leaving too much of a trail, doing it this way was a powerful signal of trust. Trust was exactly the thing they needed if they were going to stop what looked to be a world ending event on the horizon. On the South Terrace she saw the whole group of regulars, minus Eva, an indication that Rachel’s panic was likely genuine Grace stood in the darkness, staring at the Los Angeles skyline behind her darkened shades, using other senses to make up for the lack of light, unable to think which of the many things she could say was best. Perhaps a lighter option was best. Seeing that some were seated and others were standing, she said “Seems like there aren’t enough chairs for everyone. Maybe you could ask him to move.” as she pointed at Cardinale Seduto.
Andre side-eyed the statue next to him as he leaned against the railing, his low voice in an easy tone, "Sitting up on a platform...not really our style."

Maty and Rachel waved from their seats at one of the many tables location near the statue, each of their phones on the table as one pointed something out to another; at the moment they were swapping names of journalists and government officials they thought might be receptive, helpful, or at the very least assist in getting something done. Yanci's body bounced from the railing she had leaned into and made a few steps towards Grace as the woman approached. Maty hadn't seen Yanci smile so brightly, with brown eyes sparkling so warmly, in days.

She feels vindicated, Maty thought. A quick look to his left, to Rachel, and her eyes seemed to confirm his suspicion towards Yanci's charismatic glow. Grace was a friend. They could all breath a little sigh of relief. For some reason, Andre's remark made Maty think of the last true Camarilla Prince of Los Angeles. A true tosser, that one. Maty was tapped on the arm by Rachel, standing with her and drifting over towards the statue, to join their little huddle of minds and supernaturals.

"Thanks for coming, Grace."

Yanci's tone was as warm as her smile, even if an edge undercut it--she was still nervous about something. Eva? The Creep? The Sabbat? The Inquisition? Lubbock? The list was too long for Maty's comfort, as well. Maybe, just maybe, some part of him was glad to know there were support helicopters in the sky just minutes away from them if things went badly. Not that it was any kind of guarantee, the Tremere supposed. "

"I was able to reach out to her, even if telepathically, and even if it was brief and a little muffled. Your people definitely have her, although she was certain she wasn't in danger. She was...comfortable? Relieved? It was hard to read her well so quickly, but the news could have been much worse. And outside that...it does get a bit worse."

"The Sabbat overtook San Diego, they were heading up the coast when they stopped short of the start of LA's greater metro area, and along the coast they stopped outside Pendleton. We don't know why. I think," Andre dipped his head to the left, his tone taking on a slight emphasis on the word 'I', making it plain the whole group didn't share his opinion, "they don't want to tangle with us. Every street gang, every merc, every rifle anywhere near LA County is ours. We've spent hundreds of millions over the last thirty years on this, and it seems to be helping."

"...or it could be the Sabbat Cardinal that was leading the push against San Diego, Cicatriz. The one we mentioned last time." Rachel's eyes darted to Yanci for a moment as she paused, before continuing, "Except Eva never met the Cardinal before your faction abducted her. Every Camarilla contact I have is blowing up my phone about Eva and her blood. The few Sabbat I have contact with are doing the same. They're freaked out. India didn't go the way they had thought it would."

"Antediluvians don't give a shit about you other than to use you as a power up snack, go figure," it was dry, sarcastic, and Maty just couldn't help himself from adding it between Rachel's explanation.

"Point is we don't have a fucking clue why they stopped, but they stopped." Andre almost seemed to sigh to Maty, almost, noteworthy to Maty's ears only because Andre almost never sighed.

"And now every Kindred faction is all about Eva. I..." Yanci paused for a moment, her eyes set on Grace's, as if this was the hard part for her, "When I reached out to find Eva, I did so through Blood and minds. I wasn't careful. I wasn't sneaky. I was desperate. Most ancient Kindred probably noticed. I'm sorry, because we've heard Kindred are starting to look at sites that might belong to your people for her. They're really desperate to get their hands on Eva, and all for their own selfish reasons. If it helps I really don't think she's in LA."

Grace shifted a little, pacing back and forth. Following the terms they threw around was hard, she had read the book of Nod once long ago and had a general knowledge of kindred politics, but didn’t always grasp all the peculiarities of each group they mentioned. She decided to keep focus on the matter at hand. “I don’t know where Eva is, but I’m glad she is reasonably safe at the moment, and can confirm she isn’t in Los Angeles. There’s nowhere suitable for her in here. Unfortunately, that leaves many, many possibilities. Too many for anyone to check in a reasonable amount of time. I still have not been given any official information about the operation that grabbed her, and I haven’t brought it up because it would let them know that I know something I’m not supposed to. Is there anything more you can tell me? Did you see any of those involved in her abduction?”
Mihail finally spoke up: “There was the...” he paused, snapping his fingers in frustration “... what is the English word? The spider-lady. Tzimisce, with bones sticking out everywhere.” He shared a knowing glance with Andre. “Very afraid of fire. She told me I was marked, that she’d drink my soul, torture me to death...” He looked around at his present company, trying not to choose language that would offend them. “... Just like the vampires in Romania. For as powerful as she was, she seemed fairly easy to scare off. I assume the rest of you are not equally fearful of fire. Or at least I hope not, since, well...” The basketballer snapped his fingers, causing several sparks to shoot out. A few embers danced around in his hand before vanishing as quickly as they’d appeared.

“Yeah she liked to bullshit,” Andre’s voice was a low, sardonic, humored half chuckle as he stepped within a few feet of the hunter and, with a knowing look to the Technocracy mage that lingered without a hint of edge or anger as a non-verbal cue of no threat intended, returned his eyes to the hunter before retrieving the Glock 19 from his back holster and released the clip into the palm of his non-dominant left palm that awaited just underneath the clip. A clip with a red stripe. His gaze was business now, his tone more serious, the gravity of the bond between fellow combatants in his eyes as he stared into Mihail’s eyes, “you see red on our clips that means incendiary. Fire fucks us up, even Kindred warriors like a Brujah war veteran don’t like getting hit with these none. But we trust you, Mihail, same way you trust us. If it’s not a Kindred here in this circle right now? You use that fire, my dude.”

“I guess I just didn’t expect her to run so quickly. She might’ve killed me if she hadn’t, though, so it’s for the best.” Mihail extinguished the flames, his fears abated somewhat by Andre.

Click, the sound of the clip returning to it’s locked position within the handle of the Glock19, casually returned to its holster as Andre looked again at Grace, “I saw the motherfucker. Black armor, angled gauntlets, narrow visor with green light, two insignia on the helmet; NASA, the other like a military patch. Five pointed star within a pentagon, white, within a star with eight points, patch was like an arrow shape. I didn’t attack because she didn’t want me to. She was in my head, begging me not to, reminding me what we stood for. That’s the only reason I didn’t berserk when my leader was stolen from right in front of my eyes.”

Brown eyes smoldered on a face hardlined with having seen more war and combat than most souls ever did, dark brown skin all but snorting as he took a breath, and returned his eyes to the sight of Los Angeles in the distance all around them. And the red and green lights of helos of his brothers, and her men. “Understand there’s a literal army of very fucking lethal individuals that don’t know the top of their chain of command isn’t where she’s supposed to be. Then understand, Grace, I can’t tell you how long I can keep that fact from them. This isn’t a normal private military kinda thing. They swear blood oaths, bonded by a shared pain, by a shared blood, and above all a cult like reverence of that woman. Pretty soon that’ll turn into a very ugly situation that won’t leave any doubt about the presence of Kindred, or our dominion of Southern California.”

“We have to find her,” Yanci sighed, summing up Andre’s ‘or else’ situation matter-of-factly, without the hint of edge that was in Andre’s voice, “we have to find her soon. Maty has a ritual that he’s prepared that can take him and…”

Yanci looked over to Maty, who looked to Rachel, then back to Yanci, as he considered the words Yanci waited to hear, “...one more. Maybe, maybe a second, but likely just myself and another.”

“You tell us, Grace,” Yanci continued, “what’s our next step? Do we let Maty do that? Do we trust your people? Or do we start to turn Southern California into a literal warzone?”

“Seems like Genhanna is going to turn it into a warzone anyways,” Mihail retorted, “Maybe not for you, but for us. I only survived my first vampire attack because I got lucky, and that was just a neophyte.”

Some of the words Andre said made her want to talk about the pitfalls of charismatic authority when compared with the rational-legal authority, but she could see that they were not in the mood to discuss Max Weber right now. “I want to help you. Believe me, I don’t want things spiraling any more out of control, and I want to find out what’s going on too. Based on the insignia, what you saw was a Void Engineer. They explore the universe, they’re masters of the dimensional science, and fascinated by any anomalies. I find them interesting, but a little too freewheeling. I don’t know what they’re doing here, but I think I might know which one you saw. Between the description, the abilities you described, and the ones I know are active in the American Southwest”
“That sounds like-.” She seized up, something inside her screaming STOP. Grace continued on “Anderson, STS-107” Now she had a splitting headache. This was her indoctrination at work, crude mental programming that couldn’t understand the importance of the present circumstances. All it knew was that she was about to give out serious classified information without authorization, and that it could not allow that to happen. “Doesn’t like above ground…”
Her head was pounding. She could feel the blood in her vessels pumping harder and harder, her vision going blurry. There was a screeching sound in her head, commanding her to stop. Grace spoke again, ignoring it, her voice growing hoarse:
“He’d be at… Eva would be at…” She trailed off, now just speaking in single phrases. He throughts were scattered, the most direct words failing, and she was only able to come up with oblique references. “Skylab incident. Colby memo.” She doubled over, clutching her head. When she tried to speak again no words would come out, just a groan. It was at its strongest now, the whole world fading in and out while her mind warred with itself. She had seen this before in others, but it was the first time she could remember having a reaction this strong. Her own indoctrination must have been particularly strong, strange for someone who had an impeccable history of loyalty to the cause. Blood was seeping from her nose, she slumped down to the floor. On her hands and knees, still too weak to speak, she began to write something on the floor in her blood, the letters XTA
Mihail, panicking, was the first to reach down to help Grace. “What is this, what is happening?” He was far less concerned about the message on the floor than the woman who had spontaneously begun to bleed out in front of him, “Who did this?”

"MATY." Yanci was on one knee and by Grace's side half a heartbeat after the woman dropped, her nearest arm protective around the woman's shoulders as her eyes went back to Maty. "I'll try Auspex, you do your magic thing."

Maty was there in a few seconds, touching Mihail's shoulder and motioning for the tall man to rise, "That's magic, Mihail. Let's see if the Path of Blood can tell me anything more..." His voice was flat, sounding distantly curious, but otherwise unexcited. There was more to it than that, but that's just how the Tremere came across in the moment. Maty knelt down beside the two, fingertips of his right hand reaching out and down and brushing across the surface of drips of the woman's blood, careful not to distress her written message. Long, perfectly straight, black hair fell over his shoulder as he knelt and studied it. "What have you got, Yanci?"

Yanci wasn't Eva when it came to Auspex, but she wasn't that far behind. Of all the training and skills and disciplines that Yanci had spent the most nights and dedication upon, Auspex was primary. "Grace is trying to force a message through...something."

Maty whipped his head up, long black hair flying behind his shoulders and out of his face as he looked up to the others, a firm certainty in his eyes. "It's a magical firewall. If one of them tries to say something they shouldn't, or maybe something they're not cleared by someone higher in their food chain to say given the nature of their organization, it seems to kick in."

Rachel, not for the first time in both her life and unlife, was staring at her phone at the right time. "Uh, uh...XTA acronyms...Extended Terminal Access, X-Ray Telescope Assembly, Extra-Terrestial, Extended Attachment--"

"Wait," Yanci jumped in, eyes perking at the Ventrue with the phone. "Go back."

Rachel blinked up at her, "Extended Attachment?"

"No, the one before. I remember something from Eva’s mind when I found her. Hold on." Her fingers touched with Celerity at rapid speeds, bringing up her own smartphone and blurring over the touchscreen, brown eyes intent upon the results. "That's it. Related to Extra-Terrestrial, kinda. XTA is the airport code for Homey Airport, otherwise known as Area 51."

"It fits what we know about them," Maty thought, aloud, "embedded within government facilities. If you wanted to take her somewhere no Kindred was going to get to her--"

"--you'd take her there."

If she wasn't Kindred, Rachel would have turned white, her brown eyes snapped wide as the information on her smartphone screen left her stunned. "Anderson STS-107...Astronaut Michael P. Anderson, STS-107 payload commander."

"Died in the Columbia Disaster," Andre recalled, immediately. He had a thing for failed missions with lives lost, especially those with such high profiles.

Rachel just stared at him. "Are you still so sure he died?"

A slightly slurred, slightly muffled voice sounded from the shadow of the nearest building of the Getty Center. It was a shadow within a shadow, dressed in a black overcoat and reed thin, head covered with the hood of a tattered black hooded sweatshirt hood, just ten feet away from the chairs and fifteen from the statue they all stood, and crouched, next to. "That explains why she isn't in the city."

Andre had the Glock 19 drawn in the blink of an eye, the figure unmoved by the sight. The slur and muffle of the voice came from large, gnarled fanged teeth on an alabaster lined and bruised and scabbed face. It was ugly, it had the red eyes of a feral rat. Andre didn't lower the weapon, even as he realized what, or rather who, it was. "Stalking us 'cause your creepy ass couldn't find her?"

The Nosferatu just stared, eyes fixated on the ground next to Andre. On Yanci, on Grace...on the blood, nostrils flaring as he sniffed at the air, taking in the scent. "They come. You should all move."

"Who comes?" Andre demanded, sounding close to angry, but the Nosferatu cackled a deranged laugh, tone pitching high as if it was simply tickled by Andre's anger. The Glock never fired, even as the shadow-covered Nosferatu disappeared through the door it stood next to, red eyes staring a hole through Yanci as the door closed and shut off the line of sight between the two. "Creep ass mothaf--"

"--we have to go. Grace, can you move?" Yanci felt her skin crawl, her mind wanting to crawl into the memory of the night they banished Nathaniel; the night the Nosferatu attacked her in lust and rage and psychopathic violence. Some nights she still felt Nathaniel ripping into her, but they didn't have time. "Andre, call them in. Grace?"

Mihail was still trying to snap Grace out of her injured state, and as the unknown assailant honed in on their location, he panicked. Rather than wait for Grace’s reply, Mihail lifted her over his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Grace,” he whispered, before igniting his free hand.

Grace was awake once Mihail picked her up, she decided to let him carry her as she wasn’t sure how much weight her legs could support, but it was getting better. Indoctrination had a tendency of attacking every neuron at once, difficult to tell which ones were most affected. She could infer that they had been able to figure out her clues by the pieces of the conversation she had picked up, it was a relief that she wouldn’t have to delve deeper into that territory. “I’m, I’m doing better now. Probably should avoid certain topics for the moment, at least giving direct information. You have another place to go?”, she asked, realizing that she had no choice but to put a lot of trust in them.

"Holster it, Human Torch," Yanci helped see Grace upon Mihail's back before listening to Andre finish giving the order. The sound of helicopters started to get loud, and Andre nodded to her, gun still out. "Who do you think?"

"Report is lots of vehicles and people coming up to the front. Whoever they are, they're about to get a hell of a shock when gunships open up on their ass from above. Getty staff is getting event goers to emergency exits. Won’t be no covering up or suppressing this." Andre had the right of it, and Yanci simply nodded. "Let's go back to the helicopter. Inside, through the tunnels. We're heading to the Island, Grace."

Collab with @Ruby



When the sensation first shuddered through him, he could not place the change. The warmth seemed to drain out of his world, the burning light of stars a million, million, miles away winking out as he beheld the gemstone carpet of the night sky, rivaled only by the glittering sea of the billion lights of LA.

It took him but a moment to wallow in the sense of emptiness before he knew what it was. She was gone, blinded from his senses in a manner he hadn't felt before even meeting her. The bond with her ancestors, far older than his current mortal lifetime, severed for the first time.

She wasn't dead, he knew he would know. That was the only think keeping him rooted in place, the scattered ashes of the Hollywood Hills about him as he tried to call to her.

"Eva." It lacked nuance, or any such detail, simply a pulse of his mind as Henry Locke cast his mind out. He had returned only recently from the badlands, hunting and questions the werewolf packs of the region and finding only murder on their minds. There hadn't been time to pause and refocus, Henry returning to the scene of the blood magic surge which had started the chain of events leading to the Lupine attack, and Rachel leaving to meet again with the Coterie. This shuddering, awful emptiness had been the first thing that had finally driven the sound of her gasps from his mind, and tingling pinprick of her fangs from his skin. Everything cast away in his search.

"Eva!"

More insistent now, but no more developed, the physical form of the man rooted in place even as he mind cast out. The possible threat to her tore at him, threatening to unleash the starlight within for the second time in too short a period. Could Henry Locke survive if his true self surfaced once again so soon? He did not know, but the thought of losing her was worse.

Instead of calling for Heaven's Light, instead his lips moved into a strange rhythm of syllables. Words not spoken since the angels had shattered Babel rushed into the air. The foundation of all human spell work launched into the night, twisting and turning reality into the desires of the speaker. The world shimmered around him, creation distorting and shuddering under the strain, the force of his mind bushing through the barriers, for that's what they were, calling to her, ever onwards, no matter what was arrayed before him. Another recent second, now once again the Hollywood Hills shuddered with the supernatural forces playing across them, as concern drew into desperation.

"Eva!"

The response was endless, and bright without being blinding. There he stood, Henry Locke, in a vast white infinite, the only dimension of which witnessed was that his feet was set upon something; some floor, even if white and without dimensional boundary...but a floor none-the-less. A floor shared by a blonde, crystal blue eyed angel of a boy child, seated Indian-style before him. His voice smooth and undeepened by puberty or manhood, yet perfect white teeth held the undeniable feature of fangs. Henry Locke had met the boy once before; when he assisted Eva and her Coterie in ending the child's madness and paranoid-fueled reign of chaos and destruction on Los Angeles.

Now Christopher Houghton just smiled up at the man. "Oh, hey, Henry. Remember me? Well I'm still here. Eva and I made-up. Turns out I was kind of jerk...heh, sorry about all that. Are you looking for her? She's here, somewhere. 'Void Engineers' she calls them. Or do they tell her to call them that? Mages, I say, proper magic and all that."

Covered in a pool of red, the body of Eva was there, beside Houghton, on the same 'floor' of infinite white nothingness in which the child sat, and the man stood just feet away. The red seemed to shift and shimmer in a light that came from no true direction, no real source; it was just was. Like the child, the man, and the woman. It shimmered when her body shifted, barely a fidget, but enough to send the red rippling in a line between shadow and shine, her dark hair long and spread out on the white nothingness around her head, eyes closed.

The boy smiled, pure boyish charm and the warmth of youth, "I think it's velvet, or silk," he said, meaning the red that covered her. What it actually was, rather than what it appeared as now, was lesser known. The boy didn't seem to care. "She talks a lot to the oldest ones left. Well, of my line, I guess. Her's, too, come to think of it..."

"Henry." Eva existed between awake and asleep, her voice a delicate thing, weakened by weariness and barely awake. "You came. Are you alright?"

The Henry Locke the outside world knew would no doubt be surprised at the clemency this version of him within the spellwork provided the young child, the apparition of Houghton receiving and understanding smile from the man as he approached the vision of Eva, kneeling beside her, one hand brushing through the fabric.

“Mages that don’t believe they’re mages. Another failure of mine.” He breathed softly, ignoring the question posed his way for the moment as he instead grounded himself with the not quite real touch of his fingers on her. “I am fine, you were gone, in a way your bloodline hasn’t been ‘gone’ since it begun. Sadly for them, I wrote the magic they tried to hide you with.” There was the tiniest teasing infliction to his words, but not enough to suggest it was a joke. “Are they hurting you?”

“Only with tedium and the long, slow, death of procedural adherence.”

Her sigh was dramatic, and the kind of thing that made the red sheet over her body lift and deflate noticeably…much slower was the creeping of the wicked little smirk over her pink lips and sleepy features. Her voice was deeper than normal, just a degree or two, as the weariness became something she just wasn’t going to snap out of. A single bright brown eyes peeking half-open, head tilting just enough to take a look at Henry. His image kept the little smirk right there on her lips. “I’d be more worried about their health and safety; with sticks THAT big up their individual and collective asses…”

Christopher erupted in the laughter of a child; just as much at the mental imagery as the fact that Eva had said the word ‘ass.’ With both her eyes once again closed, she stifled a half-yawn and gave the barest hint of a shrug, “They’re scared. On some level they think I’m insane, but they believe me. Maybe not believe IN me…but I’ll take what I can get from these people. It goes well enough, though.”

His arms pulled around her near-sleeping for as the silk danced, her smirk and Christopher's laugh bringing a smile to his own, as he hauled her to him, her thought-form draped into his lap that was not truly there.

"Well that's alright then, I'll take boring and listening over enraged and fighting." He answered, one finger stroking her cheek, before adding; "Or perhaps I'm only saying that because it's not me doing the talking, I have been known to hunt down the odd scrap." Perhaps an understatement given the nature of their meeting. In many other turns of the timepiece Henry Locke had never bothered to fight for the Sunset Lounge, had rode on out of Los Angeles and never looked back, leaving Christopher to his games. His stubbornness this time around had lead them together, the burning hope of the world pinned on the spark of his grim determination to show an immortal child he didn't give a fuck. Said child received a glance at that. The stubborn nature of their dispute flowed both ways, without either it would have fizzled out before it begun. Perhaps a second thing to thank the Kid for, beyond her.

"I'm here, love. I'll help the others, they need me, but know I'm always here." His accent twisted around the word in such a way that has always thrilled Americans, but when he spoke it to her there was a truth beyond the old colloquialisms. "Plus, can't let you be bored for long, you'll never let me live it down."

“Please,” she said, her eyes wide open and fully alert, staring into his, for the first time. “They need the help. Especially the newest one, I don’t think he even realizes he’s one of us yet. I’m told all eyes are on them, and you. All eyes. Be safe until I get back–then we can do the crazy shit.”

"I think whatever ancestor he has spurring him on to seek the Lord's purpose would probably protest being chummy with this particular angel." The words were teasing, despite the cosmic surroundings they inhabited and the force of will, on both ends, necessary for the conversation. "I'll do my best, try not to make the mages feel too stupid." With a parting glance and a smile, the unreality bled away into nothing, and Henry stood alone once more.

Collaboration by Ruby, Lightning Fast, and Fiber


Below them was a never-ending expanse of blue, the end of the Pacific Ocean as it hugged the state of California. First they flew over the Santa Monica pier, glowing in neon and crowds, flanked by Santa Monica beaches littered with tiny campfires and crowds of shadows as people were spaced throughout the beaches in groups. She saw it on Instagram almost nightly; happy groups on the beaches, taking in carnival games on the pier, eating at one of the restaurants and drinking at a nearby bar before heading back to the beach until the early morning hours.

Beyond was the ocean traffic, this far north it was nearly all private small craft of varying sizes, from sail boats to yachts. A little further out, in the distance, you could see the cargo ships lining up for the Port of Long Island and the Port of Los Angeles. She thought of Keith, the dock worker with the tiny, shitty, apartment that loved his life and was always smiling, unless he was watching the Dodgers or Lakers. He'd been Eva's friend for years and years, never at all knowing what, or who, the beautiful friend of his really was. He just liked to joke that she never aged.

There was twenty two miles of ocean between Catalina Island and Los Angeles. Yanci could remember the days when the island went by it's other name; Santa Catalina. When there were still tribes on the island, on top of the spattering of Spanish. Now the vast majority of the island was hotels, expensive Airbnbs, or the truly expensive homes that started in the eight-hundred thousands. Their contemporary and Balinese inspired home was appraised for nearly seven million, and it wasn't the most expensive on the island anymore.

"Are the hotels occupied?"

Rachel looked up from her phone long enough to answer, "Zane's has a handful of guests, the rest we turned away when we locked the island down and closed the airport. Ada is not, it's empty except for the staff."

"We'll go there. What's the nearest helipad?"

Andre answered for her, even if his eyes stayed out the window, watching the Pacific, as if he was seeing it for the first time all over again...every time they made the trip. "Jacob's helicopter tourist business we helped save. He won't care if we park there. Rach, car waiting for us?"

"Yup," Rachel gave two, quick, little nods as she sent the text, "done."

With Grace they were all a little more cramped than before, but for a fifteen minute ride they were already five minutes into, it went quickly combined with the muffled hum of the engines and the rotors. The approach the island was noteworthy to her, if only of the cruise ship not far from the island, and more importantly, the landmark she always looked for when they approached:

Of all the locations on Catalina Island, only one was named for the night: Starlight Beach. The beach bit of the name was generous, it was a rocky strip of sand and pebble, with no easy way to the beach save for a twenty foot drop due to erosion. When Eva and she had first seen it, the drop wasn't so bad, and the locals still used it as a landing and launching point to hide from the Spanish authorities who had banned them from their own island, forcing them into the missions near the shore. It was there Eva and she named it, it was there, far away from human eyes, the two Kindred would enjoy the starlight on Catalina long before the rest of the island was settled.

Then below passed Two Harbors, the only other little town on the island, on two of its four sides were harbors, the little strip of land that connected the more occupied side of Catalina Island with the wild, hiker's paradise, side of the island. The landing came over a quick pass over Avalon, the town was lit up, with the casino bright, and the dozens of yachts and sailboats anchored in the harbor glittering with both internal white lights and the safety lights of boats on the water. On the highest point over town was the summer "cottage" built by Gilded Age magnate William Wrigley Jr; in actuality an L-shaped mansion in the Georgian Colonial Revival style. The helipad was just beyond, down the hill.

Yanci gave the pilot a room at a nearby inn he favored most, near the casino, before jumping in the SUV that took their group up the hill to Mount Ada. The staff was gone, now, given the next few days off. The only two people there were security, Andre's people, and one of the prettiest blonde women Yanci had ever seen. She was Eva's, a working actress that went by the name Gwendalyn. Whether a stage name, or a given name, Yanci still didn't know. They filed past the curved staircase and into the living room of Mount Ada, furniture not out of style for the time, but modern in construction and still comfortable enough, Ada Wrigley's portrait over the unused fireplace. Grace was set there, with Mihail to watch her with Gwendalyn and security nearby if they needed something, as the rest of the group filed outside to the wrap-around terrace.

"What's next?"

"I have an appointment at LAX I need to leave for, soon. I've setup transport with Jacob, he'll fly me. Hardestadt is arriving, and Henry requested I show up. I'll head down the grand staircase in a few minutes." Rachel's glance just stayed with Yanci, her lips smirking as Maty made a whistle and Andre snickered. "Yep."

"Good of Henry to show up," Andre's tone wasn't missed, but Yanci just let it go. If Henry wasn't around, he had his reasons. "Mihail mentioned needing to head back to the city. I'll get some of my people to take him on a boat, since the ferry is done until we lift the lockdown. Then I'll probably go down to Mugu, see what them Navy boys are up to, catch a flight to Pendleton. Hopefully by that point I've heard something more from Eva. Word is that Sabbat Cardinal is in the area, Cicatriz. Maybe I can break bread with that motherfucker."

"If not?"

Andre just chuckled, "I'll figure it out."

"Yeah," Yanci imagined he would, one way or another, "I still have the meeting with Iontius. No idea what the fuck he wants."

"Need security?"

"I don't think so, honestly. Ionitus has never caused any trouble before."

Maty blinked, "Yeah, but he's a Fourth Generation Toreador. They don't make trouble, until they do. Just be careful, take a panic button, is all we're saying."

Rachel nodded along with it, Andre adding an agreement. It wasn't something Yanci could argue with, "Yeah. I'll take a driver, at least, I'll head out tomorrow evening at sundown. Maty?"

The Tremere sighed, shrugging, trying not to laugh at the chaos of the moment, "I'll stay with Grace; she's still our best lead to Eva. I don't plan on using the ritual to get to Eva unless I have to, and I suppose at this point Eva might just tell us if she needs that. I got the impression she's still talking through the Blood."

"Do you think she's talking to them?"

"Yes," every eye darted to Rachel, as she answered in Maty's place, in a tone that told all of them she knew...something. Rachel looked around, frowning, "I can't say much more, you know, but I do believe she's talking to at least Arikel. I honestly get the feeling, though she didn't say anything, that she might be talking to...well, I know it sounds stupid, but--"

"--Caine? Fucking seriously?" Andre's eyes were wide, as Maty whistled loud, and Yanci looked around for anyone nearby.

Rachel looked tense at the suggestion, and shrugged, sharply, but the impression was left.

Downtime was not something Grace handled well. For one thing, she had a very good sense of time passing, and could total up the seconds wasted. She also had an extremely large and multifaceted task list close to the top of her mind at all waking hours. The coterie had their own things to discuss, and Grace gave them their privacy out of respect, but passing the time was slow. She spent some of the time with Gwen and Mihail dodging their questions, never giving out too much information. Mihail was told she was Julie’s boss and an ally of Eva, anything else would be up to him to infer. To Gwen she shared even less, letting her speculation run.
Having recovered from the conditioning backlash and trying to make some conversation, Grace used one of her old party tricks: pretending to guess information about the people she was talking to, while she was actually just looking it up in databases as they talked. Mihail didn’t have much, very little information on his hometown in rural Romania was available to her, so after rattling off some stats from recent games and the ratings he’d given some local restaurants on his Yelp account, she was running low on material. She was no good at actually discussing the game of basketball. She had more to work with Gwen, coming off as some sort of psychic or mystic guru. Grace quickly found they had little in common, at least at this point in their life, and she tried to ask when the Coterie would be finished with their business and able to see them. While she waited for a response, Grace looked over the furnishings of the room, seeing custom pieces and antiques all over; very little of it came straight from a store. That made it harder to estimate how much it all cost, but one thing it made clear was how much care they put into making the place look stylish.
Yanci made a quick 'hey' and pointed in the direction of the nearest set of doors that lead to the interior, all of them turning to see Gwendalyn hanging out one of the doors, pink tank top and jewel toned blue tights, hair ponytailed, "Sorry to interrupt, gang, but Grace is asking where y'all went."

Matty found himself smiling, “Is she playing coy?”

"Yeah, she has no idea how transparent you guys are."

Gwendalyn knew nearly everything, save some of the more outrageous parts of it; who, exactly, Henry was. Who, exactly, Eva was in touch with and why. The rest had been fair game to the girl. Yanci was well aware of Eva's intention to embrace her, even if Eva herself wasn't quite certain it was her intention...Yanci just knew the woman that well. "Gwen, did the staff leave food for you three?"

The mortal grinned, her upper body sticking outside the cracked door, her lower half still inside. "I mean...the chef did make dinner for us. He thought he was making it for the 'VIP group' coming in late, he didn't know..." Gwen curved her index and middle finger downward, bringing the hand not keeping her from falling on her face up to her mouth, as if they were fangs.

Even Andre laughed.

"Poor guy. We'll leave a tip for him."

The girl moved back into the house as the group filtered in, Rachel and Andre lingering towards the side of the room closer to the entrance hall, as they were the ones leaving soon, Yanci took a seat near the fire, near Grace and Mihail, her brown eyes hitting Mihail, "Hey, Andre is heading back to town soon if you need a ride? I thought I remembered you saying something about needing to go back."

Mihail nodded. “Grace is trying to psychoanalyze me and it’s making me nervous. I’ve got a meeting with a friend soon.”

Maty leaned over the couch, his long hair tucked behind his ears as he made sure he was near Grace, but not too close, careful about personal bubbles, Gwen on the other side of him, "Room fit for a Prince of Wales work for you, Grace?"

"I've got the wine cellar for you two bloodsuckers."

Yanci sighed, "Great, a cellar. I wish I didn't want that."

"Could head to the house?" Maty asked, a prompt that left Yanci rolling the options in her mind, coming the conclusion of a shrug.

"I'll decide when it comes. Gwen, you already take the Queen's room?"

The blonde blushed, because, in part, she was one of the few people in the room still capable of blushing, "I MIGHT have already put my stuff in that room, yes. It's possible..."

Maty blinked in her direction, "How possible?"

The seriousness of her tone and face seemed to catch the Tremere by surprise, as if she was shocked he had to ask, "Oh I totally took that room. Are you kidding me? The main suite and the guest suite were both made ready by the staff, so it's really wherever Grace wants to settle in for the night."

When the group walked in Grace was eating one of the vegan options the chef had prepared. She tried not focus on these aspects, but she did have to admit it was quite good. To answer Gwen’s question“As long I have a place to work it will be sufficient. I don’t sleep or do anything else that people typically do in bed; when the drugs are working, anyway. I can get set up shortly.” Then she looked over the group, giving special attention to Rachel. “I have some other questions, but I want to start with something that’s on my mind. Your group knew about me, including some names I used to go by. How? Rachel stands out if you search through past lists of those who scored in the top 100 in the Putnam Competition and crossreference it with mysterious death and disappearances, did you do that for me or use another method?”
"Mages don't sleep? Even these vampires sleep..." Gwen caught the look Yanci gave, and just smiled, bright, "Right. I'll go make sure it's unlocked for you."

Andre tapped on Mihail's shoulder and gave the room a quick deuce, "We're gonna go. Hour boat ride, and all that shit. Keep in touch."

Rachel stared as Mihail and Andre left the island estate, stared as Gwen went up the stairs to check on the Grand Suite, William Wrigley Jr.'s old room. If Rachel had fur, it would have been standing up...something about Grace bringing up her past life put her on edge. Putnam was a memory for another existence, a memory long buried and bringing it up felt akin to someone necromancing a dead memory back to it's own special kind of unlife. Instead of let on, the member of the Coterie with the disposition closest to Grace's simply gave a tilt of her head and what could have been a shrug. "Something like that. Some data-mining, some contacts. There are Tradition mages who talk to us, without knowing exactly who they're talking to. And some of the information comes directly from Eva...who could have lifted it straight from your own mind, for all I know."

It wasn't something often spoke of, Eva's natural talent for telepathy, Yanci knew best. That was before Eva's potency was given a neon-charge. "We do have Inquisition spies," Yanci allowed.

Maty nodded along, "Our work with Techno-Thaumaturgy has also allowed us information that rivals even the Enlightened Sciences...to a degree, anyway. Not that our information network helped us find Eva, so...obviously it has it's limits."

The M-word was a touchy subject with Grace, but she had learned many people would call them mages. She told herself it wasn’t an insult, merely outdated terminology. After all, she wouldn’t get mad at some calling a physicist a natural philosopher, there was no sense in making a fuss out of this. As a rule, most mages did sleep, even Grace did under normal circumstances, but there were virtually no universal rules among Mages. Rachel’s answer was vague, but Grace was in no position to call out others for giving vague answers. It was obvious she didn’t want to discuss her past life, a feeling that Grace sympathized with but didn’t share. As far as Grace knew, she had always been the way she was, just a little more naïve, a little focused before the Technocracy came along and gave her a true cause to dedicate her life to. Thinking about how powerful Eva’s telepathy might be didn’t put her at ease, it was quite clear she was dealing with something far outside the scale of anything she had seen before. Even casual contact could’ve had undetectable but severe effects on her psyche, something that she didn’t want to contemplate right now. To keep her mind off of it, she focused on the current moment and said. “Interesting. I feel as though there are still aspects of Eva that are mysterious even to your group. It’s comforting to know I’m not the only one operating in the dark. If you would like, I could collaborate with you, see what is possible when Enlightened Science is paired with Techno-Thaumaturgy, but we will need something to focus on.” She looked to Yanci, and then to Rachel “Can we assist you somehow, or should we work on our own?”

"I have to go see if the de-facto leader of the main Kindred organization, the Camarilla, will help us against the end times, or just act out of self interest," Rachel explained, letting out a little sigh under her breath even as she said it. Her mind did circle back around, even if it came with a momentary bite of her lower lip, first, "Funny thing with Eva...if you ask, she'll tell you. Just...blurt it out. I imagine that is what's going on right now with these Void Engineers and Eva right now. They ask, she tells, they don't even realize she's asking her own unspoken questions in return. I came to run a lot of her empire because one night I asked, curious, about everything she had a hand in. So she lays it out, from Hollywood studios to connections to organized crime, anything and everything in between. It took us a week and fifty-something legal pads to get it all from her brain to data I could start organizing and aggregating. Before I know it I'm making calls for her, and...it just never stopped. Ever. Snowballed until I became the manager of it all."

"But if you don't ask..." Maty trailed off, smiling, "I didn't know she was even into the blood magic I came up in, until one night she started talking about this ritual about daylight, after I was taken in by this group. I stopped and asked her, straight up, 'How much do you know?' She talked my ear off for hours. I was blown away by how much she knew, and her talent at it. I remember being told once in the Tremere Circles...it doesn't matter if you know how to do something, if you just do it intuitively because you were born with it. The learning of the how and why is the easy part for you, then. That's pretty much Eva and magic. Something in her is just...predisposed to it."

"That's why Henry is drawn to her, I think," Yanci said, finally, the foremost expert on the woman present. "I have to go meet with a Kindred who uses sex to feed. No blood, at all. Seems kind of boring, to me, considering feeding is when we typically feel the most alive...it's as close as we get to being drunk, or high, it's when we experience the most sensation. But he's so ancient, feeding probably bored him after a while. Ancient Greek, I believe, he is. A thousand years before Christ even came around. Sired by one of the thirteen Kindred Gods, the Antediluvians. Imagine how this guy feels having to bend the knee to Eva. Eva's...not even four hundred years old, yet she can perform like someone three times her age. Maybe more. Honestly, it's hard to tell, unless you're that old. She was the only one who kept Nathaniel in line for that long."

"The Kindred that crashed our meeting? Former member of the band," Maty followed up to Grace, trying to give some context. "It's not that Eva isn't open with us, or that she keeps her secrets...like it's possible Eva is talking with the most ancient Kindred on the planet right now, but I don't know."

"I don't know, either," Yanci said, Eva's very own childe kept in the dark.

"But I know," Rachel admitted, without a hint of emotion to the admission.

"That's fine," Maty continued, "there's no paranoia in our group. If Eva wanted Rachel to know, then dammit, Rachel knows. If we need to know, they'll tell us. Point is, a lot of what Eva can do or does she just...does. It just comes naturally to her. She's as close to a vampire cheat code as exists in this world. We honestly don't spend a lot of time studying her or analyzing her. If I wanted to know who she was talking to, and she was here, I'd just ask her. She would tell me."

"Speaking of...the best thing you can do is try to reach her through your own channels, Grace. Eventually they have to tell you. Control, Eva called it? You're part of this crusade, they're not."

Rachel perked a brow at Yanci's words, but found herself nodding after her, "Or just tie up any loose ends. I have a feeling the moment she gets back, the real end-game begins. Hopefully it waits for her, anyway. As for you, specifically, it’s a contact from inside your organization. Like Maty said…little good it did us when we needed to find her. It’s possible they were feeding us information, just trying to get information on her. We don’t know how long they’ve been targeting her."

Cybernetics might mean that Grace can get all manner of annoying and irrelevant messages, but it also made it extremely quick to send one through the proper channels. It was short, pointed and address as far up the chain of command as she could go. “I just sent a request, marked with highest priority I have access to. I don’t know when or what the response will be. Bureaucracy has a way of being beyond anyone’s comprehension. I have a feeling Control will come around eventually. It sounds like I won’t be able to help you with your excursions, so I will remain here. Maybe we can find some other way of contacting Eva. I’m sure we all have some burning questions for her, like why does this city have so many golf courses if they are all closed at night, or why it is so auto-dependent yet Catalina is almost entirely car free.” She paused. “Those were jokes. I was not serious. I acknowledge they are interesting subject but secondary. I will let you know what I hear from Control and I wish you luck” she said, thankful that she wouldn’t have to meet any more ancient vampires tonight if all went according to plan.