[IC] Our Final Nights: A World of Darkness Roleplay

[Ezekiel]

Fear

The scent was in the air, calling to the hunger, the Beast within.

She could taste it in the air. While food would never have the same appeal to her, emotions, natural responses, they made her taste buds fire.

Even when the fear was her own.

She did not breathe anymore, not truly, but sometimes in moments of heightened sensation, her form went through the motions, forgetting that she was quite dead. Now was certainly one of those times, her chest heaving to breathe in air she did not need, expelling it with the exact composition she inhaled it.

For a dead person she was fast. She was fast for any person at all, some would say impossibly fast, barely more than a blur to the eye of any mortal. For the first time in her unlife it wasn't fast enough. She could sense it behind her, not from hearing or touch, even if those too had been enhanced by her untimely demise years ago. No, it was supernatural dread that kept her informed that whatever was moving after her was certainly still there. If she'd had a moment to stop, she could likely have been able to ponder on whether this is how humanity felt in the presence of her kind.

She had no time for existential questions, however, all her ability to think was devoted to keeping her moving and desperately planning a way out. The Brujah had run the rooftops on many an occasion, although perhaps not quite this high up. She lunged through the air from skyscraperer to skyscraper, feeling the gradual pull of gravity begin to tug at her each time before her blood-bound gifts carried her to her intended target. The latest jump was further than she could comfortably managed and so her landing became a crashing roll. She snarled in pain as her ankles collapsed on themselves, but the Beast soon silenced the pain, her eyes flaring as vampiric vitae rushed to heal the injury in a matter of moments.

She didn't have a few moments alas, and a much heavier thud than her own landing signalled the arrival of her pursuer. Unlike her, it needed no time to recover, she could feel it moving closer through the chrome. In one swift motion the Kindred rolled on her back, the darkness of night lit up by the muzzle flash of her sidearm. Whatever it was, it was huge. Fur lined it's vast form, interrupted by the tatters of business suit which still clung to it. It had been a human, she'd seen it...shift...into this thing. A Hollywood nightmare made real. The gunshots thudded into flesh, but the rounds fell away, even more useless than it would have been on one of her own kind.

"W....W...Werewolf." She sputtered, the thought finally reaching her mind, now that she had time to study the beast. She'd been a little busy running.

The word seemed to only pull another growl from the creature as it stopped down, one huge claw gripped around the Brujah's body, her struggles to free herself as inconsequential as the spasms of a fly stuck to paper. It's palm almost entirely encompassed her neck and shoulders both, crushing her tightly with but a fraction of its power.

"You kind have been warned...The Valley is ours." Despite it's huge canine-like jaws, it spoke discernably, it's wolf-like lips moving unnaturally to do so, as if it took a strength of will to not simply howl in rage at her actions. "A message will be sent." It spoke again, the heavy thud of its rear paws trembling across the chrome once again.

"I....I can bro...bring you mess...message." She gasped between crushed breathes, her form squirming beneath the beast's tight grip.

"You shall." It growled again, before there was a sudden rush of movement. The Brujah spun, turning end over end, and that brief kiss of gravity from before returned, then grasped her. Undead lungs that had no need to breathe emptied as she screamed, the curse of unlife keeping her awake and alive for the duration of her plummet.

"This city...will be ours."

The Sunset Lounge

"Now Gentlemen, I don't really think I could be any more fucking clear."

Americans loved a British accent, it was a widely known fact of existence. They loved it until they were staring down the barrel of an incredibly pissed off London accent with a knife big enough to demonstrate just how pissed of they were. This duality of purpose apparently transcended the bounds of life and death.

"I don't have many rules, do I, Connor?" Henry turned slightly from the two men that were currently bound 'tightly' to a pair of rather uncomfortable looking chairs, to speak to another man, currently occupying the doorway. Connor was a smartly dressed man. No amount of suit and tie could ever hide the fact he looked like a rottweiler in human form, however. He was practically bred for violence, tall and broad. He was quite nice when you got to know him, which is why Henry only ever needed him to deal with people he didn't know.

"No Sir, in fact I can only really think of one off the top of my head."

"And what rule is that, may I ask, Connor, ol' buddy o' pal?"

"No fighting, Sir."

"No 'fucking' fighting, aye, that would be it." With that Henry turned back to the two bound men, waving his knife uncomfortably close to the younger's face. "So when, as it so happens, we find you both in a scrap right here where I park my car, my very 'nice' car..."

"We didn't think it counted...outside." The other man humbled, earning him a rather contemptuous look from Henry.

"Oh you didn't think it counted did you? You didn't think my carefully maintained presence of law and order in this damned pissup of a city extended two 'fucking' meters from the back door, did you?" The sound of silence that followed expressed a resolute lack of ability to argue the finer detail of this point. Henry stood, as they stopped talking, rising from his crouching position to his full height, casting the knife aside onto a nearby table.

"As you're both clearly not the brightest bunch, I will be letting you both off with a warning, and a 'do not fucking come back until I say so,' note. And you can tell Nines if any of his lot pull anymore shit like this, I don't care if it's among yourselves, I will come Downtown and shit all over his crappy little bar, not that the smell would get any worse, this clear?" The two kindred nodded frantically.

"Cut them loose Conner and let them out...I've got a shift to get back to."

It took a fair few minutes for Henry to move from the secluded chambers of the Lounge out towards the customer-facing areas. While the shadier business of the man was completed in rooms just about fit for purpose, the staff areas were more than comfortable, and then the Lounge itself, both as a bar and with a few 'very' exclusive guest rooms were some of the nicest in LA, at least he thought so, without reaching the needless tacky levels Hollywood was so keen on.

As he was walking a fresh shirt was provided for him, there were far too many vampires in this damn city for him to walk out even spattered in kindred blood and not cause a scene, least of all a line to lick him clean. He smiled a thank you to that particular member of staff before pausing to change, studying himself in an errant mirror, watching the man looking back at him.

Look How Far You've Fallen

He shook his head, before he finished linking his buttons together, a dark waistcoat thrown on over the top, before exiting out onto the bar, his usual slightly-to-charming-to-be-real smile stretching across his face. That was when he saw her, and paused, immediately. It wouldn't be unusual to stare at a woman like that, her long slender form dressed for the occasion at an establishment like this, probably wasn't the only man in the room doing so right then, but the only one to know who she was, truly. She was often early like she was chasing the Sun, hoping to catch what she could never see.

"Connor, that young woman there, I'd like to see her out on the terrace." Henry spoke as his assistant caught up to him, the door our onto the bar still swinging. He took only a brief moment to track down who Henry was referencing.

"As you say Sir, will you be needing company?"

"No, and neither will she."

[Sini]

“I have seen things you mayflies would not believe.” The words were well-shaped and emphasised, thereby hinting at the intensity, control and particularity of the speaker’s character. His polished and refined accent only honed the edge of his speech.

All around them were the verdant, rolling hills with ample vegetation which made Topanga so private and attractive. They stood on Parker Mesa Overlook; bedrock mortars were carved out of the rocky outcroppings of the summit, and low shrubbery rustled in the night breeze. Behind them, the hills furled away in darkness to the west and north, while in front of them was the sandy arc of Venice Beach curving all the way down to Point Vincente. The illumination was so bright it seemed ablaze. Halfway down, Santa Monica Pier jutted out into the ocean like a sapphire pin dangling from a golden necklace. Catalina Island was visible off to the right. The couture-clad man who had spoken gazed out across the moonlit vista, and imagined the bay to be the gem-studded rim of Hebe’s sacred cup which contained the mythical nectar and ambrosia. The city, in this instance, symbolised the ambrosia Hebe served up to the Olympians as source of immortality, eternal youth and lifeforce. And like those Olympian gods, he intended to drink deeply from said grail.

L.A. suffered from smog, and the foggy blanket caught and held on to the light pollution. The phenomenon always brought to mind the great city fires he had seen. West of the metropolis and north of Santa Monica, this was where the mountains met the sea – a ‘Little Olympus’ of sorts, with its own pomegranate and date lined temple complex, the Getty Villa, nestled in the lower hills. Topanga was the place where the rich and artistic had been drawn since the 1920s, escaping the bustle of Los Angeles and Hollywood. As always, genius and insanity went hand in hand, culminating in the events of the late 1960s which had drawn Jonathan to the region. Not Neil Young’s musical mastery, but Charles Manson’s madness had pulled John to the City of Angels.

He wrest his eyes from the glowing bay below and settled them on the five kneeling men. When looking down at them he doubted any of them had been born when Manson started his campaign of murder, but he might be wrong. It was hard to tell sometimes, just when kine had been born... how shortly ago that they first had seen the light of day. To John, these had been children but yesterday, but already tonight they lay at his feet.

They were bound, and one of them was in bad shape. He would expire before long, as he was bleeding profusely. Jonathan’s nostrils flared at the scent. To those five kneeling men, he would appear as a figure of darkness cut from the lit-up sky at his back. Others like him watched from the shadows. Most of them wore similar long overcoats which ruffled in the wind.

Jonathan walked over to the man he thought was eldest among their number, then crouched down to come to eye-level. What vanity, to have come after him like this. “Who are you?” The question was grated out as if ground between a millstone. Jonathan angled his head slightly to the side in curiosity. “Who ordered this?”

The bound lout grumbled something, then spat a bloody glob at his captor. Quick as electric current, Jonathan recoiled and hissed maliciously. It was the instinctive sound of a coiled adder. Whimpers ensued at the display of the Mark of Caine, though the offender remained immune to Jonathan’s dread gaze.

There was little more disgusting to John than bad manners. Even in defeat one had to show grace, and this mere mortal had the audacity to spit at him. Worse, it was blood, and Jonathan knew that if it had hit him, he might have frenzied and thereby would have robbed himself of the chance to find out who these men were and who had sent them. He glared wide-eyed at the man, who was grinning through his red-stained teeth. This poltroon knows. He knows of the Beast raking my nerves with its claws, and thinks harassment will let slip its shackles.

Jonathan’s pride reared its head. “Just who do you misguided fools think you are dealing with?” He was Ventrue – not some Gangrel or Brujah barely in control of their tempers. Undoubtedly some insult had been coming John’s way, but the bleeding man collapsed which caused his neighbour to prattle out a verse in Latin for succour. So it was not just a hit but an ‘auto-da-fé’, an act of faith. Whether or not it was a crusade called against him or just a botched, overzealous attempt remained unclear. Now it was John’s time to grin. Alabaster fangs glinted silver in the moonlight.

“Be quiet, novice! Keep the faith. Trust in God.”

“Yes, be quiet, milksop. Your pronunciation is atrocious,” piled on Jonathan, scowling. It truly was an affront to the Roman tongue. Zealots, he thought, jaded. It was all he could do but roll his eyes.

“Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,” came the muttered reply of the near-snivelling human. “I am sorry, Inquisitor.” The Ventrue’s face contorted in a demonic leer.

“You are an abomination, an animal enslaved by its base desires and hunger, an agent of Satan,” came the delayed insult. This time, it did not go unpunished, as one of the Ventrue’s fists shot forward and hit the inquisitor in the jaw. The punch cracked the man’s jawbone and spilled his teeth out in the dirt like pearls from a torn necklace.

“Oh, but how very wrong you are,” exasperated Jonathan. Part of it was true though: vampires were hungry creatures, and the older the more vitae they needed. The smell and sight of blood, for example, had roused Jonathan’s considerable appetite, but he would not feed on these wretches. They had not earned that privilege. They would not experience the bliss of a vampire’s kiss.

Instead, he drew upon the previously consumed lifeblood of his thralls and ghouls to ramp up his vampiric powers. “You have made yourselves into iron. Therefore, you are strong but brittle. It breaks before it bends, and I hear the brittleness in your speech. Doubt is setting in.” Through an amalgam of presence and domination, Jonathan wreaked havoc on the spiritual fortitude of the captured hunters. Gradually he increased the pressure on their minds.

“Doubt which is justified, and caused you to fail. These novices you led to their deaths… their faith was found wanting.” He grimaced, watching the inquisitor spit molars still. The sight nevertheless did not deter him from teaching them their final lesson. Once again, he got in close, and cradled the man’s head gently in his hands. It would have been very easy to crush his skull and brains into a mushy pulp… but where was the fun in that? Instead, Jonathan leaned in intimately and let the bloodthirst work so he snarled and snapped his words into the inquisitor’s ear. “God is gone. It is just us devils now.” It was about all he could say before he had to pull himself away or devour the man then and there.

“Faith is like poison,” he told them, softly tapping a flinching hunter’s face. The man was quaking in mortal fear. John looked down all compassion and understanding. “I know, unfortunate soul. I shall cut you open and suck it out like from an aging wound.” He could smell their desperation on the air. It was time to drive home his point, much like they had wanted to drive home the point of the stakes meant for his heart. “Will the Gates of Heaven open before you as the sound of silver trumpets heralds your arrival? Or will you find the way into Paradise shut?” The Ventrue paced slowly before them, looking each in the eye to solidify his hold over them. “Worse yet,” he spoke soft as a lover, voice bubbling over with sympathy and malice both, overwhelming whatever mental defences the hunters tried to scramble together. Yes, they had trained for this, but the way they had tried to force their way into his lair like bumbling children meant that they were inexperienced and in over their heads. Did they even know the calibre of Kindred they were dealing with? He thought not. “There are no gates, no Holy Spirit, there is no Heaven,… Godfearing men like you ought to know there are worse things to be afraid of.”

Only the leader of the hunters was not babbling or praying, hard as it was to do such things with a busted face, while Jonathan deconstructed their entire system of belief. The others shivered and pleaded – except for the one passed out from blood loss – and soon started begging as hysteria set in. Now it was time to indulge.

“Five little piggies, about to squeal. This little piggy went to market,” started John, pointing at the bleeding man. His shoes crunched the blood-soaked gravel. “This little piggy stayed home,” came the next verse. One of his cohorts stepped forward having heard a wordless command, and summarily ripped the back of the hunter’s neck out, then shoved the bony paste down the third man’s throat. The victim soiled himself. “This little piggy had roast beef,” the rhyme continued, the Ventrue spoke over the cries and gargles. “This little piggy had none.” The gibbering novice’s neck cracked with an audible pop, and the screaming stopped. Before long, the soothing sounds of night returned while Jonathan’s retroreflecting eyes which rested on the last survivor pulsed like garnets. He sighed. “And this little piggy cried ‘wee wee wee’ all the way home …”

In the end, the inquisitor spilled his guts literally as well as figuratively. Iron breaks before it bends. Talking had been hard, and John almost regretted breaking the man’s jaw. Almost.

They had been part of a fringe group tied to the Society of Leopold, left behind or expelled. Their strike at him had been their way back into the Inquisition’s good graces. One of the first probes directed at Kindred in Los Angeles. This was nothing he had not dealt with before, nothing new… until they mentioned an overarching cabal. Indeed, that was discomfiting: the inkling that there might exist a larger and more dangerous organisation. Larger, more dangerous and techno-savvy. These latter days wannabe Torquemadas disappointed as adversaries and fought like cowards by using advanced technology. While Jonathan admired their Machiavellian tactics, he figured the mention of “blankbodies” and “FIRSTLIGHT” to be the result of severe dementia he had inflicted upon the hunters: the ravings of dying men.

No, of dead men, he corrected himself, throwing one last and cursory glance back at the five bodies. Already his ghouls were busy chopping up the carcasses, and he could sense the bobcats and cougars prowling nearby. They had been attracted by the smell of gore. “Inform the Gerousia of the events from tonight,” he instructed one of his underlings. “And let the word go out through the proper channels that I wish to meet with our illustrious Prince. Tell him I am not amused.” Vannevar has some explaining to do as to why I had to deal with these rabid dogs in my backyard.

The past half-century he had watched events unfold from the sideline, comfortably numb. Tonight had shaken him awake. The chaos of the Anarch Free State had spilled over and touched him directly. This would never have happened with a strong Prince in power. Topanga was no longer safe. Or perhaps safety had always been an illusion. Regardless, he refused to run. This was as far west as west went, and he was disinclined to try his luck elsewhere. The time for idleness was over. Everyone in this godforsaken city is out for blood. Thus the thought grinding within his skull as he straightened his long coat. All bitterness aside, he grinned in long overdue excitement. And now, so am I. Time to shake the tree. Via his various blood bonds, carefully cultivated over the years, he called on his intimates - those who knew him as Jonathan Corbett. To most of L.A. he was Johnny Rook. The city was lousy with thin-bloods and anarchs, after all. Scum who had no business knowing his true identity.

Another summons went out from him, calling out to lynxes, mountain lions and coyotes alike to join for the coming meal. Their shrill screams and howling screeches rose up in the night’s air as the Ventrue started his descent towards all the coloured lights, heralding his coming like so many of Heaven’s corrupted silver trumpets.

Johnny Rook was coming to town.

[Fiber]

Two words that came to Grace’s mind when she thought about Los Angeles: wasted potential. So much open land and such an inviting climate had created a sprawling modern metropolis, but one full of disorder and romantic delusions. For all the gifts it had given the world it’s flaws confronted her every day, the unmanageable traffic, the endless small municipalities adding up to an ungovernable whole, the vast areas in need of urban renewal, and the ever encroaching threat of disorder that lied beneath the surface of politics and governance. Like the rest of the Technocracy, she compared it unfavorably with Irvine, one of their midcentury projects and a great success by most measures, planned in exacting detail by a corporation under their control before even a single brick was laid, and still the nexus of their power in the region in the present day. Irvine was where her home was, a Spartan affair inside a gated community, equipped with more security measures than furnishings. She spent little time there, her duties seldom gave her uninterrupted down time, and Grace was not overly fond of that house in any case.

Power in Los Angeles had a unique structure: every time a new circle entered it only seemed to add complexity and more layers, never fully displace any of those that had come before it. Before she was a field operative, Grace was a historian, and she knew about their various instruments they had tried to use to impose additional controls and how all of them ran into obstacles. The Army Corps of Engineers, defense spending, the Aerospace Industry, junk bonds, capital inflows from Asia, personal computers all were useful tools, but none ever gave them a total victory. What it gave was more things to discuss, more ideas to attempt, and more subjects for conference calls like the one she found herself in right now.

“So that covers how it went with Hastings. He’s been good lately, easier to deal with than the headcase who makes me wish Twitter never existed, in spite of all of the value we’ve gotten out of it and our work with him.”

Arvind said over the phone. He technically was stationed in Los Angeles, but found every excuse to be away that he could. He could find plenty to occupy himself around San Francisco or San Diego, but every so often he got into a jurisdictional fight and had to retreat back with his tail between his legs.

Brett was the next to speak
“To give you a quick download, from the ten thousand foot view it’s all in line with projections. Now, if you drill down you’ll see there’s a lot of moving parts but even our timetables can’t accommodate all of them, it’s like trying to boil the ocean.”

That was a sign Brett didn’t really want to talk about what was going on. Grace had morbid curiosity, but wouldn’t dare ask him directly. They were already at odds over several things (one proposed assassination target was a recurring sticking point), and had arrived at their posts by opposite means. Grace had been given her position as a great test, while Brett had fallen back down from a higher post. His signature achievements had been in finance, but like many Syndicate veterans, his schemes had a habit of blowing up in his face after a few years. The Technocracy’s policies were unwavering, and he could count himself lucky that demotion was his only punishment, even if he spent his days hoping to reach the heights of the 80s again.

“Reach out to me and we can circle back around to any action items later, after all this is just a stand up, I can’t touch base about every conceivable thing that could have any impact. You know we’re all one team here, and an easy win for any of us is an easy win for all of us!”

His words were even less charming once one learned that he used technological assistance to choose them. Choe had lambasted him publicly for it once when she’d been in town surveying the damage from the financial crisis; people teased him about in the small ways they could without running afoul of policies encouraging workplace harmony.

After that it was Grace’s turn
“Little threat activity to report at present, a report on that recent bout of factional warfare is approaching completion. Project Arbor is going well, I believe my next phase will focus on securing JPL. It’s been quite a challenge for us in the past, Parsons did so much damage that it lingers to this day, long after his elimination. I’m optimistic about our prospects at present.”

Finally, Ray spoke.
“Very good. The meeting is adjourned”

He said in his heavy Spanish accent. He was old, too old to make the trip to the front lines without health risks, spending his days in a realm beyond, but despite his age he never bothered to lose his accent. It was by choice, when he spoke through a willing proxy on earth he could take on any voice, but speaking that way reminded him who he was, and reminded everyone who they were speaking to, and what he was in charge of. That certainly helped get his point across when his taciturn phrases didn’t .

Grace’s Tesla pulled out of the empty parking garage and cruised through the pristine streets of downtown, the not-yet-public self driving mode allowing her to focus on other matters. There was always more data to review, more leads to pursue, and even with her enhancements and wakefulness drugs it could overwhelm her. The key to all of the colorful charts and streaming lines of text was proper focus, recognition of the signal from the noise, and that was something Grace excelled at. Inside it all there was conversation she made sure to give proper time to, her exchange with her subordinate Julie.

After that, Grace focused on the road. She had an appointment to make that night. She didn't know if the subject of her appointment would be expecting her, but that was just part of standard operating procedure. Assume nothing, question everything.

[Bloodrose]

Morgan could smell burning wood, and crackling fire, on the wind. She could feel that crushing, smouldering heat against her skin.

She closed her eyes, plunging the world into darkness.

It’s not real. She told herself. Those are just the ghosts of flames long since extinguished.

When she opened her eyes again, and colour returned, the fire was gone. It wouldn’t last, though. The flames always came back.

“You alright there, Morgan?” Rafael Velez, a fellow Anarch, asked her, plucking her out of her head, and dropping her back into reality.

Or at least, what she thought was reality.

“Yeah, fine.” She lied.

The apparitions had gotten worse over the years, and would only get worse still in the years to come. Morgan knew that she was cursed with the knowledge that she was losing herself to insanity, and also the inability to do anything about it.

The plunge into madness was sadistically slow.

”Oh, you can’t help that. We’re all mad here. I’m mad, you’re mad.”

“Let’s get this over with then, yeah?” Rafael prompted, shooting her a look of mild concern.

It was getting harder to hide the fact that she was breaking apart from the world around her. Soon, she would only be jagged splinters of the woman called Morgan Holloway.

“Why do I always get the crazy ones?” Rafael murmured.

“Why do I always get the bigoted ones?” Morgan shot back, a snarl creeping into her voice.

“What..?” Rafael stared at her, blankly.

Morgan suddenly realised that he had spoken those words, only thought them. She cursed herself for once again forgetting how to tell the difference.

“Nothing,” she waved one hand dismissively, “let's crack on.”

Directing a torrent of blood and power into her legs, Morgan sprang up off of the ground, leaping through the night like a spry flea, and bound through the air.

The Malkavian hit the railings above with a thud, her fingers wrapping tightly around a cold metal fence.

Rafael followed suit, and soon the pair were clambering up over the railing, and dropping down into the courtyard on the other side.

They slipped softly across the concrete, darting through the darkness on the quietest of feet. To the ears of kine, they would have been imperceptible.

“Let’s make this one quick and easy,” Rafael murmured, lowering his voice to a soft whisper, “there’s no need for this to get messy.”

Morgan and Rafael were on something of a mission for their Anarch comrades.

The insurgents had gotten word that Horatio Ballard, a powerful Ventrue, who was considered something of a major player out in the Windy City, had brought a massive stockpile of blood, through various underhand channels, which was being kept on ice in a private storage facility, not far from Hollywood Hills.

The Anarchs reckoned that Ballard’s investment could do a lot more good spread amongst the needy than sitting about as the private reserve of some greasy tycoon, so Morgan and Rafael had been sent to liberate it.

“Understood, boss man,” Morgan grunted “quick and easy.”

They made their way towards a series of blocky, shed-like containers, with bright green metal doors, reinforced with thick steel bars.

“Know which container we’re after?” Morgan asked.

“Number thirteen,” Rafael chuckled, “trust a ventrue to be so unnecessarily theatrical about the most mundane fucking things.”

It was only a brisk walk over to the thirteenth container, scurrying nimbly through the shadows.

“Ready to crack this bad boy open?” Morgan shot Rafael a brash smirk.

The suave-looking Brujah grinned, tugging at the edges of his snappy leather jacket.

“Forty five years of un-life, and this never stops being fun.”

Evoking the supernatural discipline known as “Potence”, Rafael sent a surge of raw strength flooding through his body in a tsunami of magical power. He gripped hold of the bars which ran across the container’s front, and pried them straight off, ripping them free with ease, and by-passing the need for a key completely.

“Lets rob the shit out of this fucking tyrant.” Rafael beamed, reaching down for the slight crease between the container’s metal shutter, and the concrete grown below, and wrenching the cover upwards.

“Caine’s balls!”

Inside, there was not a big fridge, full of frozen blood.

There was, however, an awful lot of un-frozen blood.

The red tide washed over their feet, soaked through their shoes, and running beneath their toes.

It was fresh.

The corpse of what had once been a security guard was hung from the ceiling, the flesh of his head fused into the cold metal roof, as though it had been pressed into the steel, like putty.

His uniform was ripped open at the chest, exposing the horror which lay beneath.

His skin and ribs had been carefully pried open, and his internal organs hung freely out of his stomach.

A sickly trail of gooey intestines was draped through the air, swinging loosely in the night wind.

It then dawned upon Morgan that the man’s heart, which dangled out of his open chest, was still beating.

His lips had been melded together, rendering him incapable of speech, but his terrified eyes twitched and jerked in their sockets, red and raw from crying, as they pleaded desperately with Morgan and Rafael.

He was still alive.

“What the fuck is this shit..?” Rafael wheezed, gasping for words, “This poor fucking bastard.”

Morgan had seen this before.

She turned on her heel, and looked back the way they had come, staring into the blackness.

She saw the faint outline of Calantha Teohari gazing back at her, before she vanished into the incessant dark of the night.

“What the fuck is going on?!” Rafael demanded, of no one in particular.

Morgan’s eyes fell upon the man-sculptures exposed heart, strung up at the end of a thread of viscous muscle, and intestine.

“It’s a symbol,” the Malkavian told him, “she’s giving me her heart.”

[Hellion]

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Oasis Apartments | West Hollywood | 3:24am

Cold water cascaded down her body as she sat up on the shower floor; arms hugging tightly around knees that were drawn close to the young woman’s chest. Save for the leather jacket and black Sketchers laying in the hallway, Nicole was fully clothed, never changing out of the dark skinny jeans and charcoal Nine Inch Nails t-shirt that she had worn for the meet-up only two hours early. Before it all went to shit. Before things started to make less sense. What should have been a routine operation that had an ongoing investigation for weeks, turned out to be a game of cat and mouse, and unbeknownst to the officer, she had been the mouse all along. Lured into a trap by misinformation, following breadcrumbs that were eaten up by the rats who laid them there to begin with. It was all too surreal and horrific, something she thought would never be expected in her line of work. Something unexplained that should not have happened to begin with.

“What am I?...

Nicole had only asked herself a dozen times or more since landing back into her apartment, a place that didn’t seem as familiar as it once was. Even the ice cold water, which had been running above her for at least a half hour did not chill her to the bone as it normally would have. She never liked cold, and yet for the first time in her existence, her body had become void of any real warmth. After a few more moments of contemplation, however, she finally stood to her feet, turning off the water before stripping the remainder of her now soaked clothing and allowing them to fall into a watery heap onto the tiled floor. Stepping onto the fuzzy lavender bath rug, the woman’s hand shook as she reached for the hanging towel, and slowly wrapped her body in what should have been comfort. But there was no comfort to be found in such things she took for granted.

Even the mirror told a different story, and a wave of emotions swept over the woman as she glanced at the reflection of a person she hardly recognized. Skin tone, once olive, now sapped of it’s hue, it’s vibrance, and all that remained was a paleness that bordered on sickly. Her eye color even seemed to change slightly, but that could be a trick of the light. She cocked her head slightly to expose her neck where she had felt the pinch, but no markings were there. Had she imagined this? The slices on her face were hard to miss -a reminder of her assailant’s clawed fingers- yet, didn’t hurt any longer, however, the fact that they were healed over so quickly was surprising enough. Injuries such as that would have needed stitches in the least, but the wounds sealed, leaving a few scars in their place. Would they ever disappear for good, or was she to live with the markings for life?

Impulsively she reached for the medicine cabinet -her hand still trembling- slid the door open, and grabbed the electric hair trimmer before positioning it against her temple as though a handgun pressed to the head. Although suicide hadn’t crossed her otherwise erratic mind that night, but rather the urge to prune away the ugliness that crawled it’s way to the surface. The claw marks on the side of her head tore through the follicles of hair so none would ever return, and there was no way she could bear to look at herself in the same way again. Flipping it to the “on” position, Nicole ran the clippers along her scalp slowly, trimming away her once beautiful, wavy auburn hair as wet locks fell to the floor and into the sink like dark tendrils. She paid careful attention around the scars just above her left ear until she was eventually finished, and rubbed the remaining stubble across the top of her head. It wasn’t what she wanted, but it was all she could do at the time. It wasn’t hard to recall Britney Spears going mad and shaving her head.

Is this the insanity of L.A.?

“Have I gone mad?” Nyx mused, trying to insert a semblance of humor into an otherwise fucked situation, as she stepped into the shower to rinse the loose hair and properly clean the rest of her body.

Shortly after, the woman found herself standing in the kitchen wrapped in a bath towel and going through the missed calls. Twenty-three to be exact over the course of the last few hours. And several text messages as well with the expected “Where the hell are you?” and “Are you okay?” inquiries from the police Captain as well as a few of her colleagues. Based on the voicemails, they knew already, since First Responders discovered the bodies of both undercovers, still sitting in their respective vehicles with a bullet to the head from point blank range. Voices on the other end were laced with confusion, anxiety, and concern. And why wouldn’t they? None of it made sense, and yet at the same time, finding two murdered police officers in Park Mesa Heights wasn’t unusual. Nicole clicked on the police radio, and amongst the chatter, they were still searching for their third officer.

“Shit.” She leaned against the wall closing her eyes for a moment just to slow her mind and figure out the chaos that just wouldn’t stop. Her emotions wanted to get the best of her, but she fought them as best she could. How was she to explain any of what had transpired? She didn’t have answers, and they would expect answers. The operation was a bust, her partners were both shot dead, and somehow she survived? The large man who initially attacked her, and the others...and some kind of creature? It was all madness. Had the job taken a toll on her mental health? Where had all her training gone? What was her recourse at this juncture?

Nicole’s body shook at the endless questions flooding in, the mental snapshots of the meeting, the attack, the unexplained fear, and the violence all rolled up into one. She stepped over toward the counter that had a few of her favorite wines and poured a glass, spilling a bit of it due to an unsteady hand. Yes, alcohol was needed. It always managed to quell the fires in her mind. But no sooner did she try to ingest the pinot noir, that her body convulsed at the taste and prompted vomited it out, nearly missing the sink.

Clearly that wasn’t the answer at all.

As she cleaned up the mess, the woman felt nothing but helplessness at that moment. Despair you might even say. She knew they would be coming to the apartment soon enough to investigate. Dead officers were one thing, but a missing one? Too many loose ends to tie up. Too many questions and not enough answers.

Or was there?

Sitting in a small bowl near the edge of the counter was a black business card with the letter “E” emblazoned in the center. Eva. Nicole remembered the other night. The beautiful woman sitting at the bar. She had such lovely eyes and an inviting smile. The conversation between them had been brief, but Eva’s words were laced with a sweetness and sympathy that spoke volumes, and days later her voice could still be heard echoing from the depths of the chaos. At that moment, Nicole felt a friendly tug at her heart, a hope surfacing as she picked up the card and dialed the phone number listed on the back. Anxiety washed over as the line rang, as part of her wanted to hang up realizing how ridiculous it all was. Or how absurd any of this would have sounded to anyone else.

But it was too late to turn back, as the line picked up. No. Wait. Voicemail.

“Fuck it.” Nicole whispered as she hung up the call and laid the cell down on the counter. “I don’t know who the hell this person is anyway...”

Stepping out of the kitchen, the woman unknowingly paced her living room, trying to figure out whatever the next steps would be, mumbling to herself every-so-often as though thinking out loud would put things in a clearer perspective. As paranoia dug itself further into her mind, she couldn’t help but check the windows that looked out into the street from her second story apartment. At any moment they could come for her, but she wondered if the safer bet would be to just not run.

Only cowards run.

[Ruby]

Eva & Henry at Henry's Sunset Lounge

When Connor rumbled up to her, she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her white leather waist cut jacket and smiled and declined the inivation, "Tell him to meet me in the back. By the loading dock." It was not a thing easily done. There was no stop in Eva's mind, and the willpower that she had once prided herself on was being subjected to the fault lines that had bellowed to life the moment of the Kid's last twitch against her fangs. When her diablerie was complete. Diablerie, the word stinging deep as she walked to the side alley of Henry's, and she found herself sliding into shadow.

Los Angeles liked it's tall buildings, even if few of them were what someone would call a true skyscrapper. Rooftop terraces and parking garages were the rage, even as the sun set now there was no direct sunlight for her to get hit by, only shadow and the orange glow start of twilight in the City of Angels. The side alley connected to a back street; the back doors and a few various loading docks to various surrounding businesses, but Henry's was at the end. When she slipped into the back street from the side alley she could smell the only living person was down the back street; a homeless man by every available measure that was quick to shuffle out of the back street and on his way upon seeing her.

For a tick of time she felt badly about it; the back street was prime hunting for goods thrown out by high brow businesses. Given in her roaming the streets of Los Angeles she had seen a few fights between homeless over a certain street corner, or underpass, or back alley. When your next meal was uncertain and getting to the right garbage bin first, or having the good spot to beg for money, can mean a decent meal or a beer soaked chips. The smarter ones she had seen knew exactly when and where to find the best discarded food, some of it because it was simply "imperfect" and not because it was bad in anyway.

The complexities of a city she called her own never did cease to amaze her.

The steel grated stairs to the back dock were cobwebbed, random bits of breeze blown trash gathered around the dead end of the backstreet that was Henry's back dock. The leather jacket was stretched over the gray tank top, tightly fitted jeans slashed with holes along the thigh and white Air Jordan 1's on her feet. Her body turned and slowly descended to sit on the steel grated middle step of the dock stairs, her upper half leaning against railing. It was just too heavy, sometimes. The weight of it all. It started with diablerie of the Kid, but it had nothing more to do with Christopher.

The Kid was at peace. A warm and playful voice in her ear artistic in nature and grand vision in scope that came to her like a daydream.

The pressure came from the rest of them. All of them. Antediluvian, methuselah. There was some trace of nearly every one of them, and some were so intense it reminded her of getting air knocked out of her lungs. A very old thing to be so unpleasantly reminded of. The first night was the worst; it came in rest and dragged her into a far deeper state of unconcious. Since her eyes snapped open the next night they had all been there. A distant hum in the back of her head most times, but sometimes a chaotic and clashing cacophony discordant with every other thought and whim and sensation.

"It's just one generation." A simple statement spoken in wounded tone. The Kindred the world knew as Eva wasn't one for displays of vulnerability, but even she had wipe a tear or two from her eye with fingertips decorated plain with glossy white fingernails. A few sniffs, a heavy sigh, and she was standing and turning around with the sound of the back door of Henry's behind her. These were the moments she'd feel as if she were in this all alone if it weren't for him. And there he was, looking all hard edged and more. It was enough to inspire a small smile on her lips.

No matter who was watching she climbed the few steps with the cushion and high ankle support of the Air Jordan 1's, to say nothing of unnatural quickness and grace, and was upon him in the blink of an eye. Her arms wrapped him up by the shoulders and for a moment Eva just clung, holding and hugging into his body, her voice so quiet and faint as she whispered at him, "it's coming, I hear it."

Her body slid down off him as she found the floor below with her feet again, and turned her face to look directly up and at him. At the concern. "Get ready." She nodded at him several times quickly, as if to point emphasis on it all. "I can't stay long. I'm still not 'me' right now. I just...had to say hi," her voice said, big brown eyes staring into his saying everything else that Eva could not, or dare not, say aloud.

"Then say hi." His voice was soft when he spoke to her in turn, barely more than a whisper as he sunk down beside her, coming to rest on the step just above her, his turn to hold her by the shoulders, a protective embrace that threatened the complete obsoletion of the rest of the world. Nothing here but us. As he spoke, one of his fingers reached up to his own mouth, sliding his thumb across the sharp point of his right canine, the shot of true pain enough to heighten his own senses. As she turned up to him he pressed the tiny wound of his digit to her lips. No other kindred could have been trusted with the blood of ages, a bloodline so removed from humanity even in his deliberately weakened state to be aflame with potential. To try to drink from him like you would a kine or other kindred would mean certain doom for the vampire who tried, the veins burning with the power. Just a taste? Just a drop for the kindred who had shown again and again that the spark of humanity had not fully died within her? A balm to keep voices almost as ancient as the blood she tasted from overwhelming her. Henry's eyes tensed as their souls met, as part of him was brought into her. It did not feel as new as it should have.

Afterwards his hands held her, just a few further moments of denying the outside world, of ignoring the screams of his past which warned him yet again of the spiral this vampire woman had begun. Her voices were more real than his, he had to remind himself of that, but the ones he heard dripped from the memories of every day of his long, long, life. His right hand squeezed her cheek, in a manner that could even be slightly condescending, a moment of teasing so that they did not end on melancholy.

"Stay Safe."

As if any of them could.

[Ruby]

_{Santa Monica, Sunset Office Park.
Later Nicole's apartment.}

"She's fucked." The latina girl's tone was so utterly dismissive it was almost impressive, and it made the large man leaning over the maps at the opposite end of the table chuckle even if it didn't make his eyes wander up away from the maps. After a minute his tightly braided haired head tilted just slight to the right, and wide black shoulders shrugged under a cream colored sweater.

"Mm, probably. We know what she has."

The other woman pacing and talking quietly into her smartphone stopped halfway down the table, her heeled feet turning to face the two men sitting at the opposite end of the table as the latina, "Has anyone heard from Eva?"

"I thought she was heading down the coast?"

The other man, the latino with the long black hair and slender frame, comfortably lounging in the over-priced leather conference table chair finally spoke up from the laptop he had been focused on, "Yeah."

The dirty blonde haired woman took the phone away from her mouth again, staring at the man for further detail. He smiled, finally, and the woman looked behind her. Standing in the door way was the tall Central American born woman with the dark hair and beauty that one associate had described to Rachel as 'uncomfortable--no one should be that pretty, you know?' Yet there she was, her beauty tempered by the clothes she wore: a black tank top, a black leather jacket that barely reached her waist, and dark denim jeans. "What the hell are you guys doing?" Words accompanied with the hint of a smile.

Yanci, the younger latina at the opposite end of the table as the two men, spoke first, "Dre and I are plotting the downfall of Tara Kearney."

The deep, low, voice of Andre followed: "Nothing too overt. Quick strikes designed to sow confusion and display just how vulnerable she leaves her people. Her strength is the people that fight for her, but all she really has are Brujah broods. With our PMC assets, the Ghoul Squad alone should have maximum effect on Tara's essential groups. Right now we're planning three hits: one by Ghoul Squad on her Oceanside compound, one by the former Commandos on her North Island property, and the third my own boys down closer to the border."

"Can you contact the Sabbat along the border?"

"Tijauna? You mean Cicatriz?"

"Who's the one in LA y'all have been watching closely forever?" The Tremere with the long dark hair popped his head up again, wondering aloud. The dirty blonde, Rachel, placed her other hand over the mic of her smartphone to answer quick and quiet.

"That's Leila Monroe."

Andre snorted laughter back, "The bitch that thinks she KNOW LA but don't even know about us? Yeah, that one."

As much as it seemed to amuse Andre, Yanci seemed less so, "The bitch that thinks she has the 'connections' in Hollywood."

"Why do you need me to contact the Noddist Bishop?" Eva finally had to cut them off and ask, chuckling as she interjected.

"He's been locked in a fight with Tara for a while now," Yanci began to explain, and Eva was able to pick up the thread of thought from there.

"Ah. Use the Sabbat to weaken her? What are the chances he'll do that anyway? How does that help you keep San Diego?"

"If the Sabbat really wanted San Diego, they would have gone for it by now. They're too focused on the East Coast." Andre's deep tone sounded more or less bemused by the suggestion as he dismissed the idea of real Sabbat challenge to San Diego. "He'll know when we start hitting Tara, but it won't be actionable intelligence because it's all going to get to him via word of mouth delay."

Eva had started watching the dirty blonde Ventrue Rachel as she paced and talked and talked and paced and talked, entirely seperate from the conversation at hand. When the pacing brought Rachel back by Eva, the elder Kindred snuck her right hand out of the leather jacket front pocket and tapped Rachel's passing elbow to get her attention. Only when she had Rachel's pretty brown eyes did Eva speak, "What's up?"

"Vannevar Thomas," she whispered, again holding her other hand over the mic on the smartphone.

Eva's face contorted in sudden confusion, "Thomas has gotten stonewalled at every turn in Los Angeles for real influence and/or power. The Ghouls in government we've already disposed of the day he made them, and Hollywood refuses to even acknolwedge his existence, let alone his self proclaimed Princehood...?"

Again, Rachel covered the mic on the smartphone, and her eyes took on a harder gaze, "I know he's already losing."

Eva gave a bark of laughter, incredulous, "Uh, yeah, badly."

"Well...he can always be losing worse." The Ventrue shrugged, casually, before simply continuing on with her pacing and soft influence peddling on the phone to ensure the absolute and utter destruction of Thomas's reputation within SoCal.

"Does he even know who's behind his incredible bad fortune in LA?"

"Not from what I hear," Mateo, the Tremere with the long dark hair, spoke up without looking up from the laptop this time, "we have a few low ranking Tremere in Seattle that have secretly joined the Digital Draculas, they feed us information via Masika St. John. We know from hacked bank records that Vannevar is spending more and more as his answer to getting stonewalled here so far."

"Los Angeles is already flush in money, stupid ass," Andre's eloquence made Eva smile, and Yanci and Mateo snicker. The phone in her pocket gave a soundless vibration, beckoning Eva to remove it and see who was contacting her. And whether they were contacting Eva, or if they were contacting the 13th Generation Toreador thin-blooded that was popular among the Caitiffs, Thinblooded, and Anarchs in the city like the ones under Jenna Cross. The number that popped up, however, even made Eva blink a few times. She never did accept the call, instead pressing the red button to dismiss it.

It was the girl. And if the girl was reaching out to her...

"Shit. I have to go. Wrap up Tara Kearney as fast as you can, let me know how that one goes. Rachel..." The dirty blonde stopped and turned to look at Eva, leaving the elder with a smile. "You just keep hurting Vannevar. When he's ready to cry uncle we can make a move."

"Oh! One last thing, any objection to my approaching Corbett?"

The mental math of that took a few seconds for Eva, "...okay, just be careful with that one. And work fast, we're running out of time." Everyone at the conference room table looked up when Eva spoke those words, and stared. She knew things they did not, and that was about the extent with which she wanted to concern them with what was coming. There would be time for her to give them the rest of it and to re-focus them, even if not much, and Eva felt the pull at the back of her mind to remind her. "Let me know if something happens."

She waved to the front desk attendant, Courtney, a UCLA Law student who needed the money and thought she was working for some kind of organized crime organization. Close enough, sometimes, Eva couldn't help but think as she slipped into the elevator and started to ponder just how exactly this was going to go. From the reports of her little spies a Garou had gotten involved on her behalf; and if that was true she knew exactly who and exactly why. And it made her grin, even if the rest of the report did the opposite: a Gangrel? If Eva got involved at all she might be breaking some Gangrel tradition.

But this was a city Gangrel, and she had seen the guy before, a cretin that drifted from Vancouver to San Diego and back again finding victims. He was supposed to be some kind of priest for some kind of Sabbat pack, but the pack had been picked apart over decades and he was the last one. Sabbat didn't make it any better, given the Gangrel's loner state in the greater scheme now. The apartment complex didn't take too long to get to, and was less a complex and more of a small collection of buildings. It wasn't new, by any means, but it wasn't old and run down either.

It was affordable, and anything near downtown Los Angeles that was affordable was a minor coup of real estate. There were a number of construction workers; it wasn't hard to tell from browsing the vehicles parked in the parking lot or peering at the little porch in front of each apartment, or their back balconies. She walked around the apartment complex a few times, finding at most an old latina woman in an old dress that spoke in her direction about God. Eva ignored it. On the third circle around the building Eva hoped to the second story balcony, the sliding glass door was an easy thing to silently get past.

Eva smelled the woman immediately, in the bedroom. The apartment was frenzied in places, there had been by Eva's estimation at least one solid freak out in the apartment since the woman returned with a new kind of existence. They couldn't stay, Eva sighed, knowing what happened when newly turned Kindred stayed in places that had been "home" just nights before: they got caught and killed. But she couldn't just walk up to her and demand she pack. Instead the Toreador found a chair in the liviing room that faced the little apartment hallway that led to the woman's bedroom, and sat down, waiting.

Listening to voices only she was hearing right now. Voices that didn't seem to know she was listening. Voices in the ancient blood.

[Mole]

_{P E T E R L A P I N}

---

^{H e n r y ' s S u n s e t L o u n g e}

Sunless, avid eyes danced around the streets of Los Angeles, California. Pale, kindred ears rang with vibrations from various places, causing their owner’s concentration to become warily enamored by the brilliance and industrious mechanics mouthing loudly into the nightlife. As long as Peter had taken up some sort of residency in the unholy city, he had still, yet, to regain some sort of coherency over the strangeness elongating into his future of occupancy. A contemplative thought of using some sort of earbuds to asphyxiate the perpetual buzzing spurred every once in a while, but the recent establishments of drama had escalated quite tremendously. Even with the illogically delicate senses that the Malkavian had unfortunately procured upon his embrace, he had no desire to snuff them. Although, for several moments he had felt some sense of relief that the Prince was a fallen. Peter’s presence had been wearing dry around the Prince’s patience, but the Elder’s death held a notable close truth — it was more dangerous than usual.

That’s what the voices said, anyways.

The Malkavian found it also to be true, while tightly holding the soft, pale hand of his Retainer, Melanie, that he kind of enjoyed what was left of his humanity as much as his gluttonous desire to submit himself fully over to that perpetually growling beast itching at the back of his brain like an unquenchable parasitic worm wanted to be set free. Intuitively, he knew a well-lived survival was unlikely for a constantly frenzying vampire, or maybe it was something the fallen Prince had repeatedly reminded him. Either way, with responsiveness, Melanie’s dimwitted companionship offered a decent condolence for Peter’s concentration that clenched and grinded his teeth together silently.

Melanie was wearing a nice white dress. It clung to her subtly curvy body, which stood relatively close in height to Peter’s barely adult physique. He enjoyed her frame almost too much; it reminded him of someone comforting he knew before he was Embraced. Occasionally, he would come across the memory in the dreary, bat-ridden labyrinth of his mind. He did not have any time to unbalance his already shaken mood by contemplating his attraction to her, for tonight his mind was racing ceaselessly from one web of thought to the next as each musing sparkled like small pieces of gold with every passing streetlight. He needed to be somewhere; he needed to see through the silk, threads entangling his rapid mind. He needed the splendor more than the hazy drunkenness that always cooed and lulled him time-after-time into the Madness Network.

There was finally a thought that Melanie’s company was not enough as his muscles stiffened with anxious anticipation, and in a quick vain panic, his eyes automatically darted upwards and over the city lights where the sky was foreign, black, and misty — kind of like the eyes of Melanie’s daughter, Annie, when the dark circles, symmetrically implanted on her young, doll face would expand great lengths against the dusky amber gems containing those two black, interesting, mortal orbs of an existence. They would open wide when she wanted Peter to take something from her, and he was hardly opposed to nipping his teeth like large needles through her smooth skin and tasting her precious Vitae while her throat vibrated soft mewls of humanly pleasure.

At some irrational point, he wanted to take Annie instead of Melanie, if only because she was more compliant to his unorthodox whims. Unfortunately, it was true that she was just a child, and a Kiss would only serve so much during a botched time in the city if things became inconveniently rough. Peter also thought of taking Melanie’s husband, Frank, but he did not offer such nurturing movements with his masculine body. His eyes were needier with the passive gaze of Melanie’s desirable look. In fact, just the differing sounds of Melanie's kitten heals clicking against the concrete was more comforting than the brutish clomps of Frank’s shoes.

His eyes shrank lower and rested longingly at the black wires webbed around the city. Ravenish birds were perched along the electrical threads like Gothic ornaments about to remind Peter of something important, or maybe it was not important at all. All of his thoughts seemed important all of the time, and it often caused him to blindly retreat further into the unending maze of his insanity. It did not matter this time, anyhow, because the clicking of Melanie’s patent leather heels stopped making sounds. Peter’s left arm extended backwards until his muscle and shoulder pulled into an annoying sensation that caused Peter to stop walking and carefully crept his head around to study Melanie’s paused motions. A slight twitch to his upper lip curled gingerly into a timid half-smile, “Why do you stand — swaying — oh slender birch tree?” His head slowly titled to the side as the vampire’s undead eyes met the Retainer’s mortal stare.

Their eyes drifted from each other’s as Peter’s attention drifted toward’s the thin lines of his Retainer’s gloves. Melanie made such a better front, escort, companion. She attracted more attention than he did, which was a comforting thought when the understanding did pass his way. His smile began to complete itself, but the scene on his face quickly dissipated with the concerned sound of Melanie’s genteel voice, “We’re here, Scott,” there was a tad of lipstick on her front tooth that had smudged from such a heavy application of the rose cosmetic. It caught the Malkavian’s attention more than the words, but still, Peter’s engrossment flickered between the painted, perched lips and his surroundings until finally planting his eyes hungrily over The Sunset Lounge.

Peter was not dressed as nicely as Melanie was, but he did not see any logistically sound reasoning to assume such an aesthetic identity for himself despite the oddity of his plain, colorless t-shirt and dark jeans, “A clumsy little bear was walking through the forest, hmm, my little solnyshkah?” He stepped his body closer to Melanie and looked towards the sky cautiously, as if he expected something to fall from it. He finally settled his agitated muscles as the realization that nothing would attack him convinced him thoroughly. His grip tightened and lead Melanie beyond the opened door and into the bar.

They both stood quietly upon entering as the vampire’s perception hopped around the glass backdrop and change of pace from the outside world, before eventually, gradually twisting his head to face his Retainer to quietly muse the words, “You don’t look your age, solnyshkah.” Peter’s eyes lingered on Melanie’s face until her rosy lips produced less seriousness to mouth some sort of Thank you to him. And, with a gentle flex of his muscle, he continued to pull her deeper and higher into The Sunset. Alas, the silk threads were becoming lucid, again, and his concentration was crawling back into the light.

[Hellion]

_________

Oasis Apartments | West Hollywood | Nicole & Eva

The late night hours dragged on longer than expected, but perhaps that was fortuitous as the woman continued to pace her apartment thinking aloud through all that had transpired hours before; the seed of paranoia sowing discord and despair in her mind. A Glock 22 was held firmly in her hand, giving at least some reassurance that whatever came at her next could be easily dispatched by the firearm. The woman just couldn’t tell what was real anymore. But it wasn’t enough to be plagued by memories that didn’t always feel like her own, as though she were attempting to wake from the most wicked of dreams. No, as the Curse of Caine flowed through her veins, continuing to breakdown whatever vestiges of mortality remained, Nicole could hear voices -and to a certain extent- see vague impressions of ethereal figures walking to and fro as though they were simply passing by on their way to another wall of the bedroom. What was that all about? Was it even normal?

“Normal...” The woman mumbled to herself, allowing a brief chuckle to slip through her lips, shaking her head at such odd concepts. Normalcy seemed to have left a long time ago.

What was that? She wondered, sniffing the air, as a heightened sense of smell kicked in, noticing something new permeating within the apartment. A scent that had not been there before in fact, but was ever-present nonetheless. It was foreign, yet vaguely familiar.

Nicole stopped her pacing for a few moments to pinpoint just where it was coming from, and slowly she stepped out of the bedroom and down the hallway, the coolness of the tiled floor hitting the bottoms of her bare feet. The further down the hallway, the stronger the scent, although far from offensive, but rather, quite pleasant. Certainly nothing the woman had experienced in her own home. And then she stopped just at the mouth of the hallway, raising the firearm up and out toward the unknown. Hair freshly trimmed down to the scalp, and still wrapped in a lavender bath towel from chest to just above her thigh, Nicole held the pistol toward the shadowy figure who sat as calm as could be in the leather armchair situated in the middle of the living room.

“Hey there.”

Nicole stood frozen for a moment, her eyes breaking through the dimness of the ambient light which spilled into the room, and only then did she realize who the figure was.

“Eva?” Nicole cocked her, simultaneously lowering the firearm to her side. “But how did you- ?”

The black leather jacket made the slightest sound as her body stirred just-so in the accent chair of the modest sized Los Angeles apartment, moving to the edge of the seat instead of leaning her body comfortably back into the chair. At Nicole’ shock, the 5th Generation Toreador simply smiled in response.

“You were stalked by a vampire. That vampire turned you into a vampire. That vampire was met with final death. That’s the report I got from several sources; one of which being very big, tall, and furry--like a werewolf. Ringing any bells?”

“That won’t help you.” It was a whisper so soft that had Eva’s lips not been nearly pressed against Nicole’s ear the fledgling vampire would have missed it. Nicole’s body seized, and allowed a half-swallowed gasp, as she saw with her own eyes Eva standing impossibly close to her after she was sitting in the chair across the living room just beats before.

“Speed is a specialty of mine. Your Glock might as well be a clumsy Nerf gun, for all the good it would do you against a vampire like me.” Luckily for you, there aren’t that many Kindred like me. If there are any Kindred like me.

The smile returned to her Eva’s face, softer in expression accompanied with a tone of voice that was warm and friendly, both hands held up palms out at Nicole. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to fight you. I’m here because you have no idea what’s going on. I’m here because in that bar weeks ago I noticed the vampire stalking you; I thought one night in the future you might need a friend. So I gave you the card.”

She was standing now, having “teleported”, or so it would seem to Nicole, from sitting in the chair to whispering in Nicole’s ear right next to her to now standing behind the chair she had originally been sitting in. Finally her hands came down, retreating into the pockets of the stylized leather jacket she wore. “We’ll have to fake your death, you’ll have to leave this apartment…” Eva’s eyes waited until Nicole’s eyes met hers, before letting slip the hardest truth of it, “Your mortal life is over. You have to leave it behind, now. You have to walk away from it. If you don’t you will die.”

”Mortal life...”

Those two works repeated several times on an endless loop in her head, like it really meant anything to her. So much was said in a short span of time from the other woman that Nicole’s mind was on the brink of spinning completely out of control. Was that even possible at this point? Had the police officer gone mad after all? Was the stress of the job, or the trauma of the assault hours earlier taking so much of a toll on her psyche that the line between real and fantasy was blurred? Eva couldn’t be real. She just couldn’t. No one can move that fast. And what was that she said about…

“Vampire?” Nicole snickered, as though a comment like that was the most unusual thing she had heard in her lifetime. “Are you fucking serious? I mean, is this some kind of sick joke?” The woman paced nervously, mumbling incoherently and rubbing her freshly shaven scalp; barely even looking at the dark-haired beauty standing behind the chair while trying to come to terms with something that should not be.

“This is stupid. I know I’m j-just losing my mind, not thinking straight.” She finally blurted out, her tone growing into more of a growl with certain syllables, and a rising temper could be felt deep within the pit of her stomach. Nicole looked down at the gun in her hand, turning her wrist to examine it as though she couldn’t figure out why she had been holding it in the first place. And then let it drop to the carpeted floor, as she staggered back against the wall, and slowly slid down to a sitting position with legs sprawled out and her head hanging low.

“Where am I supposed to go?” She whispered to herself, even though Eva could hear the words clearly all the same. “None of this makes sense…”

“Shhh. Let me help you.”

The words weren’t spoken, they were a whispered purr, one even if Eva had been across the street Nicole would have heard just the same. This time Eva walked at a normal speed across the room and threw her arms around Nicole. The hug was tight, as Eva pulled Nicole in so close and kept her there firmly, Eva’s arms tracing down the girl’s outer shoulders, and outer arms, before snaking around her waist.

Loose enough that Eva could lean back, and stare straight down into Nicole’s eyes with her own golden brown eyes hidden framed in a little eyeliner and natural lashes that looked studio perfect. The effect kicked her as hard as it would have hit Nicole; like a gunshot from a gun too powerful to be controlled. It felt as if her own heart was fluttering fast, a dizzy head and a feeling of warmth...but there was no beating heart, and there was no heat. “Do you feel me, Nicole? Do you feel us?...do you feel the utter lack of heat?”

Eva ripped the towel away from Nicole, as easily as she walked across the room Eva turned Nicole’s shoulders and rearranged her arms quickly to wrap the former cop up from behind; in the daze of the motion Eva had shed her own leather jacket. The only fabric between them was the thin fabric of the black tank top the elder Toreador wore.

“Feel it?...there are no hearts beating…” her cold breath hit Nicole like a wave of fog in darkness, as her arms held Nicole up against her own body, allowing no chance for escape. “I will help you. Look at me.” Nicole’s eyes appeared over the ridge of her shoulder, meeting Eva’s again. Eva squeezed tighter. “...come with me? Let me show you the night?”

[Mole]

_{P E T E R L A P I N}

---

^{H e n r y ' s S u n s e t L o u n g e}

Both the Kindred and Retainer sat next to each other at one of the tables around the luxurious pool. Peter’s right arm was lavishly draped around Melanie’s light frame, and his head was cradled shallowly on her shoulder. Her gentle, gold locks dipped against her dominator’s lucid, dusted ivory cheek as her own blushed cheek was softly rested on his head. A small smile tilted, pushing the skin of Peter’s cheek upwards. A blissful silence held his eyelids closed as the sweet scent of Chanel’s N°5 mercifully laced the skin of his retainer.

Someone of the waitstaff had already come to take their orders, and a single glass of chilled Valpolicella Classico for Melanie was in the making. The moments between the orally spoken request and the time it took for the waitress to show her tan, bare legs, again, the two specious customers exchanged nothing but a silent truce of awareness for each other’s chimerical company dwelling among the buzzing murmurs who spread short voices cautiously around the Lounge’s wiring. It was only a certain amount of time after the waitress dismissed herself to attend another customer’s affairs did Melanie extend a slender wrist and trace her lacy fingers down the stem of the glass before wrapping them delicately around the long, clear neck.

Melanie slowly raised and tilted the glass to study the pale purple liquid. She was not so keen on the formal etiquette of wine tasting, but the polite, outward appearance might as well have said otherwise. Her head lifted as the cool glass was brought to her lips. The shift of her weight stirred Peter’s seeming trance of faux-slumber, and his dark, cloy eyes winced open — only to twist his smile wider and cause his left hand to curve and wander his fingers playfully over the satiny fabric, tightly veiling her inner thigh. The Kindred rubbed his cheek against the warm, milky skin of Melanie’s shoulder and turned his head to embrace her neck with his cold lips. The slightest movement of her muscles trembled as the sip of her wine trickled down her throat, and Peter enjoyed the taut movement, as well as her wanting-stoic response to his teasing hand. Of course, her pulse was saying otherwise, and the heating of her skin against his lips was all so satisfying and lush.

He was tempted to nip through her flushed skin and breach their little immature charade under the dim light hanging above their table. There was only so much Peter could do to Melanie before Frank’s will began standing firmly against Peter’s own undead thoughts, and making Melanie’s heart thump like a timid rabbit’s without him barely touching her was one of them, "You’re being rather frisky today, Scott,” Melanie scoffed satirically. Her glass was placed gently on the white napkin resting lonely on the rich wood table. Her eyes glancing across the pool at several Kindred conversing.

Peter let out a docile, callow growl as his neck tilted forward and moved his cheeks lower on Melanie until he was now caressing the supple cups held jauntily underneath the black thin, clingy fabric adorning her chest. Before the command to move his hand inward on the Ghoul’s body shot from his thoughts to the muscles in his arm and hand, a thin, invisible string weaved effortlessly through the convoluted maze of his mind and pulled his head upwards in one sharp and sudden snap. His attention immediately curved around the network of the room in a panic. Small shadows dripped loud echo laughs from the shadowy corners of the entangled cobweb roped delicately throughout the building.

His mortal servant’s heart beat had changed paces into a further selfish and worried drum of muscle work. It was loud and obnoxious like some onset of misophonia. She was talking lowly at him in question, but her words were drowning in the ghostly echoes as one-by-one, Kindred-after-Kindred trickled slowly through the front door of the Lounge. He could feel his muscles flex and stiffen as his fingers gripped painfully into Melanie and caused her to squirm slightly into her Regnant until she exasperatedly submitted into the growing burn when the late reaction to the hallucinations crawled violently into her senses. Peter hesitantly closed the distance between his mouth and her ear, holding her motionlessly, “The night has come, and she has brought darkness with her — shhh … shhh,” he lulled her in a voice hardly above a whisper. His sickness watched as the infamous Eva made her way to the Kindred he had just been admiring.

Nervous, stiff movements proceeded to move Peter’s actions as black, horned translucent movements mirrored vibrations of the newly arrived guests making their way to the bar counter. The bass of the shadows quickly collapsed to the flooring and dispersed into nothing as reality flooded back into both Peter and Melanie’s visions. The pale, undead hand resting on Melanie’s thigh lifted and took hold of the wine glass, bringing it close to Melanie’s quivering lips, “Drink up, my little Solnyshkah,. The thieving magpie is not going to be giving us any porridge tonight, hmm?” his chin shifted to press his lips against her fearfully moist forehead as his grip on her loosened, “Drink up,” he coaxed her, again, but in a more syrupy voice. The clear glass tipped to her tainted lips, and the dry alcohol dribbled onto her tongue.

Peter was unnecessarily hungry, now. The morning bird got the worm, but what did this order of Strigiformes get for making it out of his usual prowling area? Uncomfortable clawing from the loosely shackled Beast was oozing with a nauseating lust for release, but the Malkavian gave it no such true satisfaction except a small bone to chew emitted in a shy, boyish laugh that caused his body to sink into the cushioned seat. So much was happening. So, so much.

And, if it were not for the ruckus outside spinning some new stimuli of distraction and sensory overload, the Kindred would have been able to more easily navigate through the pulling threads and weaves heavily veiling all the conversations with luscious amounts of comprehension, which upset Peter’s appetite — only because he could not fully grasp any of it but tiny straws that tickled his subconscious more than anything. He felt like he was suffocating here, drowning in the ooze of late night drama, but his mania would not let him leave the scene. The void was too empty, and he did not have anything to persuade it otherwise. Suffering through this madness was all that was left of the night. Such a monotonous repetition of the usual menu was driving him crazier. He was starving for something more stable, and his faux-family was turning more and more demented after each sip of his Vitae.

The glass was placed back on the table, and Peter tucked his head over Melanie’s light curls. He drew in a deep breath of perfume, differing in scent, now from the emotional shift. The distant human memory lingered briefly and then transformed back into the present lunacy of the present: cheshire smiles, dielectric coated glass, lokas, and the undying feeling of eternal torture. The Kindred and his retainer continued haunting Henry's Sunset Lounge’s poolside dining, embraced in the dimness of the vague refuge that the bar had to offer amidst the glittering lights and sharpened knives.

[Fiber]

@Ruby and @Tanderbolt

North of Vernon and south of Interstate 10 was an area in a state of transition. There were warehouses and freight rail by the river that called back to the old days of heavy industry, but mixed among them was a growing mass of more artistic venues, exercises in creative reuse of old spaces. It was a little disappointing in Grace's mind, automation and globalization had reduced the need for that heavy infrastructure, but there was a distinct lack of gratitude for it from what she saw. Instead of trying to be more productive and make bolder discoveries than the last generation, mankind was driving itself to distraction. It was deserted at this time of night, even what productive industry was left remained idle, and without any real residential areas to speak of, the streets were eerily quiet.

She sat in her Tesla as the autopilot drove it around a semi-random path consisting of blocks near but not adjacent to her actual target. A so-called Hackerspace in a converted loft, one that they had flagged as the recipient of interesting traffic. Inquiry into it's finances and ownership revealed a level of opaqueness that removed the possibility of it being used for innocent purposes. Once the FBI had that awful data breach (caused, as always, by human error) and the traffic pattern analysis results came back, this shot up to the very top of the list of places to be investigated. The first stage was typical, a disposable agent in the guise of a cable repairman would enter the premises. Less typical was Grace's presence, using the time to detect signals that less enlightened might miss, and setting up the kinds of surveillance apparatus that required deep knowledge of forbidden hypertechnology. It was boring work, just circling while watching the agent on one screen and a massive stream of data on the other, but at least the rest of the comms were quiet for once.

Eva Mendoza sat in the back of the bar; black denim jacket, pastel pink CALVIN KLEIN teeshirt that clung to her body tight enough to reveal the outline of a black lace bra in vague detail, the jeans she wore were light blue with holes ripped in the left thigh, heeled black boots tied tight. She sipped on a mix of blood and alcohol, yet it did nothing for her, the blood not her type, and the alcohol stunted by the buzz in the back of her head. It was a chorus of voices, each one singular and separate, the echoes cascading through the ages until it met another voice with it's own life and aura, until the two mixed and sang in chorus as two parts of a whole, continuining on until a third joined, a fourth, a fifth, and it never really stopped until it got to Eva's own voice inside her own head.

But it started with him. And as she sat in the back of the LA dive bar in a section of town that was once industrial and now just what remained of the industry, she found herself fixating on the first voice. On the earliest glimpse of tone and voice. She was supposed to be listening to the Brujah barking a story of the LA race riots, and the Kindred civil war they covered. She wasn't. She had lived through it; not Ms. Mendoza, but Eva herself. That none of the Kindred in the bar understood that the 5th Generation Kindred behind the Free State, the City, and the art it was known for was slumped in a back booth listening to the pitch and tone of Caine's own voice was symbolic of their situation.

They had no idea what the ancient past was about to reap.

Something cut through the symphony of voices; distant and low, then closer, higher, and closer and higher until it came like a shrill scream of blood and magic that stabbed into her consciousness like a hot dagger. Her eyes closed tight, a quick inhale of pain and a desperate shifting in her seat lasted all of three seconds. But it was enough to catch the attention of the Brujah next to her: Jenna Cross, Thin-Blooded "leader." For all the talk about how Cross was a leader of the youngest in the Night, Eva just didn't see it. It was a pretty story, and it had no small part to Smiling Jack telling it every chance he got, but it just wasn't true. Not really.

"Everything okay, Eva?"

Her throat cleared in a suppressed cough, and Eva's head shook, dark hair behind pulled back and tight as a technique to focus and pull her mind out of the haze of the blood magic and into the Discipline of Auspex. Some small part of her looked at Cross, nodded, and offered a crooked smile. "Yeah. I need fresh air."

"Not that you breath it."

The smile only grew more crooked, "The ironies in unlife make it all worth it." She was up and out of the bar quickly, most sets of eyes brushing across her as she slipped out. Moving was a matter of walking around the back of the bar, where there was nothing but a small parking lot that had be reduced to part time junkyard. A quick hop on the metal hood of an old Ford sedan, and a quicker jump into the air landed those black heeled boots noiselessly on top of the roof of the small metal recycling operation behind the bar. From there it was a matter of blurs.

She didn't care about the man stepping inside the offices built within the old warehouse. There were server racks, but there were no servers. There were desks and pole mounts for various monitors; yet there were no monitors and there was nothing on or within the desks. It was empty. Moving around the block, however, and her mind's eye caught the real culprit. A Tesla? In this part of Los Angeles? That didn't seem right to Eva. At best you'd get a cheap sports car like a Dodge Charger, or a Ford Mustang. Something plastic and cheap to produce with a shit interior but enough of an engine to justify the purchase.

But a Tesla? Here?

They'd be better off with something with a little more vintage. Eva preferred the classics, her jet black 1963 Shelby Cobra 260ci her favorite automotive child. There was no "autopilot", and yet at the same time...there was no interfering with something as simple as a wire chassis connected ignition and the lightweight 260ci V-8 engine it connected to. Catching the Tesla wasn't a problem, a matter of movement so fast nothing was going to catch the sight of her. Killing the Tesla was a matter of her "secure" phone and the right Mateo made and tested app. One button, and the car's engine died, the car coming to a slow lifeless roll. The second button was the radio; loud, sudden, a random Tejano radio station.

A second. That's what it took. It would take Grace almost half a minute to stare at the vehicle's display and gauges. For her turn the radio off, and for the car to restart. By then Eva had gotten good and comfortable in the back seat, on the passenger side. "Hello, Grace. Do you know what a Generation is for a vampire?"

Car problems happened with prototype systems like autopilot, that was the entire reason they weren't ready for release. Grace went with the restart and diagnostic protocols, thinking to herself that at least it would give them more data. In the middle of it Grace sensed something that was too fast for her to comprehend what it was, just that something happened. It felt like being witness to an explosion, something that tested the limits of human comprehension. She stopped the restart process and went to the SCRAM switch as it was called, but it was too slow, Eva had already started speaking. Grace decided it was better to talk with someone who, while not an ally, was at least non-hostile was better than hoping that that particular system was still working well enough to get herself away from here. She did her best to pretend all was normal, and said

"I know it by inference, though I lack firsthand knowledge. To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you here, Eva?"

"The end of the world as we all know it."

"That is something more serious than artistic matters. So that's why you're coming to someone whose job it is to maintain the world as we know it. Now, exactly what is it that I should be aware of?"

All hints of any smile vanished. "I'm not your enemy." She said it slower than she said anything else, and there was a twist in her tone, almost like the hint of an ancient accent. "There are elements of your Union that are starting to see the threat, but they won't fully open their eyes until the worst begins. By then it will be too late. So when I find you hunting the 'Digital Draculas' that I now fund and support, I have to decide what to do with you."

Silence followed for what seemed a minor eternity of a dozen seconds, until that voice finally returned from the darkness of the backseat in the form a sigh, "We started with Caine, the first generation. The second generation, his 'children', were usurped by the third generation. The fourth generation remains in more numbers than most would suspect, but it's the third generation that can warp reality to their liking. You can drop sun after sun after mystic powered nuclear sun on them and it won't matter. Oh, sure, if you get to them early your Union might drop one. You might not. But by that point...how many millions have died? We control the politics of the world. We can tank economies, governments, and induce mass chaos at such a scale that the world may never recover."

The second sigh was heavier, deeper, "I want your help. I believe I can help save the world. I believe I can help prevent the end, or as we know it; Gehenna. But I need time to parse the data, to make sense of all the puzzle pieces and put it together. The Inquisition, your Union, other Kindred...these are distractions. You don't have to believe me, of course. I'm sure it sounds like a madness. I helped create California as it is today with my sire, the one I destroyed. We created Hollywood together. They say I'm more human than a vampire like me has any right to be. That there must be something wrong with me."

Her tone lightened, almost like she tried to smile again, "I believe that's what is, ultimately, right with me. So I would like your help. If you're not too busy trying to track down rogue mages and Kindred behaving badly, let alone the techno-blood magic Kindred I supported to ultimately assist me save the world."

"Are you familiar with Bayes' Theorem, Eva? If you are, I apologize that this little explanation of my reasoning process will sound redundant. I have a running tally of the probability of different events, and as I receive new information I adjust these probabilities, all while assessing the reliability of this new information. This scenario you describe is a perplexing one; I have little information other than your word, and I have no solid estimate as to how accurate it may be. However, the sheer impact of a negative outcome means it is worthy of concern." Grace took a pause, trying to read the atmosphere in her car. It was tense, tiring to be here right now.

"Now, there are many places we can start. While I'm keen to here what exactly your long term plan is, if there are more immediate matters we can settle, such as who such as the scope of our intelligence operations, that would also be a productive use of time. Even if you just want to have a chat about what you've been up to I'm willing to listen, because it sounds like you've been quite busy."

"Do you want to see it for yourself?"

Grace was surprised, it took a moment to figure out what Eva was alluding to. She calmed herself down, place some trust in the safeguards in place, and said

"Yes, I would. I believe I'm equipped for that sort of mental collaboration."

"Getting the shadow truths of the future will always cost you your past, Margaret." Eva's eyes closed behind thick, dark, lashes. Long white frosted fingernails reached out as Eva leaned just forward, a simple frozen touch on the back of Grace's neck. Eva's blood stirred as it burned through the Discipline of Auspex, and opened the Pandora's Box of what was inside Eva's mind to the mage. Not a full stream, but only the short clips and phrases that the mage could endure in one moment stretched infinite.

Grace’s eyes went wide out of reflex, the images bypassed her optical nerve and went straight into the cortex. It was one she knew she had seen before but had no recollection of where, a disturbing bit of source amnesia. The figure of a charred corpse that lumbered and moved like a man, no eyes but a mouth that howled with hunger, sharp fangs visible as it’s gaping maw trembled. It stepped over a field of corpses, all radiating with a pain that even death had not ended, reality itself becoming deranged, illusion devouring the real world. Black soot fell from the clouds around along with raindrops, choking the air and covering all in ash. As the scene darkened from the fallout a column of light engulfed it, the intensity of the sun focused ten thousand times on one spot. All was bright, all was silent, except one familiar voice, one that only Grace knew. It was the one who came to her in dreams, the one who only called himself Claude, and all he said was three words, “This is why”

After the light there were new images, ones she had never seen before. She saw the earth from high above, miles above the surface, soaring over the darkened earth. Below there were no lights, no civilization, as though she was seeing the distant past. Out of the darkness a flash of light came and then an orange sphere of fire, lighting up the surroundings enough that Grace could see the geography, scale it, even estimate the yield. It was in the kiloton range, and as she saw it another nuclear blast went off, then a dozen more, so many that they covered every bit of land in her field of view. They were like a brick of firecrackers set off, turning night into day, and never relenting. Then her view shifted, moving faster, five thousand miles per second, circling the earth so fast that all appeared as a blur but even then she could see more nuclear fire engulfing every corner of the earth. It paused for a moment and she counted the yield, megaton after megaton of man’s most hateful weapons, punctuated with one that yield over a hundred megatons, a fireball so large the shockwaves of it prevented it from touching the earth. At the final moment of her vision it moved again to the ground, to the very center of it, where there stood one man with unkempt hair, fury in his eyes, and unmistakable sharp fangs. He stood there untarnished and immovable, not one hair on his head damaged by the onslaught.

When Eva leaned forward again, it was with her hands in her lap, and her lips close to Grace's ear as her voice reduced to a near whisper, "How's your probabilities looking now, Agent?"

It was moments like these that Grace felt the effects the dosing regimen most strongly. The chemicals did many things, they prevented fatigue even after sleepless nights, they reduced bouts of anger to mild annoyances to allow for clear decision making, and in moments like these they were supposed to control the effects of stress and trauma. There was a lot it could do, slow the heart rate down to a perfectly stable and normal rate, enhance the clarity of memories, even work with the vocal tone to make it all sound just as calm and dull as it would be in normal circumstances. What it couldn't was really change the thoughts in her head, actually hold it together when it was all falling apart. All it did was help her put on a strong face, keep the same tone of voice and measured speech pattern she always had. Grace said

"Well, to put it in technical terms, I find myself making a rather large adjustment to the Kurtosis of my previous model of risk posed by vampires. To be more blunt, I made a mistake, I committed the oldest error in induction. The same one that we make when we say a swan can never be black because no man has yet seen a black swan, the same one a cow makes when it expects food from the farmer on the day it has finally matured enough to be sent to the slaughterhouse. Do you have plan? Even if you don't, I have some other questions."

Eva laughed as she leaned her body back into the backseat of the Tesla. "Yeah, survive, and try to get Los Angeles under some kind of control between wanna-be Princes, Barons, and the Inquisition. That way I can focus on what I need to do next, what 'we' need to do next."

Behind her dark sunglasses, Grace rolled her eyes. She should've predicted that the plan would begin with consolidating power, but if that succeeded at least it would make things simpler in the future. She said
"I can keep my operations out your affairs for the time being, but that requires information sharing, and I don't consider a data breach on the employer of my current cover identity the sort of information sharing that will lead to a productive relationship. Because of the nature of this, I'm prepared to be more open than I have been in the past, even about matters my superiors would prefer I do not discuss."

"Your 'superiors' won't have a Union left if you don't, I'm afraid." The tone in which she gave the warning bordered on playful. It wasn't a threat, the tone made that perfectly clear, "Process and decide what you want to do with what you now know. You've got my phone number. Reach out and I'll come find you. Good luck."

"One last thing. I know you showed me images, but I heard words too, and I recognized the voice. It's one I've heard before in my dreams, not all the time but often enough, and when I listen to it I feel like it's a part of me even when it's telling me things I don't know. I learned a lot through the traditional ways of studying, whether it's books or neural downloads, but what I get from this is not just knowledge, but understanding. I'm not the only one who is like this. This phenomenon is common, possibly univsersal among enlightened personnel, we've named it, even found a way to measure it, but discussing it is still taboo. It's eerily similar to the what reality deviants write about and call "the avatar", something that all of them have, also. In fact, both our sources and theirs have found that it's something even mundane people have, the only difference is it's a silent, sleeping version of the same energy. This is a lot of preface for something I don't discuss, but it's to say one thing. I know when it tells me something, I should listen, and it told me three words: 'This is why'.

"I did warn you about the cost of shadow truths, Mage; your past. You will have to reconcile that with what you think you know, to find out what you actually know. Like I said...good luck."

[Sini]

Driven from Topanga by the botched hit on his unlife, John moved into Brentwood. Though it was just a small step down from the mountains, it was a step in the right direction for a Ventrue ousted from his lair and now looking to move into the city proper. Nestled between Santa Monica and the hills, the westside neighbourhood was flush with money. Even its palms and cypresses had the colour of dollar bills. Neat plots of mansions, and country clubs proclaimed the area’s wealth and luxury. It was ideal to gaze eastward at L.A. and attempt to pierce the fog that was Kindred politics.

John and his crew had swept into a highrise on Wilshire Boulevard. It was owned by one of his underlings, and considered a temporary safe haven. The storefront advertised tobacco and imported liquor, but its true business was a covert club in the back. Poker, poles and prostitutes comprised the den of vice where Johnny Rook sojourned. While rigorous in discipline, he had always felt a pull towards the wickedness of men and women. He experienced a strong attraction to the sordid indulgences that constituted human or Kindred behaviour, and the private club was a perfect place for that. The path to pleasure was often crooked and littered with potholes, and John did so enjoy judging people. It helped pass the time as he searched for more permanent lodgings and information on the chaotic state of Los Angeles.

Sat in the booth with the best vantage point, the Ventrue lazily dragged his eyes across the red-and-purple lit room. An iced bucket of Russo-Baltique had been brought over for show and remained untouched upon the polished table. However, not all worldly pleasures went to waste. A female dancer was making sweet love to the silver pole on centre stage, her curvaceous body oscillating to the slow sway of the a remastered synthwave track. John might have been dead for centuries, but he still relished the sight of supple and warm flesh undulating. Greedily he drank in the sight of her and wondered if she had ever drawn another person’s blood. He would love to drink from her. It was therefore with some regret that he responded affirmatively to someone joining him at his table.

Finding out WHERE had been ever-so-slightly difficult. Agents of the Inquisition, even splinter cells of hunters, were monitored by the security network. Rachel would have been much more impressed with Andre had his watchers told them of the strike BEFORE it happened, as recently nothing seemed to please Eva more than infiltrating or hurting the Inquisition. 'Humans that have forgotten they are human,' she had called them. It struck Rachel oddly, but there was yet no denying the pleasure Rachel's elder gained from foiled attempts by agents and hunters alike.

So when they heard the news coming out of Topanga, Eva seemed happy to hear it. Rachel was even happier to hear it: a rogue Ventrue from the Camarilla? With no apparent ties to the false Prince from Seattle? It was enough to excite her, and finding him thereafter had been a matter of tapping into the network of contacts that was in every single contour of Los Angeles. Before Rachel it had been Yanci who mostly curated the network of contacts, trained by Eva herself. Yanci was alright at it, but there was a certain level of attention to detail that could have made it all better.

So Rachel took it over, running it like she might a network of junior partners and their clients at a large modern law firm. When she started to make calls it wasn't very long before one of those she called, a ghoul with a security assets firm that specialized in hacking camera networks and facial recognition, was quick to tell her all about this event his people had logged. Rachel pretended to care as the ghoul gave her details Andre's watchers already passed along, but where Andre's watchers had finished with the end of the 'hit' on Corbett this ghoul had tracked the fallout.

That led them to the highrise in Brentwood, of all places. Brentwood. When she got the location, the rest was simply too easy: Brentwood had always been a stomping grounds of Eva's, as had many of the neighborhoods that had been around since Hollywoodland's Golden Age. They had eyes and ears everywhere, and those eyes and ears had yet more contacts that were begging to pass along information. The money never ran out, but more than hard currency was the currency in Los Angeles that ACTUALLY mattered to everyone: who you knew and what those you knew would do for you.

Charles was a Brentwood centered Bouncer who lived in a crappy little house near Venice. Big, bulky, and presumed by most to be one kind of idiot or another--Charles was desperate for an audition on a sword and fantasy themed show that had exploded in popularity on its streaming service. He wanted to play one of the Knights, and try as he did to send in letter after letter after letter and tape after tape it just wasn't working. It never did; that's why the currency of Los Angeles was what it was. Yet when Charles passed along the news of a secret new club in Brentwood, at a highrise that meant something to Rachel...

All Rachel had to do was ask Yanci to set up the audition for Charles. Even as Rachel arrived at the building and found parking down the street, Charles was at Studio City, being auditioned. He'd get the no-lines bit role. Charles didn't know that, yet, but Rachel did thanks to Yanci. Meanwhile she got the location of the man she was looking for. Getting into the club, however, took a bit of performance from her. She showed up in a dark grey pencil skirt that stretched over her long-legged form, a matching standing collar blazer with buttoned sleeves that were pushed to her elbows, a white silk button up blouse under it. There was no jewelry, and her hair was a simple yet perfectly maintained middle part of straight hair that fell just past her jawline.

"Rook needs to see me."

It was more than a little surprise to Rachel when that was enough. She was checked for weapons; all she had was a smartphone within the inner pocket of her blazer. It was one of Maty's 'special' phones. Technobloodmagic, secure and free from trace. Maty and Eva had developed the phones for each of them; Yanci loved her's, Andre distrusted his and rarely used it, while it was anyone's guess if Eva was even using her's. She had been rarely seen lately, even by her own coterie. Her appearance in Santa Monica at the conference room had been a surprise, and a welcome one at that.

She didn't want to approach Corbett without Eva’s blessing. Because working without her blessing generally meant working without the tools she could provide. There would, for example, be no audition for Charles set up by Yanci if not for Eva's blessing being given to approach Corbett. Heels clicked as Rachel approached, her smile was polite as her tone, and she seemed utterly oblivious to the club's 'entertainment.'

"Jaoseph de Corbet, hello. My name is Rachel, and I represent the controlling party of Los Angeles. May I sit so that we can discuss some things?"

John had watched the woman in office wear strut on over with as bland an expression on his face he could muster. The way she appeared, in pencil skirt and pumps, showed she was all business: the polar opposite of the pole dancer. She would be better at home at some high end law firm. Who knew, perhaps she had just come straight from one? He was about to ask if he was being subpoenaed but got the wind knocked out of his sails when she not only got straight to the point, but used his Norman name. “Simply John is fine.” Upon hearing this echo of his past, John tensed somewhat, instantly on his qui vive.

“I am being found by all sorts of parties these days, making demands on my time. Still, I can never object to the company of a beautiful woman,” said the Ventrue male. A bit cliché, but he adhered to etiquette even when dealing with strangers. He had stood, until she was seated, then returned to his own. The words were courteous, but his tone was deadpan. After all, to him Rachel had manifested from thin air and he would treat her as a spectre until proven otherwise - no matter how pretty or professional she looked. She had done him the courtesy of being direct. He returned the favour, meanwhile looking for a way to even the playing field. Finding out just who she was and what faction she represented would be a good start. “Quite helpful, too. Who is the controlling party in this city exactly? You tracked me down, so you must know I have not been intimate,” John wove a pause into his verbal tapestry, “with its ‘turf wars’. There are more smoke and mirrors in L.A.’s politics than all of its clubs and brothels combined.” He was aware that referring to the conflicts between the Anarchs, Camarilla and the Sabbat was belittling, but he had always been one to poke a stick in a bee-hive.

Rachel found herself showing amusement with a deep cut smile on her red, polished, lips as she sat at the end of the booth seat and scooted her ass over one hip swivel at a time. Booths were not meant for women in pencil skirts, and the world at large was not easily navigated wearing high heels...a truth that was true in more ways than one.

“I’m sorry,” she said off the cuff, but polite, “I just sometimes find myself tickled that people miss the obvious. I did, too; you’re in fine company. Each so-called ‘Prince of Los Angeles’ right now, as well. As if Hollywood could have been the product of anything but a Toreador.”

Rachel reminded herself there was a Toreador that had met Final Death, yet even there the Camarilla’s information had been slim. So Rachel saying a Toreador was behind Hollywood’s inception didn’t mean anything seismic. It could have been the sole work of the dead Kid.
“When Los Angeles started, as I understand it, it was a collection of ranches. In fact much of the real estate in Southern California can be traced back to, if not the Spanish, then to the Mexican land grants after Mexican independence. That was it. A crashed ship on its way to the Far East held a Toreador. They were young, both in terms of physical appearance, far younger than typically sired today, and young in terms of their unlife. They weren’t quite the success anyone had hoped before, so they went west to find...something. Some success they could call their own.”

Her slender shoulders shrugged in the dark gray shiny blazer as she carefully retrieved her phone and placed it on the table in front of her. “You find this story, one form of it or another, in a lot of kine and Kindred. We found you because of a bouncer listening to the right person at the right moment. This bouncer wanted an audition on one of those fantasy sword and shield shows. On his own he could never attain it, but give the right morsel of information to the right ear and...a simple-minded kine gave me a place to look at. Our security did the research to confirm, and here I am. Bouncer wants the same as this young Toreador so long ago...he just wants that success that had eluded him elsewhere, in the normal world. In La La Land, however, I understand he’s at the audition now. Best of luck to him.”

The smile was gone as she spoke, and she spoke fast. A cadence that slowed as she returned to the primary story: “This young Toreador meets a woman, a guide and translator. She says she’s from Central America, but how she got all the way to California she never did say. Toreador and this woman stay up for nights talking, dreaming, of what could be. The night before she is to leave with her party of Mexican officials, he embraces her. Together they begin to create not Los Angeles, as I would have thought, but first they focused on the bigger picture: they began an influence campaign against Mexico, in favor of the United States. When the Mexican-American War began, they were ready. Then they focused on Los Angeles, and began everything from irrigation to sewer projects, to clearing out stubborn ranch owners who were ‘stuck in the past’, to hear her say it. Then one night, after seeing a moving picture for the first time, they dreamed up Hollywood more or less as it was in the Golden Age. They got to work. Over time they both stayed hidden, but controlled the levers of power since California, and Los Angeles, and Hollywood, were literally built by them from their shadowy perches.”

She tried not to sigh. She swallowed it, well enough, but with enough attention he would have seen it in her dark eyes, even if he hadn’t heard it. “Then the child, over time, gets unruly and overly impulsive. He threatens everything the two had built. I heard he met Final Death after holding a Kindred event that almost, almost, broke the Masquerade. His childer and her people remained, but there was nothing to take up...by then they were already managing various parts of the city and this section of the state because the young Toreador had long ago gotten bored. From judges to universities to police unions to dock workers to Hollywood studios. Recently Los Angeles has seen a surge in tech companies, preferring LA’s real estate climate to San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Los Angeles always planned to be big, San Fran and Silicon Valley not as much.”

Her hands clasped together and came to rest on the table, next to her phone, her eyes carefully reading his, “And there it is, John. You know more than...85% of the Kindred in this city, even those who have been here for decades. Even those who have dug deep, trying to find the power players. Makes sense. In every other city in the world that’s how it works. In the City of Angels...the power players find you. Or they let you play at your game from afar, allowing you your ignorance. It’s easier to block someone like a Prince Vannevar from Seattle if he has no idea who he’s even trying to out fox. But say there was someone new to the city that could be useful to these power players, and those power players could be useful to this someone new...especially at a time when there are already so many claiming to be Prince, or Baron…”

Her hands lifted as she casually shrugged, a motion so loose and unbuttoned it almost surprised Rachel she did it. “That would be perfect. If only both sides could find a common cause, a way to benefit both, such that both would be satisfied. If only.”

John watched Rachel like a hungry hawk, studying her beautiful face to both catch her out in a lie and marvel at her looks. He could have been spared the history lesson, as he had more or less lived through it. Furthermore, the things he had not witnessed, he could look up in this modern age of information. However, her polite tone had kept John from shutting her up, repaying her civility with patience. Besides, he could watch a woman he was visibly attracted to talk all night. Her story was as old as time: fated lovers falling out. A quarrel spiralling out of control. These were things he was intimately familiar with. What confused him, though, was the mention of a child. Was Rachel referring to the young Toreador who embraced his lover, or did they have progeny of their own or…? The whole thing smacked of scandal and drama, and though John was not one to usually encourage such things he did lap it up eagerly. “What a messy history,” he commented, as he let Rachel finish her story.

Upon the mention of Vannevar, John’s features clouded. “Vannevar is a power-mad glutton who is paranoid about conserving what little influence he has. I harbour no illusions in regards to how weak Camarilla is in these parts. In fact, I hold him and his ilk responsible for leaving me exposed.” In truth, he held himself equally responsible, but unless Rachel was pulling wool over his eyes she would welcome criticism towards the local Camarilla leadership.

He had watched her produce a phone from her pocket, further confirming that she was not part of the Camarilla. Rachel spoke of Toreador, but he could tell she was not one herself. “What’s this? Are we to record a recruitment conversation?” John chuckled indulgently, then responded in a low-pitched voice suitable for a hot summer night. His interest was piqued, partly by her most agreeable appearance, and partly by what she had told him. If it proved the truth, then he was flattered by the trust, and the risk she took in divulging the story. “Mutual satisfaction is, apart from the goal of any pleasurable relationship, forever a guarantee to maintain the status quo.”

John absent-mindedly ran a hand through his hair and considered his words. “So you are here on behalf of this… disillusioned artisan, trying to sniff out if I can be useful to her?” The question was largely rhetorical, a verbal check that he had understood the woman opposite him correctly. “You are here to ask me what I want, and propose what? A perfect partnership? I very much doubt that aside from your hairdo or the accuracy with which you apply your lipstick, perfection exists.” Though he flattered, he had still thrown her words back in her pretty face. “Mutual satisfaction… now that might be attainable. I am in a reactive mood, frustrated and put on the back foot. That makes me feel like lashing out. I just need to find out who was responsible for the hit on me.” John laid his cards out on the table. “The same resources you used to locate me with would be a good start… and tell me how I may be useful to you.” Even if it was impolite to point, John put his right thumb on his broad chest, before turning his index towards Rachel. He liked the double entendre, for wit and flirtation were fun ways to pass the time.

A quick glance from the phone to John, to the phone again left Rachel’s face with nothing but the spectre of a slippery smile, gone again soon as it had settled upon the red lipstick of her lips. If the charm was having any effect it was as visible on her face as starlight on a cloud covered night.

“Who went after you? The Inquisition. A rather pathetic band of them, no less, not the hyper-vigilant and rather capable Inquisition agents we’ve been stalking for months. If you want to see if any of them are left to kill, yeah, sure. I can ask the part of our group that would know, or be able to find out relatively quickly.”

The phone took up her attention as she fired a series of texts off, and in regards to the phone, she finally did address it: “No, I am not recording anything. Our resources have allowed us magically ‘secure’ phones, it’s one way in which we’ve stayed ahead of this new Inquisition.”

The phone went down the moment the text was finished, and as it did that slippery smile returned. “I’m asking for the location of any of those Society of Leopold fanatics remain of the group here in LA that assaulted you. And--” The phone buzzed, her index finger sliding across the glass of it’s screen as it remained flat on the table. The screen was blank and white to him, but to her… "They were based out of Oxnard, a shitty industrial city about twenty minutes up the PCH. ‘Knight Investigations,’ a Private Investigations company records say belongs to a former California state police detective, the location listed is a retail office space in an Oxnard Strip Mall next to a Jackson-Hewitt tax office and a Nail Salon.”

Rachel presumed Rook would remember those details, clicking the phone’s screen dead with a side button, returning her eyes back to his. “We need Thomas to return to Seattle. He’ll meet Final Death there, more than likely, but that’s secondary; we need to focus and we can’t do that with him here. We’ve denied him and embarrassed him but we’re too busy to confront him directly. The Camarilla will not find a foothold here, in any form, and our Elder is done allowing pretend Princes purchase in her Free State.”

A quick pocket reach and she produced a card, matte lavender with a simple white phone number on one side, and nothing on the other. The other item she retrieved from her coat was a simple black gel ink pen, scribbling in quick but large and flared numbers another phone number on the blank side. She displayed it, holding it up in the air between her index finger and thumb, before laying it flat on the table and slowly sliding it over to him. “I can’t believe I’m fucking saying this, but Gehenna is coming. When the voices in your blood begin to boil and you feel an inescapable pull attempt to enslave you, use the card. If you’re smart and quick enough, we can help you. If not, it was very nice having met you, good luck when the world begins to end. If you require assistance or coordination regarding Thomas, call the number I wrote down--it’s my phone. If I were you I would expel him and claim the title of Prince as my own, however empty a title it is, it would deter others from claiming it. But,” Rachel simply shrugged, returning the pen and phone to the internal pocket of the blazer, “as my Coterie likes to say to me, ‘you do you boo.’ Have a wonderful night, Sir.”

Her voice exaggerated the Knightly title as she nodded gently, and scooted her toned ass out of the booth with a few easy motions, the clicking of her heels announcing her departure.

He hated to see her leave, but loved watching her go. John was left in his booth, to order his thoughts and make sense of all this. And then there was the looming apocalypse of Gehenna. He had come to the city to dispense his own brand of justice, but had now been seduced to greater things. It was as if a coin had been flipped in his mind, and he was waiting for how it would drop. John watched the woman dancing on the pole again, wrapping herself around it and twisting her body into poses a ballet dancer could be jealous of. He thought he might know how she felt.

[Bloodrose]

Only one person in the room was alive.

Well, truly alive.

That haughty, arrogant cowboy, with his stupid, twangy voice.

Gracie Goulbourne watched the smug prick strut about like some pompous peacock, as everyone took their seats.

He was still warm. Still had kine blood pumping in his living veins.

“Thank you for coming, brothers and sisters,” Calantha, the one who had called the gathering, addressed the room, her slender arms spread wide, “I know that you all have important matters to attend to, so I’ll try not to keep you too long.”

Gracie’s one good eye danced about in its burnt socket, surveying the room. The nosferatu bore the flames of Liverpool’s blitz upon her gnarled form. The archetypal deformity of her bloodline had manifested itself in scorching, sweltering burns, which covered every inch of her body.

Besides Calantha, whom today had long tendrils of flesh and bone in the place of hair, there were three others in the room, not including Gracie.

There was Tate, an enormous, dark-skinned Brujah-Antitribu, whose quest for freedom and liberty, above all else, had driven him into the clutches of the Sword of Caine.

Then there was Johnny C, a slick, suave Ventrue-Antitribu, who moved with the kind of finesse and elegance that would have made a Toreador go purple with jealousy. He wore a crisp white suit, and apparently worked “in the movies”. Gracie had known most Sabbat to have a precarious relationship with the Masquerade, at the best of times, so she wasn’t sure exactly how involved Johnny was “in the movies”, or even what movies he was involved with.

And finally, there was the stupid cowboy.

“I’m still something of a newcomer to these lands, and so I have turned to you, my friends, to aid me in my endeavours,” Calantha continued, her voice graceful and refined, “I am set to be reunited with an old falme, and I would like to do something special to mark the occasion.”

“I didn’t know that you types had old flames,” the stupid cowboy, Harry Jones, chuckled, running his fingers down the fringes of his daft jacket, “guess you learn somethin’ new every day. Or, every night.”

Gracie watched a plump vein in the cowboy’s neck bulge, calling to the untameable beast within her.

Calantha had made it explicitly clear to Gracie that Jones was not to be touched.

At least not without her say-so.

Gracie knew how particular Calantha was when it came to manners and etiquette. She took her little rituals very seriously.

“What is it that you want from us, sister?” Tate asked, his voice a deep, booming grumble.

“Your resources, brother,” Calantha replied, “whatever you can offer me. The favours which you have garnered in these rolling hills. The secret whispers which you hear twittering in the shadows, and quiet corners. I need your knowledge, and your know-how. I am on the cusp of understanding this land of adventure and opportunity, but the mysteries of the new world are known to you all. Help me, and I shall help you.”

“Speakin’ of helpin’,” Jones pipped up, “I delivered my club to you, just like you asked. You got the good stuff for me?”

Calantha nodded to Johnny C.

Wordlessly, the Venture reached into the pocket of his spruce jacket, and pulled out a bag of white powder, which he tossed over to the cowboy.

Jones grinned.

“You mind if I rack up here?” he asked.

Calantha shook her head.

“By all means.”

Beaming like a giddy child, Jones pulled out a rolled-up dollar bill, poured a fat line of powder out onto the tabletop, and began greedily snorting the dust up into his nostrils.

There was a look of cold displeasure on Johnny C’s pale face, but he said nothing.

“Why do we need the Kine’s club?” Tate asked.

“All will become clear, in time, brother.” Calantha explained.

Suddenly, Jones let out a sharp, pained, gasp.

The cowboy shrieked in agony, as twin trails of clotted blood began to ooze out of his nose. His face turned a sickly shade of violet, and he started to cough, fiercely.

Jones tried to speak, but all that escaped his mouth was a shrill, earsplitting wail.

Johnny C grabbed hold of Jones by the scruff of his stupid jacket, and slammed him down on the table, with inhuman force.

“But before we get to business,” Calantha smirked, “what sort of a host would I be if I didn’t offer my guests a little snack?”

They fell upon the cowboy, ripping, and biting, and tearing.

[Mole]

_{P E T E R L A P I N}

---

^{H e n r y ' s S u n s e t L o u n g e}

An almost unnoticed black shadow laced towards the two kindred sitting at their newly acquired table. The dark presence carefully pulled an elegant, feminine length, like a dark tear having dropped from the setting day. She stood next to them, and with prestigious poise, dressed in a black ornamental garment, much too traditional for the Lounge's visage, she tapped a sheer black gloved hand against the evening sky with gentle fingers, "Zdrahvstvuyete." A small smile drew softly on her lips as she spoke, watering through the Western pompous night life.

Melanie gave a hesitant, closed, bitter expression with a reciprocated perking smile, while a sigh drearily escaped the scabbed lips of the Malkavian. His brown hair nestled on Melanie's bare shoulder as he mumbled, "Pust' vsegdah budet..." His attention drifted quietly back to the Kindred he had been wanting so badly to devour before this newer one had began making her most dreadful proposal, but the magpie had already vanished into the evening, "...niebo," he finally relinquished in an exasperate fashion. He was not so interested in the Ventrue standing before him.

Unfortunately, the Cobweb was pulling his mind elsewhere. The string of lights, tightroping their merry circustry around the open rooftop danced along the perimeter and through his ventris. He had the thought to milk his pale hands against his retainer's thigh and tenderly disjoint them from their seats to escape the annoyance, but he allowed them to stay, with cloy eyes more interested in something projecting through his labyrinth than anything so beautiful standing daintily in front of him.

"Mmm, pust' vsegdah budet mama." The graceful shadow courteously adverted the attention of her main audience by giving a small nod. The tight brown bun, held together by black ribbons, moved only a little upon this gesture. The curls of the satin fabric coupled with the breeze, "It is a pleasure to see you, Melanie, and of course, my dear Scott. May I have the honor to join the party?" The Elysium was nothing close to her taste, especially in the midsts of a battleground for artists. She found it almost insulting that her likeness be caught under such dreadfully inconsistent post-modernism, but she still found her manners to be in some sort of fancy.

"Pust' vsegdah budet yah," the Malkavian motioned with a small glance towards an empty spot at the table; he was distrusting all the same as the shadows made their motions. He could spot them most easily in the eyes of the black promise in front of him. Her black silhouette was purposefully castrating his reality and control over his retainer. A small sulk pouted on his dry lips, "You are a bad bat, Esther Puniceus."

Esther looked downwards, submitting to the bad taste coming from the Malkavian's mouth. Lashes hiding the acknowledgement, and with that, she took her seat, making no further comment towards his illness for pageantry for the time being. She had other matters to concern within herself as opposed to the madness of some ludacris Kindred. For instance, the chair was part plastic and seemed to need something better. She had been so spoiled with the Baroque hopes of the Western style, that anything after the 1900's snuffed everything she desired of and from this world. Of course, there were always the Churches;

O, Saint Sophia, such a beautiful Eastern blossom, like an olive tree, bringing forth such sweetness from the fruit of her womb.

"I haven't seen you in a while, Esther," Melanie spoke lowly of the situation. If Esther was making an appearance, it meant there was more to the situation. Peter was rarely ever syncretic, and Esther seemed to be a straight line perpetually connecting the Malkavian back to the Camarilla. She hardly enjoyed it but felt a dutiful need to endure whatever Peter was harvesting from her. It was a sick game, but she had an addiction to his tricks and treats. There was a discipline in the hallowness they both shared. It differed significantly from the one that she had with her own dear husband, "It's never a pleasure."

"Forever under your tender mercies," Esther began, but her apology was broken by a laughter in the dark, and Esther, being the sympathetic body allowed the lipstick grin on the younger woman's face to flourish under the telescopic memory of the evening's historic records, "Yes, life can be hard," Esther said pensively, and after a little pause, awaiting the comedown from the two Westernized kooks, she continued once more, "To tell the truth, you're one of the few kindred I trust in Los Angeles." This sentence altogether meant far too much for her company, and if her meeting with them were to continue, it should be kept even briefer than she had predicted, lest they make a scene and have three rag-dolls made of them, burning in the fiery furnace for eternity.

And thus, she continued, "I believe Annie has a ballet recital this Thursday, and I would care much to attend. However, if I am not mistaken, Melanie, you should probably stay home and mind the rest of your family. If not, I have taken proper precautions to keep night watch over him. Erstwhile, it is preferred that you be the one to take guard." Her dark eyes studied the faces of the Kindred and his retainer. Both stared back with a quiet, fascinating ugliness that neither agreed nor disagreed with any of the words she had just spoken.

She would have to make the decision for them tomorrow evening.

Esther Puniceus

---

^{P e p p e r d i n e U n i v e r s i t y}

Carefully tapping her slender fingers in the shadows, Esther stared at the milky skin beneath her silk, black lacework. No matter how modern the drama, it was always fundamentally the same thing. She preferred the classics for this reason. It dumbfounded her that Malkavians could get so lost in the unnecessary simplistic theatrics of this world. However, it also dumbfounded her that Malkavians could see the future in so helpful of a manner. There was mystery in all their weaves. However, she could not have been more more bored at watching the little girls sprinkle their ballerina toes on stage.

Not only was the theater less than spectacular in comparison to the baroque displays of Imperial Russia; nor, the arts being exasperated in comparison to this postmodern era of the Western World, lacking the ornate peasantry of elegant leaflets and delicate intricacies, but the sparkles of glitter reflecting from the girls' cheeks were all too posthumanist for Esther's interest. They would have to work harder to flourish at this rate. Their fundamentals were so bare and dry, and the fluidity of their limbs were wandering through the raspy air like stillicide and icicles, fighting the puritanical, straight tatting with their flounce and flamboyancy. There was more than a play birthing on the stage. There was a historical fight re-announcing itself under yet another veil.

O, drama. How depressing.

Her head tilted slightly, eyelashes brushing closed against her pale cheeks in the darkness of the room. A yawning thumb slid to gently touch the rim of a gold ring placed upon her middle finger. No matter the redundancy, there was a reason she had gilded herself to the more classical nature of theater arts, her time spent under Catherine the Great had made a complexly lasting presence in her. She could have been to blame for the travesty of the Third Rome’s abortion. However, she knew better than to scold such a figurehead. Perhaps, it was du Bois. Perhaps, it was Jean-Baptiste.

Esther opened her eyes and discreetly watched Peter’s reactions unfold. Each recital had shown her a different side of him. She was remarkably more interested in the Kindred’s childish reactions than the theatrical debacle performing a temper tantrum on stage. There was still respect to be made in obvious notes for their attendance, but such a compliment towards the nearly incomprehensible Malkavian, was as much passe as the late tsarina and her husband, Peter the Great.

O, Peter. He had caused so much controversy in that long dream. And, here he was, playing thoughtlessly and helplessly again, right next to her. He was a thorn in her side. It would be such a shame if something happened to him. He had some good in him -- it was not great, but it was worth the chase. He adored his supposed niece. Her golden locks were cupped into a bun, and her leotard was flounced with Yuri’s expertise, “Your little kotik,” Esther hushed lowly at the Malkavian. He was nipping his bottom lip in hungry, patient anticipation, as if he expected something different from the performance.

His head moved slightly in the ambiance; brown hair skirting against Esther’s cheek as his frame balanced an elbow on the arm of his chair. he grinned softly back at the Ventrue, slightly uninterested in her melancholy whims, “Come to us and stay the night, to rock our little baby. I will pay you, kotu, for your work - I will give you a piece of piroga and da, a jug of moloka,” Peter’s words were contritely sarcastic sounding in his lullaby. The brim of his nose touched her cheek playfully, creepily.

Pulling her hand from the cloth of her lap, she brought her fingers to her neckline, adorned with several a small golden cross. The lacework caught the outlines of the trefoil, and scrolled the outline of its motif and buds. The rich, ornate feel was cold to the touch, just like her. A small breath concentrated under her, “Your little kotik,” she nodded stoically towards the stage. The dim reflections caught her pale skin, gently maneuvering Peter’s attention back to the spotlight, again. As she rested her head against his childish, irresponsible foibles. For the time being, this spectacle was less depressing than the drama ensuing in Los Angeles. Her complacency was less than obvious.

There had been ruffles of rumors and smoke emerging from the sewers; all likely to find their stench under her nose. It was why she held it so high and inclined her neck for very few. Peter was one of those few, him and his little toys. All three of them. She had stayed away from the primelight successfully for some time. It had been her role in her first life and now this one, it seemed. She was always passing herself as one thing or another, but rarely was she ever herself. For now, she was Uncle Scott’s friend, who introduced little Annie to the art of mastering the grand pas de deux.

Esther and Peter had to be somewhere later, after the suite — affectionate and loving. The Kindred has long forgotten what that entailed. It had been something that embroidered her past, and now, after so many centuries, there was evidence that there was some sort of brilliant insight, which tied the nous of all the happenings, surrounded by this mystical, redundant phenomenon. The romantic desire for something; anything; everything; nothing — all at once, like a choreography: the world was dancing to a dark tune, and her most comforting lead was her date with a schizophrenic rabbit.

She was being pulled into the mess one way or another. Getting spun in the puppeteer's web was not too terribly hard after centuries of life being granted. Getting untangled was in itself another mystery Esther had long since been pondering with various intervals of defeat. Unfortunately, her dismissive slumber had ended. She was being summoned, again, down into the grave hole of her duty. The dance would be over soon, and the curtain would be closing. Merci.

---

^{M i r a c l e M i l e}

Beneath the evening sky, the colors draped beautifully and lovely, as always. The three were sitting at a small patio table outside of an gelato parlor. Weather had warn on the materials of the table to add an antique flavor of fashion. Annie's face was powdered with ladylike features. It made her appear older and more mature. One of her hands, small and supple, draped its fingers into a loose weave with Peter’s own hand. She was licking the top sugar of vanilla and bubblegum ice cream scooped like a unicorn into a waffle cone. The excitement of the recital seemed to have settled, and the Malkavian’s focus had seemingly calmed to a passable level of vocal sanity, “Why didn’t Melanie come?” Esther's voice questioned passively but with a sharp silibance, indicating the unfortunate impatience she was feeling between the two guests.

A pause was given for him to answer, but like most Malkavians, his obedience had left with his sire. His dark eyes were staring at her, begging a reason as to why she would ask such a question. The pondering thoughts were scattered amongst a dismal expression of carelessness. He seemed oblivious to the nature of what was happening; the course of his own knowledge had ridden him lethargic and incapable in the event of Los Angeles' perpetual tragedy. He was true to his essence. He did finally reply though, “I did not want her to get jealous,” his answer was spoken in a polite, gentile manner, and his grip on Annie rose, as his eyes stirred from Esther and back to the youth of the little girl. An dull smile crept onto his lips, “of Annie.” His smile continued whimsicall, now directed at the Ventrue.

Before Esther could respond, supressed by her own lack of assumption and judgement to have even troubled with entertaining his response, Peter continued, “And of you, of course, my kotu.” His eyes played with both Annie and Esther in his mind; an obvious disorder was spinning in his thoughts, “I did promise you hoarfrost.” His spare finger dipped into the vanilla of Annie’s dessert and glistened the treat into the tip. Quickly, he tapped his finger on Esther’s nose, “White-Nose Syndrome has murdered millions of bats across America.” Annie giggled at her uncle's silly display, matching his Cheshire grin. The Ventrue swiftly tapped the cream from her skin, giving the reaction as if an itch had bothered her and caught Peter's hand as he was withdrawing it. Esther's silence continued in her silhouette of movements, and her palm guided the Malkavian’s own hand closer to himself, “It’s a good thing you’re a cat and not a bat,” he spoke smugly, as his personality resided back into the depths of his own uncharted imagines. His mind had already changed subjects; turned phases.

Esther released his hand, like a nurse to a patient slipping back into a therapeutic coma. She pitied the Vampire, sometimes. He was mad; his happiness was lost. His unyielding amusement with woman was to show. Unfortunately, tonight was not a night for a dispense in emotion. They would have to leave soon, and there was little room for the Malkavian’s nursery rhymes and idiosyncratic dialogue to interefere with age old conversations. Perhaps, there would be excuse the poor White Russian’s slurred alveolar ridge. No, Annie was older than a young girl, even if she retained many attributes of one. Peter and Annie had this in likeness, and Esther was not bothered enough to pry. The girl, however, smelled less innocent than her appearance — much like the tsarina and her pet unicorn with its broken glass horn.

“I also have a hat,” Esther leaned forward. Keeping Peter focused would be a good deal of business. Her elbow assumed on the table, and her cheek rested atop of her hand. Peter was already lost in the nightlight and the noise buzzing around them. Esther shifted her gaze to the Ghoul, “How old are you again, Annie?” Her eyes pondered over the young girl. Annie was fourteen, now, about the same age of when Esther had met Rodericus. Peter had no similarities to the altar server other than his mutual regurgitation of: O samaya svyataya ledi Bogoroditsy, svet moyey temnoy dushi, moya nadezhda, moya zashchita, moye pribezhishche, moy otdykh i moya radost'. His parents would be so ashamed of him, now. Tsk tsk. Not that he remembered much of his life before his embrace.

“I am eight,” Annie chimed in a youthful disposition. Her automatic response seemed like it had taken years to master. The girl smiled, revealing a flawed character of an eight year old. The shimmer in her eyes was older and more thirsty for knowledge than an ordinary juvenile. She had a dark corruption that an eight year old could only know from something outstanding such as abuse or force. To Esther, it was obvious the girl was an addict. The child enjoyed his kiss and her temporal immortality; she had even lost her youth before reaching the age of contemplation. Her types generally interested Esther. However, as a retainer to a Malkavian, she had a lack of reason that kept Esther from furthering her inquiry on the girl's state of affairs. The Kindred knew much better than to dabble with that. Her sire had taught her well. Losing dignity, especially in the face of madness was not one of the Truths of the Ventrue.

They would be leaving soon. The travel and small stop by Milk Jar Cookies was enough to passify the girl and the time while they waited for Saint Sophia Cathedral's Great Vespers to end. Esther was looking forward to the golden pomp and brilliant display of light fixtures. Peter hardly favored under the site; and often times he reunited with memories that left him haunted for days. For this reason, she had given him several gifts in hopes that he would mind himself. This was evidence enough that both were always nursing on a small mad hope, artistically caged to immortal imagery to which they had no real freedom; and no free man needs God.

---

^{S a i n t S o p h i a ' s G r e e k O r t h o d o x C h u r c h}

“Don’t forget to cross yourself before entering…”

Upon opening the intricately wooden, adorned doors, the scene was written like a memory of the Dream; as if Esther had closed her eyes and awaken in the lavish pageantry of militant mercy amongst the Divine. Chandeliers dripped in golden, pearly tears from the ceiling of the Cathedral, draped in decadent and ornately rich and flaxen engravings. The smell of candles and incense graced the dimly lit atmosphere, arising like smoke in the ambiance of a low echo chanting the psalter. A velvet red carpet lead the back of the Church to the Royal Doors, closed with protective wings of the illuminated icons, painted firmly on the iconostas with headdress of sculpted twilight and articulate halos.

The Malkavian responded to the backdrop and glass stained history with stiff arms and wandering eyes. Memories were floating around, and he was not sure which one he should choose. Each held their own world of mystery. A silent flame was standing firmly in a small puddle of trophic sand. The fire was like a desert rose, wandering through a scorched wilderness that was enclosed with aurelian leaves that were cold to touch, like Annie’s cheeks in the winter. His thoughts were pushed by the sound of a male, rich in vocals.

“O, Esther,” Father Bill stepped out from the corners of the Nave. His heavy black gown moved the sounds of the incense through the tiny kingdom. He seemed pleased with a closed smile of allurement and attraction to the visitors, “You’ve brought friends, family, are they inquirers, as well?” His body glided patiently through pews. Automatically, lifting a wrist, with fingers bent and curved. Unabatangly, he crossed the air with minimal effort before letting his palm rest in the cups of Esther’s extended palms. His eyes looked to Peter, as he felt the Ventrue’s soft lips press reverently against his skin.

Esther spoke quietly, “Yes, Father. Uncle Scott.” Her gentle breath whispered quietly against the priest’s flesh. She paused before straightening her and then turned towards the Malkavian. His dark eyes were wandering over the Church, as they tended to do. Excitement was setting them to life, and his lower lip, nibbled with nervous blood, was moving slightly, mumbling inaudibly to himself about something that minded nothing with Annie who appeared enchanted and bored all at once, “this is Father Bill,” she relaxed her shoulders. Silk threads gently touched against her pale skin as she moved. There was pity in her voice as watched the Kindred lose his mind in the details.

“Th-the chandeliers are flickering, sh-shaking,” Peter finally noted in response to Esther, locking eyes with her and then tracing the weave of her black dress as it fitted and flounced over her body. They wrapped around the fabric-covered buttons that held her blouse over her neck, bosom, and waste. She was like charcoal, burning like a spinneret in the midst of a radiant, dead dream. The lace on her dress began smoking and evaporating into the air, stringing each of its threads from every corner of the room until all he could see was a web and three trapped flies. A darkness messaged and crawled over the back of his head, massaging its body tenderly into his mind; claws and tarsi appendaging his ears as its pincers began cutting the threads of his mind open.

There were muffled voices that he could not quite makeout. They came and went through cups of sounds. It was the flies, squirming in their voices. They made him thirsty, and he could feel the dryness of his tongue swiping over his cracked, bloody lips trembling with the beast re-awakening in him. Sweet sickness dripped down his throat as he tried to hold back, but the domineering command, “Eat him, Peter” vibrated in warped pochette echoes from the cobweb’s silk strings, like bells notifying the beginning of the Creed.

A bestial growl rumbled over the Malkavian, hungry with madness and lust. This was his favorite part of him. He remembered now as his strong frame tingled with sensation and compulsion while it moved forward. His shackles of insanity had been unlocked from his flesh, and snarls were foaming through his teeth, sharp to the point, overly excited to devour in the imagined Network placed in front of him. The feeling was strong and starving. He had not succumb to his beast in a long while, but he was drunk on this long sought after fever of hysteria, now, famished for satisfying her command and his appetite.

Esther watched as the two Kindred’s veins flexed and entwined together, each ripping for each other’s lives. She placed her hopes on Peter winning, if not because she decided he was the stronger of the two, but she was also penanced with the duty of caring for him. A girl of Annie’s age should not have to witness this. However, the Ventrue had little interest in securing the sanity of a child who had already lost her reason for living to Malkav. She was but a snuffed flame in the loins as a potential Childe.

“Uncle Scott might not kiss you goodnight, Annie,” Esther miffed. Her slender fingers extended and combed through the child’s long, golden locks. They were soft to the touch, still mended from a bun holding the human warmth of a beating heart despite being the deadest thing on her. The Ventrue let out a lofty sigh as the Toreador antitribu crumbled under the pressure of the frenzying Malkavian. Humiliation by surprise had brought the beast out of the Toreador, as well. However, by the trembles and groans rummaging through the cathedral, it was fair to believe there was and enjoyment of agony from both parties. So complicated dying had to be.

Her hand left Annie’s hair and tipped her fingers against her lips. Peter really had no manners. Lulling him out of a frenzy would be difficult. He was enjoying himself so much, right now. However, for the sake of time — her fingers intertwined with the lines and shadows and pulled the scene into a soothing display of debauched memories. Heavenly aromas budded like roses from the ground. The fields of incense blossomed and sprouted, vines twisted its leaves and sprouts over the cobweb, turning the weave gold, again.

Rich tapestry and iconography provided gentle siloques into reality. Breaths pressed through the Malkavian’s fangs, guilty in blood and gray skin. As the room swayed in soothing motions, he lifted his gaze from the mess and found himself, again, lost in the dark trances of the Ventrue’s eyes. His undead heart could feel her state beating through him, now, changing the rhythm of the night. His lower jaw stuttered as drool and Vitae collapsed and spilled from it.

The Ventrue’s features started to appear more abstract, as the vision dominated him. Her face started to resemble something more pure and holy. Her voice chimed his name, and his body relaxed, drawn to her presence like a moth to a flame. Panting he spoke questionably, “Ma-ma?” his voice was weak and withdrawn with a lock fastened around his madness. There were no longer spiders; and they were no longer in a web. Flowers were dressing a California field; and the sun was glowing all over the sky. He wanted to touch the image of the woman in front of him and feel her cheeks — they looked soft like petals that had grown like wings on the back of a butterfly.

He could feel against his own cheeks a breeze brushing against his cold skin. It had a warmth, like a mother’s embrace, against the fold of her chest. She looked like an angel, and she made him think, he was in heaven, with the hilt of her arms spread open. His body moved towards hers, magnetized by her presence. “Mamuschka. Matuschka…” his voice twisted for tenderness and piety, as he fell at her feet. Saliva and Vitae drooled as he made small laughs, giddy and sad all the same.

Esther knelt down, bending her knees and softly tipping his chin upward to look at her. His grin had closed in his hazy stare, lost to mortal memories he would soon forget, “Thank you. You’re such a good little boy.” Her neck declined, and she placed a small butterfly kiss upon his forehead, pressing her matted lips against his dark, duey hair. Several strands pulled with her mouth, as her body and attention rose. She smiled politely at Annie before turning her attention to the undead corpse.

Her body stepped around the awakening Malkavian and approached the antitribu. Her smile paused for a solemn moment, feigning pity upon the poor, stupid priest. He was almost nothing, now. “Memory Eternal, Father.” Esther bent her knees, again, tucking the frou-frou of her skirt beneath her. Her body leaned over the limp and pathetic ruins of a Kindred. She drew her right hand to her mouth and nipped the tips of her glove from her fingers, removing the lace gauntlet from her hand. Her fingers tiptoed quickly through the mess, and untwisted the gold cross from the black cloth. The ornament was relished inside a hanky and tucked into her purse thereafter.

Standing and turning towards the Malkavian, again, Esther lightly commanded in a petite manner, “Uncle Scott, you should call Big Joe,” she watched as the Kindred stirred to her voice, as he began returning to his reality, “I am under the impression that he has some cleaning to do.” Her eyes fell on Annie again and quickly dismissed the swollen eyed doll. She was a waste of innocence, as they all were. She was also a waste of time. This whole scenario was had its own vessel of a story; and this was merely the prologue. A small sigh escaped her.

How depressing.

The Ventrue fitted her hand into her glove, again, and began making her way to the Narthex of the Cathedral. There were several more stops the three would have to make. Each foot was placed carefully in front of the other, minimizing the bustles of her flouncing attire. There was much to do in preparation before he arrived.

“Don’t forget to cross yourself before leaving…”

Peter’s body moaned silently as it dragged itself through the corridors of the Church. His darkened eyes faltered, landing cowardly on the three lit candles, like withering irises. Their flames were burning pollen, melting the stems into the finely grounded rocks, Raz, dva, tri... Umirayet zaychik moy...

The heavy close of the wooden doors veiled the masquerade and revealed the day having clothed herself into a maddening darkness with dusty clouds and blankets of sunless sky. The contrast between the dim lights of the Church were still noticeable. Annie’s small body was trembling, kept at a distance that was weary of her Uncle Scott and shunned by the Ventrue. Her small lips made no sound, pressed together in a supple manner of confused innocence. The Malkavian cracked a smile, uncurling his posture to her vulnerable attired emotions and bare neck, uncurtained by her golden locks dressed once in a bun, and while closing the gap between the girl and him, Peter toyed with his voice, “One, two, three, four, five. Zaychik came out to play.” His hand extended and crawled through the air swiftly as it took hold of the scruff of her neck, petting the nymphette’s nape lightly.

“Privezli yego domoy Okazalsya on zhivoy,” Esther finished the rhyme, “You tease her too much, Uncle Scott,” she gently scolded as her steps slowed to allow the two others the ability to retain the same pace as she was traveling. The heels of her shoes clicked softly against the gray pavement, carefully judging the wrinkles in the cement as they landed. Esther’s back was arched straight, holding her head high with an authoritative air. Perhaps, she had overstepped her conversation. It so much appeared patience and time were not on her side tonight, “Ivan is a bit away down the road,” her chin nodded towards. A black sedan that was parked a little ways from the cathedral, “He’ll be able to help us with your attire.”

Esther had not been the least bit amused with the Malkavians outfit, especially in reference to his attending a ballet recital at Pepperdine University, so eloquently adjusted in Malibu. The pretentious disposition, which rested on her face, smiled in regards to her comment. Although, there was a shrug of hope that his performance would give his new outfit any true longevity, she was calloused towards crushed dreams and was rich enough to not mind a short lived suit, so long as it served its purpose.

The Malkavian made no reply to her nipping commentary. His mind was long gone, tangled with the flocculent flesh running over Annie's mortal parts. Esther took note of his lack of response and continued in her walk towards the Rolls Royce, parked under the dusky covers of trees, hiding the streetlights and any attention that might be watching or listening. It might have been well that there had been only an ignorant reply to Esther's commentary.

As the three approached closer, it was made out that inside the dark car, there was a shadow of a driver who was propped in his seat with an arm relaxed on the sill of the window. His clothed elbow was leaning against the pain, and his cheek was pushed into a closed knuckle. A solemn emotion was drawn on his face, even with his eyes watching intently and brutally as he watched the three figures emerge from the large temple. His body did not stiffen or relax at their sight; and it was not until Esther opened the door, did the man stir, brustling his skin against coarse hair.

“Dear Ivan, oh were, oh where did your manners go? Tsk. Tsk.” A quiet glare pierced over the driver. His body tensed at the sound of her voice snipping through his strings of lull. A moment of silence passed through him as he tried to find means of attention and begs for mercy in a pious manner. Her demeanor was offering less of a threat than the internal flame raging inside of her. He was sure of it as klutzy movements or large hands pushed open the driver door to help the two others inside of the sedan, forfeiting his intelligence.

“Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?” Peter mocked the driver. His smile wired up his face as he studied Ivan, “Why, she's been to London to visit the queen, and all the bridges are falling, falling, falling down.” His hand left Annie’s neck and crept towards Ivan’s tan, masculine features. Excitement was dripping from his movements as his upper body leaned forward, giving the escort several kisses upon both of his clean shaven cheeks. A laugh was bubbling inside of Peter, but for unbeknownst reasons it refused to truly surface and merely swayed the Kindred into the car, bloated with a saturated memory of the father’s taste. He would gladly dine again with Esther's permission.

The little ghoul crept after her master, tiptoeing around the brunt card driver, as if he was a large monster, ready to erupt at any moment, even if he, too, was also on his toes, afraid to cause any stir in his mistress’ temperament. The ghoul, void of emotions and moving in frames of kindred instinct, snuggled up close to her master, and her head limped like a doll against his side. The leather seating was stiff and made their own sounds with the movements of the two, but soon after, with the presence of Esther fuming with a heavy pretense of despondency that drowned out any curses from the Cobweb, quietness appeared from both of the backseat passengers.

Ivan closed the door and swept his own huge body into the car, once more — Esther was already settled, sitting upright and patiently agitated, wandering memories of her own undead life, “We are going to San Francisco, my dear Ivan. If you could please, pozhalyoostah.” She spoke politely and grimly to him, turning her cheek slightly to face him. His obedience stirred stiff muscles to start the car, and after the car started with a low rumbling purr, her last words spoken before entering San Francisco were, “Thank you. Spasibo.”

[Mole]

_{A N D R E B E R R Y}

---

^{M o j o H o o k a h L o u n g e}

It had started with a word. It was a small word, and it was a beautiful word. It was a word he could never quite hear. It was a word he could never quite know. Everyday, it was on the tip of his tongue. Everyday, he could never find it within himself to pronounce it. The word clung to him like his skin and wove itself into every fiber of his being. He felt bound to the word. He felt not just bound to the word, but to the silence of the word, and everyday, the silence of the word wore on him. The word was with him before his embrace; and the word was with him after his embrace. He knew it was only the word he would admire within himself. For it was the only word that he knew to never betray him.

The word was still with him as he sat on the crimson couch and smoked hash in the Mojo Hookah Lounge, outside of Little Tokyo. The purple hazed atmosphere and gray ocean of dead trees and smoke reflected from his Cellulose Daictate sunglasses. He was also wearing a white Ermenegildo Zegna suit and tie. He was all for the impression. He had an arm resting on the back of the couch. A drink jingled in his large, tan hand. He had a leg partially crossed over the other, showing his steel toed shoes. The room was dark, but he was getting the attention that he needed, like a dark velvet glove pressing against his cleanly shaven face, over-and-over again. It was cheap, and it was by no means great. But, there was something about the transparent thrill of all the freaky frills and the white girls trying so desperately to fit into some niche subculture simply for the pure pain of staying in fashion.

"Your outfit. I like it. Tell me all about it," his voice was low as he let himself take a backseat to the conversation. A smug grin was drawn all over his undead soul, and the word was still there, and he was pondering if his audience might be able to guess what that word was. He was waiting patiently. He wanted to hear every word she had to say as she tried desperately to please him intellectually. She seemed desperate. She was not the first woman to tell him about why she chose Gothic Lolita clothes. He had heard the story over a handful of times. Each story was the same but different. Women were like that. He could see right through them. Most men could. Men who could not, were obvious outcasts to the scene. But all men could agree, women were a fragile, quiet creature, even in their darkest hours. It sometimes seemed as if, the word was living within them, as well, and he was only meant to extract it from them. For this, he enjoyed listening them, as he did listening for the word.

Her faux-golden curls flounced as she started her story for taking her fashionable journey right at the 1960's Second Wave Feminism. It was a fresh start to the story, and he enjoyed the introduction for this. A little bit of politics and history never hurt anyone. If anything, it kept people from repeating themselves. He took a sip from his glass, letting the liquid's warm fragrance trickle into his mouth. Other times, it helped people repeat themselves. And, for Andre, it was about repeating himself. The repetition, the constant beat, the repeated attack against the eardrum, the never-ending yearning for the quiet voice; the word was what he was chasing; and the chase was most certainly real.

He understood that the word was lying buried somewhere within the voices that liked to jingle in front of him, but he just could not quite get the exact word to come from their mouths. He was always so close, and they were always trying so hard, just like now; just like the glitter in her eyes dancing like scared rabbits too afraid that she was losing his endearing attention; just like the fear that was beginning to believe his question had been just as fake as her hair. Oh, and God, it was a shame that it covered so much of her neck, because tonight, he could use a little bit more skin between his lips.

Andre had only been in town for two nights, now. He had more business to take care of. The first was announcing to the Baron that Jeremy MacNeill would be coming back into town. The second was getting in touch with Los Angele's infamous Toreador Eva. The third was fulfilling Grecian Elder Thaddeus's orders. He felt purely as a messenger; earning merits for holding people's words for them; people yearned to hear what words he had for them; and yet none of these words were ever the word he truly desired and knew to be his destiny. None of the words held such secrecy, such quietness like the word he was trying to spin, again, again, and again.

[Ezekiel]

Seattle
Washington State Psychiatric Hospital

Drip

Drip

Drip

There was something beyond grime which made the hallway an unpleasant experience. It hung in the air like the stench of damp decay which shared the same space, a true foulness that could never be cleansed. The pain had been too great and for too long. There were few things which could surprise the long-discarded humanity of his soul, but every now and then the cold pragmatism of these modern nights stirred something in him that was almost revulsion. Cruelty was an art, there was no art here, simply the grinding cogs of the machine slick with the blood of the damned.

Considering how important this site had become for the Camarilla of the City, the fullness was notable. This was not a place for comfort, even for visitors, no matter how great or grand they may be. Seattle had remained a shining beacon of the Ivory Tower in a sea of Anarch revolution and Sabbat Crusades. It was a beacon built on the bones of those who would bring the Tower down, and here he stood among them, the skeletons of the past. He could sense them shying away from him, their conditions would not allow them to run. They could not even see him for now, not until he wished it, but they knew he was there, knew there was a monster among them quite unlike the host of monsters who had chained them.

"Do not fear, I am not here to feast." His voice did not sound loud, but it carried down the hallways, to each and every cell. To each and every guard who finally became aware that the one place most important to their masters was no longer quite as sacrosanct as they had promised. There would be no blaring of alarms, no panic of kine activity. This was the heart of Camarilla rule and the knives would be drawing close. They would be too late, they were too late the moment he set foot on this forsaken, savage continent.

"I am here to give you what you have believed to be impossible, to remind you of what you are." His voice was building, the power of blood behind it as it touched each and every twisted soul within the confines of the hospital. Every captive, every guard. Any guest as well, should any have chosen an unfortunate evening to sake their first, he had not bothered to monitor the movements of the City's grandest this night. Their presence was irrelevant to his success. They were irrelevant by nature of his being.

"I am here to set you free, Blood of Caine, Hunt, Kill, Fuck, Do what it is you were born to do. Give praise and seek absolution." A thunderous clank followed the honeyed words, the clank of a thousand locks breaking, a thousand spells shattering. In the vacuum of noise that followed only the dripping of tainted water remained.

"Caine wakes. Remind them of their folly." The final words of his command rang out, and once again silence was King. It lasted a few moments, before it was broken by panicked shouting. The meat was free. Then the howling began, howls of unrestrained rage, howls of hunger, of desperation. The howl became a scream of bloody murder, and then the tide broke.

The Toreador and Malkavians of the Seattle Camarilla had long used the state hospital as a prison for the political failures of Seattle. Anarchs, Sabbat, the followers of failed Camarilla coups, they had all ended up here. This was the Elders of Seattle's solution to these Final Nights. A hospital had become a prison, had become a blood bank. But now the Cattle were free, two centuries of entrapped anger and violence released all at once. No matter how you broke a Kindred, you could never break the Beast, and the Beast knew only hunger, only vengeance. There should have been nothing which unified the Freed. Before their imprisonment, whether they were from the founding of Seattle or imprisoned short months ago, they came from different clans, different sects. They had been tortured and turned into drips to be fed from, until no personality remained. Hidden among each and every mind, however, was the spark of the being which had freed them, reminding them of who the true enemy was. Not each other, but the guards, the guests, and then those who had shut them away for so long. Tonight they would all die, they would pursue them until the Dawn broke and seared them away to ash.

He had waited for too long for this night. The Masquerade could not be broken so openly, even for one such as him. The seeds had to be sown in the Kine world as well, driving the schisms in their petty little societies to breaking point. Protests had become Riots, had become a furnace of violence. His tide of maddened Kindred would just be another drop in a city wide torrent of hatred. Tonight Seattle would burn, and the Ivory Tower would fall.

Lubbock would rule over ash and ruin.

[Mole]

_{A N D R E B E R R Y}

---

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

Gray clouds, hung like ghosts, spread the nighttime masquerade of a final night's scream. Silently, tucked under the sky, the black car was parked walking distance from Taylor's Steakhouse. Peter's swollen ego was groaning for something to alleviate the pain of his inclinations as he hunched himself in the backseat. His little ghoul played with the small stickiness combed through his dark hair. When he was ready, he would join the others in a party room at the back of the restaurant, but for now, his nursing body was calming down. The subtle breaths that escaped from his bruised lips quivered with the delicate tips of the tulle that draped over Annie's lap, "He shall sit by my side. And I'll give him some food; And pussy will love me. Because I am good."

There had been a long silence before Esther broke the insincerity between the two parties. The stakes were high, and a trifle, wooden table separated them from each other. Their own falsities and truths were held close to their chests. It was always cut throat, but for now, the charade had made itself more apparent. The choking words not being spoken were only killing time.

"Are you still chasing the same white hare, Andre?" Esther's words were spoken clearly and concisely. There was no accent. Her English was beautiful and articulate. She was watching him through amber eyes, and he watched as the words became lost in their gold. She was fixated on him and studying every detail of his being, as if the charcoal of her irises had contrived and drawn him themselves. The beauty of the human nature that was outlined around his body was elegantly being memorized like the main attraction in an exhibit of an art museum.

"I think it is more of a word, Mademoiselle or is it Madame?" The Kindred asked dismissively. An ebony hand would have waved if it were not already preoccupied with something of less pensive nature. His mind had already wandered to something else; and He meant to be more polite; but something was stopping him and holding him back with her six inch stiletto heels. Her hands were tracing the threads of his skin, gently holding and intertwining her fingers with his. She whispered a voice into his ear, Don't lie to her. She whispered through thirsty, glossy lips.

"Mademoiselle," she made a simple but pensive smile, batting her lashes downwards, a new habit she learned from a younger ballet student. There was no hiding the piety that had guarded her existence before her embrace, and she owed it to the first bashful glance. No one deserved such attention, no scepter of passion had forgone such a staff to the beginning of a song. O, not even dear Saint Augustine.

"I did not mean to hurt you if I did. Prostiy Menyah. Forgive me."

"You did not fail to attract any attention. I took no offense at all," there was a small pause in her pursuit, "Although, I wish it had." The small, polite smile remained firm, "Please," she turned a cheek to the exposé. Her milk skin blushed at the onset of the drama. At times, she believed some of Andre's drama was far too modern for her grievances and indulgences. It was something she contemplated as simply another horrid Westernized scheme. Even the brothels in Holy Rus had their taste. Their offense offered a warmth that reminded this new post-modern era that it would never be good enough.

There was a silence between them. Either could have said something, but both remained in submission to the silent confessions between each other. It was warranted, and Andre enjoyed watching the other Kindred suffer between not knowing if he was actually paining her or not. It served the Ventrue on the silver platter she deserved, with the head of a man she would never know. The kindred caused more commotion than the Camarilla or her would ever give herself, and ever since the Curtain that draped her skirt across the Russian Empire, he felt she was a traitor, caught in her own web lies. He felt nothing for her.

As for himself, he was a truth seeker. The word was rattling around the whispers of his counseling entertainment. He had his business, though and not much time. "Are we not both chasing the same dream, Esther?" He felt a twisted jest on his body like something other than his company's own nature. She was working for something, he was not willing to give her, yet. He preferred something more marionette for the stage, but Los Angeles, the City of Angels really did have a way of demonizing her guests.

"Sometimes, it is hard to believe, we are when I see the behavior you uphold," Esther turned her attention towards the third being present.

And, Like a hinge popping loose, the twisting of a broken doll, a Malkavian's mind perked another grin at the table. The smile was swirling with black and plum impulses. She was willingly letting a callousness cage her, and it looked painful. Its fingers were crawling around her chest and plucking at the buttons of her coat. It slithered inside the cavity of her existence and rested with more cobwebs, ready to spawn more monstrous desires, "I..." Her frail, shaky voice stretched for something but was quickly taken away, "The Camarilla's not interested in any of this." Her hands placed the letter on the table. It was sealed with a waxed stamp.

There was an attempt for the Malkavian, with painted nails, to have some youthfulness to the Camarilla roulette, but it was stolen by a slight tremor that twitched with the simplest of thoughts that had carefully crafted and sewn themselves through her pores during her embrace, "I have no desire to make the delivery." She already had a gun to her head; and anything unnecessary was considered unworthy.

A jingle interrupted the conversation, and a frown drew itself over the Malkavian's two-toned lips; black and dark plum. The text on the screen glew through the ambient lighting, "It appears, I shalln't be here for Peter. My daughter needs tending. She has awoken, again."

Andre looked up from his pale beauty. Gentle, long threads were splashed over his suit, and he could feel the smoothness of her muscles. She was very toned. Not just any touch would ripple through her veins, but she was still wanting in all her movements. She reminded him of an ocean, and the part of him that enjoyed it, did not want to draw his attention away from her, "Since when did she have a daughter?"

"She doesn't have a daughter," Esther stroked with a finger the pattern of her gloves, searching for some lost string that needed clipping.

"How dare you, Esther Puniceus," Lena's dark hazel eyes pierced at the the Ventrue, "Make those words into an apology, now. I will rip your pr-ecious eyes from your sockets and feed them to you. Right in front of everyone." Her shaky voice shook with breaths of thirst for the kindred's death. The sweet syrupy scent was already clouding her mind, and to feel her teeth gliding into the velvet silk of Kindred skin was tempting her appetite. No one was to speak of her daughter in such a manner.

"She is a liar, and lying is what liars do. Is that not the truth, Madamoiselle?" Andre smiled. His hand stroked the golden hair of the women sitting on him. He watched as the Malkavian choked back tears. An obvious conflict biting through her bottom lip as she attempted to control the beast trembling through her, a sincerity that spoke louder than any words Andre had ever seen.

"This meeting is over," Esther's eyes quickly shifted between the two Kindred, "The Camarilla will not care for your commentary, Lena, whether made in light or not." Her body swiftly removed itself from her wooden seat. Her gloves dusted her long black skirt and adjusted the mesh headpiece propped over her brunette style.

"You both ought to be killed, this very moment. Instead, I shall deliver the letter." The Malkavian corrected herself as she placed her cellphone inside of her purse. Her youth and innocence showed through her mask much more visibly in comparison to the other two Kindreds' spirits, but the Camarilla's puppeteering had much stronger pulls on her movements. Neither would dare touch her status, even as the Malkavian excused herself from the table and took her leave. Both agreed that the dark presence that flowed throughout the room had left with her exit. However, whether she took a left or a right from the restaurant was debatable between the two Kindred, as one stayed to enjoy his company, and the other made her way back to the black car parked a little ways down the busy streets, where the tiny hums continued in the most dangerous of manners.

"I'll pat pretty pussy, and then he will purr; and thus show his thanks, for my kindness to him."

[Hellion]

_{collab with @Ruby}

Whispers.

They echoed in lowly tones within the woman’s head as though calling out for some semblance of help that could not be given. At times, sweet and eloquent voices spoke in a dialect unknown, while others, indecipherable at best, due to being nothing more than grunts, snarls, and growls. “Rabid dogs?” She’d heard that mentioned before, not only once though, but several times, and almost as a derogatory remark made to insult. But it was the bearded man with the tattooed muscled arms who took up much of the visions which plagued her mind night after night. The dreams were all too real, as the evening of her embrace played out like a bad film reel on an infinite loop, and with each passing scenario, the fear and realization grew. Her Sire had but a brief introduction, if it could even be called that, and was just as quickly taken away by those whom she came to understand were part of another faction called “Sabbat”.

“I’ve been watching you for awhile, pup…” The large brute of a man repeated, a glimmer of yellowed fang shown in moonlight. But why? Why had she been chosen for any of this? Why of all the better humans in existence had Nicole Stathos been the one to become one with the darkness? An animal at the top of the food chain whose sole purpose was to survive off the blood of humanity, without losing her own in the process. It had been a cruel joke, but one that couldn’t be undone. The curse had set itself, the body had perished, giving life to something otherworldly. Something extraordinary. She had but two choices. End her own existence thereby killing the beast within, or thrive as one of them. But who were they exactly? Only Eva had been able to answer those questions. Only she had been the one who could unravel the mysteries that clouded the woman’s thoughts since the Curse of Caine forever altered her future.

Eva’s Coastal Villa | Ventura County

The better part of two weeks passed since the night of Nicole’s embrace and the entrance of the Toreador known as Eva into her life, stepping from the shadows as a beacon of hope to a lost soul within Kindred society. The former police officer had everything to lose, and yet there were times when it all didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. She simply assumed she was going to die after the attack on her life. But it took several days for the words of reason coming from Eva to sink into a doubting mind. No one would believe any of what was happening and yet there it was, staring the neonate vampire straight in her pale face as though to say “This was only the beginning.” Nicole could only cry for so long at the luck of the draw though, as the act of crying had become less of a thing for the monster she was, and what was once salty tears became blood; forced to the surface of the tear ducts until it pooled enough to streak down her defined cheeks like crimson watercolor on a blank canvas.

Spirited away from her home and the people she once knew in West Hollywood, Nicole’s former life had to be washed away into the sea of eternity or everything going forward would be for nothing. Eva reassured her time and again that she would do her best to bring the newly-minted Gangrel into the fold, introducing her to vampiric existence as a Sire would for their Childe. But, Eva was no true Sire to the fledgling -at least not in the traditional sense- and in the back of the Elder’s mind knew things would have to change eventually for Nicole. And so, with Los Angeles behind them both, Eva journeyed with her charge northeast reaching an oceanside villa nestled within the borders of Ventura County. It would be safe. It would be secure. Away from prying eyes, at least in the meantime. And there it would allow Nicole the freedom and peace of mind needed to absorb the barrage of Kindred facts, fictions, myths, and a myriad of supernatural dealings that were thrown at her from the older vampire day after day in an attempt to pull her mind out of the human realm and into a world of darkness.

The only world she would need to be concerned with this early in her unlife, which meant severing all ties from mortality, as well as making society believe that Nicole Stathos was dead and gone forever. Friends, family, loved ones. All would have to vanish from existence if any of this was to work out in the end. The Masquerade, of course, demanded it.

---

"Fine, fine, fine. I will watch the damn show."

The flash of irritation only and immediately gave light to the faint melodical laughter of the woman by the time she even finished giving in. "But this had better be more entertaining than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Rock Show."

His laughter was sweet and warm and infectious. A child erupting in a fit of giggling on the oversized and overstuffed sectional sofa that nearly wrapped around the basement home theater. "You'll like this one! It's about humans just being funny every day as they go through their little routines." There was more than a little emphasis on the last of words, and it had always given Eva pause. Christopher Houghton never learned that from her. As many times as she had relived this very moment in time, it made her stop every time. He learned it from Lubbock.

Except every other time she had ever relived the memory as perfectly preserved as a piece of data in an archive the kid never turned to her as this 'Office' show got started. Nevermind what came out of the kid's perfectly pink child's lips. "Do you think you can really stop it? Even with all the help you have?" Crystal blue eyes blinked away from her and towards the Virgin guy. Somehow he sounded sad. "Even if she likes you more?"

She wasn't cursed, Eva wanted to say, but that wasn't what came out. What came out was the only thing she really owed him...the truth.

"I can die trying."

The fact that he was just gone again left her dizzy. Her head spun in cruel swirls, the ground reminded her of a bad late 80s music video. Gravity absolutely betrayed her as she lifted from her isolated place of rest on the oversize and over-decorated bed in the black room trying to step off it and onto the floor below; her shoulders hitting the marble ground first before her head soon followed. Even her knee crashed against the ice cold floor with punishing effect. None of it did the same amount of damage as just seeing him.

"Chris..."

The guilt was just the initial barrage following the shock and awe. He was there. That was him. She even smelled him for a minute. Her eyes glassed but nothing fell. She couldn't recall moving by the time her mind snapped out of it. Her body was fine, the floor returned it's normal form, and she stepped out of the bedroom and into the gently lit exterior hall of the house so close to the coast. It didn't look right, and the house was still close to uncomfortably warm. It was too early. She normally awoke just before sunset. This was...her head went for another loop when her eyes found the time off the nearby lighthouse clock and lamp. 9 AM?

Returning to bed did nothing. The longer she stayed there in the darkness the more unsettled she felt. For the first time since she diablerized Christopher there was no background noise. The voices of much more than just her own personal elders were there. At times it felt like the blood in her body was a new kind of wireless connection ushering her into an internet of voices, emotions, images, and still more beyond. But now she was alone with her own thoughts again.

And it was driving her crazy.

She watched daytime TV. For an hour it enforced her bias that night time programming was better because that's when Kindred were awake. And then it bored her. She walked every inch of the house except the outdoors, obviously, and the bedroom Nicole was resting in. Large as the square footage was, it was barely a blip to her wandering conscious. She tried getting creative with Auspex, but her heart just wasn't in it for long. There were several thaumaturgy processes she needed to continue to refine, but again every time she went to focus her mind just refused.

The kid had shook her. At one point she turned off the darkening glass of a second story hall window and stood just next to the open sunlight. Then Celerity and she got stupid. Just quick dashes of her hand in and out of the sunlight. "Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow...why am I doing this?..ow. ow." She considered cooking food for someone as she nursed her hand in the kitchen. Before she recalled she really did not like their neighbors.

Instead she called into her office. Dante answered, and before long had given her very little updates from the last time she checked in...before sunrise. So. Three hours and nothing outside of a camera guy falling off a car shoot? She actually called into the hospital they took the guy to. The hospital director sparked a conversation on the symphony, and when was the next time Eva was going to make it to a show. It was nice, but dull, and made her yearn for the days of wired phones that let you pretend to choke yourself to death with the springy phone cord.

There were two hours of meditation. Of her version of it; watching content. The living room was a script room, with piles three or four high in stacks around the coffee table. When Nicole awoke and walked in and found Eva with a pen and a try-hard script from a legendary director asking for a favor in the way of creative feedback, Eva was finally back to normal after the devastation of being visited by the soul she had stolen.

“Please forgive me.” Nicole whispered to the other as she stood behind the couch, her expression rather downcast as she gently ran her fingernails along the dark leather upholstery. “Forgive my…distance from you these last few days.”

It was distance she kept from the Elder, not because she did not want her like Eva wanted her, but because she only felt regret and remorse, unable to reconcile the mixture of emotions for the woman who essentially brought her in from the cold. There were intimate moments between them, moments that were needed if only to satisfy the savage beast, but they were mere specks of time that felt more forced than organic. How selfish and introspective Nicole had been, and she knew it. The Gangrel could have very well been abandoned, destroyed in the streets by others of her kind, or tortured by any number of foes who sought out vampires for sport, food, or worse. There had been that nagging feeling of wanting to break free of Eva’s hold, the shelter she had created for her was perhaps becoming a bit too restrictive to a clan member who simply wanted to roam as her lineage would roam. It was that initial “call of the wild” which pushed her away from fully giving herself to the one woman who cared more about her than any she could recall. Nicole was given space as permitted by the Elder, to run, to hunt, to feel the supernatural forces at work within her ever-changing physique while keeping within the less populated areas of Ventura. The vampire needed it. But she also needed so much more.

“Also..I think I love you.” The fledgling finally let slip, unsure of why she actually said it in the first place. Impulsivity no doubt. Intoxication perhaps. But the fact of the matter was she had become more drawn to the Toreador as time passed. Nicole was never one to love so easily, whether in her earlier years as a confused adolescence, exploring her sexuality and uncertain if she really fit into any particular slot. Or later in her life where attractions and relationships were questioned and short-lived. A square peg in a round world, so to speak...

What did she just say?

The top of the highlighter went flying from the Elder’s lips, the printed and pressed pages in her hands suspended as Eva's mind danced and her brown eyes darkened. The weight of the script was obvious when she dropped it onto the coffee table. "Come again?"

Eva laughed, but somehow the honey in the sound had bittered. It wasn’t until her bright eyes gone truly black returned to Nicole’s pretty gaze that Eva got deadly serious, and blank of any and all other things. The emotion present in what she said didn’t belong there, and somewhere in the deepest darkness of those black eyes...she knew it.

“I have two shadow wars going on right now; one of those went hot last night. Over a thousand agents in the field from San Francisco to Mexico. I have people telling me the best thing we can do right now is start a wildfire to deny space and resources to certain future combatants. None of which even sounds like English to me, but that’s hard to think about when I have studio heads who can’t agree on what color of highlighter to use let alone something as simple as an operating budget. I’m trying to keep homeless people fed, trying to keep arts in every school I can get within my reach, trying to fix L.A.’s traffic nightmares, the water systems, nevermind every year I look around and see more US military I have to deal with. The Romans weren’t this numerous and annoying, I’d bet.”

She took a long breath, a heavy pause, and let her long fingers comb through the strands of dark hair. It didn’t help. “And that’s a normal day. There are no more normal days left. Now it’s what certain death is coming next and what we can possibly do about that. I don’t stress. Very little bothers me. Very little gets under my surface, but if I’m even a little bit off now then it’s probably over for everyone. Not even our own crazy ass movies had vampire end of days as viable plot. Oh and I have to worry about the biggest money laundering scheme since late 80s Wall Street so we can try to pay for any of it.”

For the first time since her death, her chest got tight. Her heart hurt. They had one more night together before reality would force her back. Before her trust in her people to keep it all going while she was gone started to weaken just a little. “Do you get it?! Does it register?” Her voice went from a near scream to steely whisper in less than a heartbeat, she moved so fast she and her whispered tone was just there. All but stepping on the girl the distance between them reduced to nothing. Just glassy eyes and full lips and dark eyelashes. “I don’t believe you. I want to jump all over you. I want to take you close and keep you there until it’s all done for me...but I don’t believe you. And…”

It caught, in that instant, the eyes of both women. Whether it was foolishness, weakness, or love. The thing about them all to Eva was that, at least in the beginning, it was almost impossible to tell them all apart. Her body leaned forward and forward, until it was her lips on Nicole’s lips shutting both of them up, hands daring at Nicole’s hips to bring her just that much closer.

Nicole wanted to respond but couldn’t speak. She wanted to protest Eva’s comment, but didn’t have the strength to resist being in the loving arms of the Elder vampire. Perhaps Nicole was hasty in thinking she really loved Eva, or anyone quite honestly. Trust wasn’t exactly a thing held in high regard these days, especially within kindred society, but there was just something about the other that the Gangrel trusted. But what was it? It didn’t matter at that moment. Only that they were one, even if for a brief moment in time, and the rest of the world could burn away around them.

“I want you.” Her whisper was a low growl in the other’s ear, as nails dug into the small of Eva’s back. “Now...”

[Bloodrose]

Collaboration between myself and @Fiber

A wry, tinny voice crackled through the alleyway, blaring out of an old boom box.

A lithe woman, wearing olive skin, sung along, whilst her slender hands worked keenly, moulding skin, and blood, and bone.

“Please to meet you. Satan’s my name.
I can make you sin, I can make you feel pain.
I can twist, I can make you seduce me.
Wanna do the Watusi? You can call me Lucy.”

Calantha sculpted the bodies before her, warping tattered matter together, with the kind of artful finesse that would have made Michelangelo turn scarlet with jealousy.

Satan’s a wooooooman.
Yeah, I’m a woooooooooman.
Satan’s a woooooooooooman.
Yeah, I’ve the evil one.”

A statue of grotesquely beautiful elegance loomed above her, lording over the alleyway, like some gothic tower of old. The bricks beneath her feet were drenched with splattered gore, and flakes of muscle.

A handful of writhing kine, frozen in motion, but still very much alive, had been woven together, and melded into place. They could not scream, but their twitching eyes cried out in agony and terror.

Calantha took a step back, drinking in the view, and admiring her handiwork.

An enormous, bloody sculpture, carved in the likeness of Morgan Holloway, stared back at her.

“Beautiful,” Calantha gasped, overcome with joy, “absolutely beautiful.”

---

The first report was from a homeless man on the street. The second came from the beat cop he flagged down. He made a few panicked radio messages before the “dry-cleaning crew” as they called it arrived on the scene. That cop would be sent for some therapy sessions, where they’d diagnose him with a stress induced psychotic break and have him back on the force after a little counseling to “clear up” what he saw. The bum would also get some help, a little extra check just to make sure he forgot what he saw. That left only the physical evidence clean up, which was being handled by the men in the van labeled “New World Cleaners”.

The personnel handling the clean up were a bunch of clones, only minimally intelligent. When they saw something worse than the usual maimed corpse they had to call someone else, and Grace was the one to get the first call. She decided to check it out in person and give Julie the chance to get some rest; Julie hadn’t quite gotten used to the wakefulness pills at this point in her career whereas Grace used them every day. Her Tesla pulled up alongside the curb and then parked itself after she got out, while she doubled checked the security systems to avoid a repeat of that previous incident. One of the clones dressed in all black gestured to the alleyway and Grace stepped under the caution tape, into the part they had obscured from outside eyes.

The “statue” was not a pretty sight. The organic matter in the rest of the alley was easy for them to clean up, but something this large was different. They could try to dissolve it; that would mean out losing on an opportunity to study it. Instead, Grace decided to see if could have it transported it intact. She called for something larger than the usual cleaning van to pick it up, then started a phone call. The call was routed through her neural implant, making Grace look like she was talking to herself.

“Hello Isha, I’ve got one for you to take look at. Fusion-type, human-shaped, biomass is about 600 kilos. Origin unknown, but I’m investigating.”

Grace grabbed a few cables from a box one of the cleaners had unloaded, then walked closer to the grotesque statue. She had a strong stomach but still didn’t like looking at it much. A quick scan revealed heat signatures, showing that whatever it was made of was still alive. Her conversation went on. “

Yeah, I’ll get it shipped as soon as I’ve got the scene cleared. You can handle it in La Jolla? That’s great, I was worried I’d have to find a way to get it to Fort Detrick. Just tell me if you want it at Scripps or Salk and it’ll be there by the morning. Oh, one more thing, it’s inert but alive. No, you don’t need to worry about what happens to them, they’re nonessential and I’ll archive the memories before I send it so you can do whatever you decide is best for your research.”

As she finished the conversation Grace got close to the statue and wiped away some of the blood, looking for a good place to insert the socket. This was not what she would call a productive night, but there were tasks that needed to be resolved and ignoring them would only create worse problems.

---

“Somewhat careless, Sister,” Johnny.C murmured, taking a drag from his cigarette, “as much as I’m sure she was beautiful. You know I love your work, hun, I really do, but do we need the heat right now?”

Calantha took the cigarette out of Johnny.C’s mouth, slipping it between her own, currently plump, lips.

“You sound like one of those craven Camarilla dogs, brother,” she teased, drawing in a mouthful of smoke, and then blowing it out through her nostrils, “are we not Cain’s sword? If we need to fight, then fight we shall.”

Johnny.C pinched back the straight, yoinking it right out of Calantha’s mouth, and returned to smoking.

“I love a good scrap as much as the next Canaanite, Sister,” he countered, a thin, silver trail leaking out of the end of his smoke, “I’m just being realistic about our odds, if we get too...reckless.”

Calantha regarded the white suit-clad man with a curious glance.

“Reckless?” she prompted.

Johnny.C spread his arms out over the balcony, gesturing to the lights of L.A’s towers and spires, glistening in the dark, like a sea of burning orange.

“I don’t want to lose what we’ve got here, Sister,” the suave figure told her, “I like this existence. I’m content. There’s more than enough tramps and hookers to keep my camera rolling, from now until Gehenna. This city spews out the downtrodden like it’s going out of fashion. Where else would I find such a ripe cesspit of losers, that no ones ever gonna miss, or ask after? I’m a king here, Sister, and -”

Without warning, Calantha grabbed Johnny.C by the back of his neck, and thrust him forwards, slamming his head into the steel bannister in front of them. The cigarette fell from his mouth, and tumbled downwards, vanishing into the night below.

Johnny.C let out a yelp of surprise as his head connected with the metal. A few moments later, and he was hoisted up off of the ground, his feet dangling in the air.

Calantha’s lithe, olive fingers threaded around his throat, slithering like liquid putty. Within moments, he was being choked by a pool of flowing skin and bone, mud-like flesh pouring into his mouth, and down his throat.

“You pompous, Ventrue poser,” she snarled, whilst Johnny gargled a mouthful of bubbling tissue, “you prize your vanity and laziness over the great work which we do? You’re lucky that our brethren can’t hear you.”

Calantha tossed Johnny.C to the floor, releasing her liquid hold upon him, as her hand reverted to a more natural shape.

The Ventrue crashed to the ground, his head cracking the tiled balcony floor.

Johnny.C let out a dull groan.

“I will graciously advise you not to question me, ever again, brother.” Calantha sneered “and I will recommend that you don’t get up until I am long gone, for your own safety.”

And with that, Calantha vanished back inside, leaving Johnny.C to stew on the ground.

---

Uncompressed memories took up a lot of disk space, but Grace didn’t have to worry about that, infrastructure was quite good in this region. At the start she was worried that the memories and the readings taken at the site would reveal Nephandi activity, but then the review showed it was the work of a vampire, something she was far less familiar with. She had a video file made from the memories and circulated as a security bulletin, full of jargon and given an unremarkable priority. She wondered if anyone internally would care, if the vampire could shapeshift then any footage would only be useful for revealing a preferred form at best. It was an isolated point of data, no pattern, no connection to anything she knew of at the moment.

As she looked outside the window inside a desolate office tower, Grace took a deep breath and thought if there was anything else to do with this latest dilemma. There was one other angle, one person who might care. Grace thought about how to word something less formal than the bulletin, and then started typing the email through thought alone.

“Seems like our city has a littering problem, or I guess some might call it an attempt at public art. Some public nuisance made a ten foot tall sculpture and used the bodies of a half dozen Angelenos as the raw material. I’ve already handled the removal and processing, if you want a look at it I can arrange that, but let me know quickly because the team that has it is not known for keeping specimens intact. From what we’ve been able to deduce it was likely the work of someone in the blood-drinking community, which is why I’m informing you. My knowledge is limited but I believe something like this is within the capabilities and interests of a known subset of them. I’ve attached the footage I have of the culprit, whatever use that may be to you. I will be happy to answer any further inquiries you have about this matter, and until we speak again, I wish you luck averting the apocalypse and other lighter matters.”

Signed,
Grace

Once it was ready and properly encrypted, Grace sent it off to an old address she had for Eva. After that she put it out of her mind, not knowing if any reply would ever come.

[Hellion]

Yeah, you don't know my mind,
You don't know my kind,
Dark necessities are part of my design.

Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest | Southwest Oregon | Present Day

Hunger.

It had become an ever-present driving force as instinct and survival distorted the world around her, placing the beast within several rungs up on the evolutionary ladder, and as far as she was concerned, at the very top of the food chain. Although, as much as Nicole’s humanity tried to resist the call of the wild, the stronger it became, the more she lusted after the blood running through the veins of surrounding life. As if by muscle memory, her hand quickly reached for a scurrying rabbit, the tip of her fingers brushed against brown fur as it escaped under a cluster of large rocks. Her legs bent into a slight crouch, likened to an attack position, ready to pounce the next victim that crossed her path. The girl’s senses opened up to higher degrees, as she could begin feeling movement in the vicinity. Their hearts beating at varying intervals, perhaps some from fear, others anger, but curiosity still weighed heavily on many forest animals, not quite understanding what it was that this woman carried within. She looked similar to any human that they had come across before, but something vicious crept beneath her skin, a predatory aura emitted from her body, as though they knew she could devour them all in one fell swoop.

And there it was, the one lone grey fox emerging from behind a tree, snarling under its breath at the threat several feet in front.

Nicole gave the creature a hard stare, licking her lips through a wide grin formed across her face, before slowly walking toward it. She found herself letting out low guttural growls, taunting the creature and positioning her body for immediate retaliation. The fox began backing away slowly as Nicole approached, until the creature could no longer maintain its stance and took off in the opposite direction. And so she followed. Her legs sprang into action with supernatural speed and agility, leaping onto all fours and momentarily gaining the advantage she needed to keep up with the equally quick animal. Adrenaline & blood pumped furiously through her veins as she shifted back to her legs, sprinting with all the strength and fervor that could be mustered up in her weary state, primarily focused on the prey mere inches from her grasp.

What the hell?

It was about the only thought -more like half of one- that Nicole’s mind could express as beastial instincts took hold of both her consciousness and body, pushing her further into the hunt. She quickly turned a sharp corner as the fox's attempts at evasion proved futile, and the woman gained the advantage she deserved, snatching the animal by the hind quarters and tackling it to the ground before it had time to react.

The vampire -the Gangrel- within let out a howl of victory which burst through the woman's vocals. Loud and straining. Her human fingers tore at the fur and skin, desperately seeking warm susteneous that rain through its body. Blood covered her hands and wrists as she lifted the fresh kill to her awaiting lips, sinking teeth deep into flesh and bone and tearing away large pieces drenched in the fresh red warmth which trickled down her awaiting throat.

The monster had overcome the human in that moment. Survival over reasoning. And for the Gangrel, it was merely first steps into a new age...

As if waking from a dream, Nikki found herself sprawled out on the damp, dense forest floor staring up past the thick of the massive pines that seemed to reach the stars in the blackened sky. It was as if at that moment, clarity struck her mind, and all things could be heard and seen with senses unknown before, and it was then, as her hunger was satisfied by the kill, that she let out a brief laugh that echoed through the trees. Her mind was calm for once in a long while since leaving the company of…who was that again?

Eva.

Strangely enough the hold that the Elder had on the young vampire was slowly drifting. Had it been distance that pulled the tether tight enough to unravel it’s connection, or was it something else? Mere threads were left. Sure, she was hurt, but the more she thought about it -allowing the clean, fresh air to clear the cobwebs of indecision- she knew why the Toreador had to let her go. It was in her nature to be free. As a new part of clan Gangrel, she had to be free, to survive, to prove to herself as much as possible that she was cut out to be one of them. The mortal life she had known for all those years prior to the embrace were becoming more unattainable, and there was really no going back to what she once knew as familiar.

Reaching out with seemingly limitless contacts, Eva took care of the loose ends in Nicole’s mortal world, especially that of her death. Her black 1969 Chevelle SS, a car she loved more than just about anything, had been pulled out of the Pacific about a week ago. According to eye-witnesses, a lone passenger was seen speeding along the PCH, flying through the guardrailing, and plummeting into the ocean. Nicole’s body was never found. Very few answers to dozens or more questions, but what recourse was there? A cover-up is a cover-up, and while Nicole didn’t agree with any of it, her previous life was no longer valid. She had to accept what she was now.

As for her Sire, according to what Eva had told her, he was nowhere to be found after his capture following the embrace. So, perhaps one of two things may have happened: The vampire was taken and killed by the Sabbat scum who assaulted him, or, he had disappeared into the shadows, either abandoning or awaiting his new childe once again. Nicole secretly hoped for the latter. She needed answers.

Answers, that would inevitably send her back to the urban sprawls and outlying areas of Los Angeles.