Bloodrose

Our Final Nights: A World of Darkness Roleplay

A collab between Bloodrose and @Lightning Fast

Mihail watched as the flames crackled about the pile of burning leaves and twigs he’d piled on the ground. As they burned, the smoke wafting off of the pile contorted itself into odd and terrifying figures, horrors brought forth from the newly-minted hunter’s subconsciousness. This was not the first time he had watched the wisps of smoke weave prophecy before him, but he was only just beginning to understand the truths they held.

Most of the creatures he saw were not conventional vampires. While images of the Kindered did appear to him in the smoke, many were crooked and warped, their bodies broken and remade into something far more demonic. Most of the smoky entities were instead nightmarish beings which swallowed up human and kindred alike, writhing with superfluous appendages, tentacles, and tongues. Rather than fear, Mihail felt pity and disgust, that the merciful and just thing to do was to purge these creatures from the Earth.

That bloodlust was a new feeling for Mihail. After hitting his growth spurt, he’d learned that he needed to be calm to avoid driving people away. This had changed since his Awakening. He knew now why the Hunt consumed so many of its weaker-willed participants, and he thanked the Lord above that he’d soon have a mentor to guide him through it. Someone who understood the bizarre, divinely-inspired urge to kill.

Out of curiosity, Mihail stuck his bare hand directly in the flames. He did not burn, and it was not painful; it felt as one’s bare skin might when standing in particularly harsh sunlight. “I guess it’s good there’s one less thing that can kill me now,” he muttered to himself. The park was quiet at this time of day, and his tracksuit and sunglasses would hopefully conceal his identity to all but the most avid sports fans.

Were one to describe the vehicle of a ferocious crusader, they probably wouldn’t picture a battered old minibus with “Wollstonecraft High School” painted in faded letters across one side, but that is exactly what came rolling over to Mihail, letting out a series of mechanical coughs and sputters that were reminiscent of an elderly smoker with a sore throat.

“Yo yo! Count Blockula!” Trix cheered enthusiastically out of an open window, clapping her muscular hands together in a juvenile display of excitement, whilst she beamed at Mihail.

Mihail, for his part, did his best to hide his displeasure at the nickname, giving the fan a smile before extinguishing the fire with his boot.

The bus halted with a sluggish groan, and Gertrude Aschefeld came sweeping down from her perch on the driver’s seat, shooting a respectful nod at Mister Dobrescu.

“Best to strike during the day, and to move in sheep’s clothing,” Mrs Aschefeled explained, “I’ve signed the students out under the pretense of a school trip for the Parapsychology Society. We can drive the beast from of the old monastery together, and force Satan’s minion to boil beneath the gaze of the Lord.”

The gentle hint of a smile flashed across Gertrude’s lips.

“Sorry about Miss Schechter,” she laughed, “the children are still a little starstruck.”

Mihail couldn’t help but smile back. Despite the macabre nature of the Hunt, everyone seemed to be in good spirits. “So long as it does not distract from the task at hand. If anyone asks, you are a friend of my mother and I have come as a guest chaperone. If anything, them being fans makes the cover story stronger.”

As he took a seat in the back of the van, he lifted his gym bag up onto his lap and pulled out a heap of purple and gold mesh fabric. Jerseys, it looked like; one for each student, all bearing his number 45. “Sorry I did not know your sizes. I can sign them for you, if you want.” Mihail didn’t much care for the glitz and glamour of the LA lifestyle; he much preferred to meet fans in a less chaotic and public setting.

A roar of delight exploded throughout the bus, as the teenagers let their approval be known.

“Frickin’-A!” Trix whooped, “my girlfriend is gonna be so fuckin’ jealous!”

Even Dexter, the least sporty of the whole group, seemed to be genuinely excited by the prospect of a signed jersey from Mihail.

“That's really decent of you, Mister Blockula,” Umar beamed, “we really appreciate your generosity.”

“It is no trouble!” Mihail proclaimed. “But please, call me Mihail.”

Gertrude sat behind the wheel of the minibus, guiding the grumbling mechanical monstrosity down roads and up hills, with the familiar proficiency of a teacher who had led her fair share of school trips before.

The chugs and startles seemed to roll over Mrs Aschefeled like water off of a duck’s back, even though the bus sounded as though it were one light knock away from exploding.

“Our quarry is cursed to bare the corruption of its wicked soul upon its flesh, so it's grown to become a master of shadows and stealth,” the hunter called back to her passengers, “it has made its home in the old monastery like a tick burrowing into flesh, and it will have become familiar with those once sacred halls. My plan is to do all we can to push it outside, where we can easily destroy it under the light of the sun.”

“Just point us in the right direction, Miss A,” Trix grinned, her eyes gleaming with the thrill of the hunt, “we’ll give that bloodsucker the burial it's long overdue.”

About a quarter of an hour later, the bus came to a clanging stop, amidst a stretch of jagged grey rock, and bumpy ground.

From amidst the morass of mud and knife-like stone, the lopsided carcass of the old monastery rose up to clutch at the sunny sky above. Crumbling towers looked like the fingers of a withered leper, and the abbey’s cracked brickwork had been blackened by the searing touch of fire, reducing the monastery to a charred skeleton of its former glory.

“Here we are,” Gertrude solemnly declared, “steel yourselves. God is with us.”

If only God could slay these vampires himself. Mihail exited the vehicle, bringing his now-lightened gym bag with him. He had purchased a machete at a hardware store, though hoped he wouldn’t need to use it. After meeting Eva and their encounter with the spider-like abomination, Mihail was feeling confident in his pyromancy. He was far less confident in his combat ability--though having Aschefeled here made him less... terrified. After all, any encounter with a vampire was one which could potentially end in his death, and having an expert on hand would make everyone safer. “I would not expect a bloodsucker to hide in a church,” Mihail mused, “nor do I understand why it has been left to decay for so long.”

---

From atop a crooked spire, Henri Broussard gazed down upon the gathered cluster of hunters, shielding himself in the umbrellar of darkness that the old stone tower provided.

The precautionary measures which the Samedi had taken alerted Henri to the hunter’s arrival as soon as they began working their way up the hill upon which the monastery was perched, and he had used those precious minutes to begin readying his defenses.

Henri let out a necrotic cackle, peeking down the scope of his old springfield sniperrifle. His rot-ravaged eyes fixed upon one of the teenaged hunters, and a twisted grin spread across the decayed remnants of his lips.

“Au revoir.” the Samedi let out a burst of vicious laughter, as he pulled the trigger.

---

The gunshot cut through the day like a crack of thunder, booming with the terrible force of a dragon’s roar.

“Get down!” Gertude yelled, rolling into place behind a mountainous blade of dark rock, which burst up out of the sodden ground.

A burble of dark red seeped out of Dexter’s mouth, dribbling down the front of his chequered shirt.

“M-miss Asche…feld…” he managed to stammer, before he toppled over, landing in a bloody heap on the ground.

“Dex!” Umar cried out, his voice cracking with palpable anguish.

“GET DOWN!” Gertude repeated.

Diving forward, Trix tackled Umar into cover, narrowly avoiding the crack of another gunshot, which whizzed into the earth where the boy had stood, mere moments ago.

Suddenly, a deafening quake came tearing through the ground, and gaping, ravenous fissures were ripped into being. Rock and earth exploded like fireworks on the Fourth of July, heralding the sight of bony, blight-infested figures, which came scrabbling up out of the crevices, clawing scratching and clawing as they rose out of the depths of rumbling earth.

Three corpse-men, clad in the tattered remnants of the clothes which they had worn in life, let out feral, inhuman screeches, and began bolting towards the hunters, their hungry jaws snapping and snarling with the savagery of rabid hounds.

“Oh, fuck me!” Trix gasped, gazing on in terror.

Gerturde muttered a quiet prayer, before unsheathing her broadsword, imbued with a tooth of the venerated Saint Lucy, and charging towards the putrid monsters.

Narrowly escaping another bark of rifle fire, Miss Achefeled unleashed a furious swing with her blade, which crashed through the air, and sliced in twain the waist of one of the screeching zombies.

“For Stacy Hershlag!” Gerturde roared, her voice ringing with the terrible power of true, steadfast faith, “for Dexter LaTierri!”

The sword came down in a righteous thunderclap, smashing through the head of the felled zombie, and reducing it to necrotic powder.

“And for all the other lives you’ve stolen!” Gerturde Aschefeled shouted with the fervor of a holy berserker, filled by divine rage.

The middle-aged woman fixed her enraged sight upon the tower that the snipe shot had come from, and raised her sword on high, like the holy knights of days of yore.

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall know no fear, and give no quarter!” Gertrude exclaimed furiously, “the Lord is with me, and I SHALL! NOT! FALTER!”

Mihail couldn’t very well hide with his massive frame. The best he could do was ducking behind a dead tree which barely concealed his head and torso. Reaching into his gym bag, he pulled out... a standard machete, made of ordinary, non-magical steel. It would have to do. The hunter focused, channeling his fiery vengeance into the weapon in his hand. For Dexter... On cue, flames wrapped around his hand, dancing along the side of the machete as it was imbued with fiery purpose. In one swift motion, Mihail hurled his machete at one of the zombies.

It flew in an unerring straight line, embedding itself in the creature’s collarbone. From there, the supernatural fire spread rapidly, burning it from the inside out until it ceased all movement and collapsed to the ground in a charred heap. Leaping from his hiding spot, Mihail dashed across the field, narrowly avoiding rifle fire as he bent down to grab his weapon once more. He made sure to swerve so that he would be harder to hit, moving with a speed that was unnatural for a man of his size as the smoke from the fire thickened around him, moving alongside him to obscure him from view. The Hunt has made me faster. Stronger. A bullet whizzed by his head, missing it by mere inches.

An arrow whizzed fiercely through the air, fired from the end of the crossbow which Umar gripped with fury-filled conviction.

The arrow exploded through the skull of the final shambling zombie, bursting its eye, and flying out of the back of its head in a pop of grizzly matter.

“Into the monastery!” Gertrude cried out, like an ancient general rallying an army of warriors, “press the attack!”

---

Henri was less than pleased with how things were unfolding.

“Fuckin’ hunters don’t know when to run away,” he grumbled, “Merde!”

Retreating back into the darkness, the Samedi scrabbled his way down a stretch of burnt and craggy brickwork, until her had scurried down from his perch in the tower, and landed within the heart of the ruined monastery.

Casting obfuscate, Henri vanished from sight, just as the attackers came charging into the building.

Slinging his springfield rifle onto his back, Henri unsheathed his machete, and slowly began to pace towards the towering figure that had been able to conjure up supernatural fire.

“Enculé de ta mere!” Henri hissed, as he crept towards his target, “I’m going to gut you like a fucking fish!”

---

Mihail’s initial reply was not with words, but with a burning orb of flame. “The only thing you are going to do is die, child-killer.” The basketball-sized blaze flew through the air as Mihail assumed a battle stance, focusing in on the undead creature. “What kind of idiot gives up the element of surprise so easily?”

The monster hissed, shattering the illusion of obfuscate, and leaping through the air like a lion tearing down upon a gazelle.

An explosion of french curses came trailing out of the vampire’s necrotic maw, as it took a wild swing at Mihail, wielding its machete with feral brutality.

“SHIT!” Mihail barely managed to avoid the attack by lurching backwards, nearly falling over.

“You cannot cease what is in motion!” it roared, “I’ve come too far to be stopped by the likes of you, bâtard!”

Mihail gazed into the creature’s eyes as flames began to coalesce around his left hand. The fire spread across his own machete, and with the blade now wreathed in flame, he lunged forth in a cloud of smoke and ash. As he came at the bloodsucker, his footwork and form with the blade were poor, but backed by holy fervor and holy fire. “I’ll make sure you STAY dead this time, nenorocitul!” He lunged forward, his movements untrained and sloppy, yet having overwhelming force.

The blade soared through the air, catching the stumbling Samedi straight in the chest. Steel, wreathed in holy flame, plunged into the vampire, exploding in a storm of necrotic flesh and searing fire.

Henri let out an agonised shriek, hissing flames surging through his rotten carcass, and swallowing him up in a hungry conflagration. The beast tried to make a mad lunge at Mihail, mere seconds before Gertrude’s longsword came swooping down upon him, slicing his putrid head clean off of his shoulders.

“When you return to Satan, tell him that the righteous still walk this earth.” the hunter declared, as Henri Broussard crumbled into charred ash.

Our Final Nights: A World of Darkness Roleplay

There are many ways to hunt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’d really appreciate that.”

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

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

“There station ain’t far from -“

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Final Nights: A World of Darkness Roleplay

It was unusual for Violetta to dream.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vi awoke with a jolt.

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

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

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

“Bruno is waiting for you, Miss Kyborowski.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like when David betrayed you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Giovanni vampire let out a conquered sigh.

“Talk me through your proposition.”

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Henri let out another blood-chilling rip of cackling.

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

Our Final Nights: A World of Darkness Roleplay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This was different.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Holy fudge nuggets!” David shrieked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Okay, now he-”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Final Nights: A World of Darkness Roleplay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vi snorted loudly.

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

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

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

---

”Cammie fucks.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A pair of deep black caves stared back at her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What's up?” the thin-blood prompted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Something sharp burst through Violetta’ back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Final Nights: A World of Darkness Roleplay

Hi, just dropping in quickly to say that I may be interested. This seems to be mostly a discord affair?

@Dead Cruiser

The RP all happens on here, but we use discord to communicate, and plan :)

Our Final Nights: A World of Darkness Roleplay

Our Final Nights just smoothly chugging along, inbetween month-long breaks.

Our Final Nights: A World of Darkness Roleplay

“The Prince will see you now.”

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

“Miss Kyborowski. Thank you for your swiftness.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Final Nights: A World of Darkness Roleplay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She clutched the makeshift spike in her firm grasp.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vi let out a roar of pain, stumbling backwards.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suddenly, Lang’s front door burst open.

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

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

She narrowed her eyes.

“What do you mean?”

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

“What?”

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

Our Final Nights: A World of Darkness Roleplay

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

“Just about.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Violetta stared at her assistant in disbelief.

“Micat Schumacpurr..?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Even if he was a somewhat unconventional kindred.

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

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

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

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

Crampton shivered uneasily, tugging on his smart blazer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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