op2024
Bugman
Ezekiel
NoctisOur Final Nights just smoothly chugging along, inbetween month-long breaks.
Bloodrose
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4 yrs ago
Some of you lot weren't cramed into enough lockers as children, and it shows.
6
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4 yrs ago
I am the person that eats the pizza crusts of people who don't eat their pizza crusts
11
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5 yrs ago
Fuck off, Sunday. Bitch-ass wannabe Saturday. YOU'LL NEVER BE SATURDAY!
5
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5 yrs ago
I also hate it when I am expected to have the bare minimum regard for the comfort of others. Fucking SJWs with their feelings n shit
8
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“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.”
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.”
“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.
This seems like its still got some activity going, so I figured I'd poke my head in and ask to make sure before suddenly trying to join a discord that turns out to be dead.
We are still very much going! The discord is active :)
wots all this then
“This is the last time, Rafael,” Algernon Regardie glowered at the Brujah, from over the rim of his blood-filled china cup, “How am I supposed to move on with my unlife, when you keep on popping up everywhere?”
“This is different, Algernon,” Rafael frowned, “this isn’t some 4am drunk dial.”
“Caine knows we’ve danced that dance enough times.” Algernon tutted.
The four vampires were sat in Regardie’s plush living room, in a set of grandiose, high-backed chairs.
Algernon’s room was decked out with a sea of expensive-looking bookcases, stuffed full of the kind of fat novels that Morgan suspected rich people only brought to make themselves seem sophisticated infront of their pompous dinner guests.
“I sincerely hope I haven’t just been dragged along to some bitter, undead booty call,” Jadeja rolled her eyes, “three more minutes of this, and I’ll throw myself out into the fucking sun.”
“Rafael knows all about three minutes.” Algernon mumbled, before quickling vanishing into his cup, to avoid Rafael’s furious glares.
Some distant, ethereal voice began to whisper in Morgan’s ear.
”Primal impulses guide us, Miss Holloway,” the ghost hissed, ”the bloodthirsty beast, and the doting suitor. Killing and courtship are two sides of the same coin.”
“Shagging has brought a great deal more joy into the world than homicide.” Morgan shot back, far more loudly than she had intended.
Everyone else in the room stared at her.
“S-sorry,” she spluttered, “the voices make it hard to -”
“Could you not be a complete fucking basket case, for five seconds, Morgan?” the brujah growled at her, his brow furrowing.
“Don’t be cruel, Rafael,” Algernon chimed in, “she can’t help it.”
The brujah sighed, crossly.
“Sorry. It's never nice, running into an ex.” Rafael muttered, his boot-clad feet resting on Algernon’s coffee table, much to the kindred’s obvious displeasure.
“That's only a problem for me when the neighbour's dog keeps digging up my backyard.” Jadeja smirked, letting out a sharp cackle.
Morgan couldn’t help but laugh.
“From what I’ve heard about you, and your little family, you’d need a football pitch to hide all of those bodies.” Algernon chuckled.
“Don’t encourage her.” Rafael grumbled.
“I’ll do as I please,” Algernon snapped, “now get your feet off of my fucking coffe table.”
Rafael did not comply.
“What's happening to the Ravos?” the Malkavian asked, trying to steer the conversation away from petty bickering, “how is it affecting Jadeja?”
“That pertains to something that all the ”sensible” canaanites are refusing to acknowledge,” Algernon said, with a sour grunt, “an ancient power struggle, between us, and our monstrous progenitors...”
The bearded man continued to ramble and rant, in a dull, briny voice, but Morgan found her attention wandering.
A deep unease washed over her, skittering up her back, and burrowing beneath her dead flesh.
The Malkavian could feel something stirring, out of the corner of her vision. Whispering feet tip-toed across the synaptic corridors of her mind’s eye, and danced through her psyche.
“Someone’s here!” She called out, rising up from her seat, in a sudden explosion of movement.
“Oh for god’s sake, Morgan!” Rafael snarled, flashing his fangs, “pull your head out of Wonderland, you crazy fucking luna-”
The Brujah’s lips kept moving, even as his head tumbled from his shoulders.
Dark blood spurted from the stump of his neck, stirring the beast within Morgan.
Rafael’s corpse slumped back in the chair, minus a head. In an instant, his body began to wither and decay, his clothes hanging loosely over rotting bones.
A fraction of a second later, Jadeja let out a sharp gasp, as the sharp end of an enormous broadsword erupted through the back of her chair, and burst through her chest.
Carmine tears dribbled out of the Ravnos’ mouth, and then she dissolved into a clump of wilted ash.
“What a shame,” Algernon grumbled, taking a sip from his tea cup, full of blood,“I had rather been hoping to engage Miss Jadeja in a spot of Amaranth. She has a kill list longer than the book of psalms, and you know how I feel about murderers.”
A stab of dread lanced through the pit of Morgan’s stomach.
“Oh no…”
From out of the shadows, two figures stepped into being.
One was undoubtedly a nosferatu, riddled in burnt tissue, and warped scars. A single eye bugged out of the scorched remnants of her monstrous skull, and she clutched a pair of garden shears in her hands, still wet with Rafael’s blood.
The second character was a towering, dark-skinned man, with a shaved head, who hoisted his mammoth broadsword over one shoulder, as though it weighed nothing.
“I never got modern kine’s obsession with katanas and ninjaken,” the giant man chuckled, in his deep, booming voice “give me a good viking sword, and I’ll turn your enemies into a bloody stain.”
Morgan glared daggers at the imposter Algernon.
“You didn’t need to kill them,” she growled, “they weren’t a threat.”
“They kept me from you, my love,” the deceiver shot back, “that in itself is a final-death sentence.”
The fake Algernon began to shift, and morph, his slender body rippling, as though it were wet clay. His long beard melted away, and his angular features became round, and heart-shaped.
The original face of Calantha Teohari, which she had first worn all of those years ago, before the Angel had stolen her humanity away, gazed back at Morgan.
Despite everything, Morgan felt her dead heart flutter.
“We could have been together, amica mea.” Calantha murmured.
“Not like this,” Morgan shook her head, “never like this.”
A stray drop of blood flowed out of Calantha’s right eye, and trickled softly down her pale cheek.
“Stake her, Gracie,” the Tzimisce commanded her underling, “I have plans for this wild little rose.”
The nosferatu pulled out a sharp, wooden stake, which looked as though it had been whittled down from the leg of a bar stool.
“When we’re through, you’ll need fields upon fields to tuck away all of my skeletons.”
“Despair behind you, and despair surrounding you,” a sadistic, sneering voice called out, “your existence is nothing but suffering.”
The surging silhouette of a shadow stood before her, rippling softly, as though it were being fanned by a powerful gust of wind.
The shadowy figure bore the faint, hazy image of a woman, hidden by darkness.
“There is more than just the past, and the present,” Morgan replied, “there's always the future.”
The Malkavian’s head ached and throbbed. She could feel her skull pounding.
“You know what the future holds?” a dark smile cut through the blackness, creasing the hidden woman’s shadowy face, “misery and horror. The horror of a broken, rotting mind, rife with decay.”
“It isn’t all horror,” Morgan declared, “there are good things waiting for me, too.”
“Madness awaits you, little duckling,” the wispy figure let out a sharp cackle, “you’re going to crumble.”
“I’ll only crumble if I let myself,” Morgan said, defiantly, “there's no guarantee that I can’t fight it.”
“Any moment now,” the shadow woman promised her, “you’ll break apart, and never be put back together again.”
“You don’t know that!” Morgan snarled.
“Yes I do,” the silhouette laughed, “you’ve spent the past hour talking to yourself.”
Suddenly, Morgan felt a deep, lurching rush of cold dread.
She was falling.
Down, down down…
Crashing through the fragments of a cracked mirror.
The world returned to her in icy splinters.
The dull groaning of car engines. The hooting of nocturnal birds. The howling of night wind.
Tarmac beneath her feet. An icy chill against her skin. The murmur of voices, growing louder and louder.
Morgan found herself shambling towards a swanky, apartment, fashioned from polished glass, and smooth wood. Abbigale was propped up against the Malkavian, stopped over, and limping.
“Let us in!” Rafael shouted, calling up at the condo, “we need your help!”
“This is your plan..?” Jadeja muttered, cringing in pain, as she hobbled along.
“Open up!” Rafael demanded, hammering his fist against the door, “I know you’re home!”
The door of the trendy glass apartment creaked open.
“You’re fucking kidding me…” a grandiose voice grumbled.
A tall, slender figure stepped out into the darkness. A long, billowy beard obscured the finer features of his narrow face.
“I told you not to contact me again, Rafael,” the bearded man glowered, wiry eyes burning with scorn, “I believe that I made that particularly clear.”
“This isn’t a social call, Algernon,” Rafael grumbled back, “something is happening to Jadeja, and we need to know what it is.”
Algernon cast his gaze over Rafael’s shoulder, to where the stooped figure of Abbigale Jadeja was doubled over in pain, leaning on Morgan for support.
“Don’t tell me,” the sorcerer murmured, “a Ravnos..?”
A look of moderate shock flashed across Rafael’s face.
“How did you know?” He asked.
“Something terrible is happening,” Algernon Regardie told him, “ an accursed monster stirs in the East. It is too soon to say what the damage will be, but nothing good can come of this dark vivification.”
“Do you know what is going on?” Morgan asked, propping up Abbigale, whilst she hissed and groaned, “we all felt...something, but its nature alludes us.”
Algernon let out a conquered sigh.
“I suppose you three had better come inside,” he grumbled, “but take off your shoes. If you get mud on my carpet, then I’ll stake you, and leave you out for the fucking sun.”
“Adelaide, darling!” Calantha let out a titter of joy, sliding down next to the dainty little creature, on her wooden bench, “how are you, my love? It's been much too long.”
“All the better now that you’re here, sweetness!” the petite girl chirped, “I’m awfully fond of this new look of yours!”
Calantha giggled with warm joy.
On this particular night, she had a strong jaw, big eyes, and pale, snow white skin.
She was also garbed in leather crafted from flayed flesh and bone.
Adelaide, by contrast, had spent the last handful of centuries frozen in the body of an eight year old girl. She had rather promptly diablerized her sire, as compensation for the inconvenience.
“Have you been busy, darling?” Calantha asked Adelaide.
“A bit of this, a bit of that,” Adelaide waved one hand dismissively, “nothing too exciting. Mass murder loses so much of its charm after your third century.”
The cavern in which the two women sat was heaving with a veritable horde of ghastly, hungry cainites. The Camarilla and the Anarchs considered themselves to be monsters, but the Sword of Cain were a roaring inferno to their flickering match stick.
Clan Lasombra had come to America with the conquistadors, centuries ago, and the California Gold Rush only saw their power and influence grow further and further. Grace Cathedral, was a relic of such times, built in 1849, with the devious schemes of the Sabbat very much kept in mind.
Hidden from the mundane eyes of the kine, a series of dark, winding passageways, and subterranean chambers, loomed beneath Grace Cathedral, to be employed in times such as these.
Calantha and Adelaide were sat in a sort of battered old pew, surrounded by twisted, terrible figures.
On a bench, little more than a stone’s throw from where the pair were seated, Calantha spotted Leila Monroe, a blonde-haired Priscus, who had been hell bent on claiming LA for the Sabbat for as long as anyone could remember, trading words with a gaunt-faced Andy Warhol, who was hiding his haggard features behind thick, dark shades.
“It's a shame about your lot and cameras,” Warhol was saying to Monroe, “I’d have loved to shoot you in the studio, sometime.”
Across from the odd couple, Calantha spotted Isabella Cocolo, a tall, spindly Malkavian woman, with bronze skin, and long black haired, tied into knotted braids. A pair of twisted scars were carved deeply into her cheeks, forming a permanent warped grin.
Isabella was chatting with a grim looking man with an enormous white beard, whose overly-muscular form was squeezed into a much-too-tight leather jacket.
“Quite the gathering, isn’t it?” Adelaide murmured to Calantha.
She nodded in agreement.
Suddenly, out of the darkness, a towering character appeared, and stepped into the centre of the underground chamber. His misshapen body was shrouded beneath a long black cloak.
The monster raised one clawed hand, and the murmuring of conversation slowly petered out.
“It's him…” Calantha muttered, more than a little startled.
El Conde was exquisitely grotesque to behold. Even amongst the ranks of the Sabbat, nobody was quite sure if el Conde was a particularly ugly Nosferatu, or some other, alien breed of monster, all together.
From beneath his dark hood, a pair of enormous, milky white, orb-like eyes glistened. His distended mouth was stuffed full of jagged, razor-sharp teeth, and the flesh around his lower jaw had rotted away, to reveal bleached white bone. Ribbons of bloody, peeling skin hung off of el Conde's bloated face, and his necrotic likeness was overflowing with sickly yellow pustules, which oozed rank, stinking discharge.
"Exalted siblings," el Conde called out, his voice a guttural wheeze, as he addressed the room, "the matter which brings us here, on this most grim of nights, is indeed a dire one!"
El Conde clasped his hands together. His long, bony fingers grew into jet black talons, as lightless as smooth obsidian.
"Ancient, terrible powers stirr in the darkness. Our oldest enemy, dismissed as fiction by the ivory tower, has reared its foul head."
The room was silent, hanging on the raspy words of the pestilent speaker.
"You have all felt, as I have, hideous energies swelling, and thrumming, inside our very minds. Make no mistake; this is the beginning of the end. The final nights are upon us, my siblings, and these dreaded signals are harbingers of Gehenna itself."
The misshapen figure paused, allowing his enthralled audience to consider his words.
"But we shall not roll over and die, like some sickly pup, as the Camarilla, and those which baseless claim the mantle of "Anarch" will," el Conde declared, "we are more than the hapless feast of the antediluvians!"
El Conde spread his arms wide, his morose voice swelling into a roaring bellow.
"WE SHALL TAKE THE FIGHT TO THE BLOOD TYRANTS!" el Conde boomed, "AND WE WILL BLEED THEM DRY!"
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