Well, that escalated quickly...

Theme Music:  Gimme Shelter by The Sisters of Mercy (cover)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOl-diNxEys




The first thing I noticed when I walked in was, well.... me.

I've been in more goth clubs than I care to recall.  Travel is definitely part of my job description for Clan Ventrue, and for some horribly cliche reason all the cool leeches hang out in goth clubs.  While it certainly makes the feeding easy (find me a cute little goth girl that doesn't think she wants to be bitten by that guy who just looks so much like Lestat or Blade or Buffy or..... wait, Buffy isn't a vampire, is she?) it tends to all blend together after the 50th or 100th or 500th time.

So you can imagine my surprise when I walk into club Orpheus and there I am, staring back at myself in the mirrors lining the club walls.  I have to admit, most of those in attendance probably had good reason to think I was a Toreador, because I just stood there for I have no idea how long, looking at the impossible reflection of myself that shouldn't be there - and if I do say so myself, I looked damn good for a 500 year old man.  I haven't seen myself since the night of my embrace.  Even recent kine developments like cameras and film rely on some form of reflection to do what they do.

There's a joke in there somewhere, I think.  I'm out of my mind.  I've gone looking to find me.  If I return before I catch up to myself.... yeah yeah, I'm sure the punchline is old and stale for you too.

I did what any self respecting Kindred in that sort of situation would do - I stared at those mirrors like an inbred farmboy the first time he sees a girl that isn't his sister.  Then, just so I could tell Ray that I did it, I fixed my hair.  Because dammit, I could fix my fucking hair.  Then I went to the bar and ordered a drink.

There's a trick to drinking and enjoying other chemical treats when you're dead.  Normally, we can't enjoy the things that kine take for granted, like good scotch or omlettes or those awful smelling sandwich-burger things from Mc.... something-or-other that Ray is obsessed with.  The trick is to mix in blood.  Kindred vitae will work, but honestly I've found that human blood works better.  It doesn't work with food, but liquids are fair game, and whoever owned this bar was prepared for his guests this evening.  Some local brewery named Yuengling makes a damn fine low-end ale.  It was actually enjoyable to the point that I had four of them as the evening went on.  It works for other things too if you get creative.  I knew an anarch with a severe addiction to suspiciously red colored form of cocaine at one point.... bad times ensued.  He's dead now.

The club was already pretty full when I made my fashionably-late-turned-stupidly-slackjawed arrival, and from what I could tell most of the kindred there were of the young, dumb, and stupid variety.  Franca tells me that I've grown calloused as the decades have dragged on, but at this point in my unlife I have little patience or tolerance for stupidity.  Stupidity causes messes that I invariably end up having to fix.  By the night goddess, sometimes being a halfway competent Kindred is a fucking curse.

The first notable exception I encountered was a female that goes by the name of Zero.  I've gotten pretty good at figuring out a kindred's clan just by watching how they move and interact with those around them, and I had her pegged for an Assamite before we started talking.  Good to know that the old instincts still work.  Zero turned out to be charming, intelligent, witty, and fucking lethal - my preferred type of coterie mate and every warriors favorite type of woman.  Franca is going to love her.  I'll ignore the fact that she likely could have killed 80% of the club's occupants on her own, given enough time.  Pointing such things out is rude and unprofessional, after all.

My conversation with the most dangerous thing I could find on short notice (what?  I get myself into trouble fast.  It's a gift.) was cut short by one of the afore-mentioned young and stupid licks deciding to try to deck another one.  On Elysium.  I saw the fist coming and was preparing to, ahem, discipline it's owner when someone appeared out of freaking nowhere and intercepted the fist midway to it's destination, and then proceeded to explain how doing stupid things can make you dead to the person doing the punching.  As it turns out, the fist interceptor was a Caitiff with more than his fair share of common sense.

Oh, be quiet.  I can hear you already.  "Tybalt, you associate with the clanless?  They're dirty, and they have vampire cooties, and....."

And get your head out of your ass, please.  I've found that the Caitiff are, almost to an individual, competent and capable, and when it comes to having someone at my side who can potentially pull my ass out of a fire, I do not discriminate.  If that bothers you, I suggest living a little.

Where was I before I got cranky?  Oh yeah, Caitiff fist interceptors....

This individual - and by the night goddess I cannot remember his fucking name, and it's driving me crazy - turned out to be extremely pleasant company.  And by "pleasant" I mean not stupid, not boring, and capable of getting things done.  What things?  Don't you worry your pretty little head about that.  Let's just say that he introduced me to other interesting and un-stupid kindred, and I like any lick who can do that sort of thing for me while having enough spare time to intercept fists mid-flight.

The intended victim of said fist was even more interesting, but for very different reasons.  Turns out the poor bastard was a hit-and-run embrace.  His first night of unlife, and he ends up in a club with me.  He had to piss someone off in a past life, because trouble tends to follows me like a lost little puppy that needs to go to the pound for a long nap.  After talking to the kid and a fellow Ventrue who had taken an interest in him, we got him squared away as far as figuring out what sort of blood was in his veins and what the basic rules of our society are.  My family member now has a new protege, it seems.  I'm completely ok with this, because if the kid turns out to be useful he's with us, and if he does something stupid, he's not my problem.  Win-win.

I spent most of the evening with either Zero or the Caitiff my brain refuses to name, dealing with suspicious personages appointing themselves and others to the Princes court and naming themselves as authority figures and other nonsense.  Seriously, I can't imagine what in the Cold Night would possess you to just decide that you are now Sherriff or Prince.  This seems decidedly dangerous to me when you haven't even seen the Prince yet.  Speaking of which....

The Prince never showed up.  Now I understand that this sort of thing is a Prince's perogative under normal circumstances, but really?  You have a city of new kindred and a freaking Archon in attendance, and you decide to skip the meet-and-greet?  Unprofessional.  His Seneschal wasn't even there.  And that's how my evening got interesting....

You see, I was just trying to be helpful.  I was explaining to my new Archon friend (no, that's not really something that exists.  Archons don't have friends) that I thought it was just bad form for the Prince not to show up.  I may have mentioned that the city needed someone on the throne, and if no one else was stepping in to fill the role, I would.  The next thing I am aware of is the fact that I'm staring into the grinning face of a Tremere Archon as he asks me "So, are you officially challenging the Prince for praxis of Baltimore?"

Being the kind of lick that always likes to double down on his mistakes, I told him that yes, I would stand in contention up until the point that the Prince came out of hiding and resumed his rightful place in the city, if that was needed.....

..... fuck me.  Did I just appoint myself Prince?  Wasn't I just saying how very stupid that sort of thing is?

Franca's letter to Tybalt.

Theme music: Alibis by The Birthday Massacre                    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl-y--1G8Xg




Tybalt,

Hello my love. I miss you greatly. I am sorry to have left you while you were recovering but we needed to secure the businesses. I have not kept you as in the loop as I should have. I apologize. Sometimes I forget that the need to know that everything is okay, outweighs the need to just relax.

Ray says relaxing is not working for you, so I thought you may enjoy a new project. I have been securing hotels up and down the eastern coast. The galleries are doing okay, but the wars did a large amount of damage. The theaters are doing great. Kindred and Kine alike tend to reach for the arts when the world is a bit too scary. The economy isn’t quite as bad as the Kine news reports. At least not as far as I have seen, but maybe I have a bit more experience in customer service than the Kine?

I have decided to settle in Baltimore Maryland. I would like you to join me. I was hoping to secure a haven and ease you into things, but it appears there is an important gather being hosted this weekend. This means that you have a week to pack up and get here. Don’t worry about bringing everything, for now we have a row house. Do remember those? Ohio didn’t have many. Anyway, I figured we could house hunt. Remember how we used to look through houses on the computer and dream of how to make them ours? It’s been so long, I thought it would be fun. The architecture here is amazing.

So stop your self-destructive isolation and get your ass out here. I’ll see you in a week. There’s more, but I’ll fill you in when you arrive. There’s a bit more unrest here than in Ohio and I don’t want to take more chances than I already have.

I’ll see you soon my love.
Franca

Some wounds never heal.

Scene 1:  A bad night(mare)
Theme music: Down by The Birthday Massacre      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQXlFOyhje4





Fire. Fire is everywhere. The building is engulfed in it. Some of it in normal shades, but far too much of it in that hideous, infernal green. I know what that green means... although some nights I wish I didn't. 

Most of my coterie is now dead or fleeing in frenzy, some disintegrating under the burning green death as they run. The remnants of Daniel's pack are doing the same, until he assumes his war form and terrifies them back into battle. The Tzimice is an effective leader, I'll give the bastard that.

The source of those green flames starts cackling again as the infernalists renew their attack with a new ally - a demon one of them summoned, most likely the fallen Tremere. It doesn't take long to turn the rest of the pack - and my coterie - into ashes and blood, leaving just me and Daniel. And one other.

As Daniel grapples the thing, a thunder crack from half a block away goes off, and the demon's head splatters and disintegrates. Franca. Holy water is hell to work with, but when you put it into hollow bullets, put those bullets into a high-powered sniper rifle, and then give that rifle to a 400 year old toreador that could outshoot most men when she was twelve, it's damn effective. Especially against infernalists. Daniel chuckles as his adversary's head pops, splattering his grotesque form with goo. He growls something, but between the sounds of fighting, his horrid accent, and what his transformation does to that accent, I have no idea what he says. Most likely something appreciative of my Toreador lover's aim. He has been pursuing her since he met her.

Emptying my revolver into the onrushing horde, I flip the selection lever and fire off the single shotgun shell the LeMatt holds before stowing the gun, drawing my blades, and pulling the night to me... becoming one with it. The infernalists have only a second to glimpse my own shadowy war form before I drop the night on their heads, blinding them. Tentacles spring out of the shadows as I wade into the orb, doing a bit of damage before being consumed by the flames.

I'm terrified. As usual. Terror becomes a frigid rage, and I channel that into violence, a brutal and efficient counterpoint to Daniel's messy gorefest. Outside of my black globe of death, I can hear the Tzimice shouting something. I drop the globe, no longer needing it to hide me from the piles of ash I have created, and I see him pointing one disgusting arm at the upper levels. The Tremere is there. And he has a remote in his hand.

The next thing I know, I am falling. The last thing I see is the building falling with me. On to me.




Scene 2:  My inner demons can beat up your furniture
Theme music: One by Filter (cover)                    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xebW97V8iwU






I woke up with a scream. Renard - excuse me, he prefers Ray these nights - is there across the room from me.

"The dreams again, Tybalt?"

I cup my face in my hands, trying to drive it out of my head. The war was hell, but dealing with what came afterwards was worse. Ray knows this. He knows the nightmares well, all of them. Franca left him with me after she and Daniel dug my torpid body out of what should have been my grave. I hate Tzimice, but at least they understand loyalty. Most of the time. I hate infernalists a great deal more - about as much as I hate small, enclosed, burning places.

I nod in reply to Ray and wordlessly get up, grimacing as I do so.  Some wounds never heal, and nightmares are just one special variety of those kind of wounds.

"I need food, and I'm not feeding on you. Not in this condition. I like you."

"I still have the the one we caught two nights ago downstairs, sir."

I nod. I've taken to catching criminals and keeping them around until they aren't breathing anymore. Drug pushers, murderers, rapists, the like. There's no shortage of violent predators in Akron these days. Not after the war destroyed the economy here. It keeps me from doing any harm to the recovering populace - no use accidentally killing off useful members of kine society when I can "accidentally" kill off scum, although if Franca finds out that I'm hunting down armed "meals" in my current condition she's going to read me the riot act. 400 years is a long time to practice the art of womanly fury, and Franca is an undisputed master of it.

I make my way downstairs to the sub basement. The two-legged animal is dozing in his chains, but he wakes up and instantly recoils when he sees me come in. He's frightened of me. He should be. Predators can recognize bigger, nastier predators when they see one, and he has nowhere to run or hide. It's over quickly. I'm not in a good mood, so I don't bother to bite him in a way that would induce bliss - he doesn't deserve it anyway. I simply rip his throat open and drain him as his screams become a wet gurgling, and then silence. Ray has his methods of body disposal, so I don't need to be discrete.

"That's better."

Ray chuckles. It's a side effect of being around me and Franca for so long. Seeing things that would send a normal person into years of therapy just amuse him now, unless those things are happening to someone he cares about. We may be nice monsters, but we're still monsters. Just ask anyone who managed to survive the war, on either side. 

We are all monsters.

I head back upstairs, making small talk with Ray and pausing in the hallway to do my nightly ritual of "fixing" my hair in the mirror. I make a point of it, have for centuries. Just like every other night, I can't see a damn thing in that mirror other than the wall behind me. That's the point after all. What would I be without a sense of humor and the ability to laugh at myself?

A much less pleasant monster, that's what. Night goddess forbid, I might even become rude, and we can't have that, now can we?

I've been slowly recovering since that night, both physically and mentally. Torpor does horrible things to a kindred's body, even more so when its assisted by an infernalist's dying curse. I've done a good job of recovering from that nuisance. It's the mental scars I'm still recovering from.

I head back into the room I was sleeping in and get dressed, then flop down on a couch and snatch a cigar from the humidor Franca had installed for me here. Puffing away in silence while Ray fixes my hair for real, I finally get the courage to ask someone - anyone - the question that has been plaguing me since I arose from the rubble two years ago.

"Ray, have I been wrong all this time? Were we any different?"

The ghoul looks at me for a long, long time before answering me.

"Christ, Ty. Did you really just ask me that?"

My only reply is another smoke ring from my cigar.

"I'm assuming that you're referring to the rest of your..... to the Lasombra."

I nod. Ray knows better than to refer to them as my clan. I've been Ventrue literally since the night of my embrace.

He smiles a sad smile. Ray is more than just a ghoul. He's a confidant. A friend. Probably one of the reasons I haven't fallen to the beast yet, along with Franca. "Honestly Tybalt, I've watched your kind for a long time now. This may not be what you want to hear, but-"

"What I want to hear is honesty, Renard." My voice comes out harsher than I intend. Mentally I chastise myself for taking out my burden on him. He doesn't deserve it.

"Alright then. You weren't wrong for a long time, Tybalt. Not until you decided that they were all the same. I watched you make that switch, from hunting what you knew were abominations to hunting anything that shared the same blood with you, simply because of that blood. It turned you into someone I didn't like. In some ways, it turned you into one of them, because of how you started to think. I know that it hurt Franca to watch it happen, and I'm pretty sure it caused a lot of the self-loathing you've been wallowing in recently."

I arched an eyebrow at him. "Self loathing?"

He arched one back. "Don't act like you don't know, Ty. You've been wrestling with all of this since we pulled you out of that building, and it's because of that Tzimice that helped us. You were forced to face the fact that maybe not all of them were purely evil, and that revelation took your black-and-white world view and turned it inside out. Franca left because she knew you had to figure this out for yourself."

I said nothing again. Eventually, the cigar went out. Ray got up and made his way to the door. "When you're done processing all of that, she sent you a letter. I'll be waiting for you in the study." I nodded at him as he left, lost in my own thoughts. I'd spent almost my entire existence hunting down the monsters that created me. No remorse, no pity. It had gotten me far in the Ventrue and the Camarilla both, and Franca had been there for most of it. She had to have seen this coming, and yet I didn't even know where she had gone.

The war had proven only one thing to me - that in the end, both the Camarilla and the Sabbat were victims of the same mistakes and flaws at their core. Both used their neonates as cannon fodder, they just covered up the truth with different shades of lies. What would have become of those neonates, had they been able to plot a different course? Would they still be monsters, violent and twisted and hateful?

Would I still be a monster?

It was a thought that shook me to my unliving core. The beast inside recoiled and then reared up, lashing out at the unwelcome harshness of truth. Half an hour later, I came back to myself. My room was a study in forceful dis-assembly of household furnishings, and I had splinters in my feet from broken wood. Leave it to me to forget to put my shoes on before a frenzy. Plucking them from my soles and putting the misplaced shoes on, I hit the intercom button.

"Ray? I'm done. You can release the lock on the door now."

A second later the bedroom door emitted a soft click, and I made my way down to the study. Ray was waiting with a letter and two glasses of wine - chardonay for him, blood infused merlot for me. I took the glass with a surprisingly steady hand, sat down, and got right to the point.

"Do you think there is any hope for them?"

"The Lasombra?" He answered me in Spanish. Apparently I had switched languages again without realizing it. I do that sometimes, an odd habit from 500 years of being around. I made a mental point to switch back to English and continued.

"Not just the Lasombra. Them, the Ventrue.... all of us."

He looked me in the eyes, a bold thing to do when conversing with a creature like me. "In my short time, I've known exalted and lofty pillars of the Camarilla to commit the most vile act one of your kind can do to another, simply out of boredom. I've seen anarchs defend a burning hospital against impossible odds from two warring factions that both outnumbered them by the hundreds, because they believed it was the right thing to do. I've seen a Tzimice pull a torpid enemy from the rubble of a burning building beside a Camarilla Toreador, simply because of his honor as a warrior. And I've watched a Lasombra.... accept it, that's what you are, Tybalt... seek out and destroy the foulest things the world has to offer, seeking some sort of redemption he denies he's even looking for, for sins no one but himself thinks he's committed. I've seen two undead predators display centuries of devotion to one another, and I've seen rank neonates publicly torture rivals and ghouls like me to death for their own amusement, or because they were told that was how things were done. At the end of the day, I've come to the conclusion that it all depends on two things - the desire to rise above what you are, and the guidance to pursue that goal. In that regard, kindred are no different from the people they feed on."

I drained my glass and lit a cigarette, digesting those words.

"You should read this letter, Ty. It sounds important."

In my bout of introspective navel-gazing, I had completely forgotten about Franca's letter. I took it from his hands, unable to hide the smile on my face even if I wanted to. The contents were surprising, to say the least. "Baltimore? She went to Baltimore? Why?" I knew why, of course. The letter explained that fairly clearly, but still.... Baltimore?

Tucking the letter away, I started making travel arrangements. While doing so, I made a decision. Perhaps it was time for me to leave the past behind me. Maybe - one at a time at first, and only if they were willing, I could guide the new Kings on a path that would make them worthy of the title. And maybe I could even overcome my own demons and give some guidance to my wayward, long denied bloodmates - and become my Brothers' Keeper.

The guide the Keepers never had.



Scene 3:  ...... and hell is coming with me.
Theme music:  Shine Down by Godsmack                         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXvUg4bo0qM




A few nights later, arrangements had been made. It was going to take some time to transfer funds, investments, controlling interests in stocks.... all that menial paperwork that resulted in my having the money to do the things I do, but I had enough liquid capital - also known in modern parlance as cold, hard cash - to make it for a few weeks until all the paper trails found their ways to the right hands. Unlike a normal, mortal financial predator, I couldn't have things like mutual funds, stocks, savings accounts, and the like in my name. I had to use proxies and false identities. Why?

Go try to find my birth certificate or social security number. I'll even let you cheat and use that googly thing that Franca is so fond of, if you want. I suspect it won't help you much, because neither of those things exist. A birth certificate citing my D.O.B. as "sometime in 1503" would be a pretty big breach of the masquerade after all, not to mention the headaches and ulcers that sort of vagueness would cause to all those paper pushers.

I might have had an ulcer once, judging by what I've been told they feel like. But that was a long time ago. There are perks to being what I am, and a lack of ulcers is one of them I suppose.

Franca and I generally prefer to travel via private jets with special accommodations for those of us with, shall we say, severe allergies to sunlight, but she hadn't had the time to set up the proper connections in Baltimore yet to make sure my arrival would be overlooked by airport security. The last thing I needed was an overzealous TSA employee pulling me aside because of a troubling lack of body temperature and some very strange cargo, so Renard - dammit, Ray - and I would be taking shifts driving a semi we acquired a few years back. He would take the daylight hours while I slept in the conveniently lightproofed trailer, and I would take over after sunset, giving him a chance to sleep. I wouldn't be able to take all of our possessions, but what we couldn't fit into the trailer could be picked up later on. I packed what was important - my weapons (making sure that we had all of the properly forged permits and licenses for them up in the cab, just in case Ray or I got pulled over by a state trooper or some other form of nonsense happened), my gunsmithing tools and equipment, several changes of clothing for a variety of occasions, a selection of the best cigars and cigarettes in the mansion as well as several of the rarer vintages of alcohol, (One does not simply abandon a bottle of scotch given to you by Mr. Johnathan Walker the year he opened his distillery. That would be a crime.) my training equipment, and box after box of books, scrolls, parchments, notes, supplies, and research equipment. What sort of books and research equipment? All kinds, everything from Shakespeare and Plato to treatises on kindred physiology to dusty old tomes concerning the theoretical and practical similarities and differences between Thaumaturgy and Abyss Mysticism, along with grimoires and tutorials on those subjects. I've been gathering those writings for almost as long as I've been drinking blood, and a good many of them are older than I am, whether they are the original documents or copies of the originals I had made before trading the originals to the Tremere for yet more old, arcane occult texts or the odd bit of teaching and instruction. Irreplaceable, in any case. Hell, I even have one of Benjamin Franklin's personal handwritten journals in there, and let me tell you - that was an interesting read. Mr. Franklin was what the modern kids would call a freak. I'm fairly certain that journal could make a Toreador Antitribu blush.

We also had a decent sized refridgeration unit stocked with quantities of my and Franca's blood. Renard - dammit all to hell, RAY - had been with us for a long time, passed between me and Franca through the years as time, travel, and torpor allowed, and in the event that neither one of us were able to give him the vitae he needed, that was his emergency backup supply.

I kept my LeMat on me, loaded with silver rounds just like Ray's 1911 was. Even though we were taking the turnpike for most of the trip, it still passed through the Appalachian mountains, and that sounded like prime territory for a lupine ambush to me. I hadn't done anything in particular to piss any lupines off, but that didn't seem to matter to a majority of them. Franca had some sort of weird respect for the fuzzy death machines, probably something she picked up from her Gangrel friends out west. Now understand, I don't personally have anything against them myself, but I do make it a point to take issue with any being that decides it wants to rip my face off just because I exist. Call it professional paranoia, but I happen to like my face. Or at least I think I do.... I haven't seen it in a few hundred years, so I suppose I could be wrong.

Between hunting, sorting, boxing, and loading, packing up the trailer took two nights. It's times like this that I wish I had created a childe, if for no other reason just to share the work load. However, I decided long, long ago that me siring another was a bad idea. I may be undead, but I'm fairly certain that being the progenitor of a secret bloodline of "Ventrue" that all suspiciously have the abilities and weaknesses of the Lasombra would be enough to give even me a stress headache. I can just hear the conversation in my head now.... "Spies? No, Lord Hardestadt, they aren't spies. They're our new secret weapon against the Lasombra, and none of them even have any identity issues, I promise!"

I believe that would be the point in which I would be Vigorously... how do the young ones phrase it? "Bitch Slapped"? Yes, that's it. I believe that would be when I got Vigorously bitch slapped through the nearest wall. Or maybe the furthest one... Lord Hardestadt does like to make a dramatic point from time to time. But I digress...

Two nights later, the trailer was packed, the mansion was locked down, and we were on the road to Baltimore. The trip was blessedly uneventful - perhaps the Night Goddess decided to give me some time to think. Or maybe she was playing a practical joke on me, because the line of thought I was having would have seemed ludicrous to me at any time in the past.

A childe. Perhaps that was the answer, or at least part of it. A Lasombra that could be guided the right way, and in turn go on to be an example to the others. An example of a new way of unlife.

Now.... how the hell would I go about broaching this topic with Franca?