Marie and Micheal didn't have any idea what to say, they were stunned and afraid of what looked like might happen. Micheal edged his hand to his own pistol. Lawrence had been more on the edge recently, but it seemed that he had completely snapped. Almost as if he actually believed that he and Marie were still married.
Above them, Mina moved downstairs to a bottom floor in the near-abandoned building she was using as hiding place. She carefully put the sniper rifle together as she watched the drama unfold.
"Put your hands up, bastard, don't think I don't know what your doing," Lawrence, gun leading the way, and grabbed Mike's gun out of its holster. "A gun, eh, and what were you going to do with that mister. Shoot pigeons?"
"I'm on duty," Micheal explained angrily.
"Is that so?" Lawrence asked. "You're a cop." He knew that, he'd been on Mike's case the entire two-years of his relationship with Marie. In the distance the sound of closing sirens was heard. "You call your friends on me, cop?!" the raging man yelled in Micheal's face. Before he had a chance to answer, Lawrence shot him six times. Three of the bullets passed through the vest he was wearing.
"Michael!" Marie screamed as her fiancee slumped to the ground. Lawrence turned the gun on her, and was about to shoot, but he then changed his mind when he saw the cops lined up behind him.
"Back off or I shoot the little whore." Of course if they did back off he'd shoot her anyway, and there was the fact that one of their brethren was lying in the street probably bleeding to death. "I said back off," he growled and his gun hand jerked a little. In time with the movement a shot rang out and took one of the cops in between the eyes. The air was suddenly filled with gunshots as the cops retaliated to what they thought had been an action by their suspect.
Across the street, in the wreck of a building behind the gunman, Mina smiled as she left to head back home. Maybe Renfield would let her play with Katrina today.
Carmilla awoke a few hours before sunset screaming from the nightmares of her sleeping period. After she realized her surroundings she realized that she was once again inside the Box. She couldn't remember how long ago she had been put in, two, three days maybe as many as five. She had lost count only He and Lucy knew for sure.
Carmilla was hungry, but there was nothing to eat in the lightless room. Who knew how long it would be she was let out of this thing.
The only living things in the room with her were insects, and unlike most people they didn't repulse her, not anymore. After five years with Him she found animals of anykind to be more trustworthy. Then she noticed that the room wasn't totally lightless anymore, a thin beam of sunlight streamed in on the far side of the room. It provided enough light for Carmilla's...
"Katrina!" she screamed suddenly. "My name is Katrina! Katrina Wujick! I am not Carmilla! I am not Carmilla. I am not Carmilla..." He had almost won a battle at just that moment. She had almost forgotten who she was, just like Lucy and Mina. He had come close to winning many times over the past year. Too many for Katrina's liking.
She breathed out a sigh and cried herself back to sleep, the tears staining the white t-shirt she wore, the only bright thing she had been allowed, but one more stain hardly mattered one way or the other. Especially with the Hunger calling to her so loudly.
At ten o'clock in the morning the telephone rang at the apartment of Bregan and Micheal Rohan. Before the first ring had died out, Bregan had the phone to his ear.
"Hello?"
"Bregan Rohan?" the voice on the other end asked. He sounded about as caring toward humanity as the Red Talons. No that wasn't accurate. The Red Talons cared about humanity, they just thought that it should be driven to extinction. Bregan doubted if anyone could evoke an emotional response from the faceless man at the other end of the phone.
"Yes."
"This is San Francisco Metropolitian Hospital. I'm calling about your brother." Bregan shifted forward in his seat, dreading the news he knew was coming.
"Yes?"
"Your brother was shot several times today. Some of the bullets punched through the vest he was wearing. He was treated for gunshot, internal bleeding and cracked ribs. He has not regained conciousness, and it is not known at this time whether he shall survive."
"Thanks, I'll come right down." The resigned, emotionless expression in Bregan's suddenly gravelly voice surprised even the robot-like speaker on the other end, thus destroying Bregan's theory.
"Er...Visting hours are from noon to six pm." Then there was a click as the caller hung up. Okay, so he was wrong. The robot was capable of emotions.
Bregan set down the phone with his suddenly hairy and clawed hand. He looked into the mirror and saw that he had shifted into Glabro form during the conversation. A note to those who knew him about how angry he truly was.
"I need to see him sooner than that." Bregan stood up out of the chair and walked forward. Suddenly the air rippled around him and he seemed to walk behind a wall that wasn't there. When he'd vanished the air returned to normal, with him gone.
He appeared in the Umbra a minute later, one of two spirit worlds that shadowed the physical one. He knew the approximate direction of the hospital and he began to head in that direction. Bregan knew a Silent Strider with a theory that he wanted to test. Bregan hoped to Gaia that he was right.
About an hour later, with no real problems from the local spirits, Bregan was nearing the hospital. Like almost all of the other buildings in the city, the hospital was covered with what looked to be crsytallized spider webs. Above him on the telephone wires and power lines he watched as innumerable net spiders rushed about to deliver their messages and carry out other errands.
Ten, even five, years back it would never have been so busy. Now that nearly everybody had a connection to the Internet the traffic had increased. It was one of the increasingly rare instances of the Weaver and the Wyld combining powers to make something wonderous. That was the way the world was supposed to work, before the Wyrm and the Weaver went insane.
Bregan didn't have time for theology though. He entered the umbral shadow of the hospital cautiously. All kinds of people came to hospitals and they were often crowded. As a result numerous spirits also converged on such places. Banes found much here to ply their trade of corruption and suffering. Despite this, it was rare that a truly dangerous infestation could be found in a such a place of good will.
At least he was safe from the restless souls of dead men and women, they dwelled in the Underworld, a seperate, darker version of the Umbra. Few Garou traveled there, those that did rarely spoke of what they found. Bregan sometimes heard the wraiths' voices speaking as he heard those of the Umbral spirits. His uncle told him that this was a gift most theurge did not possess and should be cherished. Bregan thought it was a damnable curse.
He found his brother's room quickly, not encountering even a single Bane or other hostile spirit. Entering the room, he found that his friend's theory held some truth. Their was his brother's umbral shadow lying on the bed, but unlike the shadows of most people, this one was aware of the room around it.
"Bregan?" the shadow asked. Bregan nodded his head. "Good to see you." The shadow sat up then. "Where is this place?"
"The Umbra." At seeing Micheal's puzzled look he clarified. "The spirit world."
"Then I'm dead," Micheal's shadow stated. Bregan's response took him by surprise.
"No, if you were dead you would be either in the Underworld or else you'd be where ever it is humans without unfinished buisness go. Either way you'd be beyond my power to find you. At least that's how Dreamwalker explained it to me."
"The short term is I'm still alive," the shadow looked over his brother. "I assume you came to discuss my note."
"The thought had crossed my mind." Micheal gestured for him to continue. "What the hell were you thinking Mike? They changed the meeting place and you go along with it! You're going to be a father, Micheal and you can't..." Micheal was laughing. "There's nothing fuckin' funny about this Mike."
"Are you listening to yourself?" he asked. Bregan paused, then his eyes widened a little.
"I sound like you! Oh, man, look what you're doing to me." They chuckled a little at the idea.
"They mentioned Marie." It was short, simple and to the point. Bregan nodded understanding as he looked to his future sister-in-law's umbral shadow, firmly attached to her body, and unaware of spirit world around it.
"I'll get the guy Mike, you just rest, not that you have much choice. As for security."
"I think Lieutenant Jacobs could help in that regard," Micheal suggested.
"I'll have to see him when he gets off then." Bregan looked about the room as if searching for something, his gaze immeadiatly settled on the window.
The spirit he was about to bind was usually something only Glass Walkers toyed with. As Micheal's shadow watched Bregan prepared the talismans he had dedicated to himself to be used in ceremony. Bregan then began chanting in Celtic and dancing about the room to the amazement of his brother's shadow.
The window of the room began to shake and warp as the dance continued, resisting whatever sort of ritual Bregan was performing. By the end of the ceremony, Bregan had triumphed despite the alien nature of the glass elemental. Now he had to face it down to truly bind it. His willpower matched with that of the elemental's.
"Guard my brother's spirit and body from attack until he is again healthy. Inform me of any major event."
That could be a long time, do you have the power to keep me bound that long? It wasn't so much a voice as it was a feeling. Something that emanated from the glassy humanoid form before him.
"I'll worry about that when the subject turns up."
You are barely more than a cub, Fianna.
"And you are meerly a jaggling." It was a game between binder and spirit, to admit weakness was to lose.
Indeed, until the question is answered then. The creature warped back into a window.
"See you later, Mike." Bregan waved buy to his brother, and walked out of the room. On the stairwell he stepped sideways back into the physical world, he then walked back down the hallway to Mike's room for a more official visit.
Jaera wasn't getting anywhere. Investigation had never been her strong point. She had shown that picture of Jared Mason about many of the nightclubs in town. Nobody had seen him in any of those places. Now she was about to show another person the picture, a remake of a picture over one hundred years old. She always claimed that the Confederate uniform was some sort of Halloween costume.
"Yeah, I've seen him before," Jenny said. Jaera blinked, surprised by the words.
"You have?"
"Yeah, he's always at the Shadowspot nightclub, usually after dark. Always leaving with a different girl each time." She paused a moment and scrunched up her forehead in thought. "No, that's not right, there are two different girls that he sometimes comes in with. A blonde and an Indian, you know, the Asian kind, but they don't come often, usually it's just him."
"Thank you, you've been a lot of help," Jaera commented as she got up to leave.
"No problem, talk to you later."
Jaera never noticed the man try to follow her, but she lost him anyway, being like a needle in a haystack to normal people.
The man waited patiently outside the bar, and when Jenny Simon walked out of the bar he was ready for her. If he couldn't catch the searcher, he'd bring the source of information. He dragged the unconcious girl to his car, to be driven to Varney's apartment. From there the ghoul took her to Renfield's haven.
Lieutenant Karl Jacobs walked confidantly to his car from the police station, a little more money in his account than the previous day. It was such an easy task to perform when one considered the money. Not to mention that strange red drug that seemed to bring Jacobs some measure of his lost youth. He couldn't remember exactly how he had come to the drug-lord's payroll, and he didn't care much either.
He sat down into his car and turned the engine casually. He pulled the car out of the police station parking lot and into traffic. Traffic was very light for some reason, and continued to thin out as he proceeded along towards his home.
He was nearly a block from his street when he first felt the gun barrel against the back of his neck. There was not a single car in sight. The crooked cop looked nervously into the rear view mirror and saw Bregan Rohan sitting behind him.
"Hello, lieutenant, your gun please." the young man said, Jacobs very slowly removed his service pistol. "I believe we need to talk about how my brother ended up where he did. Take the highway out of town."
"Your brother got careless," the nervous man said to the seated figure in back seat. "He should have called for back up."
"He did," Bregan assured him. "He talked to you, and you sent him off without letting him speak."
"That's ridiculous," Jacobs claimed. "You're only making trouble for your self, Bregan."
"I already have trouble, sir," Bregan smiled, twisting the title into an insult. "And I have witnesses to prove your lie."
"Who are these witnesses?" Karl Jacobs asked quickly, he was sweating now. They left the city behind and entered the wilds just beyond.
"That is not important, Lieutenant. What is important is the question who paid you the twenty thousand in your account?"
"I don't have one thousand in my account, much less twenty," Jacobs began.
"Yes, you do, under the name Jacob Karr," Bregan shook his head and tsked at the crooked cop. "Somewhat unimaginative if you ask me."
"I am willing to forget this," Jacobs began to say. He couldn't seem to bring himself to betray his employer, there had to be another way out of this.
"Don't worry about it," Bregan told him. Outside, the sun began to go down, he would have some cover fairly soon. "The evidence is already being delivered, I just want to know who paid you, and where I can find him."
"You don't have anything, else I would already be in custody." He was confidant now. "Let me go now, and I'll forget this little incident." His passenger had ceased paying attention and begun looking out the car windows. "There's no way out of this. You should have planned this a little better."
"Stop here," Bregan comanded. It was now totally dark and they were at least ten miles beyond the city limits. Residences were few and far between, and at this time of night virtually no one was about. "Get out of the car."
"You're going to shoot me," Jacobs almost laughed as he exited the car. "They'll easily trace it back to you, it's almost worth dying to have you given a life sentence."
"All I was going to do was talk to you," Bregan left the car slowly, he appeared larger for some reason, and he had left the gun in the car. "I wasn't even going to accuse you." The young man smiled, revealing sharp teeth. "That was before I smelled the vampire on you, then it became tell me or die. Now, ghoul, run and die, or die where you stand. It makes no difference to me."
"Vampires are fiction, boy, don't you know that?" Jacobs was backing away now, despite his confidant words. Bregan was obviously a little off his rocker, and not to be negotiated with. Jacobs was confidant of his ability to beat him in melee, which it looked like it was going to come to.
"Fiction, just like werewolves." As Bregan completed his words, he suddenly grew larger and then smaller again, taking the form of a great wolf. Now all his words came out as growls and barks.
Jacobs ran backwards a few steps, before turning around and sprinting full out away from the insane thing he had just seen. He could hear the wolf's pounding feet behind him as it loped after him.
"Dream!" he shouted to himself. "It has to be a dream!" Something huge vaulted over his head and landed in front of him. A huge man-wolf that looked like it could easily weigh in at a lean five hundred pounds.
"If dream, you 'wake now," the thing growled at the lieutenant.
Normal humans would have been driven temporarily insane by the Crinos form of a Garou, but Jacobs was no longer completely human. He had been given samples of Renfield's blood in the form of an injection for the past few months. His wits were unaffected by any form of supernatural hindrance, of course none was really needed.
Jacobs screamed as the Garou's claw descended towards him. The screams did not last very long. The next morning the news would be full of the tradegy, a wild dog killing a respected lieutenant in the police force.
Dr. Emily Grange awoke from her daysleep to the sound of her phone ringing.
One. Two. Pause. One. Two. Pause. One. Two. Pause.
Her answering machine had been set for three rings, obviously somebody wanted to talk to her directly. She moved swiftly to exit the fortified basement that served as her haven. The phone had barely finished its latest one, two cycle as she reached it. Unsurprisingly, her caller ID named the caller as a pay phone. She lifted the phone to her ear in an irritated and sudden motion.
"Who is this?" she asked. "And what's so important that I have to come home to a ringing phone?"
"Temper, Doc," a deep voice advised calmly. Emily Grange's anger vanished like a vapor. "If I were a snake, I would have bitten you for that response." Grange's blood would have chilled if it weren't cold already.
"What do you want?" she asked cautiously.
"I'm a colleauge of yours. In a fashion," the voice was still calm. "It seems I could use your assistance with a matter. Maybe we could meet at your office, to discuss matters." Grange calmed down a little, this was territory she knew. Twenty minutes later she was walking into her office to find a tall man with dark hair sitting in her chair.
"What is this case you were wanting to discuss with me?" she asked the man before her, and it was a man. She could almost see the heat of his living blood emanating from his body, The eyes, however spoke of great age despite the thirty year-old body. The man was obviously a ghoul, somebody's servant out doing the master's dirty work.
"A police officer was shot today, isn't it tragic." Mock pity virtually oozed over each word.
"Yes," she agreed. "It always is. How did this happen?"
"It seems he was shot at close range by a large pistol," the man said sorrowfully, emphasizing the phrases close range and large pistol. "A comprehensive examination will reveal nothing more, but this man was a friend of mine. I want to be sure that he is cremated as per his wishes."
"A simple procedure," Emily agreed. "And for this favor then you give me what?"
""Why, I should say that would be obvious." The man had no accent, as if he had carefully erased it.
"I want to hear it in plain terms," Grange insisted.
"My share of this deal involves keeping the Camarilla blissfully unaware of your dealings with the Setites."
"Supposing I seek the Setites' aid in dealing with you." She did not fear the man, ghoulish blood aside.
"Don't bother, I've already spoken with Jean-Claude," The lifeless smile touched the ghoul's face again. "The Setites go to so much trouble to hide their hearts, it would be a shame if no one ever bothered to look for them."
"You have his heart?" Emily Grange faltered a moment, could Jean-Claude possibly be as powerful a Setite as that. To remove the heart from his body?
"It took a good deal of time and money," the ghoul admitted. "But yes we have the snake's heart."
"I guess we have a deal then," Dr. Emily Grange spoke, finally, defeated.
"I thought we might." The man made as if to leave, and then turned to dig the point a little further in. "The Followers of Set are, by most opinions, the most hated of your kind. The Sabbat fear them, the Inconnu despises them, and the Camarilla, seems to have a mix of the two emotions. It wouldn't do for your acquaintances with them known, now would it." He then walked calmly to the door, confidant in his safety.
"One thing first," Grange demanded as he reached the door. The man stopped and turned around, with an annoyed look on his face. This ghoul was exceptionally arrogant considering the one-sided nature of a conflict between them. "Who's your master?"
"My master is long dead, girl," he said without any hint of emotion. "Longer dead than you've been alive." The ghoul then left without any more notice for the vampire behind him.