It was on his way back to the mansion with Jaera, put to sleep by a mental suggestion, that Renfield felt his blood bond with Mina break. She had made an error of some kind, a fatal one. Now Renfield would need a new assassin.
It was with these thoughts that he pulled up to his haven. He eased the car to a stop and shut off the engine. He carried the mage's body inside as easily as if she weighed no more than a briefcase.
Two pairs of eyes watched him enter. Bregan covered the distance to the mansion quietly and with as much strength as he could muster, preparing to barge in on the Beast. Behind him Katrina steps came heavy, she was betraying her sire, and the blood bond wouldn't let her forget it.
Renfield was upstairs in his room, with Lucy two doors down, when he heard the door crash in. The vampire sat up from feeding on his, now barely concious victim. Odd, he thought, she shouldn't be awake yet.
"Lucy!" He immeadiatly shouted. The ghoul was in his room instantly. "Call Varney, guard her," he told her simply as he moved to see who was interfering with his feast. Lucy turned to the phone and dialed Varney's cellular number.
Behind the ghoul, Jaera went from semi-concious to concious within a moment. She had instinctively continued the fight against Renfield's command and had shortened its duration dramatically. Now she worked the pattern of her body anew, repairing wounds and blood loss. Then she stood up as Lucy turned about. Jaera dropped into stance, forgoing her bird-like enhancements against this more vulnerable foe. Lucy's surprise was brief.
"Okay Lady, let's see what you got," she said dropping into a short-hand kung-fu fighting stance.
Downstairs, Bregan had shifted into Crinos and caught the mage's scent upstairs. His crinos form was what the Garou would call distinguished. He stood well over eight feet and weighed nearly five-hundred-fifty pounds. His gray fur was short and appeared disheveled, as if he had just woken up from a nap.
The mage's other leads seem to have betrayed her, he thought to himself.
"Well, well. Look at what we got heah," came a youthful, mocking voice from somewhere above him. He looked up, as he stepped on the first stair to see the teenaged face of his enemy.
"What buisness might you have with me, Lupine?" the man asked. He sounded sincere and trustworthy, infinately incapable of evil. How Bregan could even consider harming this being, he had only been protecting himself.
Bregan shook his head and howled in defiance of Renfield's emotion manipulation. Renfield sighed, presence was entirely untrustworthy when dealing with foes who knew his nature. Domination was a much better power, even with the necessity of eye contact, emotions were a minor concern then.
"You had my brother shot," the beast growled carefully avoiding the vampire's direct gaze.
"Ah do a lot o' that, which one would yous have been?" the vampire asked as it advanced down the stairs. Outside, in the night, a pure beautiful howl erupted and was answered by the howls of not to distant coyotes.
The sound distracted both creatures for the briefest of moments.
"What was his name then?" the vampire asked again, smiling.
"Micheal Rohan," was the answering growl.
"Ah the stubborn one. Then ah have you t' thank for my minion's death?" Bregan didn't answer. Crinos form wasn't for talk, it was for battle! The werewolf charged up the stairs growling all the way.
Upstairs, Lucy closed to a boxing distance with Jaera and let loose a hail of strikes, sped up by her ghoulish celerity. Jaera managed to block each one and return a barrage of her own. Soon the two appeared to be only a blur of motion as punches and blocks flew with astonishing speed. Occaisonally a leg would fly out in an attempt to connect, but neither was gaining ground on the other.
Lucy was nearly a master of her art, the fighter more skilled than her was rare. Jaera, however, practiced Do, the martial-art form that spawned all others. She was nowhere near masterhood, but even a minor disciple of the pure form was more than a match for its descendants. Only the powers of Lucy's ghoul blood kept her even with her opponent.
Jaera shot forward with one finger, appearing to aim for Lucy's eye. Lucy sneered as she easily blocked the shot aside. Jaera jumped back then, out of Lucy's range in apparent retreat.
"Learn your lesson then? Lady." the forty-two year old teen-ager asked. Suddenly Lucy dropped her stance as immense pain worked itself through her system. Jaera's magick coursed through Lucy's system, inflaming every nerve and altering the physical make-up of her throat and heart.
Lucy clawed at her throat in an attempt to gain breath as her heart built up pressure, and, in completion of the decidely vulgar magick, exploded. A large hole appeared in the ghoul's body as her blood covered everything in the room.
Jaera detected a slight shift in the weaves of quintessence about the ghoul. Intellectually she knew it was the spirit forming into a wraith, but she couldn't know for sure. Either way, it was free quintessence for the moment.
Jenny watched as Lucy's wraith began to manifest in the shadowlands. She was about to move to attack the new wraith when suddenly the manifestation ceased. Before she could form, Lucy's pattern was dissolved into the most basic of energies and funnelled into the mage. Caught between the transition of living to dead, the ghoul had no defense against the attack. She literally ceased to be. Jenny stared for a moment at the woman who had killed the ghoul and waited to be destroyed as well, but the mage merely ignored her. The wraith went downstairs to the developing battle there.
Jaera felt the cold touch of Paradox even as she looked over her handiwork in satisfaction. Many of her colleagues said that her attacks were too brutal, but she felt that such individuals as Lucy deserved ugly deaths.
Below she could hear a battle going on, and Renfield's laughter. The fiend who had killed her sister and just now violated her own will and body was down there. Now was time to make him pay, she thought as she worked her transformation.
As soon as Bregan was close enough to Renfield the werewolf used one of his few tricks. He leaped past the vampire, raking him with his claws as he passed. Renfield was knocked off the stairwell to the floor below from the impact, but the fall was a mere annoyance for the vampire. The oozing slash marks, however, were objects for concern.
Bregan leaped off of the stairwell and slashed at vampire again as Renfield returned to his feet. Renfield ducked as he grabbed the hairy arm and slammed the werewolf into, and through, the wall behind him.
Renfield laughed at the dazed werewolf.
The air suddenly filled with a blaring metallic song
Renfield's laugh increased in volume at its sound.
"Ye trying t' scare me spook? Ah'm not so easily whipped."
"Nor am I!" screeched the hawk-like Jaera as she leaped down and slashed with her talons. Alone they were of no more concern to the vampire than a bullet or knife, but fueled with magick of the prime sphere they became deadly. Three more slashes sprouted bloody and oozing upon the now annoyed vampire.
He whipped out his hand faster than Jaera had believed anything could move and grabbed her by the throat. The vampire lifted her up into the air as if she were a rag doll. He began to direct his gaze toward her, but she stubbornly shut her eyes as she used life magick yet again.
Suddenly she was very heavy and even Renfield's terrible strength could not lift her for long. She dropped all the way through the floor into the basement. Then the werewolf slammed into Renfield again. They landed five feet away, the werewolf pinning the vampire to the ground and lowering his fang-filled maw to bite.
Renfield liked his head where and like it was, so, gritting his teeth, he pulled his legs to his chest and pushed out. The werewolf again flew, but this time as Renfield directed. By the time Bregan stood up Renfield was preparing for another attack. Behind him Jaera jumped up through the hole and landed as lightly as a bird.
Renfield laughed.
Outside Katrina stared away from the house, down the dirt road, and saw the fast approaching car by its headlights. It would be here in mere minutes, and she suscpected she knew who it was. Katrina tried to think of something she could do to stop Varney's approach.
She didn't know how she would fair in combat with him, she'd never tried to learn, and she didn't want to learn now.
"Use what he gave you against him," whispered the strange voice that had urged Katrina to run. Then it was gone again.
She thought of something then, a trick Renfield did not possess. Something she had learned over two years as a vampire with no friends in human shape. She looked deep inside herself and found the power to do what she needed to do.
Katrina's voice erupted into a pure, primal, beautiful cry into the night. Almost instantly she was answered by a pack of coyotes, their howls proclaiming their approach.
By the sounds of things they would be her long before the car below could navigate the twisting road. She waited and soon a pack of ten coyotes appeared before her. She could see Varney's headlights below and knew she had only a minute or two to ask them for help.
She took the gaze of the leader and met it, eye to eye. Unlike Renfield, however, she did so merely to communicate.
"A man with black hair and a goutee is driving up in that car," she said. "Please stop him from entering the house."
I have nothing against this man, the coyote's eyes said.
"He is the servant of a vampire," she protested.
You are a vampire.
"This man has forced me to feed on one of your brothers before." The coyote appeared to think it over. "I had been starved and couldn't control myself," she said to the coyote, hoping he had some small understanding of a vampire's Hunger. It being something that often went hungry itself.
We will fight this man, for our brother. It expressed a silence, as a man would pause between thoughts, and then continued. I thank you for your honesty and for not commanding us as others of your kind would. With that the coyote and his pack melded into the terrain around the house.
Of course she didn't have the power to command anything, nor the desire, but the coyote didn't need to know that. Inside the house the battle continued, Katrina thanked whoever owned the voice and began to move toward the house. She reached the remainder of the door and saw the battle going on inside, between the mage they had encountered earlier, the werewolf and her master.
Katrina looked down saw a long, sharp piece of wood. Her immeadiate action was to recoil, for she associated stakes with any number of tortures. No one held it though, so even her sub-concious admitted that it was safe. She reached down slowly and picked it up.
"Carmilla, don't just stand there girl! Defend me!" yelled Renfield once he noticed her prescence. The young vampire stood there in confusion as Carmilla warred with Katrina. As five years of torture, domination and blood bond competed with her true desires and a will weakened by years of helplessness. She managed to at least advance to the battle during the struggle.
Bregan watched her with concern, worried that she would lose this battle. He shifted into Glabro form to more easily talk.
"It's all in your head, Katrina!" he shouted. "You don't have to obey him." Renfield, recoiling from a slash by Jaera's unrelenting talons, threw all his weight behind a punch into the face of the distracted werewolf.
Bregan was knocked off his feet by the force of the punch, he even thought he felt his jaw break. The pain passed quickly, a vampire's fist didn't stop the process of regeneration.
Coming out of the punch Renfield went into a roll to control his inevitable fall. He came back to his feet facing Katrina.
"What are you doing I commanded you to aid me!" he yelled at her. "Are you not my thrall? Am I not your regnant?" Katrina eyes lost their distracted light as she looked up at her sire and regnant. He smiled down at her as he turned to face the approaching mage and healing werewolf.
Then he felt his connection to Katrina break, as Lucy's and Mina's already had. He remembered the stake she had been holding and tried to turn around to face its approach.
The speed of his turn made Katrina miss the heart, but wood piercing a vampire's skin anywhere was agony. Renfield clutched the stake with his left hand as his right back-handed Katrina.
He was no longer holding back, conserving blood for later in the battle. Katrina flew backwards into a wall as the force of Renfield's blow. Her eyes rolled back into her skull as she slipped down to the ground. A bright spot of red on the wall where she hit, and a trail of blood following her down.
Renfield ripped the stake from his chest as he dodged the mage's semi-frenzied attack.
Jaera's rage, however, was nothing to the depths of emotion contained in the souls of Garou and Kindred. Bregan, returned to Crinos form, roared out in anger directed at the vampire. Renfield answered him with a primal cry of his own as he swatted aside the mage.
The two came together in a blur and then locked in place. Jaera stood up and watched as the werewolf and vampire tested their strength against each other. The smaller vampire soon proved to be the stronger, at the moment a small car would have been easy to lift for him. Despite this the werewolf stubbornly against the vampire who was trying to force Bregan's hands back against his arms.
Jaera shook her head to clear it of the awe she felt as she watched the titan's aura's ripple and collide with each other. She attacked as the vampire brought the werewolf forcibly to his knees. Renfield fell and rolled back to his feet sending a fist flying at the mage. She blocked and tried to slash at him again as the werewolf leaped past her, slashing as he went past the vampire's reach.
Renfield dodged away from the Garou's leap, catching Jaera's hand and snapping it off. Jaera cried in pain as she struggled to clear her mind enough to use magick to heal.
Bregan meanwhile twisted himself about and came flying at the werewolf again.
As Varney pulled up he knew something was wrong immeadiately. Like his master he possessed knowledge of the discipline auspex, but even without it he could have heard the bestial roars and his masters battle cries inside. He parked the car and shut off the engine as a cry of pain emerged from inside. Some woman he hadn't met yet, perhaps the one that had been hunting his master.
The moment he stepped out of the car and shut the door, Varney knew that he too was being hunted. He drew his gun prepared to face whatever it was. Then suddenly the gun was pulled from his grasp and thrown away by some power.
Varney had only his fists and his vampric powers of potence and celerity when the coyotes swarmed over him.
Inside they ignored Varney's cries of rage and pain as he was torn to pieces by the pack of coyotes.
Renfield reached out with his hand and intercepted the leaping werewolf by grabbing it's throat. Immeaditly the five-hundred pound creature felt itself pushed backwords until it hit a wall, three feet above the ground. Renfield bared his fangs and launched forward to try to bite the werewolf and recover some lost blood.
Bregan had different ideas, he brought his claws up and slashed off Renfield's arm at the elbow. The werewolf dropped as the unfazed vampire kicked up. Bregan felt his neck break from the blow. He would heal quickly, but not before the vampire could bring the deadly weapons of his fangs to use.
Suddenly the vampire was flying backwards, blasted by an unseen force. He was standing again quickly and again approaching the temporarily incapcitated werewolf. Bregan could feel his body again, and, like the Kindred, wasn't out of rage yet.
Jaera watched as she tried to heal her hand. She knew the werewolf couldn't win the battle as he was, so she delayed the healing in order to perform another effect. She reached out with her mind and drew a simple pattern, something found everyday but with larger dimensions. Finally she filled it with quintessence to make it real. She felt paradox infest her pattern as her magick took shape.
A foot long wasp appeared just in front of the vampire.
The insect had no real mind or soul, just physical life and programmed instincts. It attacked Renfield as the closest threat, stinging the angry vampire in the chest. Renfield grabbed at the thing and crushed it in his hand, his momentum stopped for the moment.
Bregan limped ahead, pain racking every movement. He had to rest in order to heal, but he couldn't rest with this vampire still standing. Despite the hole in his chest, despite his missing arm, despite the deep gashes on his body, despite several broken bones, despite all that, Renfield was unfazed.
Katrina woke up with a terrible pain on the back of her head. For brief moment she couldn't remember what had happened, but the scene she saw across the room jolted her memory.
Jaera was cradling her arm as her magick slowly reformed the flesh of her hand, paradox touching her even more as she healed what should not be possible to heal. Then the paradox began to leak out of her and take shape. Sensations flowed into her mind, twisting the appearance of things. Jaera forced herself to concentrate on the healing, shutting out all other considerations.
Bregan was limping slowly forward to continue to face Renfield. The warriors, though Bregan wasn't as much of a fighter as many of his packmates, were beaten, what could she do?
Jenny's spirit was outside searching the ground for something to the background noises of battle and howling coyotes. Then she found it and, using what little energy she had, picked it up and carried it inside to Katrina.
Katrina watched as a gun seemed to fly to her and land gently before her.
"Use it," the voice that had advised her twice before said before it disappeared.
"I don't know how to use a gun," Katrina protested, voice weak and tired. There was no response to her protest. She picked up the gun, paused "This won't kill him," she whispered. Then she fired into the wall behind Renfield.
If she failed to hit, she succeeded in grabbing his attention. Renfield turned away from Bregan to face her, his face displaying all the inhuman rage that was driving him. Renfield advanced on this most recent enemy.
Katrina unloaded the thirteen bullet clip at Renfield, managing to hit six times. Each shot stopped him for a brief moment before he continuing towards her.
On the other end of the room Jaera began to regain control of her senses. She thanked the powers that be that the backlash had been such a small one. It would have been unfortunate, to say the least, if she had to battle a paradox spirit in addition to this vampire.
"How do you expect to stop me with a gun, child?" he demanded of her as he came on. The only answer was that she didn't, she only expected to buy some time.
Bregan, the only thing seperating him and Renfield's fury being physical limits, used that time to rest for a brief moment before he launched himself against Renfield again. Renfield, actually starting to feel the pain of wounds, turned around slowly as the werewolf's claws slashed downward and sliced into his leg. Renfield fell to one knee from the injury.
"Beast," the vampire spat as he pulled back his remaining arm. A talon, shaped and empowered by magick for the killing of the supernatural, sliced into Renfield's face. "Witch, I'll see t' you later," the vampire promised as he sent his fist flying into the werewolf. Bregan fell backwards and landed on his back a mere two feet away.
Jaera moved for another slash with her rebuilt hand, but the still fighting vampire turned his punch into a back hand. The mage was knocked away just as Bregan had been. Renfield stood up unsteadily, his vampric rage and arrogance keeping him in a fight he had already lost.
Eventually the claws or the magickal talons would take him down in his weakened condition, but he didn't care. He wanted to see who he could take with him.
"Who's next? Who wants to fight me now, eh?" he asked of the two warriors. Bregan found that he couldn't get up, that he needed to heal some more before continuing the battle. The mage, however, was well enough to rise again and come forward.
Renfield whirled on her and tried to catch her eye to eye, but Jaera knew that trick now. He would not catch her again so easily. She circled him, looking for a safe way to approach.
Renfield did not have time for such games, but he didn't dare press the attack himself. Soon the werewolf would heal from the wounds Renfield had given him, just as this mage had while she rested and the werewolf fought. He planned to take one of them down with him either way. He just didn't know which one yet.
Suddenly the vampire jerked back as something erupted from his chest. This time the stake didn't miss the heart. Renfield fell to the ground paralyzed and unable to move. He hadn't felt this way since the night of his Embrace.
He could remember it clearly, from the slave woman he had tried to take all the way to when his unit had found his body and removed the stake that was meant to keep him there until sunrise.
Lost in these memories, Renfield didn't see the claws and talons that ended his life.
Kindred, Garou and Mage collapsed in exhaustion as Renfield's body turned into dust.
"Excuse me," Katrina whispered weakly from where she lay. Bregan turned to look at her. "What's your name?"
"Bregan Rohan."
"You owe me a violin," she reminded him. He chuckled, and suddenly had a thought.
In the Shadowlands Jenny's wraith also felt exhausted, but also renewed as one of her ties to the physical world was resolved.