Blood & Lightning

[OverdrivePrime]

Blood & Lightning is a 2 part story I wrote with Keith's input back before this wild new century of ours. Back in the day, I used to play unhealthy amounts of White-Wolf roleplaying games. Damien Drakkar is a favorite Vampire character of mine, and Darren Soltys was Keith's WoD character - a Highlander style Immortal, who suffered a brief stint as an angel.

It's far from a perfect work. Overall, it has too many inside jokes and tense agreement issues, and the 1st person perspective gets awkward here and there. Even so, I think it's still a fun read, and hope you do too.

Anyway, I give you Blood and Lightning, Part 1:

Damien Drakkar: Pretty Fly... For a Dead Guy!
August, 1999​

Safe for the moment, I leaped from porch to rooftop to rooftop to glass-strewn parking lot, hauling ass as if mine was on the line. It was. I'd be fine if I could make it to my Fat Boy, but that was at least another mile off, and the bad boys coming after me were a lot better runners than I am.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm no wimp. I was the star of the Timberland High football team, back in the day, and I've only gotten better since. 'Course, I could never try and go pro, due to an annoying allergy of mine, but if they had night games, I'd probably be a lot more well known. But anyway, what I'm saying is, so long as you use only two legs, I can take 95% of all comers in a marathon or slam dunk contest or rock climbing or whatever. Unfortunately, the guys coming after me are so ticked that they'll probably cheat, and use four legs instead of two.

I don't know how to do that. Not yet anyway. Give me some time though - I may not be a rocket scientist, but I'm a pretty quick learner.

My veins pounding with the heat of the blood surging through them, I pressed on, leaping fences, cutting through yards, my sharp night eyes guiding me unerringly through the nighttime terrain. Unable to stifle a chuckle, I noted that I hadn't even broken a sweat.

Now I could hear the protests of the pack of bozos behind me; they were catching up pretty fast. I fished my keys out of my pocket to make sure I wasn't fumbling around if I made it to my bike. Punishing myself to got faster, I was still a block ahead of them when I saw my bike parked in front of the bar where I left it, next to about 10 other Hogs.

Dammit! People lined the sidewalk, not exactly facilitating my escape. Turning on my best charisma, I shouted to them at the top of my lungs, "MOVE IT PEOPLE! THEY'LL KILL US ALL!" There, nice and charming. It did the trick somewhat. It made them look at the rough boys behind me. With looks of horror, a couple guys grabbed their girlfriends or wives and took off on their bikes. Others scrambled back into the bar, while others tried to hide. A couple of the self-styled tough guys went for their knives and positioned themselves in front of the bar.

Now with the gang maybe fifty feet behind me, I leaped onto my bike, fired it up, and peeled out onto the sidewalk and roared out of there with the throttle all the way forward. With a wince, I heard the vicious bastards tear through the two idiots that thought they could stop the monsters. They still chased me for another couple of blocks, but the gave up fast, resigning to find me later. Heh, good luck. Chicago's a big city, and I was planning on moving anyway.

And so, with a chorus of frustrated howls behind me, I sped off to my basement apartment up in Barrington. It made sense to start moving out tonight. That gang - the Glass Hackers or Ass Walkers or some stupid name like that - has a pretty strong presence in Chi-town, and they apparently don't take too kindly to outsiders getting friendly with their family. The youngest of the group walked in on me bumming a drink and a little nocturnal fun off his big sister. Can I help it that I'm so irresistible?


Here's how the scene played out: After I had gotten back from a wonderful time at a girl named Sandy Linden's house, I took my hog over to a bar on the north side, where I was supposed to meet a friend of mine. Aeric was there, immediately casting disparaging remarks about my outfit, and wondering how it was possible that I continually got more play than him with such a shabby collection of clothing. I responded that there was positively nothing wrong with jean shorts and my Bob Barker "Pimp" shirt, and that maybe women would talk to him more if he didn't dress like he was a depressed roadie for The Cure. That and writing death poetry night in and night out in a tiny hovel of an apartment on Belmont Street does nothing to attract women. He didn't see my point. He never does.

"Damien," he always sighs with resignation, "You'd make a terrible artist." With the artists I know, I take that as a compliment.

Anyway, we exchanged the necessary information given to us by the powers that be, and I left him sulking at his table and meandered over to the bar.

Spying a curvaceous South-American beauty with an empty glass, half-heartedly watching women's soccer on the TV, I ordered a mind-eraser (I'm told they're very good) and slid it over to her. Turning on the charm (just one of the many things I do better than Aeric, much to his frustration) I gave her a short, two-fingered wave and, seeing no resistance, I stepped a tad closer.

"I couldn't keep from noticing that you look pretty bored."
She gave a little laugh and took a sip of the drink, "And what makes you think that I'm looking for excitement?" Oooh, man, what a beautiful voice! Mrrrroow!

I flashed one of my trademark cheezin' grins and leaned a bit closer to her, "Maybe it was that glimmer I saw in your eyes when I came over here."

Okay, so I'm a bit too cocky most of the time. You should try it, it's a lot of fun.

She pursed her lips in that adorable 'I'm not going to make this easy on you' way that women get when they know they're going to take you home with them, but don't want you getting a fat ego about it, "I was watching soccer when you came over here, you weren't looking into my eyes at all, then."

I'll give her that, but I had an equally nice view. It was time to bring this battle to a close, though. Making my baby blues as shimmery as I could, I locked hungry gazes with her, hearing the desire in her blood, "But I am now, and they keep telling me what I want to hear."


So, ten minutes later, she was giving me a ride over to her place. (I didn't know then that it was her parent's house!) And well, to keep you from knowing all my trade secrets, I'll just cut right to the chase. Lucita (the woman's name) was arched back on her bed, the moonlight glimmering off the curves of her body. Apparently some scandalous cad had relieved her of her clothing between the time we left the bar and when she was doing this magnificent display of arching ability. I, unfortunately, couldn't get a good look at the scene, as I was busy licking over a portion of her inner thigh to make sure it was free of blemishes. I could have been done a long time ago, but I'm one of those discerning gentlemen who takes pride in his work.

Well, at the most inopportune time I've ever encountered in almost a month, this skinny high school kid barged into the room with a phone in his hand. He's all excited, and doesn't even notice the situation for a second, "Lucita!" He yells as he swings open the door, "Grandmama wants to... Oh... wha...?" Then a flash of recognition came over his eyes. His sister still hasn't noticed him, she's trying to grab for the back of my neck as I'm hastily checking to make sure I had pulled my shorts back up.

Then, to my horror, the kid begins to shift. He's apparently not a pro, so it's taking him a second, which I use to grab a tall, wrought iron candleholder next to the bed. Just as the kid took his full werewolf form - her kid brother is a werewolf! Of all the rotten luck! - I let the heat in my blood flow a little faster, a little stronger, to try and even out the fight.

"Die Leach!" the thing shouted and telegraphed a leaping rake at me so wildly, I would have seen it coming in my sleep. I swung fast and hard to immobilize the kid, bashing in his kneecap as I sidestepped the leaping attack. I clocked him once more with the candlestick holder, this time upside his hairy head; then leaped out the window. Behind the crash of falling glass, I heard his howls of agony, and then Lucita's shrieks revving to near hysteria as she realized that her brother, in addition to being 8 feet of muscle and ugliness, had seen her buck naked in the throes of passion, and was now going to try and kill the dashing stud who had just rocked her world.

The kid wasn't going to be running after me any sooner than a minute's time, but his howls of rage and pain called a bunch of his big, tough friends to his side. Luckily for me, they had to sort things out a bit and gape at Lucita before they took off after me. If it weren’t for that, I'd be dust by now.


As I rode home, I tried to puzzle out how the little scrapper knew my nature so quickly. After all, they can't really smell you out if you're not a bad guy, and I didn't have my fangs out or anything when he came in. I rubbed my hand over where I'd have stubble around my mouth if I was still mortal, and found my answer. I had gotten a bit sloppy, and let a little trickle of blood drip onto my chin. Plain as day.

Other vampires often feel that God curses their existence by denying them the light of day. I'm convinced that someday, I'll be allowed into the light again and that for now, God puts me in a purgatory of bonehead moves that make undead life less than comfortable. Yeah, I was raised Catholic.



So anyway, I park my bike in the carport and hurry into my apartment, taking care not to wake the landlady. Nice lady, but she has this thing where she doesn't like to be woken up at 3 in the morning. I don't blame her- I'd hate to be woken up at a 3 in the afternoon. Anyway, the really crappy thing about tonight's little run-in with the city wolves - in addition to me deciding I'd have to move a little early- was that I left my shirt in Lucita's room. I'd have to go back for it some time. I really liked that shirt.

Packing didn't take long. It's pretty easy to pack when you don't need any food preparation supplies and only watch TV at friends' houses. So pretty much all I had to do was throw my clothes into the compartments on my bike, and toss my bathroom stuff in a backpack along with a couple of my favorite books and photo albums and I was good to go. I had an hour and a half of moonlight left before I'd have to call it a night, but that was pushing it. I'd have to drive fast to make it to Rockford.

Not a problem. Idiotic speed limits are one of those laws I just don't mind breaking, I actually enjoy it. A while back, I had a mechanic friend tweak out my Fat Boy so that it cruises real nice around 130 miles an hour, and he did something to it when he did the paint job so that cops can never really get a good bead on me with their speed guns. I'm not a terrible mechanic, but I could live to be a thousand, and I'll never figure out what ol' Len did to my bike. The cool thing is that all he wanted was me to set him up with one of my lady friends. She actually likes him, and they got married about a month ago, so I hear.

I got into Rockford a good twenty-five minutes before sunrise and dashed in to get a room at a ramshackle Motel 6. They usually have the bathrooms pretty far from the door, and have those crappy blankets that you don't mind stuffing under cracks. If you don't mind sleeping on bathroom floors (guys like me are a little too big to curl up in the tub) it's actually not too bad. I brought my motorcycle into the room, and closed all the blinds as much as possible. I flicked the TV onto MTV, left it at a dull roar, and crashed for the day.

I awoke to the sounds of that rat bastard Puff Daddy (Bet you didn't know he's a Serpent of the Light) ripping off another song that should never have been remade. Just another reason why the Sabbat has to be stopped.

I hopped in the shower and cleaned up, more out of rote than necessity. It just never feels good to start a night without showering. I dressed up a little (meaning that I shined up my boots and put on jeans) and feeling parched, I drove into the city to graze. Two hours later I wasn't feeling nearly as tapped out. The blood thirst is a really hard kind of hunger to get used to, if you don't have decades of practice. Kinda funny, I just observed my ninth year of needing other people's blood in order to live. I'm going to be twenty-eight soon, and I still look nineteen. Let me tell you, it makes it rough getting into clubs and bars. You'd think that I could use my old drivers license, but it expired seven years ago, and let me assure you, I look nothing like I'm almost thirty. So, about every four years, I have to drop a lot of money on a really expertly crafted fake. It's almost three hundred bucks for the ID & Visa package I go for. It fools customs officials beautifully though, so it's almost worth the price.

I really don't like staying in Rockford any longer than I have to, so after I had put my hunger to rest, I got back on the highway to go visit a good friend of mine in Midvale.

The road up there is usually pretty calm, especially on a Thursday night, and I kept my speed down around 90 to enjoy the serene beauty of the night. Every once in a while on a night like this one, if I'm going through the forests alone, on foot, and keep my eyes sharp; I can hear the sounds of a werewolf clan gathering and follow the sounds so that I can almost see the blazing bonfire they dance around, singing their praises to the Mother Earth. It's a beautiful thing, and I envy them a lot, but I never dare venture any closer than those tiny glimpses. They'd kill me on sight if they knew I was watching, and the warriors they'd send at me would be far more experienced than the cubs I tangled with last night. Like vampires, the older the werewolves get the more powerful their unnatural abilities, or so I understand from a few... contacts... of mine.

What little I know about werewolves, I learned about from these guys, a gang or clan, or whatever called the Bone Gnawers. Apparently there's other Bone Gnawers throughout the country, just like there's Gangrel all over the world.

Alas, no werewolf parties were going on tonight, and so my drive was a quiet one, save the constant throaty rumbling of my Harley. By 12:30 I had reached the city limits. Knowing where my friend usually hangs out, I drove over there, and waded into the joint.

Heat and pounding music greeted me, with flashing lights and grinding bodies whirling around the dance floor, while other patrons crowded the bar for drinks and less noisy places to talk. It'd take a while to find Darren here, so I set to enjoying myself as I looked for him. Darren is one of the few people I know who gets as much, or more play than I do. I don't know how, or why, but he does. Don't get me wrong, he's a good-looking guy, but usually women come to him without him even trying. He shrugs and says it's this ability he calls "the Last."

I don't entirely know what Darren is. He's a lot older than I am, but like me is stuck looking around 20 years old. He talks about the 20's like they were one of the coolest decades ever. I don't understand that one. I ask him what he thought of the Gay nineties, but he just shakes his head and laughs, then makes fun of me for something else. Here's what I do know about the guy. He's an almost unparalleled gymnast, able to bust out with Jackie Chan type acrobatics at the drop of a bullet casing. And he's ridiculously good with a sword, an art form I've never really picked up on. I can swing a bat or a knife pretty well, a necessity of life that I had to learn to survive around some of the guys who took me in when I first came to Chicago. But Darren? Give that man a sword, and he'll tear up even the angriest werewolf before it gets a chance to bark.

I've known the guy for a good year now, but I still don't know a lot of details of his life, and fewer that I'm able to tell you. I'll say as much as he's definitely not a mortal human, but he breathes and bleeds and everything just like regular human or werewolf. He heals really fast, when someone is actually quick enough to hurt him. He seems to be able to impart some kind of magic ability on his sword, but I've never been sure about that one. He's pretty secretive about all the stuff that separates him from a normal human. Like me, I think he wishes for his regular life again, to be human, to not see your friends and loved ones grow old and die while you stay 20 years old for all eternity. I honestly believe that someday, I will find the path back to humanity, like many repentant vampires before me. I don't know if Darren gets a choice in the matter.

* * * *

Eventually, I found Darren; originally spotting him in a darkened booth playfully engaging in a verbal game of chess with a tall, midnight-haired woman, apparently of Slavic descent. I didn't come over to the table, knowing how much the man hates to be interrupted when he's "working". I chuckled to myself and secured a stool at a far corner of the bar where I could watch for when he left the booth. Oddly enough, as is often the case, Darren got this funny twitch around his eyes, and then looked straight at me. Smiling for a moment, he flashed me a brief wave and then turned his attention back to the woman.

Not exactly concerned with hooking up with any lucky young lady tonight, I sat back on my stool and idly flipped a matchbook over in one hand while tapping my other hand absently in time with one of those ridiculously overplayed R&B songs that plague the radio waves. While waiting for Darren to finish with this part of his business, I gradually scanned the bar, enjoying the scenery.

"You look thirsty cutie, what can I get cha'?"

"Huh?" In my attempt to read the print on the front of one woman's shirt, I had neglected to pay attention to the events around me. I looked up to find a reasonably attractive sorority-girl template standing next to me, her breath reeking of Corona. This would be tricky. I cleared my throat and gave a weak smile, attempting to look embarrassed, "Oh, thanks. It's my turn to be the D.D. tonight, and so I've been bored out of my mind. Think you could get me a Coke to ease my suffering?"

"Oh you poor thing!" I could hear the sappy sympathy just ooze through her whole body. She flopped onto the chair next to me, puppy eyes and a pouty face manifesting on her face like a sudden rainstorm, "Couldn't you just take the bus or a cab?"

Apparently she had taken me for one of the football team guys on campus. This one would be tough to get rid of, thankfully she had forgotten about getting me a drink. I shrugged and replied, "My friends and I live pretty far off campus, so we have to take a car."

"Oooh..." she nodded sagely, then picked up smiling cheerily, "Bartender! Can you get this really nice man a Coke? He has to drive tonight."

****. I did my best impression of a grateful smile, "Thanks so much, you're too kind."

She didn't go away. Some times I think I'm just too handsome for my own good. With concern, I did a mental check to make sure I hadn't activated The Charm out of habit. No dice there, apparently I had a genuine sucker for broad shoulders and blue eyes on my hands. "So what's your name?"

Oh hells! She was sticking around for the long haul. With some self-disapproval, I noted that I had let this girl rattle me enough for my heart to stop beating. I got it going again, feeling somewhat better. When I was first created, my Sire taught me a trick, a kind of daily meditation, which allows me to keep in touch with my humanity, and stave off the advances of the Beast. It's never let me down, and in turn, I look and feel more human, even when I haven't fed in days. By this trick of body control, I trigger my heartbeat and keep it going - sometimes for weeks without need up any more mental triggers. In addition to a working heart, my lungs never atrophied either, and so my whole circulatory/respiratory system works much like a mortals, most of the time. This keeps the blood that flows through me feeling fresh and warm, keeping my skin a more human temperature and my face a healthier color. It's gotten me into some trouble though; more than once, other Kindred have tried to feed off me, a situation that is strangely humorous to me, after my first run-in with a blood bond. I'll tell you more about that later, if I'm ever in the mood to swear up a storm.

So anyway, back to the Delta Girl, I couldn't keep from brushing a hand through my hair just before I introduced myself, "I'm Damien Drakkar, and you are...?"

"Alicia. Drakkar? Like that cologne all the dorks in Alpha House use?"

I winced and cursed my ancestry, specially my grandfather's poor choice not to change his name upon emigrating from the Baltics. "Yeeeah... just like the cologne."

Her face screwed up in an attempt at concentration, "Drakkar... Drakkar... I know I've heard that from somewhere else besides department stores."

Now somewhat concerned, I took the opportunity to make it look like I was drinking the Coke, a few little sips at a time. This is another neat trick I've worked out, though it's not nearly as effective. When I take a drink, I shift the foul feeling liquid to the side of my mouth, between my cheek and my teeth. When the person near me is distracted a bit, I bring a hand to my mouth, and 'cough' into a closed fist. With the offending liquid now in my fist, I flick the stuff out under the bar, and wipe my hands on my pants. I've found that eating or drinking for real swiftly draws a painful bout of vomiting, followed by dry heaves, so I only save that one for really big parties, where no one really notices.

She broke from her muddled reverie, giving me what she thought was an endearing gaze, "Don't move, I'm going to ask one of the girls I came with where I heard that before." She got up, stumbled over to a table of about 5 other sorority girls and they all started whispering and looking at me. I grinned inwardly, enjoying the attention, liberally spilling most of the Coke onto the floor, down the leg of my stool, where it wouldn't be noticed until some poor sap had to clean up in the morning.

When Alicia returned, she brought with her an older girl, probably about 26 or so. Alicia beamed proudly at me, "I knew that I recognized your name! Krissy says she knew someone with your name back home."

Proudly, the drunken meddler looked back and forth between the two of us as we introduced ourselves.

I stuck out my hand, now genuinely worried. This woman looked familiar somehow, "Hi, I'm Damien. Nice to meet you."

Her eyes popped open after looking into mine for a second. "Damien? It IS you! Don't you recognize me? It's me, Kristine!"

My jaw dropped. This was most certainly not good, but I was too interested to get away. "Kristine Halloway? Jenny's little sister! Holey ****! You've grown up!" She had, in several ways, apparently, but that didn't keep me from now wanting to leave. I couldn't help it, though. I had to stay and hear news of home. If only I could convince her that everything is normal in my life. Plus, maybe she knew where that bastard Brandon was hiding.

Oh that's right! You don't know the story behind this. This will take a while to relate, but I've got time to burn. Here's the short version:

* * * *
Until I was embraced, I lived in a small city in Western Montana, just South of Glacier National Park. As I think I've told you, I was the star football player on the team by my senior year, and well, I was an all around jock, standing out in a couple other sports as well. Jenny Halloway and I had been sweethearts since the eighth grade, and everyone knew that when we finished up at the community college a few years later, we'd get married. At least, that was what I thought. I had another great love; one that Jenny respected a lot. I spent at least an hour every day, usually a lot more, exploring Glacier Park, probably since I was old enough to ride a bike the five miles to the park.

By the time I was halfway through high school, I knew every plant, every animal there like the back of my hand, with much credit going to my teacher, a woman I knew as Ranger Coons. As I got older, she admonished me to call her by her first name - Raina - a treat that I was proud to do. She knew everything about the wilderness, and taught me as much and as quickly as I was capable of learning. Her shift started at 8:00 at night, which meant that in summer months she showed me more than one place to watch the beautiful sunsets over the mountain range. This is something that will never cease to impress me, for Raina Coons is indeed my sire. I have no idea the kind of mental discipline she must possess in order to watch those precious summer sunsets. I've ventured out in the day for a full minute once: on a rainy day, wearing a trench coat, hat, sunglasses, heavy pants, gloves, boots, and a scarf- and that hurt enough. Someday, I tell myself, I'll be like her.

But anyway, apparently Raina had a rival, a despicable man named Brandon. Brandon isn't a vampire, I'm told, nor is he a werewolf, and he certainly isn't human. I'm not sure quite how to describe him. He's cruel to the core though. Brandon didn't want to kill Raina and bring down the wrath of Clan Gangrel (or her friends among the Inconnu, I'm told) so he decided to hurt her through me, her mortal student in which she took a great deal of pride.

Gradually, over the course of senior year, Jenny became more and more distant toward me, still telling me she loved me, but wanting to spend less time with me. We still went to senior prom together, and went through all the motions for our friends. About midway through the dance, switching from the ever-popular "U Can't Touch This" to "November Rain", I was tapped on the shoulder, just as I was going to dance with Jenny. Just before I turned, I noticed her eyes shining in excitement.

The interrupting person was older, appearing of an indeterminate age, somewhere between 20 and thirty-five. He had neatly cut black hair, and very dark eyes and hard features. Everything else about him was completely average, from height to build to the tailed tuxedo he wore. He asked me if I minded if he danced with my girlfriend, and I shrugged, telling him to go ahead if it was alright with her. I was immediately intercepted by one of the cheerleaders, who told me that I should dance with her, if Jenny was busy. After that dance, I looked around for Jenny and the other man, but they were nowhere to be seen. Dashing out to a balcony, I saw a black Ferrari peel out of the parking lot and off to the east.

I never saw Jenny again.

Distraught and almost tears, yet not wanting to keep my friends from having a good time, I ran out to my Jeep Wrangler and drove to Glacier Park to find Ranger Coons. I knew she would be able to calm me down, to put things in perspective for me.

The perspective she gave me was not what I expected. She told me how the man who left with Jenny was someone from her past, a man named Brandon, and a powerful agent of evil. She had been given a warning, it seemed, Brandon wanted this area for his purposes and demanded her complacency on the subject.

Raina wasn't quite sure what to do. She gave me a long hug and told me that time would heal my heart's wounds. She would try to find Brandon and get Jenny back for me, but she could not assure me of success. Over the next few weeks as school wound to an ending, I puzzled over what Raina actually was - A federal agent? A spy? Something else entirely? Each time I saw her, she gave me advice, and suggestions about what I now know were hints about the real nature of this dark world we live in.


Just after graduation weekend, on a Wednesday night, I awoke with a wheezing cough to a smoke filled room. I yelled for my parents, and got no answer. I dropped low to the ground, and crawled under the dense smoke to my door, feeling the handle. It was hot, but I felt the need to get through, to make sure my parents were okay. I went to turn the handle, but found that my door had been lodged shut by something. Holding my breath, I stood to slam my shoulder against the door with all my strength. Now, keep in mind that my bedroom door wasn't exactly the sturdiest thing on earth. It was one of those plywood box things that a twelve year old could punch through. Confused, I slammed against the door again and again. Finally the hinges tore free of the frame. Now sputtering, I dropped low again, to discover that absolutely nothing had been blocking my door. I crawled to my parents’ room, shouting for them again and again with no reply. I stood to smash their door open, when the ceiling broke open, with a group of flaming beams falling toward me. I threw myself out of the way, but to no avail, the beams crashed through the floor, crumbling the boards underneath me, sending me falling to the kitchen below. It was as if the dying house was fighting against me.

As I struggled to get up, one last board dropped onto me, forcing the air from my lungs while my brain spiraled away from consciousness.

When my eyes opened again, the first thing I was aware of was intense pain. My breathing was ragged and very difficult, my head ached, and my side screamed of injuries, though I saw no blood. I focused to a figure that I realized was holding my head up. It was Raina, wet with sweat, and tears streaming from her eyes. Slowly, and with horror, I realized that the sweat was actually tiny beads of blood, and the tears streaming from her eyes were of blood as well. She had burns on her hands and arms and her left shoulder hung limply.

She turned a sad smile at me as I tried to speak to her, "Shush, Damien... try and breathe. You're a lot heavier than I thought. It's been a long time since I've picked you up."

I blacked out again, and when I awoke once more, the whole world was a fuzzy fugue of dark and light shapes. I understood one of the shapes to be Raina, when she spoke to me, "Damien, I'm so sorry... there's nothing more I can do.

The smoke in your lungs with your crushed abdomen, there's nothing to be done."

I grunted in pain, and in understanding. For some reason, I wasn't scared.

"Yes, you're dying, such a waste of such a good young man. Listen to me, Damien, you have a choice in the matter - a choice I didn't want to put to you for a quite some time yet. I can keep you from dying, but your life will be very different. You would become like me, forever bound to the night. Do you want to live like this?"

The words were soft, concerned, and they fought for dominance in my mind with the cacophony of painful screams from every part of my body, yet I will remember them forever.

With tremendous effort, I answered, "Help me live."

The fuzzy shape that represented Ranger Coons bent to place her mouth at my throat and I felt nothing but a soothing wash, a comfort against the dancing haze of pain that dominated the rest of my mind. I felt death coming for me, then suddenly, a burning taste in my mouth, a taste that ripped though my body unlike the other feeling of agony. This was powerful and primal, and I felt my body shake and thrash. Soon, I felt no other pain other than this incredible searing heat. My lungs felt empty of smoke, no dull squish from the smashed organs in my abdomen, no throbbing in the back of my skull. Just an overwhelming searing pain, as if someone had painstakingly cut off the tip of every one of my nerves and inserted them into iodine.

Gradually, as the pain subsided, I could hear my voice going hoarse from screaming. With the pain less intense now, I understood that Raina had a hand on my chest, holding me down with her hand. With a shudder, I stopped yelling, and slowly sat up. I ached now, with a need I could not identify. Raina's face was pale now, but she looked better. Her burns were less severe and her shoulder seemed uninjured now. She helped me to my feet, and offered me a tall glass of a dark red liquid.

"A toast," she smiled with sad eyes, "To Clan Gangrel's newest member. May he be in unlife as he was in life."
She clinked her glass with mine, and downed it.

Confused, I did likewise. Immediately, I recognized the taste of blood, disgusted, but could not keep from gulping it down. When finished, I looked at my mentor in shock.

Still with sad eyes she told me, "You'll eventually get used to the taste. It's either drinking blood a little at a time, or to fall to madness and devour whole families. You're a vampire now. Blood is your only food."

She led me to a deer that had been thrown onto a table in this darkened basement. "You should take as much as you can from it, this will be the last meal I will find for you."
Unable to resist, I felt a tingling in my incisors and bent instinctively to feed upon the deer.

When I was finished, Raina told me of my new life and taught me the barest beginnings of the skills we know as Animalism, Fortitude and Protean. Then, as is the way of Clan Gangrel, she told me to leave for two years, and come back for my presentation to her sire. My presentation to her sire, a deep-eyed Native American man by the simple name of Bloodrock, was over seven years ago, and seems like a very long time to me. I'll see her again, I'm sure, maybe in another seven years.

* * * *


Kristine looked at me with measured parts of disbelief and excitement, "Damien, we all thought you died in the fire that killed your parents."

That hurt. I knew in my heart that my parents were dead, but I had managed to keep from hearing any concrete news. I choked on my words for a second, then explained as best as I could without revealing more than I could afford, "I nearly did Kristine, but a good Samaritan saved me and cared for me. I had repressed what had happened until not too long ago, and never got the nerve to go back home. Did they ever say how the fire started?" I had never found out.

She looked at me, shocked that I didn't even know how my own parents had died, "Apparently, one of your parents was smoking in bed, and fell asleep with a lit butt. The sheets started on fire, and then the blaze spread to the a propane can for their lighter. They probably didn't even wake up. The firefighters found them in bed, but they couldn't find you.

They found where you broke down your door to get out, and some blood on the kitchen linoleum that matched your type, but for whatever reason, the beams that they thought had fallen on you burned super hot and fast. The report said that your body would have been turned to ashes by the heat."
My mind kept tripping over an important thing she had said, ignoring most of the other details, "But, Kristine, my parents didn't smoke! They never smoked, no one in my family smoked!"

She shook her head as if I was being naive and she didn't have the heart to tell me, "Sometimes people we love keep things from us. It's just the way things are."

My eyes narrowed for a moment, as a flash of pain and anger washed over me, "Like Jenny? Did she ever come back?"
Kristine shifted uneasily, sensing my emotional shift, "Um... yeah. She and Brandon came back from Nevada the day after you died. They went to your funeral with us. Jenny wouldn't stop crying for hours."

Now I was angry for real, my voice growled, "Nevada? You mean Vegas! They went to my funeral as husband and wife? That bastard! I'm going to find that Brandon piece of ****, and hurt him every bit as bad as he's hurt me!"

I realized that I had stood up and had quite a few people staring at me now. Placing an iron grip on my rising temper, I squelched the furnace of the beast, shutting out the red haze that had started to rise in my eyes. Kristine and Alicia made shushing and soothing noises and pulled me back to my seat. I sat heavily, resting my face in my palms.

Kristine looked at me worriedly, "Damien, she was no good for you anyway. When she came back with him, Dad kicked her out of the house. They live somewhere in Washington now, I think. But enough of that! I hate talking about the past. What are you doing in town?"

With a glance to Darren's table, I could see that he was still in the midst of a hard-fought battle of rapier wits with the Slavic woman.

"I'm here with a couple friends of mine, I came up to visit them from my place in Chicago. I just quit my old job, and so they said I could crash in Midvale for a little while. Hey, what would you two care to drink? I'll spring for it."

"Corona!"

"I'll take a fuzzy navel, Damien."

So I ordered them drinks, and they sat down on either side of me. Kristine leaned in close, looking at me intently, "So what's the deal Damien? You look like you haven't aged at all! I look like I'm five years older than you, at least! Me! The one you made fun of for looking like I would be a middle schooler for the rest of my life."

Oh, the irony. My least favorite of all the literary devices employed by life, "Well, I guess I'm just cursed by that Michael J. Fox gene. They still card me to get into movies. Unless I go to campus bars, I usually need 3 forms of ID."

Kristine was convinced, "Wow, that sucks. You'll be glad for it when you're forty, though."

I smirked to myself, not really wanting for this conversation to last much longer, "Yeah, probably."

Kristine looked at me again, "So I take it you never married?" Alicia leaned in close to hear my answer.

"Umm... well," I was stalling, as I most certainly didn't want to have any relations with Alicia, and although Kristine is beautiful, messing around with the little sister of my only ex worth mentioning is too weird for me.

Suddenly, I heard the voice of salvation, or at least the voice of Darren, "Damien! What's up?"

I only barely kept from letting out a long breath of relief. I spun around on my bar stool, "Darren! Glad to see you're still here!" I noted him pocketing a phone number with a grin, "I'd like you to meet some friends of mine, this is my new friend Alicia, and my old friend Kristine."

Alicia blushed a little, and Darren scratched the back of his neck, "Nice to meet you, Kristine. Alicia, it's good to see you again, heh... heh..., hey, Damien, I don't want to interrupt anything, but do you want to get going?"

I thought he'd never ask. I said goodbye to the ladies, and then just about dashed down the stairs and out onto the street, closely followed by Darren.

As we walked to our respective motorcycles, he flashed a laughing smile in my direction, "So, how's the night been treating you?"

* * * *

Darren and I did some catching up. Apparently his life has gotten pretty interested lately, from trouble with what sounded like a couple of Toreador skeezes to problems trying to keep this guy - get this, his name is Tate. I couldn't stop laughing for a long time - Anyway, Darren is caught up in an admirable attempt to keep this Tate guy from getting waxed while he runs around with a pack of what have got to be the most foolhardy bunch of Licks I've ever heard of. I'll have to swing by this Dayton city they hang out in sometime, these guys could use a couple lessons in dos and don'ts of vampiric society. Plus, Darren tells me that they have a
disproportionate number of hella fine women packed into Dayton. Good guess, you figured out already that it's not Dayton, Ohio. It's Dayton... somewhere else. I'll have to ask Darren next time.

Anyway, we shared our recent life stories when we got back to Darren's place. Darren's got what has to be the ultimate bachelor pad. Unfortunately, it's got a lot of windows, all over the place. Darren headed off to bed a little before I did, trundling down to the basement with a heavy comforter.

Much to my annoyance, Darren has windows even in his basement. They're those little half moonie things, and they've got pretty leaded glass designs on them, like most of the other windows in the place. Nice, but the problem is, they still let in light. I looked around, discovering that the washer and dryer weren't quite big enough to sleep in. Finally, I found a corner behind the boiler (thank God it was summer) that the sun probably never hits directly, and a old canvas something or other that looked like it had been used to cover up an army jeep at some point. It smelled awful, but it looked pretty thick. I wrapped myself up as well as I could and curled up in the corner.

When dusk came, I was awakened by a loud tromping of feet coming down the stairs. Fighting awake, I sorted myself out of my wrappings enough to get my head and a hand above the heavy coverings and peeked out to see what was up. Suddenly, Darren landed lightly on the concrete floor about ten feet in front of me. *FLASH!* My groggy eyes reeled in disorientation as the world turned bright white for a tenth of a second. Trying to blink away the spots in my eyes, I attempted a glare in Darren's direction, "What... the Hell?"

Casually, he flipped his camera over in his palm, "I needed proof of you at your unsmoothest. My life is complete!"

I groaned and shrugged out of the enshrouding fabric, "Yippie," I grumbled, "I'm going to use your shower, and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

"Cool. When you're out, you gotta watch this one tape I just got through a friend of mine, and then we've got something serious to talk about."

"Big problems?"

"Looks like it."

"I better shave then. See ya in a half hour."

Darren nodded and set to taking down some of the laundry he had apparently finished during the day. When I got out of the bath room - my face once more as smooth as a baby's backside - I plopped down on the couch in front of the TV where Darren was trying to beat Final Fantasy Tactics for the hundredth time, "All set. What's this video you wanted me to watch?"

"One sec," Darren finished the battle stage he was on and saved his game, then flipped the VCR on, "You like Anime, right?"

"Hells yeah! You got Fatal Fury 4 in yet?"

Soltys shook his head, "Nah, this here is good stuff though. They finally made that Ninja High School comic into a movie."
It was a good movie, highly enjoyable. What worried me was that immediately after the movie was over, a grainy, hand held camera filming kicked in, apparently in the middle of something. It looked like one of those helmet-cam views from the way the camera was bobbing.

A name, Shultz, was displayed at the bottom of the screen, along with what seemed to be a heart rate monitor that was going wild. The camera view followed a rapid, frenzied dash down a hallway, showed a hand throwing open a door into an abandoned grand ballroom, and the view whirled around, to focus briefly on the darkened hallway the cameraman had just come out of. Suddenly glowing eyes were visible, rapidly running up the hallway. The cameraman spun and bolted, the heart rate monitor increasing in tempo. Booted feet scrambled across the dusty floor, and the camera rocked and jumped as the desperate cameraman tried to get upstairs. It dawned on me that the cameraman either had special effects on his side, or was a ghoul, as he bounded up the stairs seemingly four at a time without pause.

Shultz grabbed an old metal bar that lay discarded next to an overturned chair on the second level. Turning back to the stairs, his shout of horror was quite audible as he saw his pursuer in the light. Tall and willow thin, a beautiful woman of African descent bounded rapidly up the stairs, her eyes a striking golden, with the irises shaped exactly like a snakes.
Suddenly the cameraman stood stock-still, his makeshift weapon held uselessly out to the side. The woman was upon him then, pausing only to give a wink at the camera before launching her razor sharp tongue into the cameraman's throat. A low moan of pleasure escaped him as she drank through the 18-inch snake's tongue, at which time she ripped her tongue out, causing it to retreat back to normal size. Her eyes still glinted golden, as she reached behind her back to retrieve a pair of jagged knives.

I turned away, running to the bathroom as she began to cut the cameraman to ribbons, his screams followed me, beginning to draw the red veil of the beast over my eyes as I vomited blood into the toilet. Tears of blood streamed down my cheeks as I heard more screaming, and then a low gurgling sound. With determination, I forced away the frenzy that threatened my sanity and returned to find Darren, similarly moved, still watching as a new cameraman fled another assailant.

His cheeks wet, he turned to me, "The whole rest of the tape is like this! Five more people chased to and tortured to death, to be put on video tape for some sick bastard's viewing pleasure!"

I walked over and stopped the VCR, "You know they're vampires, right?"

Darren nodded, still as shaken as I.

"Do they all look like her? I mean, do they all have snake abilities, usually dress with symbols of ancient Egypt?"

Darren looked unsure, "Maybe, I wasn't really paying attention to how these monsters dressed."

We spent the next half hour fast forwarding through the remainder of the tape. Every one of the assailants appeared to be a Settite, playing the same revolting cat and mouse game through an abandoned building or sewer system. The mortals all appeared to ghouls, though they seemed to be using their newfound strength clumsily and only from instinctual fear. One ghoul actually managed to get a good strike in on its assailant with a fireman's axe, cutting off the left arm of the despicable thing, and buying enough time to get out of the building. The helmet camera of the ghoul showed him breaking through a window and leaping to the ground below, only to find another Settite with a shotgun waiting for him.

The last chase was of the Settite who let his ghoul get away. Three other Settites chased him down and staked his hands and feet to east side roof of the building.


"Followers of Set, every one of them," I growled, the beast inside pacing the walls of my mind, "They're a loathsome group of vampires who came out of Egypt. The whole lot of them are sick and depraved sadists who seek to bring misery to the world. They're the polar opposite of vampires like me, who try to find redemption. They actively hunt down vampires who have reached that state of spiritual completeness. Thanks to them, my sire is in torpor somewhere in Alaska right now!"

"Okay, okay, Damien, I can see that they're evil for myself!" They guy who sent me the tape turned up in the obituaries today. He died on Sunday of 'an apparent animal attack.' He used to go to school here in Midvale. Cool guy. He died in Tacoma, Washington, and take a look at this:"

Darren turned on the VCR again and rewound the tape a bit. He paused it at a scene just as the one ghoul was leaping out a second story window. Darren jabbed his finger a tower of twisted metal that looked like it used to be a Pillsbury flour silo at an abandoned bakery.

"I fought a duel at this place about two months ago. For reasons I don't have time to go into, all the flour dust in the place caught fire and blew up just after the fight, turning the tower into this hunk of scrap. It's in a port city called Redcrest, on the Washington coast between Seattle and Tacoma."

My eyes narrowed, "Washington, huh? Looks like I'm going to want to talk to Kristine. Any chance we can hit the campus bars tonight? Seems I have an old friend in Washington who we might want to pay a visit to."

Darren smiled genuinely, his eyes lighting up a bit, "I knew you'd be interested in this one. How about we leave for Seattle on the 2 AM flight? We'll be going west, so you've got two extra hours of night to play with."
"I'm in. Let's hit the bars."

So we went back to the bars, we didn't find Kristine at the place we had been at the night previous, but ran into a stroke of luck at Jet 120 where we ran into Alicia and the other sorority girls. Kristine was missing from the group, I noticed almost immediately.

"Darren! Damien!" squeaked the blizzo'ed-again Alicia, "What are you guys doing here?"

Darren was surprised, "Alicia, this is my favorite club in town, why wouldn't I be here?"

Alicia wrinkled her face in thought once more, and then responded again, "Oh yeah, well, it's good to see you guys here anyway!"

I stepped over to the table, "Alicia, where's Kristine?" You had to say her name before you said anything to her, or she wouldn't know you were talking to her. Kinda funny, kinda a nuisance.

"Kristine's back at the house. She said she didn't feel good today. She talked to her sister though. I guess she said that she found out that you aren't dead. What good news!"
Alicia really was pretty trashed. She celebrated me not being dead by slamming back another drink and sliding off her chair. Darren helped her up, while I got directions to the sorority house, and then we took off.

As we cruised down Palisade drive, a couple blocks from the sorority house, we were passed by 3 police cruisers going at maximum warp with their sirens blaring. Darren flashed me the 'bad things' sign and gunned his bike after the cops. I followed suit, following the cops to Kristine and Alicia's sorority house.

The place was swarming with police. Darren and I tried to talk our way in, but to no avail. Something had the cops scared. When we said that my girlfriend's sister was in there (stretching the truth a tad, I'll admit) one of the sergeants softened up, and told us what was going on.

"A couple of those cult-worshiping sons of bitches ransacked the place. They killed a couple of the girls and took off with three others. One of the survivors said it was in a dark blue conversion van. Thank god most of the girls were out at a bar tonight."

"Do you know if a woman named Kristine Halloway is alright?" I was feeling pretty to the point here. Obviously I had come to the wrong town looking if I had been for stress relief.

The sergeant checked his notebook, "I'm not sure. I'll check," he led us over to an ambulance where one of the sorority girls was being loaded onto for injuries from falling glass, "She might be able to answer your questions, so long as you are sensitive about it."

No, I was going to slap her until she told us what we need to know... What is it about a badge that makes you convinced that everyone else is out to do the stupidest thing possible? I kept those thoughts to myself and in my gentlest, most older brotherly voice asked her, "Is Krissy Halloway alright? I need to find her." I shifted my stance to look as small and non-threatening as I could.

She started crying, and Darren and I reeled back, not at all getting the result we had hoped for. But then she started to wail, "Oh God! They took them away! Krissy and Sorcha and Julie! They said that Set would embrace them as his own! They're going to brainwashed by them! They want to eat her soul!!!"

One of the paramedics was about to inject her with some kind of knock out serum or something, so I quickly stepped in his way, "She doesn't need drugs! She needs you to care!"
Darren thankfully talked more kindly to the now-indignant EMT, but I wasn't listening to that. Stroking my hand over the near hysterical girl's forehead, I began to softly whisper to her an old song I remember my mother singing to me when I was small, while calling upon a certain trick that works just as well on people as it does on animals.

Very quickly, she stopped trembling, and looked up at me with exhausted eyes. I passed my hand over her eyes, closing them, and whispered gently to her, "It'd be best for you if you slept now, little one, and let the nice men help you to heal." She kept her eyes closed and slowly fell into the rhythms of sleep.

I looked up at the EMT who was looking at me in amazement, "How did you do that?" he stammered in amazement.

"You've just got to know what people need to hear. Sorry I yelled at you, I just hate to see people get injected with things needlessly.

As Darren and I walked to our motorcycles, he shot me a cocked eyebrow look, "So, how DID you do that?"

I laughed briefly, "It's a trick I learned that we Gangrel call the Song of Serenity. Really useful when dealing with trauma cases. It doesn't last for more than a day or so, so I hope they get her stitched up pretty quick. Anyway, it looks like our trip to the West Coast will have to wait. The Settites in Washington and the Snakes here just can't be coincidence."
Darren fired up his bike, not a Harley, but at least it wasn't a crotch rocket, "exactly what I was thinking. There's too many things related. I was thinking about it here, and I think I know just the place where we need to go. Follow me!"

With a grumbling howl, his bike took off, with my Fat Boy roaring after him. We pulled up next to a park, our bikes still idling.

Darren, always appearing to be unequipped, was suddenly holding his sword - a beautiful blade that looked like it was forged by a master smith ages ago. 'Course, what do I know, that's just what he tells me. He flourished as if checking to make sure it was ready, then looked to me, "You armed?"

From a holder I had installed on my bike I pulled out a weighted aluminum baseball bat, and retrieved my Colt Anaconda from my carry case on my Hog, "... And dangerous! But, I just can't help thinking that it wouldn't hurt to have more than just two guys going into a den of Settites."

Darren looked at me with some disapproval, "C'mon D, we've got surprise and justice on our side!"

"Yeah, but they've probably got assault rifles and shotguns on their side."

"Hmm... you do have a point. How about we call in the cops on these snakes to flush them out, and then we can go in the back way?"

I thought for a moment. It sounded pretty reasonable. "Alright, how about I send a scout to check out the situation, and if the situation is all good, we call in the cops?"

Darren looked puzzled for a moment, then understanding washed over his face, "Oh right! The animal thing. Go for it."
I concentrated for a moment, then cupped my hands to my mouth and projected my call, "Whhooooet! Whoooo! Whooooet!" I repeated it a couple times, and in a short while, three owls landed in a tree very close to where Darren and I were parked.

"Thanks for coming, friends," I said to each of them. It's tough to talk to groups of animals at a time, since I can only talk to them when I make eye contact. It's more of a telepathic thing than anything else.

"What do you want? I was busy chasing mice," griped one of them.

"There's a building over there, I need you to fly over and tell me what you see. I need to know if there are people with an evil feeling about them." Since most animals shy away from the supernatural, that line of questioning was probably my best bet to finding out if the Followers of Set were holed up in the old movie theater that Darren thought they were in."

The first owl relayed the commands to the other two, and they flew off toward the building. Darren watched the owls make a couple circles around the former movie theater then turned to me, "You know, you do some really wacky **** sometimes. Talking to owls. What's wrong with just using a telescope to check things out?"

I just smiled and waited for the owls to return.

A few minutes later, the birds returned. I could tell that something they had seen bothered them, but waited to hear it from them, "Well? What kind of humans are at the place?"
"You shouldn't go there, it's an evil place... there are many humans there with much danger around them. I'd stay away from there if I was you, but if you want to go, it won't bother me any."

I shrugged, "How kind of you to say so. Thanks much for your help anyway."

The vampire turned back to his friend, "There's at least six Settites there. I say we call the cops."

"Six? Since when did you teach your owls to count?"
"It's just how owls are. They said that there's many of them there, and many to owls always means more than five. Don't ask me why, that's just how it is."

"Whatever, dood. I'll go call the cops. How about you and me go around to the back lot and watch for the bad guys to make their get away."

"Sounds like a plan."

"Cool."

Darren went over to a pay phone and dialed 911. We then whipped around down an alleyway and positioned ourselves to watch the back door of the small theater, oddly enough called the Pyramid Court Theater. Damn everyone needing symbolism... it only makes for bad laughs.

About two minutes later, it seemed like the entire horde of police that had been around the shot up sorority house was descending on the theater. Like I thought, they only went for the front, as that's the only place there are windows that look in on ground level. They started with the whole, 'we know you're in there, come out with your hands up' routine. Then some wiseass ghoul apparently fired a grenade or something at the cops, because there was a loud boom, a few screams, and then a hail of gunfire.

More sirens came blaring in from across town and pretty soon we heard the sounds of two helicopters overhead. Now there was a gunfight, probably between the Settites' ghouls, and the police, and then the back door opened. Seconds later three guys ran out of the building, each carrying a woman slung over their shoulders. They darted across the back lot to a group of houses the door opened on one of them, apparently by itself, and the 3 pairs of carriers and victims shuffled inside.

Darren frowned, "there were at least three others with them that we couldn't see... let's get to that house!"

Darren and I snuck across to the house in time to see an old Ford pickup pull out of the garage and speed out of the alleyway. Nothing happened in the house yet.

We crept in, the sounds of the gunfight stopping and starting in the background, to find the house completely unlit. I let my eyes go red to see better, and saw that the doorway to the basement wasn't quite shut all the way. Now with my gun in my right hand, and my bat in my left, nodded my head in the direction I thought they went. Darren followed up, his sword cradled lightly in his hands.

I started to peer into the darkness below when I heard footsteps start up the basement stairs and a few voices trade back and forth.

1st voice, "When are the masters coming back, Olan?" We hear a loud smack, and a stifled yelp of pain.

2nd voice, "Scum! I told you to call me sir! I am still your better, you fail to remember!"

1st voice, "Sorry, sir. When are the masters going to be back? I'm worried about the people upstairs waking up."

3rd voice, "I wouldn't worry about the humans that live in this house, Jake. They'll do nicely as a snack." Footsteps started up the stairs again.

2nd voice, "Exactly. The masters will be back tomorrow night to take the offerings to the high priest of Set."

3rd voice, "Come, Tonya, let us go deal with the family upstairs. Their snoring might annoy us later tonight.

4th voice, "Yes my lord." The footsteps up the stairs restarted.

Darren and I sunk down into crouching positions flanking the door to the stairs. Darren pointed to himself, then raised one finger, then to me and raised two fingers.

I'd take the second person? But that was a woman! Dangit! I think I could manage without hurting anyone too bad though. Besides, she's a Settite ghoul.

I nodded, and put a finger to my lips. Darren winked, giving me a thumbs up.

The door opened, and out marched a man with an Egyptian look to him, with a bowie knife at his hip and a garrote dangling casually from his right hand. We let him pass until the ghouled woman came up the stairs and shut the door.

Darren exploded into motion, his sword flashing with light that seemed all its own. I heard a yelp of surprise from the vampire as I reached out and grabbed Tonya by the neck, lifting her off the ground.

She opened her mouth to yell (not that it would have been very effective, what with her being lifted up by the throat) but held silent as I tapped the rather wide muzzle of my gun over my lips and whispered, "shhhh.... you don't have to die." My point was somewhat muddled by a spray of blood that hit us both and puff of dust that her master swiftly became.

She was about to scream when I brought her close to me and bit her throat. I drank for a short while, taking more than I usually do so that the woman would get dizzy when I stopped. She'd be fine in a week or so, but I didn't want to over do it. As I pulled my fangs from her neck, Darren moved swiftly to clamp his hand over her mouth.

"Can you do that Serenity thing so that she goes to sleep? Darren whispered.

Good plan. Soon, we had one dead vampire, one sleeping ghoul, two more guns, and extra knife, and Darren and I poised at the door to the basement ready to make a daring rescue.

The thing about using the Song of Serenity that you have to be careful about, is that you can't use it on people that are in a dangerous medical condition. Non-threatening but painful injuries - go ahead, it calms people down, and blurs the pain a bit. If they are in a position where they will have to do any fighting to live, however, you had better refrain from making any kind of supernatural intercession, or they lose their will to live.

In any case, the two of us were ready to charge down the stairs and rescue the fair maidens below. A noble cause if there ever was one!

With my night eyes leading the way, I threw the door open and dove down the stairway, pistol in one hand, baseball bat in the other. Tucking into a roll, I thanked the powers that be for my durable body, and hit the ground not far from a startled sorority sister. I just barely heard Damien lightly touch down on the basement floor as I spun up into a fighting stance and spied a slightly built Haitian man, staring at me with glowing gold eyes. The eyes commanded me to stand still, but my blood was stronger than his discipline.

I leveled my gun at him, halting his advance, "I think you've overstayed your welcome in this city."

He snarled, then moved with great speed to grab for one of the girls as a human shield. Not wanting to risk hurting them, I dropped my gun and went for something a little more accurate and a little more permanent.

A low growl flew free of my lips as I grew claws and tackled the slimy bastard. We slid into the back wall of the basement and put a small crack into the concrete.

"Gangrel!" The Settite wasn't so dumb after all, "You are not worthy to touch the majesty of a Childe of Set!" He apparently wasn't as weak as he looked, either. Planting a boot into my stomach, he kicked me off of him, sending me flying back a good four feet. I glanced over to Darren to find him standing over a K.O.'ed ghoul trying to decide whether he should help out or not.

"Get the girls upstairs! I've got this bastard!" I turned back to the other vampire in time to catch a boot in the jaw. My blood started getting hot, and I flashed my fangs, beckoning to him with clawed hands, "You're screwed now, dickhead, you've fucked with my friends, with innocent girls, and now with my face."

He quickly ripped a two by four off a shelf to try and keep my claws at bay, "less talk, more action, feral boy!"

I feinted with my left hand, and he fell for it, blocking my hand with vicious turn of the board, but also leaving his left side wide open for a brutal rake. Blood sprayed across the room as he fell to a knee, dropping the board. I sidestepped a halfhearted attempt to trip me up with a leg sweep and booted him in the mouth.

Struggling to stand up, he had no defense against my two-clawed strike that literally ripped him in half. With a silent scream, he collapsed into a pile of dust.

I looked back to the doorway to find Darren looking down approvingly, "Nice job. Let's get out of here though, the cops are on their way to the front door."


I figured we could talk to Kristine tomorrow. I followed my friend out the back door, embracing the night.

 

[OverdrivePrime]

And now... Part 2.

Damien Drakkar & Darren Soltys:
Blood and Lightning​

Eight days had passed agonizingly slowly since we had rescued the Sorority sisters from the Settites. In this time, Darren and I got a lot of research done, tracking down who might have distributed the dementedly sick "ghoul hunting" videotapes. We had come up with a few dry leads, and one that looked like it was our possible score: a "novelty distribution" company that sold all manner of screwed up stuff to the sick monkeys who had nothing better to do with their money. I had decided that it would be a good idea to present myself to the Prince of Midvale, a warrior looking Ventrue by the name of Bruce St.Cloud. Yeah, he's probably one of the more relaxed Ventrue around, which keeps Midvale in a pretty nice balance of wild nights and a clear order to things.

The Prince decided to censure me for presenting myself late. In thanks for destroying a Settite, my punishment was light. I had to do bouncer duty at a Toreador bondage club for the rest of the week. Darren had way too much fun at my expense for that one. Freakin' Toreadors! As much fun as the city can be, I was eagerly awaiting my departure from Midvale.

And so, I actually danced with exaltation when the police guard around the sorority house was lifted, and Darren and I could go talk to Kristine… but not before I stopped by the prince's once more. I left with his retainers copies of a couple of the new Settite cat and mouse videos we had found in the city, along with a note explaining what had been going on, as well as my leaving the city to search for the sick pukes who started the trend. With luck, there'd be a blood hunt called on the Settites that morning for violation of the Masquerade.

My immortal friend and I parked our bikes outside the sorority house at a quarter after nine. Our cycles had our gear packed and ready to go, and the cube van had been rented and was waiting at the outskirts of the city for us. We looked at each other, making sure we looked our best, then nodded and ambled up the front steps of the Sorority house. From one of the rooms, Indigo Girls trailed out the windows, from another, the growling of L7, through the door came playful banter and squeaky protests. Summer must be a great time of year to be a college student.

We rang the bell, then stepped back from the door, chests inflated, backs straight, eyes laughing. A petite little sorority girl, maybe a summer pledge, opened the door, yawning, "Delta Chi Pi welcomes you... Oh!" Her eyes popped open, finally seeing Darren and I standing on her porch like a GQ ad. She cleared her throat and straightened her nightie, trying to pull it down to somewhere around knee level, "Hi, who are you here to see?"

Darren leaned forward onto the doorframe, locking eyes with the girl, causing her to blush furiously, "I don't suppose you could show us to Kristine Halloway's room, could you?"

"Krissy's room? Yeah, sure... You're not cops are you? She doesn't want to talk to any more cops." She gave us a toothy apologetic grin, her blush now traveling down to the neckline of her nightie. Cute kid.

I stepped forward, leaning on the other side of the door, giving me an opportunity to flex my shoulders as I crouched low to be level with her face, "Do we look like cops?"

She stared briefly, "Umm..." then looked back to Darren.

Darren smiled reassuringly, "Trust me, she'll be happy to see us."

We were quickly led up to the second floor, following a girl who possessed an almost magical seeming ability to blush over every square inch of skin on her body. I kept thinking to my self, "If only there was more time..." Darren was thinking the same thing, I could tell.

We got up the stairs, having drawn the stares of several of the young women in the house, and were escorted to Kristine's room, amid a horrid mix of Phish, Missy Elliot and Shania Twain, "Here we are!" piped the girl who had been parading us around the house. I suddenly got the feeling that we had taken the long way to get to this room.

She knocked on the door gently, and then spoke with a voice you'd use to console a small child, "Krissy? There's some nice boys here to see you." She gave us an apologetic smile, and waited next to the door. We waited next to her for almost a minute before the door slowly opened a tiny crack.

A tiny voice, far from the Kristine I remember, moaned out, "who are they, Lisa? I said no more cops."

I gently nudged the door open a bit more, "Yup, Darren and I just made the force. Aren't you going to congratulate us?"

The door opened quickly and a tired, ragged-looking Kristine stood before us. She smiled weakly and motioned for us to come in, "Why didn't you just say that it was you in the first place?"

Darren threw up his hands, "If we had known it was that simple, we would have been here almost ten minutes ago. How are we supposed to know what's Greek etiquette and what's not?"

I looked into Kristine's eyes with concern, "Kristine, you look like hell, what's going on?"

She fell onto her bed amidst a battlefield of stuffed animals and pillows and started to cry, "They don't let me sleep!" she sobbed.

Darren sat next to her, becoming the shoulder to cry on. I took her hand in mine and asked, "Who? What keeps you awake?"

She continued to sob, burying her face in Darren's chest, "They come into my dreams! Those creatures that took us, and a dark thing that looms over us all. They wait for me to fall asleep, and then hurt me in my dreams!"

Darren tried his best to calm her down, "Shhsh shussh.... it's okay now, we're here for you now."

I was worried now. This sounded like a lot more than trauma-induced nightmares. It sounded almost paranormally manufactured. The problem was, why would anyone take the time out to mess around with her dreams? Kristine isn't exactly a key figure in Midvale politics. She doesn't know of the supernatural, except as monsters in dreams, she doesn't even know any important people... oh crap. Except me and Darren. Dammit!

I knelt down in front of Kristine and took her hand in mine. I waited for her to pull her face away from Darren's tear-soaked chest. When she looked at me again, I spoke, "Okay, Kristine, I know it hurts to remember, but I need you to think. Close your eyes and look into the back of your mind. I need you to tell me who is chasing you in your dreams. Look inside, as deep as you dare to go, deeper if you can do it."

Darren, who had quietly removed himself as I was speaking to her, returned with a damp washcloth eased her back on her bed, draping the wet cloth over her eyes. Softly stroking her forehead, he quieted her with soothing tones, "Just relax, the thoughts are there, you just have to find them," he squeezed her hand gently, "we're here with you." I don't know what it is about Darren, but when he wants to be trusted, he's trusted completely. Kristine knows what... all of his name and two favorite bars, and she'd walk the plank for the guy. I guess, like he says, "it's a kind of magic."


He gets off on quoting old movies even more than I do.


Kristine's face scrunched, trying to concentrate. Through our cajoling and softly stated instructions, her face gradually relaxed. In her exhausted state, she drifted off to sleep quickly, and with us still talking to her, she hovered at a semi-coherent, stream of consciousness state of rest. Her dreams took form of words, and drifted lazily out of her mouth. Suddenly, her words took on a kind of urgency, as if relating a story to an unseen audience, or mouthing along while trying to speed read. In her dream, which originally sounded like a jungle story, she had fallen down an unseen hole to land hard in a pool of filthy water. The only light came from a harsh moon glow from the hole above.

Darren and I coaxed her along the path her dream was taking, and in return she kept us filled in. Her voice had more than a touch of fear in it now, and she kept her hands clenched tightly around ours. She told us that she felt things in the water with her, slippery and running against her legs as she waded to the side of the underground pond. Snakes! They were snakes! She gave a stifled screech and clawed her way onto the side of the pool. The whole underground area now seemed to glow, with a sickly green light. Hearing what sounded like a crocodile's call to the hunt, Kristine ran, barefoot down the muck-encrusted tunnel that had appeared before us.

I realized that Darren and I were in the dream now as well. My body's eyes were closed and Darren and I hovered in the air just behind Kristine like unwanted apparitions. Perhaps it was because of our close proximity to Kristine coupled with our trance like state, or perhaps it was yet another kind of magic, we didn't know. Darren and I looked to each other with momentary confusion, then continued to follow the woman. Fearing whatever was in the area with the pool, Kristine raced through the slime-covered tunnel, pushing past thorned vines and climbing over fallen debris, heading toward an orangish light.

At last Kristine's dream self was free of the entangling path and stood, unsure, on a sandy plain. Her clothes hung ragged about her body, her hair was bedraggled and her skin bled gently from dozens of tiny lacerations. She kept walking toward the source of the orange light, something that always seemed just over the horizon. In the dream, her feet floated above the ground, and the hilly, sandy terrain raced by beneath, as if we were being pulled forward by some huge bird.

All at once, the earth stopped flying by and Kristine tumbled to the ground. She rolled onto the center of a massive disc in the sand, seemingly hewn from limestone , and inlaid with thousands of symbols and pictograms. As Darren and I watched, helpless to do anything, iron chains, intricately worked to look like snakes, clamped themselves to her wrists and ankles and stretched tightly. Now spread-eagled and pulled taut to hover just inches over the disc, Kristine fought to free herself, shaking and screaming to no avail.

Darren and I floated uselessly overhead as a dark figure rose up from the sand a few feet away from Kristine's head. Apparently not noticing us, the man - if that's what he was - strode around the circle so that Kristine could see him. Not quite six feet tall, with dark hair and dark eyes, dressed richly in archaic clothes of black and gold, I knew him at once. Brandon. BRANDON! I knew my mouth moved, but I heard no words, nor did anyone else. Panicking, I felt as if I was near frenzy with anger and frustration, as he pulled out a long knife with a red metal blade. He dragged the flat of its blade slowly over her face and chest and smiled wickedly, then flashed a demonic smile her way, "Soon, my dear, you shall join your sister..." With a hiss, his words faded, and the three of us were thrown awake with a jolt.

I trembled from the cacophony of emotions rippling through me, while Darren and Kristine looked spent. Though the window, I saw the first threats of dawn pawing at the horizon. We had been locked in that dream all night!


I stood quickly, grabbing an extra blanket from Kristine's cabinet, "Darren, watch her close! That son of a ***** in the 18th century gear was Brandon! I'll be back tonight, at first dusk."


I didn't even hear Darren's response. I ran with all my speed outside, draping the blanket behind me to deflect the beauty of the predawn day. Thinking as fast as I could, I remembered the garden behind the sorority house and ran to it as fast as I could. I dove underneath the rhubarb plants and called to my blood to protect me from the morning. I sank into the dirt below, seeing the stalks of the plants overhead fade into darkness. Safe for now, I fought the urge to sleep for as long as I was able. It must have been almost ten in the morning before I finally gave in to the slumber.

I forced myself awake just as the sun was setting. The ground felt a bit damp above me, so I was in luck. I shifted up out of the earth, the blanket wrapped around me. I felt the last heat of day attempt to claw into my back through the heavy cloud cover as I ran around the sorority house through the pounding rain.

I probably looked like a tremendous wuss, riding my bike to the nearest gas station with a blanket wrapped around me, but I'll do a lot to preserve the Masquerade and preserve the illusions that people like to keep about me. At the gas station, I grabbed a bag out of one of my packs and raced in to use their bathroom.


Here, I used an electric shaver to restore my face to normal (baby-butt smooth) and cut my hair down to the style that I've taken to wearing these days. Not that I see anything wrong with hockey hair, it's just that everyone else does. I brushed my teeth and put on deodorant out of habit, and then hopped back on my Hog to get to Delta House.

Soaking wet, I arrived at the sorority house and was handed a towel by one of the girls almost immediately upon entry, "Darren said you'd be needing one of these," she smiled.

"Thanks!" I toweled off my hair and did my best to get my shirt and pants to a semi-damp state, "Are they upstairs?"

"Yup! That's where my room is too, you know, number 25, if you ever need anything." She looked at me purposefully, it was a look as familiar as my own face. Too bad that I had told Darren I'd be back as soon as I could be.

"I'll remember that," I gave her a wink and started up the stairs.

In Kristine's room, I found her sound asleep, apparently getting a peaceful rest for the first time in a while. Darren was perched on the edge of a chair, in a position that would make most people fall over trying even to figure out how he does it. He was in front of a small portable 15-inch TV, still playing Final Fantasy Tactics.

"Hey, Damien! What's up? You sleep alright?"

"Yeah, nothing spectacular. I had to use the world's biggest blanket to keep me nice and cool though."

"Eh? Oh right, the dirt nap thing."

"Yeah, the dirt nap thing. So, choir boy, you still can't resist acting like you've got feathers on your back?"

"What?" Darren looked around and then made a huge grimace, noticing that he was crouched on the extreme back edge of a skinny stool, the toes of his shoes the only things making contact with the chair, "Dammit! I didn't even know I was doing that."

I snickered, "Ex-angels want to lose their heavenly habits, next on Montel!"

"Shut up."

Darren forced himself to get off the stool and sat on the floor, still playing Tactics.

"Okay, okay, it's just funny. So how'd our sleeping beauty do through the day?"

Darren shrugged and looked up from Tactics. "She's okay, just really sluggish and stuff. I made her go back to bed around noon. I'm hoping that this Brandon guy can only work in her dreams at night, and that she can get some real rest during the day. I took her with me to my place to pick up the Playstation and a few other things we might find ourselves needing."

That piqued my interest, "Hmm... like what? Assault robots? Hordes of horny groupie girls?"

"You only wish. Given the nature of our enemies, I thought I'd dig up a few things for Kristine to protect herself with. That and I somehow stumbled across a couple white phosphorous grenades in the bottom of one of my footlockers."

I was impressed. "Wow, sounds like a guy can really amass a lot of weird **** in a century. Which war are the grenades from?"

Darren smirked, having been involved somehow in most of the wars this century, "Actually, they're from an 'unsponsored operation' I stumbled across. A bunch of screwballs in Laos tried to take out the vampire leader in the community nice and permanent-like. Too bad the spy in their midst killed them all in their sleep. Somehow though, the spy ended up dead as well, and I happened to be passing by in time to dig through everyone's pockets."

"Imagine that. You are one lucky immortal, Darren Soltys."

He flashed the Japanese anime 'Yah-ta!' peace sign and scratched the back of his neck. A minute later he finished the board he was on and saved his game.

"Alright then, let me show you what I picked up for Kristine."

Darren led me over to a small box of polished teak, banded with bronze. On the top were meticulously carved runic characters. Darren pressed a hidden clasp on the bottom of the box, and the top slowly opened. Inside was a beautiful silver women's jewelry set, made from ingeniously crafted silver and set with polished turquoise stones.

"Damn Darren! Where'd you get that? This must have cost you a fortune!"

Darren smiled faintly, coming out of what seemed to have been a fairly powerful flashback scene that the folks at home enjoyed a lot, "It cost me a lot more than money, Damien. This belonged to a very old friend of mine. I haven't even opened this box in almost thirty years."

And still, the set gleamed like new. "So, what do they do?" I asked.

My comrade gently traced the back of his index finger over the intertwining bands of a bracelet in the box, "They offer protection to whoever wears them. It comes in a lot of different forms, from shielding the mind from horrific events to keeping vampires from biting you. Or so I was told."

As I pondered what the extents of the protective might of the jewelry set might be, Kristine began to toss and turn, clenching her fists and groaning indecipherably about something in her sleep. Darren and I quickly went to her side, trying to gently wake her up.

"Who? Wha...?" Kristine groggily sat up with our aid, "Oh thank God it's you, guys! I was having another one of those horrible dreams."

"Was Brandon in this one too?" I asked.

She looked bewildered, "Brandon? It can't be him... I hardly know him! It's just a big dark shape in my dreams that keeps appearing. I don't remember much else from them."

Darren and I did a double take. Darren looked at her in disbelief, "You don't remember your dreams? You don't remember us being sucked into your dream last night? You don't remember the desert with the ritual wheel?"

Kristine was starting to look scared again, "Darren, what are you talking about? I only remember the dark shape that shows up in all of them."

I let our a long sigh of frustration, "Darren, you think we should fill her in on everything?"

He nodded, "Yeah, but first, I think we should get out of here. Kristine, can you move? I mean, can you leave Midvale for a week or two, maybe more? Damien and I think that you're being stalked by something, something that wants to hurt you really bad. We want to protect you, but we've got to move to be able to do it."

Kristine was now officially scared, "I... I guess so. Where will we be going?"

I answered, "West. We need to find your sister. I think that whatever's terrorizing your dreams is hurting her too. We need to go soon. Can you do it?"

"Jenny... She's in trouble too?" Kristine forced herself out of bed and ran around her room packing clothes into a couple suitcases, "How long are we going to be gone again?"

"Hopefully not more than two weeks."

"We're going to get a chance to wash our clothes, right?"

"Yeah."

One hour and a billion sorority girl hugs later, Kristine, Darren, myself and three bags of luggage were flying down the freeway out of the town. We had outfitted the van pretty well. It was stocked with a CD player, a couple hundred CDs, a dual blackout curtain setup separating the cab and the cargo sections, a cot/bunk bed, upwards of a hundred pounds of luggage, and two motorcycles.

On the way out of town, Darren and I began telling her about the dream, and what happened, and the oddness of the two of us being brought into her dream. She didn't believe us at first, but eventually, she let that barrier down. She remembered as well.

"It IS Brandon in my dreams. Him and the snakes, and the monsters. But how does he get in my dreams? What is he?" Kristine would need a lot of sleep when the morning came.

I tried to answer her as best as I could, and prepare her for coming events a little bit, "Kristine, there are a lot of hidden things in the world. Dark things, powers and cultures that keep themselves from the view of the rest of the world. A lot of old myths are real, old folktales, urban legends about werewolves and ghosts, they all have some truth to them."

Kristine saw the train of thought, but didn't quite want to get on yet, "So you're telling me the guy from Scream is Brandon."

"Umm... no. Not at all. We don't really know what Brandon is. He might be a magician of some sort, he might be a demon or something. We don't know for sure."

The train went by Kristine again, she grabbed on, but sat on the caboose, trying to figure out if she should stay on or not, "Riiiiiight. So what you want me to understand is that the guy who married Jenny, in not only a bad person, but some fairy-tale warlock in league with a whole array of spooky campfire stories? I don't know how much I can believe that. I mean, if there were werewolves and faeries and little green men running around, don't you think that more people would know about it than the National Enquirer?"

Darren grinned and kept driving, laughing under his breath.

"Hey!" I yelped, "The Enquirer does some very good investigative reporting, but that's because they have a lot of supernatural help. It's only because the powers that be know that the general populace doesn't believe anything in there that they get away with revealing all that. That's why they have to run a couple bogus articles each week, otherwise they'd be shut down for sure."

Darren shrugged, "Sorry Kristine, ever since they had that piece about a mix up he was involved in there, the guy has had a thing about the Enquirer."

Kristine was miffed, "Okay, that's just... odd. So what should I know about that you guys aren't telling me. I can tell there's more to all this."

Darren and I exchanged uneasy glances.

Finally my immortal friend spoke up, "Damien, can you drive for a second? I need to get something for Kristine."

He pulled off the road, and I quickly hopped in the driver's seat, and started the van up again. Darren hopped into the back and began rummaging around, returning with the engraved teak box.

He popped the hidden catch, causing the lid to open, "Kristine, I'm giving you these in the hope that you don't have to use them. A long time ago, they belonged to someone very dear to me. She's gone now, and you need the protection offered by them."

Kristine's eyes widened as he reverently lifted the necklace from the box, "Darren..." She breathed, "It's beautiful! They all are!"

He undid the clasp on the necklace, and put it on her, "Each piece of this jewelry is supposed to have arcane power of protection. This necklace is supposed to protect you from vampires. These earrings will provide a buffer against magic. This bracelet should be a ward against ghosts, and this ring is a guard against werewolves. I don't know anymore than that, and hope they will prove to protect you against Brandon, though, honestly, I don't know what they will do against him. Stick close to us though, and you should come our alright. Damien and I have a lot of experience in similar situations."

Bullshit. I've never been in a situation like this one, and I doubt Darren has been either. Good line to use, though.

Anyway, we rolled thought the night, with Kristine eventually realizing that we were telling the truth as much as we were able to. Just as we finished most of the background she might need to know, I looked at the dashboard clock and noted that it was indeed time to call it a night.

I pulled over saying that it was someone else's turn at the wheel, and I'd see them in the evening, I was cashed. I went in the back of the truck, climbed up into my sleeping berth, shut the cubby door and pulled a blackout curtain over myself for good measure.

I woke up, feeling the hunger a bit, and climbed out of my little sleeping quarters. I was about to pull back the blackout curtain, when I noticed the little note taped to the inside of the curtain.

"Damien - you forgot that we're in Mountain Time now,
go back to sleep before you get a tan.
-Darren"​

God bless that man. That would have been really embarrassing to get turned to ash right in front of Kristine. So, I sat down and read my new copy of Maxim while I waited for the sun to work off its hatred for me and go to sleep. Man, I love that magazine! Whoever writes it has a very firm grasp on all that is good, but perhaps a bit too firm a grasp on themselves.

About an hour later, a hand reached around and snagged the taped up stupidity prevention device from the curtain. The van slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road just as I stuck my head around the blackout curtain.

Kristine was apparently feeling better. Once she had parked the moving van she turned around to look at me. "Good evening sleepyhead! You missed a great sunset!"

I rubbed my eyes, and feigned disappointment, "Oh man, I remember how beautiful the sunsets are when you're out here. I'll have to try and watch tomorrow's. How are you two holding up?"

Darren cracked an eye open from his seat. "I'm doing just peachy, you get enough sleep there big guy?"

"Plenty. I even got some reading time in, around noonish," Okay, so I was full of ****, but Kristine didn't need to think that I actually slept all day long. I put my hand on her shoulder, "How about I handle the driving for now, and you two get some sleep?"

Darren held back long enough to show me the map, but I knew the route pretty well. Tonight, we'd be passing within fifty miles of my old home.

The driving was uneventful. To keep back the Hunger, I gently pulled up not far from a farm. Now, as you might know, cows are extremely stupid and complacent animals, and feeding off them isn't too tough, so long as you aren't patently offensive. However, as I always rediscover when I skim a meal off a herd, their blood tastes fatty and feels thick.

So, though full, I was a bit sleepyish when I took the wheel again. Darren poked his head out from the back, "What's up D? Any reason for the stop?"

I shrugged, started the truck up and yawned, "I just thought I should stop for a burger- extremely rare."

Darren smirked, "So juicy they moo, eh?"

"That's just the kind! Anyway, go back to bed, I've got driving covered."


A couple hundred miles later, Idaho had been safely crossed without an incident. Odd, considering all the weird **** the werewolves pull out there. Still, we had the vast majority of Washington state to cross through before we were in lands that weren't quite so full of the Garou. So, you'll understand that it wasn't me being nervous - merely cautious - when I had to stop for an apparent car wreck.

It looked like it'd be a while before the police were on the scene, and there were three cars, all pretty banged up. One had flipped and rolled off the road, and the other two were a tangled mess across the highway. Even if they hadn't crashed so as to neatly resemble a Detroit roadblock, I had to stop. It looked like people were hurt.

"Darren!" I hissed. No response.

"Darren!" I tried being a bit louder. Again no response.

"Darren!" I unbuckled myself and stood to go into the back of the truck.

There was a tap at my window, just as I began to move. I looked out to find Darren waiting patiently outside with the truck's first aid kit in hand. Sometimes.... I just don't know. The guy is a ton of fun to be around if you don't mind looking blatantly unsmooth from time to time.

Sheepishly I got out, Maglite in hand, and then we walked forward to check out the mess. The smug immortal next to me kindly restrained himself from teasing me and my rather limited situational awareness. The first car we got to looked like it was the beginning of the accident. There were still a pair of flannel-clad thirty-something men inside, bloody as hell, but at least they were groaning. See kids, safety belts really DO save lives.

I worked to get them out of the car as gently as possible, (I was expecting a lot of bone fractures here), while Darren went to check out the other car that was on the highway.

Using my vampiric strength to my advantage, I pulled the twisted doors free, and then, as gently as I could, removed the men and their seats from the car. I bandaged the wounds that hadn't clotted yet - big cuts on their faces and upper chests - to the best of my ability. Something had caused the windshield to shatter, and pretty much ripped the **** out of the whole front of the car. Once the two men weren't losing any more blood, I stepped back to check out the car.

The car, a '91 Taurus, was seriously fucked up, from the middle of the hood to the back of the passenger section. The frame was visibly bent, and the hood had caved in like something of respectable mass had slammed into it from above at great speed. I moved closer to check it out, expecting to find a meteor or a piece of the space shuttle or something. Instead, I found a pair of huge footprints on what remained of the smashed and melted engine block. Lupine footprints! Apparently one of the huge creatures in its war-form had dropped off a cloud or some crazy **** like that, to land on this car, and start the rest of the pile up.

Glancing over to the three men that Darren was patching back together, I saw that they were wearing the same type clothes as the guys I had bandaged up. It would seem that some lupines had pulled a strike against some hapless lumber workers.

"Hey Darren!" I called. He looked over, and I explained, "When you've got a second, take a look at the Taurus here, see if you get the same idea that I have. I'm going to go check out the car that flipped."

As I walked to the car that had flipped off the road, I saw Kristine hop down out of the truck.

"Kristine!" I pointed back to the truck, "I need you to find how far we are from the nearest city. There's people here that need a hospital."

I gave her about where I thought that we were, and told her to check the mile marker that wasn't too far behind the truck. I dashed down to the flipped over Cadillac Eldorado I found the driver not too far from car, wrapped around a different tree than the one the Caddy had stopped against. No pulse and quite cold. There was hope for his passenger though. In the car's almost upside down state, the man's arm was pinned between the outside of the door and the ground. I couldn't push the car back onto it's wheels because of the two trees it had gotten wedged between, but if I could get a few inches of clearance and someone to pull the guy's arm out, the rest of him seemed alright. He had a pulse, a little weak, but not terrible, and he'd have some broken ribs and a score of nasty bruises, not to mention a smashed-all-to-Hell right arm. Luckily, Darren was running over, with a look of deep concern on his face.

"Darren! I'm going to try and lift the car a bit. If you can get this guys arm free, before I have to set the car down again, he should make it."

Darren set himself near the passenger window and took a firm grip, "Okay. I'll give you a hand with getting it up, and then all you have to do is keep it there for a few seconds while I pull his arm out. On 3!"

"1...2...3!"

There was much groaning and straining of muscles, but inch by inch the car rose. Once we had it about fourteen inches up, I shifted my feet and back so that I could support more of the weight by myself.

"Okay! Get him out!" I yelled. With a ridiculous display of unearthly dexterity, Darren managed to have the guy's seat belt off and body out of the rolled down window in under nine seconds. One second later my grip began to slip. Darren got out of the way, and I let go, diving clear as the car crashed down again.

When we got back to the road, we found Kristine talking to an elderly couple in an old Chevy. To my relief, the man was on a cell-phone, hopefully calling for an ambulance.

Darren carried the smashed-arm man over to the trunk of the Taurus and put him down. We walked over to the Caprice and found out that yes indeed they were calling 911 (our cue to leave soon, incidentally) and that we were such responsible, nice young men. We explained to them how we had to get going, and they agreed to keep an eye out for the ambulance. A bad situation narrowly kept from getting worse, we finally got Kristine to understand that if we stayed around for the cops, there'd be a chance of our pictures turning up in a news paper, and thereby alerting Brandon and his lackeys to our coming. Neither of us liked leaving those jacked up lumberjacks either, but keeping Kristine alive and unharmed had become a priority for us.

We got back into the truck and waved good-bye to the old folks. I carefully drove around the damaged cars and then floored it, trying to be well out of the area by the time the local law enforcement specialist showed up.

Kristine went to bed almost right away, but Darren stayed up in the cab with me.

"Whaddaya think," I asked, "Werewolves?"

"Yeah, the old folks too. I could tell, they act a little different than normal humans."

"Why would they come back?" I was a bit confused, and hoped that we didn't just leave the survivors of the accident to be slaughtered, "I wouldn't worry, the survivors will be fed some powerfully magicked story, and they'll believe it. The old wolves will probably get rid of those size 32 footprints on the engine block, but it'll take some effort to figure out how to make everything look believable. What... you don't think that they don't cover up their activities? There's a lot of similarities between you blood suckers and the fuzzies."

"Well set me on fire and call me enlightened, I never thought of that before."

He took on a wizened Mr. Miagi voice, 'In time, Grasshopper, you shall learn to differentiate between what is real, and what should be real."

I laughed, "Whatever Confucius, go get some more sleep!"


Eventually, dawn came and found me hiding once more, and I woke up to find myself still in the truck. Not hearing the voices of my friends, I came out of the back to find that we were in a very old warehouse. Here and there emissaries of the last rays of daylight poked through from cracks in the old wood and cement walls. Happily, none of those golden deathrays came near the cab of the truck, allowing me to hunt around and find the note that was left for me.

In loose, kind of pretty handwriting and purple ink, I found written:

"Dear Damien,

Welcome to Tacoma! Darren and I are going to do a
search of the area to see if I can find anything that I recognize
from my dreams. We're going to start by the port district, and
work our way around from there.

By the way, don't be embarrassed about sleeping all
day again. Darren explained to me about your rare skin disease
and your recent fight with insomnia.

We'll meet you at the Twisted Globe at ten o'clock.

Hugs!

Kristine"​

Ah, that would explain why Darren's motorcycle was gone. How kind of him to give me an excuse for my need for 16 hours of sleep a day in summer.. I'd have to remember to ask Darren about what the skin disease I have is called.

Mental note clearly marked, I cleaned myself up and took my hog out of the truck to go find the Twisted Globe. I drove over to a phone booth and grabbed the yellow pages. Not the most efficient person on earth, I found the place after five minutes or so, and then had to go into a gas station to get directed to the street where it supposedly was on.

Forty-five minutes of driving, getting lost, and finally finding the place found me right on time. I went in, hung around, popped a buck into the jukebox for a couple plays of Tool, Ministry and Korn.

For being in such a cruddy, unwelcoming town, the Twisted Globe really was a pretty decent place. Freaky wannabe-goth girls displayed themselves on the dance floor, while the real goths (and possibly a Brujah or Caitiff here and there) looked on in amusement from candle lit tables. Party jocks much like myself hung out at the bar, downing beers and boasting about various exaggerations, beautiful Japanese girls with blue hair beckoned me to a back room... What? Yup. That was right. A tiny woman, maybe 4'11 or so, with a similarly small frame and a nicely done dye job peeked out of a back room, locking eyes with mine and extended her finger toward me.


"Come here," she mouthed. I was forced to find this a very good idea, specially since my friends were now a half hour late. As I moved toward her she smiled, pushing the door open a bit more, then turned sharply and disappeared into the room. The brief look I got at her outfit made me want to drool, instead I moved more quickly toward the room and opened the door.

Inside was a more interesting dance floor, small and crowded with bodies sensuously writhing to a slow My Scarlet Life song, grinding together, uncaring who they made contact with. I sent my gaze around the room, finding the anime girl waiting for me on a steep stairway. As I moved toward her, she favored me with another melting smile and made her way up the stairs, gifting me with the vision of her legs revealed by the very high slit in the long black skirt she wore. I followed, entranced with the image of her erotically shadowed by the blacklights affixed to the stairs at knee level. She turned around another corner at the top of the stairs, escaping my vision once more.

When I got to where I lost sight of her, I was confronted with the presence of a thick steel door that said 'Roof Level' on it. With a mental shrug, I pushed the door open. Now out under the stars, I found that the roof level was basically another well tended dance floor, except this one had only three people dancing on it, to pulsating jungle music. I swept my eyes across the roof, admiring the fifteen foot tall mirrors that lined the sides of level, noting that a faint rain had started. The Japanese girl had apparently vanished. Then I looked behind the door that I had come out of.

Behind the roof entrance was another area, not unlike a swimming pool deck, but with no pool. There, I found out why Darren and Kristine were late.

Kristine was being firmly grappled by a taller version of the Japanese woman (same outfit and hair even) while Darren hung, impaled on a massive sword, in the middle of a wooden wall carved with a 10 foot arcane circle around his body.

"Sorry I'm late..." I managed to apologize before the whole world turned to stars, bright light and pain.


When I came to, things suddenly felt a lot worse.

"Brandon!" I managed to choke out, then realized that I too was impaled on a large wooden wall right across from Darren. In between us stood Brandon, holding Kristine limply by the neck.

Right about now my body decided to cue me in on the fact that I was in a tremendous amount of pain. Perhaps it was a wicked bit of irony that they had used Darren's sword to affix me to the wall, with about two and a half feet of it sticking out from my ribs. This honestly hurt more than just about any thing that had happened to me in the last year. About thirty feet across from me, Darren was going through similar facial contortions. Sure, the guy has a talent for healing like nobody's business, but it's really hard to heal a wound if the weapon that caused it is still there. It was a beautifully worked katana, it's blade and crossguard treated to be a midnight black while the very edge glinted a wicked silver. Through the red stain of pain that had begun clouding out my vision, I could see that Darren was conscious, and using the pain to keep himself sharp.

Taking their leisurely time, Brandon and the muscular Japanese woman lay Kristine down on a stone table that had risen from the ground. A heavily tattooed lackey, most likely the guy who had blind-sided me, bustled in with a bucket of what smelled like blood, and a couple carving tools that looked like they were made solely for the purpose of demonic rituals.

Brandon took a position about four feet from Kristine's head and began to chant. The lackey began using the blood to paint symbols on Kristine's face and arms, while the Japanese woman stepped back and watched, amused. Darren began trying to tug at the sword impaled through his chest. He didn't have any luck, lacking leverage, and without room to get his feet up to push the blade out. An advantage I had.

A plan popped into my head suddenly, and I swung my legs up - not without a certain amount of pain - and planted them firmly behind the wide crossguard of Darren's bonded sword. Focusing my will and summoning all the strength I had, I roared in pain and anger as I forcibly ejected the sword from my gut. Once free of the wall, the sword shot out of my body as if from a cannon, across the ritual floor and almost smacked into Darren's chest. Almost - had he not caught it.

As I fell to the floor, fountaining blood, I caught a glint in Darren's eye that I had seen in the eyes of many a masochist possessed of righteous fury. With a scream of triumph, he raised his sword high. Then, with a descending pass filled with arcane power, his sword shattered through the katana. Sliding off the remains of the ruined blade, Darren landed heavily on his feet with a "now you're all in very big trouble" grin that covered up the pain he should have been in. Licks of electricity coated his chest and back, deftly beginning to heal the terrible gap in his chest, furiously making up for lost time.

I fought with myself, forcing the blood to begin to heal my critically damaged body and got up to my knees. The muscular Japanese girl and the tattooed lug recovered from their shock then, with the girl unleashing a fearsome howl and charging Darren, and the ink addict rushing toward me with a fireman's axe. Brandon, mercifully, hadn't reacted at all yet, still within the depths of his demonic chant, hovering and slowly spinning a few feet in the air.

I just barely managed to slide out of the way of the descending axe, closing my wound a little more as I rolled. Now the axe whipped at me in a wide lateral slice, crashing into the unholy wooden wall as I managed to flatten out. The thug tugged mightily, unsuccessful at first, then planting his foot in the wall to tear the biting steel tooth from the wood. Completely unbalanced, he let the axe pull him out of line, swinging around to his right. I had healed enough to fight by now. It was my turn!

Swiftly getting back to my feet, I launched myself into a vicious uppercut, catching the thug in his gut and lifting him high off the ground, hurling him several feet away from me. Clutching his broken ribcage he spat blood and screamed a fast mantra in a language I hope I'll never understand. One of his tattoos flared to life and he began to laugh. A part of the wall bulged and pulsed, beginning to flow over his body, coating him in a thick armor of ash wood. Frighteningly enough, the arcane carvings stayed on the armor. I had seen worse though. You don't hang around with the baddest blood suckers in Chicago without seeing some pretty scary ****. Now and again, it has its advantages.

With a roar, I charged the apprentice mage, still adjusting to his new armor. I dropped into a single leg take down, grabbing his left leg, then shifting my stance quickly and lifting his leg high above my head before spinning, throwing him heavily into the back wall. Dazed, he staggered to his feet, narrowly avoiding my onrushing kick and weakly batting me into the wall. Not suffering from the hit, I braced off the wall and shouldered into him, knocking him to the ground. He began to roll away, a long crack in the horrific carapace showing over the length of his back.

Caution to the wind, I pounced, driving my knee heavily into his back. Seeing him begin to twitch, I thundered my fists into his back, my Caine-granted strength blasting away chunks of his wooden armor until finally his body shuddered, and the whole of the unholy cover fell way into a pile of woodchips.

Barely managing to cut through the red haze enough to stave off the Beast, I sank my teeth victoriously into the thick flesh under his shoulder and began to drain him, replenishing my badly depleted blood supply. When I finally pulled my teeth free, sated, I was able to witness the spectacular battle being played out across the roof.

Both bleeding from several wicked cuts, Darren and a werewolf in war form danced a whirlwind melee, traveling from speaker tower to mirrored wall, to stairway and back. The werewolf was a uniform ink black, save for a shock of azure blue on the top of its mane. Against Darren's hand and a half blade, she wielded a wide, silver-bladed knife. Each had wounded the other several times, with the werewolf's ungodly strength and stamina giving her some respite against Darren's obviously superior skill. As sword crashed against silver blade, an explosion of sparks would light, then disappear, creating a beautiful play of shadows on the mirrored walls of the dance floor. New wounds were opened as others closed.

Now, normally, I'll respect the honor of one on one fighting, especially when it's Darren against anyone, but the situation had just gotten desperate. Kristine's body had started to rise, and ethereal red-black flames had begun to flare from the stone table. Picking up the discarded fireman's ax, I joined the fight with a yell. The werewolf parried aside my swing, but was unable to keep herself out of the line of Darren's perfectly executed slash. A crimson spray caught me in the face as Darren's blade sunk into her neck and a foot into her chest. She dropped to one knee from the force of the blow, managing to force Darren backward with a push of her free hand. I rushed her from the back, hooking an arm under her right shoulder and flipping myself over into a roll. Were it not for me being a lot stronger than your average bear, I probably would have just hung ridiculously from her shoulder, but over she went, landing hard on her back. Darren was there in less than a second to finish the job. Moments later, the massive beast melted back into the tiny Asian girl with the blue hair. I could have cried, it was just such a waste of cuteness!

There were more important things at hand, though. We turned back to Brandon and the stone table. Kristine's body was arched back now, the flames not harming her but burning much higher now. The only thing preventing her from floating skyward were the thin black chains that were bound to her wrists and ankles.

Lightning flashing over his body, trying to heal his many wounds, Darren broke into a run for the stone table, "I'll get her free, you run interference with that fuckstick mage boy!"

"Hai!" I agreed, taking up the ax and charging Brandon with undisguised hatred, "DIE!!!" My ax cut through his form as if through smoke, overbalanced and having thrown all my effort into the attack, I followed suit, passing through Brandon's body as if it wasn't there. ****! An illusion! I stood up, noting that he wasn't entirely an illusion: a thin ectoplasmic slime covered bits of my arm and shoulder where I had crashed through him. Still he chanted, not even noticing me. Curious, I stood in front of the ectoplasmic doppelganger trying to decide what to do.

Behind me, I heard Darren's sword passing through the black chains that bound Kristine. Knowing that she was safe, I decided to try and get creative. I ran to where the tattooed geek had gotten the ax, and grabbed onto the emergency firehose, hauling it off it's rack. I turned the valve to full blast, and then ran with the hose toward Brandon, blasting the proxy mage with high pressure water. It was fun, but didn't really have much of an effect other than looking really odd. I discarded the hose, letting it flop about the dance floor chaotically and ran to pick up the dead werewolf girl... Oddly enough, I found her unconscious, but breathing shallowly. Man, those things are ridiculously durable. I carried her to the stone table where moments before Kristine had lain helplessly. Laying the werewolf down on the table I tied her wrists and ankles with the black chain, hoping that something annoying would happen to Brandon's ritual.

Darren smiled, understanding what I was hoping to do, "Alright, bro, let's get out of here!" He passed Kristine to me and began to run for the steps. I followed close behind, shouldering Kristine and then jumping down the stairs, a flight at a time to keep up with Darren's speedy self. Just as we hit the dance floor we heard a high pitched wine, then all hell broke loose. The roof exploded, raining hellish fire and no small amount of water (heh, I forgot to turn that hose off) on the dancers below. With a roar of pain, I took a hit from a piece of burning lumber. Luckily the burn wasn't too deep. I shook my head, fighting off my instinctual fear of fire and followed Darren out the emergency exit, joining the dozens of others flooding out the door. We hopped on our motorcycles and gunned 'em just as we heard sirens approaching. It was time to make ourselves scarce.


Safely back in our chosen warehouse of hiding Darren and I looked over Kristine with no small amount of worry. Hopefully the enchanted jewelry set had protected her from the worst of the ritual, but we had no way of knowing until she woke up. We were about to lose hope, when her eyes cracked open, and a strained smile appeared on her face, "Let's... not do that again..."



The End... for the moment.