[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rZzQJRG5dI[/youtube][/center]

“I have seen things you mayflies would not believe.” The words were well-shaped and emphasised, thereby hinting at the intensity, control and particularity of the speaker’s character. His polished and refined accent only honed the edge of his speech.

All around them were the verdant, rolling hills with ample vegetation which made Topanga so private and attractive. They stood on Parker Mesa Overlook; bedrock mortars were carved out of the rocky outcroppings of the summit, and low shrubbery rustled in the night breeze. Behind them, the hills furled away in darkness to the west and north, while in front of them was the sandy arc of Venice Beach curving all the way down to Point Vincente. The illumination was so bright it seemed ablaze. Halfway down, Santa Monica Pier jutted out into the ocean like a sapphire pin dangling from a golden necklace. Catalina Island was visible off to the right. The couture-clad man who had spoken gazed out across the moonlit vista, and imagined the bay to be the gem-studded rim of Hebe’s sacred cup which contained the mythical nectar and ambrosia. The city, in this instance, symbolised the ambrosia Hebe served up to the Olympians as source of immortality, eternal youth and lifeforce. And like those Olympian gods, he intended to drink deeply from said grail.

L.A. suffered from smog, and the foggy blanket caught and held on to the light pollution. The phenomenon always brought to mind the great city fires he had seen. West of the metropolis and north of Santa Monica, this was where the mountains met the sea – a ‘Little Olympus’ of sorts, with its own pomegranate and date lined temple complex, the Getty Villa, nestled in the lower hills. Topanga was the place where the rich and artistic had been drawn since the 1920s, escaping the bustle of Los Angeles and Hollywood. As always, genius and insanity went hand in hand, culminating in the events of the late 1960s which had drawn Jonathan to the region. Not Neil Young’s musical mastery, but Charles Manson’s madness had pulled John to the City of Angels. 

He wrest his eyes from the glowing bay below and settled them on the five kneeling men. When looking down at them he doubted any of them had been born when Manson started his campaign of murder, but he might be wrong. It was hard to tell sometimes, just [i]when[/i] kine had been born... how [i]shortly[/i] ago that they first had seen the light of day. To John, these had been children but yesterday, but already tonight they lay at his feet. 

They were bound, and one of them was in bad shape. He would expire before long, as he was bleeding profusely. Jonathan’s nostrils flared at the scent. To those five kneeling men, he would appear as a figure of darkness cut from the lit-up sky at his back. Others like him watched from the shadows. Most of them wore similar long overcoats which ruffled in the wind.

Jonathan walked over to the man he thought was eldest among their number, then crouched down to come to eye-level. What vanity, to have come after him like this. “Who are you?” The question was grated out as if ground between a millstone. Jonathan angled his head slightly to the side in curiosity. “Who ordered this?”

The bound lout grumbled something, then spat a bloody glob at his captor. Quick as electric current, Jonathan recoiled and hissed maliciously. It was the instinctive sound of a coiled adder. Whimpers ensued at the display of the Mark of Caine, though the offender remained immune to Jonathan’s dread gaze. 

There was little more disgusting to John than bad manners. Even in defeat one had to show grace, and this mere mortal had the audacity to [i]spit[/i] at him. Worse, it was blood, and Jonathan knew that if it had hit him, he might have frenzied and thereby would have robbed himself of the chance to find out who these men were and who had sent them. He glared wide-eyed at the man, who was grinning through his red-stained teeth. [i]This poltroon knows. He knows of the Beast raking my nerves with its claws, and thinks harassment will let slip its shackles.[/i]

Jonathan’s pride reared its head. “Just who do you misguided fools think you are dealing with?” He was Ventrue – not some Gangrel or Brujah barely in control of their tempers. Undoubtedly some insult had been coming John’s way, but the bleeding man collapsed which caused his neighbour to prattle out a verse in Latin for succour. [i]So it was not just a hit but an ‘auto-da-fé’, an act of faith.[/i] Whether or not it was a crusade called against him or just a botched, overzealous attempt remained unclear. Now it was John’s time to grin. Alabaster fangs glinted silver in the moonlight.

“Be quiet, novice! Keep the faith. Trust in God.”

“Yes, be quiet, milksop. Your pronunciation is atrocious,” piled on Jonathan, scowling. It truly was an affront to the Roman tongue. [i]Zealots,[/i] he thought, jaded. It was all he could do but roll his eyes.

“Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,” came the muttered reply of the near-snivelling human. “I am sorry, Inquisitor.” The Ventrue’s face contorted in a demonic leer.

“You are an abomination, an animal enslaved by its base desires and hunger, an agent of Satan,” came the delayed insult. This time, it did not go unpunished, as one of the Ventrue’s fists shot forward and hit the inquisitor in the jaw. The punch cracked the man’s jawbone and spilled his teeth out in the dirt like pearls from a torn necklace.

“Oh, but how very [i]wrong[/i] you are,” exasperated Jonathan. Part of it was true though: vampires were hungry creatures, and the older the more vitae they needed. The smell and sight of blood, for example, had roused Jonathan’s considerable appetite, but he would not feed on these wretches. They had not earned that privilege. They would not experience the bliss of a vampire’s kiss.

Instead, he drew upon the previously consumed lifeblood of his thralls and ghouls to ramp up his vampiric powers. “You have made yourselves into iron. Therefore, you are strong but brittle. It breaks before it bends, and I hear the brittleness in your speech. Doubt is setting in.” Through an amalgam of presence and domination, Jonathan wreaked havoc on the spiritual fortitude of the captured hunters. Gradually he increased the pressure on their minds. 

“Doubt which is justified, and caused you to fail. These novices you led to their deaths… their faith was found wanting.” He grimaced, watching the inquisitor spit molars still. The sight nevertheless did not deter him from teaching them their final lesson. Once again, he got in close, and cradled the man’s head gently in his hands. It would have been very easy to crush his skull and brains into a mushy pulp… but where was the fun in that? Instead, Jonathan leaned in intimately and let the bloodthirst work so he snarled and snapped his words into the inquisitor’s ear. “God is gone. It is just us devils now.” It was about all he could say before he had to pull himself away or devour the man then and there.

“Faith is like poison,” he told them, softly tapping a flinching hunter’s face. The man was quaking in mortal fear. John looked down all compassion and understanding. “I know, unfortunate soul. I shall cut you open and suck it out like from an aging wound.” He could smell their desperation on the air. It was time to drive home his point, much like they had wanted to drive home the point of the stakes meant for his heart. “Will the Gates of Heaven open before you as the sound of silver trumpets heralds your arrival? Or will you find the way into Paradise shut?” The Ventrue paced slowly before them, looking each in the eye to solidify his hold over them. “Worse yet,” he spoke soft as a lover, voice bubbling over with sympathy and malice both, overwhelming whatever mental defences the hunters tried to scramble together. Yes, they had trained for this, but the way they had tried to force their way into his lair like bumbling children meant that they were inexperienced and in over their heads. Did they even know the calibre of Kindred they were dealing with? He thought not. “There are no gates, no Holy Spirit, there is no Heaven,… Godfearing men like you ought to know there are worse things to be afraid of.”

Only the leader of the hunters was not babbling or praying, hard as it was to do such things with a busted face, while Jonathan deconstructed their entire system of belief. The others shivered and pleaded – except for the one passed out from blood loss – and soon started begging as hysteria set in. Now it was time to indulge.

“Five little piggies, about to squeal. This little piggy went to market,” started John, pointing at the bleeding man. His shoes crunched the blood-soaked gravel. “This little piggy stayed home,” came the next verse. One of his cohorts stepped forward having heard a wordless command, and summarily ripped the back of the hunter’s neck out, then shoved the bony paste down the third man’s throat. The victim soiled himself. “This little piggy had roast beef,” the rhyme continued, the Ventrue spoke over the cries and gargles. “This little piggy had none.” The gibbering novice’s neck cracked with an audible pop, and the screaming stopped. Before long, the soothing sounds of night returned while Jonathan’s retroreflecting eyes which rested on the last survivor pulsed like garnets. He sighed. “And [i]this[/i] little piggy cried ‘wee wee wee’ all the way home …”

In the end, the inquisitor spilled his guts literally as well as figuratively. Iron breaks before it bends. Talking had been hard, and John almost regretted breaking the man’s jaw. [i]Almost.[/i]

They had been part of a fringe group tied to the Society of Leopold, left behind or expelled. Their strike at him had been their way back into the Inquisition’s good graces. One of the first probes directed at Kindred in Los Angeles. This was nothing he had not dealt with before, nothing new… until they mentioned an overarching cabal. Indeed, that was discomfiting: the inkling that there might exist a larger and more dangerous organisation. Larger, more dangerous and techno-savvy.  These latter days wannabe Torquemadas disappointed as adversaries and fought like cowards by using advanced technology. While Jonathan admired their Machiavellian tactics, he figured the mention of “blankbodies” and “FIRSTLIGHT” to be the result of severe dementia he had inflicted upon the hunters: the ravings of dying men.

[i]No, of dead men,[/i] he corrected himself, throwing one last and cursory glance back at the five bodies. Already his ghouls were busy chopping up the carcasses, and he could sense the bobcats and cougars prowling nearby. They had been attracted by the smell of gore. “Inform the Gerousia of the events from tonight,” he instructed one of his underlings. “And let the word go out through the proper channels that I wish to meet with our illustrious Prince. Tell him I am not amused.” [i]Vannevar has some explaining to do as to why I had to deal with these rabid dogs in my backyard.[/i]

The past half-century he had watched events unfold from the sideline, comfortably numb. Tonight had shaken him awake. The chaos of the Anarch Free State had spilled over and touched him directly. This would never have happened with a strong Prince in power. Topanga was no longer safe. Or perhaps safety had always been an illusion. Regardless, he refused to run. This was as far west as west went, and he was disinclined to try his luck elsewhere. The time for idleness was over. [i]Everyone in this godforsaken city is out for blood.[/i] Thus the thought grinding within his skull as he straightened his long coat. All bitterness aside, he grinned in long overdue excitement. [i]And now, so am I. Time to shake the tree.[/i] Via his various blood bonds, carefully cultivated over the years, he called on his intimates - those who knew him as Jonathan Corbett. To most of L.A. he was Johnny Rook. The city was lousy with thin-bloods and anarchs, after all. Scum who had no business knowing his true identity.

Another summons went out from him, calling out to lynxes, mountain lions and coyotes alike to join for the coming meal. Their shrill screams and howling screeches rose up in the night’s air as the Ventrue started his descent towards all the coloured lights, heralding his coming like so many of Heaven’s corrupted silver trumpets.

Johnny Rook was coming to town.