A collab between Ruby, Lightning Fast, Tanderbolt, and Bloodrose ==== “Get fucked, you psychotic d-dog!” the misled cainite growled, with the defiant fury of a stalwart champion, “you and your m-madhouse pals are a dying sect! You’re fucking d-done for.” In spite of the hideous wounds that Calantha had beautifully wrought upon her prey, the anarch puppet fought on, gritting her teeth through insidious pain, and burning misery. Her inner-fire was formidable, and the perfect symmetry of her delicate features was enviable. If this foolish Toreador hadn’t thrown her lot in with the “unbound” pretenders, she could have made a powerful weapon for the Sword of Caine. “Silly little morsel,” the Tzimisce let out a sinister titter, an unnaturally-wide smile spreading across her features, revealing rows upon rows of sharpened teeth, her mouth swarming with countless convulsing fangs, like the whirring blades of an electric drill, “you are food for the three-headed dragon.” Calantha’s hand became liquid, malleable putty, which oozed off of her bone and muscle, and slithered hungrily onto her captive. The Toreador recoiled with revulsion, thrashing about on the sinewy hooks which bound her to the ceiling. “F-fuck you!” she snarled, bloody tears dribbling down her dark cheeks. Bubbling skin seeped into the Toreador’s mouth, and trickled down her throat. She tried to scream, but found her lungs filled with yeasty, mud-like flesh. “You will serve as a message to your false queen,” Calantha declared, watching with malicious voyeurism, as the helpless cainite was twisted inside out, and remade into an unliving sculpture, “I am coming for her, and no god nor demon will spare her from my furious wrath.” A pang of cold, mournful pain thrummed inside the Tzimisce’s chest. “This is for Morgan.” __________________________________________________________________________ “Tell me again.” The man looked uneasy, the creases of age in his dark brown skin only seeming to widen as he looked down and to the right, to the mystery woman that seemed as unknowable to him as God. Did she really need him to tell her again, or did she simply want to wear it? Was she even paying full attention? “The security guard is named Alec Erikkson. He found the scene. He found…well, this.” He didn’t look up again, only gestured. It made little to no sense to him, no matter how many times the mystery woman explained it. That a mystery woman that looked barely old enough to work full time was explaining to him the unexplainable…he was warned about this. All of this. Somehow that didn’t make it any easier. Yet she looked like the type. Hollywood beautiful, Hollywood powerful in the white Armani pants suit. Clothes he couldn’t afford, clothes his daughter would have died to wear. Her shoes weren’t dirty, despite the supple and easily stainable white leather heeled boots she wore. Caroline, she called herself, though why a Latina had a name like Caroline…suppose anything was possible in America. At least Caroline silenced the creature. Gave it some amount of peace. Whatever that was worth. “I don’t imagine you want us to call anyone.” Her head stayed tilted up, her eyes casting a thousand mile stare, as if she saw through the sight, instead of simply seeing the sight. Her voice sounded about as distant as her gaze appeared, to him. But, then, he was already deciding to spend half his paycheck to buy the bottle of Scotch that was far too expensive for him. He would need it, after today. Just to sleep. Just to forget. He had what happened when people talked about…the weird stuff. “…no, George, thank you.” And then there she was; her eyes bright and her gaze sharp, her smile somehow sweet despite the hanging horror, her tone kind. “I apologize you had to see it. It’s a message meant for…the party I represent.” “God?” That sharp gaze broke, blinked, and refocused on George in a way that seemed unfathomable to him just moments before: momentary confusion, followed by instant amusement. The smile never left her pretty lips. “Not hot, certainly not cold.” “Hmm, well…” “George?” “…yeah? Oh.” [i]Stop guessing, while you’re ahead. Right.[/i] “Yeah, if you need any help or anything just let me know. I’ll be outside the building.” Caroline nodded, gently, “The team will be here soon. Please see they are fully assisted, whatever they shall need. Thank you, George. We will see that Mr. Erikkson is okay. That will be all.” Caroline waited until she heard the door close behind George, before she slowly closed her eyes with a deep inhale of air she didn’t need. Of all the Disciplines Eva had taught Yanci Carolina, the one they had spent the most time and effort on was Auspex. She felt lucky to have been sired by a Kindred such as Eva, so open-handed with knowledge, never an ounce of fear in the older Kindred that giving away knowledge may one day endanger her. Luckier still that she was close enough to Caine to use Disciplines as most Kindred could not. As Andre, as Rachel, in their slightly younger Generations of blood, could not. The Seventh Generation Toreador allowed her mind and her blood to focus on senses of the supernatural. What should have lasted a moment of serene calm ended up a searing pain, as if her mind was shoved through a keyhole so that it could fit, forced to see and experience far beyond what it was prepared or thought able to see and experience. When it was over, she could feel time had slipped away. The timepiece on her wrist explained an hour had disappeared while she slipped into the uncharted depths of sensation, of time and space, as Auspex took her and dragged her into the shadow. By the time she came back up she knew. Both what had happened, and that Eva wasn’t kidding: the Blood was acting differently. The end really was beginning. The phone gifted from Mateo and his digital do-gooders was in her hand with supernatural speed, her voice darker and desperate than before. If she had breath to catch, she would have been chasing it. “We have a problem. She’ll want to know…she’ll want to take care of it. Yeah, herself. I’ll send the details.” __________________________________________________________________________ A sea of old warehouses stretched out beneath the murky blackness of LA’s dark skyline. Old, fat containers, with dinky metal roofs, curving over squat brick bodies, rose up above little smatterings of trailers, and caravans, once home to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, now discarded in the sweeping enormity of Warner Bros grimy backyard. Harry Sims liked eating his lunch amidst the ocean of rusted metal, and chipped plaster. Most folks would have hated working such late shifts, and with relatively little company, but Harry enjoyed the quiet of his own thoughts, and the opportunity to work without someone leering over his shoulder. Letting out a happy sigh, Harry plopped himself down on an old bench, tucked away beneath the dome-like roof of one of the old warehouses, and began tucking into his sandwich. [i]Yummy ham, with just a splodge of mustard. The food of the gods.[/i] The old man took a bite of his “lunch”, and felt a soft buzz of serotonin shimmering away in his brain. A blotch of mustard spilt out of the sandwich, and landed on his moderately-too-tight work shirt. Harry had put on more weight than he was comfortable with, since his son had made him quit smoking, but he reasoned that ten or so pounds was better than lung cancer. Self-improvement was a slow, tiresome journey, but Harry was pleased with the progress he was making. “You’re doin’ alright, old man,” the security guard murmured to himself, “you’re doin’ alright.” All of a sudden, Harry heard something rustling in the shadows. With a groan, the old man rose to his feet, putting his sandwich to one side, and reached for his torch. “This is private property!” Harry called out, and what he assumed was some nosy teenagers, “scram!” An impossibly pale figure stepped out of the darkness, fair flesh gleaming amidst the night, as if she was carved from a splinter of luminous moon rock. “I’m taking this little hut.” The strange newcomer called out, in a cold, cruel. “You can’t be here, m’am,” Harry replied, trying to make use of his de-escalation training, and keeping his voice level, “you need to leave, or I’ll be forced to raise the alarm.” A vile cackle oozed out of the woman’s full lips. “Normally I’d make you weep and grovel,” she sneered, “but I’m in no such mood tonight.” Before Harry’s mind could make sense of what was happening, something blurry flashed across his vision, and the intruder was standing mere inches infront of him. A sharp, agonizing pain cracked through his chest, and then he found himself gazing down at his own heart, blood drenching the fingers of the pale figure. Harry tried to speak, but the air had trickled out of him, and his mouth was flooded with the gush of bubbling sanguine. The old man’s last thoughts were of his sandwich. __________________________________________________________________________ It took a surprisingly short amount of time for them to discover the location of the criminal. There was a tip left by an old friend in the form of a dead rat left just outside the back passenger door of the SUV the team used. He left gifts, and Eva had to use Disciplines to read the messages hidden in the gifts. If Lubbock had wanted to scare her, forcing that old friend to suddenly reappear would have been the smartest way. Luckily for her that wasn’t the case; it was coincidence. In his misguided ways, the old friend was just trying to help. The call came five minutes after Eva kicked at the dead rat and forced it down a nearby storm drain. A motion not missed by the man just arriving to the car behind her. “…the creeper?” Eva’s lips gave hints of amusement at the corners of her mouth, but little else, “Mm-hmm.” She turned to look at Andre, and nod, since there was little point talking about it openly…there was no doubt the old friend was nearby, listening, watching, or as Andre so succinctly put it—creeping. “Burbank. Old Warner lot. Call ahead, have them shut down tours and give the normal security team the night off.” “My people then?” A nod was Andre’s authorization as she abandoned the idea of the car. “Follow behind, come in force.” The look on Andre’s face was that of irritation. Not because of the order, or the show of force, but because Eva going all ‘Flash ‘n shit’ meant she moved too fast to protect. Or maybe Andre just hated being left so far behind, so fast. He didn’t even see her leave, he just felt the rush of air she left in her wake. “Nothing I’ve learned in my life, on my way to you, makes this easier.” Her tight fit black semi-formal slacks and the black silk tank top she wore were covered in blood as was just suddenly there, on the ground of the forgotten Warner warehouse filled with aged equipment and old props, the dead mortal’s upper half cradled in her arms, head resting on her arm. “Rest sweetly, young man, I’ll see yours are looked after.” Mihail shuddered in disgust. Eva was delicate as she would be with an ancient scroll threatening to turn to dust at any moment as she gently set the man’s head back down upon the blood-pooled cracked concrete floor, standing and letting her eyes wander the warehouse of rack after rack of metal shelving as high as OSHA safety standards would allow. Eva knew the OSHA standards by heart—it’s the kind of odd knowledge an old Kindred picked up when their life’s work was a city, and all the mortals in it, and the art created within. When her eyes finally hit the other Kindred, rage boiled in her darkened eyes under the surface of a face frozen in unfeeling. “I tire of Lubbock’s game. Would that I could leave him to the fate of all Kindred his age, but this…this game will force my hand to slay him long before he gets a chance to be gobbled by the Ancients. But you…” If Calanthia thought she was fast, she was due an education. Eva didn’t just move, she didn’t just blur, she went so fast the very air pressure in the warehouse contorted and spasmed behind her, shockwaving before her, shaking each and every one of those metal racks to the point of rattle, and were they not bottled to the ground, to the point of falling. Inches before her, just as she had been inches before the mortal just enjoying a sandwich. “I should leave you to them,” Eva whispered, towering at the full height of her five foot ten inches and intensity began to burn through the cold exterior. The rage was coming. The explosion was only a matter of time, now. No one could save Eva from herself at this point. What stared back at Eva was cold, beast-like barbarity, without even the faintest spark of life glistening in its gaze. “You took her from me,” Calantha snarled, “and now I’m going to take away - EVERYTHING - you love.” With a sickly squelch, jagged tendrils of bone erupted out the Tzimisce’s arm, and shot towards Eva, like pale white vines, with deathly sharp points. “DIE!” the canaanite roared, fury raging through every single fiber of her being. The collagen and calcium phosphate armaments from the Kindred's arms struck true, hard and deep with sickening sounds of flesh and muscle being lacerated and crunched under the weight. Eva never did so much as budge herself to dodge, and her face looked more bored than pained. The only true hint of discomfort being a sneer on her otherwise finer features. "...why is your clan so gross?" Words more sighed in resignation and frustration than yelps of pain and discomfort. Such cries came soon enough with the violent Kindred's follow-up attacks. The rage of moments before was gone, apathy and grim resentment fell upon the Baron of the Free State as her mind retreated to farther and farther depths, like a victim escaping into their own mind rather than be present for the torment of the moment. By that point the noises coming out of her were closer to a beaten shell of an animal, clothes as tattered as her skin and flesh. She had reached out to Andre, she had reached out to Mihail, more to share a vision of what was and to telepathically touch the cheek of each more than a cry for help. "...look what he's done to you..." They were the last words. The last real strength left in Eva, and after they were gone went any sign of life. Her bright brown eyes faded shut, and her blood ran like a river delta in various large streams and smaller forks across the warehouse floor. She didn't even hear the vehicles roaring across the back studio lot towards the warehouse. She never saw the light and the sound of the mages. She never knew what was about to happen, that it wasn't death or allies that would take her. Her last conscious thought was of good-bye, of the regret that came from never being able to save the ones you loved. The worst of the blood that flowed from her torn and defiled corpse was from no wound, but the stream of blood tears that flowed from closed eyes. In the darkness behind Eva a figure appeared without moving, like it was suddenly spliced into the scene. It was impossible to tell whether it was man or machine underneath the black-painted armor, fully shutting them off from the outside world. It gripped Eva, holding her weakening body in its sharp angled gauntlets, wrapping around her with both arms. The helmet’s narrow visor burned with bright green light throughout the warehouse, and on the head were with two insignia, one a variation of the familiar NASA logo rendered in black and white, another the abstract starlike shape that belonged to the Void Engineers. It made eye contact with Calantha as it began to flicker and fade out of the mortal realm and into the umbra, carrying Eva along with it. ... Mihail was still getting used to telepathy, as the messages from Eva were sent buzzing straight into his brain. He severely regretted getting involved, but now it was too late to go back on his word. His boss... ally... friend? No, none of those things. Someone he preferred not-obliterated had just been attacked, and looked to be on death’s door. He and Andre rushed to Eva’s aid to find her lifeless (well, more lifeless than usual) body strewn across the ground. Things were happening too quickly for Mihail to process, and so acting on instinct, he raised his gun and pointed it at Calantha. It was unlike any weapon he’d seen before, picked right out of some sci-fi movie, and he barely understood how it worked beyond ‘point and shoot’. Hopefully that would be enough. “Stop!” Mihail proclaimed, as though that was actually going to work. In-spite of the ungodly rage that blazed inside of her, Calantha couldn’t help laughing at the mortal’s brashness. The Umbral trickery which had unfolded so swiftly would need to be looked into, and the Tzimisce was intent on having her revenge, but she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to delight in a bit of torture first. “How unexpected,” she chuckled, moving towards Mihail on long, spider-like legs, which were that little bit too pointed to be natural, “and how very bold!” The bone-tacles that had plunged into Eva seemed to snake through their air, coiling about the basketball-player, like serpents playing with their food. “You’re out of your depth, baby bat.” Calantha sneered. Mihail attempted to fire the weapon, but had been ensnared before he had the chance. The hi-tech rifle was of little use against an opponent too swift to shoot, and as the grotesque creature continued to contort herself to trap the hunter, he began to breath heavily, the panic and the gravity of the situation he was currently in beginning to set in. As his anxiety continued to mount, he didn’t notice the rising heat his body was giving off, nor the flames which were beginning to surround his person. Calantha was so caught up in toying with her prey that she almost didn’t notice the sudden surge of heat, until Mihail was suddenly awash in a plume of crackling flame. Letting out a petrified hiss, the cannite shot backwards, recoiling away from the hunter, with dread blazing as furiously in her eyes as the fire which erupted out of Mihail. “ABERRATION!” she snarled, transfixed with horror. [i]“HYPOCRITE!”[/i] Mihail replied in his native Romanian, regaining his bearings and reaching down for the futuristic rifle. His hands were now awash in flames, though, and Mihail feared that trying to pick it up would melt it--or worse, cause it to explode. For a moment, he stood motionless, trying to summon up some other surge of energy, as if unsure what would happen. As he focused on the arachnoid-inspired creature before him, his bewilderment turned to rage. This was no ordinary vampire--it was a Tzimisce, and apparently one who had a great mastery of their forebears' fleshwarping crafts. This was the same clan that his family had fought for generations, and the one that had killed his father, forcing him to flee his home country. Forgetting about Eva and her coterie for just a moment, he shouted: “Are you here for me too?! DID YOU FOLLOW US HERE TO FINISH US OFF!?” He felt something materialize in his hand, an orange ball of fire, new yet familiar in some way. Without hesitation, he reared back his arm and heaved it at Calantha with all his might... as one might heave a basketball. Even with preternatural strength to aid her, the icy grasp of terror slowed Calantha down, as she sought desperately to dart out of harm’s way. The blazing sphere of flame smashed into her side, reducing arachnid-esq appendages to ashen tatters, ensnared in a blanket of hungry fire. The Tzimisce howled like a wounded pup, feeling the same agonising touch of fire that had haunted her late lover for her entire unlife. “I WILL DRINK YOU SOUL FOR THIS!” Calantha shrieked, stumbling away from the crispy, pitch-black ruins of her charred limbs. Before she darted away into the night, Calantha Teohari fixed Mihail with a vicious stare, brimming with all of the bad blood and hatred that their people had wrought over centuries of battle. “You are marked, hunter,” she growled, baring her fangs,”before these final nights are through, you will beg for the tranquility of mercy, and I - WILL - deny you a quick death.” And with that, the wounded predator became a shimmering blurr, bolting off into the void of darkness.