[color=gray][h3][sup][sup]Leaving the body behind, Teresa stripped the nitrate gloves from her hands, stuffing the wads in her pockets corpse-dew and all. The less they left behind, the better. Disciplines and ghouls only went so far when it came to obscuring the nature of an event. Her thoughts moved quickly. Pleasure lurked at the edges of her cognition. Dulled by unlife, but there, still there all those years later. Humming faintly into her ear, reminding her of living. She had sensed nothing. She had heard nothing. But oh, the wonders she had seen. The hidden truths that clumsy hands had tried to scratch away.

Unhurried, she walked back towards the car, her eyes lingering on the two cops. They weren’t relaxed. They weren’t distracted by their smartphones. A poor omen, she considered, knowing what she knew about the local cops. Attention was always the first sign of trouble. Music blared from Connie’s car, bad music. The same terrible shit he blasted everywhere. Teresa frowned. He annoyed her. His car annoyed her. Always had. Hardly better than a beater, it looked like the sort of thing her father would have driven. If he’d had the money. If he hadn’t lost it gambling. If he hadn’t spent it all on booze. If he hadn’t been…

The traffic post nearby was all kinds of fucked up. The hand-shaped crater and scattered paint chips inspired nothing in the way of confidence. Knocking softly on the car roof, she opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. A metallic smell greeted her, a familiar scent that sent a pang of desire coursing down her neck to the pit of her stomach. Fresh vitae, rising above the chemical-ey, waxy smell of leather polish. The lingering odor created by decomposing morsels, moldy crumbs, melted scraps of cheese that languished between the seat cushions. She adjusted the rear view mirror, all casual-like, as if she wasn’t keeping an eye on the two knockos. Drawing the sawn-off from her leg holster, she stuck it between the center console and the seat.

“You have a run in with our friend the parking bollard?”

Connie’s gaze avoided hers, his knee bouncing like a piston at a putter, the fingers on one hand (the one not stowed in jacket pocket to hide the avulsions) rapping the steering wheel. "Better than Oz's jaw," he murmured. Not one of his usual shitty jokes, despite its trappings. More deflective than that. Avoidant.

They were running out of time. They needed answers. Before more bodies brought more attention to the Strip, the real strip. Brace wasn’t going to let them play detective forever. She could see the sword in the sky above them, dangling by its horsehair thread. The doom promised to those who failed the princeling. She’d drag Connie with her, kicking and screaming if she had to. His talents were as important as hers. The fledglings were unlikely to come easy, and less likely still to accept their Final Death. They’d left a giant fucking mess to clean up. And Connie was busy worrying about a fucking cop. Teresa tsked into the inside of her mouth, resisting the urge to scowl. She waited, but her partner didn’t respond. He didn’t take the bait. Shocking. He didn’t want to pick a fight? Not over a scornful look? Not over the apathy that laced her voice?

“What’d Mr. DeWayne have to say?” he said, curtly cutting in before she could say anything more about the subject. Not that she wanted to. She could see the look in the corner of his eyes. The thing grasping for control behind his slouched form. Violence looming. Not the usual sort of petty violence that Connie peddled in. Something worse. Something more immediate, more urgent.

“The short version, then,” Teresa said, waving a hand in the direction of the body. “There’s asphalt pebbles stuck in his knees, and superficial abrasions, and a normal body response—swelling, clotting. He was pushed. Maybe tripped. No more struggle after that; just the bites. The usual exsanguination on the thigh, two channels with a lot of bruising. It’s the neck that killed him. Strange teeth, though. More of a gnawing mechanism than a piercing one. Less—...proboscular. Nagaraja? Nosferatu, maybe.“

“Gangrel.”

Teresa snapped from her soliloquy, distracted from the circular trough she’d been walking like a donkey lashed to a millstone. “Yeah?”

Connie pressed a button, rewinding the footage until just before the two fledglings entered the parking lot. He zoomed in on the woman, and there she was all ringleted hair and prim, practiced bearing. A surgical mask for the teeth. Those hideous, furry, legwarmer things for whatever was going on with her legs. Sure enough. He teased the footage back and forth—playing and rewinding—and the girl had a prominent limp. Worse than a limp.

Teresa couldn’t help but marvel. “Digitigrade legs,” she guffawed, but she began to lose her steam as Connie glowered, the contempt legible in his face as he sensed another diatribe. “That’s…what they’re called…”

He chose not to interrogate; not to tease or incite. Like [i]he[/i] was the exhausted one. “Whatever,” he said. “Point is that’s one sire down. There’s a Feral in town making strays.”

“And the other one? Mr. Skin-and-Bones?”

“How calmly the victim went along with them he could be using Dominate. But his hands don’t leave his pockets either. So he might be packing too.”

“Ugh. Goddammit, Connie, this isn’t the best you can do.”

“Not in the fucking mood, T.”

“Neither am I but here you are, still offering nothing but baseless speculation. Where’s your lead? Your M.O.? Isn’t this supposed to be what you’re good at?”

“I mean it. Are we fucking married now? Do you see a ring?” He finally showed his hand—literally—pulled it from the pocket, the skin avulsed at the fingertips, most of the nails broken clean off in spots, but brutalized in others. Bones and ligature glistening, gaping, and stuck through with concrete pebbles like a Thanksgiving onion studded with cloves, or the asphalt crumbs stuck in Curtis DeWayne’s knees. On a living creature with a beating heart the nerves would have been screaming. “No? Then go nag someone else for once.”

Teresa laughed. A practiced and purposeful reaction. “Just saying, ‘partner’: I’m upholding my end just fine. It’s you who isn’t making yourself very useful right now.”

“Oh, man, what am I gonna do?” he snarled. “[i]What am I gonna do[/i] if I can’t meet Teresa Martinez-Hernandez-Ramirez-Lopez’s fucking deadlines? I guess I’ll just roll over and die! It’s the end of the fucking world, after all!”

“Fuck you.”

“No. ‘Oh, Connie, you didn’t walk down to the Evidence Store and load up a cart like me? What are you, dumb?’ No, fuck [i]you,[/i] T.“

“It’s not my fault you can’t track down two fledgling as they thrill-kill along the Strip.”

“You think my job is easy? Let’s switch places then if it’s so easy. I’ll poke dead people with a stick for an hour while you do all the—”

A blur streaked past the passenger side window. Reacting to the movement, Teresa reached for the shotgun she had stashed within easy reach. A loud thump echoed as something, small and light, landed on the hood of Connie’s car. Standing uneasily, a cat looked at them through the windshield glass. Body shaking as it drew heavy breaths that began with a rasping, wheezing noise. She could see it was in pain. Its tongue curled and lolling as it panted, gulped at tepid air. Purpose burned in maddened eyes, gold orbs scorched with desperation. Exhausted, the cat lowered itself shakily to the simmering metal, wary of the two monsters. It could sense their purpose, their unholy lusts; and its fear of them coiled between its shoulders. Studying the pitiful creature, Teresa noticed no collar around its neck, no spay scars or tattoos, no clipped ears, but the matted fur, and its healthy body weight, obviously well-fed by someone... Martha. It was one of Martha’s strays. A message then. Or a warning. Maybe both.

She caught Connie’s stare. He had to be really desperate if he was eyeing up animal blood like a fine-dining [i]hors d'oeuvre[/i]. Martha wasn’t likely to approve of the Brujah snacking on one of her pets. And whatever Martha had to tell them was probably important. Always was. The old crone didn’t reach out to dither and blather about just anything. She knew better than to waste their time.

“We’ll find you something near the camp,” Teresa said. “Right now she needs our help.” Didn’t have to speculate. No need to mention who or how or why. They were on the same page already.

So Connie frowned, but didn’t argue. The car lurched forward as he shifted gears, wheels squealing, rubber burning into the concrete as they sped out of the parking lot. The cat, in its panic, sprung down from the hood and disappeared into the side-view mirrors, abandoned to its fate on the warm midnight street. As they turned the corner Teresa saw the first predator step out from the shadows. Then another. One by one they appeared, Julian Prince’s cronies, dropping Obfuscate and converging on Austin McGlinn and his partner. Teresa exhaled; everyone had gotten lucky. Connie for managing to hold it together. The cops for the same reason. And her, for not having another mess to clean up.

Merging into traffic, the Brujah ripped down Sahara Road, rivuleting from lane to lane, between traffic and sidewalk, anywhere there was a gap. His frenetic and impatient driving—the least of law enforcement’s problems when it came to Conrad Olivier Beauclerc—but with the Hunger strumming his nerves, pinpricking his vision, all his veers and twists were even more jittery than usual. Leaning against the window, Teresa kept an eye on the rearviews all the same, trying to make sense of the streaks and blurs and kicked-up dust. Street signs and stop lights passed behind them, but no one followed. Teresa had a joke on the tip of her tongue, something to smooth over the night, just the sort that Connie liked to hear. But then the police scanner, stuffed into the dashboard in front of them, crackled to life with a woman’s cool, clinical voice.

[code]“All units be advised we've got a four-nineteen on the corner of East Flamingo and Escondido. Suspect is at large and presumed still on foot. BOLO young Caucasian woman, slender build with long brown hair. Requesting all available units for an area check, Clark County Library.”[/code]

[code]“Adam-1-4 to dispatch.”[/code] Male. Gruff. [code]”I don’t get it. Did you call in the wrong code? Is this a dead body or a homicide? Over.”[/code]

[code]“Uh—information unclear, unit. Possible miscoded. Eyewitness at scene reports one suspect fleeing the scene, presumed dangerous.”

“But nobody heard the killing?”

“Affirmative, Adam-1-4. No weapons reported. Probable foul play.”[/code]

“Fuck,” Teresa said.

The car began to slow.

“Really? [i]Really.[/i] Hey, come on. I didn’t mean all that about how useless you are,” Teresa pleaded. “C’mon Connie, I was kidding. You don’t have to take it so…”

But the car coasted to a stop. Nowhere, just some random sidewalk, suspension jostling as he threw the transmission into park. Heedless, it seemed, to the urgency that had overtaken them mere moments before.

“Out.”

“I can’t believe it. You’re serious about this.“

“You said it yourself. Martha still needs you.“

“Oh, a fine excuse indeed! And what about you? Suppose you even get there before LV’s Finest—which you won’t—you wanna get ambushed two-on-one? Ashed by a newborn baby Gangrel and her Ventrue-or-whatever friend?“

“Won’t happen.”

“You’re hungry, Connie, not to mention injured. You need the help.”

“If you really believe that, tell it to Brace. Get reassigned. Find that ‘useful’ partner of your dreams.”

“You’re just doing this for the glory.”

Finally. Finally he cracked a smirk. “Like how you’re only with me to bum rides and smokes?“

At least he was feeling a bit better but still, it was times like this his Brujah bullheadedness really pissed her off. Also pissing her off was her lack of a retort. “Unbelievable,” she muttered, slamming the passenger-side door behind her, standing there then on the sidewalk her shoulders hunched and the rest of her huddled in her coat like she’d been stood up on a first date. “Fine. You want to be the first notch in these kids’ belts, see if I care.”

“Write me a funny obit,” Connie said, pressing down on the clutch and the brake levers, throwing the stick back into first. He lingered a moment. “See you soon, T.”

“Better be with good news,” she shot back. For a moment she was content to watch him pull away but soon a recollection disturbed that peace. “Wait. Connie!” But he was already halfway down the block, exhaust roaring behind him, well out of earshot. She ran behind him for a few paces, knowing it was fruitless but deciding to hope anyway. Some traffic, a red light he actually cared to respect, anything, but no, he was gone. “Shit!” Teresa groaned, throwing her hands in aggravation. “My fucking shotgun!”[/sup][/sup][/h3][/color]