Session Three & Four

Aife introduced the newest member of our Coterie. His name is Ian and he is of a mysterious Covenant called the Order of Dracul. I won’t profess to know anything about that group, but nor do I really care.

But Ian appears to be quite knowledge in Occult matters and his addition should be of benefit to the group. He’s not a warrior like Shawn and myself, but more of an information specialist, just as Moire and Brenna specialize in various social aspects.

And his addition has proved quite worthwhile. Aife gave us our first goal, that is to acquire a new and better haven. The challenge of course (with Aife, there is always a challenge of some kind attached), was to evict the current residents. These happened to be vicious, feral vampires known as Brood. I think. I was never completely clear on the matter, but the fact that we discovered them to be kidnapping people, torturing them to death and doing worse things made our attack upon them more than justified.

In fact, we were able to rescue a few of the captured and horribly abused women after we managed to neutralize the head of the group, known as Duff.

We quickly took possession of the building and made it our own. We even made acquaintance with our neighbor, which was tricky since he wasn’t exactly human. I really can’t explain that statement. I’d leave it to men such as Ian to explore that. I know he’s not a supernatural threat and that is enough. If he had been, however, there in no doubt in my mind that I would have had to find a way to destroy him. Such threats are not to be tolerated in our city. Not anymore. Not while I’m here.

By the way, Aife approved of my choices in terms of voteries. By that, I refer to Tessa and Trina. My Sire had taught me some of the pagan ways of old and the Covenant I am now a part of holds them in high regard. I am a member of the Circle of the Crone, and Aife is the reigning Heirophant, or leader of the covenant. Thus, it is up to her to approve those I wish to adopt as my own, whether that be servant or voterie.

Around this time, Shawn and Brenna managed to get in trouble with the police. It was to prove the beginning of a series of clashes that seems to continue to this day. They never seem to go looking for trouble, but there it is. Wrong place, wrong time.

It’s a challenge for them, not a mortal danger, however. Therefore, I mostly leave them to deal with it. If things get carried away or endanger the coterie as a whole, I’ll have to step in and do something about it. But for now, they deal with it.

Session Two

I wasn’t in Belfast with my new Coterie long before we began to explore our new home. Ardoyne was rough, to be certain. But we could hide there. And, it wasn’t terribly far to the nearest pub, named Kelley’s.

I rather liked that place, actually. I felt I could fit in there, because it didn’t feel all that different from the pubs I used to frequent back home in Donagle. I decided that since this place was so close to our new haven, it should be a place of peaceful gathering. None of its patrons should ever be fed from. It was too risky. Besides, I like their company.

Next we went to a much further place called the Shamrock. It was exciting and full of single people. I suppose it might be a meat market in a very real sense, because we all found hunting there to be very easy. I met Tessa and Trina that very first night and, even though the two of them professed no interest in having sex with each other, I discovered that soon enough, they were putty in my hands.

They were out of work, but good looking women and they took to the taste of my Vitae very well, as I knew they would. They didn’t know it, but in only a few nights they were my willing slaves. At this time, I mostly just used them for sex and company, but I had plans even then which have extended until recent times. I would make warriors and spies of them, teach them a bit of my power. Through them my own strength would grow and multiply even as I myself learned and grew.

And I mentioned the sex, didn’t I? Eager to please, they even took to amusing me by having sex with each other. I know what you are thinking, that I’m a twisted pervert. Maybe, but we all have our little vices, don’t we? Mine just happen to be carnal. And, at least Tessa and Trina are treated well. They may have become blood-addicted slaves, but I do not abuse them or punish them arbitrarily like many Kindred masters I have scene. I even reward them with what they love best when they do well, and I treat them with respect.

In that sense, I suppose my own Kindred society considers me somehow perverted as well. Fortunately, I don’t care. Anyway, I want to see them succeed and survive this. One day, I hope to make one of them my own Childe and teach them the ways of the Khaibit.

A New Mission

Session 1
The women that met with my Sire the night I was sent away were as beautiful as they were powerful. One of them, the eldest, was named Roma, I believe. She seemed to know my Sire from a long time ago. They talked in private while I waited a distance away, out of earshot. They made some kind of agreement between themselves, then bade me come.

I couldn’t help but admire Roma. Attractive, powerful, and I was human enough to feel an urge that I quickly had to hide. Roma was out of my league and I knew it from the moment I set eyes on her. Frankly, she scared the hell out of me. Thankfully, it was a more girlish Kindred that did much of the speaking with me, though we did exchange a few polite words.

The younger one was related to Roma somehow, I’m not certain precisely how but that doesn’t really matter to me. She was powerful, too, but closer to me in age I think. Her name is Aife and she was hot. Very hot. But my Sire approached and told me that I was to go with Aife and her Childe, called Moire, and that I was to protect them from harm. I’d have loved to engage in something far more recreational with them, but somehow, the moment he told me I was to do as Aife instructed, such thoughts fled from my mind. I think she’s exceptionally attractive, certainly. But she’s not on the menu, so to speak.

Moire, her Childe, was more my age in terms of experience as a Kindred. Aife told me she wanted me to be a part of something with Moire. It had something to do with retaking a city from the forces of chaos, darkness, and evil. That got my attention right away.

What could I say? I told them I looked forward to it as my first challenge and it was the truth. I knew I’d do everything in my power to keep them safe and save the city. At last, I had the first inklings of my true purpose.

My Sire’s parting instructions was to not fail him, and not to return for 10 years. I had that time to prove myself to him. I left without looking back, but I think of him — and the Magda — often.

In Belfast I met Shawn Thornton, another young kindred. He’d been abandoned by a murderous Sire and very lost. Moire and I tried to help as best we could, but we were new, too, and strangers to the city.

It wasn’t long after we’d scraped out our first haven of some abandoned, dingy hole, that Aife found for us the fourth member of our new group. She was trapped in a water pipe, something that held the flow of a river, I was told. She had to be saved or eventually she might be swept out to sea and forever lost. So we found her, and Aife brought her to life from the living death that is unending torpor. Her name is Brenna, and she spoke old Gaelic. It took her a long time to pick up English.

So then the number of our group, our coterie, was four.

Training

Adan, who had me refer to him as my Sire, trained me for six months. during that time I learned to wield the stealthiest and perhaps deadliest weapon civilization has to offer. That is, a knife. In the hands of a skilled fighter, the knife is the most effective close-combat weapon there is. They can be hidden on your person, drawn nearly instantly, thrown, whatever.

He also taught me how to use the dark places to hide. He taught me patience and what I was made to do. I am a warrior, but firstly I am a defender. I am to protect my world against those things that go bump in the night. I am to find my place in the world, and serve my duty. In truth, my purpose burns in my blood. I’ve always wanted direction in my life, and my Sire has taught me that the only way a Childe of his can find purpose in this world is to find my calling and to Serve. We are Khaibit, and ancient and proud line, but one who has become lost over the centuries, or so my Sire told me. He told me of our line’s original purpose as he knew it to be and imparted me with that same knowledge and conviction.

It was his path to protect and preserve an ancient thing, a remnant of a line of Kindred that were here long before the coming of the Invictus or the Lancea Sanctum to this land. He served the Magda, whether she knew or cared, it didn’t matter. He did what must be done to preserve and hide her existence from a dark world of jealous Kindred that would seek to track her down and destroy her.

After six months of intensive training on Kindred society, what little he knew of it, of the power inherent in my blood and his, and how to be a warrior, my Sire decided it was time for me to begin to make my own way in the world, to seek out my own destiny.

The Beginning

The night my family died is a blur.

It was an unusual thing for us to all have dinner at the same time. I was old enough that I was out of school and had my own job. Mom and Dad were usually busy with the farm. My “kid” sister was sixteen and very active in school. So the fact that we’d all sat down together to have dinner was a rarity.

Mom always wanted that family feeling of eating together. And once or twice a week we would make her happy and sit down together to enjoy a meal she always worked hard on. I always thought Mom was the best cook in the whole county, so it wasn’t that much of a sacrifice to me. But my sister Maggie treated it like a punishment.

When it happened we had barely finished saying a blessing over dinner. The door burst open and then it was all screams and fangs and blood. I really don’t remember what happened to them in those next few seconds, and I’m glad for that. I do remember seeing my kid sister get ripped in half. I saw another monster tear my father’s head from his shoulders and hold his body over its head, all while drinking his blood.

I didn’t want to see it. Nor did I want to hear my mother scream and scream until her voice grew weak and I knew that when she went silent, she was dead. But I didn’t have a choice. Someone had already ripped open my belly. My legs were numb, I was in terrible pain and couldn’t move.

The She arrived. I thought it was another monster at first, but this one attacked my family’s killers, tearing them apart even as they had torn us apart. They shrieked and were reduced to piles of ash, one after the other. She was soon finished with them, then paused long enough to eye me as I lay on the ground dying. She was beautiful in a feral kind of way. She looked like a teenager, about the age of my sister unless you looked into her eyes. Then it felt like staring into a vast ocean, something ageless and primal.

She disappeared as suddenly as she arrived and I don’t know how long I lay there. I know that I felt a shadow pass over me and when I opened my eyes I saw the being who was to be my savior.

His name is Adan FitzTancred and he made me what I am today. I guess he took pity on me, although he says that since the Magda spared me, she meant me to survive. He couldn’t save my life as it was. No one could do that. I was already dead, but just didn’t know it yet. Instead, he shared his immortality with me.

The next night, I rose from the shallow earthen grave he’d dug for me as one of the Kindred. I was reborn as a being of shadow and blood. I was reborn as a vampire.

Introduction

Timeline: April 17, 2005

Honoré had been in hospital following the tragedy that killed her parents. She remembered a man in black entering her room and standing near the monitor that was regulating the pain medication, but then he had disappeared when the chaplain arrived.

His visit was short and despite his religious background, Honoré couldn’t help but feel grateful he’d arrived when he did. She was still too weak to leave, especially after the grueling questions she had to ask about the attack that had ultimately left her parents dead and her here in the hospital. Yet, she knew she had to, and soon. That man would be back.

And just when she needed help the most, that’s when she met Hamilton. Of course, she didn’t know he was a friend at first.

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My Journal

Journal Entry #1
April 15th, 2005.

All right, so I’m writing. I’m bored out of my skull trying to heal up from that thing that bit me yesterday. Horrible. Margaret, the innkeeper here, has really worked wonders helping me out, but I’m not sure she really believes my story. Strange given her talent for what looks like alternative or herbal medicine but I guess I might not have believe it either if I hadn’t been there. Being nearly killed by a zombie will convince most folks they are real but other than that? Naw, no one is going to believe it.

It doesn’t matter that it’s true, I suppose. Ramiel was there, thank God, and he saved my ass so I don’t care that nobody really knows or believes the story of what really happened. Other than this journal, I don’t think I’ll bother talking about it with other people. It’s wasted energy.

I really just want to heal up and get out of here. The sheriff keeps nosing around. He doesn’t want to know what really happened, but keeps pressing us for details on what he wants to believe happened here. All he really needs to know is that John Wilcott killed some people here, and kidnapped that girl.

The girl was hot, by the way. I’m surprised Ramiel didn’t slip away and see if she might like to show him some gratitude for saving her skin. But actually he keeps hanging around me instead. Boring. I just lie here and try to heal. I sleep most of the day. Margaret says it’s because I lost so much blood. Anyway, it’s sweet of him to watch over me. I sleep a little better knowing he’s there.

Neither of us can quite shake the willies. I know I keep thinking we missed one, that a zombie or something worse will come lurching out of the shadows at me. I think it’s the same for him. It will be a long time before we rest easy. If we ever do, that is.

Flashback

Timeline: April 13, 2005

Ramiel and Lyla moved on as they always did. Their search seemed a rambling wander up the Appalachian Trail, pausing here and there for side trips to towns not far from the wooded path. In fact, they were searching for someone. Or, something.

Lyla had said that the Trail was like spine or perhaps an axis around which the events of their lives would revolve. It was true in a way. Every clue about the Dark Man they’d found was in a place not far from the old Trail. It seemed to meander by every point of interest, or at least reasonably near many of the major cities of the east coast.

Ramiel and Lyla had left the Trail a few kilometers back. They’d crossed into Connecticut from New York last week and now were on their way to a town called Cornwall Bridge to seek some supplies, wash some clothes, and look for clues as to the whereabouts of the Dark Man.

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The Mansion

Timeline: September 20, 2000

Lyla watched Ramiel disappear through the woods back toward the village they’d left behind earlier in the day. She did love surprises. It excited her, actually, to the point that she was fidgeting. As she watched the last bit of Ramiel’s deep green cloak disappear into the night she glanced about their small camp site.

They each had one, very small tent which were pitched side by side and faced a small fire. The flickering firelight illuminated her smooth, pale face and glittered against her black hair. Her brown-black eyes seemed to swallow the small amount of light as she tried to think of what to do while she waited.

In the other direction rose a tall, three-story mansion complete with barn, pasture, stables, and servants quarters. There was some activity as a black-suited driver brought a limousine around. Within less than an hour by Lyla’s reckoning, the sun had set and electric lamps had to be used to provide enough light on this moonless, cloudy night.

Continue reading “The Mansion”