Path of the Vampire forum

This was the message Superbia woke up to. The sender? Diamond Dreamfire. She scanned over the face of her phone as if trying to determine if it was some kind of prank or not before she finally decided that the chance that it was real meant that she needed to begin investigating. She used her thumb to dial DD, her shoulder holding her phone up to her ear as she hopped into a pair of jeans, careful not to trip over any shirts, or skirts, or shoes scattered around her bed in little mounds. Despite being one of the most tidy of individuals in her daily affairs outside of her home, Bee was the sort whose room looked to be the equivalent of a tornado and an earthquake, mating on top of a shopping mall. The phone rang and rang, and then it eventually went to voicemail. Curious.

She hated to be invasive when it came to things like thoughts. She knew all too well what it was like to have one’s mind looked into without permission and so she hoped that DD wouldn’t mind. As she ascended from the underground passage in the Temple, she let her mind connect with her fellow sister’s so that she could begin to rifle through the fragments of thoughts, the memories were like words on a page, and as she let her heeled feet traverse the stone floors of the temple leading towards large double doors, she spoke them aloud. And there it was.

She had been taken. One moment Diamond Dreamfire had been walking down the street, and the next she had felt a sharp pain. Stars. She had woken shortly later. Quickly, Bee began to go through the memories of the other Daughters of Destiny, trying to establish some kind of pattern. Simultaneously, she dialed Prudence’s number on her phone. “Ami Bloom was taken.” It was the first thing she said when the woman answered. It hadn’t been intentional, part of the whole telepathy game. And so Bia went on to explain what she had found out. What little she knew about the situation. Two of the members, two of the weaker members had been taken by some sort of group.

“A meeting.” That was part of the conversation as well. They all needed to meet so that they could talk about what was going on. While not all of the sisters had sworn to protect each other, Superbia felt that it was her duty as the Mother to help in protection. The problem was that the details as to the capture were few and far between.

Thus, with the intention in mind, she posted a time for a meeting (Just an hour or so after she was to get off the phone with Prudence) on the Daughters of Destiny board. They were all going to get together at Superbia’s apartment in Beta, a private location to discuss private lineage affairs. For her part in the whole thing, Bee intended to help track the women down. She had no clue who had taken them or why they had been stolen away, but she was certain that the next few hours would be very revealing. And so, she set up the living room with some extra seats so that they could all form some kind of plan of attack.

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Macintosh had been in the business for some years, a man with few words, very few people understood why he did the things that he did. And yet, his men followed him without even a little bit of hesitation. As if they had been programmed, they knew sacrifice well, and had no issue with being killed, torture, or maimed if it meant that they were doing so under the order of their master.

“The time has come.” He said. There were dozens, maybe hundreds of men who were all neatly filed into squads of six across and six deep. There were four rows of them that filled the entire great hall and they spanned from column to column. Each man had a sword strapped across his back, with a rifle barrel resting on his shoulder. Most of them were bald, with tattoos and markings of their order scrawled upon flesh. Those who stood closest to the cages where the captives were held glowed, their symbols radiating a little bit of heat and a dull radiance that shone through the thinner parts of their garments.

It seemed creatures of darkness would not be able to hide from them.

“The Veil between our world and the spirit has grown thin as the Alignment of the planets draws into its place. This Holy Order shall unlock the key to the Firmament and unleash the power of the angels upon this world to cleanse it fully of the Night Kind.” His voice was clear, and deep. Resonant. B eautiful. But he was beautiful, from his short cropped black hair to his broad, powerful shoulders, all the way down. The only thing which marred an otherwise perfect figure was a hawk-like nose, which seemed to have been broken a few too many times. He was clearly used to fighting. “The Architect has made his designs clear. Tonight, their blood shall open the seal!”

There was a roar as the men cheered, and stomped. It had begun.

This raid was ******* annoying. She'd been on three so many times, been kicked so many times, that when she got kicked this time, Pru decided to stay out of it. She had a nice collection of things; heads, mirrors, blood and wads of cash sticking out from the top of her skirt and from various places in her tank top.

Scarlett needed to be cleaned, and she could only do that in one place, completely uninterrupted. Pru stopped at the fort, and then cackled. Cliff was there, standing in line. The red head didn't try to hide, infact, she made sure her boots were loud as she trudged towards him, lips mumbling, right before she summoned a vampire on his ***. Yup, she was still mad and he hadn't made it up to her yet. The woman slipped into the shadows, sold her loot and bolted for her sanctuary.

Just as she put her gun down, her phone went off. Pru had picked an upbeat song, because SuperAz was kinda upbeat and made Pru feel something. She didn't know what, but the woman always made her feel better, and even made her smile sometimes. Prudence grabbed the phone, fearful someone would hear EMA's, "This Is Our Time," blaring from her phone and think her a pansy *** or something. "Hey SuperAz." Was all Pru said before the woman was spilling out something about AB.

There were few things in this life that lit a fire under her ***. Cliff was one of those things; be it he himself or someone doing stupid **** to Cliff. Prudence took a calm breath in as SuperAz continued to relay information to her. Nova was mixed in this as well. Slowly, the killer felt concern, then anger and even a little bit of...fear? Someone was ******* with her Sparkly vamps. Another, new fire was lit. It seemed that her mini-vamps and theirs caused the same reaction, as it did with Cliff. "Give me some time and I'll be ready." Prudence pushed aside her thoughts to focus. Losing her **** wouldn't help anyone. Not her sparkly ones, not her, not SuperAz and none of the sisters.

The tall killer moved to a wall in a training room, pulled down a small panel and entered a six digit number. More panels lowered after the code had been successfully entered and recognizrd. Guns, swords, traps, bombs, bullets, brass knuckles and anything else that could be considered a weapon was placed into view. Prudence's personal candy shop. The one place that always got her rocks off, in a few words or less. She grabbed two custom glocks, a sword and a bag. The bag was filled with 10 mm ammo, .308's and various traps. Brass knuckles were putv on her left hand, being she was a righty, and then a small switchblade was tucked inside the hem of her skirt. She was going to kill a lot of **** tonight. And soon.

After strapping and securing both small and large weapons to her body, the girl focused her thoughts on the location SuperAz said she was at and in a few seconds, Pru was outside the door and knocking.

Every and Prudence were the first ones there, and Superbia let them in with a strange sense of sobriety, as if the normally cheerful demeanour were some sort of mask that she had pulled away to reveal the quiet, and calculating creature beneath. On some level; this was true. Superbia very much had two faces, not as one might think of the term. She just believed in acting as a professional when the situation called for it, and the Bee that the women were greeted with was all business. Her tone was no less soft than normal, no less touched faintly with that north London accent, and yet it was firmer. Someone had taken their sisters, and where Prudence was ready for violence, the Dragomir was plotting and cold rage, which flowed like an icy current just beneath the surface of her flesh. She was like the old Azraeth in that way.

When all of the women had settled, she found herself with a sketch pad in front of her, and a black pencil. Her legs were tucked under her so that she could pass her gaze from one woman to the other before beginning. “I’m going to be brief. I am certain that you ladies already know the situation so I’m not going to bother repeating it. Instead, I am going to track our girls down, and we are going to wash the streets with the blood of whoever took them.” There was steel in her voice. Perhaps in that way, she was not quite the Azraeth that some of them had once known. An echo yes, but he would have delivered the words with a sense of detachment that would have made it seem almost as if he didn’t care, and it was painfully obvious that she cared. Like the mother title she had been given. Someone had hurt her children.

She was careful not to let too much emotion leech itself to the surface, choosing instead to glance down to the blank pad of paper in front of her. “I will be looking into the area where our ladies are being held. Once I know what we’re looking for, I’ll hand out copies, and anyone with a wraith can describe it to them so they can begin to search the city. Or if you have some sort of clue as to where it might be, please speak up.” Silence followed her words as she took one pencil up. Her eyes shut and her mind, her soul became a beacon of sorts. Like the omniscient eye of god, she peered through the atmosphere, through layers of rock. Eyes opened, to reveal that the serpentine slits had grown to consume orbs in black, as if she were trying to see in perfect darkness and her eyes were begging to soak up light.

Her hand began to move.

“I see cages. They are being kept in cages, and they glow with odd symbols. I don’t know what these symbols mean.” She said the last as if it were an offense to her. Bee was gifted in a few areas, and research was one of them, especially when it came to things like the arcane. “There are ionic columns and mantles…no. Freizes. It looks as if they depict some sort of scene out of the bible. There is a great dragon with many heads.” She paused once more as if something were confusing her. She felt something…odd. Something watching her it felt like. “There is an angel descending from above, and he shines like the sun. “ She tore her eyes away from the architecture, because she doubted that would help. Instead she looked for anything. A window. Something that would give her a clue as to where they might be.

That feeling as if someone were watching her grew stronger. Harder. She felt pain beginning to well in the front of her head as if Azariel had done something to stress her the **** out. Her hand moved like a machine over the paper, the scribblings taking form. The floor is tiled, in a peculiar way. There are mosaics on it. I recognize that type of stone – it’s Talai, the same kind that was used in the Taj Mahal, and it’s got to be super rare in this area.” The sound she made was triumphant. It would just take a little cross checking with someone who knew how to use a computer and they would have where they needed to be.

And that’s when the **** hit the proverbial fan.

That presence which had been tugging at her mind made it known. At first all she could make out were some facial features. He (she assumed it was a he) was attractive, with hair like polished gold. His eyes shone like the stars in the sky, and his countenance burned. It burned. It burned. She didn’t even realize what was happening until it was too late. She felt like she was burning, like she was on fire. Her eyes felt as if they were boiling in her head as he spoke one word. She didn’t recognize the language, but whatever it was, it completely cut her off. Suddenly all of that bright light became darkness. Her eyes felt like they had been seared from her head and she could smell smoke. She smelled cooking flesh. Was she screaming? She was.

Charlotte chewed on the ear piece of her glasses as she looked at the computer screen, the other tapped gently against her cheek. The message left on the DoD board made here a little uneasy. She didn't know why though, perhaps it was because this would be the first time meeting someone since she had been introduced into 'this world' as she liked to call it, because saying 'hey I'm a vampire!' or 'I was sired' seems nuts. Yet she was just that now, wasn't she? Vampire. The thought, even though she had been this for exactly a week now, seemed mind boggling. Staying out of the sun was pretty easy for her, she had always preferred the night anyways, but the inability to fight sleep as the sun rose, that was a bit annoying.

She was missing out on 12 hours out of the day where she could be hacking something, practicing her skills, writing a code. Anything but wasting 12 glorious hours. Her eyes looked over the message again, and finally she sighed and programed the address into her phone, it would tell her where she needed to go. She closed down her computer and packed it up in her messenger bag, then she pulled her coats on, pulling the hood up over her head before the bag found it's place on her shoulder and her ear-buds got tucked into her ears, the sounds of Aerosmith blasting into them. Or at least, it seemed like it was blasting, until she noticed the level of the volume on her phone had it nearly all the way down. So the whole 'great hearing' thing she always heard about associated with... vampires... was true. She was going to have to get used to saying vampire eventually, even thinking it.

Charlie spent her whole walk 'thinking' about it. So much so that she had missed the building the first time. When she realized that she had walked past the building she stopped and looked at her phone. Thankfully, she hadn't missed it by far. She made her way to where the message had said the meeting was going to be. When she got to the door she knocked. Hey, just because she was a... vampire... doesn't mean she was raised in a barn. She waited for a moment, pulling her ear-buds out and turning her music off. She could hear talking inside, so she decided that she would test to see if the door was unlocked.

She pushed the door open slowly, peaking her head in first. Then she stepped all the way in and closed the door behind her. Seeing three women already there, she slowly made her way a little closer, one had a note pad in her lap. Charlie kept quiet, not wanting to interrupt. They would notice she was there eventually, right? Then the woman screamed, causing the girl to jump, nearly out of her skin. The scream sounded so painful, it scared her to the point that her chocolate eyes were wide as saucers. This was not normal.

Information. The red head needed as much as possible and it seemed that only SuperAz had it. Pru took a seat and started to raise her booted feet up, but then stopped. This was SuperAz's place and The Mother. Normally Pru wouldn't care, but those two things right there made the woman sit as nicely as possible on a couch.

A nod came from the redhead when SuperAz cut right to the chase. Good. Time was wasting and she had **** to kill for touching her mini vamp and mini-mini vamp. Pru had only worked with one or two trackers before and their skills weren't anything like what she was seeing now. Cages. She didn't have anything for that. Prudence wasn't in to looting places because she wasn't good at it and she would always get caught when she did it. Getting caught meant a masquerade offense of some sort. that didn't sit well with her. The killer sat back in the couch, trying to get comfortable, but she wasn't comfortable. Far from it. Prudence listened and watched, her eyes looking at the structure as it was revealed. Bombs. Good thing she packed heavy tonight. If all else failed, they could just blow **** up and call it a night. Whatever these guys were, blood thieves, Paladins, anything else that wasn't a vampire just reminded her how human they were. And humans died easy.

Dragons. Now that had her attention. Obviously SuperAz meant metaphorically because she hadn't ever seen dragons around here. Because they didn't exist in anything but stories. And if they ever did, they existed a long time ago. She wasn't real sure on that, but from what she knew, nothing scientific implied they ever existed. Prudence didn't interrupt anything, even though she had her doubts on the whole dragon thing. The rest of the stuff, Prudence racked her brain trying to make sense of. She'd never seen anything like that before and right now she couldn't ask her wraith Annie because she was off ******* around. Trying to find her gun, even though she was dead, was Pru's best bet. "I never seen-" Prudence spoke up as she leaned forward in the couch to try and get a better look at the drawing, as if that would help her memory. As she was about to finish her thoughts, she wasn't allowed to.

Something was burning. Near them. Close to them. You couldn't miss it. The redhead looked around the room, expecting to see a fire or something somewhere, but couldn't find it. Until SuperAz made a sound of pain. A loud sound of pain. As the woman turned her head around to face The Mother, her fingers grabbed the glock from around the holster around her upper thigh and whipped it around to where SuperAz was. But no one was there. So why was she making all that noise?

Then she saw when Prudence stopped scouting out the area around her. She had never seen anything like it before. SuperAz's face was melting. No, just her eyes. Her eyes were melting. "Holy ****!" The redhead jumped up out of instinct, not sure what was going to happen next. **** like this was not in her zone of comfort. Prudence didn't know what to do, but she did the only thing she could do. Her free hand reached out and grabbed SuperAz's arm as Pru focused on the body. SuperAz's body, more so the wound around and in her eyes. With a few muttered words, Prudence focused on blood, the color, the feel of it, its importance to the body, even vampire bodies and soon the woman was making an attempt to heal The Mother with her Necromancer skills.