Path of the Vampire forum

For weeks Blake had been brainstorming something new. Something the city truly deserved for what it had done. It had killed all semblance of order and law and for that he felt there needed to be...something done. It was the same conversation over and over again that he'd had with others and himself. What do we do to fix the city and keep the masquerade intact? Killing each other wasn't doing anything. There were no 'prisons' to speak of save for the shadow realm and even that was a joke. He knew. Spending almost half the time in the realm of shadows had lessened his fear of it greatly over time and now it was nothing more than a quiet place to rest, meditate and let the worries of the normal world roll off of him like tiny beads of water.

It was actually during one of these silent meditations that the answer had come to him. What could be done to punish those that deserved it and yet stay hidden from humans? Something...terrifying. Something that actually posed a threat but at the same time could be controlled and utilized as a weapon. Something that any human could see and either think it was mere imagination at work or something they would never see at all. It hadn't taken long for the image to form in his head. Just like Zachariah had told him. Imagine what you want then piece it together from the bottom up. And so he had. He saw there, in his mind, something deadly, something large, something that would put his kind to fear. What he needed was the most deadly creature known to his kind. Then something to make it worse. To make it more powerful so that it was rightly feared and respect for only with fear and respect could order and law take root.

---Twenty-Eight Days Later---

Blake smiled as he left the penthouse of Veil Tower. The elevator humming quietly as it descended over a dozen stories. The soft chime of arrival had the lift doors opening slowly to reveal a long dark hallway. At the end of that hallway was a large metal door, highly advanced in it's design. One would have to wonder, was this something that was designed to keep people out...or something in? The flicker of the lights was something he made a note to repair as he looked down the hallway. A bloody and broken body kneeling beside him gave a slight growl, a growl that was met with a kick to the head. Hoisting his captive up to his feet, Blake proceeded down this long dark corridor. Pressure sensitive light fixtures installed in the floor lit up beneath his feet to light his way as he nearly dragged the feral creature towards those monstrous doors. Blake even felt minuscule in comparison to the size as he pressed his hand against a panel that was set in to the dusty and filthy wall. Yet another thing he made a note to clean up. Or rather, have someone clean for him.

With a barely audible hiss the doors opened, the large room was lit brighter than the day the moment Blake stepped in. His pride and joy, as it were, was pacing back and forth in a corner of the room. A five foot by five foot red line drawn around the creature of death and shadow. Shoving the feral vampire forward he watched the saliva drip from the fangs of the fadebeast. It was intelligent, it knew what this meant. Food. The chance to indulge in it's most basic instincts...something Blake didn't let it do very often. This was his offering to the creature for the time being. Flesh and blood. Muscle and sinew. He found himself once again dragging the barely living vampire across the floor. Both arms had been broken and dislocated and the bones of the feral's shin's protruded from the disgusting flesh. In truth, Blake was glad to be rid of the disgusting simulacrum of the planet's most deadly predator. It was almost insulting that creatures like the feral even existed half the time but alas, now they had a use. Over the line was the other vampire thrown only to be caught by the leg in the jaws of the fadebeast. There was no greater joy for Blake than to watch this pathetic creature be torn limb from limb and devoured by a fadebeast of his own summoning, a fact that Blake knew would keep the creature bound to that small area at the back of the 'laboratory' where the most insidious work of the Veil Corporation was done.

"Sleep well friend, soon, when you are strong enough, you will find far better things to feast upon. Until then...patience."

With a smile and a nod Blake left the room. The doors closing behind him with that almost inaudible hiss of hydraulics. In time. Those two words haunting him as he rode the lift back to the main floor of Veil. In time everything would be set right. In time the city would learn what fear and respect were. In time. Taking a deep breath of the cool night air he smiled. The icing on the cake? No one would be the wiser until it was far too late and by that time, there would be no one left to do a damn thing about it.

It had been but a few hours since Blake had settled himself in to sleep the sun away when he was immediately awoken to the clamor of alarms going off. This was enough to immediately break him from his sleep in a state of sheer panic. If those alarms were going off then it meant one of two things. Something had either entered or left the lab buried hundreds of feet beneath the ground. Given the area was only accessible through a very long and intricate security set up there were only two possibilities. A fadebeast has escaped or someone had broken in. Either way it warranted immediate investigation. Dear God let it still be there. The thought becoming a mantra as he sluggishly rushed about grabbing his gun and sword. If it had escaped....no, he couldn't let his mind wander there. It was unthinkable. With the strength and speed it had shown over the multitude of weeks he had been feeding it and studying it it was going to be a veritable nightmare if the beast had some how broken it's confines. His phone was already in his pocket just in case. His mind working as best it could in his sleep deprived state to think of all of the contingencies he had put in place in case this very thing occurred. Rituals. Guns. Swords. People. All of it would be required because as much as he loved to stroke his own ego from time to time the mastermind behind this dastardly creature knew in his heart of hearts, there was no way he was putting down this beast on his own. Tytonidae would be required...and then he would truly face their judgement. Then again, no one could truly punish him if it was taken care of quickly...

Pacing in the small metal box as it quickly descended the multitude of floors Blake had to wonder just how bad it was going to be. He already knew the lab would be a disaster when he finally got there but the damage the beast would do to the city, that was far more worrisome. He had no way of controlling it and without that crucial part of the plan implemented there was going to be a fair amount of bloodshed before this potential nightmare was brought to an end. He could only hope that someone had broken in instead. With a soft ding to announce his arrival at the basement level the shadow took a deep and steadying breath.

"Let this not be bad.."

He whispered the words to no one as he opened his eyes to look down the hallway. Those heavy steel doors were still sealed and seemed to be in pristine condition. ****. That meant that the doors had not been breached from either side meaning it was possible that it was indeed a vampire still but the chances of that were slowly growing more and more slim. Letting himself through the first door that was when the horror truly struck. The slew of caged ferals and zombies were gone. Bits and pieces of them scattered all over the floor that was now slick with gore from, what Blake assumed, had been one last meal before his little 'pet' had decided to go for a little walk. Electrical wiring hung from the ceiling, sparking and giving off loud snaps and sizzles of power. Pulling his phone free from his pocket he began to take video of the mess, it all had to be documented just in case his story needed collaboration with cold hard evidence. Even though he knew what had happened he had to be positive, making his way down one of the long and more heavily secured wings of the lab he pointed his phone at the containment area where the beast had been held against his will. True to his thoughts, there was nothing there. Just bloody footprints leading to and fro as if the creature had paced about determining just how exactly it would leave. With a shake of his head he sighed and ended the video. The truth had been garnered and now it was time to do what he feared most....let others in on what exactly he had been doing.

There were three names in his phone that his fingers pressed. A conference call would be best. All three of the people he had in mind needed to know about this potential danger to vampires and humans alike and it was probably a better idea to simply go over all of it just once instead of three different times.

"Vel, Micah, Nix....I have you all on an emergency conference call."

A deep breath taken before he uttered those four words.

"We have an issue..."

"Now this is very odd," the girl thought as she watched the sewer grating in the ground. She had been passing through a back alley and the sight of a rat or two scurrying along was nothing unusual, but seeing them squeezing their way out of the sewer grating in such numbers did fall among the odd. It had not rained to any degree to make the rodent population suddenly seek higher ground and there had been no announcement for any type of pest control down in the lines.

Yet something was making them evacuate their main haven in bunches.

Curious now, the gypsy walked closer and looked down. Small black dots looked back at her for a moment then continued their exodus. Once there was a lull, she opened the grate, slipped down the ladder and stood below. The back of her hand blocked her nose for a moment. Something not normal among the various stenches that lurked below assaulted her sense of smell. "No wonder you guys are running. Something stinks worse than you do down here." her mental jest fell on deaf minds as the rats ignored her and continued to flee. She focused her thoughts and called up a ball of light and began to look about. She normally trusted her vampire enhanced eyes, but sometimes it took a second or two to realize what one was seeing in the darkness. A second or two one might need to react.

She walked along quietly as possible. Her glowing orb lighting the area as she progressed. Nothing seemed amiss until she turned a corner. The remains of a arm lay in the flow of water. Stripped mostly of flesh, the few tempting strands of remaining blood and meat did not even slow down the rats as they passed by. ”Homeless person," she wondered now. The zombies never came down here nor did the ferals as a rule, so what put this limb in such a state? Cannibals? She imaged it was possible. As she pressed deeper, she found more bones littering the area. More than one had met their demise down here. Zodiac crouched down as she lifted the remains of a hand that had bone claws where it's fingers should have been. Not all the bodies were human. Something that hunted the hunters as well? She also spied one of the rifles the vampire hunters favored as well. Broken and bent. This was totally not good.

Slowly she stood back up. Something was totally wrong down here and she would need to let others know before she pushed deeper in her exploring. She turned to go back the way she came, She would call to her children and wait above for them to arrive, but as she moved suddenly she was flying backwards down the tunnel as an explosion of colors and lights blinded her. She landed hard against the wall and shook her head to clear her sight. She'd been punched by something and the sound of large feet dashing in the water ever closer told her volumes. She pulled her weapon and fired blindly. She was hitting it. There was a difference in the sounds of bullets hitting flesh or hitting bricks and more were the flesh sound, but it wasn't slowing down. Her eyes cleared just in time for another blow to strike. Again, she was sent into the unforgiving brickworks of the sewer and she felt bones cracking in the process. Now she could see the thing as she staggered backwards out of its reach. She summoned up what some of her kind called the 'Shadowstrike', trying to keep out of its reach. The blades of darkness hit the creature full mast, but barely slowed it down. The girl turned to run but found herself snagged in powerful claw tipped hands. She screamed in though and mind as her left shoulder suddenly exploded in pain as the fangs of the beast bit deeply and twisted. Zodiac groped about and managed to get her hands on part of it and casted poison. The thing roared in pain-finally- as it let her go, but only to strike her yet again.

This time she went head first into the wall, but in the few seconds before she hit, she finally got a solid look at her attacker. It looked like a fadebeast in ways, but bigger. Meaner. A gleam of feral intelligence shown it its eyes as it watched her before pressing its attack again as if judging what she would do next. This was not a fadebeast like the ones she had encountered before. It was fast, quiet, and almost cunning. She saw its jaws work about the chunk of flesh in its mouth before swallowing. It had not only bit her, but was intent on devouring her.

Her head felt like it was stuffed with black cotton. She could not trade blows with this thing and hope to survive. Her right hand lifted as her left followed so painfully slow as she made the gestures and whispered to the beyond around them. The Sidhe formed in the air between them and cackled madly as it shot itself directly at the monster. The impact send the thing sprawling onto its back. Judging by the noise it was making, it was not used to things that could actually fight it back. As it fought to right itself, the girl groped about in her bag till her fingers found the slim volume she kept within it.

"Home" her thoughts called out as the creature's eyes found her again.

She laid on the carpet of her place as she reassured herself she was no longer in the sewer or the object of that thing's rage and hunger. Slowly her right hand touched about herself. Ribs were cracked, her skull felt cracked in several places as well. Her left shoulder was still on fire, making her left arm nearly useless. She didn't even try to move her legs. She had to warn others, but she could barely move. What was that thing? Where did it suddenly come from? A half a hundred questions began to demand she address them but she could not focus so well now.

"My dear ones..." she called out to her childer's and her soul mate weakly. Questions could wait for later. "In the sewers...beware. Something new..." Her eyes fluttered a bit now. Using the last of her strength, she willed herself into a healing trance and laid there on the floor as the dark stains continued to grow around her body and soak into the carpet.

on the grid at the time, Zodiac encountered the Alpha one time, by accident, and I remember the thing beating the daylights out of her head. the fight ended with Zo fleeing so I took a tad of creative liberty with 'how' she fled the fight and how her injuries happened. Sorry, I did not keep a copy of that fight for reference.