Path of the Vampire forum

Based on an investigation on grid

Anyone wanting to RP in any of these scenarios please contact me through PM and I'll be more than happy to move it over to Streets as an open or private RP. The thoughts behind this thread are just taking random moments and using them as a springboard for writing. They are not relegated to simply being standalone short stories. Once they've been used in a thread they will be quoted here. Thanks ~Chris

Trahir moved through the crowds to see what the small gathering was about. A man had a display set up and was performing magic tricks before the group of stunned onlookers. As he raised both hands above his head, a strange blue light grew between them, shooting up toward the heavens, briefly illuminating the faces of the oohing and ahhing crowd.

Trahir had seen that trick before. That trick have been used on him within the odious canals and walkways of Harper Rock's sewers. He knew what the attack was, what it meant. The smelly old bum before him was a Paladin, likely one of the stragglers from that pathetic order of hunters who called themselves the Order of St. James. The "parlor trick" had caused the very blood within his veins to boil away. The feeling was more or less what Trahir thought a human would feel if a low-pH acid were suddenly introduced into their blood stream, of for an instant the blood within boiled hot enough to actually dissipate. Even as a vampire Trahir had felt it in all it's excruciating effect vividly.

He watched on as the old man, long graying beard, tattoos, and filthy clothes adding a touch of the absurd to his dishevelled appearance announced that he would be performing another trick. He produced from his stained and hole riddled jacket a small knife.

"Now this trick, it has been performed in circuses around the world and apparently it was taught to us westerners by the great sorcerers of the far east! Behold! Mothers, cover the eyes of your little ones! I will attempt to put this knife through my own hand and into the table beneath without leaving a single wound upon my flesh! There will be blood! This is not an illusion! It is a show of the healing power of our minds! I will show you that the tales of miracle healing are true!"

Trahir had seen this countless times. Usually it was one of his own kind who was able to focus the stolen blood in their body to seal and repair grievous injury done to their fleshly bodies.. It did not surprise him though to find out Paladins could do the same. Not at all. How else could they survive the injuries inflicted upon them be vampires?

The old man kept his right hand held out and asked for a volunteer from the audience to take the knife and plunge it into the table.

A youth wearing his pants down below his *** and enough gold chains to raise the brow of a Fort Knox insider shuffled forward and took the knife. The young man examined it for a moment, testing the point and the edge and then brought it down, slamming it through the wood of the table. The blade punctured the surface easily, burying to the handle through the thin particle-board tabletop.

"****'s for real," the teen said, taking a step back. "Nothing fake about that blade, yo."

The Paladin nodded to the youth and placed his left hand down on the table, reaching out and drawing the knife out with his right hand. Without delay he brought the blade down hard, piercing his hand and burying the knife to the handle through his left hand.

Gritting his teeth he waited until he collected his composure through the pain of the wound as the crowd gasped collectively. Trahir's dead, expressionless face watched the scene unchanging.

"So you see," the Paladin gasped. :The blade is through my flesh..." As if to prove his point further he pulled his right hand away and then tugged the blade free from the table with the hand it still skewered. Holding it aloft, blood beginning to ooze from the wound he waved it before the crowd.

Finally he reached for the blade with his right hand, grasped the hand and withdrew it, slowly, maximizing the effect the spectacle had on the crowd. He winced and gritted his teeth against the pain and as the blade was remove, it left only unbroken skin in it's wake. "You see! The power of mind over matter! The power of faith over the body!"

Though impressive, Trahir was not moved by the display. It taught him only that he needed to bear in mind that the tattooed freaks needed to be dead, well and truly dead, before he moved on from any future kills. He stepped back away from the crowd and moved off toward a nearby alley to survey the surroundings. No cameras nearby, he put his plan into effect. Waiting for the coast to be clear, waiting for a chance to use his vampiric powers without notice, Trahir takes on the appearance of the rogue vampire he had hunted down previously and steps out from the alley. In his hand is his Andras Special, a gun crafted by his sire. It was a beautiful work of art, a showcase of superior craftsmanship that Trahir on occasion still took the time to admire, months and months after being gifted with the weapon. Using the crowd and his stolen face as cover Trahir raises the weapon and *Blap Blap Blap!* fires off three rounds into the old man's head as he announces he will next demonstrate inhuman flexibility and martial prowess.

The Paladin's head rocks back as all three rounds smash through his skull courtesy of the Killer's Deadeye ability and the old man drops backkward hitting the ground as Trahir quickly covers the gun within the confines of his trenchcoat. A woman nearby emits a shocked, horrified scream and people duck, some running.

Mimicking the panic of the onlooking crowd Trahir , still in the guise of the female, nameless vampire does the same, screaming and fleeing off into the alleyway.

By the time he emerges from the other side, he no longer resembles anyone else. It is his own face he wears.

Sometimes the vampire hunter make life difficult for the hunted. Othertimes they make the job of dispatching them almost too easy. Trahir walks through the crowd on the opposite side of the block, looking as oblivious as they to the violent outburst down the alleyway, one street over.

Harper Rock swallows death on a daily basis, Trahir thinks. What's one more snack for the city?

Based on: Grid event "The Lost Child"
Trahir was thirsty. He was always thirsty, always on the hunt.Lately ennui had set in on the normal methods he had employed. He had wanted something different, a challenge. Trahir needed to feel the rush felt the first time he had drank from a human. The first time he had felt bones crack under his fists, the first time he felt the yielding of flesh beneath his sword as it pierced through a victims body, emerging in a rush from their back.

The feeling he had when he watched the life slip from their panicked, shocked eyes.

He had fought in the sewers, he had killed Paladins. He had butchered them and hung them on a Swastika for his beloved to see simply to entice her to confrontation. He had murdered hunters, his hands wrapped around their neck, squeezing with teeth clenched until with a final vicious shake the telltale pop in the neck, a pop he could feel in his grasp turned their struggling bodies limp in his grip. The dwelling place of the hunters of the city held no terrors around the bend to the young Killer. He welcomed the challenges posed in the beginning and now grew bored by the lack of them.

He had mined the depths of Algonquin Caverns. He had fought the Sirens and the spiders within. Their human guise cast off and the horrors beneath revealed, Trahir had hacked and slashed, shot and bludgeoned his way through them spilling their demi-fae blood as effectively as he did those humans he used to glut his belly on a nightly basis. Their songs never lasted long enough to stay his hand. Their powers temporarily disrupting his own, he simply beat them down to the rocky floor and shattered their bodies against the craggy walls of the mines below the earth. He harvested their eggs and sold them off to the purveyors of such things within their little magic shops around the city. He did not fear these creatures, he pitied them. They were mere shadows of the creatures that had supposedly spawned them, the hated Fae. They fell like humans, nowhere near the power or ferocity of their infinitely more potent kin.

So far only the overlord of the Lionelli were beyond his skill, the initiates of the gang fell to his bullets and blades like wheat beneath the scythe at harvest, and harvest he did. He had a mantle full of their ashes. He stood over their bodies, and those of their pathed brethren and watched with his crocodilian gaze as their bodies dissolved, crumpled in on themselves and became nothing more than soot from a chimney. The overlords though, they were a beacon of hope for the Killer. He yearned for the day when their blood would stain his blades and he could stand over their corpses as they became desiccated husks and then... nothing.

It was in this mind frame that Trahir walked down the windy, cold and near-deserted streets of Harper Rock.His thoughts are on the thrill of the hunt, the challenge of a worthy adversary and that is when he runs into something that has brought many a man to their knees. Something that has shattered the hearts of people since time immemorial. A crying child.

The vampire stops as he literally bumps into the child sending it stumbling off a couple paces. Under normal circumstances the blood of an innocent would be his preferred vintage but this night he is wanting something more heady. More challenging.The little face, female by the looks of it and the pink ribbons in the thing's hair, looks up to him, lips quivering. "I lost my mommy!" The exclamation seems half fact and half plea, a cry for help from anyone who is there. No doubt the child knows not to talk to strangers. She is terrified. Alone in a world with zero chances of survival and no knowledge of how to even begin to even attempt to get help, the child reaches out toward Trahir's hand, her little fingers grasping in one hand his pinky and ring finger and in the other, his thumb.

The vampire looks down into those huge doe eyes, brimming with helpless tears, the pouting lips of the child quivering for a reason that has nothing to do with the weather or temperature and does what any sane vampire would do in that moment. He pulls his hand away and continues walking the direction he was heading leaving the little bundle of joy to fend for itself.

He doesn't intend on glancing back, even at the human-child's pleas, but the scream the thing lets loose with is nothing brought on by simply helplessness. It's terror. Trahir doesn't thing his billowing trench coat is that intimidating so he does the unintended thing... he turns.

The reason for the panicked and ear-splitting sound coming from the little cretin is apparent as the vampire's eyes move to where the things are locked. Another thing is emerging from the alleyway and it is not another mini-person with the intent to annoy him. The shadowy limbs with fleshy tendrils throughout the dark depths that reach for the child are not from anything natural to this world. No more natural than he, spawned by one like him and full of nothing but lethal intent and hunger... a fadebeast.

In a way Trahir has more in common with the shadowy monster than he does the terror struck child who hasn't the intellectual capacity to overcome the mind-numbing terror she feels and run. The thing emerges from the alleyway fully, apparently having decided to shut the little creature screaming at it up forever.

Trahir almost wants to applaud the thing. Almost.

The ringing of steel being drawn filled the air. The blade, Demonicus he had called it came into view from within his trench coat.He was struck suddenly with a memory of a television show, Highlander. He figured with his long hair pulled back the way it was and standing under the street like he likely bore a passing resemblance to Aidan Paul on Highlander: The Series. He gives a slight shrug as he advances on the creature. The child finally finds her legs, screams one last time for good measure and runs.

His other hand reaches to his hip and pulls his bun, the good ol' Andras Special from it's holster.

The fadebeast turns to him, senses him, he can feel the hatred emanating from it and it brings a humorless, fang-filled smile to his lips. His eyes have turned from their icy blue hues to the reptilian gaze of the alpha predator of it's environment, the crocodile. With the only witness a small child, prone to fantastical stories and who would, in later years no doubt require therapy because of this encounter if it survives, Trahir moves to engage the creatures, the only thing between the fadebeast and the vampire, a parked car.



Sometimes life delivers exactly what you ask for.

Trahir Trahison VS Fadebeast
The creature glanced around the car, biding its time, stalking its prey.

Trahir Trahison sprinted and then launched himself, twisting mid-air to face his enemy so he could fire a spread of bullets. he landed and rolled, coming to his feet behind a car.

The fadebeast was knocked backwards as a bullet hit him in the chest, narrowly missing his heart!

The creature glanced around the car, biding its time, stalking its prey.

The fadebeast charged.

The fadebeast charged, its hands searching for a grip around Trahir Trahison's neck.

The fadebeast latched onto its target, but wrestled his way free.

The fadebeast charged, its hands searching for a grip around Trahir Trahison's neck.

But the fadebeast was too slow and was narrowly avoidable.

As the fadebeast came into reach, Trahir Trahison thrust out, aiming to skewer his enemy.

The fadebeast's throat opened and gushed blood as Trahir Trahison's blade sliced cleanly through it!

The fadebeast raised its front arms and brought them down, trying to crush its enemy.

The fadebeast stumbled forward, swiping nothing but air.

The fadebeast charged, its hands searching for a grip around Trahir Trahison's neck.

With bent, guarded arms, Trahir Trahison blocked the assault and stepped back.

The fadebeast dived at Trahir Trahison with its massive jaws of uneven fangs bared wide.

With bent, guarded arms, Trahir Trahison blocked the assault and stepped back.

"Two can play at that," Trahir said through gritted teeth.

Trahir Trahison used the Feral Mutation power and began to morph into a war form, with huge, powerful appendages, claws and teeth.

The fadebeast dived at Trahir Trahison.

Trahir Trahison blocked the attack with open palms. The combatants entered into a grapple for a moment, tumbling onto the ground.

The fadebeast charged, its hands searching for a grip around Trahir Trahison's neck.

Trahir Trahison blocked the attack with open palms. The combatants entered into a grapple for a moment, tumbling onto the ground.

The fadebeast charged, its hands searching for a grip around Trahir Trahison's neck.

With bent, guarded arms, Trahir Trahison blocked the assault and stepped back.

Growling with anger, the fadebeast charged at Trahir Trahison, clawing and thrashing.

Trahir Trahison blocked the attack with open palms. The combatants entered into a grapple for a moment, tumbling onto the ground.

Trahir Trahison's blade lashed out just as the fadebeast came at him, cutting downwards with a brutal overhead hack.

The fadebeast's face erupted in a fountain of blood as the blade cut deep into his head!

Growling with anger, the fadebeast charged at Trahir Trahison, clawing and thrashing.
But the fadebeast was too slow and was narrowly avoidable.

Leaping into the air, Trahir Trahison stamped a foot against a car, launching back at his enemy with a mid-air slashing blade assault.

The fadebeast's face erupted in a fountain of blood as the blade cut deep into his head!

The fadebeast roared and slumped down, the flesh of its body too badly damaged. As its breathing slowed and finally stopped, its body came apart as though the shadows had been the thing keeping it together. All that remained was a pile of bones and massive mutilated human-like appendages, covered in black blood.

Trahir turned calmly to where the little human child was still running down the street and considers a moment what to do.

The incident ends a second later, resolved by the raising of the Andras Special in his hand and the barking of the weapon. A hail of bullets fly out toward the child, their accuracy ensured by the use of the Killer's Deadeye ability.

The little body jolts this way and that, limbs flailing out suddenly limp and the horrid little creature collapses much the way the monster had earlier.

"Two monsters down. A city full to go."

Holstering the gun and sheathing the sword, the trench coat clad man turns, disappearing down an alleyway. The hunt continues.

Based on: Random fight in the Quarantine Zone
The Quarantine Zone. The worst kept secret in Harper Rock. The military had the area cordoned off, guarded. An "impenetrable wall of military force" designed to both keep the city's inhabitants out and the Quarantine Zone’s inhabitants in. The common explanation was there were infected people in there. Sick people. Rumors flew through the bars and the slums that the military had been seeking survivors. So far though, none had been found. The area was a necropolis. Nothing lived within its walls but those few intrepid, or stupid, humans who managed to slip in through fadeportals or sewer tunnel.

Vampires bunked in the apartment building there in ever increasing numbers. Trahir was surprised the apartments weren't selling faster after West Tower filled up. Eventually if the vampire population of the city increased the way it had been, there would be no space to own in any of the typical areas. It could pay off in the long run to be the owner of a substantial number of properties.

Corvidae Flats was not the pinnacle of the real estate world. It had some minor flaws. There was no swimming pool for example. No tennis courts and the apartments didn't offer necessarily, the best view in the city. It was lacking in fitness facilities as well. There was also the infestation issue. Not rats. No, those had long gone the way of the dodo in the Quarantine Zone, likely eaten by the flesh obsessed walking corpses the government billed as "sick people". Zombies infested the place. Not just the Walking Dead zombies, but something like Frankenstein's monster gone even more wrong type zombies. Some of the walking dead had managed to get their hands on vampires too. Likely the corpses of Killer-pathed vampires left haphazardly on the ground by factions which hunted their own. Those lucky brain-munchers that got to dig into the good stuff... well, they got to become feral vampires.

Apparently they even got to **** again, given that Trahir had himself ripped out fadeling corpses from their bloated, rotten bellies.

Due to the gas build up of rotting carcasses it was hard to tell if a feral was pregnant, or if they'd become a zombie when their corpse was ready to burst. Bacteria produced gas within the belly while the flesh and organs underwent decomposition. Soft tissue expands, especially when that soft tissue is covering an abscess such as the human gastronomical system. The ribs keep the upper torso from looking like a balloon, but the lower half is on it's own.

Sometimes though, sometimes there was another cause for the bloating.

Trahir figured the lesser fadebeast came from those zombies. It would explain their numbers. The bigger ones, maybe those were from actual vampires. He'd killed them before. Not the Alphas. No, they had been around before his time. The last one sighted had been killed by his grandsire supposedly. Those horrors had come through walls like a ghost and attacked vampires. Trahir ached to engage one in battle again. He'd only managed to find the thing twice and attack, both times he'd been outclassed in every way. He'd crawled away with a massive skull fracture and by the time he'd healed enough to fight, another vampire had distracted it and the thing was gone.

Suffice it to say, the Quarantine Zone had it's share of issues for the casual renter.

For a supernatural drinker of blood though, it was perfect. No humans meant it was a good place to learn the abilities vampires developed over time without fear of being spotted using powers. The other undead denizens within were no match for all but the weakest vampire. Trahir had even caught glimpses of Blood Thieves and Sorcerers in the lobby of Corvidae Flats slicing the ears from the shambling corpses that wandered in.

Trahir had been taught that humans who knew of vampires were a threat. He believed this. He had been taught to kill threats to the Masquerade. He didn’t believe that killing them was always the best option. It was definitely the most pleasureable option, but not necessarily the best. A Blood Thief or magic user could be a valuable tool, or an ally for the more trusting vampire. They could protect a vampire through the daylight hours, they could make location ritual ingredients in the wilderness risk free and they, being somewhat supernatural themselves were nowhere near as frail as the human thralls vampires with the powers of allurism could control.

He’d heard the Sorcerers were the ones who created Paladins by marking them with Faeish tattoos empowered by their magic. If the vampires were to make allies of them rather than attack them that could wipe out two threats in one shot.

It was all very utopian though. Impossible while other vampires still roamed the streets killing those Blood Thieves that offered them money from a taste of their blood. They created their own problems. Most of them existed long before Trahir’s death at the hands of the sire he’d never known. Still, he labored under the results of the choices made by the idiocy of the masses.

He’d read on Crownet that there were somewhere around four hundred vampires in the city. Vampire studies told him that the commonly topped out food chain left 500:1 human to vampire ratio as a threshold to avoid detection. That only worked if the entire vampire population stayed below the radar, didn’t kill when they fed, and generally kept to themselves outside of hunting carefully to avoid detection. The less of their kind roaming the streets the better.

Vampires were not an inherently peaceful species. It was why a wide array of their powers involved methods to attack and subdue. They were built to be killers, blood drinkers, built to enthrall, rule over others. Crocodiles have teeth for a reason, lions had fang and claw for the same reason. They were built to be used. Still, there were pacifist vampires. Trahir thought they were idiots, but they were out there and as long as they kept to themselves he had no issues with them. The ones he hated were those so enamored with the idea of their lost humanity that they wanted to expose the rest of them so they could have their Twilight-styled lives. Trahir didn’t understand this attachment to the flawed and fragile human race. ******* a human to Trahir was the same as a human ******* their dinner plate. Or maybe the animal used to make their steak. Bestiality. That was what he saw it as. He wondered how many of these ‘vegan vampires’ partook in the practice of ******* their food sources before being turned. It was a pity their human parents hadn’t engaged in the practice rather than creating a weak and flawed human that would become a weak and flawed vampire.

On the flip side there were those vampires who fed openly trying to attract attention to the others. Far from pacifists or “vegan” those idiots were the ones who thought a breakdown of the Masquerade that protected their kind would result in humans accepting them or in some cases, falling on their faces and surrendering. Maybe a meme existed of the famous Jean-Luc Picard facepalm. Trahir felt that way every time he saw one of those names go up on the violations list. Accidents happened. He understood that, they were for the most part forgivable. Stupid though… that was something that could not be tolerated in an immortal being.

Potential sires should be given an IQ test and their potential childer the same. After that they should be confined to the Quarantine Zone and only let out to hunt under careful guidance.

Trahir looked across the lobby of Corvidae Flats at the feral vampire crouched in the shadows. The belly looked ripe, be it gas or fadebeast the creature looked ready to burst. Trahir decided to aid it along, drawing his gun and sword and moving toward the creature. It snarled at him though Trahir wasn’t convinced it knew its impending fate. He figured if he approached it with a bouquet of sunflowers it would do the same.

Shots rang out throughout the lobby and soon enough the vampire was kneeling down wiping the black blood of the creature from his sword, Demonicus on it’s tattered clothing. Without a change of the expression on his face Trahir brings out a small knife and splits the belly of the creature open, pulling it apart to look inside after the hiss of built up gas and bile have flowed out.

Nothing. No fadeling corpse within. Disappointing. Very disappointing.

He rises and heads toward the fadeportal to Sanctuary over by the piano. There are other things to be hunted this night. There always are.

The night drew on. March, in like a lion, out like a lamb they say. The lion must have missed the memo. The weather was mild, still cold -14°C, cloudy, but it wasn't dumping a blizzard on the beleaguered city of Harper Rock and Ottawa was meant to be seeing warmer days ahead. The herd would start packing the streets again soon and the vampiric equivalent of the rainy season would soon be upon them. A time of plenty just around the corner, Trahir was content to minimize his hunting for the moment. He had taken a near-lackadaisical attitude toward most of his ventures, his businesses were doing well but mostly due to his staff, his thrall Nicolette was enjoying more free time than she usually had and he himself was content to merely languish until the weather conditions improved.

He had just finished shopping for a few items in the mall and was heading to his car, the not-altogether subtle 1925 Rolls-Royce Phantom 1 Jonckheere Coupe parked near the entrance when a man nearly bowled him over. The guy was about average build and instantly set Trahir on edge. A fellow vampire. He wasn't using Celerity, but he was definitely moving too fast for Trahir to keep up without resorting to the power himself. The only thing the vampire made out about the running man was an H inside a C, the symbol of a hockey team.

Trahir didn't get a look at him as he ran past and being that he was in a public place couldn't do much about the affront at that moment anyway. With a shrug, teeth gritted against his base nature he set off toward the car again. He made it three steps before a voice rang out. "Halt! Police!" Trahir's shoulders slumped forward as he turned toward the uniformed man running up toward him.

"Sir, have you seen a man run by? He just attacked a shopper in the mall. He'd be about three inches shorter than you and wearing a Montreal Canadiens jacket and hat."

So the cop was chasing the fleeing vampire. That wasn't good. Feigning concern, Trahir looked o the officer. "Attacked? Is the victim okay? They aren't hurt are they?" The look on his face likely would have brought scrutiny if the cold air didn't already have everyone squinting their eyes against it or if the night didn't cast enough darkness to throw his countenance into shadow.

"He bit a woman that's all I know. Bit her on the neck like a vam..." The cop cleared his throat and gathered himself slightly, regaining his composure. "The paramedics are with her now. Did you see which way he went?"

"Yes, they went that way," Trahir said, pointing across the street toward an alleyway. The cop thanked him and took off running. Trahir waited a moment, looked at his car, weighing in his mind if he wanted to get involved or not. The other vampire obviously hadn't had time before being interrupted to seal the wounds. The cop was off in the wrong direction. Should he further involve himself in a matter than likely nothing would come of?

The cop had said "Like a vampire" or had been about to. He'd refrained. Why? Was it a matter of not wanting to appear crazy or something more. Did he know too much? Better safe than sorry. He headed off in the direction the vampire had gone, around the side of the mall away from the prying eyes of cameras. Once he was in the clear he turned back to the south and became a blur running after the police officer,, reaching the cop as he reached the alleyway Trahir had pointed him in the direction of.

The man turned toward the sound of Trahir's footsteps when he was about twenty feet into the corridor made by the two buildings, saw Trahir and before he could react, the vampire was on him, raining blows down onto his head, pummeling him to the ground. It took only three or four blows, restrained blows, not the type reserved for fadebeasts and the like, to send the cop into the afterlife.

A shame. Trahir respected those dedicated to protecting others from the ill-thought-out actions of people who only thought of themselves. Gangsters, criminals, anti-masquerade idiots. The officer had simply been doing his job. Trahir reached a gloved hand out, pulling the radio off the cops caller and depressing the button. "Officer down, the alleyway across from the mall. I think he's dead."

With that he tossed the radio onto the cooling policeman's chest and headed west, away from the mall and toward the Honeymead Market. There was still some shopping he wanted to do.

He sent Nicolette a message Pick up the car at the mall. Park it at West Tower.

Sometimes even a lazy vampire had to act.

Causality and effect. These things existed in nearly every action every one of the Damned engaged in. They danced their Requiems away nightly, most blindly unaware and uncaring of the ramifications of their actions. The Butterfly Effect was simply a movie to them. Every action having an equal and opposite reaction merely words. Hunters appeared and killed vampires and those against secrecy advocated that they only did that because they were responding to attacks by vampires. It was the vampires who harmed the humans, why blame them? Then the same vampires continued to espouse their beliefs humans and vampires could live side by side.

Hunters weren’t enough of a warning sign. What would be? Trahir had considered having billboards made in bright pretty flashing colors. Maybe if he put unicorns and fairies on them the message would get through. In bright flashing lights: No one like mosquitoes even if they are sexy. ******* idiots.

Alas the message would not sink through. People, vampires especially in Harper Rock seemed to suffer from oxygen deficiency to their brains. Trahir was surprised the city had not officially been dubbed an Idiocracy yet. He was certain it was coming. Between people wanting to attract attention to vampires because they were sad lonely little wretches, and people honestly believing that Twilight or True Blood crap as being real, the Masquerade was doomed. So were vampires if for some reason they stopped coming back from the dead. Trahir hoped it happened. Even though it would mean fleeing Harper Rock and leaving all his assets behind to become a hermit in the wilderness, he hoped to hell that the actions of those forcing their own destruction to play out was played out to the fullest.

He even had a list of suggestions to leave in his wake when he left involving torture implements for the anti-masquers that would have them feeling every second of their well deserved deaths at the hands of their food as an eternity. He hated them with an undying passion.

He believed the sentiment of pro- and anti- secrecy was flawed. It was based on the belief that if you were caught feeding or using powers that you were anti-Masquerade and in need of eradication… for a week. He felt this solved nothing as he watched the same names flood onto the Violations List of Crownet month after month. Obviously people were not learning. The method was flawed. People had opened schools but they were people that were themselves weak in the mind and flawed. Broken psychopaths looking for attention, maybe to get some pussy from their students and then kill them when they ended up on the list themselves and others who remained quietly in the shadows, claiming neutrality behind closed doors while the taught students what they wanted to see within the city. Trahir was not a fan of any faction-member teaching anyone unless that person was aware they were likely being puppeteered to do the will of the Faction that owned the loyalty of the teacher.

He was a cynical creature of logic. He was Darkness, Killer.

He wanted little more than to feel the crunching of bone, the ripping of tender flesh, to hear the screams of those he despises beneath his claws. To see the spray of blood, the convulsions of a body that have not yet figured it was dead. He wanted to shred the flesh of each of these lesser rainbow farting “vampires” until flesh became subcutaneous tissue, organs, and then bone and finally, ash beneath his claws. He instead had forbidden the murder of other vampires by those of his lineage for now and from henceforth unless a stipulation called an “Indulgence” was brought into effect. He had no plans of that ever happening. It was left in there as an “out”. A way he could show his benevolence perhaps or simply to be used to cull the idiots from the world. He believed that the way forward for vampire-kind had to lie in peace. Not because Trahir believed in that line of drivel, but because an outright war based on destroying those with a difference of opinion had been tried and failed in both human and vampire history.

He didn’t have the answer, but more death among their kind would accomplish nothing. Not while they simply popped back to existence in a week like some annoying Jack-in-a-Box. He’d been a part of a group who slaughtered violators. Nothing changed. Some of the members got off on the kill and even Trahir had found himself congratulating those who made a kill. Then a week later the violator was back from the Shadow Realm and either back at it, the same way, or simply more quietly.

Usually the former. He’d heard how many times some were put down for their “beliefs” and figured half at least were only digging their heels in as a way to fight back against what they considered tyranny. What they needed was to be brought together, organized. They needed a working system to utilize their combined knowledge to bring their kind into the upcoming years, decades, centuries.

He’d seen how some shot each other simply for fun. Idiots. Some of them played what he considered an endless Jackass movie. Some called it honor, they had trespassed against the beliefs of their faction and had to be punished. Others called it fun. Sparring. None of them called it what it was: Being a moron. Walking around with injuries which could kill a human was a good way to set oneself apart from humankind. He’d seen some “pro-Masquerade vampires” walking around in the open with wounds inflicted by the sun. Some from hunters. Some from the cursed Fae who lived outside of the city and in the depths of the Algonquin Caverns. They wandered the streets without a second thought in a state no human could survive and still thought they had the right to judge “violators”.

For some reason Crownet never allowed them to be listed for this crime. Trahir couldn’t fathom why, but it showed that the system itself was flawed. It only took a few things into account. Vampires never ended up there for simply telling people they were vampires. He’d even heard of one of the Damned speaking about their condition openly on the radio. There were constantly Fadebeasts running around and yet the progenitors of such never appeared on the List regardless if the vampire had merely sired of had personally **** out the creature. Only the two reasons. Seen using powers, seen feeding. What of the rest? The system was broken. It had only appeared since 2011 when the vampire had come back and it was already outdated.

It was archaic and it was not working.

But what could be done? What could change when most were too lazy to even put up a fight when hunted down like dogs? What could change when the mentality of some of the hunters was simply: Sometimes you have to die to make people happy?

He sat pondering within the crypt he called home. He sat in silence. His thrall was at work this evening for his mate and Trahir had no use for most company outside of either of them currently.

He waited in the darkness as unmoving as a statue, waiting, waiting for an answer to come to him.

Nothing did.

In a perfect world a vampire would be able to walk into an Arby’s and grab him or herself a pint of cow blood, sit down with the mortals and have a talk about how rough their job was. In reality the humans would be disgusted by the sanguivore. When bodies started turning up exsanguinated there would be fingers pointed. Outnumbered millions, no, tens, hundreds of millions to one, the vampires would face extinction.

Trahir didn’t want to face extinction. Humans had a history of hunting down the predators feeding on them or their food source. Sharks, crocodiles, wolves, bears, it didn’t matter. If it interfered with their perfect little bubbles in the world they wanted it gone. Secrecy was the only way that the vampire could see. How could it be enforced in a way that actually helped though?

There were too many vampires already in the area. They reproduced faster than crackhead welfare mothers and gave less of a **** about their offspring on the whole. Nothing was taught. Most of the time that was likely due to nothing being there to be taught. The blind leading the blind.

Trahir furrowed his brow in thought. There had to be an answer. There had to be.

A set of rules people voluntarily followed. A set of rules so simple they could understand.

If for none other than his Bloodline he rose and sought out a roll of parchment and a quill, an inkwell and blotting paper were gathered next. In the darkness he began to write..

The Three Traditions

THE FIRST TRADITION: MASQUERADE
Do not reveal the truth of what you are to those not of the Blood. Doing so forfeits your right to the Blood. If no hunter knows to seek, no hunter shall seek. Do not presume to bring your choices to the lives of all Kindred. What has been done can not be undone. What has not yet been done may still in the future be considered. With the vast expanse of the future laid out before you, think not of the moment, but of all those moments you have yet to shape.


THE SECOND TRADITION: PROGENY
Sire another vampire at the peril of both yourself and your progeny.If you create a childe the weight is yours alone to bear. If you create it through union between our kind or with others know that you unleash a creature upon the world that causes suffering which you will feel yourself when found out. Your flesh will bear the marks even if your conscience does not. This includes your mortal kin. They are not of our world and know nothing of the suffering of our kind. If you care for them at all you will leave them to the lives they have left before them. Do not try and cling to the tattered remnants of a life lost. You will only bring eternal pain to them by doing so.


THE THIRD TRADITION: NECURATISM
You are forbidden from devouring the Blood of your kind.If you violate this Tradition you set yourself above others of the Blood and your right to your own will be forfeit. No species suffers a predator lightly. Herds draw tighter for protection and predators react violently to another predator within their midst. Cleave to this Tradition or find yourself hunted as those who turn on their own should be, a traitor and cannibal.

Trahir set down the writing instrument and looked over the document. It seemed straightforward enough. It would be difficult even for the dullest of vampires to misinterpret. Don’t let humans know, the time was not right but may be in the future, check. Don’t sire and if you did, be responsible for the childe, check. Don’t create fadebeasts, check, don’t set yourself above the others of your kind, check.

There wasn’t a lot of room for loopholes. It was simple. He looked at the drying ink and for a moment debated whether to tear the paper up of to try and see if it would work by introducing it to those few vampires he knew. He did realize that most vampires, like humans hated being told “No” to whatever idea they had in their minds that they wanted to do. The Day of Broken Glass had taught them nothing. The Plight of the Broussard had taught them nothing. Siring too many vampires who were eager to make their presence known had taught them nothing. They still appeared on the List. They still continued on their path without any thought to what it would mean to themselves or others.

He tossed the document onto one of the nearby caskets, the circle of them designed to house his own Bloodline if he ever decided to sire another vampire. Already he had doubts if he would bother. Why add to the problems at hand?

Trahir was having an average night. He’d awoke, cleaned himself, dried off and dressed in a navy blue Hutson/Gander suit which had, along with its fellows, a selection of fine suits, ties, shirts, silk boxers and a plethora of belts and shoes, all designers and worth more than their surroundings, made up the available selection of clothing within the family crypt he had claimed as his own. Slipping on a pair of wingtip Oxfords, and cinching up a dark red tie, he was ready to take on the night. On his way out, he made his way over to the large stone casket in which he interred himself and his mate within each night and left a single red rose upon the lid. With that he threw on his long black leather trench coat and made his way up into the springtime night. Temperatures had been steadily rising and Trahir was glad of it. Soon he could set aside the coat and enjoy a more expansive wardrobe. Soon the herd would wander the streets again in numbers sufficient to have a pick of meals. It was a better season. It was the season he had been turned in. Embraced. It was hard to think of the act which had made him a vampire as an Embrace. It had been abrupt, anonymous, and had left him alone without guidance.

Much had happened since that night. Within a year the young Killer had found others of his ilk, made few friends, plenty of enemies and had dipped his toes into the faction system of the Kindred of Harper Rock. He had withdrawn them just as quickly. Being a follower did not suit his disposition one iota. He had not been born to meekly take orders and perform tasks for another. He wanted the world, not to simply be a cog in a machine. He wanted the world to be his, drop by bloody drop. He’d bought up some few properties around the area, using human thralls to move the apartments, farms and boats through the maze that made up the Canadian property system. Now the properties rested firmly in Nicolette’s hands legally with a clause that upon her death they would become the property of the Harper Rock Hunt Club.

Some would be easily retained if she were to displease him enough to need rid of her. The apartment where his one childe rested in Corvidae Flats for example. The entire district it resided in was under military quarantine. Perhaps the faction A.R.E.S. would “free” it from the military. Along with a horde of the undead to wander the streets massacring Trahir’s food source. He wasn’t overly fond of the idea.The more he met and learned of other vampires the more convinced he became that they lost a third of their IQ when turned and hadn’t had half of what he did while alive. They randomly enacted insane plans to change things for no good reason. He was vaguely aware of the thoughts within his mind being a sign of megalomania, but it didn’t bother him. Not in the slightest. He’d seen the other vampires at work and for the most part they weren’t worth the effort to conjure saliva to spit on. Even his blood had spawned an inferior get. He’d at least been able to handle that issue, he’d destroyed the weakest link. His grand-childe, Corentine was quiet if nothing else. She stayed below the radar and caused no issues. Only once had he seen her name on the violations list of Crownet. She had been removed at his and her behest by being thrashed, crippled. It was a conundrum. On one side you had too many vampires who were useless or even dangerous to the lives of them all. On the other hand though increasing the number of Kindred to offset that meant creating more vampires with no guarantee of offsetting the issue and every chance of adding to it. What was a survival and secrecy oriented vampire to do? He had considered hosting open salons to draw vampires in and give them a place to mingle, to share their beliefs without fear of reprisal, but in all honesty it would simply set the stage for enemies to earmark future targets. It would be counter-productive to do so.

Still, he had to do something. What could one vampire devoid of any political ties hope to accomplish in a city that contained a vampire populace that seemed to pride itself on how many others of their own kind they had killed or how ignorant they could make themselves look? What did a young vampire have control over? His blood. Vitae. That seemed to be the only aspect of immortality he could absolutely hold sway over.

The kine made their way through the night, ants marching through the streets oblivious to the hive mind they were a part of. Cogs in the system, each one as unimportant to the machine as a speck of dust to the cosmos. They obeyed or broke their rules and laws and when they were caught breaking them they were punished like a naughty dog to be locked in their kennel or put to sleep. Humans claimed that their laws separated them from the animals yet they treated each other exactly the same way. Trahir actually respected the ones with enough balls to take what they wanted because they were mighty enough to do so. The respected the ones who were smart enough to get away with it even more.

Laws, laws were made to protect people. They were made to ensure a peaceful and safe society could flourish without people within it causing harm to others. At least that was the initial concept behind them. Nowadays laws existed to keep power from certain classes, to keep the wealthy and politically motivated at the top, to keep money flowing where the government wanted it to flow. Them and their supporters. Money made votes, votes made politicians, politicians made themselves and their supporters rich. Trahir had read the Old Code, he’d read the New Code, neither had clicked with him. Some salient points were brought up by both of course, but the execution of them was cheap, tacky and one-sided. Some were outright pointless.

He was politically motivated. Trahir wanted things a certain way and it frustrated him that others could not see the necessity of enacting the simplest of laws. The other vampires seemed to take each law as a challenge to their freedom when most were designed to ensure the freedom of all their kind from hunters, from predation, from creating atrocities like fadebeasts. In short, he felt that many of his ilk were vampires, but not truly Kindred. They were idiots playing with tools like they were toys and even when they were injured by them they refused to see how childish they were being.

The mortals were increasing in numbers, during the 20th century alone, the population in the world has grown from 1.65 billion to 6 billion. As their numbers grew, the laws had changed to reflect it. Humanity had changed as well, they had adapted. In a way it was a good thing, there was more readily available blood for the Kindred population as it expanded.
Though increasing the population of vampires in the city may not be the best idea, increasing the number of Kindred within it’s borders may help balance out the odds a little. If nothing else it would give him more company worthy of spending his time with. Dominique had been busy with whatever project she was working on and had taken to wearing her odd out-of-vogue leather jacket with the skull logo lately. Of course finding those humans who would make Kindred of Quality was easier said than done. He began to make a list in his mind as he walked of those admirable qualities that would ensure any childer he sired or that they sired would indeed turn out to be more than the average disappointing get of his supposed peers.

As he walked past a homeless man covered in newspapers on a bench something tugged at him in the back of his mind. He stopped, standing over the sleeping form of the itinerant. Here was a man. He’d been born the same as any other, pushed into the light from the nurturing and comforting darkness within the womb into a world of dog eat dog. He had had at one point, unlimited potential and he had squandered it. He stank of human offal, piss, ****, and sweat old enough to cause a sharp and wretched odor. He was unworthy of life let alone immortality but Trahir figured that somewhere in Harper Rock was a vampire who would turn him given the chance.

Trahir considered lodging a single bullet in the man’s head on the spot to prevent the travesty from ever happening. Weak and useless mortals made weak and useless immortals. It wasn’t to prevent the man suffering an eternity of underachievement and sorrow that Trahir didn’t wish the bum turned. It was to prevent him from having to watch the man’s endless failures. It was because inevitably his failures would expose their kind. No, some were not fit to be given the Blood. Here in Harper Rock pacifists, religious nut-balls, and the plain and simple stupid were Embraced into the vampiric community.

No wonder there had been a Holocaust wiping them out before if the vampire elders had done the same in their day.
Leaving the wretched man in his own filth, the vampire moves on through the night. The next mortals, two women emerging from a club. They were beautiful, no doubt. They were tipsy and within a few moments two thugs emerge from the club in tow. The thugs set Trahir’s nerves on edge. They think they are strong, predators. His first instinct, as always is to tear them apart slowly, to hear their pitiful whimpers, groans. To watch them pass in and out of consciousness while he peels layers of flesh from their bodies. The attitude is a front. They want to be the top of the food chain and there is nothing wrong with that desire. The problem is that they really aren’t cut out to be that. They are stupid. They are too stupid to do anything on their own. They rely on numbers and the fear-factor stemming from the deeds of others in the same gang they are in. Their level of respect is based on whose shirt tails they ride. Useless. Weak. They will live and die by their code, never rising to be more. Never becoming what they supposedly long to be, the alpha predator. They will always be the beta or worse, the omega.

The women, they are simply toys for them. They follow the supposed glamour of the thug life, the… gangsta. They spread their legs for these followers for what? Inferior DNA passed along by an inferior male to and inferior female. Corentine would cut them open and play in their organs before inviting them to lay a hand on her. She was worth something. These two gang-bangers, they remind Trahir of his childe Revelation. Trahir had aborted that mistake quickly. Not quickly enough for his own tastes. Thankfully Jonathan Masterson had not made many allies and it had been easy to dispatch him under the radar.

The sluts slide into the car of those they accept as worthy of mounting them for the night and Trahir can’t help but want to laugh at them. No doubt they will be on their iPhones with their girlfriends in a few nights or weeks talking over how much of a douche bag their new boyfriend is. Then they would go out with their girlfriends to celebrate the break-up and freedom from said douche bag and would leave with another one. Rinse, repeat. Hamsters stuck in a loop. Eventually they would get desperate enough to marry one of them and they’d likely spend the rest of their life miserable, both spouses ******* other people, trying to find “the one”. Or perhaps one of the men they hooked up with would actually have money and they would marry him for it.

Then humans wondered why the divorce rate was so high.

Siring a childe was much the same. A vampire feels a connection, perhaps they are lonely. They see a mortal who seems to have within them what they want and they turn them. Shortly thereafter the sire is surprised to find out the childe resents them for whatever reason. Only there is not divorce. Disenthrallment doesn’t negate the fact one was sired any more than it negates the fact one was married.

No, Trahir determined that he would not fall victim to the same thing others had in the past. If he was to sire, he would be extremely selective.

How though? Even the most promising of neonate sometimes ended up a disappointment. He’d been called such but literally had laughed it off. Those who thought of him as such were merely pawns in a game played by the maker of the Violations List, and from what Trahir had heard that maker wasn’t even playing the game anymore. Name pops up, names comes off, name pops up, name comes off. It was boring, repetitive and he had better things to do. The ones who had humans as their friends rarely even showed up on the list. He’d spoken to a human in his first nights, Music@Midnight who had revealed to him her room-mate was a vampire and she worked for and hung out with other vampires knowingly. Yet her name, or those of her friends turned up on the list. Flawed beings following a flawed system, he’d had enough. He’d turned his back and walked away.

If even the mightiest covenants of his kind could not act with any semblance of foresight, how was one lone vampire to do so?

Easily. He would stop, think, look at alternatives, options, stop, think some more, then act. He had forever, literally. Why rush to action when inaction was static, easy to control, easy to change?’ Those who sought change for the sake of change were shortsighted idiots. With a little foresight and a year or a decade of planning they could enact such change as to be irrevocable, world-wide and for the betterment of them and all. They wouldn’t though. They would flounder about like a teenager in a girls pants for the first time and **** things up just as badly. Completely ineffectual and remembered only as the first loser to **** up what could have been beautiful.

With his memory erased and journal destroyed, Trahir couldn’t simply find someone from his past who would make a good childe, though that is his first idea. Trumped by his own abilities, fitting in a way. He could appreciate irony.

The walk through the cold night air helping to give the monster in humans clothing time to think also gives time for the thirst within him to build. He thinks back to the first time he awakened in the basement of the abandoned building. The thirst then was a torrent of pain within, his newly turned body feeling hollow, like every vein was constricting, parched and screaming for liquid to feel them. That first night he hadn’t slaked his thirst on a human victim, instead finding a stray dog in an alleyway luckily before the ravenous vampire had made it but a block from the site his eternity had began in.

He had refined his hunting techniques since. Though he found he could subsist on a diet to the blood of animals, Trahir found no satisfaction in taking their life essence for his own. His palate leaned itself toward a more… evolved flavor. He wondered to himself how his sire had felt looking at him the first time. He wondered why he was chosen. Had Davien seen him from a distance and picked him out from the sea of humanity, have Trahir himself been a mistake? A show of humanity on the part of the vampire who had murdered him and forced his resurrection/damnation in a vain attempt to wind back the clock on their own innocence? Had he been turned by his sire to be a companion throughout the ages? Had something happened to his sire? Was he still in Harper Rock? Alive or dead? Were they like so many of the others or were they an intellectual and rational being? Trahir knew literally nothing of them

He knew more about the woman who had adopted him after he stumbled upon her at a businesses grand opening. When he had accidentally rubbed shoulders with some of the most viscous killers in the city. Monsters who hunted monsters for being monsters. Monsters who killed their own because a computer screen told them to. That was a common misconception. Trahir didn’t believe it for a second. No, that was the hype. They were simply monsters being monsters killing monsters because they wanted to. And he had been adopted by their leader.

Trahir, whatever he had been as a human, was not one who worked well in a group. He didn’t play well with others, hated to follow orders unless given by someone he respected and generally felt a bond with. He wasn’t a grunt who would obey anyone with a rank above him. He was a lord of the night, inheritor of the Darkness and he was as glorious a predator as any carnivore that stalked the earth. He was a Killer, not a soldier. Seeing himself above human and most vampires alike, the young vampire was loathe to consider the fact that his last childe had been the epitome of the type of vampire he detested. A layabout, an easily manipulated blind follower with no self-control whatsoever. Trahir had self-control. Though he enjoyed killing, loved to feel flesh go limp, bones snap and the sounds of gurgling blood in a pierced throat as a victims death rattle sent the last of their breath seeping from their bodies in a red, frothy spray, he was careful and methodical in most of his planning and actions. He was systematic and logical to the point of disregarding the thoughts and feelings of those who followed the more emotionally attuned Paths. This did not sit well with those who were “above” him most of the time. His propensity for murder and for his own brand of vigilantism set him aside from those others who worked well as simple followers. Trahir would rather track down a victim and murder them with a surprise attack than await directions on what needed done.

To some, his former sire included that branded him a rogue, a wild card, a loose cannon. When Trahir made up his mind on something he generally approached it with all the drive of a zealot. Thus it was with hunting, real estate, murder, and Jane.

Trahir was a creature of conviction. When he believed something he acted on it. He wasn’t shy about expressing his opinion even if others resented it. When someone he judged a flawed and lesser being was allowed to assert dominance over him, Trahir had been unable to weather the perceived slight and had turned his back on the group that until that moment he would have sworn was where he would remain for his Requiem. He had enjoyed the false modicum of camaraderie, the sense of a higher purpose, the teachings of those who saw the importance of secrecy as he did. Perhaps he was merely following the writings of pseudo-intellectual writers who had delved into their own version of the vampiric condition while comfortable separated from the simple fact that their fiction was less fictional than it really was. Either way, whether he had been seeking acceptance or simply doing what he had felt was “right” for a vampire to do, he had joined and left both the faction and his sire’s side with eyes open.

Even though he saw himself as a solitary hunter, Trahir had sought solace in the company of other vampires. One in particular held his interest and attention above all. His Jane. The “romance” if it could be called such had earned their ire of both his adopted sire and her own maker. One thing had led to another and Trahir had found himself ostracized entirely from everyone he knew within the vampire community of Harper Rock.He found himself an outcast from what he had been told was a family.

Luckily for him he didn’t seem to need them. He had what he needed between Dominique and his thrall, Nicolette. Except one thing. One thing still remained elusive to the young bloodsucker. He wanted power. In a city crawling with vampires banded together into warring factions each with it’s own (usually stupid) agenda, Trahir lacked what was needed to rise to power. Allies. Being a vampire meant there was one sure-fire way to create those alliances. You created the allies yourself. He wanted to sire a childe. A childe like him, who shared the same goals, had the same unerring sense of moral and intellectual superiority over the normal half-baked idiots who thought they owned the night. He needed not just a childe, but a childe worthy of the name Trahison.

They would have to be connected to politics. They would have to be cultured. They would have to be driven to succeed in ways the others didn’t seem to be. He wasn’t planning on throwing tea parties and baking cupcakes. He didn’t want a childe who couldn’t see their nature place in the world, predator to the mortals they had once numbered among. He needed a childe who could quickly come to terms with their new-found powers, weaknesses and place in the world. It was a pity he was not one of those vampires who could read the thoughts or memories of others at a glance. He could only connect with others outside of Jane on that level by one means… blood.

The few kine who were out and about this evening were the kind that sickened him. They were druggies, drunks, and simply the owns with no purpose in life, desperate for a good time to break up the monotony of their pathetic existences or seeking to kill the pain of them. The vampire wanted to help with the latter, a permanent solution to their problems. He had to believe though that somewhere out there among the herd, flawed and broken as most of them were, was his perfect childe. Somewhere. For now though the rising hunger stirring within gives pause to his thoughts on the matter and he sets his mind to the task of finding a suitable vessel.

The act of feeding is a powerful thing. It can be, and is done in as many different ways as there are vampires in Harper Rock. Some troll the clubs, seducing their victim into coming to a more private place with them. Some simply order a thrall to allow their regnant access to their arteries. Still others stalk the alleyways of the city seeking loners and the disenfranchised refuse of the human population and take by force that which the mortals are too weak to defend.

Being a pragmatist and egotist Trahir doesn’t see the mystique behind the blood itself. Until it leaves the humans body and enters his own it is wretched stuff, a weakness waiting to flow out from their bodies with the slightest injury taken; to drain from them and weaken then in a crimson flow purging life from weak flesh. No, there is nothing mystical about the blood. Not until a scion of the night imbibes it, their undead bodies changing it from the useless blood it starts out as into the power infused Anima of the Kindred.Vitae. Blood was a tool, albeit the most important tool in a Kindred’s arsenal. With it their own reserves of power would grow, altering the vampire over time, enhancing their abilities and making them into something no mortal man or woman could hope to match.It was all about imposing ones will over first the kine and then their very blood, making that which was weak and without real, meaningful purpose into something supernatural.

Within his veins the blood of even the weakest human could be called to task to do things thought of as impossible by mortal reckoning.

Of course some saw it differently. Some saw vampirism as a disease. They saw the need for blood as a symptom of that disease and the increased power of the vampire who remained fully fed as the spread of it. They saw the act of making another vampire as heinous. Something akin to knowing passing an STD to their partner. Trahir couldn’t see the correlation. He was no diseased husk like the zombies in the Quarantine Zone. He could think, plan, show restraint, act with foresight. No disease could do the same.

Turning down an alleyway to cut through en route to the club he has decided will host his hunt for blood this evening Trahir finds himself confronted with an all too familiar scene in Harper Rock. Another vampire hunting.
The rogue vampire, no one Trahir recognized had a thousand-yard stare going on. Immediately the Killer knew there was going to be trouble. Following the gaze of the other vampire his eyes alighted on the source of the other vampire’s aggravation.Two humans who have come barreling out of a bar, both throwing punches at one another. A fistfight which would be nothing but a few bruises and maybe a bloody nose or black eye is about to turn lethal for one or both of the humans.

Trahir looked back to the vampire, noting the slack facial expression, the intent focus of the other’s eyes on the bleeding human and he breaks into a run toward the vampire. The rogue, oblivious for the moment to Trahir’s advance breaks into a run toward the two fighters. Without using Celerity there is no chance of catching the vampire and there are potential witnesses out on the street.

Damn it, he thinks as he follows the rogue in a sprint. This is ~not~ how this night is meant to go.
It takes only ten seconds for Trahir to catch up. In that ten seconds though the rogue has backhanded one of the brawlers, sending the mind spinning through the air to land in a crumpled heap further down the alley. The second brawler seems clued-in to the fact his life is in danger, his trying to force the much stronger, the impossibly strong vampire away as it draws him closer, fingers laced into the mortal’s hair and then…

It’s too late. the rogue has clamped down on the source of blood, the man’s nose. Fangs gnashing and cutting deep ruts in the flesh of the fighter’s cheek, shredding skin down to bone and the man wails, trying to fend off the attack. By the time Trahir arrives, his shoulder hitting the rogue in the chest and driving it off the human, there’s been some major damage done.

“Imbecile,” Trahir admonishes the snarling vampire as it turns to him. “In the open? In front of a business? Are you trying to gain the attention of the Owls or just blow Secrecy wide open?” The creature seems uncaring about Trahir’s concerns, turning on him to unleash it’s rage at being disturbed.

With one human down and the other too busy trying to hold their face together, Trahir knows his window of opportunity to do something is small, infinitesimally small given the resilience of his own kind. Were he an Illusionist he could possibly just terrify the other vampire, making it flee into the night. He’s not though.He is a Shifter. a Killer,a Nacromancer, an Allurist and an Immortal. The other vampire is likely too far into Wassail to respond to simple Intimidation, backed by his powers or not. Fear would be needed but it would have to be brought about the old fashioned way. He advances on the enraged vampire with a stony expression of resignation on his face. He wasn’t planning for a fight this evening. Sometimes the best laid plans go to waste though.

It doesn’t take long before Trahir’s martial arts prowess gives the other vampire pause. Shortly after the fight begins, it is over, the other vampire fleeing into the night leaving Trahir with the two humans. He makes his way over to the first, the one flung from the initial. Breathing. Fine, a good sign. He then walks over to the face who is sitting up, his face cupped in his hands as he mumbles, “****** bit me, dude, he bit me, I can’t see!” Trahir reaches out and expressionless, pulls the man’s hands away to expose the wreckage of what what had been his face. No wonder he can’t see, one of his eyes was punctured and the other has a deep gash right below it which is already swollen bad enough to close it.

Trahir slips a pair of gloves on, reaches out and plucks the man’s phone from his pocket as he continues to babble about it hurting and not being able to see. Careful not to get any of the man’s blood on himself, the Killer swipes a thumb across the screen and opens the dial pad. The vampire dials 9-1-1 and sets the phone down, turning away and leaving the two battered mortals to their fates.

-------

Harper Rock. The source of immortality for the Kindred, the creatures of the night, the vampires. Something about a Sundering that made it possible for vampires to return from the grave, not the first time when as a human they found themselves drained of their lifeblood and having it supplanted, replaced by that of their sire. No, beyond that. Even when staked, shot, burned, decapitated, blown up or torn to pieces they returned. At least, as Velveteen had pointed out, for the moment.

The city made it possible. Somehow. Thus it was home to those vampires newly risen from centuries long slumber in the Shadow Realm to those neonates brought low by them or their progeny. One would think that immortality would bring a semblance of wisdom and experience concurrent with the age of the Siring vampires. Not so. The population had simply exploded and within a few short years, vampirism had become and epidemic which the struggling city would almost find it impossible in the long run not to notice. Trahir considered often what would happen when the Masquerade was once and for all gone. No long relegated to myths, spoken stories over campfires and ancient written texts, now photography and video could capture the truth of what they were. The cloud, the Internet, the media could carry it to the furthest reaches of the world within moments.

The last time this had happened, the elders were wiped out. Presumably all of them. Trahir didn’t see how that was even possible. He believed that there were indeed vampires outside of Harper Rock. It was nearly impossible to fathom a world in which one member of their kind hadn’t simply slipped off into the wilderness to subsist on the blood of animals, remaining undetected throughout the years by humans who only recently perfected global satellite surveillance and communications. The purge of their kind, the Vampire Holocaust had to have survivors. To think otherwise was bordering on the absurd.

At the moment though, while learning what to do and what not to do, Harper Rock had become a sort of playground, a kindergarten for their kind. Few of them took what they did seriously. Many of them thought only seconds ahead in the future, few made any real attempts at planning ahead. Half the time the ones that seemed to think about the future envisioned impossible scenarios. True Blood, Twilight, all the cheaply written vampire love novels. True, humans loved the idea of the fantastical world fiction writers handed to them or in some cases shoved down their throat, but the reality of it? Many of his kind were cursed with monstrous supernatural flaws that the humans would never be able to rationalize let alone fall in love with.

From serial killers to vampires who couldn’t help themselves from having a toss with every member of the opposite sex they could get their hands on to those who weakened and killed everything near them, the vampires were not the romantic figures leaping onto the pages of Gothic-themed Harlequin romance books. They were monsters. Many enjoyed shooting each other and reveling in the fact they lived. Others enjoyed shooting humans and relishing in the fact they died.

Harper Rock, a city with unlimited potential was over-run by the weak, the stupid, the insane and the plainly delusional.

Unfortunately for the moment it was home.

Trahir often wondered why he was here to begin with. His social proclivities leaned toward the upper echelon of society. He enjoyed soirees, charity balls, cocktail parties. Harper Rock lacked in all of these on a level akin to a backwoods town in the depths of the bayou populated by gator hunters and inbred families or 20 with three teeth between them.

Trahir refused to believe though, that every inhabitant of the city was without a shred of class. He just had to look harder. He would find those vampires who wished to mingle with the most powerful men and women in the city, province, country, even the world. Due to the immortal nature of their kind they had forever to do so with some planning and care.

If he couldn’t find vampire of a Kindred nature, he would simply create them.

-----

Stepping into the bar, the vampire glances around the establishment. The place is crowded, a good sign and he doesn’t immediately detect any other vampires in the crowd with a casual scan of the front room. If there are other predators there they are keeping a low profile or they have a private section in the back. It wouldn’t surprise him if they did. It also wouldn’t surprise him if they spent their nights holding tea parties while sitting on plastic furniture designed for children.

Trahir preferred to waste his own attempting to accumulate power and wealth. It occurred to him that enthralling a mortal more useful that a tattooed alternative model/artist would be a good first step, but he couldn’t bring himself to be rid of Nicolette when she brought his mate so much pleasure. Jane seemed to like the troublesome little thrall and to keep her happy it was worth tolerating Nicolette’s existence for the moment. In 50 or 60 years she would die of old age regardless and Trahir would be free then to look for a more suitable replacement. What was a few mere decades weighed against the course of centuries or even a millennium or more.

Provided the tea-party hosting kinder-gentler “vampires” didn’t screw everything up for the rest of them, Trahir had all the time in the world.

He inhaled and the scent of humanity filled his nostrils. Not too long ago smoking tobacco had fallen out of favor and in most establishments was banned. This made the vampire happy, the smell of smoke had always bothered him as a mortal. Why anyone would want to suck on burning chemicals was beyond him. From his understanding the only reason people smoked cigarettes was to satisfy the addiction to cigarettes that gave them no real euphoria to begin with. It was inane. It was like a vampire who could eat but not taste the food sitting down to a private seven course meal with no reason other than to do so. Needless.

Not that being able to consume food and drink was an altogether useless skill. Trahir had considered learning the trick simply to fit in better during hunts. In that way the power to eat was invaluable. It lowered suspicion no doubt even in the eyes of hunters who knew of their kind. It was a matter of purpose to him.

Tonight his purpose is twofold, but simple. He wants to feed and he wants to begin looking for a mortal worth grooming carefully and secretly for their impending and unforeseen immortality.

Who though was worthy of his blood? To gift another with the powers of a vampire, with immortality, with the chance to be such a glorious predator? The blood was wasted in his estimation on almost every one he had met thus far. He was beginning to think it was the locale.

He was looking for a beautiful flower in a polluted junkyard and wondering why his search was yielding no results.

There was a lot of drunken idiots, plenty of lecherous married men looking for some strange as they called it and a few ignored and horny housewives looking for someone to scratch an itch their husbands were supposed to be scratching along with servers there simply to make it through the night and make whatever money the others would toss their way.

Oh, and likely a few singles hoping to meet their dream lover posted in a bar waiting for them to walk into their lives. Sad. Pathetic. A man brushed past him on the way out and Trahir actually had to move a shoulder out of the way to avoid contact with the him. He was wearing some military-looking jacket, reeked of sweat and booze and was definitely not the kind of person the Killer wanted touching him. The bartender shouted something to the man in passing about being worth more than this, destined for great things. The vampire personally couldn’t disagree more. Whatever slum or roach infested motel the mortal man had crawled out of had to pale in comparison to even this lackluster environ, which wasn’t saying much.

Five nights. For five nights Trahir had watched her, slaking his dread thirst on other, lesser mortals while allowing the anticipation of the hunt to build within his cold, dead heart. Something about the woman, her tenacity, her ambition, her simple need to know had caught his interest, beckoning him, pulling him to her. She had been hunting him, somehow he felt that even as he had been hunting her. They had become trapped in one another orbit as surely as the earth to the sun, and things were spinning on their own axis in such a way that Trahir found himself drawn as surely as if he were caught in a gravitational field while in free fall. There was nothing to be done but the inevitable descent. He could almost taste her, he could, detect the scent of her delicate skin in his nostrils. He could see in his mind’s eye the moment where his fangs would slip down from his gums, hear the soft and near silent sound of her succulent flesh being punctured by them. He could almost feel the splashing and taste her coppery blood as it erupted forth as he drew it into himself, making her a part of him, mesmerizing and nourishing the suckling Darkness that resided within his decrepit spirit.

She was different than the others, though how he could not have said if asked. She was above the rest of the herd. She exuded confidence and raw femininity, her motions seductive, soft, yielding to the world even as they demanded it’s attention. Her mind was sharp and she did everything with a purpose. Trahir had the feeling that this woman was used to getting anything she wanted and wasn’t afraid to reach out and take it for her own. He could imagine her setting a goal, striving for it with every ounce of her resources and spirit. Attaining it no matter the cost, no matter how long it took.

No matter how long it took. If it was worth it. Trahir sensed in her a kindred spirit.

Five nights he had waited, watched, staving off the inevitable moment of conquest when he would claim her blood, her life. The all-too-brief instant when he would have her intoxicating essence flowing over his tongue and down his ravenous throat. When he would bleed her dry. He would kill her. He would drain her completely for he already knew once he drank in the first taste of her he would not be able to stop. He would treasure every drop of her coppery lifeblood, savor every convulsion and wracking spasm as she fought against him as though she could somehow save herself. He yearned for the moment when the cold, undeniable understanding of her impending demise entered her eyes even as her strength failed her, giving rise to an animalistic desperation matched only by the all-consuming helplessness of the situation.

Yes, Trahir would have her, he would cherish her, he would be the last thought on her mind as he sent her onward to her eternity, freeing her perfect soul from its earthly constraints and making her all the more perfect for it.

Tonight. Tonight his masochistic self-deprivation would end. Tonight her blood would be his.

~TBC~

Trahir sits in the leather recliner off to the left-hand side of the fireplace. In his hand a red wine glass, half filled with a thick, rich red liquid one could not confuse with wine if they tried. The vampire is sipping on his favored vintage in celebration of the restoration of the farmhouse being complete. Workers have diligently been fixing it up, the floors sanded, refinished, the walls repainted, draperies hung, new furniture purchased and brought in and most importantly, the signs of any mishaps carefully removed by Trahir and his thrall Nicolette. The interior appears transformed from the disused husk the four college-aged students had wandered into when they had located his journal.Only the upstairs remains untouched. The footprints from the four intruders on the dusty floor had told Trahir they had never made it to checking out the floors above. The fire has burned down to orange-red coals, casting minimal light across the room. In the bathroom, new tile and wallpaper was laid, the same with the kitchen and until he has had time to stave off any investigating parties, the farmhouse is an elysium of sorts. No violence will be done there to immortal or mortal alike.

He’d just returned from the Tytonidae auction, having given Doc a missive and requesting a meeting with his now-former adopted sire. Her husband, Micah had been none too pleased and from the moment he walked in ‘til the moment he left the aura of distrust and animosity had filled the air, so pervasive, so thick, so as to be nearly palpable. He had bid half heartedly on a few items, having decided not to expend his resources, but simply make inroads to open the lines of communication between his former allies and family.

That was done now. His goal of setting a meeting with the older vampire had been somewhat successful, in a way perhaps more so with Micah’s firm refusal to attend. From day one they had not seen eye to eye. Trahir couldn’t see any hope of rectifying the situation through diplomacy with a man who refused to be diplomatic at all. Velveteen was more receptive to the attempt.

As for Doc, the young Killer had no idea where their twisted little road would lead them. Jane was a huge factor for the both of them and Trahir couldn’t see a simple solution others than to simply agree to disagree. His bond with the woman was as essential and simple in his mind as his need for the blood of the living. Doc was her sire and felt perhaps that Trahir was invading his territory by his actions and the eventual ramifications of Trahir and Jane’s early encounters. Even now, Trahir was still more surprised than anything else how everything had happened. He supposed he shouldn’t be. This was Harper Rock. Many things made no sense here especially when one was a part of the hidden supernatural world.

He was unsure if Doc would simply discard the scroll, emblazoned with the seal of Trahir’s Bloodline, a tiny Bloodline at that. Trahir had learned from his first childe to be careful in who he turned. Thus far the prospects he had considered had not at all been adequate in his mind. The letter he’d given Doc was fairly simple. An invitation for the older vampire to set a time to meet.

It read:


------------
Doc,

Though our last encounter was less than intellectually worthy of either of us, the
conversation somewhat lacking and quickly cut off, I would request you entertain a meeting of a
more philosophical bent. I believe there has been some grievous misunderstandings perpetrated
by another on the nature of my intent on a matter we share a common, albeit entirely different,
interest in. I would like to invite you to attend a meeting where perhaps we may interact in a
manner more suited to our station and education. We should speak over dinner perhaps at my
farmhouse. I have had the interior redone to be more accommodating to visitors since last you
were there.

If you would kindly R.S.V.P. with a vintage you find suitable to your palate I will make
preparations for everything to be in order upon your arrival which of course the time of which is to
be determined by yourself.

I hope we can bring our differences to a speedy resolution, I truly do have much respect
for you and I am deeply distressed to think I have wronged or upset you. I consider you, as ever,
my instructor and am in need of your teaching as much now as then. Though I have wronged you,
I respectfully request you do not leave me bereft of your companionship and teachings. Allow me
to understand the trespass I have offered, the chance to learn from it, and the opportunity to make
amends.

Sincerely,
T
------------


Names had been omitted though Trahir had to grit his teeth to avoid writing them out along with lineage, Bloodline and Faction affiliations. He preferred everything to be formal, classy. It rarely was though in Harper Rock. Doc though, Doc he knew could rise past the baser nature of their very being. Doc was like Trahir. He was an educated man, an intellectual, better than the morons who espoused their pseudo-vegetarian feeding choices and wanted to save every damned creature they thought was even remotely cute. Doc was, like him a creature of forethought and design. A hybrid of political might and the physical aptitude to bring it to bear.

He raised the glass of blood to his lips and sipped down the last of the contents. “Innocence” the vintage was known as when bottled at Arbor Vitae. Trahir however had decided this night on the “fresh-squeezed Not From Concentrate” version, the liquid flowing from the glass as the embers fell to darkness.

He sat across the bar from the beauty. She'd noticed him. He pretended the opposite. He watched her through his peripheral vision, he was unhurried. He'd denied himself this moment to let the desire, the hunger for her grow within him. He would not sully it now by showing the mounting desperation for her. He rose from the bar stool, moved out toward the dance floor. He chose a spot among some of the kine who swayed, twisted, gyrated and spun with one another and let his own body find the rhythm of the music. He was not a bad dancer at all, he was quite good. Far from a professional quality, but he had taken the time to learn how to dance where others simply fell back on the infamous shuffling with their fingers snapping to the music. Instead he flowed among the humans, gracefully and predatory like the creature of the night he was. He actually had to restrain himself from utilizing a level of dexterity which would have seemed impossible.

As he spun, he caught her eyes finally, allowed his movements to catch as though he'd be struck. self-deprecation was not Trahir's strong point but the fallacy of such was something of a necessary illusion being what he was and he resumed his movements with the occasional obvious glance in the lady's direction. She returned each glimpse with one of her own. Yes, she was intrigued by him perhaps as much as he was with her.

The song ends, Trahir stops dancing and adjusts his tie as he makes his way over to the bar. She turns her bar stool toward him as he approaches and leans casually against the bar next to her. "I'll take a glass of water and a..." he glances to her drink, over half gone in front of her and then lets his eyes catch hers. "Another cosmopolitan for the lady. Finlandia, I believe." He tore his gaze away from her as if with an effort and looked to the bartender, flashing her a wide smile.

"Just put it on my tab."

The bar tender smiled back and headed off to make the drink as Trahir turned his attention back to the mysterious woman he'd been obsessing about for nearly a week. "Sorry, I should have asked."

"No, it's fine, I was due another. Who are you? Not a lot of men bother learning how to dance around here."

Trahir looked down as if embarrassed by the compliment, his nostrils inhaling gently, drawing in the scent of her perfume, her skin and beneath it, that which he truly desires, the flowing lifeblood within her vascular system. "I took lessons so I wouldn't embarrass myself at charity balls. I'm still very much a student though. My name is Hunter." He'd decided on the ironic name a while back and only now had the chance to utilize it. He looks up to her then, a slightly shy expression on his face. "And you are?"

~TBC~