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Mabel crept through the tunnel. No fun this, no time for tears though. She could remember how it used to be... she and Hanson, a team, or so it had seemed. She realized how hurt he had been when she'd been changed, but despite how empathic she knew he was, she was just as sure that he would never be able to understand how she felt now. She looked at Rachel sometimes and wept... nasty clotted blood tears, but she couldn't stop the hot flow. How utterly horrible to be that. Victoria had helped her learn to cloak her newly coarsened flesh in the blindness of mortals, and she used this ability mostly to lurk at the scenes of what she had lost, and let visions of vengeance wander through her mind. She would destroy those who had done this to her. Singlehandedly, if she had to.
She was in a tunnel that led to Victoria's secret passage to Blake's office building. She'd followed Victoria there one day, showing off her new learning of the ways of the Nosferatu. Now she huddled in it frequently. Victoria had told her that it was only the Malkavians and the Toreadors, and Tremere - those with special heightened senses from their vampiric natures - who could see her now. Other Nos, and the Ventrue Prince, were as blind to her as the mortals. Gangrel might somehow smell her with animal senses... but she could spy safely on Hanson, and she did so, peeking at him night after night. Remembering how it felt to love him more than life itself... now only the lingering memories of that love were with her, the feeling itself as crushed as all her hopes were.
After half the night spent watching Hanson, Mabel went to her new secret place, where she'd started to stockpile things for her vengeance. She could find the anarchs, and spy on them invisibly - Brujah couldn't see her either - and she would destroy them all. She was so set on this that she did not care if she also killed innocent people in the process... that was the price paid by innocence. She had already suffered it. At least the others would die cleanly...
see more about Cynthia in the Elizabeth Feildric story section
Cynthia was sitting in the leather couch that filled out a corner of Elizabeth's apartment with a black shine, trying to relax after a hard night. She had met with one of the few patients of hers that was willing to see her only after dark, but she feared she was losing him as well. She felt that her rational temper had deteriorated immensely, and the impatience and anger she couldn't keep out of her voice anymore were driving those who were supposed to trust her away little by little. She knew they didn't notice themselves, but she did.
Having fidgeted on the couch a little, Cynthia rose and walked around aimlessly in the living room for a while, stretching her legs and letting her hair hang loose over her eyes. She opened and closed them, then looked through the blonde strands around at the darkened apartment.
Cynthia wandered through the apartment, something she did not do normally. She was always a strong respecter of others' privacy, she did not poke around curiously, it was wrong. Still, she felt restless, she needed to go somewhere, but Elizabeth had asked her not to leave the apartment until her return. A small room, probably a storage closet. She pushed against it reluctantly, but it did not open. She looked down at the doorknob.
The door was locked but the key was still there, and she turned it with a click, and it swung inward. Beyond was darkness, and as the seconds ticked away silently like minutes, walls, a chair and a bench became slowly visible as her eyes learned to love the dark. The color of the wall was discernable only as shadowed, dark grey or brown like aged bark, and a faint odor of something organic could be tasted in the stale air. Moments like these, in the dark, were always the same. She relished the quiet time that passed endlessly without count, a thought at a time like this lasted forever.
A person lay on the bench, or bed, one knee bent and his arms folded like a sacrament cramp. When her eyes crawled from the darkness to the wall to the bed, and inevitably focused, she recognised the face of the man who had taken her life and the blood-soaked shaft that jutted from his chest.
Cynthia backed away and locked the door with her jaws frozen apart in a silent scream, like she was choking on the charnel fragrance of the scene that still was all she could see. She stumbled back to the living room retracing her steps blindly, and when she was back in the living room she leaned against the wall wearily. She couldn't feel whether she was holding back the tears or not, but the shock passed quickly, leaving her alone once more. Nodding, she walked into the kitchen to pour herself a drink.
"Hello, Cynthia August speaking."
"Hey, Cindy. So, how'd you pull it off? I need a little advice here."
"Who is this?"
"Just call me Archie, for now. It's not my name. I'm just a guy in the same situation you were, wanting to get where you are now."
"I don't follow."
"I left the Steel Fangs. Just in time, I think, I hear they got wiped. So, how'd you get all legitimate, anyway? Chad said --"
"Who's Chad?"
"Oh come on, don't play dumb with me. The guy Bryon saved you from getting turned by, Cindy. That Chad."
"I... don't know what you mean, but I think I should hang up now."
"No, no, don't do that. I need your help. Right now, if they find me, they'll do me. But not you. Tell me how you did it."
"Maybe I can help you. You have to tell me more about yourself, though."
"I'll tell you a little story about a guy named Archie. He was in a gang. He thought he was a hard case. But there was a lot worse in this world than he had reckoned on. One day they came for him and his brothers. Turned them from human scum into vampire scum. Except for Archie. Archie realized what they were, and he got the hell out of there. But he had nowhere to go. Demons all around, and he was one of them, so the angels, if they existed, weren't gonna do anything but send him back where he supposedly belonged. But he heard tell of someone who'd got out of hell and into, no, not heaven, but at least purgatory. That's you, Cindy. And I wanna know how. I'll do what it takes, I know it won't be easy, but help me."
"Yes." A long pause. "They're dead. I saw it happen. And good riddance. But how am I supposed to trust you? Maybe you're just one of them who escaped, trying to get some kind of revenge..."
"You have to trust me. Cause if you don't, I got no hope left. You gotta."
"You're... okay. I'll do what I can. It's not like there's anything you don't already know. You keep it secret, ok? Promise me that, and I'll try to figure a way out for you. Deal?"
"Yes. I wouldn't have told anyone anyway. That'd only hurt you and wouldn't help me any."
"Oh." Another long pause. "Well, where should we meet?"
"Thank you. You won't regret this."
"Maybe I already do."
Note: this story-segment (up to the horizontal line) is set in an alternate history of DbN where Lucille Semingsworth rather than Sebastian Thorne was found guilty of the Seneschal's murder.
She really should finish this sandwich. She'd been sitting for she couldn't remember how long, staring at it. Ginevra tapped her index finger lightly against her cheekbone.
It was the memories getting to her. She still found it impossible to believe that Lucille had really plotted the Seneschal's death. Even though Blake had laid all the evidence in front of her, from hundreds of years ago, of the horrible things in her former employer's past, she just couldn't square that in her mind with the memories of her generous, kind, beloved Lucille. It just was not possible.
Not that Blake was not also kind. He was. He'd been nothing short of a true Prince to her, more than anyone, by rescuing her after the fateful event. But the memories kept at her, jabbing tiny slivers into her normal attitude of calm competence. She had always been good at putting things out of her mind that she didn't want to think about. Luckily for her, because things she couldn't stand to think about - they kept right on happening.
She looked up from her desk --
Unseen, Mabel looked on, anger and jealousy near the boiling point as she watched the usurper go about what should have been her task, her assignment. And what an assignment - the Prince had offered amnesty to the remaining anarchs. Any of them that had survived, save the one still under the blood hunt - her very sire - were now, if they presented themselves within the next week - to be permitted to rejoin the Camarilla with all past crimes pardoned. If it were not that he had exempted the one who wronged her most severely, Mabel would have been unable to suppress her fury. As it was, she watched from her hiding place, as Ginevra - it should have been her - the ex ghoul of the renegade Ventrue murderer handed out freedom to the criminals who'd destroyed her life.
-- and met Phillip's eyes. Dark and haunted, the young Brujah neonate turned his palms upward and opened his mouth, though no sound came out. Ginevra asked him gently what he had to tell her. Finally the words came. "I'm here for the amnesty. I heard bout it, and I didn't wanna take down the system anyway. We all got something to prove, but I ain't gonna go killing and doin' bad to prove mine. So... what've I gotta do?"
Mabel trailed Philip, invisibly, after he left Oxy Tower. The young man strode cautiously yet vigorously along the streets, seeming to know exactly where he was going. Soon he ducked into a small, dark corner bar and grill. He sat down opposite a blond woman who looked about 30. Mabel drew close, breathing in the scent of the woman, almost but not quite touching her, unseen and unsuspected. Another vampire, she thought. No warmth, no scent of pulsing blood under the skin. She stepped back and leaned against the wall out of the way, watching the two. They looked like a social worker and one of her cases...
Cynthia looked up from the drink she had bought as a prop, to see the ex-anarch sliding into the booth opposite her. "How'd it go?" she asked him with a somewhat ironic, brief smile.
"Nothin' to it," he told her breezily. His eyes, haunted, belied his light tone.
"No? You just waltz in, say Hi I'm an Anarch but I didn't want to be, can I join your club? and they say Sure, fine, welcome to the family?" Cynthia smiled again, falsely.
"About that." He seemed determined not to give her any more.
She was damned if she was going to try to read his mind or any of that bullshit that Elizabeth would do. She didn't believe for a second it had been that easy, but it didn't matter, she told herself. Her mantra at times like this was always, he's not my patient. "So, what're you gonna do now?"
He glanced at the door, then around. No one was there, the nearest visible person was the bartender, much too far away to overhear. "Well. For one, my name's Philip. Philip Zane." He'd never told her that before. Not any of them. Just "Archie," his alter ego. He'd picked the name because he figured "Arch" is the opposite of anarch...
She extended her hand across the table to shake his. "Hi, Philip. Cynthia August." They shook hands.
Her hand was cool in his, her eyes likewise. He was not sure what to think of her. If they'd both been alive, he'd have known the only way he'd ever get close to her would be getting the gang together to follow her into some dark alley, take her purse, rape her, maybe they'd let him go first since he found her... but it was all different now. They had something in common no two living people ever did, they were fellow murder victims of the same killers. He wasn't the same bastard he'd been when he was alive, either, and all of his gang were dead, one way or the other. Most of them the don't-get-up-and move-around way, now. He thought about the Spawn comics he always liked. That was him, now. The Man from Hell, but not listening to the Devil. And if there still were around, any other hellspawn who'd come out of the pit with him, those were the enemy - once his brothers, not anymore. He had no illusions they'd go for the amnesty, or keep to its rules if they did. Now -- now this was his sister, here. Finally he removed his hand, that she was no longer shaking for several moments by then. "Are we the only ones?" he asked at length.
"I .. no, there's at least one. Elizabeth told me. She... they abducted her from Blake's office, she worked for him..."
Mabel could not see, she knew they were talking about her, what did they mean, comparing themselves to her? They weren't Nos. They hadn't been driven from the warm safe love of the most wonderful being in the world into the most horrible hideous form and existence, not like her, what right did they have... the blood tears blinded her. She caught them in her hand lest they drip to the floor and betray her presence. She tried to calm herself. Couldn't she have a bit of sympathy for them, they were, it seemed, fellow victims of hers, though not as cruelly treated. Perhaps they'd even be sympathetic, see how much worse her fall had been than theirs, maybe at least someone... No, of course not. They'd take one look at her, see nothing but the monster, and want nothing to do with her. Why even try, when it's doomed to fail. She stayed hidden in the shadows.