Styria by Night

The first night of trying to sleep with an angry vampire in the room was the most difficult, despite said vampire being trussed up to a chair, with a garlic necklace for good measure. Laura's eyes sprang open with every shift of leather, creak of the chair or frustrated sigh. It wasn't until Laura decided that Carmilla was making noise just to keep her awake that she was finally able ignore her enough to fall asleep. Carmilla spent the remaining hours before dawn blaming her inability to escape on the half-bottle of champagne she had drunk just so her mind would be fuzzy enough to seduce Laura without any serious prodding from her conscience.

The following afternoon proved that it wasn't just the champagne. Despite her strength, Carmilla couldn't get the necessary leverage to bust free, thanks to the smart ginger's surprising capability with ropes and knots. The ropes wrapped around her torso made it impossible to change the angle of the chair's backrest, which might have given her some wiggle room; but that was secondary to her wrists and ankles being so efficiently tied and secured to three of the chair's five legs. The study chair itself was also frustratingly solid in construction. She could only glare as she was forced to watched Laura edit together her latest video, refusing to break her silent treatment even when the child typed '10 cloves of garlic' instead of '10 bulbs of garlic' for a stupid segueway instead of showing the actual fight. Yes, the ending was humiliating, but cracking Xena's eye and Will's shoulder would be worth it.

At least Laura didn't delete the raw footage from the camera.

And on the second day, she offered to wipe off Carmilla's increasingly smudged lipstick. On the condition that she not bite her fingers off, yes, but not an offer one would typically extend to an assumed fiend of hell. Still pissed at being tied up and starved, though, so she continued the quiet glaring.

The vampire was woken on the third day by a tissue being dragged across her lips. The hand bearing the tissue jerked back when her eyes opened, and she mumbled a drowsy, "Seriously?" before remembering she was supposed to be giving Laura the silent treatment.

The teenager stared for a moment, then nervously reached back over and finished the job. The look Carmilla gave her when she was finished bore no sign of gratitude, but at least it was more stare than glare. Depositing the tissue in the bin, Laura turned to her desk and set the camera recording. "Good afternoon, viewers, and welcome to day three of Operation Stupid Obstinate Vampire Won't Talk..."

Carmilla frowned and looked away, forced to listen as her roommate admitted that she had no idea how long a vampire could go without blood, but assumed that her continued silence was proof that she was guilty of something involving the missing girls and accidental death of Sarah Jane. Her mother wouldn't be happy about that, and was glad she had been too busy being ambushed by toddlers to have been involved. Of course, it was probably only a matter of time before her current predicament caught up with her... she seethed internally as the journalism student beside her prattled on.

Laura had stopped posting videos the night of Carmilla's capture, but it wasn't until the vampire's phone started complaining of a weak battery that she got another idea. By day three, Carmilla's absence had been noted by study buddies and the like, and while disappearing was starting to sound like the fashionable thing for girls to do at Silas this year, it might be better to keep any enquiring minds from worrying too much.

"What are you doing?" Carmilla growled as she observed Laura doing more than just plugging the recharge cable into her phone.

"I'm... going on your twitter account to tell people you've gone to... Iceland."

The vampire scoffed.

"Or Vegas," Laura amended as she continued tapping at the phone.

"Oh, please. Paris or New York, at least."

"You mean where people might know you, and know you're not really there? Yeah, right."

Carmilla had not been thinking along those lines, though if Mattie grew suspicious... no, she would never live it down if her sister found her in these circumstances. "Why would I go to Vegas?"

"Probably to lose all the money you've stolen," Laura grumped, setting the phone down and returning to her computer. "But y'know what? Fine. Iceland it is."

And with that, Carmilla was forced to watch as the teenager poorly photoshopped an image of Carmilla into an Icelandic hot spring.

Pisha had been as unaware of Silas University as everyone else, and had no intention of going anywhere near it... but looked forward to hearing all about it while Vale was there. The Black Hand would certainly be interested in whatever was really going on there.

Vale had little time to contemplate this as he was evading the Tremere of the Paris chantry.

The Lasombra had diablerized three of his fellow Cainites in the course of his unlife, draining soul as well as blood, considered by the Camarilla to be one of the most vile acts one Cainite can inflict upon another. The first had been in a starved frenzy following hours of torture; in the throes of the Beast, Vale had simply kept feeding even after his torturer's blood was gone. It allowed his escape from Madrid, one of the strongest bastions of the Sabbat. After being sired by a Lasombra independent of the Sabbat, joining the sect was the best way to expand his ability and education with Obtenebration, the discipline that had become his obsession.

The second was perhaps the most damning, because it had been by choice. An archbishop of the Sabbat, a Lasombra elder, was at his mercy, and Vale chose to diablerize him for the power he would gain. As a Cainite of the eighth generation, his talent for Obtenebration had limits imposed by how far removed he was from Caine. Consuming the elder's soul brought him a step closer to Caine, making him capable of so much more, including entering the Abyss itself. After decades of studying Abyssal Occultism, it was a dream come true.

The third was a Parisian Tremere, hence all the fuss. Vale had been incapacitated and delivered to the Tremere in question. Intending to force the Lasombra into his service, he attempted to persuade Vale to sign a blood contract; when Vale refused, the Tremere resorted to Domination. Unfortunately, after the extensive mind-fuckery Vale's sire had put him through, unsuccessful attempts to Dominate him tended to result in frenzy... and since becoming seventh generation, there were far fewer Cainites capable of pulling it off. This time, however, the victim's soul did not go down so easily. Its influence remained for years, even after it could no longer remain a voice in Vale's head.

Vale had never known how long he had been in torpor before the Tremere had revived him, but it had certainly been long enough to take some of the Lasombra's blood, his vitae, which they could preserve in their magical vials and perform various thaumaturgic rituals. The clan of undead warlocks kept the full extent of their abilities as secret as possible, but it was not hard to guess that they had some way to warm them when he was back in town and guide them to his precise location. The more unpleasant option was that they had done something to him, left some magical mark or inplanted something he had been unable to discover, which was leading them right to him.

It took a whole night of evasion before the Lasombra considered the possibility of a tracking method as mundane as the smartphone in his pocket.

Descending into the catacombs beneath Paris as the sun rose, he hid the phone in one alcove before wrapping himself in shadow and settling into the alcove opposite. It would be difficult to remain conscious during the sunlit hours but he had done it before, and it was an absolute necessity when dealing with any of the Camarilla clans. They loved their ghouls, and had made good use of them during the six days collectively referred to as the Battle of New York. Building fires, burst gas mains and even a sabotaged Sabbat-owned tanker truck full of acid, all during the daytime; by the time the Camarilla ghouls were done, a fifth of the Sabbat force in the city had been destroyed on the first day.

Sure enough, the Tremere ghouls came, armed with flaming torches and sawn-off double-barrel shotguns that were probably loaded with incendiary ammunition. It had taken Vale's leg off at the knee the last time he was in town, and since ghouls (probably) couldn't throw fireballs... best to assume the worst.

There were three of them. The first two came into view as each took an alcove to cover. The third stepped between them to cover the tunnel ahead. The Cainite gradually tensed as he observed them, drawing shadowy tentacles from the surrounding darkness, granting them a solidity contrary to nature as he waited for them to show more interest in one side or the other.

The ghoul in the phone alcove paused, then turned to face Vale, revealing the headset he was wearing. Of course. The Tremere would not trust mere mortal tools with whatever was being used to locate the Lasombra. Which meant...

Vale quickly twisted the Arms of the Abyss from tentacles into large flat surfaces. As soon as the lead ghoul had stepped into the tunnel between the alcoves, a wall of darkness slammed into them from the direction they had come, only to be struck back by another at the opposite end. Now divested of their flame and firearms, the mortal trio collapsed onto the third Arm which head spread across the floor while they were being bounced about, slamming them into the crumbling brickwork of the ceiling. Withdrawing into tentacles once more, each wrapped themselves around the nearest ghoul from elbow to knee, pinning their arms to their sides, and suspending them upside-down in the air.

Dispelling the Shadowplay that had kept Vale hidden from view, the Lasombra stepped forward and plucked the headset from the lead ghoul before inspecting it. There was no camera that he could see, just an earpiece and microphone. He donned the paraphanalia himself and listened in silence for a long moment before drawing a breath.

"Inadequate. Insulting."

There was no response.

"You are this one's regnant, I assume," Vale continued, before reaching forward and neatly snapping the lead ghoul's neck. Something between a grunt and a gasp finally issued from the earpiece, confirming the Lasombra's theory. Tremere had a ritual, a version of a mortal location spell powered by Cainite vitae instead of the magic that the warlocks used to draw from when they were still mortal members of the Order of Hermes. It gave the user an indication of direction and proximity. The only way a Tremere could use the ritual remotely is if the ghoul on the field was connected to him by more than the usual bloodbond. Vale was aware of another ritual that allowed a regnant to be aware of the ghoul's physical condition. Someone in the clan most have worked out a variation that allowed the remote scrying demonstrated here.

The Lasombra was aware of these facts because there was one boon that came with the lingering soul of a Tremere.

"Usurper," he growled as he stepped toward the next ghoul, "You will bring me what is mine. All of it."

*snap*

"If you do not, only the Man in Dark Robes himself can stop me from ripping through your wards and tearing your chantry down, and all of you with it."

*snap*

"And call me crazy if you wish, but I suspect he is no longer in town," the Lasombra finished wickedly before dismissing the Arms, allowing the bodies to fall to the floor. The headgear followed, to be crushed under Vale's boot as he moved to retrieve his phone before leaving the scene in the opposite direction from which the ghouls had come.