Crimson Horror
"...Welcome to day nine of Operation: Stupid Obstinate Vampire Roommate Won't Talk, which is all she has to do and we will totally give her this nice yummy blood to drink..."
It was hard to focus, though Laura's voice could still grab her attention. In her current state, Carmilla's body had quit most of the habits that helped her pass for a living, breathing, human being. No breathing meant no smelling until Laura said the magic word and waved a mug full of blood under her nose, but even if the vampire was too old for hunger-driven control loss, she was too far gone for it to make any difference.
Carmilla noticed Laura tense up suddenly, then rush to the door. Had someone knocked? She hadn't heard. The teenager was beyond her senses now, nothing left to keep her... she started twitching as she began to sink into oblivion...
Her senses jolted back to full awareness with the first mouthful of blood. Laura was holding her head up and feeding her. Her tense body was starting to relax... had she been convulsing?
With new blood coming in, her body decided it was past time to let the old blood go. Carmilla abruptly stopped drinking at the first stabbing sensation in her abdomen, but it was too late. "Damn it," she cursed as her period started.
Laura paused and asked, "Do you want some more?"
"...Fine." It was too late, and Carmilla did not know when she would get to feed again; might as well take what she could while it was being offered.
It took a couple more gulps for to realise that the blood was human. The fact that her own blood supply must have gone bad by now quickly followed. She pulled away and asked, "Where'd you get that?"
"Uh..." the teenager hesitated before the explaining in a rush, "We figured that we might need some leverage so LaFontaine got it from the campus hospital, she told them it was for an experiment about... hemophagy."
Carmilla had no idea what that was, and didn't care as long as the human had not acquired it from the same source as all the vampires on campus did. Her thoughts were interrupted as Laura tried to wipe her bloody lip and she jerked back instinctively from such a humiliating gesture, something she was incapable of explaining without prefacing it with an insult or two.
"...The night that we caught you, it sure looked like you were about to eat me."
That statement caused the vampire's brain to stall so badly that she spoke without thinking. "Wait, you thought that was me trying to eat you?"
"Well, if you weren't trying to eat me, then what were you trying to... oh."
Oh no. The vampire turned away, utterly incapable of observing the look on Laura's face, or anything else in her direction. Or on that side of the room. Possibly that whole hemisphere.
"Oh!"
Please, god, no.
"So, when you were hitting on me, you were really hitting on me!"
"Yes," Carmilla sighed, "And you were luring me into a trap." A giggle from the child proved to be the final nail in the coffin. "Could you just stake me now, 'cause I think that would be less mortifying than this conversation."
"Wow, that is... okay, even if I was to believe you, that still doesn't explain what you were doing at the parties and how you know all the missing girls." And just like that, Lauronica was back in Mars Mode. "If you want us to trust you, you have gotta tell us your side of the story."
"My side of the story..."
Ell had never asked to hear her side of the story.
Suddenly, Carmilla did want to tell Laura her story. Of course, the teenager wanted to film the whole thing, and then there was that half hour of watching her hastily cut fabric and stitch a few sock puppets together... and how long had she had that cardboard theatre piece lying around? Watching the puppet with fangs that pointed the wrong way attack puppet Mircalla was rediculous; in truth, she had been strangled to death by an ordinary man who somehow took offence to the countess of Karnstein being so beautiful. When maman raised her, the man was facedown on the floor at the woman's feet, looking on in abject terror. Carmilla had drained him dry.
Laura kept trying to make her story a comedy, even when she explained her part in the ritual. It was not until she reached Ell's betrayal that the girl quit it with the puppets.
Carmilla mentioned the coffin as briefly as she could. Yes, she had literally rotted away under the earth, but she skipped over how she had been conscious for the entire experience, or how decades had felt like centuries before the explosives of the second world war had released her... or how many she had killed once night had fallen. Soldiers, refugees, dying or living...
Laura did not untie her, and after being stuck on her ass for nine days, the feeling of her abdomen being crushed in a vice was now being accompanied by the incessant sensation of someone drilling into her tailbone. The wetness travelled downward and then spread, there was nothing Carmilla could do about it, and on top of that she was still hungry. Respite only came with the evening, when Laura's friends gathered to discuss the latest revelations. LaFontaine duct taped a lidded cup with a straw to the vampire's bonds; they also set up their laptop to keep her entertained, or at least distracted while everyone watched the video of of her tragic backstory. Unfortunately, the only benefit to The Vampire Diaries was how much she could mock it, and the ginger squad still didn't want to let her loose.
Then Will paid them a visit in the middle of the night.
What did Laura expect? She was a vampire, she was pissed off, and she'd been bleeding into her leather pants for the last twenty hours. Spending the last few minutes on her feet had just given the blood somewhere new to go, and if she didn't do something about it soon...
She started the shower before carefully kicking off her shoes and unfastening the corset. For a moment she considered laying down a towel, but with a muttered, "Fuck it," she simply stepped into the shower before peeling off the leather pants. She wouldn't be wearing them for a long while... assuming she didn't just burn them.
Ratting out the Tremere to Villon had been the right call. Since that night, the Masque had been set to the task of tracking them down. One of the six traditions was to present yourself to the prince of a city when you arrived; that the Tremere had failed to do so implied that they were either up to no good, or they assumed they would be sent straight back the way they had come. Three nights later, three Tremere were brought before prince Villon.
In deference to the Final Death of Markus Mueller in his city, Villon spared their unlives on the condition that they left the city immediately; the Masque would be escorting them to ensure they did exactly that. In deference to the prince, Vale chose not to interfere until they well clear of French soil; or airspace, as it turned out. They had flown from Vienna to Reims and infiltrated Paris through the nineteenth arrondissement. The pilot and co-pilot came with the plane, so the Lasombra had not deprived them of crew when killing the ghouls in the catacombs. A company plane from Vienna suggested that the heirarchy of the clan had sent them to Paris. Vale had never been able to glean what Mueller had done to him, and he had taken the opportunity to find out while making his way to Silas University. Whatever these Tremere were using to track him, he could not allow it to reach the clan's stronghold in Vienna, especially if it was his blood. If they could enact a blood curse against the entire Assamite clan, there was no telling what they might do with the blood of a single Cainite. Regardless, he could not allow himself to be tracked to Silas.
Decius had shadowed Jean Paul and kept its master apprised of developments, including the arrival of the Tremere plane in Paris. Tonight, once Vale entered the Abyss once more, it guided him to the correct airport.
The Kindred loved their private airplane hangers. Three cars, each bearing three Masque and one Tremere, came to a stop a safe distance from the private jet. Only Jean Paul remained in the passenger seat of the first car, watching as his men escorted the warlocks to the plane even as his instincts informed him that he was still not alone.
"Monsieur Valley."
"I go by Vale, these days."
"Your behaviour has not improved since our last meeting."
"On the contrary. If not for our shared allegiance, I would have told the prince his prized sheriff is a member of the Black Hand."
"You have no allegiance," Jean Paul scoffed.
"In which case, your betters have chosen to make use of me until I perish through my own folly. But there have been changes. I am not as close to the Beast as I once was, and I am willing to do my part as the Final Nights wane. The threat of the antediluvians is real, and they must be stopped."
The Toreador considered this, then asked, "What are your intentions?"
"To take back what Mueller took from me. These Tremere have it now. Their ghouls had as much luck in finding me as yours did."
"If you want to avoid-"
"I promise nothing beyond waiting until they are away from your homeland."
Silence fell as Jean Paul watched the jet receive the Tremere and seal them inside. Vale's presence seemed to linger even as his subordinates turned back to the cars, and his silence became more unnerving than his conversation. The Toreador ran a hand down his face, and as it hid his mouth, he muttered, "You're going to miss your flight."
"I'll catch up," the Lasombra's voice whispered from within Jean Paul's own ear. He managed to reduce his flinch to a mere twitch, but it was enough. The amusement in Vale's voice as he chuckled could not be mistaken.
Within the Abyss, Vale stayed perfectly still until the driver returned to the car and bore Jean Paul away, though the other two remained to observe takeoff. He knew he was technically capable of keeping up with the aircraft, barring interruption, but Lasombra travelling the Abyss tend to attract entities of equal power. A poorly-timed attack could ruin everything. On the other hand, they were probably trying to find him as soon as they were ensconced in the privacy of the aircraft, and he had no idea if their ritual could identify his relative position from where he was now. If he was currently hidden from their ritual...
Decius was able to sustain itself in the physical world by being fed a small measure of its master's vitae every night. Vale gave it a mental command to return to the mausoleum and manifest there, then return to him the following night. It understood and obeyed. If he was right about how they were tracking him, they might be tricked into believing they had left the antagonistic Lasombra behind in Paris.
The jet engines that had been idling until now increased power, and the aircraft started making its way out of the hanger. Vale drifted in its wake. The surge of power as it took off meant nothing in the Abyss, though it took a moment for the Lasombra to match speed with the sudden acceleration. The plane began to turn eastward as it gained altitude, but eventually its course and speed settled. Once it did, Vale split his attention between maintaining his spead and distance from the jet, and his own more shadowy surroundings. Night Sight did not differentiate between the Abyss and the fragmented intelligences that dwelled within it, but he would feel it if something approached, like a ripple in water, if he was alert.
It took longer than he expected. Perhaps he drew less attention to himself when travelling this fast, but experience had taught him to assume what could go wrong, would. The aircraft probably was out of French airspace by the time something in the Abyss shifted and began to give chase. Vale pushed a little harder, mingling with the shadows within the jet, passing from tail to the cockpit. The deepest shadow save for closed cabinets was in the entryway. The Lasombra situated himself as readily as he could, then pushed out as well as forward.
Vale leapt out of the shadow, landing on all fours on the carpeted cabin floor, next to the doorway and folded staircase by which the Tremere had entered the aircraft. He did not wait to discern if the thump of his landing had been noticed. Remaining crouched, he pulled a pair of stakes from the outer pockets of his trenchcoat, each a tightly coiled helix of wood and silver; one of the benefits of situating himself in New York was that one could get anything for the right price. The idea had come to him after discovering that not all kuei-jin - as the Asian vampires called themselves - were susceptible to wooden stakes, and solid silver points were more efficient than wood, however hard it was. He then pulled Arms of the Abyss from the shadows of his sleeves and his back, under the coat. The pair from his sleeves folded in on themselves, forming tubes that reached back to the stakes in his hands.
An alarmed voice was raised from somewhere behind him. Out of time, he summoned a Shroud to blanket any further noise and keep the occupants of the cockpit in the (metaphorical) dark, filling the entryway from floor to ceiling before flooding rearward, the Lasombra marching in behind the crest of tarry shadow.
The Tremere were standing around a conference table set along one side of the cabin. A single light source persisted, the open flame of a candle on the table; the Shroud seemed to sparkle within its flickering radius in bizarre, coruscating contradiction. The Tremere themselves were ignoring the constrictive nature of the darkness that had enveloped them, frowning in concentration as they marshalled their disciplines in defence. One's eyes widened and his head turned toward the Lasombra, most likely sensing his aura, and thereby nominating himself as Vale's first target. While two Arms lashed at the faces of the other two in order to disrupt their concentration and delay whatever response they were planning, another whipped around the base of the chair from which the first target had stood, knocking the Tremere's knees out from under him with the seat, then tipping backward to tumble the warlock onto his back. Releasing his grip on one of his stakes, the tubular Arm slammed down on the target's chest before launching the stake along its length and ramming it through the Kindred's heart.
Continuing to harry the other two with headstrikes, Vale took a moment before deciding that the one nearest the candle was in charge of this little coterie. Changing tactics, the longer Arms struck once again, this time enveloping heads and hands, adding to the effect of the Shroud. The other Tremere was then slammed upward against the cabin wall before being staked and released to collapse across the table.
Fire erupted from the remaining warlock's hand, disintigrating the tentacle of shadow holding it. The palm opened, launching the softball-sized fireball across the table at the Lasombra. The Beast within Vale riled with instinctual fear as the flame cut through the darkness like a blowtorch through butter. All the Abyssal Arms - incuding those constraining the Tremere - whipped back between the flame and the Cainite it sought, buying precious milliseconds as Vale threw himself backwards. The fireball impacted against the far wall of the cabin, melting plastic and faux wood panelling, revealing the composite metal beneath.
Rotschreck was replaced by frenzy, and the Beast sought to utterly destroy the source of the fire. Vale had leapt across the table and delivered a Potence-powered punch to the Tremere's sternum before he could get back in control. The savage instinct in his heart wanted to tear his enemy apart bone by bone, but he managed to ride it out, delivering more punches to break the lowest ribs, doing his best to ensure the Tremere was in too much pain to do it again before switching to breaking fingers and wrists.
When the Lasombra regained enough clarity to realise that the Tremere had tempered the fireball to ensure it would not compromise the cabin, he channeled his remaining fury into the Black Metamorphosis he rarely used, and usually only for psychological purposes. Willing the Shroud to center on him and shrink, the darkness enveloping the Tremere seemed to recede. As the wounded warlock watched, the shadows shrank and folded in on themselves, revealing a humanoid form crouched on the table, utterly back save for a pair of pale yellow irides, almost glowing in comparison to the shifting darkness around them.
Vale grabbed the Tremere by the throat, tossing him over the table in a semicircle to land facefirst on the cabin floor. The warlock rolled away and tried to stand, tried to will his vitae to heal his wounds; but his effort was interrupted by another shadowy tentacle wrapping around his neck and raising him up to just short of allowing him to get his legs under him. Those yellow eyes bored into him again... and this time, he was unable to look away. He desperately searched his mind for a way to break the hold, but the metamorphosed Lasombra commanded, "Stop," and he was forced to obey. He stopped moving. Stopped healing. Stopped thinking.
An unlife-long obsession with Obtenebration had left Vale deficient in the other disciplines of his clan, but he had started making up for it in recent years, especially since the diablerie that had granted him the power of the seventh generation. Far fewer of his own kind were now capable of using Dominate against him, including his own sire and other elders of her - their - generation. Staring down upon the Tremere who was now powerless to act without him, he ordered, "Give me what is mine."
The Tremere did not respond. Did not move. The Lasombra repeated his command, to the same result. The warlock's will was under his control... Vale growled at the obvious. "Nein sprechen English?"
"Nein," the Tremere was compelled to answer, though one corner of his mouth was able to quirk upward in defiance.
Vale no longer sighed physically, but mentally was a different matter. Well, he thought, this is going to be fun.