Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Remember that story you were told?

About the Fledgling who wasted werewolves like it was a hobby? Yeah, you know the one. Dusted a Kuei-Jin, a Prince, and his Sheriff all in one night. Even had an interesting conversation with a certain cabbie, or so I'm told.

WHAT ABOUT IT?

See, here's what you don't know.
That wasn't the end of that story, not by a long shot. Some parts missing in the middle, the whole third act left out altogether. Guess they figured they'd end on a high note.
Yeah, yeah, Fledgling just won the game, baptised in fire, all that. Anarchs were damn grateful, that's for sure. Would have made the kid their patron saint, if they went in for that shit. Nines, especially ... ah, what am I saying, you're not interested in that mushy rom-com flick shit. You want to know who made it out at the end, by the skin of their teeth. You want to see blood.

I MIGHT.

Yeah, well, the Fledgling was riding high. Hard to blame 'em, too. Barely two weeks old and already the top-dog most baddest don't-fuck-with-them Kindred in all of LA. Not an easy feat to pull off, lemme tell ya.
But that didn't last long, did it?
Hadn't even gotten one day's rest in fact, before ... ah, I'm getting ahead of myself. You don't even know what really happened at Grout's mansion, and that turned out to be important.

So here's the story, the whole unvarnished fucked up story of how the Anarch movement ended, how that Eurotrash Camarilla almost dropped a fucking A-bomb on this little town, and how little Fledgling out of nowhere came to kill an honest-to-God antediluvian.

Chapter Text

"You Patty?"

The club's music nearly drowned out the Fledgling's question. Some new-age electronic goth rock at decibels loud enough to make an Auspexed lick cry for his mother. If that wasn't enough, the myrrh and incense they burned down there made a sewer-rat's eyes water.
That's before you got close to one of the patrons stinking of sweat and patchouli. They didn't have the smoke machines then. The Fledgling would have looked like they came right out of somebody's nightmares. And that was when they barely knew their ass from a Caitiff.
Patty, though, wasn't impressed. She knew all the big bad Kindred in this city. If she hadn't met them, they weren't worth meeting. One look and she knew what she was dealing with. Then again, LaCroix and Ming Xiao thought the same thing.

"Yeah, maybe? Are you, like, coming on to me? Because if you are, you can totally back off. I have a boyfriend, you know?"

The Fledgling's eyebrow twitched. Spend a few nights in the illustrious company of the likes of Bertram Tung and the Voermans, and you forgot normal people existed. Talking to Patty, that used to make you feel damned twice over.

"That's who I'm here about. Heard you're looking for him."

That got Patty's attention. Anything to get back her boy toy, right?

"Have you seen him? His name is Kent Alan Ryan, he's so hot, and like, totally important around here. He's probably on some serious mission right now. Like for the, you know who?"

"... The Anarchs?"

"Shh." Patty put her finger to her lips and looked around in the most conspicuous way possible. They could have been talking about Prada, the next guy listening would have assumed it was code. "There's Cammirellas, like, everywhere."

The Fledgling looked around. At barely eight the club was sparsely populated. Only those who liked any place better than their homes, or had to be home by midnight loitered at the bar. Tapping their feet to the music, if you're generous about the word music. Maybe a dozen people total, none of them within earshot.
Patty rolled her eyes.

"Whatever. So have you seen Kent or are you just wasting my time?"

The Fledgling hesitated. Skelter told them to get rid of Patty, in the airquotes kind of way. Right about now, that sounded like an excellent idea. They might even have done it as a freebie, for the cause and the betterment of humankind and all that. Must have been tempting, but whatever the Fledgling's feelings, they didn't waste Patty that night.
It might have saved their life down the road.

"I'll look for him," the Fledgling said. "When's the last time you've seen him?"

Patty wasn't stupid, at least not all the way. She could see when someone was about to do her a favour. And now her face lit up like she'd put on a fresh face of make-up and she grabbed the Fledgling's hand and shook it wildly.

"Oh, thank you. You're so cool, really. It's like, no one even cared where he went, you know? And I was like, whatever, Kent can take care of himself, but I'm totally worried, like oh my God, what if something's happened to him?"

The Fledgling pulled their hand away. Or tried to. Patty had them in an iron grip and since the Fledgling could hardly rip her arm off - they could, but they weren't supposed to - they stood with a waxy grin, trying to get free the subtle way.

"You know where he went or not?" They asked while trying to pry Patty's fingers away one by one. No luck. Ghoul strength was nothing against Kindred power, but Patty was fuelled by more than the blood of her boyfriend. She had the power of love behind her and the Fledgling had wandered right into her, like, totally waiting arms.

"Not even. I told you, it's like a secret mission. He did say something, though, by accident. Like, he didn't mean for me to hear, but I totally did? And I totally would have kept it secret, seriously, like Kent can totally rely on me. I'll tell you only because you promised to look for him, which is so nice, by the way, like really, you're super nice. Like one of my friends stopped looking after herself and got like so ugly, but she became a bitch, too, but you're still really cool, so it doesn't even matter what you look like."

The Fledgling looked down at themself, because that's what you did when someone commented on your looks. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for that one sewer stain they'd gotten from fighting the plaguebearer that wouldn't come out. It was fine. Completely fine. They looked fine.

"So?" The Fledgling prompted when Patty didn't elaborate.

If their hands had still any life in them, they'd have started going numb by now. Benefits of being undead, but the Fledgling still preferred having full autonomy over their limbs.

"So what?"

"So, what did you overhear?"

"Oh, right." Patty blew a strand of hair out of her face, then leaned in towards the Fledgling. She didn't wear patchouli, small blessings, but a kind of light flowery perfume. Too much of it, granted, but still welcome in the already too heavy mix of goth perfume, cheap alcohol, and people stewing in sweat collecting in their latex and rubber outfits. "Kent said he was going to that Prim-something's place, like to check something out. So maybe you should start there."

"Funny, that's exactly what I thought," the Fledgling said drily. "You remember which Primogen?"

"There's more than one?" Patty, for all her faults, caught herself quickly. She didn't pretend to be the centre of all Kindred society since just yesterday, after all. "Like, I mean, there's only one who's really important. Forget about the others, they're like, old news. Kent went to the important Prim ... ogen. Duh."

Was it too late to take Patty out back and shoot her? Probably. After ten minutes of this, the Fledgling was in too deep. At least make their sacrifice count for something.
One good thing came out of the exchange. All that talking had made Patty thirsty and she finally let go of the Fledgling's hand to take a sip of her drink. Some champagne based cocktail from the fizz and the smell, that would have been nicely colourful if it weren't for the dim red lights in the club that stripped away what little colour had made it past the door.

The Fledgling sent a brief prayer to heaven. Hey, God may have damned them, but perhaps he could find it in his heart to make this conversation end faster.
"Of course. 'Duh'. So, which one is the important Primogen? I wouldn't know, because I haven't been Embraced that long ago."

It took some serious suspension of ego to play along with Patty, but the Fledgling reaped their reward.

"I don't, like, remember his name." A small reward. "But Kent said he was totally crazy." But enough of one.

"Think I know who you mean. I'll check it out."

The Fledgling was about to get out of this place, but too slow. Patty gripped their hand again, both hands in the kind of vice grip you didn't expect from kine, even one who'd been fed Kindred blood. The Fledgling stepped away, a full arm's length between them now, as subtle a sign that they'd like to get going. Patty was blind and deaf to it.

"Thank you so much!" She shouted over the din of music. "You're so sweet, I'll bet Kent will totally love you. You should become friends, then we can, like, hang out and stuff. And I can give you some tips on how to dress, because it's whatever, right, you don't need to care, but I bet everyone will totally throw themselves at you once you've had a makeover."

The Fledgling didn't doubt that. Although whether people would throw themselves at them out of attraction or out of a desire to subdue a public menace remained in question.

"Yeah, thanks. I really need to go, though. You know, find your boyfriend?"

Mercifully the mention of her boyfriend's continued return was enough to get Patty to back off. She let go, all but bouncing in place while trying at the same time to look cool and unaffected.

"Totally. Come back as soon as you find him, okay? And tell Kent not to go away for so long again. And- whatever, I'll just tell him when he gets back."

The Fledgling hadn't heard that last part. They'd already left the club.

Just a half hour drive from downtown the landscape changed. Skyscrapers and convenience stores occupying every last morsel of space made way for the vast estates of the old money rich. Here were the kinds of houses that had gates taller than their roofs, and trees and shrubbery hiding everything that went on within.

And hidden they had to be, because the Kindred in that area were not the only ones with skeletons in their closets. Behind those fancy wall to wall windows and garages more spacious than most people's entire homes, things happened that would make the Sabbat hide under the bed covers.

On the outside, everything was normal of course. Modern facades covering medieval mindsets.
The odd colonial house, probably built in the 80s and then sold as some fake period piece to give the newly rich an air of legitimacy.

But even by those standards, Grout's mansion stood out. It was Victorian, for one, or some messed up macabre version of it, pieced together like a puzzle from the recesses of Alistair Grout's mind. Here a balcony, there a projecting alcove, and then the tower, attempted twice, but the left one had been built until Grout ran either out of money or patience, stacked like building blocks prone to topple over in the slightest breeze.

The tower was the first thing to come down in the fire, but when the Fledgling arrived that night it still stood, tall and imposing against the cloudy night sky. It was such a forbidding structure that it took the Fledgling a while to notice a person coming down the steps from the main entrance, one they hadn't expected to see.

"Nines?"

Of course, it wasn't Nines.
Back then, did the Fledgling know?
He, or rather she it should be said, didn't exactly behave in-character. Maybe they assumed that Nines had been drugged or otherwise brought under the control of external forces. Maybe they'd already figured out that someone had stolen his face.

Or maybe they briefly wondered and then just as quickly forgot about it as they entered the mansion in all its crazy, lunatic glory.

All at once the sound and life of the streets, even a deserted suburban one, fell away. In its place crept the persistent ticking of clocks - tick tock tick tock - sometimes with source, sometimes without. The gurgling giggling laughter of the mansions occupants, Kindred and kine, spat like oil and water in a hot pan at the edge of the Fledgling's perception.
Spend enough time here, you might go insane.
The fall of their feet on the tiles echoed back and forth across the walls, the high ceiling, a spontaneous rhythm interrupted only when they had to climb over furniture, improvised barricades against an enemy that had gone or perhaps never been there in the first place.

The Fledgling was here on orders of LaCroix, but they kept their promise to Patty and looked for Kent Alan Ryan, who had come here a full night and a day ago. Each dead test subject they turned around, to check if a fellow Anarch had joined their ranks. He had not, and neither lay his body among the others that had been killed by the first intruder that evening.

Past the light riddle, up the stairs, through doors the Fledgling went.
Round and round in circles, slowly winding themselves up towards Grout himself in a corkscrew pattern. On the second floor they came on a door, locked from the outside, the key still inside the lock. An odd thing for a paranoid man to do, even if he kept his mind slightly left to the rest of him.

The Fledgling checked for traps, little pieces of string or indents in the floors or walls that indicated the key in the lock symbolised a deadly temptation.
Tick tock, the clocks went.
They could ill afford to linger. For the den of a Kindred, Grout had not saved on windows. In every shape and size imaginable they decorated the walls in a macabre gallery, memento mori in the glaze of a windowpane.
Tick tock, and the Fledgling turned the key and pushed open the door.

It creaked open, revealing no hungry monster out for the jugular of a careless Kindred come stumbling into its lair. Not to say the room was empty, or even empty of monsters. As the Fledgling stepped inside, face to face with an arched window reaching the entire height and width of the far wall, they discovered the furniture had been upended and pushed into a heap.
Wooden slats and beams had been torn out of the floors with vicious claws, shards of wood spread everywhere like confetti, along with strips of wall paper and plaster dusted over the rest. One hell of a party, celebrated by the sole occupant of the room.

The Fledgling might not have noticed anything at all were it not for their keen eye. But when the heap of furniture and slats tilted a near imperceptible amount, their eyes fell on the cause.
Beneath the rubble, trembling miserably, stuck out the plaster-grey pointy tips of Kent Alan Ryan's shoes.

Debating whether or not Ryan was likely to attack, the Fledgling knocked their own shoes against his heels. It resulted in a sharp intake of breath and the aforementioned shoes being drawn tightly under the rubble where a roughly Kindred-shaped hole had been preserved for the occupation of Ryan's admittedly well-dressed body.
The Fledgling kicked a piece of wood out of the way. It skittered and jumped a ways across the floorboard beams before hitting one at the wrong angle and disappearing in the dusty mouldy darkness below.

"Ryan?"

The heap that was supposedly an important and powerful figure in the Anarch movement stirred again. The Fledgling had to tilt their whole body at an angle, peering through the spaces left open by the construction, and found a mostly human eye, darting around. Its pupil had drawn into a pixel-sized dot, pale grey irises all but glowing in the low light of art deco lamps casting a greenish hue.

A timid voice, rough from a parched throat, rose from the furniture heap.

"Is the sun down?"

The Fledgling, standing in front of the massive east-facing window, looked outside. It was the habit of a person who checked their watch when asked for the time even when they knew what it was. The lack of sunlight, birdsong, and spontaneous immolation confirmed their strong theory.

"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure, yeah."

The furniture heap moved again. Chairs tilted, floorboards inched further towards the horizontal. The chaiselounge that formed the centrepiece of this construction creaked precariously as the Kindred who had been both protected by and formed one of its supporting pillars, wiggled partly out of his hiding place.

It was the last straw.
The structure groaned and creaked and finally gave in. Ryan yelped, he skidded across the floor as the Fledgling pulled him out by the feet.
The whole thing collapsed in a cacophonous shattering of wood and drywall. It ended with a lone picture frame, ejected from the structure, to tumble down the small hill of furniture and land square across two wooden beams. Ryan and the Fledgling stared down at it.

It was a painting of a duck. Innocuous, except that it seemed to be beset by frightening nightmares, symbols of terror and death surrounding its head that someone had partially removed and replaced with a steel dome. The expression of a Malkavian's deranged mind. Or the average haul at a yard sale.

Between the collapse of his safe space and the mental processing of the duck painting, Ryan had collected himself enough to say: "You're all they sent?"

After having decapitated, dismembered, disembowelled, and given concussions to half of Grout's frenzied test subjects, the Fledgling felt the listless tone of voice was uncalled for. Nevermind that "they" - consisting of Patty and maybe Skelter if stretched - didn't so much send the Fledgling as the Fledgling decided that an annoying valley girl was still better than a dead valley girl.

"I'm enough," they said and crossed their arms, daring Ryan to argue.

Drops of blood made patterns on their forearms and clothes, the high-pressure sprays resulting from the recently alive being not that shortly after.

"Yeah, no thanks." Kent Alan Ryan mirrored their gesture, looking less intimidating for sure, but remarkably more aloof and mysteriously attractive. "You're what? A week old? You barely even look dead."

The Fledgling turned around to see if another fool stood nearby that Ryan was talking to like that. There was not.
Perhaps, in another life, the Fledgling would have left Ryan to his furniture heap, locked the door behind them and continued on their way through the deadly maze of the Malkavian Primogen alone. At that point they didn't know yet just what it would do to Patty if they came back without her regent. How bad could it really be to have one less Kent Alan Ryan in the world?
But, for reasons known only to them, the Fledgling sighed, pinched the bridge of their nose, and chose to suck it up.

"Patty said you were investigating something?"

They didn't try to suppress the strain in their voice. Few people around Ryan did, which made him assume that that was just how people sounded naturally.
Ryan's chest puffed up.

"I was. I'll try to dumb it down for you, since you're- ... well. Grout is up to something. First he disappears for days, then he comes back and locks himself in his mansion? Yeah, Nines smelled trouble, so he sent the guy he could trust the most -"

The Fledgling had an inkling or two why Nines might have chosen Ryan for this excursion. Funnily enough, trust didn't feature on that list.

"- to infiltrate the mansion, steal Grout's secrets and get one over those Cammy shovelheads before they know what's happening. Obviously a job for an expert."

"That why you ended up quivering in your boots under a pile of furniture?"

Ryan sputtered.

"That's not- that- ... As if."

Prayer rarely worked for kine. It worked even less for Kindred. Nevertheless the Fledgling sent up a brief prayer asking for patience. Dealing with Patty had been enough for one night.

"You two deserve each other."
"What?"
"Nothing."

Ryan peered at them sceptically, but chose to let it be. Even a Toreador like him had some instinct for self preservation.

"Well, if you must know. I retreated to this room after a dangerous encounter with one- with several of Grout's test subjects. Have you seen these monsters?"

"Killed a couple," the Fledgling said, which brought Ryan up short again.

The Fledgling smiled. Small pleasures.

"Well, uh. Yes, of course. So did I. I'm surprised you didn't see the corpses. Uh ..."
"You were explaining the furniture?"
"Don't tell me what I was about to do. I'm perfectly capable of remembering."

The Fledgling counted to ten in their head. Then to a hundred, and even that might not be enough.

"As I was saying, before you interrupted me, fledgling, I was forced to retreat. Someone, likely Grout, locked the door behind me. As I was unable to free myself in time, I created an improvised structure that protected me when the sun rose. I fully intended to continue my efforts and had just devised a plan to free myself when you showed up."

See, the thing with people like Ryan was, it was fun to mess with them, but not worth the effort. Good comedic material, wasted. The Fledgling realised this, too, since they didn't ask Ryan for elaboration on his cunning plan they had apparently interrupted.

Besides, this was not an argument to be had in the middle of a Primogen's murder mansion. The clocks persistently ticked, the tick tock drip dribble of a thousand water drops etching holes into anyone's brain. Beyond this door Grout's test subject indulged in their mania until whatever sick and twisted thing he had done to them snapped the last cord to their sanity and they attacked. In an environment like this, even an ally like Ryan was better than no ally at all.

"If you say so. Let's find Grout and-"

Ryan took a step back, arms raised in defence.

"What? Uh, no. I'm getting out of here. I've had enough of this place for a lifetime."

The Fledgling's patience snapped. In one fell swoop they closed in on Ryan, vampiric strength ripping his expensive jacket to shreds as they pulled him in against their nose.

"Listen, pretty boy-"
"Thank you."
"Shut up. You and I are going to march up there to Grout and figure out what the hell's going on. For some reason I can't begin to understand, the Anarchs are actually relying on you to give them an edge in this fight. Are you going to abandon them now?"

Kent wasn't. Of course he wasn't, he was an Anarch. Vain, self-involved, almost as if not more annoying than his girlfriend, and not the pointiest fang in the ivories, but he'd never betray the cause.
Steeling himself he nodded and pulled himself up to his full height, brushing plaster dust and wrinkles from his immaculate clothes and out of his fire red hair.

"I suppose I can hold your hand while you figure out how to use those Disciplines of yours," he said.
It was as good as it was going to get, and the Fledgling took it.
"After you," they said, pointing at the hallway with a bow and a flourish.

As they crept along the echoing hallways, the Fledgling almost wished for Kent to start talking again. Far off screams of recently tortured subjects seeped into the walls, travelling at molasses slow speeds until it reached their ears, low and distorted like old blood drying on the floors, stepped on and over by a dozen and one feet.

Tick Tock the clocks went.
And the Fledgling caught themselves nodding their head in rhythm with the timepieces. Tick to the left, tock to the right.

They stopped, checked if Kent had seen but he had his own worries.

Strung up with the unnatural strength of a Kindred, tight enough that it would have snapped the tendons and muscles of a mortal, he peered around every corner as if he expected something to leap at him and tear the skin off his face.

He caressed the edge of a knife, silver tipped and engraved with a ruby inlaid hilt, holding it close and at an angle that would allow him to slash the first person to make a wrong move. Tense as he was the Fledgling vowed not to make one such move.

It was an ostentatious piece, looking out of place in a surprisingly practised grip. He may have chosen the Trump decorating equivalent of weaponry, but he switched the grip on the knife back and forth with a skilled hand.

The Fledgling pushed open another door.
The two of them found themselves in a reading room of sorts. Two mirrors framed a fireplace at the far wall, in front of which stood two comfortable looking leather chairs.
Breathing hard and rocking back and forth swayed two female test subjects, tearing at their hair.

Kent wrinkled his nose and moved to the other side of the room.

"I'll let you deal with these ... things," he said behind the sleeve of his jacket covering his mouth and nose.

"Scared?" The Fledgling asked, but they knew what he meant.

A sharp and pungent smell emanated from all the test subjects and these must have been here for a while without moving. Urine had gathered at their feet and seeped into the floorboards, and worse had collected in their trousers.

The Fledgling moved in to dispatch of them before they got the idea to attack after all. Two things brought them up short.

One, they couldn't see their reflection in the mirror. The test subjects, the armchair, the wall at the other side showed up just fine. But they themself didn't show up, only empty space were they stood.

The other thing disturbed them more.
Someone had taken a hammer and nails and drove them through the test subjects' feet into the ground. Dried blood glued the fabric of their shoes to their skin, a mess of frayed cloth, torn skin, and dark brown flakes.

The Fledgling closed their eyes for a moment, then stepped in and slit the test subjects' throats, returning to Kent before they hit the ground. Two dull thuds marked the end of the women's lives as they crumpled to the ground in strange heaps with their feet still flat on the floor.

The Fledgling took to investigating the room, just so they wouldn't have to look at the bodies. Kent did the same, arm still raised to cover his nose.

"Ugh, it's a dead end. We walked all this way for nothing. That's what I get for letting a fledgling lead the way."

The Fledgling was too busy thinking to cater to Kent's moods.
None of the other doors could be opened, and they had been careful to check every hallway, every door, every window.
This was the only way to Grout.

"It's a puzzle," they said.

It was exactly the kind of thing a madman like Grout would do to keep out intruders. Or at least delay them long enough to start up the deadlier defences.

Kent groaned loudly.

"That's what I need right now, some Lunatic's idea of a trick room. You realise there's not going to be a logical solution to this, right? To their people it makes just as much sense to ... to bring a rabbit's foot on a waxing moon and sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star three times backwards."

True enough. Malkavians rarely thought in straight lines but each brand of Malkavian madness was different. Grout's didn't come in delusions and leaps of logic. He fancied himself a psychiatrist, a man of reason and letters.

The last of his recordings still rang in the Fledgling's ears as they moved slowly through the room.

Mulling wretches!
Few could be called 'enthusiastic'. Given the nature of the tests, I cannot expect the same fervour from all, but a modicum of cooperation would be appreciated.
Animals!
The one called 'John' went so far as to gnaw off his arm and escape into the floor boards like some feral rodent.
I still hear him scurrying about at night.

Grout thought in tests, in facts, especially ones he had that others did not. What had he said, about other Kindred bowing to superstition?

"Hey, Ryan."

While the Fledgling searched for a way on, Kent had first cautiously poked at, then dramatically thrown himself into one of the armchairs, throwing up his feet on the small sidetable. He tilted his head in a way that was supposed to look coincidental but was in fact carefully orchestrated to make his hair shine in the light from the wall lamps.

"Can't figure it out on your own?"

"Shut up and answer my question. Can vampires see their reflection in the mirror?"

Kent hesitated.

The truth was, most Kindred knew barely more to distinguish their existence from popular culture than kine did. Some shrank from garlic well into their ancilla years expecting and therefore being burned by its purifying attributes.
And when some overzealous vampire hunter brandished their article of choice with True Faith and the Kindred next to them burned to ash, a lick couldn't be blamed for taking the movies a little bit more seriously.

But Kent had reason to know the answer to this question, because he was a Toreador and therefore vain as shit.

"Yes!" he blurted out as he remembered the way he spent the first hours of every night. "But just the new ones. Car mirrors used to be the only ones that worked. It's seriously so hard to get a good shave with these, I swear to good, I always miss a spot. But it's better than it used to be. Once, in 1834 I went an entire night with lipstick on my teeth, it was so embarrassing. Not that you could understand."

The Fledgling, who didn't wear lipstick and was prepared to never wear it again if doing so would put them in the same camp as Kent Alan Ryan, shrugged.

Grout was old. His mirrors might not have the modern qualities that made Kindred appear in their reflections.

They went back to the mirrors, certain they held the secret to this puzzle. They were the only thing out of the ordinary in this room. That and the nailed to the floor feet of the test subjects. Did that have to mean something?
Kent was right, the mind of a Malkavian worked in mysterious ways. But Grout was methodical, albeit cruel and controlling.

The Fledgling overcame their disgust for the smells and sights and went back to the crumpled heaps of the dead test subjects.

Their mirror images yet lived.

The Fledgling's triumph at having figured out the riddle was short-lived as Kent came up behind them and said:

"Oh, I get it."

Nothing else came forward for a moment, which clued the Fledgling in as to how much Kent exactly had got it.

"Well, did you get it?" he prompted after a moment.

Rather than answering, or potentially bludgeoning him to death with an armchair, the Fledgling went over to the mirrors. Tracing their frames revealed nothing out of the ordinary, the glass was surprisingly sturdy. Punching through was still probably possible.

But, now that they'd figured out so much of the puzzle, they wanted to solve it properly. Pulled along by ambition the Fledgling knocked their foot against the wall along the bottom, listening for hollow spaces or hidden levers.

Finally they moved on to the fireplace and found, just at eye height, three indentations that looked pushable.

The back panel of the fireplace scraped back, opening up a way into the next room. Behind them Kent made a soft "Oh," sound as he too figured out the mystery of the mirror room, but hid his momentary admission of ignorance by complaining loudly of getting non-existent soot on his clothes.

As far as they could tell, and as far as they knew Kindred fears, the fireplace had never been used for its intended purpose.

They moved along to the ticking of the clocks, softer now that they had left the main part of the mansion behind, but one of the many grandfather clocks must have broken because every now and then an extra tock snuck its way in.

Tick tock tick tocktock tick

Beyond the mirror room stretched a staircase, hollow wood creaking under each uneven step.

Some steps were higher, some narrower, some low and broad, some with indents tricking the foot into a position that became uncomfortable on the next step up. Wear and tear didn't explain this kind of staircase, it was all but impossible to ascend it quickly. Or to do it with eyes up front, looking up at any defenders that may be lurking above.

The Fledgling focused all their attention on not tripping.
That was the only reason they saw the light coming in from under one of the steps.

Kent bumped into them as they stopped and complained about it.

Up and down the stairs, no other step let light through from beneath. When they bent down to examine it, they found it curving upwards, the nails loose as if someone had pried it off and on frequently.

Kindred ears picked up what a kine would have missed. Fabric rustled underneath the stairs.
The Fledgling moved back and around Kent, checking the walls for similar signs of manipulation, pressing themselves against one and pulling Kent with them. A defensive position.
He complained.

They ignored it.

Something was there beneath the floorboards. Something that had noticed them and was trying to remain hidden.

Another test subject?

But they didn't try to stay very still. The test subjects swayed on their feet, they giggled and laughed, and cried out in pain. Barely lucid they didn't hide underneath the stairs. They breathed.

No, it was another test subject. Just not the kind they'd seen before.

The Fledgling went back to the loose step. In one quick motion they pried it apart, revealing space enough for a person to sit hunched over.
A person sat in the space, hunched over.
He, and the Fledgling was almost certain he was a he, gawked at them out of too big pale blue eyes, watery and threatening to pop out of their sockets. He rocked from side to side but not in the unaware automatic motions of the other test subject.

He swayed reflectively, debating whether to fight, flee, or talk.

"John?"

At the sound of his name, John who had escaped Grout under the floorboards flinched. Then he smiled.

He had only about half his teeth in his mouth, the rest brown and black stumps sitting at odd angles in the remains of his gums. Only his canines, sharper and longer than a kine's would be, gleamed all but spotless, a little crooked but functional.

"The king's blooded pawn speaks a name that sounds familiar. What else might it speak?"

Behind the Fledgling, Kent slapped his forehead.

"Fucking great. One of the incomprehensible ones."

John under the floorboards peered at Kent through the gap between the Fledgling's feet. He had to duck to do so, bracing himself with one arm.
The other was missing.

"His red crown has folded his ears twice over."

Kent looked to the Fledgling, who was all too glad to explain.

"He means all that peroxide in your hair fried your brains."

Kent sputtered, then regaled the both of them with venomous glares. He stomped up the stairs, only nearly tripping twice.

"Let's just get on with this. And when we get back, I'm going to teach you a lesson about respecting your elders. You clearly need it."

Beneath the staircase Floorboards John rolled his eyes. The Fledgling smiled.

"I agree," they said with the air of someone sharing gossip. "Can you help us? We need to talk to Grout."

At the mention of his name, Floorboards John recoiled. He ducked, swayed, eyes and ears pressed to the gaps in the walls and floors seeking the elusive Primogen. Only when he was convinced that he was not there did he calm down, curling up a little tighter, remaining arm slung around his knees.

"The Warden patrols the halls at night. Something set loose his children, killed many. Not me, I was already dead."

The Fledgling stayed where they were, crouched low, hands visible, a non-threatening presence to the man under the stairs.
For all that he had retained the ability to speak, if not the ability to hold onto all his limbs, he was still a victim of Grout. Violence was the most defensible of their actions.

"Someone else was here? Not Kent, right?"

Floorboards John shook his head. Then again when the dangling strands of hair in front of him amused him. He kept shaking his head, smiling and chasing individual strands with uncoordinated motions.
He seemed to have forgotten all about the conversation.

"John?"

Floorboards John startled, looked up. He pushed his hair behind his ears.

"No, not the red crowned one. Another, none of our eyes could clearly see. I thought to count the fingers on my hand but a bright sky distracted me before I could finish."

The Fledgling's lips moved as they parsed that line and came up with nothing. At the top of the stairs Kent shifted his weight impatiently from one foot to the other. Just for that they decided to carry the conversation on for a while.

"You saw them leave?"

"My eyes had other appointments. The ears took up their duty and heard the door open and close, open and close. It didn't used to do that so much."

"And Grout? Is he still here?"

Again Floorboards John performed his little routine, listening for Grout to come by. He spoke while he did it.

"All his parts are in his bed. He has not gotten up to feed the limbs and mouths and teeth that lie around. I did not hear him knock on the glass coffin."

"The glass coffin?"

"A steel virgin, toescrews, a whip that does not excite," Floorboards John said, looking for a moment wistful. "We may have flown away through the windows had the banshee not shrieked."

Again the Fledgling took their time to think through that line. Floorboards John gave it, tracing patterns in the finger deep dust disturbed only by his footsteps. Kent was not so patient.

"What's taking so long? Stop talking to that Lunatic and let's get going. It's not far now."

The Fledgling flipped him off absently.

"You wanted to rescue someone from this place? But got caught and Embraced?"

Floorboards John held up a thumb. When he caught the Fledgling staring he smiled encouragingly and put the thumb in front of them.

"Thank you," said the Fledgling who had been raised to say thank you when receiving a gift. "We could still pull off the rescue. You help us get to Grout, we'll distract him and his test subjects while you get whoever it is out of here."

He seemed to deliberate this. The patterns in the dust became more purposeful as his finger in sweeping motion painted a sled, pressing his pinky into the dust for the screws.

"One needs two arms to shake this snow globe."

The Fledgling, who had caught on to the way Floorboards John thought, rummaged in their bag. Kent gagged, gurgling up blood as the Fledgling handed John a Severed Arm.

John's whole face lit up. He took the arm eagerly stroked it up and down, poked the bone sticking out at the top. Then he held it to his nose and smelled it deeply, sighing when he came away with a milk moustache of guts and blood.

"It says Gimble's prosthetics," he said.

"He was kind enough to donate," the Fledgling said.

Something unspoken passed between them and then Floorboards John leapt out of his hiding place over the stairs and up the stairs past Kent who nearly tumbled down in his haste to get out of the way.

The Fledgling caught up, to Kent who refused to even look at the thumb they put in their bag.

"Why did you have an arm in your bag? Gross."

Kent shuddered, the Fledgling raised their shoulders defensively.

"It's not like I could sell it at the nearest pawnshop."

"You didn't have to pick it up in the first place! Or the thumb! What are you, some kind of sick hoarder?"

The Fledgling had no answer for that and resolved the issue by following Floorboards John down the hallway.

On they moved, through the observation areas and the hidden passages, collecting bounty John led them to as he used keys and passwords for the many hidden compartments and storage rooms Grout had built into his house.

When the Fledgling offered him a bag of the elder vitae they had found, he declined, saying he preferred the sap of the flat oaks, which the Fledgling took to mean that he had subsisted on the blood that had dripped down between the floorboards.

With two allies at their side it was no task to get rid of the remaining test subjects and invade Grout's inner sanctum and find the glass coffin.

The glass coffin.

It was a thing of sad beauty. The woman trapped did not seem aware of her surroundings but the Fledgling averted their eyes nonetheless out of respect for her privacy. Through Floorboards John's rambling they garnered that this was the wife Grout had kept speaking about in his records, displayed like a fly in amber. An item titled Sorrow. Mixed Media. 1700s.

Even Kent kept himself respectful, looking at the small items under their own respective glass domes, while Floorboards John used his newly acquired arm to check for a way to move the contraption.

"The Pawn can only move one field until they reach the end of the board. Twenty seven more turns, but for now they must be slow. Pawn one forward, while the white rook moves the black queen."

The Fledgling nodded and pulled Kent along.

"I'll see you outside," they said and went through the grand double doors.

Ming Xiao did a number on Grout, no mistake. Of course then the two Kindred entering his sanctum would not have thought 'Ming Xiao'. The Fledgling might have thought 'Nines' or maybe they had known by then that tying someone to a bed, staking and then killing him was not Nines' usual MO.
Kent thought 'ew' and turned on his heels to get out, his secret important mission over now that the man with the intel had turned to dust.

"Is it getting warmer in here?" he asked as he pushed open the doors to the library.

The mansion burned.

Flames devoured the books, the ancient wood, dry timber for the inferno that put terror in a Kindred's eyes. Fiery death licking out with greedy tongues, grasping, touching, caressing like a stranger in a bar circling his victim.

Kent stumbled back, falling into a most ingrained habit and gasping for breath he didn't need. The fire demanded it all, fuelling its rampage as it built itself up in massive and insurmountable walls blocking their exit.

The Fledgling came up beside Kent, flickering death dancing in their pupils. Only they knew what this fire would have done to them in their mortal days. To their Kindred soul it was the Ur-fear. Their legs locked up, muscles trembled with the effort of containing a headless flight straight into the flames.

Below them, the test subjects laughed and perished.

Ahead of them past the lake of flames stood Grünfeld Bach.

"We have to get out of here, come on, please, get us out of here," Kent pleaded at their side even as they held their stand-off with the hunter.

Only when he left them to their death did the Fledgling move from their spot, casting a wild eye across the expanse of destruction.

"This way."

They broke into a run, Kent behind them. A jet of flame burst from beneath them through the floorboards, the Fledgling yelped, caught themselves with their hands drawing splinters from the floor and pushed off the ground, running in the other direction.

At every turn fire barred their way, a living beast demanding the bodies and souls they had snatched from the rightful grasp of death. The purifying flames of a hunter, trapping the damned in its greedy hands.

Sprinting around the corner the Fledgling saw nothing but the blinding orange glow of the fire. They did not see the test subject bursting out of the fire, burning flames like fur on their backs and arms. She shrieked and threw herself at the Fledgling, who shouted in alarm and ducked by a hair's breath, fire above, and in front and everywhere around them.

Fire burned the consciousness from their minds, let loose the beast with its hackles raised and its tail tucked between its legs. Cornered and afraid its only way out was forward.
They jumped, teeth bared to rend and tear. Mid-leap something yanked them back, shouting, penetrating the ash and smoke filled haze of their minds.

"Get a hold of yourself!"

The Fledgling snarled, pushed at Kent, the Beast lending them strength. Fabric tore beneath Kent's fingernails as he fell backwards. His eyes widened, desperately large as the burning test subject closed the distance between them.
One leap, Kent hit the ground, two leaps, fiery hands grasped his blood red hair.

He screamed, thrashed in place, convulsing with pain and panic as the test subject began dragging him back. He kicked at the walls, the furniture, clawed with sharp nails at the wooden floors in a desperate bid to gain purchase.

The flames had reached him, burning flickering bright, the stench of burning hair driving nails into the Fledgling's brain.
They reached out, panicked, blood rushing in their ears, heat at their neck.
Their fingertips brushed the hem of Kent Alan Ryan's trousers and then he was gone.

The test subject laughed as she engulfed them both in flames, pulling and tearing at his body. His tortured howls devolved into animalistic shrieks. Fire melted the skin from his body, burned the hair off his head, clothes crumpling to ash. His eyes, to the last, blinded by bursting capillaries, remained fixed on the Fledgling.

They fled.

Turned their back and ran down the hallway, tore open a door and darted into the room, a large window ahead of them. When they burst through the glass, panicked and angry and guilty, Kent had not stopped screaming.

At nearly four in the morning, most party goers had cleared out. Only the most hardened clubbers still remained, smoking in small groups and shivering in their too small outfits. The music pumped bass heavy through the doors, but without the added sounds of people singing, talking, and shouting, it sounded empty, a man pounding his fists against a closed door, a siren wailing unheard in the night.

The Fledgling had stopped short of entering the club. Now they paced, walking around the church in a horseshoe pattern and cursing under their breath everytime they passed its wide double doors. The few people who still lingered watched them with the apathy of the drunk and sleepy and soon they became old news, no more interesting to look at than the cigarette stumps ground between the stone tiles.

None of them mentioned, if indeed they noticed, the Fledgling smelling of smoke, or the holes in their clothes where the fire had tried to hold onto them.
The heat had followed them out of Grout's mansion, had settled underneath their skin, fought with pinpricks of sharp pain against the cool night air.
The whole time in the cab the Fledgling had patted down their clothes, paranoid that an ember or two had caught a ride with them and would immolate the entire car if given the chance. The beast had growled and tugged at its leash, but it whined and cowered when the Fledgling summoned the memory of Kent Alan Ryan dragged into the flames by its mindless terror.

Beneath the looming facade of Confession, the Fledgling buried their head in their hands. The ash was not the only thing that clung to them as they had fled Grout's mansion. Kent's agonised screams still rang in their ears, an echo bouncing back and forth inside their hollow skull.
Everything else had been wiped away.

Every Kindred, sooner or later, killed someone they didn't mean to. Feeding was an exercise in self control, not even the most humane ones could resist taking those last few drops forever.
Sometimes the inevitable came weeks after the Embrace, sometimes centuries. But it always happened.

The Fledgling had been dead for less than a week, and they paced in front of the steps to the church, red light bleeding onto their hands, with the death of a fellow Anarch on their conscience.
The Anarchs needed to know about Grout, and about Nines. They should know about Kent.
But Patty needed to know first.

The Fledgling stopped, braced themselves and turned towards the doors. Perhaps Patty had already left, and they'd have a day to think about what to say.
Dragging their feet they went in.

Patty was still there, slumped against the table, holding her drink to her forehead, obviously fighting tiredness. She didn't notice the Fledgling until they nearly touched her, standing awkwardly by their side until she waved her hand in their direction.

"Go away, I have a ... you!"

Immediately Patty perked up, glass clutched tight between her hands, looking around for Kent.

The Fledgling's heart sunk into their guts, but they carried on trying to find the right words to a message that could never have them.

"About Kent ..."

"Where is he? Oh, is he outside, is it a surprise? That's so like him, he's like so romantic. I'll pretend to be surprised."

They made off towards the door, only stopped when the Fledgling held them back by the elbow. Anguished they dragged their hands across their head.

"He's not outside," they said.

Patty's wide grin dimmed into a confused smile. She went back to the table, ducked to look the Fledgling in the eye. They turned away.

"Well, where is he?"

"He ..."

The Fledgling hesitated. Then they told Patty. Everything that had happened that night. How they'd found Kent trapped by the ruthless Primogen, how he'd helped them get through Grout's traps. How he'd saved their life by throwing himself between the Fledgling and the burning laughing madness of a dead Malkavian and his fanatic hunter.

They stopped just short of describing the flames that had consumed him, pleading to whatever higher power they believed in that it wouldn't be necessary.

"So ... he's hurt?" Patty reached for a conclusion other than the obvious. Her voice broke, her lips trembled, she knew what the Fledgling was trying to say. "If he's hurt, I can give him some of my blood. It always works, you just need to ... you need to take me to him. Please."

The Fledgling shook their head, staring at their feet. Patty crossed the two step distance between them, her face morphing from hopeless pleading to uncontainable fury in the span of a second.

"No!"

She grabbed the Fledgling by the clothes pulled them in until they were face to face. They let her shake them, didn't try to fight back as fury and grief broke the dam of Patty's control.

"He's okay! He's always okay, he can't be ..." She broke off, gulped for air and choked back a sob. "... dead."

Then she screamed, so loud it broke the din of the music and pounded her fists against the Fledgling's unresisting chest. Venus looked up from her bar, the few guests gawked and stared as Patty demanded under hysterical tears to be taken to Kent.

"Take me to him, now! Now! You don't get to keep me away, he wants to see me, please!"

She wept and wailed, Kent's name and stuttered pleas spilling out of her mouth with a torrent of grief. She pummelled into the Fledgling, then made a dash for the door. The Fledgling reacted faster than a human could have, they grabbed Patty around the waist and pulled her back. She screeched and clawed at their arms, struggling against their hold.

"Let me go! Let me go, let me go, let me go!"

The Fledgling held on, their own pained expression hidden in the flying strands of Patty's hair. The weakness of guilt and grief threatened to lose them the fight against Patty's desperate attempt to do the impossible and find Kent.
But she tired out first. Sobbing and gasping for breath between the tremors that wracked her body she slumped into the Fledgling's arms.

"I'm going to die," she whispered, low enough that the Fledgling almost didn't hear.

She wasn't speaking to them, anyway. Her words were meant only for herself.

"I'm can't live without him, I'm going to die. Oh God, please. Please make this not happen."

Somehow the Fledgling managed to get Patty's home address out of her and put her in a cab, paying the driver and making not so subtle threats that if Patty didn't arrive safely in her flat she'd find him and rip his throat out.
The driver paled, nodded, and drove off. The last thing the Fledgling saw was Patty's head, slumped against the window, her hands over her eyes as she cried.

The next cab they hailed brought them to their own Haven.

Tired beyond anything they'd felt since dying, they turned the key in its lock, dragged themselves into the lift and pressed the button to their floor.
The Anarchs and LaCroix would have to wait for their report. After all they'd done - an image flashed in front of their mind's eye of pushing Kent into the raging inferno, the pull they felt at their clothes as he tried to keep his balance - for the Anarchs and Camarilla, they could damn well wait to hear the results.

The Fledgling didn't make it all the way to the bedroom. They collapsed on their couch, buried their face in the pillows and lay there motionless.
They didn't cry. Neither did they pray or curse or bargain with the universe to get a chance to do things differently.

They simply laid where they were, and still did by the time the alarm on their watch told them the sun was about to rise.

Chapter Text

Whoo-eeh, now that was something, wasn't it? Not so much the pleasant stroll through the Victorian mansion you thought the Fledgling had.

It's fucked up, but hey, what else is new? Anarchs kicking it left and right, no fucking way out except with a lot of damage. Kent, that poor asshole, he was just the beginning.
Collateral damage, like these namby pamby Camarilla assholes like to say, like it's that easy. Like the Fledgling just wandered out there all casual-like and didn't half burn to death from the fire they carried with them.
You can still see it sometimes, when you look into their eyes. Those flickering sparking flames doing a littly victory dance because they got two Kindred. Only one had the misfortune of walking away.

Loss is a terrible thing for a Kindred. We never quite recover from it, and it doesn't matter one bit if the guy who bit it was a little princess in an idiot dress you just met that day. Couple centuries and enough death, that mindless Beast inside o' you looks mighty tempting.
And the Fledgling? Well, they'd seen more death in their first two weeks than most Kindred see in a lifetime. Makes you wonder how they kept it together through all that mess.

Even Nines had to take it slow after he wasted that werewolf, and he's the most stubborn son of a bitch you've ever met. Sent the Fledgling to do the work that needed doing, kill LaCroix and his gorilla, and that bitch Xiao.

But you know all that.

In fact, now the record's straight about what happened in the mansion, I can finally tell you the rest of that story.

The Fledgling wasted LaCroix's sheriff and handed over the Anarch's little gift. Hell of a light show to mark their victory.
And they celebrated, you can be damn sure about that. There's no party like an Anarch party, and this one was a long time coming.
The places that mummy king ended up that night, you don't even wanna know.

Barely dragged themself home after that rave, with those craters the sheriff left in their guts.

Still plugging those up when none other than Nines Rodriguez himself knocked down their door.

Chapter Text

Day torpor sucked. Every few years a Kindred went up in flames getting their coma on before they could draw the blinds. If you could avoid it, you didn't try to fight it. It took an iron will to even make the attempt, nevermind going out and getting things done.

Luckily Nines Rodriguez had an iron will, and a set of brass balls to match, otherwise he and the Fledgling might not have made it.
The door flew off its hinges and landed with a shattering bang on the floor of the Fledgling's haven. Nines picked a splinter out of his knuckles as he stepped over the threshold, craning his neck.

"Newbie!"

The Fledgling didn't hear, of course. They slept like the dead, didn't have a reason to fight against the demands their vampiric body made of them. Nines was about to give them one.
He took the stairs two at a time, throwing open the door to their bedroom with only marginally less force than he'd used on their front door.

"Newbie!"

He shook them. The whole bedframe rattled. They didn't move and Nines threw a worried look downstairs. No one had yet noticed his entrance. He refocused on the Fledgling and tried again to wake them.

"I didn't drag my ass here to watch you sleep. Get up."

The Fledgling stirred, swatted blindly in his general direction. Nines didn't give up, he shouted in their ears and kicked the bedframe, one foot in the door, ready to make a run for it.
Groaning the Fledgling sat up.
Having Nines Rodriguez in their bedroom would have been a lot more thrilling if it hadn't been eleven o'clock in the morning. And if Nines didn't look as if he'd rather be anywhere else.

Fishing for their shoes, the only thing they'd managed to pull off before they fell asleep, they arranged words in the sleep-addled recesses of their mind.

"What the fuck is going on? If this is some Anarch hazing ritual ..."

"Get up, get up!"

Nines pushed the other shoe into their hand and bounded back down the stairs. The Fledgling rubbed their eyes, squinting into the near complete dark of the bedroom and wondering if this was worth getting up for.
Nines had sounded worried, and almost as tired as they did. He wouldn't have come by just to play a prank.
Wouldn't he?
The Fledgling yawned. They were itching for a solid eight hours but whatever had Nines in such a state, they doubted he'd give up now. Already he was coming back up the stairs, feet pounding on the steps.

Cursing whoever had given Nines their home address they untangled their shoe laces.

That's when the explosion hit.

The entire building shook, a cacophonous thunder ripped their eardrums to shreds. The Fledgling threw themself to the ground, shoe in hand, rolling out of the way as a large sharp piece of the ceiling broke down and nearly hit their head.

As they scrambled to their feet Nines' inventive cursing completed this particular symphony.
In the living room below, with furniture upended and the walls coming down around them, Nines fended off three heavily armoured attackers.

"Fuck."

The Fledgling vaulted over the railing almost on top of another thug concealed from sight behind the kitchen counter. They kicked backwards, heard the satisfying crunch of bone breaking and leapt forward to Nines' side.

"Friends of yours?"

He grinned.

"Practically brothers. They love getting the shit kicked out of them."

The Fledgling's barked laughter stuck in their throat when one of the attackers got in close too fast for a human. The lick, vaguely female shaped under her armour, threw them over the counter, Nines went after them to help but was thrown against the far wall by the others.

Struggling against a supernaturally strong hand gripping their skull in a vice grip, head pounding under the pressure, the Fledgling turned. Like a crocodile in a death roll they twisted their attacker's grip away and drove their elbow up into her sternum.
It wasn't enough to throw her off completely. She held on but got distracted long enough for the Fledgling to violently throw their head back. Something cracked and the attacker cursed, blood spilling from her nose as the Fledgling pulled themself across the floor and up along the counter.
Gripping a knife from the rack they tossed it to Nines who caught it in mid-air and freed himself from the chokehold with a well-placed cut across his opponent's face.

The Fledgling didn't see the next round of that encounter as they ducked below their own enemy coming at them straight on. Grinning at her stupidity they didn't hear another coming up from behind them. Something heavy hit them in the head and they fell forward, head ringing, bright spots dancing in front of their eyes.
Swallowing down the sudden nausea they tried to dodge the next attack but unable to see where it came from, took a stake nearly to the heart.

They shouted in pain, clutched their chest. It had dug through skin and bone into their lungs. Just missing the heart. The other attacker had a sword drawn, to finish what the first one started. The Fledgling ducked, pulled out the stake and dove across the floor, swiping at the first leg they reached. The guy faltered but did not fall and blocked the stake coming at him.
The Fledgling tried again, roared in frustration when he held them off seemingly without effort and punched into their ribs.

Groaning they went down, clutching their side where the Sheriff had taken a piece out of them, free hand skittering over the ground searching for a weapon. They found something, curled their fingers around it just as a black clad knee rammed into their cheek, throwing them across the floor right against the chest in front of the fish tank. Not even a full second later Nines smashed into the tank, glass cracked, as he slumped down, trying to get up and crumbling underneath the weight of his injuries.

"Let's take a raincheck on this dance."

Four people, all masked and dressed in modern black armour, converged and surrounded them in a half circle. Water trickled down behind them, glass creaked and groaned under the pressure. The Fledgling wiped the blood from their mouth.

"Agreed."

They punched backwards. Glass smashed into a thousand pieces.
The water rushed out in a great torrential wave, their enemies cursed as they struggled to keep their footing, distracted long enough for Nines and the Fledgling to make a run for it.
He headed for the door but they pulled him in the other direction, diagonally across the room and diving straight into the air vents.

The thin covering crumbled under the force of their weight and they pulled themself forward and down, letting themself fall. A broken bone was no issue for their Kindred body. These guys were.
Thin metal sheets rattled as they hit the sides on their way down, echoes bouncing back and forth until the entire soundscape became one painfully loud mess.

Landed with a dull thwack, they groaned and held their shoulder and scrambled out of the way just in time for Nines to come crashing down behind them.

"Son of a bitch," he cursed but crawled after the Fledgling into the security room.

Which at this time of day was occupied.

The guy in charge of the monitors had his coffee halfway raised to his lips. He stared at them over the lid, a once over at their drenched clothes, the Fledgling's untied shoelaces, Nines still cursing until he came up behind the Fledgling and saw the mortal.
His mouth snapped shut.

Awkward silence spread.

Water dripped in an irregular rhythm into a puddle at the vampires' feet. Somewhere above heavy bodies pounded on the floors, attempting to find their prey.

Monitor guy looked between the Fledgling and Nines, eyes flitting back and forth.

"Good day," the Fledgling said calmly.

"Uh, ... good day," the mortal said.

Politeness. A learned reflex almost impossible to shake.

He had nothing more to offer as the Fledgling and Nines limped out of his office.

The moment they were out of the office they broke into a run. The vents rattled again, and the lift was coming down, their attackers split off into two teams to cut off their escape. Nines didn't check if the mortal was watching when he pried open the elevator doors and dove in, the Fledgling close behind. They held onto the ledge, swung around and landed next to him one floor down.

The smell of petrol filled the air as they wound through the parked cars, making a dash for the sewer entrance.

"Who are these guys?" the Fledgling shouted mid run.
"Don't care right now, we- shit!"

Nines let himself fall backwards and avoided the blade coming at him by a hair's breath. The Fledgling didn't think twice, threw themself behind a red car. A spray of bullets hit the pillar behind where their head had just been.

Whoever these guys were, there were more than four. The Fledgling crawled forward and around the car to take cover behind the next, peering under the carriages for more feet.
They counted two pairs of combat boots and one pair of brown workboots coming rapidly up behind one of them.
The Fledgling pushed up, avoided another hail of bullets as they slid across the car's roof, both guys firing at them, neither noticing Nines until it was too late.
He drove his knife between the armour plating into the guy's neck and twisted.

The Kindred groaned, clutched at his neck, and died. He turned to ash as he fell dusting Nines in grey powder as he turned and ran, the remaining attacker taking aim.

The Fledgling threw themself at him, knocked them both down, gripped the butt of his shotgun and smashed it into his face as hard as they could.
It did little more than daze him.
They jumped to their feet, sprinted after Nines who had reached the sewer entrance, tearing the lid off and jumping in feet first. The Fledgling followed, held onto the ladder's rung to give Nines time to get out of the way and pull the lid back over them.
They didn't hold out much hope it would fool their attackers, but it might buy them a fraction of a second out of sight.

Water splashed as Nines landed in the main waterway. By the time the Fledgling had crawled through the access tube after him, he'd already taken off roughly south-east.

"Where are we going?"

Nines turned another corner, ducked to peer into another access tube, shook his head and kept going.

"Last Round. We need to shake 'em first."

Already something heavy was being moved behind them and shortly after several heavy footsteps hit water.
Cursing they sped up, under no illusion they could remain stealthed while wading through the water like this.
Nines kept checking every tube, voices called out to follow them. Their attackers were running now.

Another tube, another frustrated curse. Any second now the people after them would round the corner and have a clear shot.

Nines ducked down again.

"Finally! Through here, quick."

He let the Fledgling go through first, then pushed them along as he went in after, urging them on to move faster, cold hands pressing into their clammy wet clothes.
They crawled as fast as they could, searching for purchase on the slippery ground. At first they didn't notice the subtle slope downwards, but it became more and more difficult to keep their balance and not go sliding down the tube to wherever this led. Although a theory had formed.

"Don't tell me this is leading to the old sew- aargh!"

The ground gave out under them and the Fledgling fell forward into the pitch black darkness below.

When this was all over they'd wring Nines' neck a full 360 degrees. Twice if he hadn't saved their life just now.

"Great, because I really wanted to be here again," they said as they looked around.

It was the old sewer system, build from yellow brown brick decades ago and since replaced with the modern concrete system up top. Even without Tzimisce abominations the place emanated an eerie aura.

They looked around, tried to get a feel for where they were, but they might as well have worn a blindfold. The tunnels looked exactly the same as they had on their last trip down here, even though they were nowhere near Hollywood.

"I sincerely hope you know where you're going."

Nines brushed past them further into the great cistern, looking left and right down at the T-section.

"Yes," he said, going left. "I think."

The Fledgling hurried to catch up, glad to be dead since otherwise that whole escapade wouldn't have left them with enough breath to bitch about this.

"You think? Seriously, I'd rather take the guys up there than spend another fucking day and a night in this maze."

Nines chose his turns with some amount of conviction, which instilled confidence in the Fledgling. A smidgen of confidence. A miniscule smidgen.

"You've been here before?" he asked.

"Once, chasing after some Nosferatu. And believe me, they were the prettiest things I found down here."

Nines laughed softly, but his face twisted into a grimace of pain.

Now they'd escaped the immediate danger of being decapitated, the Fledgling saw for the first time that Nines didn't look much better than they felt.
He'd barely started healing, angry red muscle twitching as he spoke from where that werewolf had ripped half his face off.
The wound was smaller, or maybe that was wishful thinking. He was still limping, too, and now also pressing his hand onto his thigh every now and then, each time coming back bloody.

"Nines?"
"Hm?"
"What the fuck happened up there?"

He pretended to have to think about which direction to take to avoid answering right away. For a while nothing but the splashing water disturbed by their feet and the far off gurgling of the sewage system draining the city's waste could be heard.

The Fledgling gave him time, sorted through the events as best they could.

Six Kindred, at least, had ambushed the Fledgling in the middle of the day. While they and Nines had fought the day torpor along with their attackers, these guys had moved like it didn't affect them. At least two had used Disciplines, Potence from the force with which they'd pummelled into them.
This had been no ordinary squad of thugs. Unfortunately that didn't narrow down the list of people wanting the Fledgling dead.

Finally Nines spoke up.

"Don't know who they are. Came to just as they were about to stake me. Barely made it out. Couldn't reach Jack or Skelter. Damsel picked up the phone but they cut the power. Last thing I heard was her door breaking down. Haven't heard from anyone since."

He shook his head, messed up his hair. No news was good news, unless the last news had been a deadly assassin hitsquad.

"Shit, this is one mess I could do without."

The Fledgling nodded. They brushed their knuckles lightly against Nines' shoulder.
He looked to them, something grateful in his eyes. They wondered, briefly, why Nines had come to them, not Damsel or the others. Then decided they had bigger things to worry about.

"We'll regroup, kick their asses," they said. "It's gonna take more than a bunch of wannabe ninjas to bring us down."

Newly emboldened Nines sped up. He checked his watch, then nodded.

"Think we lost them. Once the sun's down, we'll head to the Last Round."

The Last Round lay in ruins. Drenched in water the rubble made for a sorry view. Charred remains of concrete and wood stuck out at odd angles, blackened by soot, felled by fire and the water used to fight it. Some of that rubble may have been the top floor wall once where Nines had liked to lean against. Parts of a doorway had fallen onto the sidewalk obstructing the passage of the few people who remained. If it was the doorway Damsel had stood under as she kept her watch over who came and went was impossible to tell.

A few small groups still lingered, the forever patrons stuck in the purgatory between two bars. The proprietor hung around and Skelter came back from talking to him, converging on the small group consisting of Nines, the Fledgling, and Damsel.

"Fire started this morning. They only put it out about an hour ago."

Way beyond coincidence.
The Fledgling still recovered from the escape from their haven. Damsel had survived the attack on hers by setting the place on fire and fleeing in the confusion. The remains of the Rötschreck had her twitching, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, arms jerking as if to fight off invisible enemies.
The Fledgling saw flames licking at her body, melting her skin. Filling her mouth with the ashes of her own body as she cried out for help. And her attackers grabbing hold of her, dragging her deeper into the inferno.

They shook their head, drove the images from their mind. Still the remains of the Last Round seemed to emanate heat, the haunting spirit of a fire mocking their cowardice.

"Probably best not to stick around," Nines said, casting a guarded look up and down the street.

An enemy capable of finding their havens would be smart enough to post a watch at their usual haunts.

"Have to wait for Jack."

Damsel nodded.

"Yeah, what the newbie said. I'm gonna make a ... fuck, there's no payphone here. Anyone know where the nearest one is?"

And to the Fledgling's perplexed fascination Skelter pulled out of his pocket an actual paper map and searched along the grid.

"There's one two streets down- no, wait, they tore that down last year."

He crossed it out with his pen, managing not to pierce the paper.

"What about this one?"

Damsel pointed at another spot, a brisk ten-minute walk away.

"Might still be there. You have change?"

The Fledgling shook their head, deciding to put an end to this sorry play. They held out their phone to Damsel who looked at it like the Fledgling had just handed them their own shit in a bag.

"Yeah, you fucking think I know how to use that shit? Put it the fuck away."

Instead of doing so the Fledgling called up the dialler themself.

"Who do you want to call?"

Damsel made a point of rolling her eyes, but she rattled off a number of the top of her head, then pursed her lips when the Fledgling held out their phone into the round.

"That's it, you can dial," she said.
"I already have. I put you on speaker."
"You can do that?"

That had been Skelter who'd watched the entire exchange with the air of a sexagenarian debating if to give in to one of those newfangled fads all the kids were on about.

The Fledgling nodded, but didn't get a chance to show off their phone's magic tricks. No one picked up. Damsel cursed, and gave them a different number to try.

Nothing.

By the time they'd gone through the impressive list of phone numbers she had memorised, Jack had wandered onto the scene, grinning as always. This time, though it was a bitter grin, and it didn't reach his eyes.
Where Skelter looked out of place with the paper map he folded up, Jack had long since reached the timeless look of a forever pirate. He belonged on the cracked boardwalk between the bums and the political campaign ads as much as he did on a ship or a rowdy tavern in 1699.

"Don't bother, kiddo. No one's going to answer their phone right now. The Camarilla just called in the cavalry."

For all the gravity of the situation, Jack basked in the attention. All eyes were on him, Nines and his coterie relying on him for information. Of course he was happy to provide.

"Last night when you shoved that dynamite up LaCroix' snow white asshole, some Eurotrash Camarilla walked into town. Took them all of fifty seconds to declare war on the Anarchs and send their bloodhounds after us.

As of right now, it's hunting season."

The news had all the qualities of a Nosferatu cumshot. The collected Anarchs looked at each other, although only Jack was old enough to know what a snafu this really was. War - real war not the double-dealing and double-crossing that came par for the night - hadn't been waged between Camarilla and Anarchs since the Convention of Thorns ended the last one.

That one had almost led to the eradication of all Kindred, utter humiliation of the Anarchs, and the establishment of the very rules the modern Anarchs railed against.

Nines was the first to catch himself.

"Alright. Shit."

He shook his head, cast a glance at the Fledgling that looked almost apologetic. It was a hell of a thing to get dragged into not even a full month into undeath.

"Get all the cash you have. We'll meet up at Isaac's place in-" he checked his watch. "One hour. Try him on your phone again until you get there, but he's probably out making arrangements."

Without further words the group dispersed. Damsel and Jack to the east, Skelter to the South, Nines to the north.
The Fledgling took the long way west around to Confession, keeping to the side alleys and dark places they'd come to know so well. On their way they stopped by an old beat up cash machine, dragging their card through.

The display informed them in the distantly polite empathy of a machine that this service could unfortunately not be completed. Their account had been frozen.

The Fledgling cursed, but surprise had made way for grim reality about two sewer trips back. This was just the basic Camarilla repertoire. With any luck they might not have figured out their income revenue.

They rounded the last corner, jumped the fence into the courtyard and slipped into Confession as stealthily as only a vampire in a goth club could.

Venus leaned over the bar, listening to a customer order a drink while she drew beer without looking. She slid the full glass over to the customer who'd ordered it, then spotted the Fledgling.
She paled.

"Heeyy ..." she said vaguely as the Fledgling came up to the bar.

She didn't look them in the eye.

"Hey, Venus, can't stop to talk. I've come to get my cash for the week."

Around her customers clamoured for her attention. A fair few of them had made space for the Fledgling, some going as far as hitting the dance floor with their drinks to avoid them. Venus kept fiddling with the bottles.

"Yeah, look, about that ..."

The Fledgling's heart sank.

"We had a deal."

"I know!" Venus spoke quickly now, trying to fill the silence that wasn't. "You've always been good to me, I appreciate that. And it's not like I'm not grateful, it's just ... some people came by my apartment today."

Dressed in black the Fledgling would bet, and keeping out of the sun. Judging from the red rims around Venus' eyes that her makeup couldn't conceal, they'd had an unpleasant conversation.

They nodded.

Embers sparked on the Beast's gnashing teeth. It demanded that bitch's head, ripped from her shoulders right here in her tacky club. The Fledgling had just been left high and dry after taking bullets for a lousy few bucks a week. The least Venus deserved was some Kindred Discipline shoved down her fat, lying throat.

Cold determination doused the heat rising from the Beast's fur. They shoved it down in its mental cage, drove away the thoughts that weren't their own. After a day of fighting their veins ran dry, not nearly the floodwaters they needed to keep their monstrous companion contained.

But they managed, for now.

"All right, Venus. I'll have to go on a little trip. When I'm back, things'll go back to normal. You stay safe, okay?"

Venus sniffed and nodded. The Fledgling doubted they'd be welcome here again. Still they turned around and were just on their way out when they spotted an old friend.

Or an old nuisance rather.

"Patty?"

It was Patty, drowning her sorrows at a corner table. Three empty glasses stood in front of her, the wet rings on the wood telling of more having come before. Her entire face was red, from her bloodshot eyes to the tip of her nose to the bottom lip she must have been chewing on all night.

She greeted the Fledgling by name, a remarkable achievement considering she was currently too drunk to stand without help.

Clutching the table she turned towards them, then lost her footing and crashed onto the floor. She hit the ground, glass still in hand, and started crying.

On top of everything else, a heartbroken Patty going through vampire blood withdrawal presented just one problem more than they were prepared to deal with.
The Fledgling backed away.
Patty was a mess. Gaunt cheeks, drab hair growing out its colour, her clothes hanging unwashed from her narrow shoulders like coathangers.

Seeing her like this it was easy to understand why the Anarchs didn't generally approve of ghouls.

The Fledgling had already crossed half the distance to the door when they stopped.

Patty was the ghoul of an Anarch. A dead Anarch, yes. And she was about as helpful as sunlotion, but the Camarilla wouldn't care. Masquerade violations were the only reason Venus was still alive. Patty had no such protection.

It was more than that. They owed her a debt of fire. But that wasn't what they'd tell anyone if they asked.

The Fledgling sighed, pinched the bridge of their nose, and returned. Patty was in the process of pulling herself up by the leg of the table with mixed success. She swayed, slumped forward, rolled onto her side and tried again, legs flailing wildly.

The Fledgling grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up, just barely avoiding hitting the tabletop with the top of her head. Knees wobbling she came to her feet, braced against the Fledgling, eyes unfocused into their general direction.

"Come on, you need to leave."

"Whass... whasse ma- maht- urgh-"

The Fledgling stood stoically as Patty vomited on their shoes. Between aquarium water and sewer sludge the mix Patty threw up might have actually improved the general smell. Once she was done, the Fledgling manoeuvred her towards the exit.

"They're hunting Anarchs, you're not safe here."

Patty stumbled, held onto the Fledgling, then dug her heels in. The Fledgling kept dragging her without noticing.

"Where ... where'm I s'posed to-to go?"

They deposited her on the sidewalk, waved for a taxi. Realising they'd have to make the money in their wallet last, they nonetheless pulled out a fifty and put it into Patty's hand.

"Anywhere. Far. Leave the city. Don't talk to other Kindred. You have family? Visit them."

She stared forlornly at the bill in her hand.

"I don't have anywhere to go," she said so uncharacteristically sober it made the Fledgling pause.

Join the club, they thought. And then realised that Patty had, much the same as them. Not nearly knowing what the hell they'd gotten themselves into. With a sigh they pushed Patty into the backseat of the cab.

"Vesuvius," they said to the cab driver.

The car moved with a lurch and Patty's head dropped onto their shoulder. The Fledgling let her, kept an eye on the street through the mirror, while she quietly cried.

Velvet Velour's usual haunt had been 'closed until further notice'. No reason had been given. The Fledgling read the sign again while Patty vomited into a gully, then bumped into a passerby.

"Watch where you're going, bitch!"

"You watch where you're ... uh ..."

Patty fell backwards into the Fledgling who had turned around to face the man paling at their sight.

"Watch your mouth," they said.

Kine knew a Kindred when they saw one, even if they couldn't give name to the feeling at the bottom of their gut. In a good mood, the Kindred was an irresistible attraction. The Fledgling was not in a good mood.

The man stammered, raised his hands in an aborted defensive gesture.

"Y-yes. Sorry, miss."

He ran.

Although she'd sobered up somewhat, the sound Patty made at the sight of the fleeing man, was the wasted giggle of a woman only peripherally aware of her surroundings. She could afford to be.
Full of ghoul strength and awareness, she didn't need to keep her wits about her to fend off creeps. Now she listed to the side, held aloft by the Fledgling who guided her down the street to Abrams' shop.

A blue and red emergency lightshow stopped them in their path. Several cop cars parked on the street, along with an ambulance that had come too late, one way or the other. Bystanders gawked at the bustle, held back by police tape and the armed uniforms looking for an excuse to use their toys.

Damsel was among the gawkers, fitting in so seamlessly with the valley girls, young punks, and assorted randos that it took the Fledgling a while to spot her in the crowd. They pushed through the throng of people, Patty trailing like a balloon behind them.

"What happened?"

Damsel turned her head the tiniest amount. Her eyes remained fixed on the cops as she answered:
"Nines is on it. My money's on those Cammy assholes. Pigs showed up practically as it happened." She raised her voice. "Even for a Hollywood bigshot, that's too fast for these lazy fucks."

The lazy fuck closest to her made a face. Damsel took the bait.

"You have something to say, huh?"

"I'm gonna have to ask you to leave, ma'am-"

"Or what, you gonna shoot me?"

"Damsel."

The Fledgling laid a hand on her arm, shook their head.

"Keep it down," they whispered. "The cops can't hurt you, the Camarilla can."

Damsel bristled, but she settled down. They pulled back, deeper into the crowd and away from the crime scene. Cursing under her breath, Damsel pulled out a squashed pack of cigarettes, lighting one and offering the pack to the Fledgling, who declined.
She shrugged, took a drag that nearly burned half the cigarette to a crisp, then sharply blew out the smoke.

Patty wrinkled her nose at the smell, but didn't complain.

"Doesn't that make you, like, super dizzy?" she said instead, moving on from the Fledgling to leaning against the wall, next to two packed bags. One belonged to Damsel the Fledgling guessed.

Damsel raised an eyebrow at the Fledgling but didn't comment on their tag-along.

"What, breathing? Fuck yeah, but it's worth it." Another drag of her cigarette turned the air poison blue. "Fucking bitchass mess, should have known they'd go against Abrams first. No big loss, asshole's always played too nice with the Cammies, but he was the only one with any real clout around here. If they got to Abrams, the rest of us are sitting fucking ducks."

"You're sure he's dead?"

Damsel scoffed, but it was Nines who answered.

"He's dead."

He came up from the jewellery shop, hands in his pockets, face set into a grim expression. He nodded to the Fledgling, then stopped short.

"... hi, Patty."

Patty waved vaguely.

"Hey, Nines," she drawled, not half as drunk as she'd like to be.

The Fledgling shrugged at his questioning glance and he let it be.

"No way he'd leave his shop to be ransacked by these fascists. I got them to clear out. We need to go in, empty his stashes, get as much useful shit out of there as possible, then move on."

They waited until the coast was clear, then left Patty on the sidewalk to wait for Skelter and Jack, and took the back entrance into Abrams' office.

The presence of an armada of self-important cops had implied the sight would be grizzly. Nothing could have prepared the Fledgling for this.

The entire office had been turned upside down. Furniture had been trashed, books and papers soaked up blood pooling on the formerly pristine floors. On the far wall, where the big wall TV had hung on which the Fledgling had once watched the Sabbat's snuff film, was Isaac Abrams.

He'd been pinned there by some unnatural force, joints driven into and trapped by the wall, suspended by these points like a failed attempt at a crucifixion. Clothes hung in loose tatters from his desiccated body. Shards of bone had pierced the wallpaper behind him. His chin had dropped to his chest.
The upper half of his skull was missing.

"Fuck," Damsel said.

She moved deeper into the room, past the upturned desk, touching the hem of Abrams' suit jacket.

"Fuck," she said again. "He didn't deserve that."

The Fledgling, having nothing to say that wouldn't feel like empty platitudes, turned to Nines to ask him where Abrams might have hidden his valuables. Their face fell.

Nines stood by the door, face turned away from Abrams' dead body, covering his mouth with his forearm.
He'd paled, even beyond the usual pallor of a vampire. Something in the way he held his body told the Fledgling that he was trying very hard not to lose it.
When they reached out to squeeze his shoulder, he flinched and drew away.

"I'm okay," he said, contrary to all evidence. "Just give me a minute."

It wasn't revulsion that had him cover half his face, but the Fledgling pretended it was to save him some dignity. Abrams had been his friend, for whoever knew how many years. They wondered how they would react if they saw Damsel, or Skelter, or even Nines dead and displayed to make a mockery of them. But nothing they had with the Anarchs right now came even close to the decades Nines had had time to build up sympathies.

"Let's grab what we can," Nines said eventually.

Between Damsel, who hadn't liked Abrams very much, and Nines, who was trying hard to appear unfettered, it fell to the Fledgling to be the voice of morality.

"Bit callous, isn't it? Cleaning out the guy's place hours after he died."

It had been the wrong thing to say. Within the span of Damsel's cigarette fuelled breath, Nines had crossed the distance between them and came up close enough against the Fledgling to touch. He didn't, but they nonetheless dropped their arms to their sides, deceptively casual, fingers curled into claws.

"Callous? You want to go there? Whoever killed him, they did something to him that kept him from getting dusted. They left him behind like that so we'd find him. That's the corpse of my friend over there, newbie, and if we don't take every edge we can get, it's gonna be yours next. How's that for fucking callous?"

The Fledgling met his barely contained rage calmly. They searched his eyes for something and whether they found it or not, they backed down.

"Point taken," they said. "Let's make this quick."

They pulled Damsel along and started looking for anything Abrams, or his killer, might have left behind.

The drawers were a no-go. They'd been torn out during the fight, their contents scattered across the floor. The Fledgling started pushing back the paintings on the walls, while Damsel moved whatever furniture hadn't been disturbed yet.

Nines joined them shortly after, going through the things that had been swept from Abrams' desk. He went through each object methodically, picking it up, looking it over, and putting it down.

"What exactly are we looking for?" The Fledgling asked.

Nines held up a key.

"The safe this belongs to."

The Fledgling nodded, started knocking on the walls, listening for the right resonance. No sooner had they started, Jack arrived.

He whistled low at the sight of Abrams driven into the wall of his own office.

"Shit," he said. "You okay, Nines?"

"I'm okay," Nines said without looking up.

"Better hurry up. Cops are on their way back. Somethin' spooked them."

With renewed haste, the Fledgling found the right spot, heard the solid clanking of metal behind a section of the wall that looked as inconspicuous as the rest. Not bothering to look for the mechanism to open it, they called over Jack, who cracked his knuckles with an unhappy grin.

Together they punched through the wall and ripped apart the panelling, unearthing matte black metal. Nines threw them the key, and leaned against the remains of the desk, arms crossed, head carefully turned from Abrams' body, while he told them the combination.

They divided several wads of cash and a few blood bags among them. A small stack of papers was among the treasures and Nines took them wordlessly, shoving them in the back of his waistband.

Jack, sensing Nines' state, kept him between himself and Damsel as they stepped out of the office.

The Fledgling threw one last look at Abrams. He'd been more Camarilla than Anarch, had insisted on titles and procedures, had revelled in his authority and demanded respect he'd worked for for centuries.

But he'd been an ally, and he didn't deserve this.

"I'll get whoever did this," the Fledgling promised, then went after the others.

The streets weren't safe anymore. Whether due to uncharacteristic diligence or Camarilla influence, the cops returned and were about to discover someone had broken into their crime scene. The Fledgling suggested the Hollywood cemetery to hide. But before they could make their way there, they had to defuse another situation.

"You think this is funny? This isn't some shopping trip you make with your little friends."

"I know it's serious, okay? The new kid explained, like, everything. So back off, okay?"

While they'd been inside Abrams' shop, Skelter had turned up. As he saw them approaching he pointed at Patty.

"What the fuck is she doing here?"

The Fledgling went up to them, standing next to Patty in case Skelter wanted to make his distaste for her known physically. And in case she hadn't sobered up yet.

"I brought her along."

"I can see that. Why? We have enough problems without having to babysit a ghoul."

Patty protested, but the Fledgling held her back.

"She's here. She's with me. Deal with it. We need to get moving."

Skelter looked ready to argue but Nines backed the Fledgling up. He raised his arms in a gesture of scornful surrender.

"Have it your way," he said.

Shoving the things they'd gotten from Abrams' office into their bags they set off towards the cemetery.

The Fledgling led them around the main gate and through the partially hidden hole in the wall, creeping down the hill towards the mausoleum. When they chanced a look into the house normally inhabited by Romero, they weren't surprised to find it empty.

Maybe Abrams had been quick enough to warn him. Maybe he'd gotten out in time. Reality burnt the edges of hope.

Abrams' mutilated body forced itself to the forefront of their memory. Abrams hadn't even been quick enough to warn himself.

They kept moving, pushed open the heavy stone doors. Silent, each in their own thoughts, they filtered into the grey halls of long dead stars. Each found their own spot, each a distance away from the next. Patty alone didn't pick up on the mood and sat down heavily next to the Fledgling.

"This is all fucked up," she complained, then fell silent.

The Fledgling checked the time. A little under twenty four hours ago they'd been riding high on their victory against LaCroix. Beset with wounds that hadn't yet healed, tired and exhausted but optimistic.
That was yesterday, now was today, and the optimism had run out.

What was left of their resources fit into two backpacks with space to spare. Nothing like the wagonload of explosives Jack had used to blow up the sarcophagus. No one to blow up, either. European Camarilla, Jack had said, but the Fledgling had no idea where to even start looking for them.

All while they had known exactly where to find the city's Anarchs.

They looked around. Nines had crossed his arms across his knees, chin propped on his forearms. He stared into nothing, a thousand-yard-stare leading directly to Isaac Abrams. Damsel hadn't remained seated long. She'd gotten up, paced up and down the hallways, a litany of curses following her like cigarette smoke.
Jack had hauled himself up by the windows, keeping a lookout through the tinted glass. His silence was the most jarring of all, his usual boisterous laughter and inventive swearing had made way for contemplation.
Skelter alone had remained in the present, eyes on Patty, who pretended to be asleep. His lips curled in distaste, brow furrowed into barely concealed rage.

They'd lost their havens, their resources. Abrams had lost his life, of Velvet there was no sign. Ash had left the city days ago and was probably better off for it.
Here in this mausoleum gathered a sorry selection of soldiers, and help wouldn't come to them.

"We need a plan," the Fledgling said.

Nines and Jack raised their heads to acknowledge them, but Damsel didn't even stop her pacing. Skelter only grunted. None of them looked enthusiastic about their prospects.

"Seriously, we can't stay here."

"We know, newbie," Nines said.

He sounded tired, but he would be, having likely not slept since fighting that werewolf. Damsel was the one to speak in his place.

"Why don't you fuck off?"

The others' silence took on a heavier note. The Fledgling looked around. Then at Damsel.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me." She paced, by turns glaring at the Fledgling, then avoiding their gaze. "Shit's all fucked up, Camarilla's out there hunting Anarchs. No one knows who the fuck you are. You could get out now, before you get dusted like the rest of us."

In the eyes of the Anarchs the Fledgling saw that they had all been thinking the same thing. Even Nines, shoulders drawn up in a defence against the invisible.

"No one would blame you," he said, quietly.

To avoid the fate of Isaac Abrams.

"Don't insult me," the Fledgling said. "I'm an Anarch. The Camarilla knows that. Better than you apparently."

It put something like hope into Nines' eyes, like rain falling on an almost burnt out building.

"What's our next step?"

To this Nines had no answer. He shook his head, dragged a hand through his hair. The Fledgling watched him for a while, then got up. Patty made a noise of surprise as she fell to the ground. She stayed there, though, too tired to move.

"We need shelter for the day," the Fledgling said, counting their list of objectives. "We need information. Once we know what we're up against, we need weapons, allies, anything to help us fight back."

At this Nines laughed out loud. It was a sharp, angry sound, throwing distorted echoes from the high walls.

"Fight back?" he mocked. "Look at where we are. You think the Camarilla's just going to roll over and let us stake them? Nah, we're on the run."

This time it was the Fledgling who bridged the distance between them. With Nines sitting on the ground it didn't have quite the same effect. The Fledgling towered over him, but Nines wasn't intimidated. He didn't have the energy left for it.

"So that's what you want to do then, run?"

Nines made to answer, but the Fledgling interrupted him.

"Because that's the choice here. Fight back or leave LA. You wanted me to leave? I'm not stopping you from tucking your tail between your legs."

Nines bristled, pulled up to his feet by the sheer force of his passion alone. The Fledgling didn't so much as flinch.

Patty did on their behalf. Like the rest of their little group, she watched the exchange with rapt attention.

"Watch your tone, newbie. I've been fighting for a free LA longer than anyone. I'll never give it up."

"Didn't sound like it just now. Sounded like you want to find some nice sandy beach to bury your head in."

"Fucking call me a coward again! I took down bigger threats than this while you were still being potty trained."

"Prove it!"

"I damn well will!"

The Fledgling and Nines came nose to nose, fire dancing behind both their eyes. Nines' lips were pulled back into a snarl, but the Fledgling didn't frown. Their expression cracked into a feral grin.

"Good," they said.

Nines faltered, taken aback by the sudden shift in tension. Then he caught up to what he'd just said, and offered a grin of his own.

They drew apart, Nines pulled himself up to his full height. He might have been persuaded to give a rousing speech, but he never got the chance.

The window against which Jack had braced shattered.

He cursed, threw himself to the ground, shielded his head from falling glass. A heavy object was lobbed through the window, hitting the stone tiles and rolling along the floor. Patty screamed. Each Anarch, ducking what they'd thought would be an attack from knives or guns, locked onto the object coming to a rest in their midst. It was small, black, and round, and had a handle attached to it. In less than a fraction of a second, the Fledgling's vampiric reflexes kicked in.

Skelter shouted "Phosphorus grenade!" in the same blink of an eye as the Fledgling dove for the grenade, picked it up and lobbed it back through the open window. They jumped back, directly on top of Nines and had barely time to shield their eyes and his before the grenade went off.

A devastating crash shattered their eardrums. The entire building shook as the white flash burned itself into the Anarchs' eyelids. Smoke rose almost immediately, crackling flames consumed the dry growths behind the mausoleum.

"Run!"

As one the group scrambled to obey, making a dash for the large double doors.

They blew open from the outside, smacking against the walls, crumbling under the force. Damsel, who'd been farthest ahead, was thrown back into Skelter's arms. He caught her, set her on her feet, then dodged the bullet coming his way. It smashed into the stone behind him, left a crater the size of a fist. The Fledgling ducked, zigzagged along the path and threw themself bodily at the attackers. One of them grunted, went down, the others started shouting as the other Anarchs stormed outside as a solid body.

Black armour. Black masks.

The same people that had attacked the Fledgling's haven. But they clearly hadn't counted on so many of them being here. They pummelled the one they'd knocked down into submission, then got up and went after Nines. They were halfway up the hill when they remembered to do a head count. Nines and Jack were ahead, Skelter and Damsel took out another of their attackers, then raced to catch up. Patty was nowhere to be seen.

Cursing, the Fledgling turned around, skidding and skipping back down the hill. Patty ran towards them, failing to keep up.

"Come on!"

The Fledgling pulled at her arm, ran on, painfully slow. Gunfire rattled behind them. Patty screamed, fear tripping her up. The Fledgling went down with her, covered her with their body and pulled her behind a gravestone.

More gunfire broke off chips of stone, hit the soft earth barely inches from their hand. The Fledgling pulled back, looked up at the hill where the other Anarchs had disappeared.

"What do we do? They're going to kill us!"

The Fledgling jumped to their feet but kept in a low crouch behind the gravestone. There had only been a handful of them to begin with, and two weren't getting up anytime soon. Less had ambushed them at their haven and now they didn't have to fight the day torpor.

"Run ahead. Find the Anarchs, get a car, bring it around to the south gate. Got all that?"

Patty nodded.

"Then go!"

She yelped, scrambled to her feet and ran. The Fledgling threw themself over the gravestone, bullrushing the first guy who'd taken aim at Patty. He didn't see them coming, grunted as he went down. The Fledgling kicked at his head and felt something break. The next two weren't so stupid. They fell back, took up cover. The Fledgling went after them, then skidded to a stop in the muddy ground as two automatic rifles pointed at them. Cursing they dove behind a tree, didn't stop to give these guys time to aim, and rushed from cover to cover closer to their attackers.
A bullet hit its mark, pain bloomed in the Fledgling's knee.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

They lost their balance, tumbled a few feet down the hill, losing sight of the south gate for a moment. They landed between gravestones, an open line of sight between them and one of the rifles. Bullets hailed onto the ground in front of their feet, but the Fledgling was already gone, leaping over and onto a nearby pillar, jumping ahead and into the dirt again as gunfire obliterated the stone on which they just stood.

One of the guys had left himself open, secure in the thought the Fledgling couldn't get close in the crossfire. Now he regretted it as the Fledgling came out of the shadows, fear flickering in his flame lit face. The fire had spread to the grass around the mausoleum. Even as the Fledgling shoved the other Kindred's head down onto a sharp stone, they wondered what excuse the Camarilla would come up with to explain this away.

A carelessly discarded cigarette butt? Faulty wire? Half the city had burned today, and the Camarilla didn't seem to care.

Beneath their hands the Kindred turned to dust and finally - finally! - a car horn broke the cacophony of gunfire and shattering stone. The Fledgling got up, raced down hill without caring for cover. At the path, inches from the gate, another bullet took a chunk out of their hip. Cursing they stumbled, but kept going, scaling the gate and dropping down on the other side. Jack poked his head out of the open door - "Come on, step on it!" - the Fledgling jumped in, slammed the door shut.

Patty behind the wheel floored it, tires screeched, and then they were gone.

They'd left Santa Monica Boulevard long behind before the Fledgling dared to relax. The car, an old beat up station wagon that smelled of nachos and old socks, rumbled steadily down the street.

The Fledgling settled down next to Jack, took stock of first their group - Damsel had snagged shotgun and was currently fiddling with the radio - and then themself.

"Look at them potholes," Jack said appreciatively, an eerie reminder of their first meeting.

The Fledgling grinned, feeling for the exit wound at their knee. The second bullet had barely grazed their hip, it healed before the Fledgling could remove the torn fabric sticking to their skin with blood.

The knee wasn't so forthcoming. The bullet had shattered bone and they picked out shards absently. After two weeks of being shot at, stabbed, set on fire, and otherwise injured, they no longer marvelled at their new pain tolerance. Still, they needed to heal, and no opportunity to go hunting until they'd gone underground.

As if he'd read their thoughts, Nines searched for something in his pack, and threw the Fledgling a blood bag.

They caught it, dug their teeth into the plastic and sucked the whole thing dry faster than a capri sun. It was a poor substitute for fresh blood but it would have to do.

"How many of those we've got?"

"Six," Nines said. "But we'll get more once we got a place to set up."

They kept driving. Periodically one of the Anarchs would give Patty a new address to put into her nav-computer. Safe houses, other Anarchs, old havens, and the like. None of them panned out. The Anarchs were met with closed doors and havens still smoking from mysterious fires. More than once they drove slowly by a potential safe place only to see Kindred thugs conspicuously nearby, just waiting for rabble dumb enough to try.

They hit the next address. Found it deserted.

"That's fucking impossible!"

Damsel hit the side of the car with nearly enough force to pop the airbag. She cursed, threw herself back in her seat. She had no more addresses to give. The Camarilla had found all of them.

Skelter and Jack had run out a while ago. The Fledgling had had none to offer in the first place. Nines shook his head when Patty returned from pumping gas and looked to him.

They drove.

They moved deeper into the inner city, on streets still busy even at this time of night. The sun would come up soon. Already the night had turned from ink to the grey shroud of a faded veil. They kept out of the nice neighbourhoods, moved towards the areas of the city that had been abandoned, left to rot.

On an empty street filled with nothing but apartment blocks falling apart from the inside, and rusted out cars, they found what they were looking for.
An old brewery of some kind, fences broken down, grass growing wild over the cracked pavement leading up to the building. They parked the car in the back, hid it as best they could beneath the high grass and rubble. It was beat up enough to look like part of the scenery.

Minutes before dawn they broke into the building, jumping in through the window into a cold and damp cellar one by one. They put up barricades in front of the windows, to protect them from the sunlight and had just finished when Damsel pulled her hand back from the crate she'd been holding. She hissed, waved her hand to cool down the burning blisters the sunlight had caused, then pushed the crate just a little bit further with her elbow.

Kent, building a barrier with furniture as the sunlight crept over the hills into Grout's mansion. The Fledgling bit their tongue, drove away the memory with pain of a different sort.

The cellar stayed dark. The Anarchs shuffled around, searched for places to sleep, day torpor reaching out its fingers but none quite ready to give in yet.

"Here's what I don't get," Skelter said into the dark.

The Fledgling settled onto an area of the ground that wasn't quite as damp as the rest. By tonight, they'd be soaked and freezing. Better than being dead.

"They knew every one of our hideouts," he continued. "Every haven, every fallback point, everything"

"Spies everywhere," Jack said glumly.

"I get that. But they shouldn't have been able to find our havens. No one knew about mine except Damsel and Jack."

Damsel echoed back the sentiment. So did Jack and Nines. The Fledgling's haven, sponsored by LaCroix, had been an open secret towards the end, but theirs had been kept within Anarch hands.

They looked at each other, something new forming between them. Suspicion.

"Who knew about all the havens?" The Fledgling asked carefully.

As each tallied up the people they'd trusted enough to share that kind of secret, only one name remained. They turned.

Jack raised his arms, stepped back.

"Hey, hey now. Nothin' hasty here. Wasn't me. My place got trashed just the same as yours."

Damsel didn't buy it. She rounded in on Jack, frustration making way for restless anger.

"We wouldn't know, would we? No one knows where you live. How about it, Jack, wanna come clean?"

Jack took another step back, no longer cautiously concerned. He was still smiling but it didn't reassure the Fledgling.

"Slow down," they said. "We don't know it was Jack."

"Who else?" Damsel spat on the ground. "There's no one else left it could have been."

Tiny, timid, choking on sobs, Patty spoke up.

"It was me."

Silence stretched in the space after her confession. A band of tension pulled tighter and tighter around them, cracks forming in the Anarchs' composure. The first person to move would be the first to fight.

But it was Patty, again, who broke the tension. She cried out, rocked back and forth as she sunk to the ground, knees drawn up to her chest.

"It was me, okay? It was me! You let Kent die, all of you!" The dam broke and words spilled from her mouth. "I was so angry at you. I wanted you to be hurting like I was hurting. But what was I even supposed to do? You could have killed me, and then no one would even remember Kent, because none of you cared, none of you! So when that woman came to me, I told her everything. I knew she was going to do something to you, and I wanted it! I just ... I didn't think they'd go this far ..."

A beat went past.

Then Skelter screamed: "You fucking bitch!" and lunged.
Nines and the Fledgling moved at the same time, coming from opposite sides. The Fledgling slung one arm around Skelter's and put their whole weight in keeping him where he was.

Patty yelped, scrambled backwards until she hit one of the big boilers.

Damsel didn't attack, but her rage was no less potent.

"You nearly got us all killed! You fucking brainless, plastic, whore! You got Abrams killed!"

Patty cried in earnest now, huge gasping sobs that wracked her entire body. Skelter still fought against the Fledgling and Nines, spitting curses.

"Let me go! That bitch deserves what I'm about to do to her."

"Skelter, stop!"

The Fledgling dug in, clawed their fingers into Skelter's arm then whirled around and punched him directly in the face.

Skelter roared, came at the Fledgling trying to go through them to Patty. The Fledgling shoved him back.

"How many of us do you think are left?"

That stopped him. He made to say something, stopped. Then his rage aligned itself with this new direction.

"Look whose fucking fault is that!"

"Who gives a shit whose fault it is!"

The Fledgling gestured at Patty, then the group at large.

"There's six of us, Skelter. If anyone else made it out, we don't know. Yeah, Patty fucked up. But she's being hunted by the Camarilla the same as we are, and she'll probably end up dead anyway along with the rest of us. If we want a chance at survival, we're going to have to use everything we have. I'll take a bad Anarch over a dead Anarch."

The Fledgling breathed heavily, an old habit they hadn't yet shaken. Skelter looked at them, no longer raging, but far from placated. Damsel at least stopped cursing. She turned around with a huff and settled into a corner as far away from Patty as she could find.

Eventually Skelter backed down. Perhaps their words had gotten through to him. Perhaps he realised the Fledgling was prepared to fight him over this and neither could afford to waste their blood supply like that. Nines let go of him, carefully. Even he wouldn't look at Patty.

"Fine," Skelter said. "You wanna stick up for that fucking ghoul, fine. But she makes one step out of line, hell, she so much as breathes wrong ..."

The Fledgling nodded.

They dispersed, finding their own little corners and finally giving in to their exhaustion. The last thing the Fledgling heard before sleep claimed them was Patty's lonely weeping from the other side of the room.

Chapter Text

Didn't take long for the Camarilla to catch up.

The Anarchs still shook off the day torpor, wandering around the deserted cellar with the stench of beer seeping into their clothes, when Jack came back reporting he'd seen suspicious characters lingering too close.
Haste forced them awake. They blindly threw their things together, shouted at each other to get moving. Nines and Jack stood watch by the exits, caught the backpacks Skelter threw them and made a dash for the car. Harried, restless, and frustrated they piled in not a full minute after Jack had spoken his warning.
They watched them through the car window as they passed, surrounding the building. A couple of minutes later, they'd have been caught.

Their hurry had side effects however. An hour on the road Nines cursed because he couldn't find his blue shirt. The Anarchs went through their things, but it was the Fledgling who remembered. It was still crammed behind one of the big tanks in the brewery. Nines had used it the day before as a makeshift pillow. No one had noticed it in the rush.

Now Nines sat curled up in the backseat, arms crossed, frowning. He complained about the lack of heating, the breeze from the open window when Damsel stress smoked, and the entire season of autumn.

"You're a vampire, how can you even be cold? That, like, makes no sense," Patty said.

Privately the Fledgling agreed. But they knew it wasn't about the temperature. Or even his missing shirt. When Nines rubbed warmth into his arms, it wasn't the wind that put the goosebumps back.
Next time they had to run, it might not be just a shirt they'd leave behind.

They drove. No goal in mind, no direction to take. Skelter took turns at random, once heading onto Route 101, then getting off before they reached Woodland Hills and turning around, back into the city.

Every few hours they switched drivers. Skelter gave the wheel to Damsel somewhere around midnight, when they stopped at a gas station while Patty bought food for herself, petrol for the car, and soap for all of them.

"Let's just leave her here," Damsel suggested while they waited.

The Fledgling threw her a look. She was only half serious, in a rotten mood after spending that much time in a cramped car. But none of the others objected and her idea turned solid in their minds. They shifted on their feet, glanced at each other. Waiting for someone to object.

"And if we can't find a place to lay low by sunrise?"

All eyes on the Fledgling, who pulled themself up straighter.

"We may need Patty to drive through the day, that's all I'm saying," they said.

Silence spread at that. Despite the situation, none of them had truly expected not to find something before the night was through. Stuck in that car with the same people all day and night got old quickly, but it would be their reality unless they found a way to hide.

Nines cursed, kicked the petrol pump hard enough to leave a dent. Staring sullenly at the damage he'd caused he asked the question that had been on everyone's mind.

"How do they keep finding us?"

The bright halogen lights flickered overhead. They stood in the dirt of a thousand cars, kine around them pumping gas, buying food, and thinking of going home. No answers except the ones their own paranoia suggested.

"Someone ratted us out," Skelter said.

His tone of voice left no doubt as to whom he suspected.

"When?" Jack said, unexpectedly coming to Patty's defense. "Haven't had a break from having all your asses shoved in my face since we found Abrams."

Being reminded of Abrams dampened the mood further. However many they were to be stuck together, they should have been more. And if they didn't keep driving, kept looking for shelter, they'd end like he did.

"Fuck, I don't know, then," Skelter said.

Damsel glared at him.

"Then don't say stupid shit like that."

He bristled, moved the two steps into her space. Damsel stood her ground, lips pulled back to reveal her teeth.

"I don't hear you coming up with something better."
"You're wasting our time."
"You're wasting my space."

Jack made to step in, but Nines stopped him. Instead he put himself between Damsel and Skelter. They looked one wrong word away from throwing punches.

"Settle down. I know you're on edge, but you're gonna have to deal. No helping anyone by fighting now."

Reluctantly Damsel and Skelter backed off. She soothed her ruffled feathers by pulling her beret off and dragging her hand through her hair. She exaggerated the amount of time she needed to put it back on and fix it in the car mirror, enough for Skelter to make a gracious retreat.

Nines watched them both until he was sure they wouldn't start where they'd left off as soon as his back was turned.

Patty returned, arms full of food. Here in the bright artificial light she looked even more ashen than the Fledgling remembered. About seven days since her regnant had died. It didn't look like Kent had given her blood recently before he left. From the dark circles under her eyes, the Fledgling wagered she didn't have long before she went into withdrawal.
However she felt, she made a valiant attempt not to let it show.

"This is kind of like a road trip, right?" She said, forcefully chipper. "Like, it could be."

An attempt to lighten the mood. It fell flat.

Silently they got back in the car, Damsel at the wheel. As they turned back onto the road, they watched Patty open a bag of crisps. Immediately the smell of cheese and onion flavoured junk food filled the stale air of the car.
As one the gathered Anarchs groaned.

"Fuck, Patty, was that necessary?" Skelter complained as they rolled down the car windows.
"What? I'm sorry, okay, but they're totally my favourite. Not like you'd understand."
"You're right, I wouldn't."

Scoffing, Skelter leaned against the car door and crossed his arms.

Cold air replaced the stale one but the smell of food remained. The Fledgling had met Kindred who threw up just grabbing a whiff. But they hadn't failed to notice that Skelter kept throwing glances at Patty devouring her crisps.
Ostensibly he was looking out the window, watching the other cars pass by. But he'd been good at pretending not to care when the Fledgling met him. This was not unusual.

"You ever miss it?" The Fledgling asked softly, then clarified: "Eating, I mean."

Skelter looked at them briefly, then went back to his sullen silence. They thought he wouldn't answer, when he spoke up after all.

"Yeah," he said. "Sometimes."

Waiting for elaboration the Fledgling listened to the crinkle of the plastic bag, Nines' equally soft conversation with Jack about what other places they could try, and filled the space with hand-made silence. It begged to be filled, and Skelter gave in sooner than they'd expected him to.

"When I was first Embraced, I believed in all that shit about turning back human," he said. "Tried to kill my sire for fucking months before she got it through my thick head that it wasn't gonna happen. All that time, I kept thinking, once this is over, I'm gonna have the biggest fucking burger they serve in this whole damn city.
Had dreams about that moment. Pictured walking into one of those whites only places and make them make me that burger. With a big heap of fries and enough coke to drown one of those rat dogs they carry in their purses these days."

They could see it, Skelter looking much like now but much younger in both spirit and mind, sitting in the middle of a fancy restaurant rubbing his belly as self-satisfied as Tom dining on Jerry. A victory meal for a fight he could never win.
The Fledgling nudged him with their elbow.

"There's more, isn't it?"

His eyebrows rose, wistful longing made way for amused surprise.

"Sure you're not reading my thoughts?"
"Sure."

Skelter grinned, then turned properly towards them, leaning into a conspiratorial hunch.

"If you laugh ..."
"I won't laugh."

Skelter looked around. Patty had stopped eating her crisps. When she noticed him looking she pretended to be busy on her phone. But she was as tense as violin strings, poised to pick up every word Skelter dropped.

"You know those petit fours? Had a box of those in my fridge for sixteen years, thinking I'd get to open it any day now."

The Fledgling didn't laugh. But it was a close thing. Skelter did smile sardonically.

"Bread, too, all that French shit. Been to France, once, before I was Embraced. You can't get bread like that in the States. Fucking best experience I had over there, and I did practically nothing but eat and fuck the entire time."

This time the Fledgling did laugh. They threw their head back and nearly broke Nines' nose. He yelped, jumped back nearly into Jack's lap.

"Sorry, sorry!"

That in turn made Damsel, watching the exchange through the rear mirror, chortle and soon, without knowing quite why, the entire car was caught up in laughter. Helpless to stop it, everytime one of them calmed down they'd be set off again by the rest.

Patty gasped for air, waving her hand in front of her face, tears streaming down her cheeks. Nines was still holding his nose, shoulders shaking from his own mirth and wincing when Jack, overcome by the mood, punched him in the shoulder hard enough to bruise.

"Stop," she gasped, laughing even harder at the playful scuffle that broke out between Nines and Jack. "I can't breathe, stop."

Seeing as no one else in the car had that predicament, there was little chance of anyone stopping. Anyone except Skelter.
From one moment to the next he fell silent, smile turning into a frown. He stared at Patty, lines drawn into his forehead. The Fledgling noticed his changed mood first, but Damsel wasn't far behind.

"Skelter, what's up?"

One by one the rest of the group calmed down, apprehension replacing the briefly so light mood.
Skelter shrugged, torn between letting it go and speaking up. He wouldn't be an Anarch if he was prone to choose the former, though.

"You shouldn't be here," he said to Patty.

Immediately her smile was gone. She drew her shoulders up defensively, ducked her head. But she didn't avoid eye contact, kept them defiantly on Skelter.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Skelter, we discussed this," Nines said, but his tired admonition fell on deaf ears.

"No, you discussed this. This is no place for a ghoul. If they catch you, the Camarilla's gonna squeeze you for every Anarch secret. And we already know they're not going to have to squeeze hard."

Patty actually flinched at that. She looked around, but no one came to her defence. She stuck around out of necessity and the fact that none of them could bring themselves to just leave her at the side of the road. But what passing sympathy they had to spare had evaporated with the confession of her betrayal.

"Look, I know, okay?" She played with the empty crisp bag. "I know I totally fucked up. This wasn't supposed to happen. I just ... I want to make it up, okay? You'll need me during the day. If the Cammies come while you're sleeping all in one place, it's over. So, I'll make sure you're, like, safe and stuff."

Skelter scoffed.

"I feel better already," he said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

"I can do it", she protested.

"No one's doubting you can," Damsel said. "Only that you will."

Patty shut up, wounded and out of assurances.
But she didn't leave, not even when Damsel made a point of stopping near a motel to hand the wheel to the Fledgling.

Driving like this was unsustainable, the Fledgling knew that. Their cash reserves wouldn't last them to the end of the month with this strategy, but none of them had any idea where to go next.
The city was big enough to disappear in, they held onto that. If they could find some place to lay low, regroup, plan. A place from which to strike out on individual missions and gather the resources necessary to fight back, they might just have a chance.
The city was big enough, but the Camarilla were everywhere.

"Jesus fucking Christ's virgin asshole."

The Fledgling stopped the car. They got out, Jack ahead who'd spotted the carnage first.

At the side of the road, near some bushes but wholly unconcealed, three bodies lay shredded to pieces, two female, one male.
Around them on the grass, in the bushes, grey dust lay scattered, wind blowing around the evidence of more than these three having died in the confrontation.
One of the bodies was mortal, a ghoul they guessed from his proximity to the other bodies, both Kindred. Both so young Final Death hadn't dusted them. The one closer to the road looked more ashen, like she'd been there for a couple of days, while the other one looked as if she'd just taken a quick nap, had it not been for the bloody slashes all across her arms and face.

The Fledgling knelt down by the ghoul. Blood had flown from his wounds, still sticky.

"Fucking Cammies," Patty said behind them.

She hadn't seen Abrams, and had gotten noticeably ashen around the nose. But she kept it together.

"That wasn't Camarilla."

Jack rounded the corpses, looked up at the road in clear view of them. Cars drove by, so far unconcerned with the blood and guts strewn around. Maybe their mortal eyes hadn't picked up on the obvious. Maybe they'd become too cynical to care.

"They don't kill that openly," Nines added. "Could have been Sabbat."

Damsel swore at that name.

"I thought we kicked those fuckers out of the city."

Apparently they hadn't. The Fledgling tended to agree with Nines. This looked like a Sabbat killing, as vicious and animalistic as only they could be. Looking at the amount of vampiric dust around and the general dress of the dead Kindred they could see, the Fledgling formed some theories.
Two Kindred and a ghoul were difficult to surprise on the open road. Unless they'd already been hunted by someone else.

"These were Cammies," Damsel said, kicking a small bush to watch the dust fall like dandruff. "Something good to come out of this I guess."

"And the women were Anarchs," Jack added. "Older one's familiar. Out of San Francisco. Helluva time to come visiting."

The Fledgling shook their head. A waste of life, and they could barely keep on the move, nevermind warn incoming Anarchs of the war that had been declared on them. Although looking at this, it looked more like slaughter than war.

Police sirens sounded in the distance. Apparently one of the kine had finally gotten off a call to the pigs.

"Let's not be here when they show up," the Fledgling said.

They returned to their spot behind the wheel and waited for the rest to follow. Nines was last, standing over the bodies of the dead Anarchs. His lips were moving but they were too far away to hear what he said. Then he caught up, the last few steps in a half-run and got in, slamming the door shut as the Fledgling already hit the pedal.

The image of the dead Kindred followed them through the rest of the night. At every red light, every intersection, every moment of darkness in the space of a blink, it seared itself deeper into their mind.

About five Camarilla Kindred, according to Jack, so old to barely leave a trace after Final Death. Two Anarchs, young but strong enough to warrant this kind of force, accompanied by their ghoul.

If it was the Sabbat that had done this, they'd taken a level in badass since the Fledgling last fought them. Killing this many, quickly enough that the scene had been contained to a few feet in diameter, it would have been impossible for any normal Kindred, even a powerful one.

Whoever it was, they weren't aligned with the Camarilla. They'd killed Anarchs and Camarilla indiscriminately. Which meant they had another problem on their hands, and two factions following the scent of Anarch blood in the LA night air.

Days and nights passed.
During the days Patty drove through the city, running on the fumes of vampiric blood, escaping the day-hardened assassins of the Camarilla by never stopping to move. They had covered the windows with thick blankets, cementing them in their place with rolls and rolls of duct tape. The border between front and backseat had gotten a similar treatment. All sunlight had been blocked out and five Kindred stuffed into the seats, sleeping like the dead while strapped upright into their seats. There was no space for anyone to lie down.

When night fell they split up, partly to get out of each other's way, partly to give the Camarilla many small targets instead of one big one. The Fledgling had objected to that decision, seeing as some of them were bigger targets than others. Catching Nines by himself would be a cause for celebration to the Camarilla.
As much Nines had claimed not to be anymore special than the rest of them, they all knew the Fledgling was right. He'd sulked and argued, but in the end the Fledgling was put on protection detail.
Babysitting duty, Nines said, but he followed the Fledgling south towards the beach.

They'd circled the city a dozen times by now, on various winding routes along just about any major street and most of the smaller ones. Now they'd come around to Santa Monica again, sea salt, stale food, and cheap perfume in the air.

After a good seventy years as a Kindred in LA it surprised the Fledgling that Nines didn't know this neighbourhood very well. He shifted his weight from one foot to the next, looking around at the stuff on display as the Fledgling bartered away their last rifle.

"Never liked those anyway," they said when Nines shot them a questioning look on their way out.

If it had been an honest answer or if the Fledgling just tried to reassure him, it worked. He fell into step beside them, the two of them sauntering down the boulevard like two friends off to visit one of the many clubs.

Santa Monica hadn't gotten any cleaner since they were last here and the nightbreeze carried death, a scent so subtle that no kine picked it up. Behind the closed doors murder and worse atrocities remained the top items on the agenda.

The Fledgling led Nines down the street, giving him a walking tour of the neighbourhood.

"That's where I killed my first Kuei-Jin," they said, pointing at Foxy Boxes. "Bastard kept jumping on the crates. Half the fight was just trying to catch him."

"Huh," said Nines. "From some frog-legged rando to their leader in less than two weeks. Not bad."

They took the praise with a grin and a shrug, a what can you do to being forced to swim or sink.

"In there was a guy who was really into his prosthetics. Like, weirdly into. Maybe a kinky thing? Cut off his own arm because he wanted to know what using a prosthetic would be like. Tried to clobber me with a severed arm, but I shoved that right up his ass."

So it went, the Fledgling casually recounting tales of their exploits while at the same time keeping a sharp eye on their surroundings.

They stopped by the Asylum but didn't go in. If Jeanette hadn't gotten in contact with the Anarchs yet, she wouldn't. The club was open, judging by the guests milling in front and smoking, which these nights likely meant that Therese had either won or was protecting her sister.

Nines stepped away briefly to ask one of the guys in front for a light. He flinched when the guy held the open flame in front of his face, but the brief exchange allowed him to look around without arousing suspicion.

He returned to the Fledgling's side, gently pulling them along.

"We're being followed."

They resisted the urge to turn and look. If Nines said they were being followed, they were being followed. They linked their arms, palmed the cigarette when it didn't look like Nines was about to keep up appearances, and discreetly threw it towards the drains.

"Not a smoker? I know a place if you don't mind getting your feet wet."

They turned a corner, into a dark side alley. At the end of it someone stood, only their silhouette visible in the street lights. Too conspicuous to be a random kine. The two of them kept walking as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

"A Kindred's gotta be crazy to play with fire. Where did you have in mind?"

Whoever waited for them on the other side had their backs turned to them. The one who followed them hadn't yet caught up. They likely kept their distance to avoid spooking them. If it hadn't been for Nines' sharp eyes, they would have wandered straight into a trap.

As carefully and quietly as possible the two of them lifted a manhole cover up and to the side. Nines went down first.

"Head left to a locked door. Mind the third rung going down, it creaks," the Fledgling said.

Nines nodded and soundlessly disappeared into the dark. The Fledgling went in after him, just as carefully lifting the manhole cover back into place.

With any luck the Kindred on their trail wouldn't think of checking the sewers until they were well out of the way.

They'd expected Nines to wait for them by the door and almost ran into him where he stood barely a step out of the access tunnel. He'd turned stone still, shoulders drawn back, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Ahead of him, face down in the water, floated a body.

Some unlucky kine having gone down the wrong street at night, the Fledgling assumed. Hardly a reason for Nines to react this way. He'd made more corpses like that on a bad night.

"Zachary Austin," he said.

The Fledgling made a small noise of understanding. No kine.

"Friend of yours?"

Nines shook his head, but he kept moving. Carefully they moved around the floating body deeper into the sewer system.

"He was Embraced maybe a year before you. Didn't want anything to do with the politics. Kept away from everyone with skin in the game. But did the Camarilla care? No, they wasted him like he was one of us. Fuck!"

Nines kicked up the water, a spray of stinking sludge and hit the walls in an arc. His fists clenched and unclenched, trying to contain the rage building inside him. Then he gave up. With an unintelligible curse he drove his fist into the wall.

The decades old stonework cracked, shards of bricks gave under the force of his punch. He pulled his hand away, a sizeable hole where he left it.

"You know," the Fledgling said, crossing their arms. "I was just thinking with all that yelling you're doing we might as well leave a trail of breadcrumbs. This is much better. Well done."

Nines spun around, fire in his eyes, an itch in his fists. The Fledgling didn't so much as twitch, calmly watching him realise who he was up against.

"Fuck," he said, quieter this time. "Fuck, I'm sorry. You're right. It's just ..."

Wringing his hands, searching for an explanation, the Fledgling thought that the rage had fit him better. Not this. Being helpless and frustrated with no outlet.

"I get it," they said.

It was all they could say.

They moved on in silence. The key to the ocean house access pipes still worked. Rust and age gave the Fledgling trouble, but eventually they got the door open. So far no one followed.

"Straight ahead," they muttered, but once again Nines didn't move.

"I don't want to run."

They looked at him, found in the dim light determination casting harsh shadows on his usually gentler face. His reasons were clear.

The waterlogged body of an innocent Kindred turned into rat food as he spoke. In the wrong place at the wrong time, likely murdered by the same Camarilla hunting them now. For nearly two weeks they'd been running. The Fledgling had spent more time in Patty's car than they had in Santa Monica, and they kept finding new bodies. Kindred that had never made a choice in this war had suffered for it, and Nines didn't want to run.

"Okay," they said. "Might have an idea about that."

Something changed in Nines at that moment. Before him the Fledgling changed shape. No longer a freak of nature doing the impossible. But something else. Something he, as of yet, couldn't give name to.

He nodded.

The gate to the ocean house access stood wide open. Dead rats littered the waterway, evidence of two Kindred desperate for sustenance. The trail led directly to the hotel and the two Camarilla thugs followed it like being led on a string.

They emerged from the hatch to the sight of the ocean house hotel in the distance, and a dune of gravel and grass in front of them. No Anarchs yet. They split up, one taking the containers in the courtyard, the other heading to the house. He found the door unlocked and pushed it open.

Like a bat out of folklore, Nines swooped down from the ceiling. The Camarilla thug shouted, went down, arms flailing wildly as he tried to get free. While Nines held him down the Fledgling went in, knife drawn, and cut his head clean off. The body turned to dust under Nines and in the Fledgling's hands.

"Urgh," they said, wiping the dust from their hands.

"One down," Nines said, creeping up to the window.

The other Camarilla had not yet noticed his friend's untimely demise. He was poking around the containers, apparently convinced he'd find them there.

"Moron," Nines said.

"I'll get his attention. Once he's in, we do it like we said."

Nines didn't spare the Fledgling a second glance as they climbed the staircase and dropped through the hole into the cellar. He was busy watching the Camarilla thug, shielding his eyes with one hand, the other on his knife.

He cradled the hilt, thumbed the pommel with a pensive gesture. He'd lost his original knife sometime between the Fledgling's haven and the mausoleum. This one the Fledgling had given him, in exchange for a mint new shotgun bartered at the pawnshop.
If it killed Camarilla, it had been worth every cent.

Just then the lights flickered on, the song of electricity running through lightbulbs harmonising with the humming of generators. The hotel was still creepy, but functioning electricity took the edge off. Outside the Camarilla had noticed the old building yawning to life. He approached, careful to stay in cover and move unpredictably.

Not entirely stupid. But dead either way. Nines would make sure of that.

Meanwhile the Fledgling hummed a strained song to themselves. You couldn't be afraid and sing at the same time, or so it had been explained to them. After their last tour of the hotel, they'd take every edge they could get to drive away the sinister air of this place.

Above them the front door creaked open. Shouting followed as the Camarilla discovered Nines doing his best impression of Person Caught Off Guard. He gave chase, dust trickled from the ceiling under his heavy footfalls.

The Fledgling took off in the opposite direction, towards the kitchens. Pots and pans still lay around in the chaos of an angry spirit. Part of them expected them to move at any second, but they remained still, stuck to the ground and the counters without the assistance of the once notorious murderer of the ocean house hotel.

The food elevator still worked and the Fledgling squeezed themself inside, pressing the button to send it up.

Rattling and groaning under the weight the elevator carried them upwards. Under the din of moving tech they barely heard the sounds of the scuffle above. Only the occasional pained shout came through, all the louder when the elevator came to a stop.

They kept the doors closed, listened for anyone approaching. From the sounds of it, Nines was losing.

They came closer, Nines sprinting down the hallways to find cover and broke through the doors to the bar. He vaulted over it but couldn't get down fast enough to hide in time. The Camarilla laughed, a mean, shrill thing that sent shivers running down the Fledgling's spine. Stuck in this thing they had precious little manoeuvrability.

The Camarilla came in, wood creaking as they bumped against the bar. Nines must have retreated because his back hit the small elevator doors.

"Thought you could run?" Bottles clinked as the Camarilla knocked against them with the tip of their fingernail. "Typical rabble. Big mouth but when it comes right down to it, you run and hide like cowards. You're going to regret what you said about my sire."

There was no way out now. Nines was trapped, he the only thing between the Fledgling and the Camarilla steadily approaching.

"Now!"

The Camarilla snarled, leapt, but the word had barely left Nines' mouth when he let himself fall to the ground. The Fledgling came shooting out of the lift, and crashed into the Camarilla. Mid-fall they braced the knife against their shoulder with both hands and rammed it straight through the Camarilla's open mouth through their skull.

The knife sunk into the floorboards at least two inches, pinning the Camarilla down with it. They cursed, or tried to. With a sliced tongue and several inches of steel down their throat they couldn't do much more than gurgle. The Fledgling got up, turning around to look for Nines. He'd jumped over the bar again and pulled off one of the wooden pillars that made up the railing.

Wood shavings fell to the ground as he used his knife to sharpen the wood to a point.

The Camarilla coughed up blood, eyes wide with fear. Nines smiled and drove the stake through his heart.

When the Camarilla came to, he'd been tied to a chair, with rope scavenged from the hotel and knots secure enough to keep a werewolf in place. Across from him the Fledgling sat on a dresser that had survived the fire mostly intact. Behind them, framed by the jutting pillars and beams of the hotel, the moon had sunk low to the horizon.

Nines stood behind the Camarilla, hands on the backrest.

"Let's make this quick," the Fledgling said.

They inspected their nails and flicked away some dirt.

"Who's after the Anarchs and why?"

The Camarilla spat at their feet, then shouted when Nines stuck his knife into his shoulder.

"Show some respect," Nines said, twisting the knife almost bored.

The Camarilla winced.

"Not like it's a secret," he said, not bothering to hide his contempt. "It doesn't speak to your intelligence that you haven't figured it out yet."

Ignoring the jab the Fledgling twirled their knife.

"If it's not a secret, you can tell us."

"Unless you want more of this," Nines whispered at his ear, nudging the handle of the knife and smiling when the Camarilla hissed.

"The Tremere Justicar. Some bigshot from the pyramid sent him. Name's Harrach-" he exaggerated the ch until red spittle came flying from his throat - "He thinks you let an Antediluvian loose in the city."

That did get the Fledgling's attention. They leaned forward, mindful of the burned wood bearing their weight.

"Everyone knows that was just some old mummy in that sarcophagus."

The Camarilla shrugged, then cursed when the motion made the knife in his shoulder move.

"That's what I heard. And it's all I'm telling you, so let-"

Nines interrupted his sentence by killing him. He broke the Kindred's neck, then beheaded him for good measure. Ropes fell onto the chair and to the ground as the body turned to dust.

Nines carded his hands through his hair.

"A Justicar. Shit, that's bad," he said.

The Fledgling waited for him to elaborate. When he didn't they prodded.

"What's a Justicar?"

Nines shook his head.

"Right, I forget how young you are. Justicars? They're bad news. Like a Camarilla secret police. If a Justicar's here, it means something scared the Camarilla shitless. And that means we're even more fucked than I thought we were."

"Shit," the Fledgling said softly.

Nines nodded miserably.

Stepping purposefully onto the remains, Nines and the Fledgling made for the Anarch's meeting place.

Rather than risk additional tails they took the route underground to the spot they'd agreed to meet before sunrise.

"Something smells wrong," the Fledgling said.

"That's just the rats," Nines said.

"Not that. I mean what's this about an Antediluvian? That was just hysteria, right? There was nothing supernatural inside that sarcophagus."

Shrugging, Nines checked the map for their route.

"Who cares what excuse the Camarilla came up with. They've always wanted us dead. Now they got their justification."

"Maybe."

The other Anarchs waited for them when they came up for air. Jack made jokes about them smelling like sewage, but they let Nines and the Fledgling into the car all the same. Patty was already at the wheel, sharing an icy silence with Skelter.

The doors slammed shut and Patty started driving.

"We think we've found a place," Skelter said. "Probably a bust, but Damsel wants to check it out."

"It's good," Patty added, voice muffled through the blanket barrier between them. "I promise."

Skelter scoffed but didn't argue. The sun came up, exhaustion fell over their bodies as suddenly as it never had in life. He was the first to fall asleep, head slumped against the covered window.

Nines and the Fledgling, tired already from a night of running and fighting, were next. They didn't get the chance to tell the others what they'd found out, succumbing to day torpor even as the Fledgling tried to put it all in words.

Jack held out longest, used to long nights stretching into the day. He was the only one to notice the Fledgling and Nines leaning against each other, the Fledgling's cheek against Nines' head, his head on their shoulder.
Despite the bad news, despite their shitty situation, they slept as peacefully as they hadn't in weeks.

Chapter Text

Every Kindred had their own hunting style. Some liked to get their victim's blood pumping, liked to stalk and chase until the blood turned sweet with adrenaline. Others preferred to be the shadow in the corner, preying soundlessly on sleeping kine. When they woke in the mornings their presence would be nothing but the memory of a nightmare, burned to dust as would the Kindred who'd put it there.

The Fledgling wasn't old enough to have developed their own style. They scrounged for food where they could get it, following people into dark alleyways, chatting up receptive men or women, with little preference or discrimination.

After the ordeal of the last few days any blood at all whet the Fledgling's appetite. They leaned against the bar, watched the strobe lights reflect off the sparkly outfits and mirrored dancefloor on which the partygoers danced. Until they became thirsty at which point they would drift into the Fledgling's sphere, trapped without knowing it.

Carefully they avoided the mirror floors, even though it meant having to wait for their prey to approach. A club like this was a masquerade breach waiting to happen, difficult hunting grounds for any Kindred. Just a single silver backed mirror among the others, and the jig was up.

It was the third establishment of its type the Fledgling tried that night, and just about their last chance if they didn't want to prey on the bums and whores of this city. They barely knew what they wanted, but knew what they didn't. Anarchs didn't prey on the oppressed.

They, like the Fledgling, were drawn to types like the one that approached them now. Expensive, from her haircut to her shoes, clothes more expensive than the car they lived in was worth. She barely looked at the Fledgling when she ordered her drink.

"Good choice," the Fledgling said casually when the bartender slid it over.

They weathered the ensuing critical once-over without batting an eyelash. Toreador were the masters of looking good without trying, but just about any Kindred save for the sewer rats could make their presence work.

They still would have preferred a fetish club. The rules were clearer there, the expectations set. But the closest one had been claimed by a Camarilla, their presence suffusing the air before the Fledgling ever stepped foot into the building.

"I always make good choices," the woman said.

If the Fledgling had their way, she would make at least one bad one tonight. They moved closer, turned the conversation into something more private, when the scent of watery blood hit them. Biting back a curse they backed off.

Either this woman was anemic or someone had fed on her recently. True enough when they cast a look around they spotted another woman in a far corner, eyes locked too intensely on the Fledgling to be coincidence. Jealous lover or a Kindred who could sense others of their kind. A spanner in the works.

The Fledgling extricated themselves as smoothly as possibly from the conversation, then left. Back alley ambush it was.

Back alley ambush it wasn't.
Trudging up the road the hunger still gnawed in their gut. Thoughts of taking the first unlucky sod who came along bubbled up and poppped at the surface of their mind. The beast reared its head. The Fledgling shoved it down.

At least they didn't have to get back in that car.

Before them the line of people hurrying along the narrow boardwalk parted to reveal a darkened shopfront. Tarp had been hung into the windows, still stenciled with looping letters spelling out Reaumur's Morbid Antiques est 1901. How Patty had learned about this place, nevermind gotten a key for it, remained a mystery.

The Fledgling knocked, three times against the glass door, shoulders hunched against the crowd. Every one of them kept enough blood in their bodies to feed them for a week. But none made convenient detours into dark alleys or abandoned stairwells.

The door opened a crack, revealing Damsel's shock of red hair and her furrowed brow. When she saw the Fledgling she opened the door further, let them slip in and make their way downstairs.

The top floor of the shop had been cleaned out but the cellar remained as it likely had been during Reaumur's tenure here. Crates stacked on top of each other, indefinable things crammed between shelves, discarded on the floor. A grandfather clock covered by cloth and tied with rope stood beside an assortment of small tools in a box perching precariously ontop an antique typewriter. Narrow paths wound through the mess, dust recently disturbed. At the very back of the room, surrounded by porcelain dolls, taxidermied reptiles, and things in glasses that had mercifully clouded over, the Anarchs had made a home.

Jack was still in the process of digging through this stuff for anything to make them more comfortable. Ancient flower printed curtains, persian rugs, and tasseled pillows had been carelessly thrown into the open space they'd created by pushing everything else against the walls.

Half covered by the treasure he uncovered lay Patty, sleeping too deeply to be disturbed by a moth-eaten wedding dress landing on her legs.

"No luck?"

Damsel came strolling down the stairs, hands in her pockets. The Fledgling shook their head.

"New territory. Probably wandered into a Cammy's domain."

"Just our fucking luck," Damsel said. "We're almost out of blood bags, too. Patty brought some earlier from Ryan's old haven. At this point they're worse than rat, but ..."

But better than nothing. Although it would take a couple of days not eating for the Fledgling to become desperate enough for expired blood bags.

Knuckles rapped against glass and broke the relative silence. Damsel sighed, swore, and went back up the stairs.

The Fledgling made themself comfortable on Jack's improvised nest, next to Patty who on closer inspection turned out to be less asleep than they thought she was.

"Hey," she said softly.

"Hey," said the Fledgling.

She rubbed the lace of the wedding dress between the pads of her fingers. Chipped nail polish rained down on the yellowed fabric, little spots of pink and black she ineffectually wiped at.

"Thanks, you know?"

The Fledgling tilted their head to show they listened.

Patty continued: "You keep sticking up for me even though I said some, like, really passive-aggressive things to you when we first met. And I know you tried to bring Kent home. I blamed you for his death like a really long time. Like, I thought you'd killed him because you didn't like me or something. But you're a good person. You would have saved him if you could have."

The words charred the thin film of countenance the Fledgling had built. Flames licked at them, taunted, mocked.
Kent had begged them to save him. He'd screamed for mercy. The Fledgling only had to reach out and grab him to pull him out of the flames. But they hadn't.

Because he'd been annoying, because they barely knew him, because they wanted to save their own hide. It didn't matter. The stench of burning hair and the heat of flickering flames running across their face sealed his fate and their sin.

The Fledgling dragged their hand across their face, squeezed their eyes shut then opened them again. The cellar was cool and dark, illuminated only by a torch they'd gotten out of the car boot. Pale white light, clinical and cold, had turned the room into shades of gunmetal and concrete grey.

Before they could say anything - or think about what they could say - Nines and Skelter made their presence known. They came bounding down the stairs like they had the wrath of the Camarilla behind them. The Fledgling had jumped halfway up, ready to fight, before they saw they were alone.

Frustrated and restless, but not immediately pursued except by Damsel complaining steadily of having to do door duty.

"That was no fucking coincidence, Nines, and you know it."

Skelter had moved into Nines' space, shoulders squared. At first the Fledgling thought he was itching for a fight, then they saw the worry in his eyes. He was looking to Nines to tell him he was wrong.

Nines did nothing, except to look to Damsel, then Jack.

"Nothing," Damsel said.

"Barely a rat out there that the Camarilla weren't watching," Jack added.

Hopefully Nines turned to the Fledgling who shook their head.

"Thought I was just unlucky."

"Unlucky my ass," Skelter said. "We took the car to four different places we know sell blood. None of them would sell to us. And when we tried to go hunting we found pigs at every corner, just waiting for us."

The Camarilla were trying to starve them out.

It had happened before, during the revolts of '43, although only Jack and Nines remembered. The hunger, the paranoia, looking over your shoulder more than the kine did. Sooner or later an Anarch would frenzy from hunger and the Camarilla would put them down, using them as an example to the rest.

Back then they had prevailed by sheer numbers alone, made it impossible for the Camarilla to watch them all, even with kine goons on their side. This time around no one knew what to do.

Damsel was the first to give. She made a comment implying the questionable and possibly bestial parentage of every Camarilla as she went through their things to look for Patty's blood bags.

She found, instead, the Fledgling's treasures. One minute she'd stuck her hand into a bag she hoped would contain blood, the next she tore it back, staring incredulously into the black hole hiding something stranger than fiction.

"Eugh, what the fuck?"

The Fledgling looked up, but Damsel had already reached back into the bag, pulling out -

"Is that a fucking thumb?"

It was. As Nines' coterie gathered around Damsel holding the thumb aloft, the Fledgling found themself in the uniquely awkward position of having to explain the severed body parts.

"It's mine, give it back."

Damsel did no such thing. She laughed, pointed the thumb at the Fledgling, but it was Skelter who questioned their choice of personal items.

"What the fuck do you keep a thumb around for? I thought you weren't one of the lunatics."

"Is it really yours?" was Nines' addition to the conversation.

He looked more concerned than grossed out.

The Fledgling shrugged, then swiped the bag and thumb from Damsel's hands.

"Hey!"

"It was a gift. I don't know who it belonged to originally."

Given to them by a man living under the floorboards of an insane psychologist's murderous trap. They left that part out, seeing as they had already gathered too many weirdness points today. Patty had, very subtly, brought some distance between them.

But she cracked a smile when the Fledgling checked to see if she was okay, and then Jack started laughing. His laughter, full belly and sharper than his teeth, infected everyone else.

It was the laughter of people who had very little to be joyous about. But none of them wanted to think of hunger, and being hunted, and flinching at every car or loud voice that might herald the arrival of the Camarilla.
After weeks of being on the road, living off scraps and fearing the next night, they had exhausted their supply of misery.
In its stead came empty joy, not good but better than the alternative.

"Rude to throw away a gift," Nines said. The Fledgling smiled at him and he stuttered. His cheeks reddened. "We, uh, should plan a make to Camarilla the fight."

A beat went past.
Then another.
Then, as Nines closed his eyes in pained embarrassment, everyone realised what had just happened.
Elated and needing a moment's diversion, the other Anarchs were lured in by Nines' misstep like sharks to blood. Damsel moved in, grinning viciously, even as Nines groaned and hid his face in his hands.

"Someone's embarrassed!" she crowed, all but rubbing her hands in glee.

Skelter wasn't satisfied with mere commentary.

"Nines and Fledgling-" he began with mean delight.

Damsel's eyes lit up.

"Sitting in a tree."

The Fledgling threw Patty a look of pure betrayal when she fell in with: "K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

Nines used some choice words that would get him arrested in some countries. But he didn't stop Jack throwing his arm around him. He didn't look the Fledgling in the eye either.

The Fledgling had, at this point, no idea what to make of this. If Nines hadn't reacted the way he did, they would have assumed it had been a slip of the tongue. But Damsel had pounced as if Nines had just declared his immediate and strong desire to be ravished by the Fledgling on a bed of roses.

Whereas Nines hadn't until now been aware that having a crush was something Kindred could still do.
Accepted lore stated that even Brujah lost some of their passionate spark upon meeting their first death, if less so than other clans.
He was not prepared to accept this was a genuine crush just yet, and he was just about to try and dispel any awkwardness, very likely making things much worse in the progress, when the Fledgling's phone rang.

He watched as they hurried away with an apologetic glance into the round. Then he put Skelter into a headlock as punishment for suggestive eyebrow wriggling.

The Fledgling didn't see it happen. They pressed their phone to their ear, listening to the panicked shouting of a man they didn't think they'd see again.

"It's all gone wrong, oh God, it's all ..."

E's warbling turned incoherent. The Fledgling could make out other people screaming, doors slamming, far away in the background. Snippets of what he was trying to say made it through, but he was crying and afraid and the heavy rustling of wind whipping past the phone as he ran made it almost impossible to gain anything of substance this way.

"Slow down, E, what's happened?"

"We just didn't want to have this curse anymore. Copper, he ... oh God, he-"

The other Anarchs hadn't noticed their distress yet. Then again, they weren't sure if they'd care. The Anarchs were all full Kindred, high generation but powerful in their own right. Thin-Bloods like E had never found a place in their ranks.

And with their blood stores running low they'd need to ration the reserves they did have.

"Damn it," the Fledgling said. "I'm on my way, just hold on."

They hung up with an address and a head full of worries.

Patty looked at them questioningly when they picked up their things, thumb and all.

"Gotta take the car," they said. "Deal with something. I'll be back before sunrise."

Hopefully.

The Anarchs watched them go, silent and showing their support by not objecting to them taking the car. They were almost up the stairs when Nines went after them in a rush, hoping to catch them before they were out the door.

"Newbie."

They turned around, worry creasing their forehead. Their mind was on anything but their friends' teasing just now. Nines deflated, swallowed down the words he'd been meaning to say.

"Careful out there," he said, a pale imitation of what was on his mind.

The Fledgling rewarded him nonetheless with a crooked smile.

"Always am."

Being Kindred was a rough deal. You turned into a leech. Preyed on the people you called your own before some bastard drained you, killed you, and fed you their blood. There was the Beast, constantly lurking underneath the surface, the worst impulses of a kine multiplied by ten and given fangs. Give in to the Beast, even once, and a bloodthirsty Sheriff would hunt and put you down.

The sunrise became something to watch on television, for those few who could get used to all that new technology. A Kindred's loved ones, the goals and dreams they had in their mortal days, even their capacity to love and feel, everything was stripped away from them.
In return they were thrown headfirst into secret wars, bloody massacres between Camarilla, Sabbat, Anarchs, and worse, to fight it for all eternity whether they wanted to or not.
All that for a few measly powers, most of which they couldn't use without some prissy wannabe Prince making a fuss.

The Thin-Bloods didn't even get that much.

Every year more joined their ranks as weak Kindred Embraced even weaker childer, and those in turn created something that could hardly be called vampire anymore. The elders who saw these half-bred mutations running around loathed and despised them. Perhaps because they realised for the first time that this was how the Antediluvians must have seen them, in the old days.

The Thin-Bloods in Santa Monica the Fledgling met on the night of their Embrace had their share of scars among them. They'd been bestowed by vindictive elders, marks meant to shame and were turned instead to bitter pride.

They had found each other, by coincidence, luck, premonition and providence and had made for themselves something like a clan.
To use the word, clan, with a Thin-Blood invited the mockery of Kindred. No powers, no weakness, no traceable bloodline at all connected these duskborn. They were empty of heritage and history, the chaff to the Kindred wheat.

Some vampires considered them an unfortunate fact of life, the price that had to be paid to sustain their numbers. But even they would not go so far as to assign the Thin-Bloods any clan, nevermind their own.
Hunted by the Camarilla, used as playthings for the hounds of the Sabbat, and met with uncomfortable silence by the Anarchs, the Thin-Bloods had no one but each other.

They stuck together, because the alternative was to be alone.

When the Fledgling reunited Lily and E, and put an end to Julius' collaboration with Hollywood's aspiring writers, the Thin-Bloods decided to move on. They crammed themselves into a car one of them owned and drove, hoping to land on greener pastures.

And, for some time, they were okay.

Not good, not even close. They still had to feed in secret. Still slept in sewers and got chased out of even those by Nosferatu who preferred the rats they could eat to those who took up valuable real estate. They were still only five against a world full of dangers.

But they were okay.

For a while they stayed with Lily's family, in a town small enough that no Kindred, thin-blooded or otherwise, claimed it as their domain.
It meant it was also too small to sustain all five of them. Separating might have meant never seeing the closest thing to friends they had again, and so they once again took to the road.

They drove through villages and towns, skirted the big cities and searched for a place to settle down. Got as far as Canada before they turned south again and then zigzagged through the states from town to town, following their whims and the odd rumour.

It was Copper who picked them up, always searching for a way out. In his worst moments he accused the others of complacency, in their worst ones they shot back by calling him delusional. By and large, though, they supported each other, even their oddities and idiosyncrasies. And anyway, it didn't matter enough where they drove to get into an argument about it.

One such rumour led them into a national park where they saw werewolves going on the hunt. They'd sat on a rock outcropping, illuminated by the full moon, sipped on their blood bags and watched the wolves celebrate their own existence.
Rosa said she would have liked to be a werewolf. Lily said if they'd been werewolves, they'd be mutts.
They stayed nearly until sunrise without being bothered by the lupines. They didn't see the thin-bloods as a threat. Together they moved on, ever onward.

In the parking lot of a rest stop they met a Kindred claiming to be Caine himself. He wasn't, but apart from tall tales he had wisdom to impart. He told the thin-bloods of the forbidden practice of diablerie.

Diablerie.

The word alone made Kindred shiver. Few appreciated the irony of predators shuddering at the idea of becoming prey. The golden rule meant nothing to the damned.

Since the earliest Kindred rose up against their elders, diablerie had been a fact of life. Taboo, yes, despised, yes. But committed, over and over again by those powerful enough to fight their elders and gain more power upon their victory.

That was how the story went, anyway.

Plenty of Kindred had corroborated it, always in the abstract, the hypothetical, the speculative. Admit to diablerie and you might end like the Followers of Set, cursed by those who feared them most.

The temptation could not be disputed. Kindred grew weaker with each generation unless they diablerised their elders, gaining their powers by consuming their souls.

The soul in the blood. Most Kindred rejected it as superstition. But those very same Kindred struggled to explain what happened when a Kindred attempted to diablerise an Antediluvian. There was a struggle, that much they could agree on.
The Antediluvian fought against their own death with all the power they had. The earth shook, the sun turned blood red. Animals died miles and miles away, their blood boiling them alive.

Then, with any luck, the Antediluvian died.

But the struggle continued. Whether it was soul, consciousness, spirit, or something else altogether, what remained of them did not give up. The reckless Kindred whose greed had gotten the better of them, now fought against an ancient progenitor for the ownership of their body. The battlefield, every inch the blood could reach.

Onlookers saw convulsions, pain, torturous screams. Torpor, lasting sometimes centuries. Eventually someone won the fight.
Three guesses as to which one had the better chances of making it out on top.

The Antediluvian would rise, with a new body to call their own and oceans to turn red, skies to darken.

Diablerie was taboo for many reasons.

The false Caine in the parking lot told the thin-bloods none of this. He spun tales of power and victory, of the weak prevailing over the strong. He spoke of the days before the Convention of Thorns, when the rebellious youth slew the masters who'd abused them for centuries.

To the thin-bloods gathered around him it sounded like Revelation. For a moment each of them saw themself as a rider of the apocalypse, going to guns against the evils of those who had made them and thrown them away.
Gone would be the days of not measuring up, of piercing with scalpels and syringes what their dull fangs could not. Of hiding in the shadows, terrified of the monsters they weren't except in the eyes of those kine who hunted them.

The moment passed for Lily and E, Julius and Rosa. It did not pass for Copper.

When Copper had been Embraced, two years before he met the Fledgling, he'd been about to become a father.

Not on purpose, but two weeks to the due date he'd stopped caring. Meeting the girl he called Silver had been a lucky accident, created by a burst water pipe, and a clothing shop conveniently located close to where he'd come out of his office up to his knees in water.

Silver had been kind about his misfortune and told a joke that almost made Copper's trousers wet for another reason altogether.
The lucky accidents had kept happening, when he mustered the courage to ask her out, once. Then again when she kissed him goodbye after that first time.
The first time she invited him over, they'd been careful. The second time she showed him a clean bill of health, and the hormones she took, and they figured they didn't have to be so careful anymore.

Three months later, and less than a year from his death, Copper stared at a positive pregnancy test wondering if his parents would understand if he called himself father.

They didn't, but Silver did, and she told him she'd like to be a mother, even if none of this had been planned. Even though she'd lost her job and he was about to lose his. Even though neither had finished high school, nevermind college, and had little recourse to change their fate now.

In his sixth month, Copper and Silver started sleeping in their car.

In the eighth they lost the car, too, but reconciled with Silver's parents. They didn't call Copper a father, or Silver a mother, but they agreed to let him have the baby in the guest bedroom and let Silver use their computer to find a job.

Then one night Copper had gone out with the last of his money to buy nappies and formula and bumped into a woman with iron sharp teeth and damnation written on the inside of her lip.

When he woke up there was no baby anymore. There was no woman, either, but there was a man taking a leak at the back of the store. Copper had lain in a pool of blood and fluids and raged against the world more than on any day before or after.

The man at the back of the shop wasn't anymore and Copper ran from the house where Silver lived. He kept running until he reached Santa Monica, and the waves closed over his head.

He stopped running when Julius pulled him out of the water, as self-assured as if he'd known exactly where he'd be. Rosa had looked down at him and listened when he told his story.
Silver, he said, had taken the baby when she found him, but - thinking him dead - had left him behind. Rosa didn't contradict him and Copper pretended she hadn't looked sad. This was why he needed to become human again, so he could go back to Silver and their child and make good on his promise of a family.

Two years he'd searched for a way out. No cure, no secret potion, no master vampire, no bloody ritual presented itself.
Because he'd been looking in the wrong direction.

For two years he'd dreamed of coming back to his family a human man and embracing the struggle of getting enough food on the table and enough money in the bank. Now, as the false Caine spun his stories, another image formed.

He could return a full vampire, feed on those who would hurt Silver, protect her and the child the way he never could as a mortal. He'd seen vampires use their awesome powers, and he could do the same, and do it to give his family a good life. Who would stand against them if the strength of the undead stood against them? What would they need to worry about rotten landlords and pedantic employers?

Copper saw himself a guardian angel, and hope nearly gave him wings.

In front of the others he said nothing.

The five thin-bloods kept driving, through town and village, city and borough. Despite Rosa's warnings they kept veering west until they crossed into LA again, back where they had started. Julius urged them to turn back, Rosa spoke in tongues of coming doom.

Lily promised they'd just stop for the night, get their bearings. Make a plan.

That had been two weeks ago, and Copper had spent the time searching. First in his immediate surroundings, then further out as the formerly so omnipresent Kindred turned out to be conspicuously absent.

A small, giddy part of him thought they must know of his plans and avoid him. The rest of him thought nothing but find them and take what's yours.

Thin-bloods had no power. They had no Disciplines, no inherent strength, no allegiance to the powerful factions that fought in the Jyhad.

But they had a Beast, and Copper's whispered to him until he found his prey.

As the Fledgling stopped the car's engine the first sound replacing the hitched panting of the old car was the patter of a water fountain. The fountain itself remained hidden behind the small hill on top of which lay a grand mansion. Fenced in with wrought iron, concealed partly by the weeping willow bowing to the breeze that carried a scent of jasmine and orange.

The Castle Armas.

Gravel crunched under the Fledgling's shoes as they climbed the winding path up to the gate. An intercom system had been put up, but they didn't bother with it. Seeing no cameras or onlookers they jumped over the gate, landing with a dull thud on the other side. Small spotlights lit the path up to the house, modern will-o-the-wisps beckoning a hapless visitor onward.

Of E there was no sight.

He had sounded panicked on the phone, like he'd been running. Breathing hard, like some Thin-Bloods did. Something had found them here and after the last few weeks the Fledgling didn't count on finding the Thin-Bloods alive.
Still they climbed the hill, eyes and ears peeled for a moving shadow, a breaking twig. A monster breaking through the cellar window and leaping with claws extended.

The Fledgling ducked, felt the air displacement of a heavy body moving overhead. They spun around, fists raised, expecting the Camarilla's dogs nipping at their ankles.

The Kindred pulled themself to their feet like dragged up by their head. Their arms twisted wildly, their knees buckled and they stopped in a half crouch, half of them illuminated by the pale white spotlights.

"Copper?"

But it wasn't Copper. The last time they'd met he'd been insecure, a little odd if still the most normal thing in the Fledgling's nights then. Now he moved as if controlling his body from afar. As if someone fought him for the remote. His eyes focused and unfocused on the Fledgling. There was recognition, then there was none.

"What happened to you?"

Copper attacked.

He snarled, swiped at the Fledgling who moved to grab his wrist expecting the strength of a Thin-Blood. Copper threw them back, they hit the front porch, stone railing digging into their back. They rolled to their feet, ignored the pulsing waves of pain emanating from their back.

Ducking to the side just in time to avoid another blow they sprinted up the few stairs and through the front door.

Dim twilight swallowed up the pale light from outside. No lamps burned, each door along the hallway had been closed except the first one to their left. Stairs led down into the cellar from where Copper had come. If any of the Thin-Bloods were still alive they wouldn't be down there. Light came from there, too erratic to be electric. The blood ran cold in their veins.

Heavy feet bounded up the stairs. The Fledgling bolted, down the hallway, around a corner, nearly slipping when the rug made way for smooth stone tiles. Barely keeping on their feet they squinted against the dark walls melding seamlessly into the floors. Something glinted in the half-light coming from a far window. A stair railing.

The Fledgling hesitated.

They'd heard the door open and fall shut. Copper was with them but he should have caught up by now. As they listened into the quiet they heard no sounds of pursuit, no ragged growling of a predator seeking his prey. They heard sobbing, quiet and pitiful.

Ahead the stairs promised temporary cover, a chance to look for the other Thin-Bloods or take a window exit and get back to the car, letting sunlight take care of this problem.
Back down the hallway something dangerous lay, attempting to lure the Fledgling in with what could well be crocodile tears.

Questioning their own decision even as they made it, the Fledgling slowly, carefully, approached Copper.

Their eyes got used to the darkness, made out his outline kneeling on the floor. His shoulders shook, but when the Fledgling came close he looked up. His right eye bled, streaks of it falling down his cheek, soaked up by his clothes. They hadn't done this.

Trembling he reached out. The Fledgling withdrew, and he cried out.

"Help me."

The light of recognition flickered in his eyes. Mesmerised the Fledgling watched as wrinkles formed around his eyes, an invisible effort made tangible. An effort he lost.

He grabbed the Fledgling, they couldn't dodge, stumbled when his claws dug into their ankle and pulled them to the ground.

They crashed onto stone tiles and carpet, pain shooting through their shoulder, scrambling to get their arms between them and Copper. He lunged at them, fangs bared, and took a swing.

The Fledgling squeezed their eyes shut as they braced for the inevitable pain. Nothing came.

Instead they heard the sound of something heavy hitting bone and then voices shouting, bodies jumping up and down.

"Over here! Look over here!"

The Fledgling and Copper both looked. Lily stood at the bottom of the stairs, waving and jumping. Terror painted every inch of her face, but she stood her ground bravely even as Copper fixed his bleeding eye on her.

The distraction worked.

With all the momentum they could muster the Fledgling jumped upwards, slamming their forehead into Copper's face. He shrieked, grabbed the Fledgling and they went tumbling down again, their positions reversed. The Fledgling swung at his jaw, missed, and rammed their elbow into his throat.

A mortal would have been taken out of the fight. Copper merely grunted. The Fledgling came to their knees, punching Copper again and again until blood spilled from his lips and nose. They rose to their feet, kicked him in the stomach, turned tail and ran.

Lily waited and pulled them along and up the stairs as the creature that had once been her friend geared up for another attack. Up they went, greeted by cold air from every open window. Lily dashed around the corner, still holding onto the Fledgling.

"Faster, faster, faster," she said, seemingly to herself.

The Fledgling ran as fast as they could, past the bedrooms and offices, and out of the window at the far end onto tiled roofing.

"Fuck!"

Rain had made the tiles slippery.
Lily slipped and slid downwards, her hand on them dragging the Fledgling with her. Only the reflexes and strength of a Kindred allowed the Fledgling to dig their heels in and bring them to a stop, just inches from a nasty fall, immortal or not. Lily swayed, held out her arms as she fought for balance.

"Thanks," she said, but didn't give the Fledgling time to answer.

As carefully and quickly as they could they rushed back up the tiles. Something crashed inside the house. The Fledgling imagined a body barely under control slamming into walls in his haste to get up the stairs.

Metal rungs hammered into the outside wall led up to the rooftop. Lily went first, still muttering under her breath to hurry, go faster, quick before he catches us. Twice she stepped on the Fledgling's fingers, not once apologising. She did pull the Fledgling the rest of the way up when she scrambled up top and pushed them along.

Behind the chimney, huddling together, sat E and Julius.

Both had gotten their share in a fight. So had Lily, the Fledgling noticed under the light of a torch one of them had brought with them. She looked like someone had dragged her through a meatgrinder. E and Julius were only marginally better off. Julius cradled his arm like it'd been broken and E had gauze haphazardly wrapped around his entire neck. It had been stained dark red with blood.

Copper, still in the house, tore doors of their hinges in his search for them. E flinched at every sound, averted his eyes when the Fledgling silently implored him for an explanation.

"What the fuck is going on here?" they asked when it became clear that none of the Thin-Bloods were prepared to speak up first. "Where's Rosa?"

No one looked at the Fledgling, or each other.

Eventually it was Julius who, stuttering, halting, explained what had brought them here to this house and its roof.

A Kindred, how old they didn't know, had made his home here. He'd been a recent arrival, spoke almost exclusively French, had kept to himself. The Thin-Bloods had learned about him by sheer coincidence, asking around for the local baron and finding, instead, a target.

The Fledgling listened mutely as Julius explained what they knew about diablerie, that greatest of vampiric taboos. Working together, they figured, they could overwhelm a full vampire, even a powerful one. Then one of them would drink his blood, become a full vampire and in turn help the Thin-Bloods take down the next target that much easier.

It had taken a small miracle, and an overcast day during which the sun barely hurt the Thin-Bloods, to make their idea a reality. They had ambushed the Kindred in his house just past sundown and in the ensuing fight they'd nearly lost what remained of their lives.

Lily and E had held the vampire down while Copper volunteered to be the first to feed.

"It's not his fault. He wanted to be something different so much," Lily said, pleading for the Fledgling to understand. "Wouldn't you? Being what we are?"

"And Rosa?"

Lily flinched as if struck. E reached out to her, pulled her close. For his benefit as much as hers as he buried his face in the crook of her neck.

The Fledgling looked to Julius. He shook his head.

"Sh-she had a- a- a vision," he said. "S-said if she-she-she went down into the b-basement, we'd suh-survive."

Lily spat, swatted at some imaginary evil.

"Yeah? Her fucking stupid vision didn't come fucking true, did it?"

No one said a word. Not to defend Rosa's last vision, or point out that they still lived, if barely. Not to say what the Fledgling knew needed to be said.

They gave the Thin-Bloods time, as much as they dared waste. Gave themself time and the illusion of a choice.

Down there, just one calculated jump away, stood the car. Stretching their imagination to its limit they could see themself getting the Thin-Bloods down there one by one and driving away before the monster that had been Copper was any the wiser.

Reality caught up with the bursting of glass. The Thin-Bloods cried out softly, huddled together. A pitiful sight, living proof that those who despised the Thin-Bloods as barely more than mortals, weak and defenseless, weren't altogether wrong.

The Fledgling braced themself.

"As soon as ... Copper and I are gone, you get off this roof," they said. "You come in a car?"

Lily nodded.

"Get there, drive. Don't wait for me. I'll call if I can."

If.

The Fledgling started their climb down the roof without waiting for an answer. From the corner of their eye they saw what had been Copper pacing around the roofing, smelling the air for Kindred and Duskborn blood.

If.

He hadn't yet spotted them. A recent arrival, Julius had said, speaking French. One of the Camarilla who'd come into this city to eradicate the Anarchs. Old, the Fledgling figured, probably low generation. He had to have been to put up a fight against the amaranth.

They'd call if they could, but they'd need a miracle to make good on it. The Fledgling stepped into Copper's line of sight when a thought formed.

A miracle. Or a vision.

"Hey! Come and catch me."

The Fledgling twisted around as Copper leapt at them, pushed off the roof and turned their shoulders into a forward roll right through the open window. They landed, claws ripped open the clothes at their back, Copper right behind them.

Instead of going down the stairs they sped down the hallway up to another open window.

"Get back here!"

A voice that was Copper's and was not clawed its way into the Fledgling's brain. They nearly stopped. Shaking their head, memories of LaCroix building up defenses against this particular threat, they kept moving.

Through the window again they reached out mid-flight and grabbed hold of the wooden trellis winding green ivy up the wall. They held on, let themself fall into the flower bed next to the main entrance.

Copper overextended, couldn't stop in time. He came flying over the edge of the roof, a good five meters ahead. By the time he landed the Fledgling had grabbed hold of the open window pane laid into the foundation. When he turned around, head swiveling wildly as he searched for them they swung their legs inside.

By the time he had crossed the distance between them the Fledgling had entered the cellar through the window Copper had come out of earlier.

Near pitch darkness surrounded them. Their footfalls echoing on the concrete floor the Fledgling moved deeper into the room. A single light provided illumination.

A tealight, flickering in the breeze coming in from outside, almost burned down.

To its left, on the ground, still clutching the matches, lay Rosa.

She was dead.

The Fledgling stared down at her, just a fraction of a second longer than they needed to. So that when the time came, they'd remember to mourn.

On the table, surrounding the candle in a hasty arrangement, stood gallons and gallons of gasoline. To power generators or who knew what else. The stench would have overpowered them but all the Fledgling smelled was burning hair. Heard old wood collapsing.

No.

Underneath the candle, reflecting its fiery light, lay a heavy wood axe.

Copper caught up to the Fledgling. He landed on quiet feet, with the grace of a Kindred no longer fighting for control of a new body.

Copper was gone. Reaching for the axe they hoped that was true.

The candle flickered.

The mansion burned. Test subjects screaming and laughing. Kent begging for his life as they ran to save their own hide. A red crown melting on his head, the colour of all-consuming fire.

The Fledgling tore their hand away, phantom flames licking at their fingertips. The candle flickered innocently, protecting its treasure.

Believing the Fledgling cornered what used to be Copper took his time, paced around them in a slow half circle.

The Fledgling's ears twitched with every slow drag of feet on the ground. Every rustle of clothes, every low chuckle.

"The baby is scared of the fire," Copper's voice said, unfamiliar inflection creating a dissonance that made the Fledgling's hairs stand on end.

"How do you think you will kill me when you can not grasp the weapon with which to do it?"

The Fledgling didn't answer. Their hand shook as they reached out again, only to pull away. All they needed to do was swipe away the candle and get the weapon. Rosa had laid down her life to give them the chance.

So had Kent.

"Look at me before I kill you."

Swallowing, mind racing to find another solution, the Fledgling turned around.

Copper leapt.

They took him head-on, angling their body to avoid the fire as they came crashing down into the table. The extra motion to avoid a flame harmless even to a Kindred cost them a precious fraction of a second. Copper smashed his fist into their jaw.

Vicious sharp pain bloomed from the center of the impact.

It drove tears of blood into the Fledgling's eyes but they bit back the groan and pulled their knee up.

Copper cried out in pain, whole body lurching and folding as the Fledgling pushed him off. But he pulled himself together quickly, got up and went down again when the Fledgling yanked at his legs.

With a yelp he fell, reaching instinctively out to for something to hold onto, and found the edge of the table. It flipped, tools clattered in a cacophony of mess as they all came raining down on the Fledgling and Copper.

The candle tipped over, fire extinguished, axe an arm's length away.

They both saw it at the same time.

As one they wrestled to get ahead, Copper's hand over their eyes as he pushed their head back. The Fledgling was weaker, less experienced. Luck saved their life. One of the jerry cans leaked, slippery oil covering the ground. The Kindred who used to be Copper slipped. They drove their elbow into his side, using the momentum to propel themself forward and grab the handle of the axe.

In one fluid motion they went on their hands and knees, building up enough speed for a swing powerful enough to separate the head from the body -

"Please! Stop!"

Copper knelt before them. His eyes were alight with fear, hands clasped pleading in front of him. It was him. The same Copper, no accent, no vicious lust for murder. Recognising the Fledgling as a friend, or as close to a friend as a Thin-Blood and a Kindred could get.

Axe raised in mid-air the Fledgling met Copper's eyes.

"Please, it's me. You know me, please, don't hurt me!"

The Fledgling did know Copper. And they knew it was him, that whatever tried to push him out of his own body had not won yet.
All he'd wanted was to gain what the Fledgling already had. An accident of sire, their roles could have been reversed. And he was still fighting against the creature that would take his soul from him.

The Fledgling forced their eyes to stay open as they swung the axe down and through Copper's neck.

His eyes widened as if in surprise.

Then his body slumped to the ground, his head hanging by inches of skin from his shoulders.
The Fledgling stumbled, the weight and speed of the axe taking them with it and they dropped it, heard it clattering to the ground next to Copper's lifeless body.
Dead not long enough to turn to dust. Eternity cut short by nothing but the wish to be equal to the creatures that ruled the night.
Numbly the Fledgling fumbled their way through the cellar. Past Rosa's body, cold and pale, and blindly up the stairs.

Behind them the castle burned.

The car was still where they parked it. Running on autopilot the Fledgling took out the car keys, got behind the wheel, turned the key in the ignition. They saw the road but had no memory of driving on it. They saw the traffic lights and could not recall if they had stopped, or if they had needed to.

When they took one hand off the wheel to dial E's number, their eyes stuck on the bloody handprints they had left there.

That would have to be cleaned up. Patty wouldn't appreciate having to drive a blood-stained car.

What an odd thing to think after having just murdered someone in cold blood.

But even this thought came from far away. It demanded that the Fledgling rage or grieve, that they go out and destroy something, anything that deserved it. But it clamoured for attention through fog and wads of cotton cushioning their mind from the reality of their action.

"Is ... is that you?"

The traffic at the other end of the line nearly drowned out E's timid question. They were on the road, just like the Fledgling had told them. Good. That was good, even though they couldn't remember why.

"Yes."

A beat of silence followed. The Fledgling checked a street sign and took a left accordingly. They had no idea what the sign had said.

"Is he ... did you ...?"

"Yes."

The small part controlling their actions added: "I killed him."

And then it pulled over at the side of the road, slowly and methodically. It told E to call if they had problems, and to get out of the city until the Camarilla had been dealt with. It hung up the phone.

And then it relinquished control.

If anyone had passed by at this time of night and cared enough to look into the car, they would have seen the Fledgling white-knuckled hands around the wheel, lips moving in prayer or simple desperate bargaining. They would have seen tears turned blood streaming down their face as they cried out for the dead Thin-Blood they had murdered.

Chapter Text

The Fledgling had sat in their car for more than an hour until they could bring themself under control. Clutching the wheel, their whole body shook as sticky blood painted filthy patterns on their cheeks. They shackled their beast. Bound it, forced it into the deep recesses of their mind.

From there it howled for vengeance, power to make things right, to turn back time and find the Thin-Bloods before they set on their foolish, doomed quest.

To get even that far, a compromise had to be made.

The Beast gave back a semblance of control, and the Fledgling started up the car and turned onto the road towards Hollywood.

Abrams' shop was closed, yellow police tape crossing the broken windows. Someone had broken into the shop between Abrams' death and now, stolen jewellery, valuables. Vultures, coming to pick the bones. Anger was unjustified, the Anarchs had after all done the same thing. Besides, they couldn't muster the energy.

Let the thieves make off with Abrams' earthly possessions.

The Fledgling parked a ways off their goal, walked the rest, through the side alley, past the group of homeless people and through the hole in the fence of the Hollywood Cemetery. At every corner the Fledgling expected to find the bodies of their pursuers, feeling like it had been just yesterday they fought their way out of this place.

No trace remained. A gravestone damaged by enemy bullets had been fixed, the stone new and shiny next to the others. Their own grave hadn't received similar care, but that was America for you. The rich and famous got preferred treatment, even in death.

The same people who'd fixed up the gravestones had gone to some efforts to repair the mausoleum as well. Scaffolds leaned against charred stone, piles of metal beams, concrete, and other materials gathered. Most windows had shattered or melted, exposing the darkness within to the outside. The whole structure looked as dead as its occupants, yawning with blackened teeth against the night.

But while the facade had taken the brunt of their fight against the Camarilla, the interior had survived. At least the part that mattered. Wiping away spiderwebs the Fledgling ducked down and into the secret tunnel that led to the Nosferatu Warrens. And Gary Golden.

Within seconds the persistent stench of sewers and Nosferatu drowned out everything else. No remnants of ash and fire, no cloying sweet flowers laid on graves, could cover this particular odour.

It smelled like death, and a sharp and sour tang that made noses and mouths bleed if allowed to breathe it in. More than ever the Fledgling was grateful to no longer be breathing. Putrid air still forced its way into their nose, by their own movement and the subtle movements of the breeze from above.

By the time they reached the door to Gary's special dining room, they had enough of this place. Maybe that was a tactic. Make anyone coming down here so uncomfortable they'd agree to anything just to get out again.

The Fledgling grit their teeth. Gary was the type to play games, but they weren't here to indulge him. Determined they pushed open the doors.

"Golden! We need to talk!"

Their voice bounced off the walls unheeded. No one was here, not even the ancient skeletons Gary liked to play with. The table had been cleared, the guests had left. The party was over. The entire room broadcast an air of abandonment. Six candles, perched on the tables, the shelves, illuminated the room.

But Gary Golden's eyes had been on them from the second they stepped into the mausoleum. They'd bet their life on it.
He didn't show himself. They stood, poised to duck, to exchange banter, to respond to anything Golden threw at them. Silence.

The Fledgling pulled back a chair. Sat down, put their feet up on the table and crossed their hands behind their neck. If Gary wanted to play the waiting game, they'd play.

It took fifteen minutes for him to break. Out of curiosity rather than trepidation, no doubt. The Fledgling was under no illusion they held any kind of power here except the measure of their own wits.

One of the candles went out. Gary Golden bled from the darkness. Behind them, feet dragging on the dirt floor. The Fledgling stared ahead, unmoving. Five candles cast a shadow play on their face.

"What have we here? A visitor? Without appointment or call. Very rude, boss."

"You don't exactly give out calling cards," the Fledgling said, voice carefully neutral.

Gary Golden chuckled, a raspy sound of cartilage sawing muscle. A wisp of air was the only indication he had moved. Then he was in front of them, at the other end of the table, hands braced on the ancient stained wood.

"You have some nerve coming here again, boss."

"I thought our last meeting went well."

"It did, boss, which is the only reason I didn't ask my rodent friends to eat you whole when you brought your posse into the mausoleum."

Ah.

In hindsight, leading the Camarilla practically on top of the Nosferatu might not have been the thing to do to preserve alliances. Come to think of it, perhaps the Fledgling shouldn't have counted so readily on Gary hanging around. Candlelight flickered, but kept burning.

"Last I heard the Nosferatu are part of the Camarilla," they said, acknowledging their blunder with neither gesture nor tone.

"Then why are you here?" Gary shambled around the table, made a show of his deformed features turning grotesque in the moving shadows. "Last I heard you were busy sucking Rodriguez' cock."

The Fledgling watched him out of the corner of their eye, saw what he wasn't quite aloof enough to hide. His brows twitched, wanting to furrow. So did his lip, wanting to bare misshapen teeth. The Camarilla had declared war on the Anarchs, the Fledgling had thought. Perhaps they had declared war on LA as well.

It was news. It was something. The Fledgling came here for more.

"I don't kiss and tell," they said. "And I suspect you don't care. But I do think that you want the Camarilla gone as much as we do."

Gary took his time with his answer. Jackpot.

He swayed a little, listened to voices the Fledgling couldn't hear. Maybe those rodent friends of his. Maybe his own mind, advising him how to get as much as possible out of this negotiation. He would have a hundred contingencies, dozens of favours, scores of opportunities already waiting in the wings.

With a little luck, the Camarilla had barred his access to all but a few of them. His help wouldn't come cheap, but he was caught between a rock and a hard place. Maybe it would come affordable.

Another flame sputtered out. Idly the Fledgling wondered what would happen if they were trapped in total darkness with an angry Gary Golden.

Eventually he spoke, choosing his words carefully.

"Maybe I do, boss. But the Camarilla pays me better than you. Once they're rid of the Anarchs, they'll settle down."

The Fledgling raised a calculated eyebrow.

"Or they'll come after the next target down their list."

Gary smiled. Or rather, he showed his teeth. There was no friendliness in his voice, only warning and threat. Four candles left, flickering in fear where the Fledgling remained stone-faced.

"Make your offer, boss."

The Fledgling looked down at the table, allowed themself a moment to collect their thoughts. Then they forced themself to look into Gary's eyes.

"I need information on the Camarilla who came into town a few weeks ago. The guys who killed Abrams, and sent their goons after us. I want to know why they're here, where they are, and what they want. In exchange ... well, you've seen my work. I'd be willing to do you a favour. My guess is your people can't exactly move freely at the moment. I can."

There were few things more reckless than offering a favour to a Nosferatu primogen. Carte Blanche, having nothing else to bargain with, the Fledgling had all but handed Gary Golden the license to take advantage of them. They'd offered an inch, knowing he'd take a mile.

They waved their hand, a gesture to encompass all they could do. The breeze snuffed out another candle. Three left and the shadows grew long.

Gary's smile turned more genuine, if no less dangerous. He wore the face of a man sensing profit during bad times.

"Tall order, boss," he said sweetly.

He knew he had them by the short hairs and his demeanour changed accordingly. Once again he started moving, pulling his little disappearing trick.

The Fledgling was prepared for it, but still they flinched when he appeared seemingly out of nowhere right next to their shoulder. It drew a delighted chuckle out of Gary, low and right at their ear as he bent down to catch their eye.

The Fledgling met his, pretending to be unimpressed, but tense enough to cross their arms in front of their chest instead. Gary's eyes twinkled with the power that little show of discomfort had given him.

"You're up for it," they said.

"Of course, boss. But that favour's gonna be a big one, and I don't intend to cash it right away."

"Save the good stuff for later," they agreed.

"Exactly. Getting the information you want, that's going to take me some time. In the meantime, you can make yourself useful."

The Fledgling tilted their head, almost bored. This, they felt, was a far cry from the last time they'd faced off against Gary, blundering their way through a conversation in which he held all the strings. Now they had even less, but Gary had to keep on his toes.

"I'll make myself useful once I know I'm not wasting my time."

They held eye contact. A silent stand-off, a battle of wills. The stench of sewers and death clogged the Fledgling's nose. The sight of Gary, the lumps on his face, the needlepoint teeth, bored itself into their brain.

With a soft hiss, another candle went out. Two left, trying to beat back the darkness and the monster that ruled it.

The first time they'd been down here, the fight against the Tzimisce abominations had rattled them. Now they had Copper at the back of their mind, and the lingering rage over the injustice of it all turned their resolve to steel. He'd died because the Fledgling had been too busy running from the Camarilla to make sure he was okay. Because they hadn't known the Thin-Bloods were back in town until it was too late.

In the span of an hour, fighting against the Beast strengthened by their fear, they had stopped being afraid. They were sick of losing people, sick of running, sick of hiding. They wouldn't lose another goddamn single person. Not Patty or Skelter, Damsel or Jack, and certainly not Nines.

It was time to fight back, and Gary would give them the information or die.

Something of all that had to have shone through the Fledgling's eyes, because Gary was the first to give in.

He shrugged, made a show of not caring that much.

"Something to whet your appetite, boss. A question."

"Shoot."

Gary grinned, ugly and feral.

"Are you sure it was the Camarilla who killed our dear Isaac Abrams?"

The Fledgling blinked. They faltered, opened their mouth to say something, then realised they couldn't. Gary nodded, pleased.

"Good, you've learned to use your head. Odd thing for the Camarilla to do, wasn't it? Nail him to the wall like some kind of art project. The Jeweller Jesus of Hollywood. Very poignant. Very ... noticeable."

The Fledgling leaned forward, lost in thought. Gary seemed content to let them work through this revelation on their own. He rounded the table again, took up a small patrol, like a teacher watching his student working through a problem. Two candles flickered with each pass.

"I thought that was strange," they said slowly. "They'd gone out of their way to make sure Abrams didn't turn to dust upon death."

"Not any Discipline I ever heard of."

But even the Nosferatu didn't know everything. Tremere thaumaturgy, Sabbat rites, something else entirely could have done what they'd seen in Abrams' office. But the Camarilla were always, first and foremost, concerned with the Masquerade. They would have considered his disappearance enough of a warning.

"I'll throw you a morsel, boss, for another small favour from you. Redeemed immediately."

The Fledgling gestured at him to continue.

"Beckett's still in town. Stuck his nose into something that's going to bite it off. Ask him about Abrams, and I'll just bet he'll tell you what has the Camarilla so spooked they came all the way from across the pond."

"Where?"

Gary tsked, held out his hands in pretend hurt.

"You know better than to ask that, boss. You run a little errand. When you're done, I'll give you an address. Better make it quick, boss, or you might not get another chance."

He licked his finger, tongue slipping past crooked yellow teeth. Put out the flame of the candle and embraced near total darkness. A single light remained and the Fledgling was overcome with the need to get out before it, too, burned down.

An errand now, and a big favour later. The Fledgling bit the inside of their cheek cursing the circumstances that had brought them here. Every minute they spent apart from the Anarchs, something might happen to them. But if they didn't go on Gary's goose chase, the deal would be off and they'd still be in the dark. Literally, if they didn't make a decision soon.

They had no idea what Beckett had to do with all this, but Gary wasn't in the business of passing on bad information. And if he was right about Beckett's curiosity having gotten him in trouble, the Fledgling was after more than just information.

There wouldn't be another Copper.

"What do you want me to do?"

Gary's smile widened, reached his eyes. He had them, hook, line, and sinker. Whatever they gained from this, he'd come out smelling like roses.

Figuratively.

"Got a squatter in the sewers," he said. "Some of my boys and girls tried to chase him out. Got dusted for their effort. Normally I'd just send my heavy hitters out, but that squatter's got something I want. Something fragile.

You make a little trip into the sewers, boss. Should know your way around by now. Deal with the squatter, get me his little treasure, and I'll give you what you want. Deal?"

The question was a chain of rusted barbed wire, slinging itself gently around the Fledgling's hands.

"Deal."

The last candle light flickered and went out. The chain pulled taut.

Now here's a question you might be asking: Why didn't Gary Golden deliver the Fledgling right to the Camarilla?

After all, they ranked high on the Camarilla's shit list, having killed the Prince and his Sheriff. The European detachment may not have had any passing sympathy for the late LaCroix, but they didn't like Anarchs murdering their political leaders. It sent the wrong message.

It would have curried him a few favours with powerful Kindred, had he simply made sure that when the candles lit up again the Fledgling that had wandered into the Lion's Den didn't walk out again. Might have set him up with contacts across the pond, spread his influence. Leveraged correctly, he could have whispered a few suggestions into the right ears, made sure the next Prince was someone easy to deal with.

But he hadn't. Because this was a world of upstarts and Gary Golden liked things to keep moving.

Of course, that didn't come close to the whole story. The whole story would take several books to tell, if in fact one could have pried it out of Gary's claws.

Instead, this was the story Gary would have given the Fledgling, had they asked and he'd been inclined to be honest.

When Gary was Embraced, LA's Nosferatu already had a Primogen. She'd been old, established, more powerful than the rest of the Camarilla's leadership combined. Rumours had that she hadn't left her domain in over a hundred years, controlling the world above through her Nosferatu agents.
A rat queen, entrenched in her sewer, unmoving but far-reaching.

She dealt with the Camarilla, even as the Anarch Free State reigned proud and loud in the streets above. Dealt with the Anarchs, too, although they hardly needed her in those times. Nothing could touch them, in the decades before the Camarilla returned. Not even the Sabbat dared move in LA without a lot of backup.

The rat queen despised the Anarchs, young and dynamic as they were. But she thought she could wait them out, had seen their uprisings come and go. Invariably one of them wouldn't prove as incorruptible as the next, one who could pass on a little propaganda, an offer to rebel in a way that didn't threaten the status quo, and before anyone was the wiser, the revolution would be defanged and harmless.

That had been her plan and it would have succeeded, had it not been for Gary Golden.

Now he was not an Anarch by any stretch of the definition. He didn't like the rabble much better than the rat queen did. But when one of her childer Embraced him and opened to him the hidden world of Kindred politics ... well, he saw himself at its top. And the Anarchs would help him get there.

It took Gary all of six months to figure out where the rat queen had her lair. One well-placed word in the right ear, and a mob of Anarchs opened the way for him to become the youngest Primogen the city had seen since the first colonisers spread their damnation on this soil.

No one had called him Primogen, then. The few Camarilla who watched the city sneered at the upstart fledgling barely having tasted blood. When Gary took up the strings the rat queen had dropped, those belonging to the Camarilla became tangled in an endless knot of arrogance, derision, and ignorance.

They wouldn't deal with him, and that had been their undoing.

Eventually a push was made to retake the city from the Anarchs. Camarilla troops moved into the city, established strongholds, claimed domains, appointed a Prince.

Diligently Gary paid his respects to the new Prince, and offered to become her spymaster. With him at her side, he claimed, the Anarchs would be fleeing for their unlives before winter came. Longer nights would make the fighting harder, allow the Anarchs to commit to their tried and true hit and run tactics to a far greater extend than they did now. The Prince should know, he said, that shorter nights favoured the Camarilla, who used ghouls, retainers, and other mortal puppets to a far greater extent.

With Gary Golden to provide a unique strategic advantage, the Camarilla could make maximum use of this advantage.

The Prince had laughed him out of the room.

His pride injured, and his mind on revenge, Gary retreated to the sewers. There he got together all of his little worker drones. Nosferatu childer, ghouls, Kindred from other clans who owed him a favour or two.

Sooner or later everyone ended up owing Gary Golden.

He sent them out into the neighbourhoods, where they, hidden in plain sight, put together dossier after dossier, drew map after map. Gary knew where the Camarilla would be before they did.

And then he took all that information and fed it piece by piece to another upstart, a Kindred just recently Embraced who would make the Camarilla's defeat that much sweeter.

Skelter propelled himself up the Anarch ranks with his seemingly supernatural awareness of the Camarilla's movements. With tricks he'd learned from the wars he'd fought, both at home for his rights and abroad for his country, he struck against the Camarilla who were left reeling.

The Camarilla were driven out of LA before winter came, and they didn't return until the likes of Sebastian LaCroix and Maximilian Strauss decided to claim the city once again. They, unlike their predecessors, had known to take the Nosferatu's counsel.

The time spent under Camarilla rule had been the best of Gary Golden's life.

LaCroix himself, wrinkling his nose so hard it left a near permanent mark, had attended one of Gary's little soirées and asked him, politely, to aid the Camarilla.

This was what he'd fought for, all those years since he'd been stripped of his good looks and life in the limelight.

In the mortal world Gary had been a falling star, irrelevance catching up with him as time went by. Down in the sewers time was on his side, and Gary had all too gladly aligned himself with the Camarilla.

For a few wonderful years he got to enjoy stringing the rich and powerful along to his tune. The information he gave them was nearly as important as the one he withheld, and the resentment flickering in the Camarilla's eyes everytime they suspected but couldn't quite prove he was fucking with them, tasted sweeter than blood.

The Anarchs hated him, the Camarilla detested him, even the Sabbat spoke his name and spat. In the middle of it all Gary sat and laughed.

Rumours went around that he knew who Nines Rodriguez' sire was and used the knowledge to keep him docile. According to others he had werewolves at his fingertips, could send them against his enemies like a pack of trained dogs. Believing the stories told at Elysium, Gary Golden spoke to Antediluvians and made deals with Caine.

All lies, some even spun by Gary himself. But every single one held a morsel of truth. Just enough to keep things interesting.

But all things came to an end. Gary saw the signs perhaps before anyone else, and he knew not to go down with the sinking ship. Dealing with LaCroix had been fun as long as the man kept his paranoia in check. But he was quickly becoming more trouble than he was worth and Gary knew better than anyone to avoid complacency.

He wasn't about to wait out this threat like his predecessor had done.

A few whispered words later, some to LaCroix, some to Smiling Jack who appreciated a certain delivery the Nosferatu made, and LA's prince went up in flames.

Out with the old, in with the new, as they said and Gary looked forward to meeting the new Prince and extending his cordial well-wishes.

Instead of a Prince, he got an army.

Kindred thugs marched into his home, armed and out for blood. In the first night Gary lost three of his agents.

In the second, nine.

In the third he pulled back all but his best and lost those, too.

Fun times were over. The Camarilla didn't mess around.

As carefully as he could Gary started putting his feelers out. It took time, frustrating restless time during which he was blind towards anything going on in the city. He grasped for every morsel of information he could get. When these new Camarilla fed and how. What their names were, how they dressed, how they spoke and acted and moved.

Pitiful spoils for the Kindred's best informed.

But eventually a picture formed. The Camarilla weren't after the city, they were after something in the city.

They were prepared to kick down doors and set fires to get it. They never intended to rule this city. Theirs was a scorched earth response to an evil far greater than Anarch agitators.

Gary was not prescient but in that moment he saw his own future under the new Camarilla rule.

It was short.

They would kill him if he got in the way, didn't cooperate, or was just a little too obvious. If they got whatever they'd come here for before they murdered the entire city's Kindred population, they would install a Prince who would reign with a hard hand. And Gary Golden would be put on a leash.

Unless he found an edge. The murderer of LaCroix, presented on a silver platter, could have been that edge. A foot in the door, at least, which was all he needed. With a boon like that he could have set up in another city entirely. Just in case the Camarilla decided to torch this place.

And, as luck would have it, he didn't even have to look for the Fledgling. They came right to him, asking him to find information his best agents couldn't dredge up. An impossible task, in return for a nebulous favour. From a Kindred so fresh of the Embrace they still sometimes forgot they didn't have to breathe.

An upstart, who killed werewolves and Princes, and could look into Gary's face without flinching. Who had come into his parlour on the warpath, fire in their eyes, smoke on their breath, and ash on their hands.

Gary knew how to play this game. Between the goodwill of an ancient Camarilla or a favour from someone young enough to go out and get things done, he knew which card to play.

After all, this was a world of upstarts and Gary Golden liked to keep things moving.

Chapter Text

The treasure Gary Golden was after had belonged to another man once. True for most things the Nosferatu wanted, be it secrets, wealth, or, in this case, people.

In modern nights only the oldest Kindred still thought of people as property, holding onto their antique ideas like so many souvenirs. Most realised that damnation, like death, made all things equal, creating monsters in different shapes but monsters all the same.

This woman though, trapped in a glass coffin, was property. She had been for close to three hundred years since long before she met Alistair Grout, who was to become her latest captor.

Mrs Grout - and she had never divulged her first name to anyone willing to part with it - was born the fourth daughter to a man seeing in her a mouth to feed, and a dowry to pay. It was just those times, one would say, except it wasn't. Then as now most parents loved their children, saw in them a future bright as starlight no matter how deep the mines of their misery had been dug.

Mrs Grout's parents had not. Hadn't been terrible people, but they had been made bitter and resentful by poverty and the law of the world which kept them in their place. In a different place at a different time they might have risen up against their oppressors and bestowed upon their daughter the kind of unquenchable thirst for freedom that would have enabled her to stand up against the likes of Alistair Grout when he finally came knocking.

But it didn't happen like that.

On the day Alistair Grout and his future wife first met, she had just torn her only dress. A large ugly hole had been ripped into it by an errand nail sticking out of a floorboard she had been made to chop up for their fireplace.

She glowered at the nail, blaming it while her parents would blame her for being careless. But she didn't linger long. The nail in the floorboard might not have wanted her to race to the street where she heard the ringing of sleigh bells, but the girl who would become Mrs Grout did.

Balling up the torn fabric in her free hand, she dashed towards the dusty road. At its end the postman and his horses.

The coach rolled down the path, the bells on the horses' harness jingling like a promise. Never a promise to her, but she didn't care about what was in the coach anyway. She only wanted to see the horses.

There were three brown ones and one smaller with more white than brown and a light mane. Once she'd asked the postman what they were called and he'd told her they were called William, Henry, Stephen, and Richard, after the English kings, although she couldn't remember which of them he paid homage to, whether it was William the Second or Richard the Third or any of the many Henrys.

Henry, which was the white and brown one, seemed to look at her as they drove past as if in greeting. She raised her hand to wave and the postman, thinking the gesture was meant for him, waved back.

She was not yet old enough to know her daydreams would only ever be true inside her mind. As she watched the horses go by she built on her little fantasy, that world she'd made beside her own, and added another horse to it, one like Henry to match the silver white one she rode in her dreams.

The world beyond her farm would someday recognise her for the secret treasure she really was. They would be so dazzled by her brilliance, her insight and the way she turned simple craft into art, that they would give her whatever she wanted just for the sake of her company.

The girl who was not yet Mrs Grout imagined herself drifting ethereally between the mansions of the rich and powerful, needing servants of her own just to carry all the gifts men and women alike would make her.

They wouldn't know her name, she decided, but call her something mysterious and enchanting, possibly in French. The lady of mystery, the enchantress, the angel from nowhere, those were just a few of the names she'd given her imaginary self.

In none of her daydreams did she ever get married.

And this was where her story could have taken a turn for the better. Right at this moment, while she stared wistfully after the horses trotting down the path and around the corner to the next homestead that awaited deliveries.

In the better kind of stories all her dreams would turn out to be pale imitations to the real world, in which she found a true love who would lay the world at her feet. Women up and down the country knew it didn't work that way. Some of them rose up against the false promises made to them by their own dreams and the world that encouraged these falsehoods.

Some waited for their daughters to take up arms against injustice, and some spent night after night across the long eternity waiting for a chance to rise again.
In another world she might have met one of these women, or the men who fought at their sides.

One day Mrs Grout would wonder what would have happened to her if one of her husband's enemies had stumbled upon her that day. Or if she had simply not heeded the clarion call of bells and gone to mend her dress instead.

The man riding up the street was not an Anarch or even a Kindred, yet. He was a man perhaps in his late thirties, dressed too well for this part of the country, on a horse that was as beautiful as the one in her stories.

That was the reason she kept looking, rather than return to her chores.

That was the reason Alistair Grout spotted her and chose to stop to ask her for the way.

"Is this the right way into town?" he asked brusquely, barely even looking at her.

"Yes," she answered, and pointed down the only road. "I like your horse."

For one brief moment the rider and she struck up eye contact. An accident on her part, vague curiosity on his. Doom undulated like clouds behind his eyes, but she saw nothing of it.

"Thank you," he said. "Say, the construction of your head is rather fascinating."

And as the faraway ringing of sleigh bells was carried away by the wind, a different kind of bell took its place.

Wedding bells rang for Mrs Grout, age fourteen, given from the responsibility of her father to the responsibility of her husband.

Things were good for a while. Except they weren't. They were just less bad. From the day Mrs Grout moved into her husband's mansion, he controlled her every step.

Every meal she ate, he curated, every walk she took, he mapped. Every person she met, and they became increasingly fewer as time went on, he introduced to her.

Alistair Grout decided the content of her wardrobe, the style of her hair, the angle of her gaze.

He had the money to own horses, but wouldn't allow her to the stables. This was the thing that pained her the most, not because it was the worst thing to happen to her, but because it was the only thing she truly wanted.

A stone's throw away from her window grazed the kind of horses she'd dreamt about riding, as the enigmatic dame appearing in and out of high society like the kind of ghostly visitor of a nighttime story. At the kind of gatherings Alistair attended she was his mousy little wife, and then he denied her even those.

But if she could just have this one thing, this one connection to the dreams of her childhood, she thought she could bear the rest of her life.

And so, one night, she snuck out of the bedroom, heart pounding so loudly she swore it would wake up the entire house. Stairs creaked as she went down, the door slammed shut too heavily, but ahead of her were the stables, and the soft winnying of horses. Pulled from sleep by a strange woman, ghostlike in her white nightclothes she couldn't change out of. She didn't know where the key to her wardrobe was and hadn't dared look for it.

This would have to do.

She passed Alistair's mare, the white one she'd once admired as so beautiful but now reminded her of nothing but this prison she lived in.

The one in the stall next over was her goal. It didn't look quite like Henry, the postman's horse had. It was yellow and white like a cracked egg, but small and calm and if she was to have only one ride in her entire life, she'd trust this one to keep her secret.

It took longer than expected to figure out how the saddle and bridle worked, despite how often she'd watched people use them. Eventually she managed to lead the horse out of the stable and swing - or rather climb - on top.

Mrs Grout had never sat on a horse before in her life and she thought she could get used to it. The world looked different from up here. It felt different, too, with the heaving breath of the beast between her knees, the constant stark reminder that she had made contact with a living creature.

Her partner in crime for this nightly adventure.

Mrs Grout dug her heels into the horse's flank, for the first time in her life.

The horse bolted.

Mrs Grout woke up in her husband's bed, through the cotton world of morphine. She was only dimly aware that her body was in pain. A broken bone might feel like this, she mused, if it wasn't so entirely unimportant.

Above her and around her voices hissed and muttered. A choir of men. As unaware of her as she was of herself.

One of the voices belonged to Alistair, another to a doctor who had treated her before. Even though a litany of words, phrases, sentences spilled from their lips, she could hold onto only a few of them.

Poor woman. Restraints. Fit of hysteria. For her own safety. Unexplained grand mal. Sickness.

Death.

That last one made Alistair angry. Through the haze of her perception Mrs Grout watched as her husband shouted at the doctor, arms waving, teeth bared in a terrifying maw.

She cried out, her voice barely reaching above her ragged breath. She felt as if any moment now this gaping mouth would turn on her and rend her flesh from her bones. She saw herself being swallowed up, torn into little pieces. Each a representation of herself, tiny versions of a woman she'd never been, turned into the limbs, and meat, and blood of Alistair Grout.

Neither of the two men paid attention.

Alistair sent the doctor away. He knew better to treat this malady that had afflicted his wife. Over the course of years he would try and cure what the accident had caused.

Mrs Grout's body stopped belonging to her. It was turned into the keeping of her husband, who used it to further the science he had devoted himself to. He bore holes in her skull, set fat, wriggling leeches in her lap. Electrocuted and burned her body.

The seizures didn't stop. In fact, the more Grout tried to cure them, the worse they became. Eventually even he realised she was going to die.

That wouldn't be so bad a thing, Mrs Grout thought. Through all the pain, the fleeting moments of reprieve made all the worse by the impending resumption of tests and experiments, time had become a reluctant ally.

One way or another, this would end. Even her husband, powerful in his own right, could not halt the passage of time. Old age would take either him or her, if providence didn't claim either of them sooner. It wouldn't go on forever.

On the night Alistair Grout came home a changed man, she had spent an hour in the ice bath. She still shivered miserably when he pulled her out of the water, and measured her vitals. Her skin was so cold, her entire body frozen to the core, that she didn't immediately notice that her husband wasn't as warm as he should have been.

It was only when she looked into his eyes that she saw how he had changed. Her mind convulsed in a fit of panic as she stared into the black holes where his eyes used to be, bleeding, empty sockets, crawling with filth. She screamed, jerked back and went tumbling back into the icy bathwater.

When she came up for air, his eyes had returned to normal.

He attributed her terror to the effects of the bath, and she never spoke a word to the contrary.

It wasn't a thing she did, speaking against. She hadn't protested when her father married her to a man more than twice her age. She'd never said a word when Alistair insisted on scheduling every second of her day, down to the socks she wore and the rooms she sat in. Perhaps, if she had, she could have stemmed the tide of his manic control.

Then again, the one and only decision she had made for herself since being married to him had resulted in a head injury that would eventually lead to death.

Hers, she still hoped, if no longer his.

Once she'd dreamed of invoking awe as an ephereal lady of mystery. That hade made way for the simple desire to outlive her husband.

That dream, too, had been crushed. Now she dreamed simply to die and as if he had sensed this new desire, Alistair started work on the glass dome.
It was a thing of unholy evil. Made pretty, of crystal and metals, but every stroke of the hammer, every screeching of glass under the saw, was another nail in the coffin Alistair intended to inter her in.

Going into the glass coffin was the one thing she fought.

They came to get her shortly after dusk, three men stronger than they had a right to be. Alistair had done something to them, to secure their loyalty and provide him with test subjects for his ever more perverse experiments.

She screamed, pleaded, kicked and scratched. Soon their blood ran over her fingers but they kept dragging her along. She threw herself to the floor, made herself heavy and unwieldy. They pulled her up.

A nail, sticking out of the floorboards caught in her dress. It ripped, a big hole right at the hem, the sound echoing in her ears and reminding her of that day now thirty years past. Had she only heeded that nail and kept away from the road.

Alistair's three servants forced her into the coffin. She pounded against the glass, then felt evil breath gripping at her, beating her into submission. She clawed at it, scratched, and screamed and screamed until she could no longer breathe. With the last strength she had available she pushed outwards with every limb, every fiber of her being.

Like this, she froze.

The magic of the coffin kept her aware. If she had hoped for a long slumber, it was denied to her. Through the distorted glass she watched. Her husband, coming in and out of the room he had made for her. His servants, shambling past her gripped by some terrible madness.

Days passed.

Mrs Grout measured the passing of time by her husband's downward spiral. He had always been terrible, more dangerous than the patients he bought from the prisons, more deranged than the ones he picked off the street and wrote his books about.

But his madness became something unnatural, and as she longed to be released from this trap she nevertheless feared the day it would happen.

If Alistair found the cure he wanted for her, he would make her like he was. They'd be together forever.

In the crystal prison of his making, she found no space to scream.

Centuries passed.

Electricity replaced the oil lamps of old, lightning pushing out the fire. It raged against being put out of a job, fought against the unstoppable tides of time, but it was pushed out nonetheless.

It was in this light that Mrs Grout first saw John.

He came up from the ground like a demon from the bible. Almost naked, head shaved nearly bald, clutching the bleeding stump of his hand. Everytime John visited her, the stump would become shorter, until at last he had nothing left but his shoulder.

But he kept visiting her. He never intruded, not quite. Stayed briefly, said a few words. Wished her good night and good morning.

She couldn't move, couldn't speak. She was most like the doll her father and Alistair had thought her to be. In this state, after three hundred years of being property, John was the first to speak to her as a human being.

If she was ever free of this prison, she resolved, she would thank him for being her friend. She'd never had one of those before and, she suspected, neither had he.

Although he must have made at least one beside her. One day he visited, illuminated by that pale electric light, with a new arm to replace his old. He waved it at her, then set to removing the screws that kept her coffin secured to the ground of Alistair's property.

He was in a hurry.

Then she saw why.

The fire, made irrelevant by the advances of technology, came back with a vengeance.

For the third time the Fledgling descended into the ancient world of the sewers. The sounds of cars and voices dropped away, the steady susurrus of the city that one only noticed when it was gone.

It made way for water drops trickling from pipes, the far-off rushing of a city's sewage creating filthy waterfalls, and the humming of the pumps and machines that kept this place running. As their feet broke the water's surface they were reminded of the last time they'd been down here.

Nines wouldn't be such bad company to have right now. He would have come with, if the Fledgling had asked. Wouldn't have hesitated.

The Fledgling hadn't asked, because one less heavy hitter meant one less chance of the Anarchs surviving the night. The Fledgling would be fine on their own. Alone they had killed LaCroix's Sherriff, Ming Xiao, and a werewolf. Not to mention the Tzimisce abominations here in this very sewer.

Evidence of the last fight had been washed away as they still reeled from the terror of these creatures. Still, they entertained themself with the idea of seeing splatters of blood and gore on the walls, the sloped ceilings.

That stain in the wall, had that always been there, or had that been a monstrous head cracked open on rough stonework?

Gary had said his squatter problem hid somewhere in this section of the sewer, but not known any more than that. It would be a long search.

The Fledgling sighed. The Anarchs would have moved on by now, slower without the car. To that old archive Skelter knew of. They should have gone there, for some rest and a change of clothes before coming down here. Maybe the clothes that still stunk like the sewer despite their best effort. Resigning themself to ruining another set they kept trudging on, picking directions at random, wondering how the hell to find anyone down here.

A closed fist answered that question.

The Fledgling stopped. This had not been here the last time.

At eye height, on the wall at an intersection, a black fist had been drawn. The Fledgling sniffed.

Soot or charcoal. The remains of something burning.

Considering the last place they'd seen this particular squatter, they figured they were on the right path. The knuckles pointed left and the Fledgling turned the corner and gone halfway down to the next intersection when they reconsidered.

The mind of someone living under the floorboards of a dangerous madman didn't work like most people's. No one wanted to end up in the direction of a flying fist, did they?

The Fledgling went back, turned right instead. At the end of a short hallway they found another black fist, knuckles pointing right. They went left, and found another clue, and then another.

Either they were not the only one getting lost down here or their old friend wanted to speak. They hoped it was the latter. It would make getting the glass coffin back much easier.

They went through old offices and maintenance rooms, along official pathways and holes in the wall until they were back in the modern parts of the underground, concrete clad and smellier.

The last drawn fist pointed to, or rather away from, a ladder. After walking for almost an hour, the Fledgling had lost all sense of direction. They could have reached San Francisco for all they knew. Checking their watch - three hours until sunrise - they grabbed the rungs and started climbing.

They came up in front of an abandoned themepark. Because of course they did.

A sign hung lopsided in some bushes, the last legible words promising free entry to children under three.

The place had gone bankrupt years ago, when the government had shut down public spaces over some panic or other. The Fledgling didn't remember the reason, although they suspected the people operating these places did. A rusty gate creaked in the breeze that had picked up in the late hours of night, a sorrowful dirge for the existences that had been destroyed with not so much as quiet protest. They had been alone in their fight for survival, their would-be allies had feared their own reputation marred if they spoke out against the government's orders.

It was too late for the people who had left these ruins behind, but the Fledgling was twice-damned if they let the same thing happen to their Anarch friends.

Grey in grey silhouettes reached out into the brightening skies. They had better get a move on if they didn't want to be trapped in this place when day broke.

Most of the attractions still stood. Metal had been ripped from some of the rides, machines stripped of their wires. Rust completed what the thieves started. The horses on the merry go round were never going to ride again, and the sight from the ferris wheel could now only be enjoyed by the most foolhardy of climbers.

The cabs swung in the wind, high-pitched just like the gate. Some way far off a raven cawed as if it, too, knew better than to be here.

If the Fledgling was a crazy reclusive amputee with a secret to keep, where would they be?

They stopped, sighed.

At the end of the main road a large sign proclaimed Fun Fun Fun at the Macabre Mirror Maze. Light bulbs had framed the sign once, most of them had been either removed or broken, but a single one, just below the 'o' of Mirror, blinked stubbornly into the early morning.

The rumbling of a generator broke the silence as they approached. Likely a small thing, used to power the lightbulbs and possibly a sound system. They sincerely hoped no carnival music awaited them.

The door to the mirror maze stood open in invitation. Serial killers had it so easy sometimes.

The Fledgling went in, hand on their knife, trying to remember what Kent had said about vampires seeing themselves in mirrors.

Yes? Or no? Something in between they thought, until they entered the maze proper.

No.

Standing right between two mirrors the Fledgling saw their clothes distorted made tall on one side, short on the other, both mirror images catching onto each other. None of their face or their hands showed. The effect was disorienting and the Fledgling kept their eyes to the ground as much as possible as they moved deeper into the maze, listening for any hint that they were no longer alone.

There was a reason Gary had sent them, beyond not wanting to waste his own people. How he knew they would have a better chance, they didn't know. But it meant getting to cut this search short.

"John? It's your friend. From the mansion."

They didn't think John had made many friends in his time living under the floorboards. Nonetheless they elaborated.

"I gave you the arm."

Something moved above them. Rafters, lighting rigged to create the curious effects of the maze as the light interacted with the mirrors. They looked up, squinted against the sudden light and cursed their own stupidity.

When they looked down, blinking, Floorboards John stood in front of them.

He looked ... well, not good. He had the grey pallour of a Kindred living of rats, barely. His shoulders and back had permanently deformed into a hunch, or maybe he was just so used to ducking he didn't stop when he escaped the mansion.

But he was no longer darting around, listening for Grout or his test subjects to catch him. He stood remarkably still, only swaying a little, poised to run and fight.

"You could be anyone," he said.

The Fledgling showed their hands. No weapons.

"Come on, you remember me."

"I remember someone with your face."

Right.

Grout had been killed by someone wearing Nines' face. Likely Floorboards John witnessed that act.

The Fledgling looked around, caught the reflection of their jacket in the mirror. How to prove they were who they said they were?

Floorboards John shifted stance, dropped into something more threatening.

"You should leave."

"Shit, give me a second ..."

Fuck. It wasn't like they had shared their deepest darkest secrets the last time they'd met each other. If their memory of giving him the arm didn't convince him, there wasn't much else they could say.

He didn't attack, yet. Because on some level he must have hoped for a friendly face. He'd left renditions of black fists to lead them to this place.

Why a fist, they wondered?

And then they knew.

Floorboards John drew back, arm holding his other arm raised to defend himself as the Fledgling made a rash grab for their bag.

"Hold on, hold on." They pushed their hand down to placate him, searching for - yes.

Turning their fingers into the shape of a fist they gave Floorboards John a two-thumbed thumbs-up.

His face lit up.

"It's you!"

"It's me."

The Fledgling grinned back at the lopsided twist of Floorboards John's mouth. He had survived, they thought. Not well, but he had. After all the death they'd seen - dozens of Anarchs, Isaac Abrams, Kent, Copper, oh God, Copper - his restless energy came like a breeze of fresh air. Even if he smelled worse than they did after their trip through the sewers.

"I need to talk to Mrs Grout," the Fledgling said, acutely aware of their timetable. Had the Camarilla already found their friends? It was only a matter of time.

Floorboards John sensed their urgency because he didn't argue. He led the Fledgling expertly through the mirror maze, seemingly unconcerned by the disorienting mirrors and glass making every turn a lucky guess.

In the middle of the labyrinth lay the glass coffin.

Mrs Grout sat on top of it.

She held a small porcelain figure, a cheap little horse with barely any detail. Paint flaked off as her fingers rubbed its brown mane.

Floorboards John went ahead of the Fledgling, ducked deeper so he could strike up eye contact with Mrs Grout who didn't raise her head. He reached out, carefully, gently, curled his hand around hers.

Nodded encouragingly when she reacted, pointed at the Fledgling, then at her.

It was an oddly endearing display. The Fledgling felt as if they intruded upon an intimate moment between friends. Like catching the Anarchs unawares before they had accepted them into their ranks.

"You are here to take me away?"

Judging from Floorboards John's expression turning suspicious, he hadn't considered that. He looked at the Fledgling, a warning in his face. They didn't need it to know the answer.

"I won't force you, Mrs Grout." Belated they added: "I'm sorry for your loss."

Mrs Grout smiled, a sad little thing, as gentle as the tips of her fingers stroking the porcelain horse's nose.

"Don't be," she said. "He was long overdue."

She moved, turned more fully to the Fledgling. They exchanged a glance, each sizing the other up. Mrs Grout was a slight woman, with pale and pointy features. Her reflection in the mirror stretched her out to uncomfortable degrees, a wisp of a woman, exuding mystery.

Like the ghost at the hotel, the Fledgling thought, beautiful, even kind, but in a way that left you slightly unsettled.

What did she see in them, the Fledgling wondered. Whatever it was, it turned her smile more genuine.

"I suppose your masters want to know what my late husband was up to."

"No masters," the Fledgling said automatically. "And I don't know. I was just told to bring back the glass coffin."

"Contents and all?"

"Mr Golden didn't specify."

Mrs Grout laughed at that. Even her laughter came right out of a book, ringing like bells. Despite her ostensible friendliness the Fledgling felt a shudder run down their spine.

Floorboards John didn't seem to mind his friend's slightly off-center presentation. He knelt by her side, hands flat on the coffin, looking up in adoration.

"Is that a loophole I hear?"

Gary would be pissed if they brought back the coffin sans the person that made it valuable. You didn't want to piss off Gary Golden.

"Yes," the Fledgling said.

"How brave of you. I wish I had been ... oh well, no sense crying over spilled milk is there?"

"That's what I heard, ma'am."

Mrs Grout beckoned the Fledgling closer. They went, carefully sitting down beside the woman on the coffin, fearing their combined weight would break it. Nothing broke.

Mrs Grout leaned in and whispered conspiratorially: "He had a visitor, you know? Before he died."

The Fledgling nodded.

"Latino guy, early thirties? Dresses terribly but has a nice ... uh."

Even Floorboards John chuckled and he had no right to be judgmental. The Fledgling cleared their throat, scratched a bit of dried mud off their trousers.

"He was there, too," Mrs Grout said. "I didn't see his 'uh'. But no, before. Alistair was .... I have a condition. I get fits, seizures that I cannot control. He was trying to find a cure for me, you know?"

The Fledgling shook their head.

"He was. I don't know what he was up to half the time. But a man came by sometimes and talk to him about something. He wore a red coat. Belgian, I think, from the accent."

"Strauss."

"Was that his name? I never liked him. I saw him only twice, but there was something unsettling about him. He promised Alistair a cure for my condition. Strange thing was, both of them seemed to be afraid of it."

"The cure?"

"Yes. I don't know what it was. My husband was supposed to retrieve it for this Mr Strauss, from a woman named Elizabeth. He went away one night-"

"I visited you that night," Floorboards John threw in.

Mrs Grout turned to him, put her hand on his.

"You did. We had a most wonderful evening. You asked about my fondest memory."

"And your mind ghosts told me how you rode a horse once."

It felt wrong to interrupt them. The Fledgling checked their watch again - two hours until sunrise.

"Ma'am?"

It was Mrs Grout's turn to clear her throat, embarrassed at being caught in a friendly interaction.

"Right. Where was I?"

"Grout went to get your cure."

"Yes, of course. He had gone to this Elizabeth, but just before sunrise he returned with nothing to show. He was quite upset. He kept walking circles around my coffin. Strauss wouldn't be pleased, but it was more than that. He seemed to think that something was after him.

That same night he started locking down the mansion. No one was to come in, no one was to go out. He had built this place to be defensible but it was never enough. Eventually he released his patients, hoped that they could hold off whatever he feared was coming long enough for him to escape with me.

I don't think he counted on your friend."

From the sounds of it, Grout had counted on none of the Fledgling's friends. Or the people wearing their faces at least.

Gary had implied that something beyond a faction dispute had drawn the Camarilla to this town. Something had spooked them, just as it had Grout. Apparently it had even unsettled the Tremere Primogen, and the Fledgling had only heard rumours of the terrible things their thaumaturgy was capable of.

"Do you know who this Elizabeth is? Where I can find her?"

Mrs Grout shook her head.

"I'm sorry, dear, no. I didn't get to go outside much."

The Fledgling hadn't truly expected to get something solid. Hell, Mrs Grout had already given them more than they'd asked for just by relaying this story. Which brought up another point.

"Ma'am, the Nosferatu want me to bring you to them. If you'd rather not, I'd understand."

They could picture better things than spending time being interrogated by Gary Golden. But Mrs Grout waved dismissively.

"Nonsense. From what John here has told me, they sound like quite the social bunch. And their ... leader?"

"Primogen."

"Yes, that. He sounds like he can host a party. I'd like to attend one of his gatherings before I die, I think. A good price for my information."

At her words Floorboards John lowered his head. His brows drew together in sorrow, but he did not argue. The Fledgling did.

"About that. Mrs Grout, I don't know how much you know about how the world has changed, but I'm pretty sure there are ways to treat what you have. You don't have to die."

"But I want to."

The Fledgling fell silent. Immortality had sounded like a sweet deal to them when Jack had explained the situation. When Mrs Grout had spoken of her husband trying to find a cure, they had assumed it was something she wanted, too.

She still held Floorboard John's hand. The arm the Fledgling had given him lay over his knees, still as pristine as the day the Fledgling had picked it up. Gimble had been a maniac, but he knew a thing or two about keeping the meat fresh.

"I have had very little choice in my life," Mrs Grout said. "One way or another, I was always made to move on somebody else's leash. My one solace was that I could at least embrace death, and then Alistair took that from me, too.

I don't want a cure. This thing, this strange hysteria, will kill me in due time. These people of yours and their Primogen, they will have what I can offer, and then I will take my leave. My husband was long overdue to die, but so am I.

Let us go, now, shall we?"

The Fledgling nodded mutely.

They waited outside while Mrs Grout and Floorboards John said their goodbyes. When she stepped outside, white dress dancing in the breeze, he was not with her. The Fledgling would never see him again.

Quietly they returned to the sewers. Neither had much to say to the other.

At the intersection halfway between Gary's lair and the Anarch's hideout they found Imalia waiting. She leaned against the stone walls, picking at her fingernails. Obviously she didn't like being made to wait on the orders of her Primogen. Her face reminded the Fledgling so acutely of Damsel's that a wave of homesickness washed over them.

Still they offered: "You want me to come with you?"

Mrs Grout shook her head, laid a hand on the Fledgling's shoulder.

"I'll be fine. You go back to your young man with the nice 'uh'."

The Fledgling pressed their lips into a thin line but couldn't help but laugh.

Mrs Grout approached Imalia, not even flinching when they came face to face. For a woman three hundred years out of the loop she was remarkably good at rolling with the punches. They would have liked her, they thought. Had they met earlier, before the glass coffin, before Grout, she might have made a good Anarch.

But as much as the Fledgling fought against death every night, they understood the desire to put an end to a bad run. Whatever in her past, Mrs Grout had made peace with herself.

The two women had vanished in the depths of the city before the Fledgling thought to start on their way home.

"Smile," they said, a last second thought that no one but them heard. "I was going to say he has a nice smile."

While the Fledgling chased after John and his lady friend, Nines stayed behind to keep watch over their new safehouse. Although after Skelter and Patty got into it again he wished he had come with them. He'd escaped the thick tension in the cold archival rooms, sitting crosslegged on the counter in front, looking for approaching trouble.

From the outside he looked like part of the scenery, the office chairs, the file cabinets, silhouettes not worth paying attention to. Until it was too late. But he hoped to be spared a another Camarilla assault tonight.

They had lost so many.

Loki, Suspect, Guppy, Charlotte, Knockout, a hundred more whose names he'd never learned. Dead in the streets, turned to dust, gone. He hadn't heard from Velvet since she'd called him to gush about the Fledgling days before Venture tower went up in flames. For all he knew she'd met the same fate as Abrams.

Head hung low Nines traced patterns in the dust on the counter. The Anarch symbol, crooked and incomplete. He ran out of space halfway through. Dozens of Anarchs dead just in the last few weeks.

The last in a line of hundreds, Kindred older than him who'd lost their lives fighting for a dream that had never been more distant.

The Anarch Free State was gone.

The admission was like a vice grip around his heart, squeezing with cold metal fingers. He'd believed in it, once. With as fervent a passion as he never had in life. Even sireless, stumbling around in the dark, with no idea what to do with his new life, he'd reveled in the possibilities. For the first time he saw the monsters in charge of this fucked up world.

Saw them, closed in on them, and pummeled them into submission in the name of the Anarch Free State.

In the names of Jazz, Sweeney, Jefferson, Rook, and Jeremy MacNeil. He turned the half-finished Anarch symbol in the dust into a J. Then, suddenly furious at himself, wiped the whole mess away.

"Fuck."

The empty room did not answer him. Only the water cooler gurgled.

What was he doing here, crying about the past? Seventy years in the fight and he had nothing left to give?

But a tiny, tired voice insisted there was nothing he could do. He didn't even know who these Camarilla fucks were nevermind where or how to begin lining them up for the beating they deserved. All the contacts he'd built up had disappeared, or worse. Once he'd had his ear on every conversation in LA, knew the city better than the layout of his bedroom.

Now it felt like a stranger to him. He slept in places he'd never seen before, was driven down streets he'd never been. No allies, no contacts, and the Camarilla closing in steadily. It was only a matter of time before they found them again.

Despite being lost in thought Nines did not miss the shadow coming out of nowhere up to the door. He dropped from the counter into a low crouch, hid behind a desk with a supremely ugly figure of a cat blocking most of his view.

Just one. So far.

The door creaked as it was pushed open. Nines crossed the distance, rose up-

"Way to greet a friend."

Nines let his knife sink. Relief he didn't want to admit feeling flooded him.

The Fledgling looked as if someone had put them through the wringer. Dark spots covered their clothes, thick blood oozing still out of wounds that hadn't had time to heal. Smaller cuts and bruises covered their face, every inch of skin he saw.

But they smiled and Nines suddenly felt embarrassed for his paranoia. Still, he had his reasons.

"Didn't think you'd come back," he said as he sheathed the knife at his belt.

The Fledgling went ahead into the backrooms, waving dismissively.

"I can handle myself."

"Wasn't what I was worried about."

The Fledgling stopped halfway down the hall. Turning around, their eyes near glowing in the dim twilight of the stairwell and narrowing.

"That had better not mean what I think it meant."

Nines shrugged. But he didn't come closer, shoved his hands in his pockets and avoided eye contact.

"You took off without much of an explanation. Wouldn't have blamed you."

Incredulous didn't begin to describe the Fledgling. They strode back, stopped just short of Nines.

"What the fuck, man? I didn't do enough already to prove myself?"

"That's not what this is about -"

"Isn't it? Sure looks like it from where I'm standing."

"We're fucked, newbie!"

They had to have heard him down the hall. Had to have heard them both, neither had kept their voice down. But no one came to check up. Nines didn't think he could look at them if they had. The Fledgling's face was enough.

He chanced a look at them, then quickly turned away. Shame would have coloured his cheeks, but he didn't have enough blood in his system to do something as human as blush. He felt cold, hollow, stripped of everything he'd held on so tightly.

"We're fucked," he repeated, finally accepting it for himself. "The Camarilla hunt us down like dogs and I don't know how I'm supposed to protect them. We can't hunt, no one will sell us blood bags. Damsel came back just now, she ... fuck, newbie, you shouldn't have come back. Bad enough I'm losing my friends without losing ..."

He stopped himself. There was a sentiment he couldn't finish even in his head. Not now that everything was going to shit.

He hadn't noticed the Fledgling coming up to him and flinched when their hand touched his shoulder. They had an inch or so on him, how had he never noticed? Less, if he straightened up a little. But the strength to keep his head high had left him somewhere between Abrams and now.

"Nines ..."

"It's all going wrong," he said, quietly. "MacNeil would have come up with some crazy plan by now, but I'm nothing like him. If he was still here, he'd never have let it come this far."

Even as he said it he realised the name would mean nothing to the Fledgling. They hadn't been there in '43 when they started taking back the streets from the Camarilla. Hadn't been there when the Kuei-Jin murdered him, and when the Anarchs fell apart, harrassed from every side.

"Bullshit." He looked up, but the Fledgling wasn't finished. "Don't know who this guy was, but I wouldn't want anyone but you at my side. We're Anarchs, for fuck's sake, impossible odds are practically written in our charter."

It drew laughter out of Nines. Weak and bitter, but there nonetheless. The Fledgling squeezed his shoulder, then let go.

He wished they could have met MacNeil, or any of the guys from the old days. They'd have fit right in. Bright and angry, and so very very strong. With fire in their hearts and suddenly Nines needed to say something.

"You're ...," he said, a bit disbelieving about how someone like them could have just wandered into his life. "You know I really admire you-"

He couldn't. This was the wrong time, it would just make things awkward, what was he thinking? And the Fledgling was looking at him, panic rolled up and threatened to cloud his mind and make him do something stupid.

"... -r dedication to the cause," he finished lamely.

The Fledgling did something that could be called a smile, by someone who had never seen a smile before and had only heard of it described in books.

"Thanks," they said and only Nines didn't hear their disappointment.

Neither of the two had noticed the other members of their coterie listening in at end of the hall. Too busy gazing longingly into each other's eyes and all that. And so neither knew when Skelter facepalmed and Smiling Jack muttered 'Fucking Christ' under his breath.

They quickly scattered as Nines and the Fledgling continued their way at last, making it look like they'd been in the middle of casual relaxation.

They immediately knew something was up, but their attention was called away by Damsel, who sat on a broken dryer unit, with one arm less than the Fledgling had seen her with last.

"Fuck, Damsel!"

She shrugged with one shoulder and one phantom limb. But even though she was acting the tough gal, she didn't quite manage to look the part. Bloody bandages made of tshirts, blankets, and refusing to hold littered the ground around her. It spoke of panic passed. Of desperation, turned to bitter acceptance.

"Don't worry about it. One day's rest and I'll be good as new. Should have seen the fucker who ripped it off."

"Ten feet tall?" The Fledgling suggested.

Damsel grinned.

"And spitting fire. Not so much after I was done with him, though."

Neither of them mentioned that Damsel wouldn't get her arm back come morning. Their blood supply had run out and if Damsel's attempt at a hunt was any indication, the Camarilla still watched the streets like hawks.

Hunger had stopped gnawing. Now its teeth dug deep into the Fledgling's flesh. They couldn't remember when they last fed and from the looks of it the others were worse off.

Skelter especially was more quiet than usual. He'd taken up a spot at the far end of the room. Every now and then he glared at Patty.

"I tried to get more blood, but it was like, totally impossible," she said when the Fledgling turned to her.

She pushed a strand of hair from her face. It had gotten greasy. She showered at her regular gym, but didn't want to risk going there too often with a car full of sleeping Kindred in tow. Her nail polish had chipped off, too, only specks of colour remaining.

They were nowhere near ready to forgive her betrayal, but at least in that moment they still appreciated that she stuck around.

"It's okay," the Fledgling said. "We'll find some eventually."

None of them held out any real hope. At this point the question became not if they would survive this, but if it would be Camarilla or hunger that got to them first.

The Fledgling thought they'd joined the Anarchs at a low point. They hadn't counted on being there to see them eradicated for good.

"What if," Patty said. "We went, like, hunting together? Like, some of us distract the Cammies and the others ..."

She made fangs of her fingers, dug them into an imaginary neck.

Skelter scoffed.

"Why don't we hang signs around our necks, 'Please follow us home'? You'd be the first to end up Cammy chow."

"Hey!"

Damsel jumped to Patty's defense.

"Skelter, shut up, okay? Not cool."

"What? It was a stupid idea."

Pink blotches turned up on Patty's cheeks as she turned away from him and crossed her arms.

"I was just saying," she said. "Sorry I don't have, like, super vampire brains or something. At least mine isn't too dry to come up with ideas yet."

Skelter only bared his teeth at her. A show which, to her credit, didn't even begin to impress Patty.

She looked at him, quickly, then pretended to be fully engrossed in their surroundings.

"You don't even need to try that. Kent was like, a thousand percent scarier than you."

With that she fell into sullen silence. Skelter pitched in with his own sulking, turning up the tension.

Nines felt compelled to escape again. In the end he stuck around, mostly because of the Fledgling. They had given in to their own exhaustion and curled up in a far corner. Jack was with them, talking in low and insistent tones.

As casually as possible, and fooling exactly no one, Nines wandered over, catching the tail end of their conversation.

"-did him a favour, kiddo."

"That's what I keep telling myself. It was just ... fuck, Jack, a couple of months ago the worst thing I ever did was drop an illegal banner at a protest."

"You'll get used to it," Jack said.

He threw an arm around the Fledgling, made space for Nines to sit with them. Jack was right. He himself had gotten used to the violence in Kindred society a lot quicker than most of his peers. Nines had too, eventually, although he still sometimes woke in the middle of the day with the ghosts of the past invading his mind.

He didn't know if the Fledgling dreamed during their day torpor, but they had their own demons to fight. Sometimes he looked into their eyes and saw fire burning within.

Not now, though. Now he saw nothing but ash and the events of a long night catching up to them. Someone's watch beeped, followed by a little chorus of similar alarms going off. Sunrise in less than fifteen minutes. Nines made himself as comfortable as he could, the Fledgling always in his line of sight.

"Where were you off to, anyway?" he asked as he waited for the telltale fatigue of daybreak.

"Made a deal with Golden."

Only part of the story, but the Fledgling wasn't in the mood to recount all of it.

"With any luck, we'll have a lead on the Camarilla by tomorrow night."

Chapter Text

Day turned to night and Nines woke from his deep sleep to muffled sobbing.

It took him a minute to orient himself in the room. He'd fallen asleep slumped against a book cart, the wire mesh digging into his cheek. In front of him lay the Fledgling, half-sitting, arms crossed, chin on their chest.

At their side Jack sat. He was coming to, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, always the quickest to wake. The Fledgling still slept off their injuries. Neither of them were the source of the quiet sounds of dismay that had roused Nines.

With a groan he pulled himself upright.

The noise stopped.

Lumps of cloth and Kindred lay scattered around the room, perched against shelves, draped across tables. Nines thought he could make out Skelter at one end of the room and the telltale rising and falling of a chest that could only be Patty's at the other. They kept as far from each other as possible, but in the cramped spaces they had been forced into, that wasn't much. Sooner rather than later things between them would explode.

Of Damsel there was no trace.

Beginning to gain an idea of what he'd accidentally overheard and dreading the conversation, Nines nonetheless got up and began searching.

He found her in the first place he looked, the women's bathroom just down the hall. Damsel sat on the counter, crosslegged, back hunched in on herself. She cradled the stump of her arm, face obscured by strands of red hair.

At some point in the night she must have gotten rid of her tshirt, and her beret was missing as well. In the cold fluorescent light of the bathroom she looked close to death. As if she would turn to dust at the very next injury she sustained, teetering already on the edge between unlife and final death.

It took everything Nines had in himself not to turn around and run. Fear clawed at his chest, drove thick bloody tears into his eyes. He blinked them away, forced himself to keep it together. It took more than some Camarilla bullying to steal his friends from him.

"You okay?"

What a stupid thing to say. It wasn't a real question, really. More a warning, a 'I'm seeing you and I'm not going anywhere', than something that required answer.

Accordingly, Damsel didn't. She had rocked back and forth ever so slightly. Now she went still, tilted her head so minutely if Nines hadn't been watching for a reaction he wouldn't have noticed it. She looked at him through the curtain of her hair.

"I'm fine, go back to sleep."

"It's dawn."

Damsel shifted.

"Already?"

"Mmh."

Nines let the door fall shut behind him and nudged Damsel to move. She did, scooted over, nearly into the sink and let Nines hop up on the counter next to her.

At least she didn't push him away. When had that happened, he wondered? Back in '56 when she'd first come to the States she hadn't given him the time of day. It took him months to get a greeting out of her, and much longer to make it a friendly one.

Even when they'd fought that crazy Sabbat doctor - '78 or '87, he kept forgetting - she wouldn't let him see her injuries. When he tried to help, she'd nearly cut his head off.

Sometime between then and now things had changed. He'd saved her ass almost as often as she saved his, and now she was his closest - and oldest - friend. Now she let him brush his knuckles against her healthy shoulder, his own cold skin against her even colder one.

Nines could barely think through the persistent push of hunger, but she was beginning to shut down. By every measure she should be deep in torpor, not awake before any of them, sitting in the brightest, least comfortable place she could find.

"You should get some rest," he said as gently as he could.

Damsel jerked her head no.

"I'm fine," she said. "Couldn't sleep anyway."

Nines didn't call her on the obvious lie. Her voice slurred with fatigue and he noticed how she kept digging her fingernails into the bloody remains of her shoulder to keep awake.

Shifting a little to make himself more comfortable on the too narrow, too hard surface of the bathroom counter, he said: "Remember '78? With that crazy Sabbat ritual?"

Damsel turned, looked at him, then went back to staring at her knees.

"That was '87. You had that awful fake moustache."

Nines chuckled, the sound echoing off the tiled bathroom walls. Damsel joined in, if weakly.

"It looked real, c'mon."

"It looked like you'd dragged your own crotch hair through wax and slapped the result on your face. Even that Sabbat asshole was disgusted."

"Kept the hunters off my back," Nines said, just a tad too defensively for a fashion faux pas that had happened almost twenty years ago.

"Yeah, because none of them wanted to touch you. They thought you had vampire crabs or something."

Only the fact that Damsel wasn't just unarmed but underarmed kept Nines from putting her in a headlock.

"Laugh it up. Are we going to talk about your bell bottoms?"

Damsel squinted at him as if to gauge how sincere he was bringing that up.

"... you were saying about the Sabbat fucker we fought?"

Nines accepted the truce offer. Down the hall the others woke up, coming back to life with the various groans and shuffles associated with people who hadn't slept in decent beds for almost two months.

Patty's complaints rang down the hall, her mortal body especially unsuited to roughing it like this. Then again, she still had a pack full of cereal bars to replace the last of the blood she could safely give, and had given.

"Jefferson got banged up pretty bad by that asshole," Nines said.

"With all the fucking needles sticking out of him, I remember. We kept finding them for weeks."

"Yeah. He had to go into torpor just so he wouldn't snuff it before we got home."

This time Damsel said nothing. She poked at a hole in her trousers. Nines forged on, hoping he was saying the right thing here.

"We took turns dropping by to feed him blood. Skelter was so pissed after Jack used the good stuff he'd put aside for that date he had."

No way to be sure, but he swore he saw Damsel smile at the memory. She didn't speak, but she hadn't told him to fuck off yet.

"You told Jefferson about it when he came up again. Remember?"

For a long while Damsel said nothing. She kept digging at that hole, slowly making it bigger and bigger. She still clutched her arm, but she'd stopped poking new holes into skin trying to heal. She wasn't used to being this helpless.

In all the time they'd known each other, Nines could count the number of times she hadn't been on top of things on one hand.

But, even knowing where Nines was going with this and accepting it anyway, she gave a tiny, near imperceptible nod.

"Sleep, Damsel," Nines said. "We'll still be here when you wake up."

"If I wake up," she said softly but with an edge that hadn't been there before.

When Nines tried to reach out to her again she pushed his hand away and herself off the counter. The lack of her arm made her overbalance, nearly topple into the stall doors. She caught herself just barely, the misstep only fueling her anger.

"You want me to go into torpor now? Really? Lug my ass around until those Cammy fucks kill us all, you've got to be fucking kidding me."

"That arm's not growing back by itself," Nines said firmly.

Sometimes Damsel was okay with a gentle touch. Sometimes she needed tough love. This was shaping up to require the latter.

"Fuck the arm. After Patty gave me that boost I have more blood inside of me than all of you combined."

"We have enough to defend-"

"Bullshit. How close are you to just fucking diablerising the Fledgling, huh?"

Nines went up eye to eye with Damsel and couldn't remember how he got there. His blood boiled, the hunger made it worse. He needed to feed so badly he could feel his teeth itching to get out.

"Not. Funny."

He kept his mouth closed, bit his tongue just to keep from losing his cool right here in this bathroom. Damsel knew him well enough to push his buttons when she wanted to. But this crossed several lines.

"Wasn't meant to be. Face the facts, we're one bad day away from doing the Cammies' job for them. I'm not going to fucking sleep while the rest of you can barely walk from hunger. When they come everyone's going to need to fight."

And even that might not be enough.

Nines hated the way she said it, but she was right. It was a dangerous game they played, staying so close to each other while they had so little to eat. The Beast didn't distinguish friend from foe. Patty had stopped being safe among them several days ago, if she'd ever been.

If they didn't get blood soon, one of them would do something stupid and then it was all over. In torpor Damsel could heal herself, but with that little blood inside her system, it would take weeks until she came out of it again. The Camarilla would find them before that.

"If I find us some blood," he said, grinding it out between clenched teeth. "Will you go into torpor?"

Damsel held eye contact for longer than most others could. She was so close he could smell the wounds, the blood and meat trying to knit itself together. His teeth pricked open the skin inside his mouth.

"You been holding out on us?"

"Know someone. Used to be Anarch. Could still be around."

Damsel hesitated. Then she nodded and drew back.

All at once the tension deflated. She rubbed her head, inadvertently pasting blood all over her hair, making a lump of it stick up at an angle.

"Yeah," she said. "Okay. Just don't get dusted on my behalf. The newbie would kill me."

Nines nodded. He squeezed her good shoulder again, then went to grab his things and head out.

It would take more luck than he wanted to admit to keep his promise.

Nines ducked into an entrance way pretending to shield himself from the wind and rain to light a cigarette. Most of the passersby paid him no mind, eager to get out of the torrential downpour that had started just a few minutes ago.

Already he was soaked to the bone, hair plastered onto his forehead, dripping from his eyelashes in fat drops onto his cheeks. His clothes allowed for little protection against the elements, hung heavy and limp from his body, sticking uncomfortably to his skin.

The building against which he'd ducked didn't help much either. It did allow him to surreptitiously glance back down the road from which he'd come. A person of indeterminate race or gender stood near a 24-hour convenience store, pretending to look through the glass.

The same person had followed Nines since he got off the bus earlier.

Camarilla? Or an agent of that mysterious threat the Fledgling had spoken about? Either way, he couldn't let himself be followed.

Abruptly he set into motion again, turning at the first opportunity into a narrow alley ending in a high fence. No problem for any Kindred, especially not a Brujah. He vaulted over the fence, came lightly down on his feet on the other side. Leaving the alley he crossed the street for good measure and took one of the busier streets this time of night.

Urgency buzzed under the soles of his feet, driving him onward, but he forced himself to remain calm and blend in with the other people.

He didn't hold out much hope that he'd shaken his pursuer. It hadn't work the three times he'd tried already.

As if on cue, the hooded figure cropped up at the edge of his vision as he crossed a red light, just a dozen meters away.

This shouldn't be possible. Nines knew these streets, and he wasn't exactly leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. Some Kindred could read auras, but he'd shaken those before.

He was close to his target, but he could hardly show up at the doorstep of someone he wanted a favour of with a tail.

Cursing to himself, Nines turned around. Time for desperate measures.

Pretending to be utterly oblivious to the person pursuing him he walked back down the road. As expected, his pursuer tried to make themself scarce, shaking him in an alley like Nines had tried to do with them.

He took up the chase, pushed a kine out of the way and ignored the slurs thrown after him. He skidded on the wet pavement, probably too fast to be entirely masquerade friendly, and threw himself into the alley.

No one was in it.

The alley led out into another street. Two dumpsters stood side by side, along with black trash bags oozing liquid.

The rain pattered down on their metal lids, the pavement, Nines' head.

He walked further into the alley, while the haste urging him onward told him to keep running.

He stopped to think. If the guy he was following was out for a fight, he wouldn't have escaped into the open street. He would have laid an ambush.

Nines jerked to the side just as the dumpster lid shot open and the glint of a knife arced towards him. It missed by inches, Nines dropped into a solid stance and grabbed the arm that held the knife.

He pulled, someone yelped, and then he had a Kindred dangling from his hand, halfway in the dumpster, half hanging out, glaring daggers.

"Fucking hell, you broke my wrist!"

"I'm about to break more than-"

Nines pulled back the hood off his pursuer.

They stared at each other. Rage flared up in Nines, fueled by hunger, despair and grief.

"Romero, you traitorous piece of shit."

He crushed the bones in his wrist, but Romero's cursing and muffled screams provided little satisfaction.

"Easy, easy! Shit, Nines, let go!"

He did, mostly because he'd all but turned Romero's wrist bones to dust. He fell with a grunt, cradled his wrist against his chest. In that position he looked oddly like Damsel.

Nines grit his teeth. Ghouls like him were the reason Damsel had gotten hurt in the first place. They were the eyes and ears of their hunters and the reason his coterie went hungry.

"Switched sides to get your fix? Fucking ghouls, you're all the same."

Angry enough to ignore the little voice in his head reminding him of the last ghoul still on their side, he kicked Romero for good measure.

"Ow! Fuck, you've already got me. No need to kick a man that's already down."

But in doubling over Romero had upended the pocket of his coat. With a dull thud something heavy fell out and hit the concrete, rolling a few inches until Nines stopped it with the tip of his boot.

Romero reached out to grab it but Nines was faster.

It looked like a snowglobe that someone had dropped red food colouring into. Most of what looked like snow lay pasted against one side, only a few clumps at the other end of the globe. Nines shook the thing, held it at a different angle.

Still the biggest clump of snow pointed right at him.

"Was wondering how you kept finding us," Nines said. "Who gave this to you?"

For a second it looked like Romero was going to be ornery, but the threat of another boot to the chest made him talkative.

"Some Tremere guy. Har-ack or something. He was handing them out, said it was calibrated to you guys."

"Who else has one?"

"I don't know! I'm only working through my regnant, I don't even know what his problem is with you. It's nothing personal, I swear!"

Personal or not, he'd caused a lot of hurt. And he was lying about not knowing who else was involved, Nines could smell his panic sweats through the cheap cologne he'd bathed in. He had half a mind to kick six types of shit and most of the truth out of him, but he knew as well as anyone that that wouldn't do much besides giving him an outlet for his anger.

Besides, he already knew who else was in on it. Every Kindred except his own coterie wanted them dead. He looked down at Romero, shivering and pathetic as only a ghoul facing a Kindred could be. He knew what Nines was capable of, he likely didn't expect to get out of this alive.

"I'm giving you one chance to get out of town," Nines said. "If I ever see you again, I'll rip your head clean off your shoulders. Clear?"

"Clear!"

Romero raised his hands in defense as he stumbled to his feet. Nines stepped back, let the ghoul run. First thing he'd do would be to go to his regnant and tell him that their little snowglobe secret was out.

Nines sighed. Should have killed him.

He made it to his target's doorstep without any more interruptions. He rang the doorbell, feeling oddly out of place in this part of town.

It was a nice neighbourhood, one or two economic classes above his. People used to chase him out of streets like this in his living days, and he still couldn't help but feel uncomfortable in his ratty shirt and decades old trousers, shuffling awkwardly in the doorway while he waited to be buzzed up.

The lift up didn't rattle, it went up smoothly and with barely a sound, something which disconcerted Nines enough that he went to the effort of breathing a sigh of relief when he got out at the penthouse level.

In the door, disbelief written all over his face, stood a woman Nines once loved nearly as much as the cause.

"Nines? What are you doing here?"

"Rook."

She hadn't changed at all. Then of course, she wouldn't have.

Rook had been there when Nines was Embraced. She'd been the one to show him the ropes, to take him hunting, given him a place to crash before he found a haven of his own. Her Ventrue blood didn't run as hot as his own, but she'd loved Nines, in her own way.

Or so he thought.

Old heartbreak made the words stick in Nines' throat. Anger, just as old but much less distant, forced him onward, until he stood at the threshold to Rook's nice flat, looking at her luxury brand turtleneck sweater and wanting to rip it to shreds for too many conflicting reasons.

"I need a favour," he said at the same time as Rook said: "You can't be here."

They both looked at each other, Nines dripping a puddle of rain water on the welcome mat, Rook with perfectly braided hair. She must have someone do them for her these days. Nines remembered, vividly, watching her do the braids herself, how they always came out crooked. Back then, neither had been able to afford a barber, nevermind the kind that could do the style she wore now.

"Camarilla's been treating you well," Nines said and almost managed not to sound bitter.

"You could have had this, too," Rook said softly, almost affectionate.

"No. I couldn't. Look, ba- Rook, I wouldn't have come here if it wasn't important. I'm not asking you to fight with us, but-"

"Stop. Nines, I can't help you. I'm already doing you a favour by not calling my superiors."

Once Nines would have wagered his life and liberty on Rook's loyalty. The fact that he'd been so wrong only made him angrier.

"Oh you are? How fucking nice of you. You know what's happening down there on the streets? We're being hunted like animals. The Anarchs are dying, they're starving us out. I know you have the backbone of a fucking sponge, but you can at least hear me out."

But Nines realised she wouldn't even as he said it.

Rook shook her head, made to step back into her flat.

"You shouldn't be here."

Nines saw red. No way was she going to shut the door in his face again.

He pushed forward, threw open the door and Rook off her feet. She landed on her back, rolled to her feet while Nines started throwing doors open more or less at random.

"Get the fuck out!"

Rook grabbed his shoulder, Nines shook it off. Finally he found the kitchen, went straight to the fridge.

Blood packs, a whole carton of them, greeted him. He took out the bag he'd brought for this and began cramming the carton in there. He tried to ignore the vegetables, and other assorted kine food, that filled the fridge. A ghoul, maybe one of the ones that had stalked the Anarchs and prevented them from feeding.

Maybe Rook herself had been out there, forcing the Anarchs to keep on the move, seeing shadows in every doorframe.

Then again, she'd left the Anarchs because she didn't want to get her hands dirty. No reason to start now.

"Nines, I'm warning you. Get out or I'm calling the entire Camarilla down on you."

Nines slung the bag over his shoulder.

"Go ahead," he said, fury brimming in every word. "It's what you do best, isn't it?"

Rook actually flinched, as if Nines' words could still affect her. He'd thought she'd gotten over that after the first Camarilla paycheck. The hurt look in her eyes, he didn't know what to do with that.

"I didn't mean to betray you. Especially not you, Nines, you know how I feel about you."

Oh, Ventrue eloquency. Making Nines feel special, reference a connection that was no longer there. He'd fallen for that once, fallen hard and fast, and come out bruised.

"Jazz died because of you. Skelter nearly did too. Now your 'donation' -" He scoffed, patted the blood bags. "-is going to save him."

He made to leave this all behind, take the blood and never think about Rook again. Rook stood in his way.

She blocked the way out of the kitchen, broad shoulders casting a shadow that made Nines feel utterly small.

"Get out of my way."

"No." Rook looked him directly in the eye. "Stay."

He didn't want to stay, and then he did. His feet kept him in place without his input, his eyes locked with Rook's. He should stay.

And then he realised what had just happened and Brujah rage burned the Domination out of his mind.

He saw the expression shift on her face in slow motion. Certainty turning to confusion turning to fear as Nines led the bag drop and lunged at Rook.

He punched her square in the jaw, threw her to the ground and pummeled her, one hit after the other.

Rook struggled to throw him off but Nines locked his knees tight against her sides and kept smashing his fists into her face.

Soon blood ran down his knuckles, the runny consistency of a freshly fed Kindred. One who could hold her own in a fight, no matter how soft she'd gotten in the years since they last fought. Nines bit his lip to keep from crying out as Rook grabbed him by the throat and threw him up against the wall, coming up after him larger than life, the spectre of old betrayal come to life.

"You-" Rook spat out blood. "-shouldn't have come here. I don't want to kill you Nines-"

Nines dangled in the air, feet searching for purchase and finding none. Rook's hands squeezed his throat, painfully digging into skin.

Through the din of his own panic he heard cars stopping on the street below.

When had she called the Camarilla? While he searched for the blood bags? Or even earlier, when she'd heard Nines ring her doorbell?

Nines struggled, clawed at Rook's hand, tried to pry it away. He had no chance. If they'd met on even ground, he would have won easily, but weeks of hunger had weakened him beyond saving. The last of his strength left him, and he hung uselessly in the air, held up only by Rook's hand around his throat.

Rook seemed to realise this, too.

"Look what sticking with the Anarchs got you."

She drew her brows together in pity, loosened her grip ever so slightly.

She didn't have a chance to regret. Nines drove his arm down on her elbow, barely heard the crack of breaking bone and threw himself against Rook with all his weight, driving his fangs into her neck.

Rook fell and Nines with her, hitting the ground hard with Nines clinging to her body, blood filling his mouth, his throat, sweet and heady, an ecstatic mix of pain and victory, panic and relief mixing in him.

Rook stopped struggling. Her body went limp, then cold. Nines kept pushing her down until his hands went through her. He nearly fell forward as the woman he braced himself against turned to dust.

Nines stared, thoughts half formed escaping his grasp. Rook was- He'd - There had been the fight and then -

The lift outside came to a halt. Nines' head shot up. He grabbed the blood bags, came to his feet-

-and slipped on the heap of dust that had once been his lover.

He fell, caught himself just barely, the bag hitting his side and throwing him off-center.

He burst through the hallway window just as the Camarilla entered the flat.

The archive where they holed up had been closed for renovations close to five years. Before the books could be moved to storage or any plans could be drafted, funding had fallen through, condemning the project to eternal limbo. Weeds had grown wild over the broken down fences, and only squatters and graffitti artists still remembered it.

A good thing, too, since Nines heard the sounds of argument from the street.

This was the last thing he needed right now. The blood bags hung heavy and accusing from his shoulder, loot stolen from the once cherished dead. All he wanted was to be rid of it, find a hole to crawl into and wait for the Camarilla to find him.

He was tired, he ran on fumes alone and those would desert him sooner rather than later. How long had he been on the run? Since Grout died, months ago, first alone, then with the responsibility to his entire coterie on his shoulders.

He had murdered Rook for these people and for all that he didn't want to see a single one of them.

The Fledgling waited for him at the door and Nines' relief betrayed his resolution. Stumbling from the weight of the blood and the fatigue that not even a full stomach could drive away, he let himself be herded into the building. They took the bag from him, making an impressed noise when they looked inside.

"Nice haul, where'd you- ... nevermind."

Was he that easy to read or was the Fledgling just that good at reading people? He barely had to raise his hand to fend off the question before they dropped it, moving in close. If he leaned in just slightly, they'd be touching. Judging from their face they wouldn't fault him a reassuring hug or two.

Nines drew back. What was wrong with him? Less than an hour ago he'd killed his ex-lover and now he was making moves on someone else? This whole mess must have screwed with his brain. It didn't help that the noise made it impossible to think.

Angry at his people and even angrier at himself Nines marched down the hall, followed by the Fledgling trying to get him up to speed. Not that he needed to know.

Patty and Skelter were at each other's throats. She was shouting, he was being quiet in that way of his when he got really angry, and Damsel and Jack stood between them, shielding Patty who tried her hardest to get past them and stop being shielded.

"You don't have any idea what he was like!" Patty hadn't had Kindred blood since Kent died, but she still shook Jack's hand off her arm like it was nothing. "He was the greatest guy I've ever met, and you were all just fucking jealous of him!"

"Jealous?"

Nines rushed forward, seeing the signs. Skelter had gone ashen, eyes sunken deep into their sockets. They all looked bad, but his anger drove his hunger into overdrive. He swatted Nines aside, pushed past Damsel.

"You think I was jealous?"

Jack put himself squarely in front of Patty, dropping into a fighting stance. Skelter stopped, briefly, locked in a silent stand-off.

"Get the fuck out of my way," he said.

"Can't do, kiddo. You're not yourself right now. Look, Nines brought snacks. Get some blood in you and we'll talk, okay?"

Skelter didn't even look.

He locked eyes with Patty over Jack's shoulder and said, as softly as a knife in the dark: "Your boyfriend was a rotten piece of shit and whatever he got, he deserved it."

Patty went berserk. She screamed, climbed on and over Jack, pushing him down in her haste to get to Skelter. Pushing off with her feet she shoved at Skelter with all her strength, causing him to crash into the far wall.

Dust rained down from the shelves, drawers rattled but none came down.

"Patty, calm down-"

Even the Fledgling couldn't bring her back from the brink. She went after Skelter, hurt and anger all mixing into an explosive cocktail. No space for fear, not even when Skelter shook off the momentary shock.

He closed in, fingers turned to claws, sharp and yellowed and hard as stone. One fell swipe, blood spattered, Patty screamed.

She dropped to the ground just as Nines and Damsel got to Skelter. They each grabbed an arm, wrestling him to the ground while he growled and lunged at them, blind in his rage.

It took the Fledgling jumping in on the dogpile to press him to the floor, their face just inches from his. His pupils had turned yellow, hair turned to fur growing along his neck, his ears, and all his teeth had gotten longer and thicker, dripping thick mucus from their tips as he gnashed them trying to get at the Fledgling.

"Get a fucking grip on yourself!"

"Get the blood!"

"Patty's bleeding!"

The Fledgling didn't see who handed them the blood bag, too busy keeping their face away from Skelter and keeping him down at the same time.

He growled, threw off Damsel who couldn't brace herself with only one arm.
The Fledgling didn't bother popping open the bag, just got it as close to Skelter's fangs as they dared.

His teeth sunk into the plastic, and then he was drinking.

The Fledgling fell backwards as Skelter pushed himself up into a sitting position, hand clawed tightly around the blood bag.

They passed him another when he'd emptied the first one and then a third for good measure.

Slowly the signs of his frenzy receded. Eyes turned brown again, thick fur back into tight coils, covering nothing but his head. Only the claws stayed. They scraped across the tiled floor when Skelter, realisation dawning on his face, tried to get past Nines.

"Patty."

She was hunched over on the floor, hands hovering over her face not quite touching. She was crying, sobbed and shrank back when Skelter came closer.

He flinched as if she'd hit him again. His eyes had gone wide, hands hanging uselessly in the air.

"Shit," he said. "Shit, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ..."

His apology petered off into nothing, as he realised how little that would fix.

"Patty?"

Her sobbing only grew louder, and even when Jack tried to get her to show him her face she shook her head and turned away from him.

Small drops of blood dripped onto the floor. Jack withdrew, looked for the blood bags Nines had brought.

He was already handing some of them to Damsel, who'd kept far away from Patty ever since Skelter had wounded her.

No one missed the irony that fresh out of frenzy and recently fed Skelter was the safest bet to go near Patty.

He did, looking as if he had to fight himself for every step.

"I'm sorry for hurting you," he said weakly. "It's not ... Patty, let us fix you up, okay? We'll get you somewhere safe, somewhere far away from ..." Them. Him.

She still didn't answer. Skelter looked around helplessly for some assistance. None of the others would look at him. He turned back to Patty, wringing his still clawed hands. Then looking down at them and realising how that must look, crossed his arms and hid them.

"Do you want me to leave? The Fledgling can drive you home, they just-"

"I'm not mad that you hurt me."

Skelter fell silent, stunned and doubtful.

Finally Patty looked up.

It was worse than they'd thought. Skelter had torn her face to shreds. Skin hung in thick stripes from her chin, one of her eyes was nothing but a red mess, giblets falling out of her eye socket. Her lower lip had split apart, garbling her speech, but still she appeared completely serious.

"I'm mad that you said that about Kent. He was a good guy."

Skelter looked like he wanted to cry. He reached out to Patty, then pulled back just before touching her.

"Patty ..."

"I miss him."

She blinked hard to drive away tears, whimpered when they came on anyway and drove hot salt water into her wounds. But the physical pain didn't compare to the emotional turmoil.

"I wish he was here. It's all messed up, but if Kent was here, we'd be okay now. And everytime I look at you-" Her sharp glare made Skelter take a step back. "And listen to you talk about Kent like you knew him, I wish it had been you who died. And I feel horrible that I think that. I'm horrible. I was happy when you got hungry, because I wanted you to hurt.

And-" She hiccuped, took the gauze Damsel offered cautiously and dabbed at the blood running into her good eye, and the tears running down it. "-and I just wish you wouldn't talk about Kent that way. I'm sorry for provoking you, and for being nasty to you when you didn't have anything to eat."

Skelter looked so stunned by her admission that it took him a while for the apology to sink in. When it did he nearly panicked.

"No! No, no, no. You don't - don't- don't be fucking sorry. I never should have - we never should have brought you along."

"Skelter!"

But he was already shaking his head, searching for the right words.

"That's not- ... I mean it's dangerous for ghouls to be among Kindred. We put you in danger because we could use you, and I didn't say anything because I knew we'd be fucked without you. And I should have. This is my fault, Patty, I'm sorry for hurting you and allowing you to be here when it was only a matter of time before one of us would ..."

Do what he had done.

Patty was not like them. She was mortal, even if she knew about Anarchs, and Camarilla and drove a carload of Kindred around for weeks. The proof stared them right in the face. They had a carton full of blood bags that was of no use to her. Without the blood of a Kindred she healed like a mortal, could die like a mortal from something as simple as an infection.

And none of them were willing to offer her their blood and force the unnatural loyalty of a blood bond on her.

"We need to get you to a hospital," the Fledgling said.

They made to help Patty to her feet, but she shook them off.

"The Cammies are watching all the hospitals. We're gonna get caught."

"Then we'll get caught," Skelter said. "But you'll be okay. They won't kill a ghoul in the middle of the ER."

"No."

She shook off the Fledgling, stumbling back when that brought her close to Skelter. He looked down in shame and created a little more distance between them.

"Just ... I don't want any of your blood, just give me like a couple of hours. I'll be fine."

The five supernaturally gifted creatures of the night stood around unable to do anything. The only thing they could offer were chains.

And an epiphany.

The Fledgling snapped their finger rapidly.

"How about all of our blood?"

Five pairs of doubting eyes landed on them.

"I don't think I could even drink that much."

"That's worse than just a little, newbie."

"Did you hit your head?"

The Fledgling shook their head.

"Beckett told me about this. It's a thing the Sabbat do to ensure pack loyalty. When someone is Embraced, they mix together a little blood from each member. Because it comes from different sources, it doesn't create a full blood bond."

This time the incredulity was cranked up several notches.

"You want to do a fucking Sabbat ritual?"

"Beckett told you that? When?"

"Are you sure you're not Malkavian?"

Rolling their eyes the Fledgling looked to Patty.

She hesitated, glancing at each of them in a row while trying to hold the strips of skin in place. Skelter kept shaking his head, and that was probably the main reason Patty stepped up and agreed.

That and the fact that her face hung in literal tatters.

With the help of an empty soda bottle scavenged from Patty's things the Fledgling bit into their wrist and let the blood trickle into the container. Then they held it out into the round.

A beat went past.

"This is insane," Nines said and took the tupperware.

He added his blood to the mix, passed it onto Damsel without asking. She made a face, looked like she was going to give it to Jack or possibly pour it away.

But with a look at Patty's messed up face, she opened up her veins. It had been Skelter to lose control, but the fact that he was the first, or that it had taken as long as it did, had been pure chance. Damsel had fought off frenzy since the first pangs of hunger started.

Jack barely hesitated, swirling the tupperware around to mix his blood in well with the rest. Then he held it out to Skelter.

"No. No fucking way."

He remained fast under all their reproachful looks.

"It's the least you can do," Damsel said.

"Come on, the more people, the more diluted the blood bond becomes. You'll be helping."

"Don't be a pussy about this," Jack said.

"Hey," Patty and Damsel said in unison.

"Sorry," Jack amended. "Don't be a dick about this."

But it took Patty, nodding and shrugging at Skelter, to make him change his mind. With a heavy sigh he took his coterie's blood and added his own.

He held it out to Patty, nearly dropping it when he tried to keep his claws hidden while simultaneously trying not to let any part of him touch her.

She looked down at the dark pool, then up at Skelter.

"I am pissed at you," she said. "Even if it was kinda my fault."

"Not your fault," Skelter said softly but she'd already tipped her head back and drank.

With bated breath they watched.

The moment Kindred blood entered her blood stream, Patty's injuries began to knit themselves together. Skin pulled itself up along seams closing in real time. Small giblets and mucus dripped out of her bad eye as it reformed itself in its socket.

By the time she'd swallowed the last remains only a mild rash and some pale scars stuck out under the rapidly drying blood.

Even had they still needed to breathe, the Kindred would have held their breath. For all that the Fledgling had made grand promises. They didn't know what something like this would do to a ghoul.

Patty gave each of them a once over, ending at Skelter.

"You're prettier than you used to be," she said. Skelter tensed. "But I'm still pissed at you."

He relaxed.

All of them did.

Over the next hour they shared the remaining blood bags, between them all barely enough to sate their hunger. A single Kindred could have subsisted for months on Nines' haul, but all of them were glad to have company right now.

Chapter Text

While Patty and Skelter came to some sort of accord, Nines Rodriguez devoted himself once again to his burgeoning feelings for the Fledgling and what to do about them. He realised that this should not have ranked as high on his list of priorities as it did. They were being pursued by the Camarilla, and, as it became increasingly obvious, a mysterious second threat.

"I think whoever, or whatever, it is, was responsible for Abrams' death," the Fledgling said as they loaded their meagre possessions into Patty's car.

They would move on tonight, hope to shake the Camarilla and their unerring blood magic.

"It could still have been Camarilla," Nines objected, although half-heartedly.

The display of brutality was not something the Camarilla dealt in. They preferred to leave subtle hints of terror, high strings and deep bass notes overlaid and playing so quietly you didn't know they were there until your teeth tried to crawl out of your gums.

"Golden doesn't seem to think so. According to him Beckett knows what this is. He gave me an address, I'm heading there now. It's probably going to be dangerous, so ..."

Here they reached the point at which they were going to make some ultimately meaningless request for the Anarchs to keep moving if they didn't show up at the new meeting spot within the designated time.

Nines was faster.

"I'll come with you."

"Like hell you are."

It was not the response Nines expected. He searched for an argument in the void where he thought to find acceptance.

The Fledgling shut the car boot and turned fully to Nines.

"Appreciate the offer. Really. But you need to take care of them, if the Camarilla come knocking."

They tilted their head towards the entrance. Damsel, one-armed carried half their supplies while the rest of their group trailed behind with bits and pieces. She did this out of spite, and because the supply of blood, as shortlived as it had been, meant she now had to keep her promise and go into torpor to regrow her arm.

She set their stuff down by the car a little harder than she needed to.

"What are you two lovebirds talking about?" she asked, just to be an ass.

"Nothing!" said Nines, a little too loudly.

Both the Fledgling and Damsel raised their eyebrows at him. Caught between them he cleared his throat and shuffled his feet.

"I'm going with the Fledgling to check up on something."

The Fledgling glared at him, but through Damsel's indifferent shrug, the matter was resolved.

They watched the rest of their coterie drive off, red tail lights disappearing behind the curve and leaving them with the single light of a far-off lantern.

In a city such as LA the nights were never really dark, even without direct illumination. Light spilled out from the perpetually lit hotspots even as far as their little corner. Even Griffith Park hadn't been as deep and dark as the countryside could be.

Thus, even without the increased sensory abilities of a Discipline, Nines had no problem seeing every detail of the Fledgling.

Details of which he was becoming more appreciative with every heroic return they made to his side.

Gone to deal with some private matter, the Fledgling had returned with a clue as to one of their enemies, made an unspecified deal with Golden and, knowing that old sewer rat, paid a heavy price for it.

"Look, newbie," he started, wondering as he said it if 'newbie' was the appropriate word to use in a confession such as this. Kindred didn't sweat, but now his palms did and he wiped them ineffectually on his trousers. "There's something I gotta tell you ..."

Most people he'd been with confessed their attraction to him. Those who didn't he'd fallen in with by mutually taking risks of being rejected and ostracised. Cruising at Runyon Canyon had never warranted this amount of ceremony.

Last time he'd done this, he'd been seventeen and asked out a girl from school.

"Later, okay? For now we need to focus on keeping our people safe."

And although they had just stopped his nervously assembled confession in its tracks, Nines found himself falling deeper.

Gary Golden's tip led Nines and the Fledgling to a slaughterhouse at the edge of town. Strangely, creepy places always seemed to be at the edge of town. They'd never heard someone say "ah, yes, the slaughterhouse, right in the middle of town, just by the post office. Can't miss it."

Naturally, they had missed it, taken the wrong bus stop and had to walk a good distance longer than they would have needed to.

The place loomed dark and foreboding over them. Windowless brick walls seemed to curve over the horizon, tall old men bending to inspect prey. Blood hung in the air so thick it became a physical presence.

Before being Embraced, they might not have smelled it at all.

Now the fragrance of death settled around them like a cloak, sweet and sticky. They kept their heads low and out of the light as they searched for a way in, finding it in a section of fence that had been cut, recently.

"Boltcutters," the Fledgling said as they traced the lines of broken steel wire.

"Gangrel claws," Nines corrected.

After seeing Skelter's claws, which still hadn't retracted by the time he got behind the wheel, the Fledgling had no trouble believing that.

They ducked inside without further ado, snuck on light soles towards the building itself.

And were stopped by voices.

"This way," Nines hissed and pushed the Fledgling towards the long trailers parked outside.

They jumped up, pressing themselves flat onto the top just in time for three Kindred to leave the building.

That they were Kindred was not in doubt.

One of them had the distinctly animalistic characteristics of a fresh Sabbat recruit, while the two surrounding her carried themselves with the air of people who knew they were the most dangerous thing in the deep dark night.

They were talking, utterly unconcerned for any eavesdroppers, which suited the two lying on the truck just right.

"... almost took an ear off, feral bastard."

The furry Kindred in their middle howled with laughter.

"Got him surrounded now, only a matter of time. Boss says she's willing to starve him out."

The Fledgling and Nines shared a look. It seemed Golden had been on the money.

"Wonder what she wants from this guy? He's one of those Camarilla people, right? Or Anarch?"

"Same thing."

The Fledgling bristled and had halfway pushed themself up to their hands and knees, when Nines hand on their shoulder nudged them back down again.

The three Sabbat Kindred moved out of earshot in a wide arc around the building. Checking for any additional patrols and finding none, the Fledgling and Nines descended from their hiding place and went into the building itself.

The scent of raw meat mixed with a chill made harsh after the warm air outside.

Only emergency lighting ran, but it was enough to navigate by. Down the hall they went, moving deeper into the facility.

The Sabbat had come before them - the Fledgling couldn't help but wonder if Gary had auctioned off his information twice like he had before - but they were apparently not counting on anyone else coming for their prey.

Twice they would have run straight into the Sabbat had not their loud conversations alerted them to their presence in time.

It was almost too easy.

Which, naturally, meant that when they reached their goal, they found five Sabbat surrounding a large walk-in cooler. They were playing cards.

Cursing the Fledgling pulled back and Nines with them, hiding between the rows and rows of pig carcasses hung up to chill.

"What now?" Nines asked.

The Fledgling chanced another look out.

Two against five, with a lot more waiting in the wings. Even freshly fed they didn't like their chances.

An open fight was out, even though Nines beside them moved like he was itching for one.

The space wasn't made for fighting, either. It was large, but cramped by the stored meat.

They needed to get the Sabbat away from that door.

The Fledgling touched one of the pigs, an idea forming.

"We could call the cops as a distraction," they said.

Nines shook his head.

"We're dealing with Sabbat. We'll just end up with dead cops."

"I mean ..."

The faint grin on Nines' face was worth bottling.

"Tempting, but no. If they turn up these guys are going to know someone called them here."

Deep in thought the Fledgling checked their surroundings. At the far end of the room office space had been created, with windows looking into the office from inside and leading out as well. A reasonably quick Kindred could cross that distance before the Sabbat could catch on. Naturally, they'd then be hunted by whole packs of them.

"How fast can you run?"

Nines crossed his arms.

"I don't know if baiting them is a good idea."

"Not bait. A trick."

The five Sabbat delegated to watch the door didn't expect trouble. None of them watched the door all that closely. Any brief surge of guilt was quickly alleviated by the card game, which entertained them more than their duty.

Just as the biggest cheater in their group was about to rake in the winnings, a window broke.

The glass shattered, loud and conspicuous and as the Sabbat looked up in alarm they found one of their own waving from the office.

"You idiots! He's getting away, don't just sit there!"

Neither of them noticed that while their attention was diverted someone had snuck in and out behind them.

When they turned to check the door they were meant to guard, they found it had been opened.

"Fuck!"

As one they dropped their cards, rushing towards the offices and after their prey and their fellow Sabbat brother who they assumed had already taken up pursuit.

The Sabbat piled out of the window, raising alarms left and right, while Nines came up to the Fledgling's side, only slightly strained.

"See," he said, "I'd have checked the freezer first."

Grinning the Fledgling pulled him along.

"Come on, we don't have long."

Beckett hadn't survived as long as he did without a keen mind. He'd given the Sabbat the slip for over a week, always keeping on the move, never letting his moves become predictable. Being tracked down despite all this had been a humbling moment.

Trapped in a freezer slowly turning to ice was just the cherry on the humiliation cake.

Frost weighed down his hair and burned his skin through the metal rims of his spectacles, clinking like Christmas ornaments when he lunged at the Sabbat who had apparently come to get their ears torn off after all.

"Beckett! It's me!"

Beckett pulled back his claws, shocked and already in the momentum of the fight tried to turn his course at an angle. Nines, who'd rushed in to come to the Fledgling's defence now found himself directly in that course and had barely time to utter a half-formed curse before all eighty kilos of Gangrel scholar crashed into him at full speed.

They would have torn down the shelves in the freezer all contents included, had the Fledgling not grabbed and pulled them in the vague direction of their feet.

Nines swayed, Beckett clung to Nines to keep his balance, chest to chest, face not a full inch from the other's.

The Fledgling clicked their tongue.

"Really, this is hardly the time."

To their credit, neither man blushed.

They simply created an appropriate distance between them, dusting off particles of ice that had come loose during their brief tussle.

Beckett caught himself first.

He turned to the Fledgling, giving them a once-over. Seemingly satisfied with what he saw he straightened his coat sleeves.

"Can't say I'm surprised to see you here," he said. "I assume you're here to learn about the antediluvian?"

Beckett didn't always have a flair for the dramatic. In his younger days he'd been shy, preferred his books to his peers, Kindred or kine. It was only when his reputation started preceding him that he developed a character for himself. Someone who could speak as he was expected to speak.

Mostly Beckett enjoyed it. After all, both actors and scholars enjoyed the sound of their own voice. He liked to think that he had something more to offer than melodramatic soliloquies.

His expertise and peculiar curiosity made him if not a welcome, then an expected guest in the halls of those who sought to solve the mysteries of their time. Few of those strayed far beyond their chosen field. They didn't look to think or be exposed to new concepts, they wanted their answers in concrete and digestible little packets.

How do I get this open, what is the word to control this beast, why has this ritual failed. Questions Beckett could - and did as a matter of professional pride - answer. But he always felt like his considerable knowledge was wasted on these narrow minds.

He'd taken part of LaCroix's hospitality, but he hadn't mourned him when he and his tiny questions perished in the flames.

He would have mourned, briefly, the passing of the Fledgling.

In his experience people like the Fledgling weren't so rare as to be precious treasure. They cropped up, every now and then, less often than he would have liked, but enough to not make him swoon at the very sight of their type. That said, he'd developed a soft spot for them.

They asked questions, and had never interrupted him when he exposed the world they had just recently fallen into. Youthful curiosity, trying to gain an edge, their motives didn't much matter to Beckett. What mattered to him was to find a willing ear and two pairs of those had just walked into his freezer.

"I'm sorry, the what?"

"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

Beckett directed a toothy grin at Nines.

"I assure you Mr Rodriguez, I'm quite serious. I believe there is an Antediluvian on the loose. Or, well ..." He allowed himself a brief pause, pulling the gloves off his hands to rub some warmth into his fingers. "A Kindred Embraced before the biblical flood, in any case."

"What's the difference?" asked the Fledgling, earning themself a few more points of sympathy.

"One of semantics. Technically all Kindred of the third generation or lower are antediluvian, ante - before, diluvian - deluge, or flood. The historicity of the event may be disputed, in the case of the Antediluvians we are most familiar with it matters little. They are the Kindred of the Third generation, preceded only by their Sires of the second generation - who were assumed to have died at the hands of their childer - and Caine himself, if you believe he exists."

The Fledgling shared a glance with Nines, who shrugged. His field of scholarly interest tended to veer more into political upheavals than meteorological ones.

It fell to them to follow Beckett's explanation to the best of their ability.

"So you think what- whoever's loose in this city is a ... a lower case 'a' antediluvian? A second generation Kindred?"

Beckett's face lit up. He closed in on the Fledgling, eager to share his excitement.

"Exactly!" Like a schoolmaster tutoring a particularly bright pupil he drew the Fledgling into his theories. "These ancient Cainites were said to possess almost mythical powers. Our modern kind can move unseen, but these ancient ones could turn invisible. We pride ourselves on our ability to change shape while they were not beholden to a single body at all. Moving a car or stopping a train is to us like tilting the earth on its axis was for them. That is, if the records are to be taken at face value."

"Which they're not?"

"Of course not. That would be patently ridiculous. But I have collected knowledge about our kind nearly my whole life, and I believe I recognise the signs of a being of considerable power moving in our midst.

See, one of the supposed abilities of the ancient Kindred was to preserve life, hold it in stasis if you will. A mortal bestowed with this blessing would never age. Can you guess what would happen to a Kindred?"

Isaac Abrams, crucified in his own office, denied the dignity of a Kindred death.

"They wouldn't turn to dust if they were killed."

Beckett nodded, grimly this time. Whether he read it in their faces or if he carried some grief for the loss of his Kindred brethren himself, his tone grew sombre.

"Yes. You have seen it?"

The Fledgling and Nines nodded.

"Tragic. But, considering what I believe is stalking these streets, likely not the worst that could happen. Do you know about the Week of Nightmares?"

The Fledgling shook their head. Nines nodded, and shuddered.

"Bad dreams, everyone had them. The Ravnos went crazy, had to put a few down. People said it was their Antediluvian," he said to the Fledgling.

"It was. I have never seen the Ravnos progenitor myself but I have collected several first-hand accounts confirming his existence - and death.

An antediluvian."

Here Beckett paused briefly, rubbing his wrist absently. The Fledgling noticed it hung at an odd angle, like it had recently been broken. They wondered how long Beckett's explanation would take, and if the Sabbat would be patient enough to let him finish it.

"You must understand that an antediluvian is not like a normal Kindred, even a powerful one. A fourth generation Kindred is a formidable foe, comparable to an army of kine. An antediluvian would sweep this army away in a flood without blinking an eye.

They don't have to focus their abilities, destruction follows them where they go. An awakened antediluvian is heralded by rains of blood, kine succumbing to the beast they are barely aware exists inside them. I have witnessed people murdering each other in the streets with their bare hands when it was still several hundred miles away. They-"

Nines, shivering and twitching at every sound, interrupted.

"Then it can't be an antediluvian here. Rain's normal. People are murdering like they usually do. There's nothing out of the ordinary."

But even as he said it, he wavered.

Beckett made a knowing sound.

"Not quite ordinary, is it? Ever since I came here I have followed reports of dread, nightmares, and a persistent psychic pressure on the local Kindred."

"You asked me about that when we first met," the Fledgling recalled.

"Indeed I did. I believe now that these effects are due to the antediluvian. But you are of course correct, Mr Rodriguez. An awakened antediluvian should cause far more than a mild headache. A mystery, to be sure."

And one he evidently did not know the answer to. Beckett, having put his gloves back on, now turned to the task of cleaning his glasses, dedicating his entire focus to it. With the air of a man who had revealed many such earth-shattering revelations before he gave his audience of two time to process.

An antediluvian. It explained why the Camarilla were on edge enough to call for help from their European peers. They'd run headless through the city killing as many Anarchs as possible, those at least that this monster hadn't killed first.

"The Camarilla think we unleashed it," the Fledgling said, coming to the realisation as they spoke it out loud.

Beckett raised an eyebrow. Apparently this theory was new to him and the Fledgling couldn't help but feel a tiny triumphant spark at having been one step ahead of him.

"They've been hunting us," they explained. "Since the night LaCroix died. At first I thought it was just retribution for killing a prince but-"

"-the response was disproportionate. They never called in a Justicar to deal with politics before," Nines finished.

"Ah." Beckett put his glasses back on, and nudged them until they sat properly on his nose. "I had heard a Justicar was heading the Camarilla delegation. Unfortunately they have so far declined my requests for an exchange of knowledge. I do believe they know the antediluvian's identity. I have my own theories, of course, but nothing concrete. Nothing I'm willing to guess on, either," he added when the Fledgling opened their mouth.

They closed it again.

Nines, in any case, was not willing to speculate on the personal name of his enemy.

"Okay, so we've got an antediluvian murdering our people left and right, the Camarilla kill what's left, trying to - what? Get whoever they think is responsible?"

"Possibly," Beckett said. "Consider, perhaps, that there is a reason we are not feeling the effects of a full awakening. One might well theorise that by eliminating you and your compatriots, the Justicar is hoping to stave off a worst case scenario."

The Fledgling was just about to expound on that theory, and maybe get Beckett to take a guess at the antediluvian's identity after all, when an increase in noise from the outside signalled the end to their time.

"I believe we have passed the window of stealth," Beckett said mildly.

Nines threw him an annoyed look.

"Obviously," he said.

"We're going to have to fight our way out. Are you good?"

The Fledgling nodded at Beckett's wrist. He rotated it experimentally, then nodded.

"Do not concern yourself. Between the three of us, I believe us quite capable of meeting this challenge."

Nines, facing the freezer door and with his back towards Beckett, rolled his eyes.

"Pretentious ass," he muttered, low enough that only he heard.

Or so he thought. The Fledgling shook their head in disapproval. Nines had to keep himself from wincing.

"Let's show these shovelheads what Anarchs are made of," he said instead.

Seven Kindred had gathered in a half circle around the freezer when Beckett, Nines, and the Fledgling walked out.

They were mean types, more muscles than brains, more undead power than muscles. They moved constantly, shifting their weight, rolling their shoulders, clenching and unclenching their fists.

Sharply in contrast, Nines was the very picture of calm. He stood at the Fledgling's side as if he'd just gone for a short walk through a random slaughterhouse at night, seemingly unperturbed by the host of Sabbat gearing up for a fight.
Even Beckett shifted slightly as he tried to keep all the Sabbat in view simultaneously.

The Fledgling only focused on the one in the middle.

She didn't look like the last Sabbat boss they'd fought - the Tzimisce had faces you didn't forget - but she radiated the same aura of authority. She was tall, easily a head higher than Beckett, and towering over Nines and the Fledgling. Expensive velvet and fur fell over a sizeable belly and arms that looked much softer than the steely look in her eye.

She was, the Fledgling noticed in some far away corner, the first fat vampire they'd ever seen. They wondered whether Kindred Embraced only thin people or if the drain of the Embrace robbed the body of its reserves.

Unfortunately what might have been a matronly, even kind, look turned in the style of the Sabbat to something abhorrent and unnatural. She didn't look like a woman who could give good hugs. She looked like a woman who ate Kindred alive.

"How fortunate," she said. "My little trap turned one sacrifice into three."

The thing that reached the Fledgling's ears was a perfectly normal, even pleasant, voice. The thing that reached their brain, however, was a feral chorus of threat and ancestral fear. Whispers of the long dead, speaking as if from a deep chasm, accompanied her every word.

Her victims? The Fledgling wondered if their own voice would join the chorus if this went badly. Before they could speak up, or even come up with a strategy to get out of this alive, Beckett said:

"Excuse me, if you allow. A sacrifice to whom?"

Nines rolled his eyes so hard it sent psychic waves of exasperation at the Fledgling. They didn't mention the same question had occurred to them as well.

The Sabbat woman smiled, showing teeth each filed to a sharp point.

"Wouldn't you like to know? I'm afraid that is only for the Sabbat to know. You, however, have knowledge I'm sure you're willing to share. Eventually."

Beckett pushed his glasses further up his nose. A nervous gesture, one interrupted by mild surprise when Nines put himself between him and the Sabbat.
Several of the lackeys surrounding them stepped forward, bodies leaning towards the confrontation. The Sabbat woman held them back with a sharp gesture.

The Fledgling nodded to Nines, then addressed her.

"That why we're still alive?"

That, and the fact that the Sabbat weren't quite sure what their capabilities were. Seven against three should have been an easy match, but at least Nines' reputation preceded him.

"So bright," the woman cooed. "Yes, little thing, I would much rather you told me now rather than wring your secrets from your ashes. Where is the ancient one?"

The question was directed at Beckett, who seemed to actually have restrain himself from giving an answering monologue.

"Ah. I'm afraid I can't help you, miss. Even if I knew where the antediluvian was, I'd not be willing to part with that information. If I may give some advice, you'd be better off leaving this town."

"You should listen to poindexter here," Nines said, with just a hint of a threat in his voice.

The woman laughed, back of her hand covering her mouth.

"Oh, just precious. Perhaps you would like a demonstration of our staying power-"

"No, no need!" The Fledgling stepped forward, became the centre of attention.

The two Sabbat flanking their boss growled in warning. They didn't let it faze them.

"We don't know where the antediluvian is. And you can't afford to fight us."

Understanding dawned on Nines' face. He fell in: "Could you win here? Sure, but we're going to take a lot of you down with us. You'll need all your strength to face this monster when you find it. "

This brought the Sabbat woman up short. She looked between them, eyes narrowed, teeth digging into her pale lip. In her head she ran the numbers, their chances against an antediluvian, even one who didn't shake the world like they should.

She had plans for this creature, plans that needed a full complement of her people to realise. But the Beast inside her clamoured for attention, demanded the heads of these upstarts who thought they could just waltz into her territory and steal her prize away.

The Sabbat were not in the habit of denying their beast. Fortunately, their leaders learned a measure of self-control.

"So sharp, soon you'll cut yourself," she muttered and then, louder: "Very well. Let them pass. But you had best not cross our path again."

The Fledgling nodded, hinted at a bow and and walked through the small opening the woman appointed in her ranks. Shoulders straight, knees ready to bend into a fighting crouch, Nines and Beckett went after them. They had left the Sabbat half circle almost behind when everything went wrong.

As Beckett passed the woman he noticed, hanging from her belt, an odd little trinket. It looked like a chicken foot, if the chicken had scales like a dragon, black as carbon steel, and glinted in the light. Around the foot was tied a red ribbon, so thin as to be nearly string, in a knot signifying some arcane purpose.

You had to understand something about Beckett. He was a scholar. It's the thing he was even when the Beast overcame his defences, the identity he reaffirmed everytime he came out of frenzy with another mark to deform him.

Before long, Beckett would stop looking human altogether. His skin might be covered in fur, his claws would never retract again, his spine might curve and force him on all fours. But even then, with paws for hands and a mouth turned to a snout, he'd still be a scholar.

Like the animals in children's stories, he'd wear clothes to hide his beastly form, and wear glasses to correct his animal sight. He'd study the secrets of the Kindred until this curse took away the mind to care for them.

This was who he was, the core of his being that kept him human. Most Kindred had such a core, a belief or an understanding of themselves that not even the raging feral thing inside them could deny.

Nines stayed human through hope, for a better world at the horizon, for an answer to the question of justice. If that hope was ever taken away, or if he acted contrary to it, he would lose himself. Damsel knew herself to be full of righteous anger, Skelter believed in broadening his horizons every day.

Who knew what lay at the Fledgling's core.

But Beckett had been, by nature or choice, become someone who searched for knowledge and here, before him, hung a piece of knowledge so exceedingly rare that it might take him half a millennium to dig up another example of it.

In his effort to understand the nature of his curse and, perhaps, a way to stave off the inevitable descent into monstrosity, Beckett had come upon many purported ways of caging or controlling the Beast.

Golconda, the myth of enlightenment open only to those who had looked damnation in the eye, would have held a certain appeal to Beckett, if he believed in baseless mysticism and superstition. No proof had ever been obtained of Kindred having reached this higher state of existence, nor any concrete evidence of the path that would lead to such a metamorphosis.

Artefacts, on the other hand, were something tangible and real.

Magic, still, but Beckett had long given up questioning the logic of undead magic in the very face of its existence.

The charm, no more than a thumb's length, currently hanging innocently from a fearsome Sabbat's looping fabric belt, was one such artefact he longed to study.

Five hundred years ago, a powerful Kindred, not yet of the Sabbat, found himself in a rivalry with a Gangrel elder. For decades they played a game of murder and intrigue, attempting to lay traps for the other and gain the satisfaction of the kill.

One of the Gangrel's talents included a peculiar ability to speak with a person's Beast and draw it forth. Sometimes a single look sufficed to terrorise their foes with the monster within themselves. It had made the Gangrel an outcast even among their own clan, others fearing their immense power and their liberal use of it.

The Gangrel's rival, a Ventrue, turned antitribu and joined with his declared enemies to bring down his hated foe.

For fear of falling prey to the Gangrel's animalistic magic, he delved into the deep lore of the Sabbat and older cults still to find a solution.

None presented itself, until he took to experiments, creating by trial and torturous error the Biting Weir. From the bodies of a dozen childer he pulled this charm, of a basilisk's foot, entwined with string that had been tied around a Kindred heart and left to sit in a chest buried eight feet underneath the grave of a Kindred killed by true faith.

It did not allow the wearer to control his Beast, or even put it to slumber. Rather, once the Beast was unleashed, the Biting Weir temporarily consumed its power and will, storing it until a more convenient time.

Thus armed, the Ventrue antitribu challenged the Gangrel, and when they turned their igniting gaze upon him, the Biting Weir allowed him to remain in control. He slew his Gangrel rival.

However, being particularly at odds with his Beast, the Ventrue never sought to release the Beast's essence from the charm. He kept it on his person, safe in the knowledge that as long as the Beast was trapped, he could not be roused to frenzy.

He did not notice, in his complacency, that the charm grew more brittle with every night until one day, while he was in attendance at Elysium, a minor slight against them caused the Biting Weir to overflow with the Beast's rage and discharge all at once.

This was the tale as learned by Beckett, who had pieced it together from the writings of later authors and the few first hand accounts of survivors. He visited the Elysium where the Ventrue antitribu had lost control, and found it a scorched crater even centuries after the fact. The supernatural had scorched the earth and caused the kine in the area to shiver when they approached it, never building anything in its place.

The charm, it was said, had been destroyed, but a handful of Kindred knew the secret to make one, and had in the ensuing centuries created altogether three of them. It was one of the few artefacts that could directly influence a Kindred's beast, and thus of high interest to the scholars of the Kindred affliction, such as Beckett.

He had searched decades for a Biting Weir, or even just a reference to it, and never found a single one. And here it was, hanging so innocently from a Sabbat woman's belt as if it had just waited for someone like Beckett to find and take it.

Beckett was not a pickpocket by trade, but he was deft and graceful when he wanted to be. Surely, just to borrow it for a while, no one would know or care?

The Fledgling was nearly out of the door when the shouting started. The Sabbat attacked at once, eager to fight after having to control themselves for so long. In a storm of claws and fangs they fell upon Beckett who scrambled backwards, fist slung tightly around some small object.

Nines was with him first, out of heightened paranoia or superior experience, and pushed Beckett into the hall, throwing aside a hapless Sabbat mid-jump.

"Go!"

"Thieves!" howled the Sabbat woman. "Get them!"

By the time the Fledgling had stormed back into the main room, Nines had gone down struggling against three Sabbat dogpiling on him. They pulled the topmost off him, terror running through their veins as they saw the bright red slashes across Nines' face. An eerie reminder of his fight against the werewolf.

The next Sabbat had a sword hanging from his belt, loosely and without a sheath. The Fledgling moved in behind him, grabbed the sword by the handle, pushed it so it lay horizontally against his stomach, gripped the tip from the other side without heeding its edge cutting into their skin, and pulled.

The Sabbat fell to pieces, the torso and head dropping on Nines, the legs going down akimbo. The whole body turned to dust, only the sword remained. The Fledgling kept hold of the handle, yanked it around and drove the pommel into the forehead of the one who'd tried to sneak up behind them.

Nines drew up his knees and kicked the remaining Sabbat in the stomach, sending him flying directly into an empty meat hook. It scored him straight through the throat, his enraged screeching turning to desperate gurgles as he struggled to gain his footing.

They both turned to Beckett, who had once again been cornered. Four Sabbat, including their leader, had completely surrounded him. As they watched the first leapt.

Beckett ducked, swung around and as he came up his face had elongated into a snout. Piercing white teeth in a powerful jaw clenched around the attacker. Two more engaged him, but miscalculated the angle as he suddenly shrunk down, falling to his hands that turned to paws.

He dropped the dead Sabbat from his maw and jumped through the Sabbat woman's legs towards Nines and the Fledgling. His eyes turned completely yellow, black pupils like sunspots constricting as his canine form faced the light.

"I'll take the grunts, you two deal with the boss," Nines said.

The Fledgling nodded and together with Beckett rounded in on the Sabbat woman. Her eyes darted around, seeing her dead or dying compatriots and made a quick decision.

Shadows pooled around her. She drew them from everywhere, from the meat casting their shadows on the floor, to the flickering shadow puppets caused by Nines fighting the remaining Sabbat. The shadows came to her like loyal soldiers, creating a pool of complete darkness around her.

"Fucking hell?"

The Fledgling chanced a look at Beckett, who seemed equally disturbed.

"Something like that," he said, voice distorted through his inhuman form.

They backed away, but the woman closed in on them. Her Sabbat dogs whined and withdrew, leaving Nines alone and staring at the black ink gaining form beneath her feet. Appendages rose from the dark, like long bony fingers searching for purchase.

One of them darted out and nearly pierced Beckett's leg. He jumped back at the last second, scrambled to get out of the shadows' reach.

The Fledgling swung their borrowed sword at the tentacle coming towards them. It passed through without making contact, utterly undisturbed. They yelped, ducked, barely avoided its swipe that would have taken their head off.

"Any ideas?"

Beckett threw his hands up.

"Fire and sunlight are the only ways I know of to harm these shadow creations."

"Great," said the Fledgling. "Exactly the stuff that harms us too. Sunrise isn't for hours, which-"

They stopped. Flames flickered at the edge of their perception. Fire red hair, a mouth twisted into agony, their own cowardice mirrored in the mocking darkness at the Sabbat woman's feet.

She laughed, threw her arm out and the tentacles rushed to the motion, sweeping Nines off his feet. He landed hard, and screamed when the tentacle whipped his back. The Fledgling jumped forward. Beckett held them back.

"There's nothing you can do!"

But there was.

Kent screamed in their mind, but Nines' voice was louder. They sprinted back towards the offices, found what they were looking for on the desks.

The Sabbat woman laughed, Nines yelled in pain. Beckett's paws drummed behind them.

"In the hallway there's a closet. Find some rubbing alcohol, anything flammable!"

Beckett heeded the order without argument. The Fledgling tore down the curtains, old flimsy things but made from pure cotton. They wrapped it around their sword, then ripped open the cords of the desk lamp.

The shadow whips cracked, the sound almost drowning out Nines' cries. He sounded like Kent, the Fledgling heard nails dragging across the floors, wood splintering, fire crackling. Their hands shook so badly they dropped the wires twice.

Beckett returned with two bottles of cleaning agent and recoiled at the sight of red flickering flames on the carpet near the outlet. The Fledgling saw their Rötschreck reflected in his eyes.

"Run for it," they said and wished they could do the same.

Pouring the biting liquids over their curtain wrapped sword they dipped it into the small fire they had started.

The flaming sword roared to life and the Fledgling emerged like the vengeful angels of old.

Heat licked against their hand, but it was worth it to see laughter stick in the Sabbat's throat. Her eyes widened and the tentacles stilled to a halt. Nines lay motionless on the ground.

"Get away from him," they said and swung the sword in an arc that lit up the entire slaughterhouse.

The Sabbat woman flinched back, raised her hands to shield herself from the fire.

"You crazy, unnatural monster!" she screamed, and then she devolved into incoherency as the Fledgling leapt after her, flaming sword catching on her clothes.

Her Sabbat goons panicked, stumbled and pushed each other down to get ahead. She followed even as the flames spread along her velvet and fur clothes.

Sword raised in one hand the Fledgling reached out to nudge Nines' shoulder.

He rolled to the side, opening his eyes and scrambled backwards in fear as his eyes fell on the Fledgling's face flickering in flame light.

"Get up!"

He got up, as far away from the Fledgling as possible and ran, chased as much by urgency as by the Fledgling following after. They jumped out of the door, looked back but saw nothing of the Sabbat, and threw the burning sword away. It clattered to the ground, pommel harsh, blade dull, illuminating their faces. The flame burned on, and they stepped a safe distance away. The Fledgling's hand was warm with imaginary fire, but the destructive flames inside them had passed into the sword.

Of Beckett there was no sign. Likely he had taken his leave at the first sign of a clear way ahead. That was not important. What was important was Nines, shaken but recovering from his wounds, smiling uncertainly.

"I'm glad you're on our side," he said.

The Fledgling made to answer. Their ringing phone interrupted them. Nines looked around and it only occurred to the Fledgling much later that he'd been looking for a public payphone.

The Fledgling meanwhile picked up the call, Patty's panicked voice coming through the speaker.

"You have to come back quickly. They found us."

Chapter Text

Keep moving.

That had been the modus operandi for weeks, the sole strategy by which the remaining Anarchs could survive. By Tremere blood magic their hunters had known of the Anarchs' whereabouts near constantly. Outrunning them was the only option.

Until they came up with a solution. Until they killed the Camarilla, gained new allies, left the city. None of that had happened.

None of that would happen, either.

Nines' coterie and Patty, had taken to choosing their hideouts more or less at random. The Camarilla already knew about all their safehouses, all their havens and those of their friends. The new location had been decided upon mere minutes before they parted, the coterie to their new hiding place, Nines and the Fledgling to rescue Beckett.

For all the good that did them.

"Fucking waste of time!"

Nines kicked the stop sign hard enough to bend. It creaked, metal trying in vain to stand up to an enraged Kindred. It lost the fight and ended at an almost perfect 90 degree angle.

The Fledgling didn't manage a reproach. Their own head swam with worry. They'd heard sounds of fighting. Before Patty had hung up, someone had screamed. A Camarilla thug? Or one of their own?

They'd known these people for just a few months and felt their friendship thrumming a desperate rhythm against their inaction.
Nines had reached his breaking point. They'd never seen him this angry.

He held the Camarilla in contempt, loathed the rich and powerful. But he'd only ever once raised his voice in their company.

This is bullshit!

The memory laid itself crudely over the sight of Nines right now. He was pacing, feet falling hard on the concrete as if the ground itself had done him a disservice. As if being spilled with Anarch blood made it a taboo thing.

"Beckett's alive. That's a good thing," the Fledgling said mildly. "This way."

With the map on their phone called up, they led Nines towards the closest sewer entrance. They'd come here by bus, but the way back had to go faster.

Nines dropped himself down the sewer grate and landed without bothering to catch his fall. By the time the Fledgling came down after him, he'd already gone a decent distance ahead.

They'd never asked just how far Nines had chosen to develop his vampiric speed, but even in his rage, he didn't leave the Fledgling behind.

"Fucking asshole couldn't turn tail fast enough. And what did we get? Fuck all, that's what."

They moved through the sewers as fast as they could guided by the Fledgling's map and the occasional waypoints along the otherwise identical tunnels.

"We know we're dealing with an antediluvian," the Fledgling said.

Something about that tickled at their brain, some connection they'd missed. The whole city had been buzzing with rumours of the Antediluvian before Jack blew up that sarcophagus. Someone must have said something, something that wanted to get the Fledgling's attention. Had Rosa made a prediction before she died? Why was an Antediluvian here, in LA?

"Great. Conveniently forgot to mention where that monster is. None of Beckett's bullshit helps us against these Camarilla assholes."

If he hadn't been dead for seventy years, Nines would be out of breath. It made the whole situation surreal, the two of them running at full speed, pushing their bodies to their limits and nothing to show for their efforts except the distance they had crossed.

The Fledgling didn't argue further. Nines was right, knowledge of an ancient Kindred prowling the streets didn't get their killers out of the city.

They came up by a nightclub, Latino rhythms pouring heavy and distorted onto the streets. On any other night the Fledgling might have popped in for a visit, dragged Nines with them for a spell of relaxation, a quick hunt. Tonight the people lingering outside came from another planet. Another time, their presence here as anachronistic as medieval milk maids witnessing the detonation of the atom bomb.

Up the fire escape, counting the windows until they arrived at the right one. It stood open, to let in a cool breeze after the heat of the day.

They'd made good time coming here from the other end of town. Probably broke a few records. It hadn't been enough.

Strewn across the room lay backpacks, blankets. Patty's favourite brand of crisps, Damsel's beret. Their people had made it here.

And now they were gone.

Wanting to spare Nines the sight the Fledgling stayed in front of the window, simply turned around and said: "They're not here."

Nines pushed them aside, panic making way for disbelief. He stumbled, eyes wide in dawning horror.

He rushed to the other doors, checked the hallway outside. What fighting there had been, had died down.

They watched him scour the room, turning over their things, the furniture, everything that could be moved. It was only after a while that the Fledgling realised he was looking for a note.

The Fledgling hesitated.

The wind coming in through the window could have blown away the dust left behind by Kindred bodies. But Patty was not Kindred. They should have found her, one way or the other.

Trying to squash down the hope stubbornly trying to build in them, the Fledgling sent out a quick text message.

Not a full minute later their phone vibrated.

all alive. club cellar. camms kicking down door. b careful

"They're alive," the Fledgling said and showed Nines the message.

Nines, at this point, came within one inch of kissing the Fledgling. He'd taken the phone to read the message and stared down at it, then at the Fledgling, clearly not knowing what to say. A decade or two ago they'd have no way of knowing where their people were. They'd have stood here, assuming them gone or searching without a clue until the Camarilla were successful.

The Fledgling brushed against his arm.

"Let's go."

They found the first Camarilla lookout on the stairs down into the cellar. The bass pulsed in their ears, muted and yet loud enough to mask the shuffling of the bored Camarilla guard. He wasn't looking in their direction, was too busy taking artistic pictures of his surroundings with a very old-fashioned camera. His general style of clothes and hair did suggest he was a recent Embrace.

"Fucking hipsters," the Fledgling muttered, getting an affirming grunt from Nines.

Further down the hall the sounds of something heavy hitting a door covered their approach.

Nines went in first, worry for his friends spurring him on. He jumped, let his weight and the momentum add to the force of his elbow as it smacked into the back of the Camarilla's neck.

The guy shouted, stumbled but turned around and saw the Fledgling coming at him. They swept his legs out from under him, but couldn't react in time as he came at them with a knife. Nines rushed in with a kick to his back. The Camarilla caught his foot and twisted it around as he rolled to his stomach and onto his feet, sending Nines flying to the ground.

Pulling and grunting, Nines kicking at him, the guy pulled him back, deeper into the hallway and towards the other Camarilla. His fingernails dug into the flooring, leaving behind deep indents - and the Fledgling leapt over Nines and into their foe.

Months of fear, being on the run, haunted by the spectres of their failures and the vengeance of a prince, now lent them strength. With a crunch and a squelch the Fledgling twisted the Camarilla's head and tore it clean off. He turned to dust before their eyes.

Nines, still lying on the ground, stared at the Fledgling with something close to awe. They barely noticed it. Their blood burned, fire licked at their skin but it was theirs and they decided who it burned.

Without looking back they marched onward, towards their friends and the people who dared threaten them. Nothing would hurt them, no power dead or alive could hold a candle to what was gathering in the Fledgling's clenched fists. They had leapt over the flames of their own fear and come out the other side.

Between the Fledgling and their friends stood six Camarilla. The man in the middle barked out harsh commands, his fingers lighting up with dark magic. Within an arm's length of him the Fledgling felt his age and power like a physical barrier. They broke it down with nary a thought.

The Camarilla thugs saw them, made to attack. Then caught their eyes and shrunk back. The Fledgling came to a halt, face to face with the Camarilla's fiercest weapon. They had to look up to meet the Justicar's eye and even so no one witnessing their meeting doubted they were meeting on equal ground.

"You will leave my people alone," the Fledgling said. No introductions, no banter. It was past time for that.

Amused, the Justicar raised an eyebrow.

"Or what?"

The air around them crackled with an unspoken threat. They did not flinch.

"Or I will make the antediluvian rip you apart."

He tried to keep his face passive, but couldn't quite stick the landing. His thugs exchanged glances. Behind the Fledgling Nines came up to their side, trying to look as if he knew what they were talking about.

"You have no such power," the Justicar claimed.

"You think? I bet your Camarilla lackeys would disagree. I left their ashes for you to find, you know? At Castle Armas, at-"

"Those were thinblood abominations!"

"Bringing down an Archon of the mighty Tremere Justicar Harrach?" The Fledgling hinted at a smile. "Please, don't tell me you believed that."

Whether the Justicar believed it or not, his lackeys were beginning to exchange worried glances.

The Fledgling crossed their hands behind their back, their shoulders straightening into a line of military precision. Only Nines could see their fingers clenching around themselves.

They were bluffing. Bluffing with an empty hand and the fury of the Camarilla stood rooted to the spot, dazed by their will.

"You expect me to believe that you would kill your rabble rousing friends? We found Anarch corpses, before we could subject them to a fate much worse than death."

"You did," the Fledgling said with a half shrug. "Nearly every Anarch in the city except, curiously, the ones in that room."

An entire head shorter and yet the Fledgling looked down at the Justicar.

"I care for no one else," they said. "The only reason I have not to toss you out on your ass by force is that I suspect we both have better things to do."

With an expertly subtle gesture the Fledgling offered the Justicar a light at the end of the tunnel. He had gone beyond sneering condescension and merely waited.

"You have been called here due to petty politics. Of which you have more than enough at home. You had to leave all that behind to clean up someone else's mess and in the process you're losing valuable resources."

The Fledgling hesitated, for a split second. Nines inched closer, his shoulder brushing against theirs. Relaxing, the Fledgling went on.

"I don't feel like dealing with you and your lackeys. Leave the city now, and the antediluvian will no longer be a problem. She has outlived her usefulness."

She? Nines wondered if this was another gamble. If it was, it had paid off. Something like recognition sparked in the Justicar's eyes.

"I will not leave a containment breach of this proportion to a fledgling. Worse, an Anarch."

The Justicar actually spat, a glob of saliva landing in front of the Fledgling's feet.

They smiled without humour.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," they said. "Look at it this way. Best case scenario, your antediluvian problem goes away and a few Anarchs get dusted in the process. Worst case scenario I fail but buy you enough time to develop a strategy better than trying to kill every Anarch hoping to get the one controlling the antediluvian before they know what's happening."

"I could just kill you and accomplish what I came here to do."

One of the Justicar's lackeys inched forward. Nines glared at them until they slunk back.

"And unleash my pet in the middle of a city you're still in? Don't make me laugh."

The Justicar's lips turned into a thin line. His jaw moved, like he was trying to gnash at the noose the Fledgling had looped around his neck. They stared at each other, the Justicar trembling with frustration, the Fledgling as calm as a rock.

For a second it almost looked like the Justicar was going to smile. He didn't, but did imply a bow, part mockery, part threat masqueraded as civility. He called his lackeys to his side and the Fledgling stepped aside to let him pass. Just as he had reached the end of the hall he turned around once again.

"If you fail, we will raze this city to the ground," the Justicar said. "We dealt with an Antediluvian in Nagasaki. Expect a similar response here."

The Fedgling inclined their head.

"I don't make a habit of failing."

When the Fledgling entered the room in which their people had holed up, the spell hadn't worn off yet. Only Nines had heard all of the conversation, but enough had passed through the thick wood of the door to leave his coterie in awe.

They surrounded the Fledgling at a distance created by more than physical dimensions, seeing in them not an Anarch but a force of nature. They, in turn, the fire of their rage having turned into embers, ready to flash again, did not know how to become simply the Anarch fledgling again.

Jack threw a rope across the chasm by whistling.

"Whoo-eeh," he said. "Never seen an Anarch talk down a Justicar."

As one the Anarchs relaxed and fell over themselves to express their relief.

"No shit. That line about controlling an Antediluvian. I almost believed you," Skelter said and laughed when Nines tackled him into a one armed hug slash headbutt.

He held onto Nines' arm, squeezed him tight.

"Good to see you again," he said.

Nines was without words. One by one he greeted his people, made sure they were okay. He ended again with the Fledgling kneeling by the still body of Damsel. They placed her beret gently on her hair. Her arm was already growing back, drips of blood at the edge of her mouth told them she was being fed frequently.

"Who says I don't?" they threw over their shoulder while they wiped away the speck of blood.

Patty laughed. Then she exchanged a look with Skelter, who was smiling uncertainly and shrugged. They both turned to the Fledgling, who held their composure for all but five seconds.

Their laughter rang through the cellar in beat with the music on top. They yelped when Patty punched their shoulder.

"That was totally not cool. We're your friends."

"I know," the Fledgling said, laughter turning into a softer smile.

Patty reciprocated, if faintly. Then she sobered.

"I knew you were lying when you said you didn't care about the dead Anarchs," she said. "You cared about Kent. And you totally would have cared about the others too if I'd gotten the chance to introduce you."

Whether her words were meant to be reassuring or not, it cast a different mood on the collective Anarchs. In the cool cellar, surrounded by crates of napkins and toilet paper, they became suddenly aware that there weren't any people left to introduce the Fledgling to. Nines stared at his feet. Skelter kept looking between Patty and the Fledgling as if he meant to say something but didn't know what. Nothing could possibly express the realisation they all faced now.

"Anyone heard from Velvet?" Jack asked.

Patty shook her head.

"She's never taken more than a day to answer her texts, even if she had to get a new phone. I don't think ... " She paused, chanced a look at Nines whose hands had clenched into fists. "I don't know where she is."

"Jeannette's gone, too," Skelter said. "I checked the place with Damsel the other day. Don't know about Therese but I haven't seen her either. But they wouldn't leave their club without notice this long."

No one spoke for a moment. The memory of their lost friends pressed down on them like water twenty thousand miles below the sea. One by one the Anarchs had died until in this room, the six of them, were all that was left.

"We can, like, recruit new Anarchs," Patty finally said. She straightened up, part defiant, part petulant. "We're not letting the Cammies win. You know how to deal with this Anti-whatever, right? So we deal with it."

But the Fledgling shook their head.

"I just said that to get the Justicar off our backs. I have no idea what to do. Or even where to go."

The Fledgling had been accused of working miracles. LaCroix and his Sherriff, werewolves, Kuei-Jin, the Sabbat, all that had created in their friends' eyes a person who could solve any problem. Now through their admission they saw disappointment slinking in where awe had been.

"And if the Camarilla still detect an Antediluvian in the city when they get back to their fortresses in Europe?"

Skelter looked not at the Fledgling but at Nines.

"Then they'll nuke LA just to get rid of it," he said.

It meant what none of them had wanted to entertain since they started running. Everyone knew it, but it was Jack who spoke.

"We have to leave the city."

The Fledgling felt more than saw Nines turning away from them.

They left their friends to their planning, reluctantly following up on the last option none of them wanted to take. Turned to the dark corner into which Nines had gone to hide himself.

The Fledgling's fingers found Nines' clenched fist and gently coaxed his fingers open. He opened it just slightly, a hitch in his silent trembling as they entwined their hand with his.

"It'll be okay," they said softly enough to not be overheard. "We'll still be together."

"It's smarter to split up. Attract less attention that way," Nines said but his hand squeezed the Fledgling's tighter.

"Smart money was on the Camarilla, too," the Fledgling said. "Still bet on you, though."

Nines didn't so much as smile at the joke. It hadn't been a good one, anyway.

Tired, from their fight against the Sabbat, the endless running and chasing, their brief victory only followed by their ultimate defeat, the Fledgling sunk to the floor, dragging Nines with them. He went, one leg over theirs, head leaning against their shoulder.

"Fuck," he said softly, more the implication of speech than its fact.

"Fuck," the Fledgling echoed.

"We almost won."

They looked down at Nines, saw the tiny drops of blood falling on his shirt. Felt him shaking against their body.

They had almost won. But that had always been the story, hadn't it?

Skelter had once told the Fledgling of the Anarch battles of old, mirrored and fanned by the fires of kine revolutions.

Berlin in the thirties, the hotbed of revolutionary thought, a wave of hope and optimism building to a ever higher crescendo until victory was almost assured - then defeathed by a Ventrue flying the Anarch flag and duping people into destroying their own future.

The French Anarchs flying high on a war that had been fought and won on every front, no gods no masters even in the days and months of the new years to come. Never since have the Anarchs allied with the young Camarilla, eager to become kings and willing to trample on the heads of their supposed allies that had ousted the old guard for them.

As Cuban peasants learned to read the promise of a new future, the Camarilla drove the Anarch revolutionaries into a devil's bargain with the Sabbat. It clawed its way into their weary bodies and destroyed the products of their labour.

Again and again, a new world had brushed against the calloused fingertips of those who'd been willing to fight, even to kill, for it. And again and again their victory had been snatched away by the kings and tyrants who stole what they couldn't hold onto, and destroyed what they couldn't steal.

They had almost won.

Chapter Text

Bad business that.

Sabbat, Antediluvians, and the god damn Camarilla just chomping at the bit, waiting to blow this nice little town of ours straight to hell.

And the Fledgling right in the middle.

Makes you wonder how it's all going to end. I'm sure you're at the edge of your seat.

...

Nothing to say? Figures. Lotta Cainites out there waiting for a word and there's the Fledgling, who barely knows your name, and they're getting the special treatment. Why? Come on, you can tell me.

I'M JUST A CAB DRIVER.

Heh, yeah sure. And I'm the flowergirl at Nines' and the Fledgling's wedding.

Here's what I'm thinking. The Fledgling, they shouldn't be mixed up in all this shit. Couple of weeks fresh from the Embrace? I was still figuring out how not to dribble blood all over myself by the time the Fledgling wasted their first elder.

But there's something about them. Everyone can see it. Even the guy behind the curtain. Even you.

Or, hell. Especially you.

You think they can do it, don't you? Fix this whole mess you got us into. This? This is just a test. See if they got the chops. If you're right. You've been wrong before, you know.

I KNOW.

Yeah. Could be the Fledgling's walking to their death right now. But they're not just any Kindred, are they?

Are they?

NO.

That regret I hear? Not for the Fledgling?

SOMEONE THEY KNEW. BRIEFLY. I THOUGHT SHE COULD FIX THINGS, LONG AGO. DON'T PUT ALL YOUR HOPES IN THEM. IT NEVER ENDS WELL.

Don't worry, Anarchs don't have heroes.

THEN MAYBE YOU'LL SUCCEED.

's gonna be one hell of a fight. I'll tell you how it went when I get back.

IF YOU GET BACK.

Oh, don't worry. Old Smiling Jack's always gonna be here to tell the story.

Chapter Text

The story could have ended here.

It has, many times before. Luck played a bigger role than either the revolutionary or the reactionary wanted to admit.

Soon the Camarilla would send destruction their way, ruthless in their pursuit of the antediluvian. As the Anarchs of LA faced the last days of their movement it seemed unnecessary to speak words. Sacrilegious.

The ringing of the Fledgling's phone broke the silence. They excused themself, wandered off to a quiet corner. An unknown number, only one of two people it could be. Either would only call with information.

"Tell me you have something."

"I always come through, boss."

A shudder ran down their spine. Gary Golden's whisper smooth voice trailed like sharp fingernails over their skin. Threatening to pierce, but never quite crossing the line.

He continued: "It's your lucky day. I'm calling in my favour. Bet you thought that Damocles sword was going to hang over your head for a while."

Did he know about the Camarilla's plans to nuke the city? Probably. Cash in his chips now, then make a run for it. Smart.

"First the info."

"Ah, but they're related, see? I want you to go and do something for me. Like you used to for LaCroix."

The Fledgling bit back a sharp remark. A look back at the sorry remains of the city's Anarchs braced them to keep listening to Golden.

"Not much time left for fetch quests."

"Two birds with one stone, boss. Or have you given up on that Antediluvian of yours?"

They stilled, phone pressed hard against their ear so as not to miss a thing.

"You know where ... they are?"

"I know where she is, yes. The Sabbat does, too. A whole bunch of them sneaking around. I only needed to follow the blood."

"Woman wearing fur? We met her."

"No. These I saw around the same time as your little sojourn. Can you guess what I want from you, boss?"

Maybe, if they had the patience left to solve riddles.

"Don't play games, Golden. What do you want?"

"You're no fun when you're under stress. I want that Antediluvian bitch dead. Don't worry about proof, I will know what happened. You do that, your debt is settled."

They blew air out through their nose, made a sound of disbelief.

"You can't seriously expect me to kill an antediluvian."

Gary Golden's mocking laughter rang statically through the line.

"You always seem to defy expectations, boss. I have the highest faith in you."

The line went dead.

The Fledgling looked down at their phone. A few seconds later they got a text message with an address and a little wink emoji they hadn't thought Golden capable of. From Golden's perspective it made sense, they supposed. Send the new meat against the antediluvian and prepare for the worst. If they failed, Golden would be long gone. If they pulled off one of their miracles, all the better.

They went back to the group, slowly. Nines looked at them askance but they had no explanation to give. They had no more miracles in them. For the first time since being Embraced they felt utterly and completely tired. Wouldn't have trusted themself to fight a sandwich, never mind one of the most powerful supernatural beings in the universe.

Skelter and Patty had taken charge. They'd made up, or something like it, connected by common grief.

"We need to leave the city," Skelter said. "Who knows how long the Camarilla will wait."

Patty nodded, added that she knew where they could lay low. Ghouls who could offer space in other cities, far away from LA.

And yet, none of them moved. They stayed where they were, having gone beyond exhaustion into bone-deep weariness. Even Jack had nothing to cheer them up.

And the Fledgling knew how to save them. By doing the impossible. By killing an antediluvian, not even half a year after their Embrace. Half burned, half heartbroken, all out of options.

They had to try.

The others watched them as they packed up their things. No weapons, no armour. Nines pressed the last of their remaining blood bags into their hands.

"Damsel-," they began.

"We'll find more," Nines said. "Where are we going?"

That trick again. This time the Fledgling wouldn't be bullrushed into taking him along. His agonised screams when the Sabbat woman battered down on him still echoed in their head. A chorus, by now, of too many lost and almost lost.

"You are leaving the city," they said. "I'm going to try and make it so you can come back."

Nines made to argue, but a hard glare from them shut him up.

Jack was the one who tried to intervene, saying as gently as he was capable of: "Look, kiddo, it's not our fight anymore. In a few days this shitshow is going to go up in flames along with everyone still in the city. You did everything you could."

"No one blames you," Skelter added, to insistent if confused nodding from Patty.

"It's not about blame."

What it was about they couldn't say. Knew. In their heart they knew exactly why they did this. But to say so in front of everyone, this they couldn't. They were brave, but not that brave.

"Then we'll come with. Do this together."

Nines came in closer, reached out. Hovered over their shoulder, their arms. As if he wanted to take their hands but thought better of it he remained, a hand's width away.

"Don't play the lone hero," he said. "That's not what being an Anarch is about."

"I know." They wanted to kiss the frown off his brow. Didn't, because it would be a cruel thing to leave him with heartbreak if they ended up going to their death after all. "But I want to try and talk her down. It won't work if I bring an army."

Patty, who had half-heartedly pretended not to eavesdrop, laughed.

"We're an army now?"

"You alone are worth a battalion," the Fledgling said earnestly.

She blushed, turned away. Grinned at Skelter who reciprocated, if faintly.

They turned back to Nines when his knuckles brushed against their collarbone. Over a recent injury, only just starting to heal. He stared down at it, teeth dug into his lower lip.

"If you come against something you can't handle ..."

"Then I'll call you," the Fledgling promised.

They pulled away. Not from physical touch, not from Nines trying to hold onto them. But from this strange gravity well that formed between them whenever the Fledgling got too close. They wondered if this was what the others felt around him. Stars, falling into each other, and on their meeting becoming something terrifying.

They went. One last orbit and then, no matter how, they would burn.

By the time they got there, the Sabbat had been beaten back. Their advance packs had retreated, scurrying off even as the Fledgling got out of the cab.

A museum. Small, a private collection. Ancient witchcraft, it read on the plaque by the entrance. Fitting, they supposed, for a place to corner someone who was as ancient as the word and wielded far worse than witchcraft.

In the days after their Embrace people had said they felt a pressure in the air. The antediluvian, making its presence known. The Fledgling had felt ... something. They still did. The sensation hadn't got any stronger now they approached the lair of this monster. It remained a constant pressure behind their eyes. For all they knew it had nothing to do with the antediluvian at all, was just a regular side effect of their existence.

The Fledgling went up the stairs, through the entrance. The museum lay in darkness. Not even emergency lights burned and the windows had been shuttered. Feeling their way forward they eventually came upon a room they sensed was larger than the one before. And a presence, in the middle of it.

Something in front clicked. A flashlight. Its light shone directly into the Fledgling's eyes, nearly blinded them. Hissing they shielded their eyes, squinted past the light to the silhouette of a man they'd seen before.

"I knew you'd come," said Harrach, the Tremere Justicar.

The Fledgling didn't waste time with needless questions. They turned on their heels, burst towards the exit. Barred.

Some spell, a ward preventing them from making a step further.

"Don't bother trying to flee. It is a trap after all."

Golden! That two-timing, double-dealing, son of a bitch! If they ever got out of here they would kill him.

If.

The Fledgling braced themself. Drew up their shoulders high and met their fate with a quip.

"You could have just killed me earlier. Saved us both a trip."

Slowly their eyes got used to the bright flashlight. Beyond it, Harrach's lips twisted into a humourless smile.

"And what a mess that would have made. I admit, this isn't much better. But when the kine come here after we're done, they will find a suspicious amount of fire starters scattered around the museum and the safe in the basement cracked. Robbery and arson, and no one to suspect what history was made here."

The Fledgling blinked, shifted on their feet, trying to keep Harrach in their sight while also looking for an exit he hadn't warded.

"And what history would that be? That time a Justicar killed a random Anarch?"

This time Harrach laughed. It was a short, disbelieving burst of humour.

"You still don't know, do you? I knew right away, but these friends of yours, they must be too young to recognise the signs. I had to retreat, make a plan. All it took to put the leash around your neck was a threat to destroy this precious little town. And a call, of course, to our mutual friend."

They had no idea what to do. Had to play for time.

"What did you pay him?"

"Nothing," Harrach said. He followed the Fledgling's steps with his flashlight. "I only had to tell him what you truly are. Naturally he wasn't keen to see an Antediluvian like yourself running free."

The Fledgling forgot not to breathe. They sucked in a breath, held it beneath the knot in their throat as they stared at Harrach.

"Impossible," they said. But Harrach wasn't the type to play pranks. He believed what he said, enough to lay a trap, special for them.

"Not quite impossible. Haven't you ever wondered how you came to be this strong in this short a time?
A mere fledgling murdering the Prince of this city and his sheriff. A Kuei-Jin master, a Sabbat Cardinal, a werewolf.
All by yourself. Talented Kindred have been known to crop up every now and then. But this strained credulity even for me. Until I met you, face to face, and saw what you were.

All this, just two weeks after your Embrace. It never struck you as odd, that you could do all these things when your peers could not?"

The Fledgling shifted their weight, giving away their agitation. Harrach hadn't stopped smiling.

"You'd think I'd damn well know if I was an antediluvian," they snapped.

Harrach made a gesture as he conceded the point.

"I admit, the details elude me. I thought I knew the identity of the one let loose in this city. Instead of Lamastu, I found you. Still, I doubt there are two of your kind here. You are crippled, by what means I am unsure. I will not allow you to regain your strength. You die here."

This was something the Fledgling understood. Revelations this or that, they'd deal with that later. Fight they could. And instead of going up against an antediluvian like they thought, all they had to deal with was one lousy Justicar.

Sabbat reinforcements couldn't be far off. Perhaps Harrach had already sensed them. They had no idea what he could do. Better make this quick.

Harrach dove in without further warning and pushed the Fledgling over the railing onto the stairs. They tumbled over, landed with a heavy thwack on the steps, edges digging into their back, and barely dodged out of the way when Harrach came charging in after them. Like the fight with the werewolf they thought. One hit and they were done for.
So don't let him hit you.
They jumped back, threw up a tapestry artfully displayed on the wall behind them. It came flying in his face, disoriented him long enough for the Fledgling to get behind and jump onto his back.

Their weight would have brought down a lesser vampire, but Harrach barely noticed. He whirled around, threw himself against the wall before the Fledgling got their hands around his neck. They hit the wall together, the Fledgling groaned and let go, pushing off the floor to avoid his sharp claws.

Faster, quicker, than any human or Kindred could hope to be, Harrach struck at the Fledgling. Missed by a hair's breath, his claws dug into the marble cladding. The Fledgling nearly tripped over one of the floor lights, unable to see in the near total darkness of the museum. Harrach fought no such limitations. His eyes glowed out of their own power, piercing the darkness so easily they doubted he did it consciously.

Like the fight against the werewolf.
The Fledgling yelped as something prickling like electricity rammed into the spot where they'd just been, ran at full speed, deeper into the museum. Against magically barred doors, past windows they doubted would open as long as the Justicar lived. Rounded a corner, Harrach after them. Two tight corners bought the Fledgling a moment's peace. They looked around, reoriented themself. Had barely taken stock of their surroundings when Harrach caught up.

Slipping on the smooth stone floors, the Fledgling sped down the hallway. No weapons, no armour, a single blood bag's worth of reserves. Time to get creative. They ran up a flight of stairs. Noticed at the top that the fall of their feet had become a solitary sound.

Harrach was no longer after them. Smarter than that werewolf. He was laying a trap ahead. But whether or not the speed at which they'd learned was unusual, learned they had.

The Fledgling returned the way they came. Down another hallway they'd tried their hardest not to think about, just in case Harrach could read minds.
Into an office, employees only. Right here. Computers whirred to life, loud in the deathly silence of a museum containing ancient art and the right hand of the Camarilla.

Something stirred. They looked over their shoulder. Nothing.

"Come on, come on," the Fledgling muttered, so softly they barely did more than mouth the words.

They entered commands, searched. Another noise startled them. Had that been closer? Or just an expression of their anxiety as they sought to defeat the monster in the dark even the other monsters feared?

Taking a breath would do them good now. Create some artificial ease with the pulling in and expelling of air. But they couldn't afford to get dizzy now. Had to stay on track, concentrate, focus on the task ahead-

Harrach's magic crashed into them. Like hitting water after a hundred meter drop, they felt their body constricting in a way that would have killed them in their mortal days.

They wrestled for control, the Fledgling pushed, gave no quarter. Harrach dug his feet in, fought but he was far from at his best. Fear of what he believed the Fledgling to be weakened him. Inch by inch the Fledgling shoved him out of the door. Machinery hummed as it came to life. They only got one shot at this.

With one last grunt of effort they forced Harrach onto the ground, and his eyes directly into the floor lights. They came to life with a glare strong enough to blind kine, nevermind an ancient kindred primed to see the smallest changes in total darkness.

Harrach screamed, he convulsed, shielded himself as if of sunlight. Even as the Fledgling scrambled away and to safety pity pushed away the pride of a fight won. Because won they had. Harrach stared at them out of bleeding eyes, his godlike Auspex backfired. He clawed at his eyes, at his face, shrank back from the artificial lights.

Somewhere far away cars approached. Sabbat, following the same dead end trip, to finish what Golden likely feared the Justicar couldn't.

A quick thing, now. To kill him. End this for good. The Fledgling moved in, their hands around his neck. He didn't even fight them anymore. They snapped his neck, he turned to dust under their hands. Not a twinge of guilt, no mercy. Something to think about. Something to talk to Nines about. He'd know whether their lack of remorse came from a place of justice or savagery.

The wards on the doors and windows flickered out of existence. The Fledgling stared down at the remains of the Justicar. One more thing to do now. Answers they hadn't known the questions to gathered like storm clouds in their mind. Thunder rolled as confusion turned to rage turned to a cause pursued to the end.

The Fledgling thought they knew who they were. No longer. But at least they knew who was responsible.

Chapter Text

"Where to?"

The Fledgling recognised the voice, but their thoughts were far away.

"Nocturne Theater," they said.

The cabbie drove.

Past deserted streets and dark windows. Neither Kindred nor kine walked the streets in these early hours. Even a city as grand as LA had to pause for breath eventually.

The Fledgling drifted as if in a bubble of their own making. The radio's music reached their ears muffled and distorted, over and down the walls erected around them. After running and fighting, and fighting some more, already seeing their friends dying at the hands of an enemy they didn't know, this drive felt almost like a vacation.

The Fledgling stretched their legs out just because they could, because Jack didn't sit in the seat opposite complaining about the lack of space. Leaning back they looked at the roof of the car, wondering if their friends had found a new place to stay yet.

The cellar under the club was a no go, but if they wanted the Camarilla could probably still find them. They'd have to do something about these magic snowglobes eventually. Perhaps killing the one who'd made the enchantment would suffice. Or maybe they could use their awesome antediluvian powers and melt them with their mind. A helpless chortle escaped the Fledgling. This was all too crazy.

But for now their friends were safe. Harrach was dead. The Camarilla retreated to plan their next steps. Unhappy about how things turned out but they doubted they'd continue this war of theirs. Not if they cut it off at its source.

An antediluvian. They. The thought returned again and again, like a cat begging for food it just had. It wanted attention, wanted examining. The Fledgling an antediluvian. Or something like it. Crippled, like Harrach had said. Without memories, but knowledge of how to operate a phone.

The Fledgling smiled to themself as they thought about Beckett. He would have a fit when they told him they were a firsthand historical resource of untold potential and couldn't remember a thing. If he'd been the one to find the antediluvian. Find her ...

But thinking like that got a Kindred in trouble. They had potential millennia to build regrets and wishful thinking of a past they couldn't change. Best not hang onto anything they didn't have to.

The cabbie left them to their musing. He seemed to know when to speak and when to let the quiet solitude do the talking.

They entered downtown from the east side, past the spot where the Last Round used to be. The Fledgling checked out of vague curiosity. The rubble had been cleared, fencing had been erected. Nothing stayed broken long in this city.

The car stopped. Above and ahead the neon sign Nocturne Theater glowed bright and cheery into the dark night just before the dawn. If this took long, they'd have to sleep in the theatre. They gave the cabbie what remained in their wallet without any idea whether it was too little or too much. Somehow they had a feeling he wasn't relying much on the money.

"Good luck," he said but through the closing door his voice reverberated strangely so that what ended up bouncing around in the Fledgling's skull as they ascended the stairs was DON'T DISAPPOINT THEM. It sounded like a goodbye.

They meandered down the aisle between the seats, matching the view from this angle to the one they'd had last time. Over there by the pillar Jack had leaned, apart from the other Anarchs. Here one of the Nosferatu representatives had sat, listening with Gary Golden's ears. Here Nines had sat, flanked by Damsel and Skelter.

Skelter had whispered in his ear, but Damsel had been the one to look to him in outrage.

This is bullshit, they thought, and had Nines called out LaCroix out of compassion then? Or had he carefully calculated what he could get away with, challenged the Prince's power and won?

It was the kind of thought that would have gone through the head of someone like Maximillian Strauss, sitting, as he had, on the balcony overlooking the proceedings.

This time he stood on the stage, where LaCroix had been, hands clasped behind his back, looking faintly surprised.

"Ah," Strauss said. "I admit I expected someone else."

"Your Justicar is dead. Got ... blinded by his aspirations. Should have been quicker."

The last few nights must not have been kind to Strauss. His eyebrow twitched, a tell they'd never seen on him before.

"Men my age have learned that timing far surpasses speed."

The Fledgling hopped up on the stage, fully unconcerned about showing Strauss their neck, however briefly. For all his supposed unflappability, they knew he was straining at the bit to figure out how much they knew. How much of a danger they were.

"And what timing that was, when you found Lamastu's sarcophagus."

He shifted, looked the Fledgling up and down. Did he expect weapons? Or perhaps he was simply sizing up an opponent.

"If I recall, Dr Johansen was the one to find it. Mr LaCroix, may he rest in peace, brought it on shore."

The Fledgling chuckled.

"That was a good one. Johansen told me that he got a tip, you know? He was reluctant to admit it, took a bit to get him to open up, but someone whispered the location in his ear. And after that, well he had to dig to see if it panned out, didn't he? And then the Sarcophagus had to go to a museum. Not the Turkish one, obviously. One that had the proper staff to fully explore its secrets. That was the official reasoning I believe. It also happened to be close by.
I imagine that was the tricky part, getting her across borders. Digging her up and putting that spell on her, nothing for a guy like you, am I right?"

Strauss took a step to the left. The Fledgling mirrored him by taking one to the right. Like duelists they rounded each other, a dance so slow it required only one step every minute.

"Tremere thaumaturgy is far beyond simple spells, childe. You will never comprehend the achievement I have made when your ancestors were still breathing air."

"Oh, absolutely. Couldn't invent a spell that kept your lackeys from betraying you."

Strauss bristled, but the Fledgling didn't let him get a word in.

"You sent Grout to the Elizabeth Dane to retrieve Lamastu, who you thought was too weakened to resist. Grout boarded the ship, fed on the crew while he waited for a chance to get the key and the sarcophagus. But Lamastu sensed what was going on. She broke out, they fought, she fled. Massacred the entire crew.
Grout returned to his mansion, terrified that you would enact bloody reprisal. His voices had told him all he needed to know about you. He would have talked eventually. You had let loose an Antediluvian in the city and Grout knew.
Loose ends. But a whisper in the Prince's ear and he'd make sure that Grout was killed and Nines was blamed. Poor idiot probably thought it was his idea, too."

There was something almost like a smile ghosting over Strauss waxen face.

"Mr LaCroix had a ... particular mind suited for rulership of the city."

Another step each, feet crossing over each other, balance shifted, preserved. Strauss had played these games for centuries. Still, he was at the end of his rope. The first to strike would be the first to lose.

"Nice way of saying he was a gullible tool. He was convinced that in that Sarcophagus was something designed to kill him. Probably picked up little scraps of your designs and thought they were meant for him.

But then, he wasn't the only tool around, was he?"

Strauss' entire body twitched as if he'd been about to lunge and stopped himself before the motion could be carried out. He regained his composure just as quickly, although the Fledgling noticed his shoulders had tensed.

A trap, probably, to let them think he was more on edge than he was. That's what they had to work with, if they didn't want to be taken off guard.

"We are all somebody's pawn," he said. "Only the Anarchs delude themselves into thinking they can be free."

"Yeah, but you weren't happy being just a pawn. You wanted to upgrade to bishop, and the power of an antediluvian - that was something even your masters wouldn't count on.
Abrams found Lamastu, and that was good for you because you were working together. Oh, don't act so surprised. I don't know why he did it. Maybe he wanted the power, maybe he intended to stab you in the back from the beginning. You didn't care. You had to act quickly now, knew the massacre of the Elizabeth Dane wouldn't remain a secret for long. I assume you didn't intend for me to be your guinea pig."

"No. I didn't."

"Thought so. Who was I? Just some random shmuck of the street you thought nobody would miss? You had one of Abrams' flunkeys Embrace me, then did your little spell. Lamastu weakened, I strengthened, you forced me to diablerise an antediluvian. If it worked, you would perform the ritual again, this time on yourself, and diablerise me, thereby safely gaining the powers of an ancient Kindred without sacrificing your free will.

But something went wrong. My Sire betrayed you, ran away with me before you could figure out if the ritual had worked. Even if it had, Abrams would have made off with your notes by then, no way to replicate your results.

Not a problem for someone like you, right? You informed your pet prince of an illegal Embrace, and sat back to watch it all play out. If I had the powers of an antediluvian I would have turned the entire place to ash. If I hadn't, LaCroix's sheriff would behead me and solve your problem either way.

And while the entire city's Kindred were playing their shell game with the Sarcophagus, you had more than enough time to figure out how to get to Abrams and steal back the notes without giving yourself away. Try again, with or without me.
There was just one thing you didn't count on."

Another step. They had made a half rotation around the stage, the Fledgling with their back to his balcony thinking something was moving in the darkness of the pillars ahead.

"Oh? Do enlighten me."

Strauss kept his composure, his condescension. It was enough to make the Fledgling's blood crawl. Now more than ever before they wanted to punch those stupid glasses right off his stupid face. Their desire must have shown in their face because Strauss smiled again.

With more effort than they'd ever had to bring up before they calmed themself.

"Me.

You didn't count on just how fast I'd get results. Within days I got into the museum, and it took barely longer than that to get the damn thing from the Giovannis. You knew Ming Xiao had wandered off with the key after she killed Grout, but you had already set Bach on Grout - to make sure he died come what may - and it didn't take much to convince him to take Dr Johansen in protective custody - the only one who could tell me what was needed to open the Sarcophagus.
You didn't count on me being able to kill a famed vampire hunter with True Faith - don't worry, neither did LaCroix. He was downright giddy when I told him.

Because I wasn't behaving like an antediluvian, was I? I was powerful but not that powerful. You still had time, right?

It wasn't like I could just waltz into Ming Xiao's inner sanctum and rip the key from her cold dead hands, could I? You weren't so sure, and had LaCroix call another blood hunt. The werewolves, who told them where I'd be when LaCroix had someone set that fire?"

This time Strauss didn't answer. His lips had pressed into a thin line. He wasn't walking anymore either. This time it was the Fledgling who initiated the slow crawl to the side, and Strauss hurried to follow up, to not let them get too close.

"Yeah, I thought so.
Things were moving too fast, you couldn't keep up. And so you did something hasty."

Was that a growl coming from the throat of that stately Kindred? He looked like he wanted to tear their throat out and the Fledgling kept poking at the flames.

"You figured you had years of infighting and intrigue left, moving the red herring around until you had maneuvered yourself against Abrams or recreated your notes from scratch. But then, just two weeks in, it was all over and sooner or later people would start asking questions.

The night I killed LaCroix you called your superiors and told them the Anarchs of the city had let loose an antediluvian. Two birds with one stone. Your superiors would get rid of me and my pesky habit of solving problems faster than you could create them, the chaos would lure out and in the chaos you killed Abrams and made it look like the work of Lamastu.

But again, things went wrong. The kine cops showed up too early, you had to retreat. By the time you got back, the place had already been ransacked. Your notes were gone."

They wondered if Nines had ever taken a look at that paperwork he'd pocketed from their visit of Abrams' shop. Maybe best if he hadn't.

"You turned the entire city upside down searching for those notes. We thought it was the antediluvian killing our Anarch siblings, but it was you. You and your blood magic. And then Harrach figured out what I was. He would have put two and two together eventually. Would have asked very uncomfortable questions about what Tremere thaumaturgy was doing on a recently diablerised antediluvian. You put him in contact with Golden, got him to lure me into a trap. You thought Harrach would win and then you'd kill him.

You'd go back to Europe and no one would question too much what had happened. After all, there was an antediluvian loose in the city. You would tell some tall tale about how the Justicar nobly sacrificed himself in the pursuit of killing me, and quietly take over his holdings and powerbases.
Sure, you had to improvise a little, move faster than you were accustomed to. But you had everything under control. Except you didn't.

You thought the ritual didn't work. I didn't feel like a real antediluvian to you. And I'm not. But that doesn't mean I can't get things done. That was your mistake. Your timing was off, just a little. I'm still alive, I know what happened, and the Camarilla will be very unhappy with you."

The Fledgling finished their speech with a little flourish and let the room descend into silence. Strauss seemed to have nothing to say. He watched the Fledgling behind his red glasses, still as a gargoyle and threatening as a snake in the grass.

"You are absolutely right," he finally said.

And then he attacked.

A wave of his hand and the Fledgling's body constricted, gripped in an invisible vice. They didn't have time to dodge, to counter his move. Their bones grated against each other, pressure popped blood vessel after blood vessel. Their skin bruised and still he clenched his fist tighter.

Struggling against his hold, Strauss closed in on them.

"What a battle," he said theatrically. "What pathos. A childe come to challenge a master thaumaturge thinking it could win. As if I ever needed more than a flick of my wrist to-"

The Fledgling spat him in the eye.

Strauss recoiled, free hand wiping at the glob of saliva running down his cheek.

"You insolent, little-! What did you think this would accomplish!"

The Fledgling grinned.

"Just felt like it."

They broke free.

Strauss stumbled back from the force of their counter, eyes wide as they slipped from his powerful magic like out of a dressing gown. With two long strides they were with him, pulling him up by the lapels of his coat. His feet dangled in the air.

"H-how? The ritual didn't work."

"It worked just enough."

With one fell swoop they punched Strauss right in the face. He was torn from their grasp, thrown against the far wall and slumped to the ground.

The vitae of a second generation Kindred thrummed in the Fledgling's veins, finally realised through their rage, their body absorbed the blood running free in the bruises under their skin. Each step thundered in their ears, but Strauss recovered quickly.

He waved his arm in a tight arc and from the underneath the seats, folded like luggage, crawled corpses.

Some had been dead longer than others, skin flaking, hair fallen out in clumps. Some wore modern suits and ties, others knee-length trousers and cravats, others again dressed in flowing robes. With the acuity of a Kindred at the height of their power the Fledgling spotted on each and every one the teeth marks of a Kindred.

Strauss' victims, pressed into their killer's service.

Horror threatened to settle in the Fledgling's chest. They pulled away, focused on Strauss at the far end of the stage.

Rather than tackling him to the ground, they leapt through nothing, caught themself on the pillars and turned around. Strauss had disappeared into thin air and his army of zombies closed in on them.

"Not very subtle, Strauss!"

Their voice echoed from the ceiling, the high walls. The dead from the first row reached the stage. The Fledgling took one skull in each hand and crushed them both like paper waste.

"You haven't earned my subtlety."

His voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. They Fledgling spun around, a hand clutched their ankle and pulled them down right in the middle of the living dead. From far away something pounded against wood, like a restless spirit.

Strauss kept talking, words falling like rain from a cloudless sky.

"I admit, I am disappointed having to kill you. You have no idea how to use that blood of yours. I could have used it, with or without the ritual. But you are hardly the first upstart childe to fall prey to their own delusions of grandeur. Ancient vitae or not, it will not strain my abilities to get rid of you."

The Fledgling kicked backwards, as they threw another corpse across the room. Their foot crashed through something solid and squelching all at once. And got stuck.

Cursing they turned around, found their boot ankle deep in a zombie's chest cavity and ducked underneath the grabbing hands of another. Bracing themself against the creature, they yanked their foot free.

"Yeah? You've got to do better than these guys!"

As if on command the pounding started again. It invoked the image of a battering ram breaking down the gates to a city besieged. Even Strauss' dead inched away, heads ducked, the small spark of sentience causing them fear. The Fledgling stayed as still as they could, listening for the source of the noise.

A werewolf burst through the red curtains.

The Fledgling screamed, tried to duck and was thrown to the ground, row after row down the aisle. Claws the length of their head struck at them. Pain shot through their shoulder, blood ran, the strength they clawed from the depths of their vitae dripping away.

They groaned and dug their knees into the beast's belly and pushed with all their might. It threw the werewolf off. They scrambled between the seats, heard the beast come after them, massive body flattening the seats where it landed.

Above, around, beneath them, from everywhere at once, Strauss' voice jeered.

"I've been told you have killed this beast before. Where is your famed power now? What chance could you possibly stand against me!"

The Fledgling dove behind a pillar, then jumped to the next just as the werewolf crushed it between its massive paws. Dust and specks of stone hit their face as for a second they looked the creature right in the eye.

Bloodshot eyes, its jaw hanging askew, broken bones sticking out through blood matted fur. A creature come from their nightmares, vengeance boiling in its dead heart.

"I don't have any chance at all," they said.

The beast howled, drowned out Strauss' premature laughter. A knife, glinting silver in the pale light, had buried itself into the creature's neck.

"WHAT?"

Hanging on tightly to its cording muscles was Nines, hands ripping out bundles of fur as the werewolf tried to shake him off.

Zombies shrieked and fell, under the combined assault of Skelter, Jack, and Patty dispatching them one by one.

Damsel swung in through the topside window, threw a crossbow to the Fledgling who caught it in one hand and aimed it at the balcony closest to the stage.

"Our chances on the other hand-"

The bolt sprung from the weapon, flew through the air and hit Strauss in the chest. The illusion shattered, his body and voice returned to the same spot. He trembled, clutched at the wood piercing his skin.

Leaving the werewolf to Nines and Damsel, the Fledgling jumped off the back of a seat up at the balcony. They caught themself with their free hand on the balustrade, crossbow in the other hand, grinning madly.

"You didn't think I wouldn't call for backup, did you?"

Strauss could only stare. For the first time in his long life he had been rendered speechless. The Fledgling gripped the crossbow tightly and smashed it as hard as they could into Strauss' head.

The weapon never hit its mark.

Desperate and hasty Strauss still managed to pull up his hand. The crossbow shattered against air turned solid, the Fledgling's hand right with it.

They howled a curse that shook the room, leapt after Strauss as he attempted to flee from the balcony onto the stage.

Wood warped under the force of their momentum, Strauss ran, exit stage left-

- but the werewolf had caught hold of Damsel's neck, she screamed, its feet pressed down into Nines and Skelter cried out as one of the zombies dug its teeth into his side.

Their eyes fell on Jack, struggling to hold back three zombies from overwhelming him, Patty slashed wildly with a knife she didn't know how to use, they had to help.

Jack caught their eye. Shook his head.

"Go get him, kiddo!" he said -

-and they threw themself at Strauss, pulled at his coat and he tripped, fell and they were on him, fangs itching as they pushed past their gums, white and sharp.

Like they'd been doing nothing else, they rended the flesh from his neck.

He stopped struggling, his body went limp as fresh Kindred blood burst from his veins. They didn't bother to drink, but still they stayed. The sounds of the battle fell away, darkness shrouded this moment, centered on them and their victim. It wasn't them that tore his body to pieces, but the fading spirit of a woman wronged. Lamastu enacted her revenge and together they watched Maximillian Strauss die.

And Lamastu, in their head, laughed.

Foolish, they heard, their own mind's voice speaking without their consent.

You are barely more than duskborn vermin, it said and pain flooded into their brain. Sharp, hot, fire driven behind their eyes. A pressure that built, the Fledgling fighting back against the wave of something other than them threatening to drown them. As Strauss died, so did his rituals.

Burning seas, waves of flames, a sensation of heat so stark it turned into ice.

I am far more powerful than you. And I am sick of hiding in your body. It's mine now.

The Fledgling felt themself slipping away, barely enough to speak in their own mind: You keep forgetting I'm not alone.

They drew on everything that tied them to their body, this world. Forced their ears to pick up the sounds of their friends, celebrating Strauss' death as his creations fell. With their friends' laughter, viciously joyful, they pushed Lamastu back, back, further towards the chasm between thought and nothingness. With the sorrowful memories of Copper and Kent, Mrs Grout and, yes, the wrong that had been done to Lamastu, they pushed her over.

Lamastu screamed, an animal facing its own death, as she plunged into the darkness and was gone.

The world returned to the Fledgling in dazzling colour.

The theatre lay in silence. Corpses littered the floor, dropped where they had stood. One by one they made a count of their friends. They all stood, more or less.

Patty supported Skelter who was hobbling up to the stage, peering cautiously at the Fledgling.

"That you in there?"

Patty swatted at him.

"Don't even, like, ask that. Of course it's the newbie."

But she kept her distance, hand around Skelter in a way that made clear she was prepared to haul him away if they made the wrong move.

"It's me," they said.

It convinced no one. They all wanted to believe, but they had witnessed the fight, how little themself they had been in the moments of Strauss' death. Nines had come closer, almost touching the stage.

Jack seemed the only one unconcerned. He wiped his bloodstained hands on his trousers.

"Say something an antediluvian would never say," he said.

Tiredly the Fledgling got up and staggered ahead, falling more than gracefully descending from the stage.
Nines turned his body at an angle, shifting his weight, torn between running away and getting closer.

"I'll do you one better, Jack," they said.

The Fledgling pulled Nines in by the back of his neck and kissed him.

Someone whistled. It may have been Damsel.

But the Fledgling only felt his lips, cold and chapped, and the wire-strung tension in his neck. They'd closed their eyes, mostly because the fight had left them dizzy, and so they couldn't see if his expression was one of disgust or mere surprise.

Then he gave in. His whole body melted against them, his hands came up, warm and wet - covered in the blood of a werewolf twice killed - and held their face between them.

His thumb brushed over their cheek, he parted his lips and gasped when the Fledgling pulled him into a hug, their teeth barely grazing his lips.

With their free hand they rubbed a small circle into the space between his shoulder blades.

Somewhere, far away, Jack said: "Huh. Yeah, that'll do."

The Fledgling, sinking deeper into Nines' embrace, barely heard.

Chapter Text

Three months later Patty and Skelter ascended a shallow hill. It should have been a mountain, but they had to make do. New Anarchs joined their cause daily, it took every veteran Anarch to show them all the ropes. Teach them how to live in the Anarch free state.

No Princes, no barons. Just Kindred flying on wings of liberation through the night air.

It had rained during the day and the ascent of the hill was tricky. More than once Patty slipped on the mud. Skelter caught her, everytime. Made sure she didn't have to drop the small urn in her hands to save herself a split lip.

Eventually they reached the top of the hill. Flowers grew here, undisturbed by people. A small miracle they'd found this place near the city at all, and one reason it had taken so long. Skelter had suggested they pick a place further out. Maybe even drive into the mountains, make it proper.

Patty had said that Kent would like to be buried in the city he loved.

Gently she put the urn down in the moonshade of a tree. They started digging.

Slow work, even with their supernatural strength. They made it slow work, and didn't speak. Eventually the hole was dug and Patty lowered the urn in its grave. They filled in the earth, made sure that the flowers would grow over the spot.

Then they stood, side by side.

"Thank you for, like, doing this with me," Patty said. She sniffed, but didn't cry. "I know you didn't like him."

"He treated you like property," was the explanation Skelter gave.

It was the only explanation he ever gave. For an Anarch, it was all that needed to be said. Patty nodded, leaned against Skelter, let him put an arm around her.

"I miss him," she said. Softly pattering on the leaves the rain started falling again. "But I like being friends with you. And being part of something big. This ... this is something big, right? In a hundred years they'll say this is where it all started. Nines says so, anyway."

Skelter, looking down at Kent Alan Ryan's grave, thought that this was the first Kindred funeral he'd been to. They didn't used to bother burying their dead. They didn't sift through the months old rubble of a burned down Camarilla mansion to get together enough dust that might have contained some of Kent's remains.

They did now. And as Skelter looked down the hill he saw the small outlined figures of their friends coming up to join them in their memorial.

"Yeah," he said. "I think this is where it starts."