Number of fucks given in this post: 8
Kyros phones Jack to asks for somewhere to meet… with a first aid kit… and a lot of blood bags…
“Pelican is torpored. Joshua’s dead. And Victor has left. And I need help!”
There is a long pause… “Where are you?”
Kyros replies, “The sawmill at Neilston. Also, a keeper might be a good idea. The society and two priests ambushed us. I’ve also got two prisoners.”
“I’ll be there in 20 minutes.” Jack states. “Do you need to leave the immediate area?”
“I think we’re good, I’ve got a ghoul to hold any attack and I can drive out of here in an emergency. But I’m half way unconscious myself, I’d rather not drive a van if I can help it.”
Jack looks for clarification on one of Kyros’ requests, “I take it you need the Keeper of the Masquerade and not the Elysium?”
Kyros can hear hear clunking in the background as of things being picked up. He says, “Masquerade – I’ve got a mortal witness. I’ve dominated him and collected the security footage. But any other clean up… not my area”
She asks, “Are they restrained too? Or out in the wild?”
Kyros answers, “He’s in the bag of the van with the two society conscripts. And Ruth… she’s pretty badly injured, and not holding together too well.”
Across the phone, Kyros can hear beeping, then the sound of a door being opened.
Jack asks more questions, “What else needs cleaned up? And it is your van? Is there cover or somewhere you can hide incase their reinforcements get there before I do?”
“There’s a wood I can hide in but I’m not sure about the whole group, it’ll be a case of rear guarding, I think.”
“Okay” Jack says, as she kicks her motorcycle into life. “I’ll be with you soon. Hold on.”
Kyros exclaims, “Cool! See you soon!”
Once Jack has hung up, she texts Daniel, the Keeper of the Masquerade, with the location of the sawmill and some rough details.
~~~~
About 20 mins later, Jack arrives at the sawmill having broken a few speed limits on the way. The sawmill is secluded and surrounded by forest. The gates have been busted open, and there are tracks from van that looks to have been moving at high speed, suggesting that it was what crashed into the gates.
Within the area there is a portakabin, a lorry laden with wood, and a second van that has been raked with shotgun blasts. The lorry has deep claw marks through the drivers side wheels. There are four bodies, mercenaries by their dress, near where Jack enters through the gates – two have been disemboweled, by vicious claws, and two have apparently drowned, despite there being no water. There is debris from what looks to have been an explosion near the portakabin and blood is splattered all over the area.
The doors of the van at the entrance are open and Jack sees a very bloodied Kyros and Ruth, with three mortals in the back, along with a motorcycle. McGregor is lying beside the bike and seems to be in Torpor. What is obviously a ghoul is guarding over them.
Jack gets off her bike as she visually scans the area, then she strides in the direction of the van and its occupants.
Kyros explains that the mortals have been Dominated. One was security guard and two are society of Leopold conscripts. He asks Jack to be gentle with them as they’ve been through enough. She briefly looks at the Dominated mortals but otherwise ignores them. The Caitiff insists that Ruth be allowed to stay with torpored McGregor and that he’s been fed Kyros’ blood, so will hopefully wake soon.
“You might end up regret doing that.” she says at that last comment from Kyros, looking at him directly.
“I’ve no intention of trying to abuse the blood bond.” he replies, “It would go against the very freedom the Anarchs champion. Don’t worry, your deputy is safe.”
Jack just clenches her jaw and takes the backpack she is wearing off to pull out a first aid kit.
“Let’s see you then, Ruth.” she states.
Jack turns a critical eye on Ruth. The ghoul has collapsed at the torpored Brujah’s side. She’s wearing a bulletproof vest, damaged to uselessness. She has two black eyes. There’s a huge shotgun wound to her throat and she’s soaked in blood. She looks completely shell-shocked and hasn’t acknowledged anyone that Jack can see since she arrived.
Kyros interjects, “By the way, she’s been fed blood. Maybe not feed her anymore for a while.”
“I’m not going to give her blood. I’m going to use the fucking bandages.”
Jack shakes her head at Kyros, then crouches to start taking off the bullet-proof vest from Ruth to have a better look.
Kyros says, “I dominated her to relax and stay calm. She wanted to try and tidy the mess outside… I never really learned first aid though. But let me know if I can help.”
“Yeah, you can help by giving me some space and gathering the bodies in the yard. My ghoul is on the way with my van. He’ll be here in about 10 mins. You can load them once he arrives.”
Kyros leaves with his ghoul to start gathering bodies.
Ruth is passive as Jack examines the ghoul’s wounds and proceeds to cleans the wounds as best she can, apologising briefly in a soft voice for inflicting extra pain. The Brujah applies bandages to stop the bleeding and looks about for extra clothing layers to put on Ruth to keep her warm.
“…Thank you.” Ruth whispers hoarsely, letting her check her over.
“Kyros,” Jack calls. “She really needs a proper doctor to make sure there are no bullets left in her. Where did Victor go? Did he Rotschek?”
“Victor stopped caring and left me to clean up. I think the birds might be his though,” as he points to the crows. “I don’t have access to medical professionals north of Liverpool, I’m sorry. You got any ideas?”
Jack looks into the direction of the forest, and focuses her will to Summon Victor back to the group.
Ruth takes a rasping, slightly bubbling ‘blood in my lungs’ breath. “You should… Search the place. There… Could be more… Or normal… People hiding… Security…”
Jack winces at the sound of Ruth’s breathing, and nods. She looks at Kyros, “Hold that thought.” Then Jack throws him the backpack. “It tastes like shit but it’ll do the job.”
Kyros opens the backpack and pulls out a tupperware-style flask. He stops to pull out a bullet and throws it away, then he drinks the blow and grimaces at the taste of cow, antibiotics and anticoagulants. The bullet-hole closes up but his face is still scorched from the faith of the priest.
With a quick patrol of the area, Jack finds an additional six corpses in the forest, ripped apart through spectacular blunt force trauma. Dressed in black clothes, they are ordinary people. Some of them still smoulder from where they caught fire as their flaming torches landed on them as they were torn to lumps and bashed to death. She looks into the sawmill lorry sporting the claw marks and sees that it has been professionally but hurriedly hot-wired.
Ruth sits in the van, looking out the open doors and, a little uselessly, just holds the torpored Brujah’s hand.
Jack walks back into the clearing and asks, “How are the prisoners restrained? Please tell me someone has actually tied them up?”
Kyros says, “My combat ghoul is watching them when he’s not helping move bodies. And Ruth is also there to shout if they try anything.”
“I’m not trusting the ghoul to notice considering she is in shock and in huge amounts of pain.” Jack says, with a gesture at Ruth. “There are cable-ties at the bottom of the bag. Your ghoul can tie them up.”
Kyros nods to Dylan, who goes to fetch the cable ties before securing the prisoners.
“Tell me what happened here, Kyros.” Jack demands as she scans the scene, “Step by step. Right from the start.”
He explains, “So we arrived here following a lead from Pelicans police contacts. An old woman had attacked the security guard here, and it sounded like one of the tourists we were looking for. When we got in, Joshua tried sneaking in, but got caught in the barbed wire. I hid everyone else when the guard came looking, but Joshua hid somewhere nearby.
“Once we got in, we explored the area and found signs of a struggle. Victor heard someone sneaking back, and we used my scope to see it was an old woman, like the ones we’d found before. I got ready to dominate her and Pelican got ready to strike, but as soon as I did, I was sniped from someone who was in hiding, and the woman exploded the moment Jack attacked her. From the darkness, we saw torches light up, and in the distance, we could hear a van coming.
“Having just faced the sudden explosion, Jack’s beast took over, and he launched himself towards the hunters. I summoned a half dozen tentacles to support him as best I could, as Ruth ran towards a nearby truck and victor readied his claws for the incoming reinforcements.
“When the reinforcements arrived, I went through a black metamorphosis, putting the fear of the abyss into the mortals spilling from the van. At the same time, I flooded the area in darkness, cutting off sight and air, drowning those inside. Victor moved to the edge of the abyss, ready to rip apart any who came out. Joshua also came to the edge of the abyss, chanting the madness of his clan, but it seemed to affect him as much as it did those trapped inside the darkness.
“Meanwhile Jack charged the first of the hunters, his fists empowered by his disciplines, and moving at superhuman speed he charged the first of them, breaking bones, grabbing on and sinking his fangs in deep. At the same time, my dark tentacles ripped apart two of them and pinned a third. That wasn’t enough to stop them though, and the faithful descended on him with burning torches, lead by a priest that used his powers to knock Jack into torpor with one hit.
“Seeing Jack was in trouble, I fired at the priest, bringing him down, though I’m not sure if he was killed by the shot, or just severely wounded. The arms of the abyss dealt with all but one of the remaining torchbearers. At the same time, Victor ripped into the first of two mortals to emerge from the darkness, disemboweling the hapless kine before turning on his companion, giving in to the urges of his beast. Joshua, deranged by his own discipline, tried to flee into the cover of darkness just as a second priest emerged, and fired a stake straight into his heart with a shotgun.
“After Victor drained the second kine, he regained his composure and realised his friend was in danger, so ran towards the woods. Meanwhile Ruth had managed to hot-wire the truck and turned it to face the priest that had just shot her regnant, ready for vengeance. The priest had turned his attention on me though, raising his crucifix and chanting Latin. I’m not sure what happened then, only that I felt the incredible, overwhelming urge to be elsewhere. It was like the red fear, but there was no fire. Whatever it was, when I was able to calm myself a few seconds later, I had already charged into the forest, away from the priest.
“I ran back towards the fray in time to see Ruth try and hit the priest with the car, but he dodged the vehicle and fired at her. The shotgun blast tore through the driver side window, the Kevlar I’d gave her, and mortally wounded her. At a glance, I thought she had died already. Victor, seeing what had happened, charged to help. With control of my senses, I was able to direct my tentacles to rip apart the last of Jack’s assailants, but I was too far away to help Ruth.”
As Kyros speaks, Jack looks at the scene and matches each aspect to his description. She can see a hole through the driver’s door from a shotgun blast and notices some sort of military grade shotgun, with some sort of under-slung launcher lying on the ground beside the lorry. The Brujah walks over to pick up the fallen weapon and throws it into the van.
Then she returns and looks over to Ruth, “Nice work on the hot-wiring. Have you thought about getting into crime?”
Ruth gives a weak, hoarse laugh, with bloody teeth. “Thanks. I mean… could be argued I already am…”
Jack tilts her head to acknowledge the point.
Kyros continues with his story, “Victor got there first, and focused on feeding Ruth over facing the priest. It was enough to heal her, so she rolled out of the lorry. The priest forced Victor back with a crucifix. It was then I realised that he was carrying Joshua. He got into the lorry, ready to drive away, so Victor slashed the tires.
“So the priest started praying, and I have never felt such pain. It felt like my veins flowed with lava, like I was bathed in sunlight… and Joshua… he was burning in front of us. Victor rötshcrecked and fell back, as I stabbed the priest with a knife. He was bleeding, but it wasn’t enough to stop him….
“Joshua turned to ash in front of me!”
At the mention of Joshua, Ruth slumps down further, resting her head on her knees and hiding her face from everyone.
Kyros says, “I was pushed back by the waves of agony, and the priest walked through the forest, collecting his fallen comrade and waving his crucifix at all angles.
“After he was gone, I fed Jack. So did Victor, trying to pour every last drop of vitae into his friend. I had to dominate him to stop him torporing himself. After that, I gathered the two survivors from the abyss, and Victor knocked them out before feeding on some of the dead and leaving. I went to the guard, dominated him to tell me where the security footage was, and brought it and him to the van. All that was left was to gather Joshua’s remains, and call you for help”
Jack nods, “Okay, with the priest escaped then we need to get everyone out of here asap.
“I can see that my van is just arriving, so we’ll get the bodies put into that.
“Kyros, I need you to go in my van… take your own ghoul if you want… but I need someone in there who can use Dominate if we get stopped by the police. I’ll drive the one with McGregor, Ruth and the prisoners and you can follow me out.
“I’ll get Dylan to stay in the back with the prisoners, just in case”
Jack nods, “Sure.”
Kyros gets to work piling bodies into the beat-up nondescript diesel van that Jack’s ghoul arrive in, then he gets in to the passenger side and straps himself in, waiting for Jack’s ghoul to drive them out. In his arms is a box of slightly lumpy ash holding Joshua’s remains. Jack checks that everyone left living is in the other van and she, in turn, gets in to the driver’s seat. The convoy heads out of the sawmill grounds.
Ruth asks Jack where they’re going.
Jack says, “For the moment… away. I need to make a call to arrange a meet up for the prisoners to get handed over to the right people. And to get some proper medical care for you. The blood should stop infection and shock from killing you, at least.”
Ruth nods, her head down. “Need to… get the shot out… or… it’s poisonous…”
“…I will come back later and help clear this up…”
“Don’t worry about the mess. It’s not your responsibility.”
Ruth looks up, looks for a second like she might argue strenuously back against it not being her responsibility.
Jack pauses, “Your regnant was the one that died, yes?”
Jack’s comment seems to hit Ruth like a slap to the face. She’s still for a second, looking just totally lost, then she releases Pelican’s hand to cover her mouth with her hand briefly, looking nauseous for a second.
She just nods, looking visibly shaky.
“You get on quite well with Pelican, don’t you?”
Ruth looks down at the torpored Brujah on the floor of the van, fidgeting with a bandage on her forearm, still looking totally lost. She nods, seemingly avoiding eye contact.
Jack nods again, then picks up her phone and tries to make a call to Teressa but there is no answer. As she hangs up, cursing, Jack notices the time on the phone and realises that Victor should have responded to her Summon by now; it had taken them at least half an hour to completely load the vans of weapons and pieces of body.
The Brujah mutters to herself, thinking out loud as she considers how long any scent Victor would leave behind would last if she was going to try to track him and does she have sufficient skill, or at least more skill that whoever Teresa might have access to… if Jack could get through on the phone.
“Phone Victor?” says Ruth, from behind her.
“Uh yeah, phone him.” says Jack, a bit sheepishly.
She dials. The phone rings. Rings. Voicemail.
Jack hangs up, “Fuck. Fuck.”
Making a decision, Jack dials another number into the mobile, “Jon, it’s me. I need a trace on the location of Victor’s phone. Right now. Text me when you have it.”
After a while a text pings through to Jack with the rough triangulated area. It looks like the phone is stationary a short distance away from the sawmill, but in the other direction. Victor should have been able to get to Jack well before now.
Ruth starts panicking as Jack reads out the location. “We can’t leave him… We need… What if there… were more of them?”
“Yes, and what if I drive back now? I’d have to leave you and Pelican to hunt for him.”
Ruth nods, trying to force herself to breathe slowly, her voice almost a whisper. “You’re right. Get people who are well to do it. But… This is… Not good…” She shakes her head.
“…Where did he go? When I mean? Did he come back at all?” She seems confused.
“His phone is still there but that tells us nothing. The person I’m trying to call might know someone better at tracking than me. If so, then great. Otherwise, I will go back for him. But first I make sure that you and Pelican are safe.”
Jack starts dialing Teresa again.
Ruth just puts her head in her hands, clearly having to fight herself to just sit back, try keep calm, and let the kindred do it.
“I can call my police friends?” she asks.
“To do what? Follow a potentially pissed off Gangrel through the woods at night? Meet up with the Society of Leopold and ask them nicely to hand him over… if they’ve picked him up.”
Ruth’s jaw sets. “Trace a phone…
“…Sorry…”
“Done that already.” Jack replies, “His phone is near the sawmill.”
Ruth rubs her eyes with her hand. “I’m sorry I’m not really… Making sense. Not moving. I get it. Sorry. What… Whatever we do…” She struggles with her breathing still. “We can’t go back. It was a trap… Proper ambush… No chance we could have run. This… This is that. If they have him… A trap I mean.”
“Rest. Get your strength back.” Jack orders.
Ruth nods, the obedient ghoul returning. She puts her forehead on her knees and just goes quiet.
Jack hits redial on her phone. Ruth can hear the unavailable tone again. “Fuck” Jack says with vehemence.
“Fuck!” she says again, and punches the dashboard with enough force to crack the plastic.
Jack thinks for a minute, her jaw clenched, then lifts the phone and dials Kyros’ number.
“Kyros, do you know how to get to where you guys hid the van last time? I can’t get through to Teressa and Victor should’ve turned up by now. His phone is still back at the sawmill. I need to get back there to try to track where he went, but we can’t do that with our current cargo.”
He replies, “I should be able to, though it wasn’t really hidden last time. But I’ll see if I can get Nathaira to meet us? She can maybe use an illusion to keep the cargo hidden?
“And also possibly help out if we’re expecting trouble.”
“Okay, do it.” Jack says. “We’ll swap places and I’ll follow you. I’m going to have another guy meet us there to get Ruth and Pelican somewhere safe. Does Nathaira have anyone who can help keep an eye on the prisoners? I can leave my guy who is with you with them, but I’d rather there were two to do it.”
“I’ll ask – though if needed, I can leave Dylan behind. I’d rather have the extra rifle if possible though…” He starts giving the ghoul driving directions back, and messages Nathaira to see if she’s close enough to get to us, and if she can bring anyone to help.
Jack hangs up, and makes another call. Without preamble she orders, “Pick up my extra big hoodie and a blindfold then head downstairs to the 4×4. It’s got tinted windows. Also, do something to keep your face covered. I don’t want anyone here to identify you. I want to you to head to my location and pick up McGregor and an injured girl. Take them back to where you are now – but the girl needs to be blindfolded and make sure she can’t tell where she is. Music loud and shit, right?”
Shortly later, she receives a text from Nathaira saying that she’s not got anyone to help, but she’ll be able to make an illusionary guard to watch the prisoners and dissuade them. Also, she says no one is at Victor’s home, or been there for a while. Nathaira suggests that he might have gone to ground, but it is looking more and more like a rescue mission.
Jack phones up Kyros to update him on the plan. “We’ll take this van to find Victor. Ruth and McGregor get transferred to the 4×4 that’ll turn up soon. And my ghoul and Nathaira’s illusion can keep an eye on the prisoners.
If my van wasn’t now covered in blood and dead bodies we could’ve used that one, but we’ll have to travel back in this one. “
Kyros asks, “We leaving the corpse truck for the keeper to deal with?
“Yep. Although I sent him to the site first.”
“I’m assuming we’re going through there first? He’s not gonna make it in time to help with a rescue mission?” he asks.
“Fuck knows when he’ll arrive. He’s fucking Tremere after all. But yeah, transfer people and then we’re off. I need to see if I can pick up Victor’s scent before it fades to much. I’m not a tracker but I’m the closest we have.”
Kyros says to Jack, “Nathaira is a Ravnos, she might be able to talk to his bird ghouls”
Jack nods even though Kyros can’t see her, “Good, that’ll help.”
“Anything else before we get there?”
“Not that I can think of. You happy you know the plan?”
“We switch over, get 1 and a half guards on the prisoners, Nathaira talks to the birds, you track, we go in and find Victor. You got any preference for combat tactics? My powers are near useless against the priests, but good crowd control for the minions. And faith won’t stop bullets…
“Also, you might have noticed Dylan’s backpack… there’s explosives inside if you want a booby trap, but it’s not subtle.
“By the way Jack…. how familiar are you with Obtenebration? It can be a bit unsettling for those not used to displays of the effects, and I’d like to know now if going into a war form will trigger your beast’s fear.”
Ruth coughs, that bubbling blood in the lungs noise again. “Ghouls with guns. That’s how… How you kill the priests. You can’t go near. We can…”
Jack looks at Ruth, “Yeah, that would be a good point but who stays home to look after the prisoners?”
Turning back to the phone, “I’ve seen the tentacles and the darkness but you probably have to assume war form and me are a bad idea.
“Look, the first thing we need is to find him, and them we do reconnaissance. I’m not going in for an attack unless I know we can take them.”
Ruth looks like she’s going to say something, then just nods and looks at her knees, staying curled up next to Pelican.
Kyros asks, “If they’re too strong, how good are you at stealth? Maybe we can ask Nathaira use illusions to lure them away, then sneak in and grab him whilst they’re distracted? And I can flood an area in darkness to slow the pursuit down.”
“It’s not my best skill,” Jack replies, “but might be worth a try. If you want a distraction you might get to use your explosives. Does the darkness work against them?”
“It slows them all the time. One of them managed to part it which took a bit of time, but another priest couldn’t I guess… his allies drowned in darkness… Also me and Nathaira made a sort of combo… she rings it with fake fire, so they don’t know where their going and hesitate before running out” he explains.
Jack says, “Okay, good, we have options. Let’s get there and see what we’re up against. If we’re lucky, he’s just got his foot stuck in a rabbit hole.”
“If it just that, he’ll never live it down. After making out with grandma last month… anyways, anything I should know about your style?” asks Kyros.
Behind her Ruth speaks up, “…I’ll give you my number? And I’ll just stay there. While you look. Till you say. But then you can call. If you need me. Or… Yeah.. erm… Thank you. And I can text when he wakes up.”
Jack nods at Ruth in reply, unconsciously looking into her eyes with a cold kind of threat, as she answers Kyros, “Yeah, don’t be fucking stupid and don’t get in my way.”
As planned, the convoy meets up with Nathaira and leaves the prisoners there with only one ghoul and an illusion to keep an eye on them. A black, armoured 4×4 arrives and takes Pelican and Ruth away. Nathira, Jack, Kyros and his ghoul return to the sawmill to track down Victor. Jack manages to follow his scent although she’s obviously not used to spending time in a forest. She tracks a circular path, first away from the sawmill and then back to where Victor must have parked his bike. They follow the road away from the sawmill in the opposite direction they had taken previously.
As they reach the location of Victor’s phone, they can see his bike which looks to have been run off the road by another van. The bike is crumpled from the crash and there is evidence of shotgun fire. In the nearby field there is blood on the ground and a large number of dead crows, but no sign of Victor or any other bodies. This could only have been done by the Society of Leopold. Frustrated and worried, the kindred disperse.
