{V:tM - IC} New York by Night

[Catulle]

Antiquities Nightclub, Manhattan
Wednesday 11th December, 2003

Carrick nodded, a serious expression stealing over his features as his childe explained the affair of Jemal in brief. Was it disappointment, or sorrow that clouded his features? For as skilled a communicator as her sire could be, it struck Vuchtorya that he could keep to his own confidences as it suited him. As, in fact, he had been doing all week...

"A pity. And no, my angel, we are all but assembled. I trust the harpy is... engaged for the time being and Nathan, I sense, has his own affairs to see to. I think it time to attend to family affairs, no?" The slender man turned pointedly to Sabrina, blue eyes meeting blue, as he added;

"I don't think your uncle would mind us introducing you ahead of time, do you?" He extended his free right arm to Vychtorya as he awaited the child-Kindred's response, finally casting an almost casual glance at the fire-haired woman that Vych could sense hid a greater anticipation than Carrick was letting on, "And I know my sire will want to meet you, my love."

 

[Shalimar]

Antiquities Nightclub, Manhattan
Wednesday 11th December, 2003

Sabrina squired a little in Carraicks arms, under the wweight of his gaze. She didn't really understand all of the conversation that was taking place around her, and it was making her act subdued. "I don't think he'd mind an early introduction, not really." she said in a small voice, wondering what her big brother was doing, she knew her uncle was gonna want him here to meet Miss Maria.

"Are we going to meet your Vampire mommy now Mister Carrick?" she asked still sounding a little confused about her brother's abscence.

 

[Tory Adore]

Vychtorya breathes a sigh of relief at hearing Carrick mention everyone is in attendance,
and that he didn’t push her to further explanation as to where Jemal was in front of the little sister.

“Yes love, it does seem that everyone is occupied at the moment and as for Mazz?…his time is being distracted by my…by Skye,” she says voice trailing off quietly yet still audible as she looks up toward the mezzanine in time to see the singer and Nathaniel’s dance and wishing she were dancing too. Then Vych hears Carrick speak to Sabrina.

Peter Murphy – Indigo Eyes

For Vych, seeing Carrick and Sabrina’s eyes catch each other’s gaze was like watching two diverged rivers coming together to form a fluid dance; one full of excitement and rapids, the other calm as a lagoon at dawn’s first light. Sabrina looked positively beautiful to Vych as the swirling lights of the dance floor spun their own golden hue in a ring about her head. It almost looked to her as though the little girl was wearing a tiara of sparkling gold like a princess or perhaps the golden halo of an angel. Vych smiled warmly at Sabrina, reaching out to touch the image her mind had created on the child’s long flowing hair. Vych says in a low voice,
”A beautiful princess or an angel you could be.”

Looking to Carrick with a bright, shining sparkle to her emerald eyes, and a true, loving smile that could melt a thousand frozen hearts into floods of crimson, liquid essence, Vych entwines her arm about her Sire’s own at the mention of finally meeting the beautiful woman.
”Carrick! She really is here, here in my club. Oh, to finally look upon the one who made you, to see her eyes instead of those which I have imagined and placed upon the cold, sculpted marble for so long…”

Vych tries to calm her emotions and begins to look casually about for the beautiful woman she had seen earlier as she holds tight to Carrick’s arm, excitement bubbling through her veins with blooded warmth heating her scent that lay on her warming flesh.

 

[reapersaurus]

Outside Ocean View Cemetery, Staten Island
Wednesday 11th December, 2003
"That? Well you wouldn't expect us to be coming out of a graveyard with a hot pizza would ya? Its a corpse, not a 'resident' of Ocean View though, just somethin' we're gonna have looked at. Get some clues to fix our problem, etc. etc., you'd know the story with forensics bullsht. We'll have our own little version of CSI happenin'," Max replies calmly, with a hint of humour.

Nikolai takes on a submissive tone, and portrays someone who doesn't care for fighting.

"But I thought that we were going to dump the bodies off, once we made sure it wouldn't fall into the cops' hands?"

Nik addresses the leader submissively, We're just on clean-up duty - we're supposed to get the evidence out of the graveyard.
If the bodies stayed here, it might implicate a Kindred, and notify the police forces that there is Vampire activity going on out here.

You wouldn't want there to be cops on stakeout out in your turf, would you?
An increased human effort on investigating things in your backyard might make things potentially uncomfortable for you, right?

So let us finish our messy clean-up run, and we'll be out of your hair.
Let us get the other body - a dead Kindred - still over the fence, and I for one don't want to come out here ever again.

It's positively brutish out here... you're more than welcome to this Territory."

Nikolai tries to subtly suggest to them he's a Toreador.

 

[Catulle]

Outside Ocean View Cemetery, Staten Island
Wednesday 11th December, 2003

The leader stopped in his pacing between Nikolai and Max, though his attention seemed sharp on both of them, deformed, extended ears pricked and red-rimmed eyes flickering from one to another, highlighted by their own luminescence.

The other two leaned off the car at Max's responding to threats with veiled threats. Both had the wary eye of veteran fighters, though neither radiated the degree of aggression that the atavistic creature doing the majority of the talking did. The blond man's fingers danced busily away, an expenditure of nervous energy perhaps, before he spoke up.

"Look, man, it's not that we don't see what you're doing. It's good, really. I mean, we all get the Masquerade, yeah? We're no Sabbat psychos, here." His hands worked away, fluttering in emphasis of his words as he licked his lips between sentences.

(OOC - Drew Awe diff7 - 7,6,6,5,3 = 1 success; just Max, then)

The young man took on a more reasonable, confident demeanour as he continued. Max couldn't deny that he had a point... of sorts. They did have some things in common, it seemed.

"And, like your friend says, the cops can't get hold of some of this stuff. That'd just be one big loser for all of us, right?". The surly anarch, likely one of the elusive Gangrel to Nikolai's memory, going by his animalistic deformities, resumed his circling. Gabriel, they could see, clenched his cane tightly, hands ready to twist the hidden blade free. Legba was stoically impassive, as attentive to the dance as any, yet at the same time distant.

"But this place is all we have... We can't let you guys just step in whenever you like, no matter the reasons. We've got to deal with things on our turf on our terms. If we don't it's as good as saying your sort still own us. And there are those who'd die before that happened." He shrugged, raising his eyebrows as if to emphasise the quandry. "So why not let us deal with the evidence. We'll take 'em from here, make sure the stiffs aren't ever found, and you guys get what you want - it's all clean, and nobody got hurt. What'd you say?"

 

[Festy_Dog]

Outside Ocean View Cemetery, Staten Island
Wednesday 11th December, 2003

Originally posted by Catulle
"But this place is all we have... We can't let you guys just step in whenever you like, no matter the reasons. We've got to deal with things on our turf on our terms. If we don't it's as good as saying your sort still own us. And there are those who'd die before that happened." He shrugged, raising his eyebrows as if to emphasise the quandry. "So why not let us deal with the evidence. We'll take 'em from here, make sure the stiffs aren't ever found, and you guys get what you want - it's all clean, and nobody got hurt. What'd you say?"

Well, if Nikolai says we wanna get rid of the bodies, so be it, he's the one that did all the looking 'round. He's probably got all he needed from the bodies... I hope. Safely disposing of the corpses and showing some respect for the locals seems a wise move to me, blonde guy knows his sht. Respectable.

Max nods approvingly.

"You make an excellant point. I like your idea," Max answers, and looks to the others to see their reactions to the suggestion, "If everyone's happy with that idea you're welcome to the stiffs. My clothes're messed up enough already."

 

[reapersaurus]

Between the insistence of the Gangrel, and Max's acceptance of their proposal, Nikolai is hedged in, with little flexibility in his actions.

He will play the subservient role to the hilt, and play into the Anarch's View of the Camarilla minions and demurely accedes to the leader,
"That sounds acceptable to _me_ - let me just consult with my colleague to confirm that would be OK with our elders..."

Nikolai remembers back to when he inquired in the Chantry of his interest in learning the Craft Bloodstone ritual recently, and learned that the New York Tremere did possess the knowledge, and that a few members had it.

He takes a step back to where Gabriel is guarding the Feral 'corpse' and says quickly to his clan-mate,
"Please tell me you know the Ritual that allows you to craft a stone of blood that you can plant on someone and use to track them down.

If so, could you please plant one on this _alive_ ghoul for use WHEN he escapes these idiots?

And grab some hair from it for me before you give the thing over to the punks - I can use that for tracking, also - we can't let this ghoul get away from us. The information we could wring from it may be of interest to the Elders..."

OOC: I'll stop and wait for a reply, or I can state my conditional action if Gabriel replies affirmatively... Nik would quickly turn back and tell the Anarchs that it is OK with them if they take the bodies, so they'll get what they want after my next post. Nik will not let the Feral go without some way to track it down again - he'll fight before giving it up for real.

 

[Catulle]

Antiquities Nightclub, Manhattan
Wednesday 11th December, 2003

Carrick, Sabrina and Vychtorya

"She calls me even now. I can sense her presence again, though it has been a long time since we last met face-to-face. But that was another country and another group of Kindred. I was incomplete then, and stumbling. It was, as I recall, shortly after your mother..." His smile faltered, for just long enough to register on the two other Kindred's senses before returning as splendid as before. Carrick took the lead, drawing them back down the stairs, past the sea of humanity towards the bar where Maria had been playing court.

She was a wondrous thing, small-framed and of a statuesque perfection. Flawless skin covered fine-sculpted and delicate seeming bones, taking to the pallour of Kindred age as paint to canvas and standing in contrast to her deep, dark eyes. She wore her black, lustrous, hair high with tresses escaping the crown, falling as shadowed coils around her face. The devotion in the eyes of those closest to her stood in mute testimony to the overall effect, love uncomprehending reflected on some faces and the misery of defeat etched deep on others. She was as a goddess among them, yet they seemed heedless of the real danger.

At Carrick's approach, she slid artlessly from the stool and awaited her childe's advance, an enigmatic smile on her lips as she stood to receive the small delegation. At perhaps five feet tall, Maria Santa Lucia, architect of Cordoba and sire of Carrick Ashton, posessed a gravity that far outstripped her stature.

_____________

Caitlyn and Nathaniel

So rapt was Cate in the music, the ebb and flow of it all, the eddies that it left in its wake amidst the crowd, that she didn't notice her motion until she was on the dancefloor. Perfectly coordinated, in harmony with the music, she swept across the room as if on dark wings. And he was beside her, as lost in the delerious swirl as she, raven hair training behind him, and keeping her measure step for perfect step. The lyrics tugged at her, an undefinable something beneath their rippling surface, as if the singer were stood just behind her shoulder, in harmony with himself, a softer gallic lilt behind the beautiful, horrible, song.

Yet still it compelled them, ever onwards. Nathan's eyes reflected her own, his lips moving in synch with the words, and something stirred deep within him, spurring him ever onward... but to what ends?

When the song shifted, the sensation was dulled, yet the presence lingered after, diminished but enduring, the knife hidden for now.

 

[Catulle]

Outside Ocean View Cemetery, Staten Island
Wednesday 11th December, 2003

(OOC - Gabriel dex/subterfuge - 10,10,10 = 3 successes; Nikolai per/subterfuge diff (6-successes-2(auspex)) 7; 10,10,9,7,6,4,4,1 = 3 successes)

Gabriel responded with a shrug to Nikolai's question "I couldn't honestly say I do." His eyes remained on the anarchs as he made his statement, but Nikolai's augmented vision caught the traitor's thumb catch at an ornamental stone on his cane, gouging it free of its setting. The anarch gang seemed more intent on Legba and Maxwell at the moment when, all but useen, he let it drop into the Feral's ragged pocket.

(OOC - Gabriel dex/athletics diff8 - 9,8,7,6 = 2 successes

The stone dropped to the creature's chest and rolled into the cloth folds, concealed for now.

 

[Tory Adore]

Vych feels her insides drop at Carrick’s words, “shortly after your mother…” and reaches for the railing to steady herself, swallowing hard, and looking at Sabrina almost as if to draw her own confidence through the seemingly strong little girl. Attempting to hide the painful memory and unanswered questions his words brought to the surface of her heart clutching the cold golden rail, Vych looks down at her feet as a colorless tear drips from her left eye onto the floor never touching her cheek. Her steps falter a glide or so behind the duo. An acted smile breaks across her smooth complexion as she looks up to them in case they noticed her stride break from theirs.
”Darn strap. It keeps slipping off of my heel, and it’s making my foot hurt. I apologize.”

She pulls herself quickly together pretending to adjust the strap of her shoe and focuses her heart on meeting Carrick’s Sire. She hurries to catch their flow and falls back in step offering her hand to Sabrina.

Mono – Life In Mono

If Vych’s heart were beating, it would have stopped upon seeing Maria Santa Lucia. Though more petite than the form the sculpture upstairs depicted, Vych could easily feel and see how her grandsire could command a room at the slightest blink or wave of hand. For the first time in her nocturnal life Vych felt very naïve and subordinate in her element, though she did not mind. Vych says in a low subtle sigh as she looks on with glazed eyes,
”I would humbly serve her forever if she would let me look upon her for eternity. Carrick, she is truly magnificent.”

Vych’s anticipation is almost more than she can handle, and she smells the warmth of her own scent rise and bleed into the air as if seeking to blend and become one with that of Maria’s. Vych clasps her anxious hands resting them together against her abdomen with a submissive smile gracing her moistened red lips awaiting her love’s introduction. She desperately wants everything to be perfect for this first meeting so as to make a favorable impression on her grandsire for Carrick, but Vych can’t help wishing, wanting to be him as Maria’s form left the bar stool. Vychtorya felt the slightest bit jealous of Carrick as she looked on.