[VtR][Mature] Born into Darkness: Preludes and Nocturnes

[Graf]

Biggs' Prelude 1

Biggs leans back against the wall in the gloom of the strip mall. Just like the man said, doors in the rear section behind the no-name franchise burger joint were busted. Easy to get in. He could hear the chanting ahead. From the storage area. Right where the source said it would be. The moaning and shrieking competes with the the loud sound the the guard's TV.
If the man would just turn off his TV Bigg's might have a bit of help on this one.

He glanced down a the typed sheet of paper. It's just a scrap of some larger report. Parts of it are blacked out. What's left reads:

Name: William Jefferson
Status: AWOL
Summary: Completed training Camp Pendleton (1960). Member of K-group; seconded to CIA 1965-68. Disappeared from Khe San, January 30th, 1968. Proficient in Vietnamese, other local dialects. Involved in <several lines of text have been completely blacked out>. Judged effective, erratic. Requested for K-group by <blanked out>. File tagged and pulled after possible sighting in Pailin, Cambodia 1975. Refer to <blanked out> and <blanked out> in Pailin (1974-77).

Rational for Tag: <blanked out sentence>. <blanked out sentence>. Also Jefferson's reported apparent age abnormally low; given known information odds of having had children (i.e. a son) are judged low.
Priority: F4 (low)
Recommendation: Include in <blank> to <blank>. Detain if attempts territorial entry.
​

Biggs looks a the paper again. It could be b___s___. Anybody could have written it.
He remembers the words of his source: "He's a servant. He fetches and carries and kills for them. They've given him power and eternal life; in exchange for the most horrible of blasphemies. Now he's in this city."

Biggs' watch reads 23:37 |September 22nd.
Up ahead he hears the chanting rise a notch.

 

[Graf]

Archer's Prelude

It's the second night of the rest of Judas' life. He woke up to the sound of the gunshot again. His throat was bleeding again. Celeste was there to greet you, smiling and radiant. Judas' was still a bit pretty mad at the ghoul for having been so trigger happy when he awoke, but after drinking Celeste's blood he realized that if he hadn't been shot he might not be with this beautiful woman now. He was surprised by how comforting that thought was.

She's away tonight, "just for a bit" she said. "Stay inside. Adjust. I have some things to take care of; to make things easy for you."

Archer would normally be a bit upset. Yesterday you spent most of the evening discussing yourself. She "needed to know things" to "smooth your transition into the new society". It made sense that she'd want to know things. She seemed to have an unearthly grasp of what Archer was talking about. Thinking about it now she avoided pressuring him about things he didn't want to discuss with tremendous aplomb.

Archer would normally have been a bit upset because tonight she promised that you'd discuss your new state, what was going on. But she begged of with a radiant smile, and Archer had realized that seeing her smile meant a lot to him.

Now she was gone though and he was sitting in her penthouse. Spare modern furniture, and abstract art fill the sumptuous space. In the outer area (the "servants quarters" as Celeste calls it) you can hear Frank bumping around in the kitchen.

 

[Festy_Dog]

Judas Archer cleared his throat, and a faint taste of blood settled in his mouth. Listening to Frank in the kitchen made him wonder if he should try eating anything again. Maybe if the food was strongly flavoured enough it wouldn't just taste like ash. To be honest he just assumed the taste was ash, kinda the same way people assume to know the flavour of bodily wastes.

Regardless, he decided he would start with the spicy stuff, assuming there was any there. Frank was the only one who actually used the kitchen regularly anyway, being the only one who ate. He seemed to be a decent cook too, as far as how the food looks and smells is concerned. Archer wasn't in a condition to go out and buy some food, or 'research materials', himself so he had to obtain some of Frank's, preferably through negoatiation. Not to say that he wouldn't just throw it all up later if he ate, he just wanted to taste something again other than blood. Anything.

He hated dealing with Frank though. Trying to draw any kind of friendliness or humour from him was like squeezing blood from a stone. A smile touched his lips, it was a funny analogy in the context of the present. He was tempted to simply turn on the television and wait for Celeste to get back so that he could continue asking questions about about every aspect of the living dead he could think of. He knew he had to limit himself though, he didn't want to come across like a curious toddler. Barraging one's seniors with questions quickly removes you from their favour.

Archer realized he was distracting himself. He had some spare time so he had to use it well. Further research into the vampiric condition was warranted, obstacles be damned. If he had to share the kitchen with Frank so be it. He'd wear down Frank's attitude as water erodes stone. Gradually. Archer knew patience when it was required.

He stood up and checked his reflection in the window. The wound in his neck wasn't healing up properly, and it weeped and oozed now and then. The entry wound was small, and more or less closed. The exit wound was not so simple. The bullet had broken into three pieces and left things a mess.

One of the first things Celeste had taught him was how to close his own wounds. The process was still foreign. Judas had followed her instructions, and the wound stitched itself back together to an extent, enabling him to speak and feed and whatnot without difficulty, but it wouldn't go beyond the point it was at now. Expending more blood on it would simply make the injury bleed. He felt like he was doing something wrong. He couldn't go into public until he had determined a solution, society tends to frown upon such inconsistencies as a severely injured man strolling about nonchalantly. Again, that could wait. Now? There were experiments to be conducted.

He took one more look at the new, deader Judas, and adopted a movie-style, dramatic tone of voice, "You've died the way you wanted to. A bullet. Now, you must live with the concequences," he chuckled and proceeded towards the kitchen. It was time to see if Frank was willing to share.

 

[WarShrike]

"Great, just great. I get to dust this guy during choir practice. I can just picture myself chopping this Ghoul limb from limb, while his buddies dance the macarena" thinks Biggs, with biting sarcasm. He was in a foul mood. He wasn't too happy with his "source". "A$$hole thinks he's deepthroat from the X-Files. Thinks he can just gimme hints, bits n pieces, and just figure it out myself as i run around his little rat maze. When this job is done, me an him is gonna have a sit down."

Biggs slinks slowly towards the chanting, keeping an eye on the guard. Human or no, if he was working for them, he was expendable.

 

[Bloodweaver1]

Cole Braddock

Cole simply shrugs as the Prince lays out the brief details of the end of the war with his typical American cowboy attitude. “Ehh.” He replies simply, “Just as well could have played with the Allies. The Germans got a hold of me fist.” His eyes slowly trace over the form of the exotic women as the Prince and her trade barbs. Man… haven’t had a women in … well in over 70 years... Wow. He quickly removes his warm stare from the women as a he chuckles to himself at the thought of his exceptionally long dry spell.

He gives the Prince a polite nod and says, “I appreciate the complement. If I may be so bold, it is not a far reach to conclude that I was entombed for a reason. Turning me into ash would have been a much straightforward and obviously less cumbersome course of action. One could also state, with a fair amount of certainty that, that the very same reason is, either in part or in full, the reason why I am standing here today."

 

[Graf]

Cole's Prelude 4

[Cole's]eyes slowly trace over the form of the exotic women as the Prince and her trade barbs. He quickly removes his warm stare from the women as a he chuckles...

The woman responds to Cole's examination with an unreadable look, absently running a long nail along her chin.

“One could also state, with a fair amount of certainty that, that the very same reason is, either in part or in full, the reason why I am standing here today."

LB, smiles broadly and gestures at Cole with a chopping motion. "See. The fellow's been up 5 minutes and already he's thinking!"

He grabs a newspaper off his desk and launches across the room. That sah is how I came to know of your presence in mah city.

Cole manages to snag the paper from the air. An article in the lower left hand corner article of the Local Section of the City Post reads

"Mummy" discovered in spice shipment
Officials have confirmed that a mummified human body was discovered in a shipment of spices from Brazil. The individual was apparently a white male; due to the method of preservation age has not been determined. The company label included in the crate, Gkao Golden Spice, does not belong to any listed company in the area.
Authorities were not able to provide further details about how the body appeared in the crate at this time or whether foul play was involved.​

 

[Graf]

Bigg's Prelude 2

Biggs eases his way down dimly lit corridor mall. Up ahead, off in the distance he can see the night watchman's desk, which is normally an information desk during the day. As small black and white TV loudly extols the virtues of the Thigh Master. The watchman is slumped over, fast asleep.

As Biggs sees no signs of any guards at he approaches chanting. There used to be a department store in this section of the mall, but it looks to be shuttered now. An access corridor to the department stores storage facility is to his right and he can make out two... no one voice. He doesn't have an idea about what the Jefferson guy is moaning about but the sound sends shivers down his spine.

At the end of the corridor the door is closed but Biggs can make out thick electricians tape keeping the latch open. Putting his ear to the door he can clearly make out the chanting beyond.

 

[Graf]

Archer's Prelude 2

Archer passes through the heavy double doors connecting the haven to the rest of the apartment. Celeste's "apartment" is more like a conventional house, located in one of most tony buildings in the city, is more like a house than an apartment. In front of him is the foyer and the elevator.

Archer can hear the sound of something grilling from the servant's quarters to the left. Frank pops his head out of the doorway "Sir?" his tone is formal but nothing approaching pleasantness seems to touch his face. The man is getting on in years, with thinning hair and a paunch.

"Eat sir? We do have a little bit of blood in the refrigerator. "Oh? You mean you want to try to eat some food? I assure you it's not such a pleasant experience. Still I have some steak cooking. Perhaps a bite?"

The ghoul guides Archer into the little kitchen. The steak is grilled over what look like roots. There is a small wooden table in the room and several doors beyond that probably lead to a bathroom, the wine cellar and Frank's bedroom respectively.

As he sits down in the proffered chair Archer notes a pump action shotgun tucked into an open cabinet by the door.

 

[Bloodweaver1]

Cole Braddock

“So we have a ghost company whom went to extreme lengths to make sure that a 70 year old sleeping smuggler is hidden from the rest of the world until now. Which makes no sense, I mean it’s not like I am the Prince of Darkness or something.” He says and then thinks to himself, Gkao Golden Spice is my only lead… but do I even want to know…

“So what’s next? I take it you that you have a job for me, no?” He says with an expecting look. “Don’t get me wrong, but it’s uncharacteristic of ‘us’ to do things charitable.”

 

[Graf]

Cole's Prelude 5

LB looks surprised for a moment. Cole can't tell whether it's genuine or not.

"To be honest Ah woke you up mostly because killing you out of hand offended my highly developed sense a' justice. But Ah did want to know who brought youh intah mah city and that question has not been answered to mah satisfaction yet. So ah will offer you a job, ah suppose. Find out who's pulling hijinks and youh ah free to go."

The woman next to him makes an ahem sound and looks pointedly at LB.

Oh, right right. He makes a dismissive gesture. Ah you part of any covenant mah friend?
He leans across the desk and puts his hand up to the side of his like he's just saying something to you, "Some folks take this stuff reealll serious," he booms across the room in a false whisper.