The Rio Chronicles - Jason

Jason

Cassandra_Fonesca

Playing Catchup

Spring/Summer 2001

So upon our return, Andre was thrilled to see us all, and Brenda's ghoul Sator...Sat...fuck it, Saturn. Saturn the Slaughtermeister was beyond thrilled to see Brenda. I think he may have had something that vaguely resembled a feeling. Probably the blood, but anyway. Realization one; this house is too damn small for all our shit. So we go buy a second smaller house as a backup and as a space for Brenda to do her thing. Then we go about expanding our current house - we need; a gun range, a machine shop to manufacture guns and ammo, a server room, and some extra space for shit.

That said, morality rears its' ugly head. Making guns that kill people, and even...even if I put the plans in the hands of others, I'm still advancing the "science" of killing large numbers of people rapidly. I have problems with this. So the plans are patented and not for sale at any price. I like my morals as they are, and degradation is a bad idea.

Moral grandstanding complete. Next stop was the accountant to make sure that he's on board with everything. He is, and was rather surprised at the current standing balance of many millions. We had an enlightening discussion on what to invest in, and really it was more about financial security. I made some notes and advised him of a few things I wanted to place venture capital into, as well as a few other safer investments that'll grow the money long term. If you have the choice between poverty and wealth, go for wealth. That said, I'm going to snag some Amazon when it gets down around 10. Also, collecting some bets and getting ready to hire some more staff so that the sports sites can diversify.

To-do list for clan matters. Massoud was highly interested to learn of my parenting. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Tina really hasn't shown any particular bent, yet. I think she's really still getting a handle on what we are, and she's suppressing whatever creative flow that she might have hiding beneath her. Also, teaching Portuguese.

Non-clan matters. Saturn's been a busy little sausage king. Oddly, I'm the immortal bloodsucker, and he creeps me right the fuck out. I think it's how he looks at people. It's like he's sizing up a roast. Most places he's headed for the laughing academy, but in the favelas? He's just "The odd dude that everyone avoids eye contact with." So now we're buying a restaurant in the marketplace. Okay really it's a sausage place...and I'm learning very quickly that moral qualms are a little weird. Saturn's got sausage made from Soylent Green, it's selling well..and I'm not really freaked about it. I think it might be because I'm kind of a blood sucker myself. That's a navelgazing introspective for another night.

Looking this over, and I realize that it's been a good 5 months since anyone's tried to kill me, put the thumbscrews to me, or get me to take a deal that puts the thumbscrews to me. Hell. Yes. Obviously this run of good luck won't last, but it's great for now.

So now that material concerns are dealt with, now it's time to turn our attention to spry little rat-bastard by the name of Ray. Ray, for those of you just tuning in, is a real piece of work. He tried to collect me and Brenda twice so that he could sell us. Brenda and I are currently plotting just how many ways we can make him suffer before executing him. Honestly, I wish my kidneys still worked - that way I could burn him to ashes, piss on the ashes, then take the resultant paste and sell it to low-end hookers as a lubricant-slash-cure for their warts and "cold sores". Maybe Andre can piss on him for me, if it comes to that.

I got beef with Ray.

Sadly, my biological fantasies are probably a lovers' caress compared to what Brenda has planned. Seriously, I can work with bodies. Quite well, as a matter of fact. Brenda can jack with his soul. Spirit. Ghost, whatever. But, there's a little problem. For us to destroy the little skeezix, we have to find the little skeezixs' weakness. Fortunately, Brenda's got a ritual for that. I'm not sure on the specifics, and given the cackles she emits when she talks about it, I'm not entirely sure I want to know. In either case, I've got time. Given that we're all effectively immortal, this is something that we can take our time with. And so begins an investigation, and I'm not particularly worried about the bills on this one. It's not going to be cheap.

It was once said that when you start looking for revenge, begin by digging two graves. My rejoinder is that yes, Ray does have a friend who needs a grave too. So, we began by cashing in a favor with Morgaine for some inquiries in re his habits. A side question, does anyone in New Orleans really know what he does? Or do they not care? Quite possibly we could be doing them a favor and they don't realize it. We may want to send His Nibs an accounting of our actions. "By the way, these disappearances? Homeslice was running a slave trade ring. On Earth we say "Thank You", but I'm not sure how you do it." So information gathering has commenced, and we've made a few private detectives some cash. I think the running tab is around 40 grand, but it's bought us some useful information. (Side note, I'm burning through more cash as a vampire then I ever made in a year when I was breathing. There's a serious sociological consideration - money's not making me a different person, just making me me with a crapload of money.)

Ray's a Caitiff, but he's got some serious thaumaturgical chops. He's got a wicked case of amnesia. He goes to New York about every three months. And he's got a friend there. This is where shit gets interesting. His friend Erin is using someone elses' picture. It's damn near impossible to get a picture of the friend. Also of high importance, there's a graveyard they went to (because that's not, like, forboding or anything) with a mausoleum and a couple interesting facts - it was pretty much resurfaced in the past few years, and there've been people interred there in the last few years. As I'm given to understand, Brenda needs some folks with an emotional connection to Ray - now that's a castiron bitch because of Ray's serious amnesia, but I think we're somewhere.

Last thing on the list, delivering letters to the King of Rio. So I was a little curious, but Brenda broke the seal on the letters. Which sent her spiraling into a minibreakdown, because they're in French. Apparently it's the secret code to get into the Toreador Club. So I read it. On the one hand, they made for some interesting reading because they had a thing going about 4 centuries ago. Seriously, Louis the 13th was kicking it on the French throne when some of the events here are described. This is shit that is absolutely levels beyond fascinating. I mean, I watch the history channel, but these are people who would watch it and correct historical inaccuracies based on personal knowledge. Fascinating and frightening at the same time, because there's been some history since then. I mean, like I can trace my family tree to the 1590's or so. These people have been alive that long. Mind. Blown. And Morgaines' position in New Orleans may not be entirely secure, and the relationship may have cooled over a few centuries. She asked if there was a place for her if she ever found herself in Rio. She's giving herself an escape route. I find myself strangely fascinated by these things. Note to self, research heraldry for a personal seal. Just in case I ever need to respond to one of these things. May take my own mortal family crest and add some clan facings to it.

On to more current matters. Fixing the seal that was broken. Didn't take too big of a thing to reproduce the seal, but the wax was a bit spendy.

Next two things. Call on the King, give him the letters, and then make sure the spare bedroom is ready for Massoud. Father is going to be...well, it's going to be an interesting conversation.

Some Introspection

The more I consider it, the more I realize Rio was an absolutely brilliant choice for home. I don't need to declare a side, rock any oaths of fealty, or anything like that. I just need to not be a dick. That I can manage.

I do also find myself curious as to what possessed me to start research on the family crest for the purposes of heraldry. I mean, let's be honest here. I'm not going to fit in with the peer group that uses it as a general thing. So what's in this for me? I mean, is it polite acknowledgement that I'm hanging out with people older than my known family, or is it an arrogant absorption of a culture that's not mine? Searching is turning up multiple variations on a theme, but I think I may need to design my own. I mean, as much as that's where I came from, that's not who I am now. Table for now, and maybe use the time with Massoud and possibly the king if he has time. Question is, what's the line between advice and a favor?

I never thought immortality would be this complicated.

Still, we are moving in a good direction. We've got a secure location, and a backup. The morality of Ray is another question. He's probably got a few boons in play from the Tremere, and based on that they may look at us to cash in if we do whack him. Alternatively, we could just stake him and freeze his ass in carbonite. Well, not exactly carbonite, but I'm sure we could put some plastic molding around him and make a nice wall hanging. Alternatively, there's the beat his ass into torpor option. And then we can make a mold and have weeks of fun.

Where the hell did that train of thought come from?

5 years gone by

Well, it's been pleasant. I've been making sufficient coin to keep the new family flush, even if Brenda's doing a damn fine impression of Morticia. Saturnio, Satur...whatever his name is, he's still goddamn creepy. He exists below my radar, which I'm utterly content with. Andre's still doing really well, and y'know. He's capable. Maybe there's more to him, but it may require a few more years of analysis. Tina's finding her niche, which I adore. I'm not really one for fate, but fate is occasionally good. She hasn't lost her shit, I haven't had to destroy her, I can't complain. No doubt Masoud is similarly pleased with our fortune.

Ray, I'm doing a slow burn on. If we're both theoretically immortal, I can spend a decade or 5 in destroying him by the inch. I want him to see the totality of his anguish and know that he is helpless to prevent anything, and that any mercy he receives will salve his wounds just enough for new, fresh torments. I will feed him his own leg, and he will drain the blood therein with relish and aplomb and ask for seconds.

It's nice to have a hobby.

Now, in other immortal matters, I've learned the big people in Rio. They're...odd, I guess? It's kinda medieval, but it works. It's also like, Toreador and Lasombra central. There's a total of 8 Assamites in the city, including me and Tina. For most cities, that's enough to have them crying, but Rio...we're a minority. On the one hand, it's kinda nice to have some common blood around, but realistically we don't have much in common. Certainly if they need a bolthole for a few nights, I got the space, but they're so...odd. Different, I guess is what I'm thinking. Also apparently there's some sort of schism ("Schism? I didn't even touch 'im!") in the clan. According to what they said, there's one of Haqims...childer or grandchilder up and about. That caused a bit of a problem, because apparently that whole Islam thing is apparently a passing fad from his perspective. And maybe it is, but enough of the clan is peeved about it that there's some sort of breakup. Apparently this has been going on for a few years. Might be bright to set up some more boltholes and let people know that if they need a space, they got a space. In any event, I'm not going to worry. If I've ticked off Haqims' direct kid enough that he'll come for me, ain't jackshit I can do to stop him. But apparently Ur-Shugli's main kvetch is with Islam, and I've never really had a bent toward it, so I think I'm safe from the holy war.

The mortal world vexes me, sometimes. My sites are good, they make a bit of coin, and this caught the attention of those who want what I have. So they sent a lawyer, with official looking papers, saying sign here, initial here, and you'll have insurance. A security blanket. Courtesy of Yakuza Insurance, where the motto is "Nice place you got here." I sent their lawyer to go talk to my lawyer. Seriously, I have lawyers for this very purpose. What the fuck? In all seriousness, there's levels. I talk to techs. Lawyers talk to lawyers, and the world keeps spinning.

The Yakuza were mildly put out. I deferred to my lawyers often, and the offers kept getting worse, and worse. And I replied in kind with a virus or two that made their lives a little hectic. I think I mighta cost them some money, but I really do not deal well with lawyers. Unprovably, they seized on one of my clients' murder-suicide as a chance to make my life full of grief, and in return I had to hire some lobbyists, set up a charitable foundation regarding responsible gambling, and rent a few politicians. And I mighta caused a few early retirements. Poor folks, can't handle stressful situations.

After that, I got shot in the head. That was annoying as hell and caused a brouhaha. Full marks to the shooter, though, I didn't find the guy. It was a public appearance, what am I gonna do, rock out the fangs and go "Slay them all?" I think not. Stayed out of the public eye for recuperation, declared myself fortunate but unbowed, and yeah.

The business has evolved out of necessity, and my humanistic side makes Brenda have a conniption now and then. Cases in point: One of my accountants had a midlife crisis and bailed out with a million bucks. Enough to make a significant dent in my margin, and so I went looking for him. Took about a month, but I found him in Nassau with 4 bodyguards, three hookers and a Scarface-esque pile of coke. Noses were broken, people passed out, the ladies of the evening were advised their services were not needed, and the accountant mighta peed a little. Then we came to agreement, he got his life sorted out in rapid fashion, and he's basically now a cheerfully blood bound little bastard who knows I pretty much own his soul. With that in mind, we move to case number two. Some little nerd found a little exploit in my code(!) and was basically reversing charges so his losses were gains. I hired him.

One thing I haven't been able to really monetize is the guns. Although to be honest, I could probably see if I can get a contract for the local antigang units. Seriously, those guys are packing like a ground cavalry troop. All they need are the tanks. Note to self, discreet inquiries needed. Especially since if I can supply some guns, I might be able to get a favor.

An aside on the business. The reason I'm expanding is not whimsy, but necessity. The incident with the accountant made me realize that I can't just take anything as a marker without some surety. I mean yes, I drive around in a Mustang. I have a reputation as a "I'll take any bet." kinda guy. But seriously, people coming to me kilos of heroin, cars, goats, anything a commodity. Hell, one guy wanted me to take a bet with everything he owned and his sisters' virginity as the marker. I mean really, how do you price that out? I didn't take the virginity, because really I can't do much with it. Well, I could, but I'm not that immoral. That said, I do own the guys' house and car - such as it is. and yes, there's insurance on that mess. Point is, I've got a ton of ancillary businesses all to support the main drill of gambling and online fun.

Which brings us back to the Yakuza. The final unproven. They bought one of my security guys, killed him, and then did 40 mill in damage to my data center. I mean, I've got great disaster recovery, but still. Lost clients. Lost records. Damaged gear. And then as a final insult, they sent another lawyer to deal with me.

Beloved Reader, I quote the wisdom of the ancient sage, HL Menken, who spake thus; "There comes a time when a man must spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats." I wasn't in a throat slitting mood until I saw the offer of "We'll take 25%." And they were serious about it. I'd like to think it was more ancient clan reflex that made me reach for my sword to take his head off. Regrettably, I had no sword, but in a pinch a pistol will suffice. I was prepared to offer 15 profound arguments as to why their "deal" was excessive, but the lawyer kinda sorta peed himself. I appear to have that effect on people, but still. You can't just scare the piss out of someone and then kill them. It's uncivilized - even for a lawyer. So we adjourned for a neutral peaceful site, which turned out to be a Shinto shrine. You think I'm kidding, but apparently they do kinda hold some places as sacred and noncombatant areas. Myself, I'm kinda screwed as far as my eternal soul goes, but I can respect their desire to not want to whack me.

Honestly, some of the negotiations here are probably not that dissimilar in nature to a lot of negotiations, except we're divvying up present and future revenues. Their opinion was that I should tithe to them, because they were here first. There is merit to that, but in a free market, I ain't paying something for nothing. Eventually we settled on my renting a small piece of their data center for roughly 5% of my take. That settled, we're more or less square. My rack in their data center's going to be a honey pot, because they're not going to let anything of mine go untested. And then life continued apace, with only the normal amounts of graft.

Then one night, shit got weird. So I've got a couple neighbors, right? Husband's a writer, wife's an art maven whatever it is they do. We've nodded. Scuttlebutt is that their marriage is a little on the rocks, but he's been living in a flat in one of the favelas so he can "discover his art". Let's be honest, he's probably discovering gonorrhea and bathtub gin. Which is not a problem, until I wake up one night and there's sirens. and lights. Thinking all hell is about to break loose, we arm ourselves appropriately. It's not but, the missus is dead. From some kind of bite wound, and her corpse is utterly dessicated. Son of a bitch. Without going into excessive details, dilettante art person brings home a girlfriend for a one-nighter, and winds up dying from...something. I need this like a kick in the head. Although, there's matchbooks for a few bars. I'm checking that out. This is going to annoy the hell out of me.

That's not right

So we track out where the matchbook leads. Yay clubbing. So we spiff up, hop in the Mustang, and fetch ourselves thence. Huge line. Absolutely insane. So we park and move to the front. One dominated bouncer later, we're in. And...everyones' wearing black. Except me. Fuck me, we found a goth club in Rio. Brenda's absolutely in her element with the powdered faces and black "Oooh look at me I'm so dark and mysterious" schtick. On the one hand, it's been a thing since Poe. On the other hand, it gets kinda monochrome and dull after 10 minutes. Brenda had a groupie inside of two minutes, claiming she was Lilith and whatnot. I had to walk away, because laughing in his face woulda been rude. Time was to focus on what the hell I was doing here, trying to scrounge information. I was definitely not going to fit in, because I hadn't troweled on the #FFFFFF makeup. The place was pretty sweet though, converted opera house with several bars, lights, pretty good stuff.

Shockingly, I was wrong about not fitting in. I got waylaid by a pair of women who wanted to share blood. Goth subculture...is nice. Suffice to say there's a few ladies who like me. Leaving their contentednesses behind, I went to the bar and asked questions. First off, the bartender calls me Gramps. Second off, he's got nipple rings and a bunch of other metall hanging from places. Seriously I am not that old. I'm 32, and I look twenty-something. In seriousness, I will probably get carded for the rest of my existence for everything. Gramps I ain't. That said, I got a drink, and I ask the bartender nicely about my deceased neighbor and who she was with. Possibly too nice, as I get a snort for my trouble. So I asked again, this time delivering the purple nurple from hells' grasping claw. Hellllo answers. For his trouble I tipped nicely. Brenda's over there giggling with her new friends. As an aside, she's probably going to own this club inside of 3 months. Bartender A leads to Waitress B, which leads us to a private booth. Which was...occupied by a couple guys playing doctor. Does nobody lock their doors anymore? I mean really. One guy grabbed his clothes and ran. Smart. The other guy was less happy about his coitus being interruptused, and tried stabbing me. No, with an actual switchblade, ye pervs. We rolled around on the floor in the not-nice way for a few until I finally convinced him to exeunt, courtesy of a swift knee or 3 to the lower switchblade. Room taken over, I proceeded to rock the Auspex to it.

It's odd watching events unfold. Some events are a wonder to behold, like watching a pillow being crafted and seeing the makers' eyes glowing with pride. Others, ehm...not so much. Though some of the patrons here are flexible like a gymnast. Though the important thing here is that I found a name. A name, a face, and I can track. We left the bar, much to Brendas' dismay. I really think she's going to be hitting this place for a few...decades. Admittedly, I do like the low hanging fruit, so I may reserve that for those lazy nights. But a name and a description, these are things I can plug in. Hello, computer coding awesomeness. Write that and let it run, and sleep the day away.

There's a reason I make bank at computers. An hour of coding with some tweaks, a day of runtime, and it turns out our little Octavia-the-whatever-the-fuck-she-is is a serious socialite when she's not doing her freaky homicide thing. Interpretation of evidence is good, and looking at the social calendars there's a thing happening in the next day or two. Shoppppiiing!

Fuck. I just said that, didn't I. I hope none of the elder types were watching that, they'd be wanting some serious checks to verify yes he's one of Haqims' little fanged rugrats. But anyway. Clothing, accessories, and invitations. Well, I kinda hacked the invitations, because we are not dominating our way into a red-carpet social event like this. So the four of us go clotheshorsing, and goddamn. Brenda got teeth when I wasn't looking. Her Sharkmaw is less. Haaaaallelujah. Off to boutiques, where My hair got trimmed, blonded up a little bit to accentuate my tan (vampire with a tan. Yeah baby) and generally primped and massaged to look like I could be a model. And that is saying something. Everyone got a similar treatment. Thank all the gods, we fit in. And we were red-carpet awesome and nicely set.

The party had everything. Of course the Toreador were there, along with a small horde of photographers. Some people were working overtime to make this all go nice and smooth, bringing in an excess of everything to try and make this the new spot to be seen at - although if you don't have a bank account in the high 6 figures, you're not even getting in the door. Through the whole thing, I was looking for our Octavia, but I got nada. It was...an opening as only Rio could do. I mean, spending 25 grand for us to look good was a point, but there were people who dropped that on their shoes. But I digress. It was an event, I did some networking, but overall...the real prize slipped. And we're back to square...3. Hopefully she won't kill again, because this is making us look bad, and I really want to know what else is out there, and if need be how to kill it.

The afterparty SUCKED.

So having party until a couple hours before dawn and coming up with nothing but a bunch of good contacts and networking potential, we decide that homeways is bestways for now. That whole sun thing makes life rough. But I digress. Life was good, Brenda had spotted Octavia and determined her to be some flavor of shapeshifter, kinda like the guys who carved my phone number in my chest, but apparently a spider. This bullshit is getting waaaayyy too fucked up for my flavor, so yeah. I'm not ashamed to admit we're gonna punt to the Brujah and the Courts on this one. One, I don't have the kick to take on Shelob. It's just not going to end well no matter who wins, and y'know. Worst case scenario is that we collectively put out a bulletin on her and say "Do not attempt to engage. Anytime." I think that may actually be my recommendation.

Then whatever danger meter I have in the back of my head started humming. Not loudly but enough for me to hit the intercom and ask my driver what the fuck did we take a wrong turn somewhere. No we didn't take a wrong turn says the driver...but that wasn't my driver. He hangs left into an alleyway and the danger meter starts telling me Bad Things are about to happen. And because the universe loves to confirm the danger meter, there's a gunshot from up front.

That was apparently the cue for a lot more gunshots. Because I like to know just how hard the universe is about to fuck me, I popped the moonroof for a quick peek. And there's a good half-dozen guys with automatic weapons preparing to make the car into modern art from a nice third floor vantage point. Dumpsters at either end make the area a damn nice ambush spot. Props to whoever thought this up, because let me tell you, I would have done it just about the same way.

Back down the rabbit hole and turn to an immediate priority - getting the car that is no longer moving back to moving. Had to kick twice to make a hole in the partition big enough for me and Brenda to squeeze through, and there's our former driver with too many orifices with his own interpretation of the "It's better to die than to be killed" trope making a Jackson Pollockesque statement on the drivers side. The little-known but still famous concerto Fully Automatic Gunfire in AK-47 Minor as performed by the Rio Favela Symphony and Brass Band is making its' way from front to back and making it a castiron bitch for Brenda to drive. To make things more interesting, the driver in the front was still present, and the blood and death-reek was trashing my clothes. Thankfully, he had a .38 in his hand with 5 rounds left.

The next practical problem was seeing. As in, we couldn't. The driver didn't have much use for his blood anymore, so I took some and used it to boot the front window out which made it easier for Brenda to see - seriously, she was using the Force a couple times, and hit a dumpster parked in front of us. With a view undisturbed, I saw something that, even in midst of a firefight, made me pause. Someone decided that this was the time to jump out or be thrown out of a window attached to a wingback chair. The world is just...yeah. And the thrower or witness leaned out a shot a couple of the guys on the roof shooting at us. Okay it wasn't like a clown car on fire weird, but still. You gotta appreciate this is nonstandard firefight behavior, as most of the immediate combatants were already arrayed for the ambush, and the Cavalry was nowhere near.

Still being shot at, but I can hear Tina returning fire. Don't ask me where she stowed it. We were going backwards, hitting and moving the dumpster while it's raining brass on me. 5 rounds became 3 in quick order, as two of the six went down. And because I'm a helpful sort of guy, I told them to go to the hospital. I doubt they heard me though, but I made the effort at least. During all this, I'm actually getting dinged up because Brenda drives like a monkey in heat. It's not all her fault, of course. Just some of it. Having learned the lesson of not pausing to admire handiwork in the middle of a firefight, I'm looking around for a suitable getaway location to helpfully tell Brenda where to go. And then I saw a rather distressing sight.

The previous 500-round AK-47 fusillade was apparently the Universes' version of foreplay. Things were about to get serious, courtesy of my old friend Rocket-Propelled-Grenade. And as if I needed even more proof that it was Amateur Hour, he missed. Seriously, RPG, close range, and he missed. Universe, you are such a tease. Still, close was enough to render the Mercedes inert and explodey enough for instinct to say "move your ass away from the burning thing, chop-chop and posthaste." Instinct is occasionally smart, so I let it drive for a few minutes., until I was able to settle in and actually take stock. Cellphone, wrecked. Clothes, unfit for anything but the burn barrel. I needed a phone to call everyone, and I needed transportation the fuck up out of this favela. So I go looking for a store, and everyone decided to close up shop.

Honestly, you'd think they never saw a gunfight before. I go to a likely looking store, knock, and I hear nothing but prayer. Urge to to quote The Raven suppressed as I rap louder at their chamber door. They're praying a little more. I kicked the door a little harder then I had to, but still. Amen.

I bought the owners' phone, made some calls. Everyones' going to voicemail. Note to self, invent ruggedized backup flip-phone, because the Universe is fucking us hard. The next problem presents itself when I poke my head out and discover two more people with nightvision, body armor, and AK's are looking for us. More High-Tech Low Skills thugs. It is just not my night, I'm low on blood, it's late...this is just bullshit. So I get ready to take them on, and I'm stopped by someone in body armor and a shotgun. Bad news, I dunno who this is. Good news, she hasn't killed me yet. 2 on 2, makes the odds even better, so a tentative alliance is formed. She's got a laser-pointer on her pistol. Awesome. Laserflash one, and go for the other.

The son of a bitch was down, and stabbed me in the foot like a butterfly to a piece of cardboard. And it frakking hurt. This blew my aim all to hell, so I turned around and basically took some blood from the guy. Not fun at all. At that point, discretion quickly became the better part of valor. We bailed out courtesy of a hundred dollar beater Ford. This new person's name is Cassandra, she's a vampire, and she's freaking the fuck out on me. Apparently the Universe doesn't know when to quit. We drive out of the freaking war zone, and to my place as the sun is coming up, up, up. Still low on blood, no idea if anyone else is alive, suit ruined, this is not a good night. We get into the place with a minute to spare, I gave Andre instructions and crashed hard.

I wake up to good news. Brenda made it home. I wake to bad news. Tina didn't. Andre goes to wake up Brenda, and she eventually comes around and asks what's up, I tell her Tina's at the police-mandated morgue and we get ourselves situated. Blood is chugged wounds are healed, and then I drink until I'm full again. Finally, time to deal with what's in front of me, which is this New Person, Cassandra. Apparently I pick up stray vampires on the road of eternity. Some people juggle geese. Also, Cassandra was the one who threw the dude (not a dude but a dummy, apparently. My conscience is eased by this) out the window and down to the street while shooting at a couple people who were shooting at us.

Cassandra is new. Like still freaking out about fangs new. So I dropped some blood into a glass, added a stalk of celery because I'm just a whimsical sonofabitch when it comes to a morning bloody mary, and hand it to her. She was all ewws and grosses and icky's, but she chugged and I think during the course of our discussion she cleaned off the celery. That said, it looks like she's a caitiff. Freaky thing, apparently...she knows I've been thrown back in time somehow. How the fuck does someone that new know that much and what the shit did I bring home last night? I swear, Universe. Eventually we're gonna have words. I am well and truly boggled, but I need to keep this one close until we find out who she belongs to. That's really really going to make life interesting.

And for the cherry on top of this, Brenda comes back and tells me that Tina is not in the morgue. She was checked out by Rays' New York Buddy. This is a declaration of war if ever there was one. His buddy is going to die. Ray, I have plans for. I am going to be a year in killing him. I am going to have him bound. Every day, I'm taking a limb, and every day I will record his screams. And then after a year, I will burn him stem to stern, destroying his mortal form, and then I'm going to let Brenda at him.

I shudder to think what she has planned.

Cassandra's Take

This is absurd. This is absolutely, positively, ridiculously absurd. My life has become a walking bad horror novel...er..un..life? One minute the world is normal, I do my job, I have my friends, yeah the pay aint so hot and neither is getting shot at but, y'know, it's a living. It's a lot better than you could do in this city. Right up until I wake up in a bathtub of water, ears under it, apparently woken by the sound of loud gunfire. What the living fuck? I get up, and find a chair beside the tub with tactical armor and clothes. I'm not a fool so I take it, wondering why the hell I'm here, and who the fuck put me here. The sounds of a fight continue while I quickly clear the apartment. Nobody is here. There are no instructions, no ransoms, no...injuries that I can tell to myself. Just tactical armour, a tub, and a dummy in a wingback chair. At least it's a dummy, I was worried for a moment there. With no clues, I check the window in that room, and find several sniper shooters with full autos aiming at a car down below. I don't know how, but I can tell you, they weren't normal. Like, someone was messing with...time itself back there? It was really strange. I know exactly what time it is too. That's not my style (ask my last 5 dates, showing up fashionably late is a challenge).

In the grand scheme of things, I can't say that whoever is getting shot at is a good person. But it's pretty much a guarantee that whoever is shooting at them isn't, and this is still *my* city. I pick up the chair, oddly it's much ligher than it looks, and toss it through the window to give myself a clear shot. A couple of hits later one of them pulls out a rocket launcher. A *ROCKET* launcher? Seriously?! Who...I dont even know. One of them manages to fire off at the car before another one pops up and I shoot him and he falls back with a second launcher. Who the hell does that kind of overkill?! Either way, at this point, I'm noticed, and there's not much else to aim at I can reach. Time to bolt. Maybe go back home. Figure out what's going on.

I dodge out into the alley, this is *not* my hood. Mine is at least marginally nicer. By a not insignificant margin. There are thugs , well armed ones, all over this side of town that take some manuevering away from. I don't really want to get in a three or four vs one gunfight, nor admit to being a cop, so I ...leave them with more questions than answers on some technical truth and swagger.

My luck doesn't hold out. I run into an older asshole of a thug who tries to kill me. By the end of it I have his shotgun and he's pretty well crushed. I don't know how I did that. And....then the night got *really* weird. Like, irresistible urge to drink the guy's blood weird. I come back to my senses having realized what I've just done. I'm going to be sick. What the hell is wrong with me? That's both disgusting and horrifying. Okay, maybe I dont wanna go home. I want answers.

I'm still trying to find my way out of this madhouse, when I run into a disheveled suit. Expensive one, or it used to be before it was blown to bits, and, he has a tail. He looks terrified of me, but, more terrified of the guys behind him who I recognize the dress. Same jerks who've been shooting down cars and giving me hell all night. I can't take on 2 sides at once, not three against one. And the other two dont look like I can talk my way out here. Somebody's dying. One impromptu alliance later, they're on the ground and we're getting out of here.

This suit fellow, is...odd. He's terrified the hell out of shopkeeps in a way I'd usually throw a guy in jail for, and taken their cell phone and car in a way I"d *definitely* thrown a guy in jail for, except he walks in, and hands mom and pop enough dinero to retire. One minute they're crying for god and begging mercy and the next crying in gratitude over the ludicrous sum they were just paid for the trouble. Okay, he's not...it'll do. I still don't know whats going on and he's at least not a horrific heartless gangster. I hope not anyways. We'll go with it.

One car later, we bail to his house. It's a bad idea, I know it's a bad idea. But I have bad options and worse options at this point and he's in a hell of a hurry. I find out why real fast. The second the sun comes up...ow? This is a bit not good here really. No explanations really but one gated house, hurried servant, and guest room later I lock the door and don't recall even sleeping. The next morning I get to talk to the suit. His name is Jason. And he's a vampire. and *I'm* a vampire. I'm hungry and I *dont* want to eat, but him and his goddamn glass in front of me with the celery stick winds up being breakfast. He gives me a rundown of...well, the basics. None of them sound great. I don't like this at all, and I understand even less why someone would do this to me. He doesn't have answers there either. Then we find out someone has taken a...child? No, not a kid, vampire he made apparently. Creepy. But he apparently cares enough this means war. I notice while we're talking that he seems to constantly...be..odd in terms of the time thing I noticed earlier. He insists we don't talk about it, but it's weird. I can't explain it to him, and he wants to know pretty bad. It's not like I was trying to find it out!

In the grand scheme it looks like I"m going to tag along. Which given I'm apparently dead to the real world, have no idea what I'm doing, and there are people with rocket launchers out there, I don't see any other reasonable choice. I will beat him with a celery stick though if he does that again.

New York. Seriously.

You know, sometimes I worry about myself. I get ahead of myself, and then the world yanks me back into place. A listing - we have a soon to be former cop, might be my security/legal personage. Guest rooms' nice, but I think we may have to buy the house across the street or something, because yeah. We're keeping the new kid close. Honestly, it's just practical. It'll be a serviceable fallback location, and then we can keep Cassandra nearby. To that end, we're going to New York. But first, we have to go pack up all the things Cass can't unlive without. Dresses, stuff...and a cat. Of course we had to get the crazy cat lady cop. Not to say that she's crazy, but the cat was not thrilled to see me. Fuck the cat. Celerity and the little furball gets shoved into the cat carrier. I think on some primal level the cat knows that I pretty much see it as not unlike something I'd order off the Wendy's Dollar Menu back in the day. Cheap, nasty, but it'll get you by. But it gets better. Cass lived next to the old lady that is just a hassle to live next to. The pruned busybody who knows everything going on in the place because she was there with a pension check and a disapproving look when the place was being built. And with the hag was her poodle that's just 10 minutes younger. Fuhuuuck. Then Cass did something odd. She...I don't how to explain it except to say she dominated the prune into being a broken record for a while. Without words. Trinity says "That's a nice trick."

Cassandra's Take: No, really, I have no idea how I did the thing other than I just did it. It just happened. It's more like a loop than anything. I can't explain how it works. I just know that it does. I felt kinda bad about doing that to the old woman too so I told Jason to break her out of it. I don't think he liked that much. Or the cat. I'm not leaving Hibby behind to starve just because *my* shit hit the fan. He doesnt seem real happy to see me either. I"ll deal with that later.

Really would like to know how she does that. That said, we got some stuff that looks important, stuff that might be important, and a few things that instinct says are important. Meanwhile, Brenda has hauled ass to New York ahead of us. Okay, I suppose it's good, but I'd like to take my route. We rented a Lear, and flew. If you have the means, I highly recommend it. It is so choice. The plan, such as it was, was two pronged. Brenda goes to New York to deal with Rays' friend. Meanwhile, Cass and I were going to infiltrate the family estate, and particularly the family crypt - with luck, we'd have skulls that Brenda could use for some serious cursing from the great beyond. Sometimes, I like where Brendas' head is, and I'm willing to buy in. While she's doing her thing, I'm playing Suzy Homemaker and getting us some digs. Now we bought a machine shop to specs. Couple lathes, few other things, and well...everything the budding gunsmith needs to whip some metal blanks into deadly weapons. No need to buy rounds, because we have Walmart. Just in case we need a really big gun really fast. Base established, Cass and I began our infiltration run. Kinda on the fly, because plans are the things that waste time reaching the objective. We find ourselves with Electric fences and cameras. Because they're not crazy, and we're in Richie Rich land, there's probably a backup generator happening. But we have probably a 30 second window to get up and over. Plenty of time.

Cassandra's Take I'm so lost. Apparently there's this one guy who has tried to kidnap, sell, kill you name it these two. For no good reason. My cop gut says something's way off here but maybe it's the fact there are vampires running all over the world getting in the way. Either way, it doesn't make much sense. But this Tina person is still kidnapped, and even if she's a bad person, kidnapping is still not an excuse. So, alright, get her back. This doesnt seem too morally ambiguous yet. Some breaking and entering, but, well....I try to think of it more like a covert raid. Besides, Jason seems to actually really care about this person and..okay I can claim this one for the greater good. I don't know what kind of Voodoo Brenda wants to do with the skulls, but they're dead and supposedly useful. Okay. Also, Brenda....not ...a moral compass that one. At all. Either way, we grab some gear and get towards a family estate. Fun times with the security systems of the Rich and not so Famous.

Step 1. Break the cameras. Not that hard, because a little quietus makes power tools dead silent. broke in, recorded a 30 second loop, and started a playback. Look at us not be here. Step 2. Cut the power. again, Quietus and a chainsaw to the transformer pole come in handy. 95% cut, I prep to go over the wall. On 3, the cut gets booted, gravity does its' thing, and we're over the wall rather easily. The nice thing about quietus and not needing to breathe means the trail I'm leaving is minimal at best. Sights, sounds, ain't happening. I get to the mausoleum, and boom. I'm in. Too easy, really. Now to get to the bodies.

Cassandra's Take: I can cut and kick down telephone poles with ease?!?

Weird thing about the door. It's an easy lock, but there's a needle-trap on it. That means there's something good in here. Let Cass know what's up, and then I go in. The door latches. Pictures are taken all around and I look up. The floor has a pattern of the type that says trap. Shiny, metallic. Expensive. Whatever they're keeping in here is worth it. There's 16 sarcophogi to pick from and n odd whining noise. Look for the source of the noise, and it's a motherfucking Tesla Coil spinning up. Cass comes behind me. The door latches, and sparks start to fly. I managed to get one of them opened. Then the lightnings start hitting the bronze statues, and the statues start to move. Toward me, apparently with asskicking on their minds. Okay, now I want to be back at a dinner party trying to act like I'm suffering gastric distress. Cass somehow gets the statues to loop like the old lady, but not before one of them sprayed me with water. In an electrically charged environment, that's kinda like hitting me with a taser. HARD. But thankfully Cass managed her thing, and we only had to deal with the tesla coil. Not Tesla Coil And Friends. Now, time to see what the payoff was.

Cassandra's Take: This may be more ridiculous than the life I now find myself in. Who sets this up? this is about as fiction like as any hollywood supervillan movie. What the hell are they storing here?

The theory here was that we could stay grounded (and thus not frenchfried) by hopping from one to another and using whatever we could find to short out or otherwise break the coil. Good theory right? It would have been had the sarcophagus not been a motherhumpin' hugeass vacuum that sucked me down 30 feet and to the ground for more pain and annoyance.

Cassandra's Take: Who the hell builds THAT kinda thing? Much to my dismay it only gets worse and more impressive.

There are nights when I look to heavens and go "God? What the FUCK, over?" Most nights, God ignores me. But this night, he replied unto me. And I'm pretty sure he said "Because fuck you, that's why." (As an aside, what the hell are these people hiding that they're going to such extreme measures to protect? Seriously, this shit takes a lot of time, money, and engineering.) Moving right along, Cass joined me because when god throws fuck-you bolts around, there's splatter. Kinda like Taco Bell and cheap beer, and about as welcome, but I digress. Still have my wits, my leatherman, a honkin-ass-pistol and whatever disciplines I've got to hand. We squirrel through some conduit to a maintenance tunnel, and then I hear someone coming down the tunnel. Heavy feet, packing something serious. The lights go out and he opens fire. Somewhere in the back of my head I realize it's a small customized minigun. I say small as a relative term, because it was firing 22 cal. That said, even a 22 caliber bullet can be a pain in the ass if there's 200 of them flying at you every halfminute or so. I got off one round. One big round. Right to the shooters junk. It definitely cracked whatever jockstrap he was wearing and slowed his ass down. Cass and I took that time to high-low him, except that in the dark I managed to jack myself up something fierce on something. Because fuck me, that's why. Also, in the dark. Cass managed a tackle, and I bit a leg for some blood. Normally I like life, but this guy was trying to freaking kill me, and also he was wasting ammo. Seriously, out of all the people who've shot at me, the most dangerous one only fired one round. And he hit. Everyone else is spraying, praying, and for the most part missing. That said, there's some sweet blood out of this shooter. More later, as I have some ass to kick.

Cassandra's Take: And now we fight the half men half machines from mars. Right. Got it. I know we're..sorta dead but I think we're gonna be all dead here if this keeps up.

Not half bad.

So my first mistake after biting and drinking was stopping. I did that, and I felt my midsection tickle. You know that magic trick where the guy saws his assistant in half? That kinda happened, except there wasn't any magic involved. I'm not sure how, because I was a little busy going "why are my legs suddenly over there?"

Cassandra's Take: OH FUCK. Oh Fuck fuck. This thing, I thought it was down, but no it wasn't! It just cut Jason in half. Shit. Shit shit. Now I'm in a tunnel, under ground, in some super rich's psycho underground fortress. And, my current landlord/explaining this shit to me/has the car to get out of here buddy is down. Greaaat. I can't just shoot this thing or tackle it all night and bring it down, clearly. So I look up, there's a pipe. There's a lot of electrical conduits in here, that looks like one. Up we go, either it'll hold my weight and give me some distance, or it wont and I wind up with a live wire at my disposal. Turns out the latter. Electronics fry, so we go for that. It..actually works.

It was not fun. I think I'm keeping Cass around, because she has no sense of self-preservation. She came back and did...something. I'm pretty sure she killed it with electricity of some kind. I regret my lack of note taking skills, but again in my defense I was half the man I used to be. As it were. So I was able to spend a lot of time and a lot of energy on sealing up my inside...inside. And I was hungry. So finished off the dead...whatever the hell it was. Next order of business, loot the body. Whoever we've broken into, they have technology I've seen discussed in trade magazines, but almost always with a "not for a few more years" kinda flavor.

Cassandra's Take: ..and then my sawed in half co-hort in insanity groans. He's...not..completely dead. That's. Wow. I've been a cop for a long time, and seen a lot of bad shit and this is straight up to the top of the list. I nudge the body over to him, because, well, blood, vampires, it's a thing. I'm still really not pleased about it but I'm pretty sure this counts as self defense. I hope. I'm hungry too but damned if I'm going to have any of this.

So running here and there, tried squeezing into a dynamo-filled-room, and there's boggling. Who needs this much power? Cass couldn't get in, so out I scrambled and then we wound up in a walking freezer. With not one, not two, but THREE Crays. Not the economy ones, either. Massive, sitting in a pool of circulating coolant, Crays. Who the hell needs this kind of processing power? And then we get scanned. Some mechanical voice asks for identification. Sadly, the computer was not programmed with a sense of humor, so when I said "Captain Riker of the good ship Lollipop" the damn thing didn't blink. Note to self, next time identify as Heywood Jablowme. But, there's a keyboard and workstation so I can find us a way out because I am pure badass on a keyboard. And then the retinal scanner said no. Well, fuck.

Out we go, through the dynamo room and there's ANOTHER robocop trying to roboslaughter. Seriously, don't these jackholes ever get tired of trying to kill me? Maybe it's Cass. But probably me. Seriously, I really need to rethink my life if people are going to keep trying to kill me like this. So this requires a bit of stragety. I yip and dive into the hole, Robocop fires a rocket after me and makes the hole bigger. Then Cass did her whatever the hell it is with dominate and the dude fired his chaingun dry. As he wasn't a threat, we found a way out. Cooling tower, and we climb up...and find a hatch. Undogged the hatch with a quickness and water starts pouring down. It's like the house of 1000 deathtraps. Luckily, it was only a small artificial pond. So we got up and out, and really after all the hell we got through just to get out of what we'd gotten into, two snowmobile teams wasn't even a sweat. we hauled ass, went up and over the fence, and found Brenda, then we went back to the machine shop haven to go over the events. I swear cass mighta had a weirded out look on her face since it was hovering around 0 degrees and we were not dressed for cold weather to begin with. And various explosions and fights might have caused us to lose a little of what we had. Oops. Sadly, the end of the night was a bit of a push. No Tina, No skulls, but a damned good idea of what we're up against. I'm not liking it.

Cassandra's Take: No skulls, lots of insanity, and we're out through a pond into the snow. Oddly I don't feel cold. I notice that when we leap the fence over the walls. Apparently this vampire thing has some perks. I'm not sure I'd ever sleep again if I'd known that when I wasn't one. I'm not sure I'm not terrified of those implications already.

Time to get some backup. Brenda's going to chase down some things in...London, hopefully it's a skull for a curse to make Aarons' life miserable. Meanwhile, I'm going to do what all the wise troops do. The going got tough, so I called for air support. Metaphorically.

Went shopping for some goth clothes, and took Cass for some easy feeding. Seriously, goth clubs are awesome. Apparently I radiate just enough dangerous to make the pale moths flutter to me and say "take my blood". Fish, barrel, go us. Happily, the owner of the club was a vampire. We chatted, discussed the events of the day, and we got an invite to the museum of modern art. I've always wanted to go. Hail us. More shopping. Cass was freaking a little about being in a boutique without backup so I acted as a translator, and we got suitably attired. She still gets nervous about spending money, as evidenced by the moment she pulled me aside and mentioned to me that I'd just dropped about a third of her annual salary on just her clothes for that one night.

Cassandra's Take: After a long argument with Jason as to what I was not about to go do, no matter how tired or hungry I was, he comes up with what seems like an okay compromise. Would I be willing to eat if it was offered willingly? That sounds bat-shit crazy but, okay yeah sure. If they agree and nobody gets hurt, I can deal with that. Apparently this exists and within easy reach. That's ...a little spooky. But no less unsettling overall than the amount of money that got dropped on being able to go to both a club and then apparently head vampire of the city's place. This undead living thing is apparently even more expensive than the normal sort.

Civil Servants. Whaddya gonna do.

So the ride was uneventful, but we were prepared for eventful. Which was a nice feeling. Then to meet the Prince...ess, and the Primogen. Very odd, really. The crown weighs heavy on her head, but I was able to gain myself a writ of staying in New York for the purpose of finding my childe. A similar permission was granted to Cass, whos' caitiffness went over like a burrito fart in front of the pope. There were moments of amusement on both sides. My moment of amusement was seeing the fear-pee in the Princess' face when I said my clan. Their moment of amusement was when I asked if anyone had a laptop. Hey, I had all my intel on a thumbdrive. Showed them Ray, advised them of some of his dealings, and Aarons' little house of "Do not attack there." The Prince was kind enough to call a blood hunt on Ray. And the offering of boons was made clear. Which is just a cherry on top of the whole delightful sundae. And I didn't even have to tell her everything. Which is awesome, as I can save the least savory bits for the primogen who need to hear them. I then had conversations with three of the primogen offering their services (for a small fee) in order to expedite my finding of my childe. Part of me thinks they'd all love to have a Assamite owing them a small favor. The other part of me thinks they just want the damn homicidal Saracen out of the domain chopchop and forthwith, but they don't have a good excuse to bar me.

Expanding a bit on the personae of New York. My impressions of the Princess is that she is at best a figurehead. Her call for the blood hunt was appropriate, but the delay in making it official until tomorrow means she's probably giving favored people a headsup and gaining a few small favors thereby. Also, it gives the primogen a chance to do the same with their favored dogs of war. Also, she doesn't radiate the confidence of someone who wields power. However she did legitimize my vendetta against Ray and Aaron, and quite honestly ordered me to kill Aaron and stake Ray (if convenient.) As her highness commands. The Toreador primogen is another matter altogether. Qadir would have been my first choice for saying "That dude there is the prince." It seems like power is woven into the fabric of his being, and he doesn't feel it pinch. The Nosferatu primogen...well, part of me does feel pity for someone who is granted eternal existence, and then the catch is looking like looking like 50 miles of bad road. Still, gotta give props to someone who can overcome the bullshit. (As a side note, thank all the gods that Cass didn't wretch.) The Malkavian is, well, Malkavian. She didn't spout prophecy, but it seemed like her eyes were seeing something else all the time. Eternal acid trip. The Tremere primogen is...well, a very interesting sort. He was rather immediate in his denunciation of Ray and Rays' dealings with the New Orleans Tremere, declaring them a rogue chantry (wtf?) and offering me their aid. Call me crazy, but I'm suspicious. Okay, I'm suspicious of all of them on a certain level, but I'm really suspicious of a Tremere who's immediately tossing someone under the bus. It's like the New Orleans group is engaging in something that's officially bad, everyone knows it, but they're waiting for experimental results or something before moving. If it's good, they're back in the fold, but if it's bad, there's deniability. Leaving them as is seems to make no sense. You have a problem, you fix the problem, and you move on. Leaving a problem to be a problem means you have bigger problems.

Cassandra's Take: Oh good. They hate me. For no reason other than I'm not part of some pretty club. God I hate high society. Living or dead they're all the same. Never judge on who you are, just what you are in their world. I manage not to roll my eyes realizing the stakes here are high and I play sidekick to Jason which is just as well. The Prince..ess isn't suer in her power. I'm pretty sure the Sheriff is really in charge. And he either doesnt mind me as much or is willing to put it to the side for buisness. Jason apparently spooks them all to hell and I'm pretty glad I'm tagging along with him as it seems to be my ticket to not being insta killed. I'd like to point out how absolutely unfair this is at this point. I didn't ask to be a vampire. I certainly didn't choose to be one without pedigree apparently, i'm sorry. Frankly I'd be happy if they could make me a normal living person again if they find it that distasteful. Would have suited me just fine!

Seriously, I'm overanalyzing. New Orleans hasn't made itself a big enough problem to be destroyed, end of story. That may change once they know who they're hobnobbing with. That said, I may take the head up on his offer. Pretty sure it's going to bite me in the ass, but who else knows blood magic that well, and is easily accessible?

So. Overall, a bad but enlightening night followed by a night where I was able to speak for 5 minutes and bring the entire New York Camarilla down on my enemy. And enjoy almost excessively New Yorks' finest art, and also make more than a few new business contacts. Brazil has different laws, and the internet is still the wild west - I'm sure there's a few businesses that would cheerfully offshore their data to me if they knew the SEC couldn't touch it. Note to self, offer thin-client solutions for people, get some redundant systems going so that companies can keep their business dealings out of the prying eyes of the IRS. Also, stake Ray, and Kill Aaron. Time to go building a few things.

Of Course You Realize, This Means War.

So, planning completed. Next night after checking things, I find Cass already awake. Interesting, we'll file that away for later. Designing a longrifle so as to take out Aaron is going to be fun. Not nearly as fun as the shot itself, but I'm getting ahead of myself. As a side note, if you don't have to take the rotation of the earth into account when shooting someone, you're just practicing. Meeting with the Tremere primogen is at hand, so we have to dress at least nicely. A little bump in the road when I realize Cassandra is woefully underequipped in the clothes for midrange meetings department. Ah well. Tshirts and whatnot, and bank on the "Who can expect a caitiff to know how to dress" angle. Casual wear for me, and of course we're packing because Andre - bless his heart he needs a vacation - procured some toys for us. Pistols, shotguns, and the always popular AK. Leaving the AK at home because lets be honest, that's not exactly a how do you do kind of weapon, it's more of a hurry up and bleed. Outside the building I send Andre off to go case Aarons' block and find a sniper spot. If reason fails, planned force will prevail.

That said, we go to meet the regent/primogen, and we are paraded a bit. And probably observed, lets be honest with ourselves. A wide variety of artwork, apparently from the previous regent. Subtle messages are at work here. "Look how awesome and powerful we are". "Look at our art." Okay, I can get behind the art thing, but really what interests me is information and results. I was very pleasantly surprised by a Masika St John. She's apparently younger, knows her way around a laptop, and is apparently what they call a Technomancer. I've read the book. Hail Gibson. Intriguingly, Masika doesn't really radiate confidence, despite her being on the sharp and pointy end of some things that appear to have value to the Tremere. I may invite her to vacation in Rio. But that's another thing. Her real value to me right now is in the information she has. Her dossier on Aaron was extensive. Apparently, Aaron is really name Michel, he's a mage...and what they call a Son of Ether. Dafuck. I thought my days of dealing with Dungeons and Dragons was like, gone with college. According to the information, Michel hangs out with the High Regent Aisling Sturbridge. Dafuk again I say. Now, they know where he lives, but also casually mentioned that Central Park is a werewolf caern. (Caern probably meaning "flophouse where it's all doggy style" but who gives a shit. They can call it the Moulin Rouge et Coucher, I still ain't going there. Furry fucking bastards can all swing from my left nut.)

Following Act 1 - "We're Awesome And You Best Recognize", came Act 2 "The Deal." Over a delightful Bison and O+ mix (It's the Colorado in me, can't pass up a buffalo burger) served on lace doilies, we discussed the nitty and the gritty. Given that I'm not bargaining from a position of strength, The Deal was a single question, presented with neat and delicate embroidery. "How much does Tina mean to you." Life boon it is, because the Sons of Ether have all come down with a case of 50's scifi augmented by Victorian steampunk. Whatever gets you through the night, I guess. Whatever, just gimme Tina back, and we all walk away, pretending this never happened. The Tremere have offered their intercessory skills, I'm okay with that, because I want my kid back. It means I owe them my ass, but I'll chip away at it a little bit when the Princess has Ray before her. I get a boon, I transfer it to the Tremere, it pares down what I owe from "Life debt" to "3/4 life debt." And then I'll work on Masika and the Technomancy thing to drop it down a little more as needed.

Act 2 completed, we commenced Act 3; "Remember how awesome and powerful we are." Non-Euclidian geometries almost dragged me in...hard. Really, it's a most inappropriate thing. But damn are they ever like...drawing me in sometimes. I really don't understand why it happens, but it does. Everyone looked at me oddly for a second or two, and I'm sure there was a file annotated with "Possibly Toreador masquerading as Assamite." Off we went to meet with the Sheriff. Regrettably little information there, but on the positive side since I was the one who brought this to the Princes' attention, I get first dibs. Which is good, because then I can claim the boon and do that thing. Crossbow with a flare. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. So, things accomplished, it's time to head home. While discussing the sniper area, we all realize we're being tailed. Shook them once, but it wasn't enough. So, dramatic measure on the highway of brake and swerve, let them blow by, and we're home free, right?

As it turns out, not so much. Van doors open, and a ton of tire-shredding spikethings come tumbling our way. Andre's good, but the rest of the drivers on the road weren't aware there was a danger. the ground and the sky exchanged places a few times and the world went funny colors for a second or two.

Taking stock; Andre's out cold, Cass has pretzled herself in the passenger compartment a little, and the Mustang is an insurance claim waiting to happen, along with 3 or 4 other vehicles on the road. Really people, there's something to be said for not involving innocents. And yet, they do. Next thing I know, there's a fog bank of some acrid nasty tasting smoke rolling in. It's not tear gas, but it's a knockout thing - I noticed when Andre kinda slumped a little more. Okay, they want to play rough. And that's when it got kinda surreal.

Remember what I said about Victorian meets 50's scifi? Yeah, that was about what hopped out of the van. 4 guys in gas masks and attitude, packing what they apparently thought was heavy weaponry, but to me was like...a brass and blue florescent light phallic overcompensation. They even shot white stuff. Electricity, but still. The mustang was zapped in short order. The fight was brief, given that they were wearing masks and I didn't need to breathe. Stole me one of their sidearms, and shot someone with it While Cass was holding her own against superior numbers. The sidearm apparently has a charge time to it, so it went to the Asscrack Holster, while I pulled more conventional weapons to shoot the ones I couldn't reach to let them have a snootful of their own gas. they went down, but they all looked like...twins. quadruplets, really. Something of note for later. Given that they had wrecked our transport, it was only fair that we liberate theirs. It was like looking at HG Wells' original time machine when I hopped in. Excessive dials, faux jeweled stick-shift with a compass, and...a countdown timer.

Of course they would have a self destruct. Hauling ass and burning blood to pack both Cass and Andre to the ditch when the thing went up impressively. It goes without saying at this point that our clothes were shot.

I no longer feel safe with The Liberated Sidearm sharing space between my nether cheeks. And thus it got properly holstered.

In the end, one mustang, one suit, some questions answered, more questions out there and we're out in the middle of nowhere. Also, who the hell does this person think they are? I mean, why is he even trying to kidnap us when there's a definite potential for bystanders to be killed? How is this acceptable to a moral being? I mean, how does someone sit there and think that what happened is somehow justifiable? Who really gains from all this death? Sure as hell isn't me, or anyone with a conscience.

So really, all this means that Michel pretty much has to die or be defanged. I'm all for giving peace a chance, but events may have outstripped diplomacy. There's really not a lot left. If there's a miracle, the Tremere can get him to see reason. If not, then there's going to be some unscheduled demolition, and Ms High Regent will have to find a new friend. I seriously hope that todays' dreams are less...exciting than yesterdays. Formless shapeless things chasing me does not make for a rested and aware Haqim-son. And that makes for a jumpy, trigger-happy Jason.

From the mouth of Comicus

Politics. Politics, politics, POLITICS.

A standup philosopher has never been more right. But first, a brief recap. When we last left off, it was a few hours until dawn, our collective situation was Cass and Andre unconscious, no wheels, and standing on the highway next to multiple piles of ash that had been cars and a scorch-mark that was our assailants' van. Not quite a Mongolian clusterfuck, but the situation had plenty of room for improvement.

Time passes and a kid in a Trans-Amfinally pulls over. Given his jailbait girlfriend, the hour, and his ride, homes had a receipt for the local notell motel in his pocket next to the condoms he promised he'd use, no really babe. Beggars being not choosers, we load up and scrunch in. 15 minutes from home, Jailbait starts freaking out because Cass isn't breathing. Duh, she's a vampire - breathing's not on the todo list. But, I give her a dirty look, tell her to play the Quiet Game, and convince the driver to just drive. Good man, he drives, but he drives to the goddamn hospital. Of all the places I need, this isn't one of them. Remind me, Dominate. I did dominate the doc into "No, we don't need to be here." et cetera. Get home, get cass out because she's flammable, and Jailbait starts freaking ~right~ the hell out, and Driver takes off. With Andre.

Kids these days, I swear. Alright, Cass started coming around, and we took stock of the situation. Not good, but I have a good internet connection and started doing my thing to try and track down where the hell kiddo might have gone with Andre. Shortly before I crash out, I hit paydirt with finding who the kid is, then Cass mentions to check hospitals. Well, fuck. See, this is why having other people around is good. Not every problem is a nail for my computer hammering skill. But that's a problem for the evening, and I sack out.

Morning (such as it is) arrives, and I'm frigging hungry. Cass has already been at the stash in the fridge - note to self, get more bags. It's nasty, aftertastey, and weirdly enough, Cass doesn't seem to have the same reaction I do. Kids these days. No sense of refinement, taste, or knowledge of what's good for you. She has some weird blood hangups. Maybe she was a muslim or jewish or had some weird dietary restriction when she was breathing. Either that or she's so new that being a hemovore is still a little unsettling to her psyche. But that's a question to be tabled for later. Message from the tremere, and from the Sheriff.

But first things first. We call and find out that Andre was indeed dumped off at the hospital with umpteen problems. Go to check, and the desk nurse is familiar with his case. Apparently, Andre was a wreck when he was checked in, but not so much now. Talking to the nurses, and he brightened when I saw him. The doctors want to keep him for another day for "observation". Not so much. I need Andre with me, and we settle up the bill. Thank the devil or whoever made sure I was comfortably rich before throwing me into this, because that bill was insane. Either way, pile of money later, we're off to...Queens.

The sheriff in his infinite wisdom shook a few trees and called in a marker. Someone saw Ray. Time to meet with someone, and see what they have, and see how much it's gonna cost me. They know I'm over a barrel here, so the price won't be cheap. I'm willing to pay the game, but damned if I don't want results. Anyway, with Andre in tow, ask him to stay in the car, and we unlimber guns to ensure that them that get the drop on us get shot in return. The place from the outside screams "haven of a cheapass vampire." Dirty, unkept lawn, outside just looks...blecch. It's the creepy lot that schoolkids dare each other to break into. So we check the lock, and we discover the good sheriff awaiting us. More or less. We discover that we are in the home of one Donatello Giovanni. Cue the Teenage Mutant Ninja Vampires. Or not.

Turns out, Don doesn't have the info, he has the guy who has the info. One seriously emaciated haggard looking...setite. By the name of Steven Clarke. Steven looks like about 20 miles of bad road, and if that's the healthy robustly undead version...shit oh dear what was he into. First bits of oddness, Don likes to remind people who's in charge. Subtly. The door knob was more of a latch, and it totally got our sheriff by the eyeballs of awesome. Even as a not-a-toreador, I was rather interested in it. The colors, the byplay, reflections and prismatic rays thrown off by gaslight, tres chic. But then Don put his hand over it and broke off the reverie, which..well, I suppose it would be galling to get caught short like that. Meanwhile, Steven knows where Ray Hangs. This is good, because then I can start to plan how to take him down. Short version we deal. He gets me Ray and I can potentially trade for Tina. That said, there's really no law that says that I can't immediately smoke them and collect a boon, or the sheriff can't immediately dust them both, as is his privilege when dealing with a blood hunt-ee. In return, Steve wants me to wax another Setite. This I can do, but it's going to take some time and doing. I'm on the clock here, but I'm pretty sure I might be able to draw him out - apparently he's trafficking in vampires, the naughty naughty boy. We'll have to create a situation that demands his personal attention, and then rudely slaughter. The deal is sealed, and Don gets his cut. A small favor for later, for the use of his house while brokering this thing. Middlemen. On to part 2; the tremere are growing concerned that I might not want to give them a boon, so they want a meeting so that we can all sit down and talk to the son of a bitch who made off with Tina. And quite possibly deal.

As a side note or 2, the house of Don was fecking creepy. Like, creepy enough that Brenda woulda loved the decor. The chairs groaned, but not like old chair or something, they were damn near literally groaning. Also, the dominating feature of the room was a snake eating its' own tail. Not strange in and of itself, but it's a motif I saw earlier when leaving Tremere Central Station. Time to do some searching on the meaning of this symbol, and hopefully I'll gain some insight from that later. For now, we're playing "Who Wants a Big Boon From An Assamite." Whoever brings me Tina, undead and unspoiled, wins.

Praise be, we can get out of here

One thing I still have to get used to is dreams. As a rule I dream less now, but the ones I remember are vivid. Currently, I'm having a lot of snake dreams. Vivid. Snake. Dreams. Seriously, I'm not even getting into symbolism, but that shit seems to be cropping up a lot. And it may be contagious, as the first question Cass asks when I wake up in the morning is along the lines of "what's up with the snake dreams, you never told there'd be dreams" or something. I mean really. Haven't even gotten a shower or a sniff of coffee. Also, I'm supposed to wake up earlier. Sure. I wake up when I wake up, and I do not have an alarm clock. That said, Andre is a saint. I like that man a lot. Seriously, I say coffee and 3 minutes later there's a steaming cup for me to sniff at while I take care of morning business.

Morning business is gathering information on the target snake. I call my assistant secretary of ungentlemanly electronic security (aka the hacker I hired a few years back) and tell him I got special project. I give him rough descriptions and permission to call in sick for a couple days while he does the thing, not to mention a decent bonus is offered for solid info. That done, we got time to prep for a meeting with a son of ether. A realization that I have a machine shop handy comes to mind, and I finally put it to use. A couple pipe bombs are made, because...well, seriously, there's no such thing as overkill when you're conversing with a guy who thinks "send 4 guys in a van to shoot them with a raygun" is an acceptable form of expressing your displeasure.

Email to Papi is also sent, mostly along the lines of 'We're having weird snake dreams. Dafuck.' And then we're out the door to a warehouse. But not just any warehouse, this is a warehouse I recognize from Highlander.

And me without my 1500 year old katana.

That said, we were met by Masika and Esteban, which is kind of interesting. What's Masikas' purpose here, other than to make me feel comfortable around the Tremere? On an academic sense, I can see it. On the other hand there's a definite feeling of they want me on the payroll. And not as an employee, either. Any points they had from Masika were lost by their "I can't find the bottom of a bottle cap with my fangs" overcompensation limo machine. I guess if you can go through life without your vehicle being chased, shot at, RPG'ed, and caltropped, it's a worthy investment. For me, though, I seem to be going through cars like kleenex. Andre, bless his heart, looked highly distressed about me going there without him. After gently advising him that he needed to stay by the car, just in case, we made our way into this warehouse of hollywood notquite creepy.

5 flights of stairs later, Masika seemed a bit distressed - maybe she doesn't know how to hit stairs in heels. A skill Cass picked up somewhere, but neither here nor there. And then we bid our Tremere friends adieu. Really weird how they put on that kind of ostentatious dog and pony show for my benefit. Maybe it's something like "look at how powerful and badass we are in all things". It's like they can't switch it off and be real. Another possibility is that this is how they are. Kinda frightening, but Masika still doesn't seem entirely comfortable with it. Maybe some time in Rio would do her good. But that's for later.

And so the meeting. There was some initial verbal dancing and discussing, but really it came down to a few things; where's Tina, whatchoo want from me, and why you want to keep living? Now the interesting thing here is that he's...old. And I think this may be a trait of the old, but they're set in their ways and can't really think outside the box they constructed for themselves.

Case in point; turns out our friend needs something from me. His daughter. How...quaint. Visual proof that Tina's alive and...well, strapped to a table wearing nothing a stainless steel ballgag. Apparently he's had a bad experience or three, so he couldn't just, y'know...ask politely. He had to hire a disposable gang to kidnap Tina so that he had leverage over me. Apparently his daughter has been in New Orleans, has been made undead, and has been there for awhile. So a trade is made. Tina has apparently spent this whole time strapped to said table, so I was able to get some minor comforts for her - conversation, not being strapped to goddamn gurney, books...hopefully he's nice enough to bring clothes. Seriously, Tina's still very bodyshy and this experience is going to be hideously traumatic. And in the midst of all this, tons of projecting on how we're all arrogant monsters, and so on. Really it got old after a minute. He's the one who thinks nothing of kidnapping, collateral damage up to and including the deaths of people whos' only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yeah, I'm the monster. Sure thing Captain Pretentious. Also, just to clarify, Cass made it absolutely clear that Rays' safe (from me anyway) only for the duration of the gig.

I had a little brain bramp when the time came to discuss compensation - admittedly my head was in another place, more on that later. After a brief confab with Cassandra - who says what she says and I like that - I managed to get my boon back from the Tremere, and sundry expenses in addition to the trade of childer. The really nice parts of this are that I got a nice little Wizards' Cellphone for secure communication, and my partner in New Orleans? Ray. And because I loves me some irony, the meeting was arranged for where Ray tried to kidnap me and Brenda lo those many years ago.

With that, that deal was done, and potentially expensive lesson avoided. Thank the gods for Cass at this point. As a total sidebar, I hope Brenda's expedition to Merry Olde is fruitful because I made the deal. Not her. Also, she's not made any guarantees as to Rays' safety. I really can't blame Brenda for anything she does, because she's her own person. But that's getting ahead of myself.

I had the regrettable task of letting Steven the deal was off. No harm no foul, but if Steven would like to contract the services, I know some guys. Ahem. That said, I'm doing a small favor for the Giovanni by helping them set up a little shop in Rio. Given the amount of undead and voodoo style dead, I'm not surprised. I'll help, but I'll also be informing the King of this. Nobody said I couldn't, and I'm only there to let them get a foothold. If they play hardball, I'm sure they'll be advised to find a better place.

So now, back to Rio for a few days to unwind and take care of mundane things. I still want that information from my Ungentlemanly one, because if Steven does want a contract, I need information to give the folks I have in mind.

Finally, the epiphany. Something Michel said stuck with me, and sent my brain into left field. Given that he's tight with Ray, wants his daughter back, and wants some disposable but skilled assets...it's quite possible that this was his endgame all along - I mean, from 5 years ago when we had the mysterious employer looking for paintings and an artist. It's quite possible the artist used his talent to get himself into the daughters' head and could track her or find her. After all, he and his child-turned-vampire are quite old, and 5 years really isn't that long. Is the sequencing of events right? possibly, but one solid thing is that Ray's never tried to kill us, only capture. (Once again, all he really had to do was ask nicely in the first place. And I'm the monster here? Really?) One other thing on my mind is what's in this for Ray. Note to self, see if Masika would like a vacation.

So in the end, couple suits trashed a few things done here and there, and now we have to go back to New Orleans. The child of Paris and new York that ate way too much wall candy. I'll need to go back and see I remember who I pissed off there and if 5 years really is sufficient time to let the little boogers forget. But I am not flying commercial again.

And now for something completely different.

Well, it's not the worst week ever. In fact it's been pleasantly uneventful. Seriously, it's been over a week since anyone's tried to kill me. I feel simultaneously bored and concerned - not to say I would welcome a squad of angry people at my doorstep who intend to do me violence, but perhaps it's simply a transitional period where I need to realign my expectations of what may or may not occur. Or it could be the Universe going "Take a breath, because next time we're going in dry." Either way I hope to be prepared.

Speaking of preparing, Cass is planning on remaining an active police officer. This is all well and good, but how precisely does one explain a three week unscheduled vacation? A working vacation, but still. Apparently she was working a Vice/Homicide case when she was breathing, involving, ehm...snuff porn.

You'll pardon me while I go boil my hands.

Briefly, more pleasantish matters. I took stock of the business, and it wasn't good. It could certainly be better, because I haven't really authorized too many people to do much. So...time to call in some suits to analyze business practices, identify opportunities and oh my god buzzword bingo. It was insane, but I needed to. We gotta get a little corporate if we're going to survive. To balance it out, we're doing a Christmas party at the house. So once I got home, corporate frustration broke out and Cass came home. Internal Affairs wants to know where she was absconded to. Now she had a few new bullet wounds and we had discussed potential career paths. She's on administrative leave and whoever she was questioning about her partners' disappearance was miffed - he confessed to her murder to stay in, which really is odd - I mean, seriously, who admits to copkilling to a cop in prison? That poor bastards' going to have broken something for the rest of his life. I was in a vaguely cranky mood, but 400 rounds downrange made me feel better. I need better ear protection - Auspex is a double edged kinda thing, really. Then I was in a mood to digitally analyze some of the things Cass didn't bring me. Subject matter aside, it wasn't digitally altered or enhanced, and really I couldn't come up with anything more. Not enough time for detailed information, but it's a start. We got a few leads to run down, but first it was time to be presentable.

It's going to take time to get Cass used to the Filthy Lucre lifestyle I've set up. I despaired of getting her to the shop for respectable clothes tonight - maybe once we hit New Orleans, we'll have something worthwhile. But, we had to meet the King and Court. Took a while to wait, but one doesn't budge in the Undead Receiving Line. I informed His Highness of the imminent arrival of the Giovanni, forgot to mention my part in it, and really the King took it in good stead -there was a crack about undead corpsefuckers which got a laugh from the assembled. Of course if you're the king, you can probably make fart jokes all day long and people would laugh like you're the second coming. Finally, I mentioned my upcoming trip to New Orleans, and offered a courtesy service - I mean really it'll be a little thing, but still, when it comes to boons, collect 'em. Cashing out a boon with the King might be a thing - possibly it could be influencing a reassignment later on for Cass or even confirming my community as domain. Having done that, I remembered I needed to email Pop about the whole thaumaturgical path thing - seriously, it's a whole new level of computer science, and I want in. And...no bars. Dafuq. Hell. Given that he was in India snoozing away the sun, it wasn't critical that I talk to him right then. But then to draw attention to Cass. Admitted her caitiffyness, which made the queen throw down a very courteous rude gesture. The King clucked and we did agree it was a sorrowful state of affairs - and pretty confirmed that it's my ass in the sling if she screws up. Meh. That was just making it official, to be honest. From there we were dismissed, and others were attended to. Circulating through the festivities, well let's be honest. Court scenes are pretty dull if you're not actively in the game, and right now I'm just a curiosity, not a player. Given that I'm not a toreador or a Lasombra, I'll probably never really be a player, and to be honest I'm okay with that. Being a player in the great game of the undead is - to my mind - boring. I mean there's so much more out there for me than the accumulation of favors. It's all really a means to an end, and that's "Leave me alone with my guns and computers."

But grooving forward, we met up with a Lasombra sorcerer who was able - for a small fee - to determine her lineage, and for a little bit extra, pointed us at his current location; an island not too far offshore. We left, because we still had things to investigate and I needed to give my business associate in the Yakuza a headsup as far as what Cass was investigating. As much as our businesses are both legit, the idea of looking at the totality of our financial dealings would give an entire room of financial investigators the mother of all hard-ons. An undesirable state of affairs, to be sure, because they'd be trying to shaft me for good n proper.

Moving to Cass' partners car - technically I wasn't supposed to be there, but understanding cops are understanding. A little auspex, and her partners' car needed an oil change, Cass' partner (Clara) likes Cass, has a boyfriend, and a rearing cobra motif is in my head. Also, one of the line guys forgot to fully secure a piece, but that's neither here nor there. As a side note, Auspex gives a weird thing. You almost have to be a mystic to make it all out. Chat with Cass about what I saw, and it's a gang called the Cobras Pretas. Whodathunkit. Put a pin in that and circle back to it tomorrow, because that's going to take planning. 3 people against a gang...blecch. I don't like those odds, even though they're stacked in our favor a little. To wind up the night we hit a beach party, where I showed her how to feed from the willing. Admittedly, I didn't bring my A game to the party, so I wound up being drunk and stoned on the way home. Cass has a weird aura when I'm lit. Just throwing that out there, do with it what you will.

So the next night, we meet Jurou at a nice restaurant. Dude has his own section, and the two shaven yaks were packing. Like they needed to. Seriously, they washed out of Sumo School for being overweight or something. Either way, the mountains parted with only a little bit of manboob jiggle (Again, I reiterate that having an advanced Auspex can be a double-edged sword) and we were seated pleasantly. Business was discussed; Jurou disavowed any knowledge or involvement, which was good, because I didn't want to keep Cass from executing him. An informal agreement was struck between businessmen, and then sake was imbibed to seal the deal.

Interestingly, the sake was drinkable. By me. Apparently it's blood sake, warmed and liberally pinked. Now that, that was awesome - mainly because I didn't have to hold it down. Cass needs to work on her poker face a bit. Note to self, take her to the casino. Supplemental. Get the freakin recipe, alter as needed for rum. I miss that stuff.

That done, off to court for a location. We got that, and of course the Lasombra couldn't resist twisting my shadow into a traditional stabby Assamite as I left. It was worth a chuckle or two, even though the whole...his methodology weirded me out. Boat rented and we went to a lighthouse. En route, emails were read and calls to Tunisia placed. One roundabout discussion later, and a local call was placed, and one more roundabout discussion later, meeting for tomorrow.

At the lighthouse, we were met by gentlemen who could be thoroughly unpleasant if they wanted to be. We were led to a room, where I proceeded to email Masika and Pop; Pop about the Technomancy path, Masika with an invite to come play in Rio at her convenience. Yes, Regent, the fish is taking your bait.

Eventually, there was conversation from below. I don't know really what happened, but the door opened a crack, and then it closed. I dunno what the fuck kind of hex got put on me, but that scares me. I think I got looped, hardcore. But apparently the ride was worth it, because Cass knows her sire, her clan, and we have a plan. I guess she likes him, because she's going back tomorrow night while I go attend to my own clan matters.

The most...disconcerting part of the night was on the ride back, when I finally broke down and admitted I'm from the future. Of course, Cass is a scifi nerd and had umpteen questions about things for me. I hedged and waffled a little, and deflected with humor in the midst of a horrific memory. Screams, voices, lives, all drenched in blood by my own hand. Souls that weren't mine but mine all the same, struggling to come out and assert themselves. Looking for monsters and realizing that I was looking in a mirror at the monster. Horrifically casual violence for a cause I believed in with every ounce of my being but understood about as well as a dog understands driving. All these and more, and nobody but myself to understand. But the reflection that was me is not me. And the Jyhad has something to do with this. Who threw me back, and why? What value do I have to them?

Who. Is pulling my strings.

Makin' Dents

After that period of self-reflection, the time came to get down to business. We still have a cop in need of (probable) rescue, and some bad person in need of a smacking. There was an odd moment when Cass asked what Setites were like, and I reflex-answered "Delicious...and they stay crunchy in milk." Although to be perfectly frank, there may have been a loooong delay because I remembered why they stay crunchy in milk. Every so often it's nice to have these memories bubble up - it's a reminder that I am the sum of my choices, and that I choose to be who I am.

That said, I had to choose a few things - I haven't gotten any reports back on the streamlining of the business, so I had to choose a gunsmith for a prototype run on the Mark 1 BanHammer. Todo - better name. Andre, is getting a little weird on me since New Orleans. He's getting like...militaristic. Did someone break him when I wasn't looking? Seriously, I only ranked up to PFC, and he calling me General and shit. That detail done, the idea of assaulting a setites' den by our onesies did not please me at all. A few moments of thinking reminded me of another thing on my to-do list. That whole...blood magic for computers thing. Called Eren, he always answers in a language I don't know. For some reason it's bothersome - I mean I'm not C3PO, but it's polite to be able to talk to someone in their native language. Fortunately, Haqims' kids speak Arabic for the most part. I requested a meeting of the clan while Cass went on recon.

Cass got back, and I let her know we'd be receiving, and I did have to foresight to warn her that our guests were not the cute and cuddly Assamites like me. Everyone walked in, and I'm pretty sure Cass was sizing them up as "What can I arrest them for". Once again, logic prevailed, and I laid out the details. Pretty sure there's a small favor in there somewhere for this, but also there is a sense of...duty there. I mean, don't get me wrong - I'm not exactly fighting on the side of the angels over here. But there's a difference between stepping in dogshit and resolving not to do it again, and cannonballing your ass into raw favela sewage before declaring it to be the best day ever and you gotta get some more of that.

But I digress (and foreshadow.) The meeting turned out with a pretty good plan, names and faces were put together, and a grand time was had. A discussion with Eren was needed while the Not Cuddly Assamites devised entrance plans. Eren hadn't heard of blood magic that could be used to control computers, but the clan would be interested. It's doubtful we're making progress on that this year, as Masika's not really the kind of girl that gets around much. I may have to aim in a different direction to get a techno-adept blood mage for the cause. Then Brenda called. She had a wickedass case of London Disease, and promised to pop round for tea shortly. She came in, and another round of introductions was...sort of in order. Eren was doing some mystic recon which consisted of him getting near-cataclysmically stoned and seeing with the eagles' eye. Pretty sure he was in fact high enough to see with the goddamn Hubbles' Eye. But, he gave us some good stuff- the place was an abandoned paper factory, and I asked if maybe we could go in from the smokestacks instead of the jungle. It was deemed a good idea by the Not Cuddly. That was awesome. Then Andre begged, I mean literally begged to come along. This is getting weird. Between Cass' freaky squickyness about feeding, Andre's clingyness, Brenda's...Brenda-ness, I swear I may be the only sane vampire here.

The next night was Christmas. Red Ryder BB guns for everyone. Okay, I haven't decided on a name for the line. They did set me back a little, I may have to go economy for a few weeks, but it's okay, I'll need to stress-test some of these prototypes. That said, mine was promptly named /dev/null. It's tradition. Cass got one, but nobody else was really down with it. Ah well. I guess some traditions dictate a personal touch. That said, initial tests were promising, and only one prototype was defective, in that it was jamming about every 20 rounds. I call bullshit.

Road trip to the favela in burner vehicles, and then up through an adjacent building. A digression on the favelas - trial and error is the building process, and these people are not what we generally call "structural engineers." Their main loadbearing materials are like, plywood, cardboard, and for the fancypants folks they probably use dead car parts. the walk would have been creepy except for the part where we were totally silent. Cass was duly impressed - I mean, cone of silence around everyone and everything we had was good. Then they set up a ballista and Cass was having a ooooh wow toys moment. I think. Or it was a "How the fuck did they stash a ballista in their gear?" moment. One or the other. Ballista fired and we all proceeded in silence.

A brief word about fear. Some fears are everpresent, like paranoia. Others are more situational, and you really don't realize you have them until confronted with them. Like right about now, as I was about to zipline across, my abject fucking terror of heights poked me on the shoulder and said "Hey, remember me?" I did at that, and hopefully nobody say my eyes get all uberwide. I would have asked who's fucking bright idea this was, except that 1) I was in a nice zone of silence and 2) it was my fucking bright idea. So the only thing left was to grab the goddamn zipline and go, not looking down and chanting the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear all the fucking way.

In worked in 1993, it worked now. And it was better than screaming like a little girl. Thank the gods, that part was over. And there weren't any sentries to stress about - our point lady rocked their worlds delightfully well. A little late to object, but they knew that our delicate sensibilities were that we didn't want any more deaths than was absolutely necessary. Oh, and then rappelling down. Fear of Heights, saying "but wait, there's more! Act now, you chickenshit!" The Litany Against Fear only sortaworked, as my rappel was less a rappel than a slowed fall. The landing smarted, and I'm pretty sure the rest of the clan was rolling their eyes inwardly at the vizier. Cass and I had a brief conversation, wherein I did cop to not liking heights. The next step was a little easier, simply cutting the door open with a mini propane cutter. Good times were had by all except the beast who had a momentary freakout. But I was a little determined to redeem myself after that shittastic rappel job. Welds broken and we pushed through - the thing vibrated with the strain, and if you ever needed Quietus that was the time.

Once out, we split up into teams; we basically were sweep, clear get the prisoners and get them out. The majority of the "guards" were eating and chilling the hell out. After all the silence, we decided to let them know that we were here with a knock. And our knocker was the ever popular M84 Flashbang in the middle of their table. They were stunned, and /dev/null was allowed to play. Beautiful shortrange on this, I took out a kneecap at 15 yards without even trying, and then the second one - I seriously did not mean to amputate his leg at the knee, but that's what happened. I admit that part of me was darkly amused at the sight of a leg just standing up perfectly, pants leg falling down, while the rest of the legs' owner was down on the ground trying to process just what had happened. Again, it may be a clan trait of macabre humor. Couldn't really tourniquet that, so the torch came out and field cauterization was done. Mercifully, Cap'n Pegleg passed out about the time the scent of his own burnt flesh hit. He was a squirmy one.

While I was doing this, I looked up to see one of the other warriors walking the cafeteria table like something out of Brazilian Ninja, and he was laying everyone out with a couple of Learning Sticks. I'm not embarrassed to say I paused a couple seconds to watch. The form and fluidity was like, y'know. What warriors aspire to be. Damn he good. So that done, there was looting and pillaging to do. Having found the editing room, I promptly went to work yanking hard drives. Quite nicely, until I heard a capacitor charging. That's never a good sound, I'm just saying. So bolting back to the other side of the office, and found Brenda and Cass in a life or unlife struggle with not one but two humangous beeg king cobras. Holy fuck but they were huge. Those things had to go, and so they did. The fucked up part was it was easier for us to lay out 15 guards than it was these two cobras. They were definitely ghouls, and I think Cass got a look at what her cat's going to be in a century or two. Side note, who the hell name's anything Hibby? I mean sure, Elway, Roy, Forsberg, TD? Definitely. But Hibby? Dafuq. Of course, massive Egypt motif and whatnot lent a certain surreal aspect to the scene. Once they were dead. I was contemplating something to desecrate the office when the hallway outside the office went kaboom. And the plans to draw a giant dick on the pyramids went out the window. Through and down to the jail. Keys were found, doors unlocked, and a dozen people in various stages of undress period costume stumbled out. Now for geting out. We hit through the Sets' little temple to his dark god oooo the sands of Egypt. Seriously, crunchy in milk. Never forget that. secret passage found, and here comes the foreshadowed part. We had to go through the sewers.

With the greatest skill in Auspex, I got to go first. 20 minutes with /dev/null over my head to keep it as far above the piss-n-shit-infested "waters" that were up to my goddamn chin. I couldn't not smell it if I tried, it was all up in my gear and my goatee. Fuck I hate Setites. I really really do. I really hate that Setite. Meanwhile, leading through everything and trying not to think about what I was going through...we got to a storm drain, which in turn led to the street. Van was acquired. Van was dropped off near the beach and showers and ocean and scrubbing was happening in an unholy rapid manner. There's not enough soap in the world for this. And the Nosferatu of this city have my begrudging admiration. Febreze the shit out of the Van, Cass was worried because she's technically not a cop/ So the happy campers were all dominated into remembering that we weren't there. So that took care of that little mess - I'm pretty sure I got about 18 different kinds of fungus in my toenails. To the hot tub for an extra long soak, and then to the Giovanni and finally back to Nawlins. Oh that's promising to be massive fun.