Status Updates From The Cainite Conspiracies (W...

He shook his head. “Every tale of Golconda says that feeding comes rarely, that blood is a taste to be enjoyed rather than a need to be sated, that the Beast no longer rules.” “What are you saying?” “I found the bodies,” Rothriel said grimly. “Drained of all blood, stacked like cordwood in a shallow pit. All of the monks of the abbey.”

The Tremere hunted in groups, sending their youngest childer ahead. Their elders followed behind, cowards at the rear of columns, waiting for the Salubri to fell themselves against shock troops. Weakened so the mantle of clan could be ripped from exhausted shoulders and the Blood ripped from a tired throat.

After Alienor left, I sat contemplating the plan. Elaheh wanted my power, wanted me dead, and planned to destabilize the city to gain that power. I could have just killed her, but her favor among the court stayed my hand against a public attack. She had too many powerful allies for such a bold move. Instead, I needed subtlety.

She gave a furtive glance and spoke quickly, “She won’t support destroying the Caliphate of the city. She believes it will destabilize the city, and that the Abbadid rule is necessary for vampiric survival.” I nearly let out a gasp. The bloodthirsty woman would go so far to secure rule in the city as to destroy the mortals in charge, destabilizing everything and likely throwing the city into a civil war.

She slew five of them for their effrontery, pausing only long enough to commend one of them for the quality of steel in his sword before decapitating him with it. After slaking her thirst on the fallen knights, Enkara offered the three blubbering survivors a choice: serve her and be gifted the blessings of her blood or die then and there.

She grew. Her muscles expanded and contracted rapidly, and she took a new form with a majestic coat of black fur. She felt talons grow from her fingers like knives thrust out of the bone, as long as her fingers again. She growled a guttural noise through gigantic teeth. She briefly wondered if this was what it felt to be Gangrel, not Malkavian as she knew so well.

Monçada calmly explained that the men were the servants of Satan, attempting to destroy him for learning the truth about Leandro Fuentes’ wicked ways. It was only through the grace of God that he was able to pick up a sword and fight his way out of his burning home. The priests never asked him why the throats of all the armed men were ripped out, or why none of them had any wounds from blades.

The heat of her faith prickled at his skin, and he felt like he was standing near a bonfire. Monçada closed his eyes and clasped his hands, as if in prayer, but he was marshaling all of his willpower. He had murdered men and women, destroyed other Cainites, and crossed many palms with thirty pieces of silver. God had damned his Dark Father, which meant that all Caine’s childer were part of God’s plan.

Monçada had known of Fuentes’ particular debauchery for some months now, ever since his spies uncovered the merchant’s vile feeding habits. Ever since Fuentes, member of the Amici Noctis, petitioned the Courts of Blood to reclaim the blood of Monçada’s childe, Lucita de Aragon. Lucita. The things I do for you, Monçada mused silently. And the things I do for myself.

The last bell of midnight faded as the woman spoke. “Forgive me, Most Reverend Father, but I have been tempted by one of the walking dead.” Archbishop Ambrosio Luis Monçada looked away from the confessional partition and wiped his hands on the edge of his fine robes — an old habit from his mortal days a century ago. The candlelight glittered off his rings as he hid a smile.

“Can you save her? You are bound to her, she-wolf. If she dies, you will perish again.” Or she might be free once more. Agnes looked landward, where she had seen woods and fields. Her keen otherworldly senses caught the scent of a human settlement in the darkness and mist ahead of them. Prey to hunt and earth to rest in when the hated sun arose, these were all the things that she should want.

She wiped her hand over her bloody mouth as she lurched around the room testing and prying at the walls and floor, trying to find her balance on two legs as the ship rocked around her. Perhaps the rats could give her more than their lives if she could follow them to an escape route.

As she strained to listen to the world outside, the image of the Tremere sorcerer Stephen Blackwood, Baron of Claremont, rose behind her closed lids and would not be dismissed. If Blackwood held the keys to her prison…a second, final death by any means other than his hands would be merciful. He would devise torments for her until the horrors of Amaranth would be a blessing of sorts.

“So you need an assassin.” “I am looking for a problem solver.” The Prince smiled as he drank deeply from another goblet. “One who knows where his loyalties lie.” An expendable one as well, Rodrigo suspected, not as glorious as a Ventrue, Brujah or even a Salubri warrior. “I will do what I can, my Lord,” he replied.

Until he slid wearily from his horse, Rodrigo’s feet had not touched the ground of his native Valencia for over a hundred years. The journey from Jerusalem had been long, and he had spent it encased in his armor as if it was an iron tomb. The summoning had been powerful to reach him as he travelled, and he wondered what was so important. It was his sword they wanted, no doubt.

This Laurent would serve, yes, as any other ghoul but he could not be completely trusted. His knack for perception and memory would be turned inside out, looped about, strung through with new threads like a piece of needlework until he became Bound to her. Isouda would see to it. He would become as useful to her, as civilized, as perfect, as one of her beloved cathedrals. He may, in time, supplant Sir Fulco entirely.

Though my retinue was weakened, I did not hesitate. I know they mine silver; perhaps they also have gold, or gems, even some relic of the first Christians here? Whatever riches they have secreted away, I will bring them to you, my Queen, my love, my blood-mother and blood-lover. With your favor, I will not falter. I have slain my share of monsters; it helps to be one.

The pack attacked near dawn. They must have known the sunrise would take me away, my retinue’s greatest strength removed from the chess-board. They nearly succeeded. Lupines are fearsome, but the silver was a terrific surprise to them. It bit them, and deeply.

Pity settled in upon the spies. Pity and loathing. These acts of cruelty weren’t the violence of a vicious revenant, but the disturbed actions of a vampire lost to a particularly agitated Beast. One of the Nosferatu, a Viking, said that his people called such things draugr, once vampires but that have become capable of little more than the same repetitive actions.