[Newcastle]

[13:58 am]

            Father Raymond stepped outside into the cold night and took a deep breath, his eyes wandering up towards the murky brown glow of Newcastle’s night sky. Between the smog and the light pollution from the city, there was not a star to be seen, and the moon was but a murky yellow stain behind the clouds. He closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled, trying to clear his mind. The exorcism had gone as well as he could have hoped. The demon had been banished from the young woman’s body, and sent back to the infernal place from which it had come. Her husband had expressed his relief and his gratitude to Father Raymond many times over before the priest had finally left; by the time he stepped out the front door, he could already hear the woman crying in anticipation of what was to come. What happened between those two was God’s jurisdiction of course, and not his; Father Raymond’s job was to fight that evil which lay outside the remit of human free will. He buttoned his coat, adjusted his priest’s collar and began to stride purposefully away down the empty, midnight street. Once out of earshot of the house where he had just left, he spoke aloud, as if to nobody in particular;

            “You can show yourself, vampire. I sensed your presence in that room.”

            A little way behind the man, a shadow detached itself from the walls of the terraced houses and coalesced together, solidifying into physical form. Ethereal shade became corporeal flesh, and a human figure now stood where there had been empty air. Alexander Gideon folded his arms and looked squarely at the priest. Father Raymond turned slowly on the spot, returning the Khaibit’s gaze. The priest was the one to break the silence, his voice indignant as he spoke;

            “The nerve of you...spying upon my work. I did not need your presence in the room to help me cast out that devil. How dare a creature like you intrude upon the working of God’s will?”

            Gideon’s reply was somewhat laconic, to the point of being insulting;

            “Of course I needed to be there. You can cast demons out, but I’m the one with the power to strike them down when they move as incorporeal spirits. Without me, it would have simply found a new host to infect.”

            “I can deal with any demon that cares to face me, vampire; your interference merely complicates things. Your kind is the spawn of darkness and I refuse whatever aid you offer me.”

            “Don’t flatter yourself, holy man; I’m not helping you. I was here because a demon needed to be destroyed, irrespective of your involvement.”

            The two men paused, and Gideon took a few steps towards the middle-aged priest. Father Raymond’s eyes narrowed, the wrinkles around them becoming more evident as he stared as his perpetually-young opponent. The vampire shook his head in something close to disappointment as he looked into the man’s eyes.

            “I’ve been watching you for a little while now, holy man. Don’t think for a moment I don’t know what you are.”

            “I am a dedicated servant of the Lord our God.” Now there was a tone of anger in the priest’s reply; Gideon’s voice dropped to a whisper;

            “Indeed you are. You lived such a pious life the first time around that after a few centuries in Heaven, Yahweh wrapped you up in a fresh new body and sent you back to continue the good work. Granted you a fraction of divine power to sweeten the deal. I bet you really could have dealt with that demon all by yourself...because when it comes down to it, you’re no less supernatural than I am.”

            Raymond’s eyes narrowed further; he could feel that holy wrath building up inside him, the burning, powerful righteousness that manifested itself when sinful things like this vampire dared to take him on. Resisting the urge to start a fight, the priest spoke slowly and solemnly to the undead thing;

            “I am nothing like you. You may have recognised what I am, but that makes me no less a servant of God. I lived my first life in service to Him, and He has required me to continue His work on this accursed, sinful earth. He has granted me power to act in ways that mere mortals cannot; I am His appointed Angel in this city and this world.”

            “Is that what you tell yourself every night, Father? Is that how you justify what you did tonight, knowing full well what is going to happen next? Yours isn’t the only god to send servants into this world.”

            “Your words, vampire, are the words of the Devil and I have no wish to hear them any longer.”

Turning away from Gideon, Father Raymond briskly strode away, walking in the direction of the main road and the bus-stop. Alex followed, refusing to let twice-born holy man escape his questions.

“What’s the matter, Father? Are you suddenly doubting that your work is truly God’s will?”

The priest stopped still, whirling back towards the approaching vampire, fury radiating from him as palpably as heat from a fire.

“I cast a demon out of a helpless woman! How can you accuse me of not doing God’s will? Do you think our Lord would have wanted that thing to remain in control of her?”

“I think your Lord has never exactly had benevolence among His many character traits, Father. I think your Lord is a monster and a liar, and only one being among many monsters and liars throughout history who have claimed divine omnipotence.”

“Blasphe-”

“Oh yes, of course my words must be blasphemy because you disagree with them!” Both priest and vampire were all but shouting at one another now.

“Do you ever stop to consider”, Gideon snarled; “that your many acts of righteousness perhaps ought to be prefixed with ‘self-’?”

Raymond looked ready to explode for an instant; instead, he gritted his teeth and took another deep breath. Then he spoke;

“What is it you want, vampire?”

The Khaibit’s demeanour suddenly calmed, his voice lowering as he replied;

“You knew the circumstances of that woman’s possession. Her husband was abusing her...it was almost killing her. She went looking for that demon, she summoned it up in order to protect her. What do you expect her loving husband will do now that – thanks to you – she no longer has the strength to stop him?”

The priest’s eyes shut for a moment, his mind now forced to confront that which he had been trying to ignore. When he spoke, his voice was slow and resolute;

“The marriage of that man and woman was sanctified by God’s holy law. It is His will that she remain his wife, no matter what. What happens between them is a matter of human free will. She took it further by calling upon that devil, and when I found out I had no choice but to step in and right the balance.”

Alexander’s expression became one of incredulity;

“That’s it? You’re just going to leave it as it is now that the demon has been removed from the equation? It’s a human purely evil now, so it’s no longer your concern? By Catholic law she cannot even divorce that bastard...so you’re content to damn her to what is now likely to be a very short and miserable life? You might as well have left the demon in her.”

“What good is keeping your life if you lose your soul?! But then, I can hardly expect a valid answer from a walking dead thing. You lost your soul to the vampire who murdered you. You would not know what I am talking about.”

Gideon felt his fangs bite down into his lower lip as the priest’s words roused his anger;

“It was not my Sire who murdered me, priest. I can scarcely believe how you can stand here and talk about the fate of souls as if what you did was somehow right or just. That man needs to be stopped, but you will do nothing.”

“I have carried out the task that God had set before me. What happens to that woman or her husband is His prerogative now, not my own. I will certainly not allow you to interfere, if that is what you are considering, nor will I be lectured in morality by a damned undead. I can see your soul, vampire, and I can see all the lives you have ended. Your higher self – if I could use such a description – is so perilously close to the Beast within you that your mind will doubtless find oblivion before too long. When that happens, rest assured I will be among the first to end your wretched existence.”

Father Raymond glared at Alex, his gaze imperious and uncompromising. It angered him that this creature, this undead leech who had been cast from the light and from the presence of God, would dare to argue morality with him. He, who had been chosen by God to return to earth to continue the good fight! The impertinence of this miserable vampire! The Khaibit stared back, cold madness creeping into his gaze.

“You speak as if you have the power to stop me, Father.”

The priest did not hesitate a second longer; his hand plunged into his coat pocket and emerged clutching a rosewood crucifix, which he flourished at his enemy as if it were a lethal weapon. Gideon snarled and leaped back, mad, irrational fear filling his mind as Father Raymond’s divine aura emanated from the cross. The Khaibit felt his control begin to slip, his darker, instinctual mind asserting itself over his reason...

As the priest closed the distance between them, the vampire’s hand shot out and grasped the crucifix without flinching. As the bloodsucker’s face turned back towards the priest, the fear in his eyes was replaced with cold, implacable evil. Andrei’s grip tightened upon the cross, white smoke rising from his fingers as his flesh smouldered beneath the touch of the holy symbol.

“This piece of wood does not scare me, Father.” The vampire gave a snarl as he crushed the wooden object to splinters within his hand. Black scars now covered his palm and fingers, but he did not seem to notice any pain. Father Raymond almost tripped as he tried to get away from this horrifying predator. Although the mouth which had spoken the bloodsucker’s words had once been human, the mind which now controlled it was not even close. The priest realised in a moment of terrifying revelation that what lurked within this particular vampire’s heart was no mindless Beast, but a cold and intelligent killer of truly superhuman resolve. Raymond barely had time to pray forgiveness for having failed his Lord before Andrei placed one hand beneath the priest’s chin and shoved upwards, snapping his neck like a twig.

The vampire stepped back, watching the priest’s divinely-created body dissolve into white light. He regretted for a moment that there would be no corpse for friends or loved ones to find and despair for. But then, if gods were in the habit of sending their dead followers back to earth...well, better to send them straight back. Even with all his inane moralising and rationales, Alexander had never been too fond of the idea of divine intervention, and Andrei positively detested the notion. For once, the monster found itself on a point of agreement with its delusional, duty-bound higher self. Still, there was bound to be an hour or two left of the night before Gideon managed to wrestle control of his body back from his inner predator, and in the mean time there was an unhappy husband and wife who needed to be put out of their misery...

The Cold Ones

A Vampire: the Requiem Short Story

[World War II Bunker]

[Morpeth]

[4:32 am]

In another world, Alexander Gideon had owned this place. Well, he had owned it in part, but

since his fellow investor had fucked things up badly enough that the rest of the Circle of the Crone in the North East were out to destroy him on sight, Gideon figured that his contribution no longer counted quite as much as it once had. In this world, however, none of it counted for anything. This was just another nearly-forgotten relic of the bloodiest conflict in human history, occasionally overseen by the National Trust or English Heritage or whatever charity or body of government was tasked with keeping check of such things in this version of reality. Right now, Gideon didn’t care who claimed ownership of this derelict ruin. He had found that the layout was exactly the same as the building which mere months ago he had dedicated to Set and the Crone, in the hopes that the religious observances of his Covenant would provide something to keep him tethered to sanity as the inner Beast made its presence increasingly felt upon his mind. Finding his way down here in the dark wasn’t all that difficult for the vampire, even with his stinking, drugged cargo being dragged behind him. What he was more afraid of was what tonight’s little exercise would tell him about himself. Casually, he shoved the heap of rags which contained a still-living body into the centre of the room, before retrieving a flashlight from within his long coat, powering it up and setting it down close to the captive. This was the lowest level of the bunker, the area which even the most dedicated National Trust wardens would seldom visit. In its heyday, this had been an ammunition dump; now, it was just a concrete cavern with the lingering smell of gunpowder and motor oil, and sweat and tears and blood...

The captive gave a grunt and rolled onto its front, arms scrambling for purchase on the

concrete floor as the creature sought its bearings. For a moment it looked as though it were about to vomit, but nothing came forth even as the figure wretched. Finally, the thing half-shuffled, half-rolled into a sitting position, finding its efforts to stand hampered by the heavy chains which had been wrapped around its arms and ankles. The realisation was followed by mumbling and swearing, and as the captive looked around for any way out of the situation, his hood fell away to reveal that he at least bore the shape of a human, albeit a none-too-impressive example of the species. The man was clearly a long-time homeless, with a wild, grey-brown beard and unkempt hair. He carried the stink of grime and cheap alcohol about him, and there was no questioning the pitiful role he held in the eyes of human society. Despite this, there was a cold, yellow hunger in the man’s eyes which could not help but look down upon others as mere prey animals.

The circle of light from the torch was the only illumination to be found in the room, and all that

it did illuminate was the mouldering concrete of the floor. Once again, the captive attempted to stand, but his drugged metabolism did not seem willing to lend his muscles the strength to resist the chains. Suddenly, the man’s nostrils flared as he sensed an approaching Beast; where there had been silence, there were now footsteps on the concrete floor; there was now a being where there had only been shadows.

“I’m sorry I drugged your drink” came a well-spoken, but terribly aloof voice from somewhere

in the darkness; “but I didn’t think you’d come down here under force of persuasion alone.”

The source of the voice stepped just close enough to illuminate his silhouette against the

flickering torchlight; a man of fairly average build, not particularly tall or distinctive, dressed in a long cashmere coat, with the glint of a steel blade at his belt.

“My name’s Alexander Gideon” the voice said; “and I imagine your senses have already

proven sufficient to tell you what I am.”

The captive blinked through the greyish haze that blurred his vision, trying to get his eyesight

to adjust to the dark. After a few moments he began to see, far more clearly than any mere human could. He opened his mouth to speak and instead found himself choking up a deep, hacking cough, one that made his lungs burn in the same way his throat did after a good shot of whiskey. He gave it a few moments to clear his throat, during which time the vampire said nothing. When he finally spoke, his voice was dark, rasping and guttural;

“I don’t give a fuck what you are, bloodsucker. I don’t know why you fucking kidnapped me,

but if you think you know anything about me, then I’ll ask you why it is you’re off your fucking head!”

The Khaibit cocked his head to one side, surveying his captive with detached interest. He left

it a little while longer than necessary before replying;

“I’ll tell you what I know about you, shall I? I know that a Beast lurks within you, because my

own can sense it, and is just looking for a fight. I know that your aura is bright, vibrant with the energy of life. This is usually an indicator of a shape-shifter such as a Werewolf, but you don’t smell like either breed of Werewolf that I have ever encountered. You don’t act like a Spirit-possessed, nor do you have that resonance about you that most demons do. That, and I can hear your heartbeat; it’s slow, dead slow, even, beating only a couple of times a minute...and your rate of breathing is similar.

This raises the question of what you are; I would wager you’re a shape-shifter of some

variety...stories get around of skin-changers whose bestial forms are those of anything but wolves, after all...and I certainly don’t believe your inner Beast is a wolf. In fact, I don’t even think it’s a mammal. So would you like to tell me what you are?”

The captive gave another hacking cough, though this one didn’t last as long.

“Why the fuck am I obliged to tell you what I fucking well am? I’m wondering why the fuck I

don’t just rip these chains off and garrotte your head from your shoulders with them, YOU STINKING FUCKING LEECH...”

Gideon gave an unnecessary sigh, and began to slowly circle the kneeling captive. No smile

touched his lips, even as he watched the wretched man struggle;

“Well for one thing, I’d wager that I’m stronger than you are, and I made sure that even I

couldn’t break those chains. For two, I promise I will release you – and let you pursue whatever ends you wish – as soon as you’ve told me everything about your true nature. For three, I know that you’ve been looking for a long time for someone to whom you can confide; I’ve looked into your eyes, right into your psyche in fact, and I know that you despise what has become of you. Somewhere in your genetic memory is the knowledge that the filthy life you live now is but the palest shadow of what you ought to be, and I know that the knowledge of your true place is locked up inside that head of yours, so why don’t you just tell me?”

The captive’s eyes met those of the vampire, and a look of predatory hatred passed between

the two of them; something in that look echoed back to the times long before cities and civilisations, to the time of the quick and the dead, the predator and the prey. These were two predators, and one way or another, a battle for dominance was going to happen tonight. Slowly, the captive began to speak;

“I...remember; I remember things that happened long before I was born. I remember my

people’s old name...they called us the Cold Kings, once. I feel it in the back of my head, I know that we reigned in the aeons before furry-arsed warm-bloods like the werewolves or the humans had dragged themselves out of the dirt. We were the first of the shape-changers, the great reptiles who learned to walk on two legs and to speak and write and build.”

Alexander nodded as the old man spoke, letting the story tell itself. As the captive continued,

his voice lost some of its alcohol-induced gravel, instead taking on a primal undertone which reached into the mind at an instinctual level.

“Then the time of the Cold People passed. The great reptiles died out, and with them so did

our original forms. The legends say that when we no longer had our great kin to show us our true

selves, we crawled into the swamps and hid, and we’ve been hiding ever since.”

The old man stopped, and Gideon watched him draw a slow breath; the captive’s metabolism

must have been achingly slow, but then, he was claiming to be kin to some pretty primitive reptiles. This time, it was the vampire who broke the silence;

“So, these Cold Kings of which you speak...you first arose when dinosaurs walked the Earth?”

“That’s what my head remembers” the old man growled; “and that’s what my guts and my

soul still tell me now.”

“So your original bipedal forms couldn’t have resembled humans very much at all, then? How

curious...what happened after the K-T extinction?”

“Like I said, we hid. We found other races to breed with; eventually, we settled on humans. It

seemed like our birth-forms were heading towards humans anyway. Once there was cities, we

started hiding in them. Most of us forgot what we were, didn’t understand it when the First Change happened. A few of the old families kept the histories alive. Most of us are pissed the whole time anyway, so when we do Change it’s the whiskey-fire in our bellies that wakes us up to it. My people have changed in themselves, though; we all have. The Cold Kings are dead and buried, vampire. What’s left are people like me...just one more whiskey-croc.”

The Khaibit stared down at the drunken old man; where once he would have felt pity, the

captive’s words were now as emotionally moving to him as the list of ingredients on a shampoo bottle. He did feel somewhat more sorry for what was about to happen next, however.

“Thank you very much for your time...I can honestly say your information is of tremendous

academic value to me, and I’m sure that in the future it will make an appearance in one of my papers. Still, there is another function I need you to fulfil, and for this I do have to apologise.”

Gideon stepped forward, now becoming fully illuminated by the torch-beam. His already pale

features looked nothing short of waxen in the yellow, artificial light. Carefully, he produced a small key from within his coat and knelt down, facing the old man. He quickly inserted it into the padlock holding the chains in place, and twisted once. There was a click of metal as the locking mechanism came loose. The vampire stood, and took a single step backwards, his right hand moving to the gleaming machete at his belt. The captive stood, that yellow fury now boiling up in his reptilian eyes. A snarl broke through his lips, and Alexander noticed that the man’s teeth were now sharp, white and pointed. In the space of seconds the captive’s body twisted into something horrific, his mammalian hair falling away as alligator’s jaws now protruded from what had been a human face. Scales grew out of gnarled skin, and fingernails lengthened into the sharp claws of an ancient reptile. Fully transformed, the thing stood close to ten feet tall, and the long, muscular tail protruding from the beast’s hind quarters made the creature close to sixteen feet long. Beneath the torn and ragged mass of clothing, the body looked like an alligator’s form painfully imposed upon a human anatomy; a twisted hybrid of man and crocodilian that should never have been allowed to exist. As the Rage filled its eyes, the whiskey-croc roared its challenge.

The vampire unsheathed the machete and pointed the blade like that of a gladius as his

opponent advanced.

“You’ve told me what it is you are” the Khaibit said aloud; “and now you’re going to help me

find out who I really am.”

The alligator-beast lunged forward, snapping with its tooth-filled jaws at the one who had

dared to drug and kidnap it. The bloodsucker ducked beneath the attack, sweeping past the bulk of the creature and slamming the hilt of the machete down into its back in an immensely powerful blow. The beast stumbled as the strength of the hit took it by surprise, and it rounded upon its captor with jaws open for the counter-attack. The vampire was standing there, eyes closed as if in pain; a mental struggle far swifter, but no less fierce, than the impending physical battle was taking place as Alexander Gideon’s inner demon asserted itself.

Suddenly in control, Andrei raised his head to stare at the reptile-beast, predatory ferocity now blazing in his eyes. Vampiric fangs lengthened to their fullest, he laughed at the oncoming crocodilian;

“Let’s play.”

The underground bar now lay all but silent, apart from the steady dripping of liberated fluids. Nicodemus sat huddled behind a makeshift barricade of overturned tables, hoping like hell that the invader wouldn’t care to look for him.

Being one of the few mortals in Newcastle who was really aware of what went on in the city after dark, he was no stranger to dealing with dangerous and fearsome situations. This, however…that creature had simply stepped out of nowhere and slaughtered everyone in sight. The creatures who frequented this place were by no means weaklings, even if they were among the lower of the city’s supernaturals, but the strength, the terrifying fury of their attacker…Nicodemus scarcely believed what he had seen; and to think, he used to think that no vampire would be fool enough to try and take this place by force.

The footsteps had been gone now for several minutes; only the dripping of spilled blood disturbed the quiet. Trembling, knuckles white with terror as they gripped the edge of the barricade, Nicodemus dared to peer over the top and survey his surroundings. Nothing…the bar was empty save for the dismembered corpses of its former denizens. Feeling somewhat more confident, the young man struggled to his knees.

A sudden cold breeze enveloped his skin, followed by a miasma of smoky blackness that washed over his body, blinding his senses. Nicodemus screamed aloud and turned wildly, hands groping out for an exit…then his screams stopped as a hand clamped down upon his throat with gin-trap force. Terribly aware of his own powerlessness, Nicodemus could only try and blink his vision back into focus as he felt himself hoisted bodily from the ground by the cold fingers which held him. As he forced his eyes open, the darkness seemed to have suddenly abated, and instead there was only a human figure, standing there in a torn suit which had seen better days and a battered leather trench-coat that was now spattered with blood. The vampire’s skin was deathly pale in the dim light, and his eyes betrayed a horrible, predatory psychosis that viewed all other beings as inconsequential things. Smiling through his lengthened fangs, the Khaibit spoke aloud;

“Evening there; the name’s Andrei, and you’re going to help me. You see, I don’t come from this world. Reality has shifted from the Newcastle I lived in. I liked it there, you see; I had so much to keep me amused. You’re going to use your knowledge of the local ghosties and ghoulies to help me get all of that power back, and so long as you don’t piss me off, I’ll make your death a quick one. Deal?”

(OOC: some of you reading this may be aware that Newcastle Requiem left the Camarilla UK not so long ago. Thanks to some expedient dealings on the part of our DST, we got to keep the characters we were playing if we so chose, rather than surrendering our intellectual property. We did however get the chance to shift some stats around on those characters, and with the recent reality shift that has occurred in Newcastle – and yes, there was an IC Mage-style reality shift – Alexander Gideon’s already tortured mind has finally began to splinter. He has developed dissociative identity disorder, otherwise known as multiple personalities. The newly-emerged dominant personality is a self-supremacist psychopath named Andrei who is determined to cut off Gideon from all his former sources of “weakness”, mainly being his considerable affection for his now completely-missing Sire, who was left behind in the CamUK-reality version of Newcastle. Over the course of his Unlife Alexander Gideon has fought demons out of a sense of duty and heritage, choosing to uphold the ancient burdens of his shadowy Bloodline. Andrei’s motivations for killing monsters are somewhat less noble; in his eyes the world belongs to him, and the only reason to fight those amateurs is to prevent them muscling in on his Apocalypse. Neither Gideon nor Andrei have achieved complete dominance of their shared mind yet, however, and next few months look set for another interesting (and probably horrifying) spate of character development. Welcome to the new order.)

Excerpt from Alexander Gideon's Treatise on Cryptofauna

The Werewolves, or Lupines as our kind have referred to them for as long as any can remember, have always been something of an enigma to us. Are they our fellow predators, our sworn enemies, reluctant allies, or any and all of those? While accounts may vary, I think the only honest truth to emerge from our kind's stories of these beasts is that they are as individual as we are.

Regardless of whatever ideologies the Lupines may choose to follow with regards to our species or any other creatures that share the night with us, there is at least sufficient evidence available to our kind to form a biological definition of a werewolf; i.e. a creature which is for all appearences human, but is capable of transforming itself into one or more variants of a wolf-like form. My own studies have brought me into contact with numerous "supernatural" organisms over the course of my Requiem, and I have always been on the lookout for signs of evolutionary relationships between different cryptid species. An observation which I made some time ago was of the numerous differences between Werewolves and those unfortunate humans who have undergone long-term possession by an extradimensional therianthrope (a Spirit which alters the physical form of its host). A Spirit, when given sufficient time, can alter a human host beyond any semblance of its original form, resulting in a creature whose shape reflects the nature of the possessing entity. Certain forms of Spirit-possessed retain the ability to alternate between their assumed characteristics and the original human shape they inhabit. For reasons unknown to me, it seems that Spirits whose nature is akin to spiders and rats respectively seem to be the most adept at this.

The common breed of werewolf in the Northern hemisphere (Lycanthropus venatus) posses the ability to alternate their shape between four different forms that I have seen personally, though secondary sources have assured me that they can assume a fifth form. To my first-hand knowledge, a werewolf is capable of presenting itself in the form of a human (Homo sapiens), a wolf (Canis lupus), a larger and more ferocious variant similar to a prehistoric dire wolf (Canis dirus) and most famously, the gigantic man-wolf form which stands between 8 and 10 feet in height, and possesses tremendous physical capability. A secondary source has told me that common werewolves are also capable of assuming a man-like form which stands roughly 7 feet tall and possesses increased physical strength and body hair. While I have never encountered this form in person, I cannot discount the possibility of its existence.

A second breed of werewolf that I have only encountered in South America (Lycanthropus lobos) seems to be capable of alternating between only two forms; that of a human and that of a large, aggressive Argentinian Maned Wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus). I might go so far as to suggest that the South American L. lobos is a less-evolved cousin of the northern L. venatus.

So given the evidence available, what can we deduce about the nature of the werewolf? I have been assured by family members of a werewolf of the L. lobos strain, that L. lobos are born into their nature from birth, even though their parents are human. Superstition holds that a "Lobison" (the colloquial term for this species) will be born as the seventh son of a family which suffers its curse. I have thuse far had little opportunity to study the procreation of L. venatus, but in lieu of contradicting evidence I can only assume that the more common breed of werewolf also is born of sexual reproduction. This runs counterpoint to the similarities I suggested earlier with Spirit-possession, since under most circumstances extradimensionals very definitely take over an independant human host, rather than being born into one. In such instances, the possessing entity also subsumes the victim's mind, ultimately using the body as a puppet for its own ends. Werewolves of the L. venatus strain appear to be capable (at least at times) of rational, human-like behaviour that does not fit the usual patterns for spiritually-controlled individuals. Even the more savage L. lobos is in possession of a fundamentally human intellect while it maintains human form.

This more controlled, more temporary alteration of the body of the mind would imply that the human part of the werewolf holds a far greater degree of dominace over the spirit-mind than is usually the case with possession. This has lead me to formulate a hypothesis: that werewolves are the result of an evolutionary alteration in the nature of certain spirits and their interactions with physical beings. It is not difficult for one to compare a possessing spirit to a parasite, using its host to facilitate its own physical existence. The most successful parasites on our planet are viruses, and the retroviruses (those which embed themselves in the genome of the host so that they can never be "cured") have been referred to by some as the "ultimate parasites". Endogenous retroviruses are those which have successfully integrated their genome into the germ (reproductive) line of the host organism, ensuring that when the host reproduces, the viral genes are carried into the offspring along with the host's DNA. The endogenous virus does not replicate, nor does it destroy its host's body cells, and has essentially rendered itself dormant; in return, the virus has ensured that its genes will endure as long as the host species endures. A significant proportion of the human genome is made up of viral sequences which have existed since well before H. sapiens evolved. I would hypothesise that werewolves are the spiritual equivalent of an endogenous retrovirus. They are the result of a spirit of wolf-like nature which at some point in history has possessed a human body, then surrendered much of the control that a spirit would normally have over its host, in order to ensure that the spirit's characteristics are inherited by the host's children. Since spirits are bound by any number of obscure clauses and rules, the "seventh son" superstition of L. lobos could simply be the manifestation of the progenitor spirit's nature. Similarly, the "lycanthropic bite" of western werewolf mythology may also be an evolutionary relic of the spirit which progenated L. venatus, and that those who are infected must received the bite in order to awaken the spirit-part of their being...continues

So, it appears that Newcastle was far from uneventful in my absence this past two months. I can't say I'm honestly surprised, but then my trip to the Middle East has also been not without its benefits. The business of channeling souls is esoteric stuff even by the standards of most competant occultists. Taking the essence of a sentient creature's being and moving it around or altering it is an obscure and difficult thing to do, and is liable to attract all sorts of otherworldly attentions. Ghosts are relatively easy to deal with...souls which still have bodies anchoring them to this world are significantly more complicated.

Which I think is why it has taken me two months just to find a lead which was already right under my nose. A Kindred researcher who has recently stationed herself in Newcastle, one Eleanor DeVries, seems to be my best bet for locating Nephira's missing soul and hopefully returning it to her body. I have plenty occult knowledge of my own to bargain with, and this would be a simple exchange of services except that Ms DeVries has managed to attract the negative attentions of Newcastle's Ordo Dracul (apparently the building she claims as her Haven originally belonged to an elder of the Ordo named Dr Benjamin Hardy, who has recently awoken from Torpor). With any luck, I'll get the chance to extract the information I need before that maniac Vickram Seth dusts her.

Then there's the more immediate troubles with Newcastle's Kindred as a whole. We have conflicting biker gangs in the Whitley Bay area trying to bargain for our support in their turf war, and frankly the less my city has to do with them the better. Then there's the business of Praxis (yet again!). Seems that last month in my absence Newcastle's resident Kindred computer genius, Droid, decided that our respect for the Masquerade was not sufficient in light of the city's extensive CCTV network. His bright idea? Use his influences among the local police to have Elysium surrounded by multiple SWAT teams and attempt to dictate how things were going to be run. Since the now former Prince Ifficer Laycon was not present at the gathering either (and I really don't know why), he ended up loosing his Praxis to Madeline Fuller. Fucking Kindred...these lot say they want a Prince, but what they need is a Baby Sitter. Anyhow, Maddie claims that she was managing to negotiate a deal with Droid, when Seth walked in and ripped his head off. Droid was going to have to be removed from the picture anyway, but I can sympathise when certain members of the Court say that it should have been done quietly and after he had trained someone else to monitor the CCTV.

So that's one more issue for us to deal with. Couple that with the "vanishing killer" illusionist who is emulating a series of 100-year-old murders which last time around culminated in a dynamite factory being blown up, and the lingering legacy of the Newcastle Dragon, and it looks like it's going to be a busy month for me. That, and a report made the newspapers of security footage showing huge beasts ripping apart cars. Looks like our friendly Lupine brethren are being a tad careless in their endeavours...I'm going to have to speak to them and make sure they don't step on our toes. It's not our job to clear up their Masquerade-breaching messes after all.

Oh, and last but not least I'm told there are hunters in town. If any of you are reading this, do yourselves a favour and stay the hell out of my city.

[Penthouse apartment, the Milk Market]

[Newcastle-upon-Tyne]

[10:30pm, March 2008]

“I don’t have time for your insolence, Vampire.”

The would-be magus glared at Gideon through his spectacles, book in one hand and sacrificial knife in the other. The Khaibit sighed and returned the stare, his dead eyes seeing not a wise and dangerous master of the occult, but rather an overweight and bumbling amateur.

            “Can’t you see I’m on the phone, you stupid fuck?”

            The sorcerer all but choked on his reply, unsure what to say to this overgrown leech who dared to treat him as some kind of inferior. Seeing the man’s face turning red, Alexander hurriedly finished his conversation.

            “Sorry Abdul, give me a few minutes and I’ll call you back”.

            The vampire turned towards his client and rose from his chair, looking towards the ritual area that had been prepared. The inverse-pentagram had been drawn out in goat’s blood on the kitchen floor, as suggested. A second goat had been prepared for the sacrifice itself. Symbols had been etched out around the pentagram, drawn in soot mixed with water, also as suggested. Finally, a binding circle of pure sea-salt had been poured around the main ritual focus. For a novice at sorcery, this man could certainly follow instructions…it was just whose instructions he was following which had Gideon concerned. He turned back towards the man;

            “So, Mister Henderson, you’ve never actually attempted a summoning of this kind before?”

            “Well…well no, not per se; but I am very familiar with the relevant texts, and I am aware of the ritual theory. You were identified to me as the man with the experience, shall we say, and I am paying you very well to do your job and ensure that this goes smoothly. Speaking of which, are you sure that a human sacrifice is not necessary?”

            “I’m quite certain, believe me.”

            This time, Alexander only sighed on the inside; this bloated megalomaniac who had hired him was heading for disaster, and while a year ago the vampire would have gone out of his way to stop this kind of thing, right now he simply didn’t care. If pressed, Gideon would probably admit that there were maybe two things left in the world that he did care about; one of them was keeping Newcastle a liveable place for Kindred…the other was held in a secure room at his haven, where nobody could get to her in her vulnerable state.

            “Look, Mister Henderson, I know you’re feeling a good deal of resentment about what happened, but summoning a demon to assassinate someone is a hell of a step to take. For one thing, it’s exceptionally risky to you as well as the target-”

            “No, I won’t hear this!” the man burst out; “I hired a ritual consultant, not a bloody psychologist! That woman ruined me with her bloody divorce lawyers and I will not see her living it up on my account!”

            The Khaibit glanced around the room, taking in the opulence of this luxury apartment. Yeah, some ruination, he thought.

            “Fair enough, the ritual site is ready; you have the goat prepared for sacrifice, you need to plunge the knife into the heart or throat at the climax of the incantation.”

            “Right then…well, let’s get started.”

            Holding the leather-bound tome aloft, Henderson began to chant aloud the guttural syllables listed therein. The language was some archaic precursor to Latin, and the vampire was very curious about where a man who appeared to be such an amateur at the occult had gotten what was clearly a very rare tome. Then again, Gideon imagined that with enough money just about any problem could be made to go away…except maybe an ex-wife with a very good lawyer. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if the guy had just decided to hire a hit-man, but no; he had decided that he wanted his ex-wife’s death to be untraceable by modern forensics, and that meant bringing in a demon. It was making sure that the demon obeyed its orders which had given Henderson the impetus to hire this particular vampiric consultant. It seemed that when you moved in certain circles, the definition of “secret” became a very malleable thing indeed…so much for the masquerade, among other things.

            The chant continued, and Gideon found himself searching his pockets for a cigarette. He had never gotten the same rush out of nicotine since he died, of course; he considered it something of a cruel joke that now that he was immune to any and all mortal diseases, he had also lost just about all pleasure in the vices which resulted in them. He could smoke all he liked and never get cancer, but tobacco just didn’t do anything for him now. He could drink himself into a stupor and never suffer hangovers, or liver cirrhosis, but the only way he could get drunk was by feeding on someone who was themselves drunk, and that brought all the usual difficulties associated with drinking the blood of the living; and as for sex…

            The Khaibit suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his neck prick up; the sense wasn’t entirely definable in mortal terms, but he could feel it all the same; magic was flowing in the room, energies shifting, and his heightened senses could feel it happening around him. Soon, the barrier between this word and some astral hell dimension were about to be breached. Sadly, Gideon didn’t think that his client was quite as attuned as he was. The man was sweating heavily now, still forging ahead with the incantation, stumbling over the occasional syllable but making a commendable effort, even if he was unaware of what was really going on around him.

            In the centre of the focus, at the apex of the now-shimmering occult symbols, an effect not unlike heat haze began to appear. As the incantation reached its zenith and the sound of a dagger blade slicing deep into the sacrificial animal’s flesh filled the room, the air warped and shifted, twisting and folding in upon itself as the fabric of space and time was forcibly opened. Finally, there was a crackling of what could be mistaken for electricity, and a black gash tore itself into the room; a rudimentary portal between worlds. From within, a flickering presence emerged, growing clearer and more solid as it did so; a suggestion of horns, wings and talons, a ferocious face like something out of Lovecraft’s nightmares, and the sound of iron hooves upon the kitchen linoleum. Around this phantasmal apparition, there was the feeling that reality somehow stretched, and then re-condensed into more or less its original shape. The tear in space-time, dancing like a stygian flame, shrank away and sealed up until all that remained was the kitchen backdrop. There was also the faint smell of sulphur in the air. Of the apparition’s original shape there was no sign; the creature had taken on a human form, that of a 6 foot tall, well muscled man in a midnight black suit, bald-headed and intimidating, a single silver earring marking his left ear.

            Henderson looked amazed; his jaw dropped in gobsmacked awe of his achievement, and the now-dead goat he had been supporting with one hand slumped to the ground. He stared at the thing he had brought into this world, though his eyes narrowed for a moment as he looked at the creature standing in the binding circle. Muttering to himself for a few puzzled moments, he turned towards the vampire and stuttered;

            “Is this right? I mean, should it look so…human?”

            “The variant of the ritual used causes the summoned entity to take on the most natural appearance it can relative to the dimension it is in. So yes, it should look human.”

            The Khaibit glanced towards the demon, which took a step towards the edge of the circle, snarling and raising one arm aggressively. There was another shimmer in the air, the silhouette of a translucent wall around the circle, and the demon’s hand was forcibly repelled from where it reached. Henderson’s face lit up in a maniacal grin as he realised that the binding circle had worked – he had the demon confined, obliged to do as he told it or face eternal imprisonment! Excitedly, the amateur sorcerer turned towards Alexander;

            “So, is that it? I’ve got the thing here, now I just give it orders?”

            “Not orders exactly…you have to strike a deal with it. You have to get it to agree to the terms you want, and then once it has given you its word, you release it from the circle. Right now, it can exist indefinitely in that space; as soon as you break the circle to unleash it, the magic which holds it hear will begin to fade. The demon should be able to maintain its existence on this plan long enough to do one job, then it will return to its own world.”

            “Ah right, I see. Well, surely I can just tell it to do as I say or I’ll leave it where it is forever?”

            There was another snarl from the man-shaped creature in the circle, who spoke in a deep and hate-filled voice that seemed to somehow echo into eternity.

            “I’m standing right here, little thing! Deal with me face to face if you summoned me!”

            Gideon shrugged, and continued;

            “Fortunately, you summoned a solider demon, which means big on the smash and stomp, but not very shrewd at negotiating. Under normal circumstances, you should be able to come to some simple, fairly manageable terms.”

            “Oh good…what do you mean by ‘normal circumstances’? Would these circumstances not be normal?” There was a hint of worry in the man’s voice; the demon’s outburst had clearly shaken him.

            “Well, they would be, except for the fact you summoned this thing to kill an innocent over a petty grudge. You’ve expressed an unflinching willingness to perform human sacrifice just to get back at your ex-wife and I am sorry Mr Henderson, but being human just isn’t enough to let some monsters off the hook.”

            The man once again found himself choking on his own words; before he could act, the vampire placed one foot upon the sacrificial goat and kicked the corpse towards the waiting demon, sending it skidding right across the binding circle. The demon glanced down towards the broken confinement, and then stared straight towards Henderson with a look of gleeful sadism. The mortal’s eyes widened in abject horror, and both book and dagger dropped from his hands as his fingers turned to butter.

            The Khaibit looked from the demon to the sorcerer, and quickly bent down to retrieve the tome of summoning from the floor. Without further hesitation, Gideon strode from the room, as the demon rounded in on its would-be master. The vampire closed the apartment door just as the blood-curdling screams began. He had better things to worry about that what one murderer was doing to another. Retrieving his mobile phone, he quickly hit the speed dial key for his prior contact;

            “Ah, Abdul, hello again…so you mentioned you might know someone with a little skill at locating a detached soul?”

Stasya’s Embrace

A Vampire: the Requiem short story

[Monrovia, capital of Liberia]

[West Africa]

[July 2004]

Maybe in their own way all countries were the same, but Monrovia really was like being on a different planet. It wasn’t just the heat, the stifling humidity or the rampant disease that the populace seemed to take in their stride. It wasn’t simply the grim reality of being in the most AIDS-infested corner of the globe, where one in five were born infected and the natives were lucky if they lived to thirty years. It wasn’t even the sheer outlandishness of the city itself, a murky fortress of wood and stone in the middle of a war-torn jungle wasteland. It was the people, more so than anything else, which made this place so different to anything that FBI Operative Stasya Afanasii had ever known. They were all but born with guns in their hands, growing up in the ultimate climate of fear and oppression. This was a country where saying one wrong word, or simply being in the wrong place, could have you killed. It was a miracle that these people even got on with their lives the way they did, not bothering to worry about their state of living because life was simply too short, too harsh, too brutal. If Stasya had a dollar for every child she had seen walking or limping through the town with a missing limb, or two…

The edge of town was the edge of hell itself, or so much like it that the country’s few western visitors would not bother to notice the difference. The Presidential Palace in the city centre and the military  buildings which surrounded it gave way to wooden houses and shops with corrugated tin roofs, which gave way to rotting shacks and shanties, and finally to this: a few hastily-assembled tents and improvised shelters which bordered onto the surrounding forests and their wildlife. There was scarcely a day went by in this part of town in which some poor faceless nobody didn’t end up as a hyena’s next meal. If Stasya could have defined a reason as to why, night after night, she walked through this area at two o’clock in the morning, she could only put it down to morbid fascination.

Perhaps she did it to remind herself of the kind of monster that the President of this godforsaken land really was. Maybe she came here to remind herself not to be taken in with the cordial welcome and lavish treatment on offer at the palace, and to remember that there was a good reason she had been assigned to shadow the local United States ambassador for signs of corruption. Maybe she just did this to show herself that even in the worst days of Stalinist Russia, there were always people in world worse off, always masses which were more oppressed. Maybe, she would think to herself, she did this because of the strange feeling it gave her, the air of predatory superiority. She knew that even though men, women and children disappeared here with every passing day, even the most militant insurgents and psychotic Presidential enforcers would be suicidal to attack her. Stasya Afanasii may have been the single least patriotic agent on the FBI payroll, but she was a US government operative, and anyone who tried to kill her would incur the wrath of everyone involved in the country’s extremely tense political situation. Just maybe, it was that feeling of invulnerability which she so relished about being in this place, even as her more rational mind vehemently denied it.

The local bar in this part of Monrovia was little more than a corrugated iron roof on stilts, with a handful of improvised tables positioned underneath. Ambezi, the man who ran the place, was in surprisingly good health for a local, and just about everyone knew that he made a good living from bribes to inform the government of insurgents, or to keep them from knowing. Stasya personally didn’t care who was being told what in this place – it was not as if the situation was ever going to improve. There was a certain open-ness about the rampant corruption in this establishment, though, and in its way that appealed to her. If nothing else, this was one place in Liberia that nobody was going to say shit about her indulging just a little vice when off duty. Walking through the assembled crowds of local workers, migrants and mercenaries, she made her way to the makeshift bar and grabbed a stool to sit down. Ambezi finished serving a heavily scarred customer and wandered over to her, his face beaming happily despite all circumstances. Stasya met his eyes and let the corner of her mouth twitch into a smile. No point worrying in a place like this, after all.

“Good evening, Ambezi.”

“Good evening there, Miss Afanasii. Should I get you your usual?”

“Yes, that should be fine. How’s business?”

“As good as ever, Miss.”

It amused her just how much respect Ambezi paid her; this was the same man who took bribes from the government to have potential rebels tortured to death, and who took bribes from those same rebels to keep the government in the dark. And yet, despite all his mercenary ways, Stasya couldn’t help but think that Ambezi was a nice enough guy underneath it all. He grabbed a bottle of imported Russian vodka from under the bar, and a shot glass. He poured a double in one practiced movement, and handed it to the young FBI agent. Stasya nodded as she took the glass, and passed him a handful of coins; the best black-market vodka in the world was dirt-cheap here. She swallowed the double in one, slamming the glass down onto the bar as the liquid burned down her throat. Ambezi was already pouring out a thin white line of Cocaine on the bar; West Africa was just about the only place in the world where Stasya would even have thought about doing Crack, but if you spent any length of time here it was difficult to avoid, and say what she liked, it did numb the pain of being in a country where half the population carried crippling wounds. Silently, she waited for Ambezi to finish before snorting the line. The barman kept a respectful distance as she took the hit, gasping as her eyes glazed over for a few brief seconds. Shaking her head, Stasya’s vision swam back into focus. She fumbled in her pocket for more money, but was interrupted by Ambezi’s voice;

“Oh no Miss Stasya, I won’t need you to pay for that. You are a good enough customer.”

The young Russian mumbled her thanks and leaned on the bar, letting her mind swim under the effects of the drug. Her shot glass was refilled, and she downed another vodka with barely an effort. After all, a few hours’ sleep later and she would barely feel the hangover; in some ways it could be considered a curse that no matter what she took, she never seemed to suffer for it. She had never allowed her recreational use of Cocaine to really become habitual, and even after a full bottle of vodka she only took four or five hours to recover. It could be considered a curse, perhaps, since her work was the only thing which gave her any impetus to stop.

“Will you be wanting another glass, Miss Stasya?” Ambezi’s voice was distant, muffled by the other noises in the bar and the maelstrom inside her head.

“What…what? No, no just give me the bottle.”

“If…you say so, Miss Stasya. Do be careful out there.”

Another nod as she took the two-thirds-full bottle and began to wander away from the bar into the African night; another handful of coins left on the bar had been enough to keep Ambezi quiet about her being there. She was perfectly confident that none of her superiors would find out that she had spent so much of her free time on this assignment doing vodka and Cocaine. What little guilt she might have felt from doing so was quickly drowned out; after all, her superiors within the Bureau weren’t the ones who had to spend day after day pretending to be nice to genocidal madmen and living in a country where life was so disgustingly cheap. Oh, how it reminded her of the worst parts of home.

“Oh, shit!” Stasya cried aloud as the bottle, still one-third full, slipped from her fingers and smashed on the sandy soil beneath. She had been wandering through the township for the past hour, and by now the effects of the Cocaine were little more than a humming in the back of her mind. She watched, annoyed but powerless, as the remaining vodka soaked into the dry sand.

“Damn…” there was little she could think of to say. Suddenly, she was hit by that all-too-familiar feeling: that horrible, gnawing certainty that something was about to go badly wrong. Feelings like this had saved her life too many times to count, and before she could even assess the situation her head had cleared and her hand grasped the hilt of the .45 tucked in the back of her belt. Quite how she went from heavily intoxicated to stone cold sober like that was something she had never understood, but no matter how severe the effects, no matter what she had taken, Stasya had always been able to push her mind to the hair-trigger state in which it now stood. Her eyes scanned the darkness, glaring at the meagre wooden shacks and dirt-tracked street for any sign of what might have triggered her awareness. From the corner of her eye, she caught them; three shapes, tall, burly, lumbering types, moving down the road towards her with that characteristic air of government thugs. Drawing her heavy pistol from its holster, Stasya grasped the hilt with both hands and kept it pointed just low of the advancing men. If need be, she could fire off enough rounds to drop the three of them, but that would lead to far too much paperwork for her liking.

“Stop where you are”, she said aloud, her voice heavily accented; “I am a United States Government operative, and I am ordering you to stop”.

Ignoring her, the three still approached, the ragged state of their clothes becoming apparent as they neared. Stasya’s eyes narrowed; was it just her, or did those men seem a little…deformed? A pair of unhealthy yellow eyes flashed in the darkness, looking straight at the young woman, and she didn’t hesitate any further. Three loud thunderclaps echoed in the night, and the yellow-eyed creature stopped in its tracks. There was a spluttering, hacking cough as the creature staggered, then collapsed to its hands and knees. Stasya lowered the pistol slightly, waiting to see if the other two would still advance, or flee. She barely got a chance to see them move; the other two were upon her faster than a mere human eye could process, their fists pummelling her body like wrecking balls. The gun was knocked out of her hands, and a blow to her face sent the young woman reeling to the floor. From a little way away, a rasping, animalistic voice called out;

“Stupid little bitch shot me. Three fucking bullet holes! Kill her, kill her now!”

The young FBI agent struggled to her feet, looking around madly as the three creatures encircled her. She had thought earlier that they looked unusually deformed, even going by the standards of the war-wounded people that clung to life here; but what these things showed were not merely injuries, they were outright mutations. The yellow-eyed one, its torn shirt covered in black, viscous ichor from its wounds, advanced towards Stasya, its body seeming to alter further still as it neared. Human hands peeled away like skin from a corpse, revealing scorpion’s pincers growing out of the man’s wrists. The skin on his face stretched and split, clicking chelicerae forcing their way out of the ragged hole which had been a human mouth. Most disturbingly, a long and segmented tail stretched out from between his legs and arched over his back, the pointed sting at the tip dripping venom. The other two men also seemed to stretch and grow from within, their insides apparently tearing their way out of their human skins and they assumed new forms. One of them twisted and transformed into a similar shape, becoming a monstrous bipedal hybrid of human and scorpion. The third man grew altogether bigger than the others, rising to at least eight feet in height as his body filled out into some kind of grotesque, many-legged scorpion-centaur. Forgetting all rationality and all combat training, Stasya simply screamed and turned to run.

The young woman didn’t get far. The things moved with speed that belied their unnatural bulk, the largest of the three colliding with her and swatting her to the ground with its claws. She felt those chitinous pincers carve through the flesh of her back, tearing agonising rents in her muscles. The other two caught up and joined in, kicking and stabbing with feet and claws, beating any resistance out of her. The Russian realised with horrible certainty that she was going to die, that these things, these demons were going to kill her just for the fun of doing so. Through the pain of her injuries, through the pounding of in the back of her head and the taste of her own blood in her mouth, Stasya heard the voices of the creatures as they looked at her dying form.

“Wait, don’t kill her just yet! I’ve been wearing this body for months; it’s coming apart at the seams. Since she put three bullets in me, I think I’ll take her flesh next. Any objections?”  It took the injured woman mere moments to realise that this creature was going to somehow possess her, taking her body to replace the one she had damaged. Oh God no, she thought, don’t let it happen!

From behind the three demons there was the thud of metal on sand, and the centaur-like one glanced over its shoulder to see what had made the noise. Unfortunately, the creature did not have time to realise what was going on before the grenade detonated beneath it, blowing its massive body in half. An unearthly scream of pain echoed in the night as the demon was blasted into two, its rear half all but exploding into fragments under the force of the detonation. The front half of the creature, with its human upper body, pitched forward into the earth, black blood spraying across the sand from its mouth and nostrils. The other two were knocked to the ground by the explosion, and as they fell Stasya caught a glimpse of another figure approaching through the dust and smoke. A man in western clothes and long coat, a machete held in one hand, strode through the debris towards one of the fallen demons and drove his blade into the thing’s heart. There was a gurgling scream, and a blood-choked cough as the demon died, followed by the sound of metal withdrawing from flesh. The front half of the scorpion-centaur, still somehow alive despite taking the full force of a grenade blast, scrambled in the dirt to look at the newcomer. There was a flash of steel, and the machete slashed the beast’s throat wide open; dead, the thing collapsed to the ground. The third of the scorpion-creatures had struggled to its feet, and now turned to face the newcomer. As it did so, the surrounding darkness seemed to come alive around the new arrival, the shadows swarming up like a flock of bats to surround him, seeming to merge into his bodily extremities and lending him an utterly unnatural appearance. The man’s voice cut through the night, cold and predatory;

“Run. Now.”

The scorpion-demon quickly decided that the odds were not in its favour, and it pelted away from the scene with all of its preternatural speed. The man glanced at the bodies of the dead demons, and sheathed his machete. Reaching into his coat, he retrieved a bottle of lighter fluid and a box of matches, and quickly set about burning the remains of the monsters. Lying on her back in the dirt, knowing that her wounds were almost certainly going to kill her, Stasya called out in an effort to attract the man’s attention. Her shouts of pain caught his ears, and he turned to her as flames began to consume the demonic carcasses. Slowly, he approached the dying woman; as he neared her, she caught sight of his face and realised just how pale and drawn he looked, and how dark his eyes were on the ghostly whiteness of his face. This time round, she had no trouble believing that this man was not human. She spluttered, her voice choked with the blood in her mouth;

“You…you killed them…what were those things?”

The man’s voice carried an English accent, and his reply sounded like an entry in an encyclopaedia;

“They were once human; then they each became a vessel for an extradimensional therianthropic parasite; a possessing entity which causes its host to mutate according to its needs as a predator. The locals would refer to it as an Ifrit.”

Ifrit, Stasya thought; that was a North African word for a demon, or unclean spirit; was this man being serious? Was all of this actually supernatural, and still real?

“An Ifrit…a demon? Those things were men possessed by demons?”

“Well…’demon’ would just about cover it, I suppose. But yes, they were men possessed by entities which should not be here, which is why I had to kill those which I could.”

“That last one got away.”

“Of course it did; they’re stronger than I am and I couldn’t risk fighting it head-on. I’ll kill it tomorrow night, when I can swing the odds in my favour again.”

“Oh. I see.” Stasya realised just how light-headed she was beginning to feel, and decided that blood loss must be getting to her; she would have fifteen or twenty minutes to live, at a push. She looked back up at the man who had saved her from becoming another demon-host, and stared at his face, particularly his near-black eyes and that mouth which showed just a hint of fang when he spoke.

“You…you look like a vampire. Is that what you are?”

He returned her gaze, looking down at the broken woman.

“Yes, that would be right; and I imagine that I know what you are about to ask for. You believe that you are too young to die, and you want a way out.”

“Please! You can’t just leave me here…I can’t die like this. I don’t want a way out; I just want a way to keep going!”

The vampire’s eyes remained as dark and inhuman as ever, as he made his reply;

“You really don’t know what you’re asking for. I can’t just make you a vampire; I’ll be making you into one of my lineage, a Khaibit. Aside from all the usual aspects of the Curse – which I assure you are not fun – you will spend the rest of your nights with a three-thousand year old duty to uphold. Do you honestly want to spend decades, or centuries hunting and fighting the things with which I share the night?”

Stasya’s voice remained firm, even as she felt blood trickling into her lungs;

“Those things killed me. So yes, I can fight, and I will. I don’t care what kind of vampire you are, what lineage you’re talking about. I want to live, and I want my revenge!”

“That might just be good enough.”

Without a further word, the newcomer crouched down beside her and placed one hand on the back of the woman’s neck. She felt herself being lifted towards him, and the touch of cold, dead lips upon her throat. The feeling was distant a his fangs slid into her soft flesh, the numbing sensation beginning to spread from the bite, and then the indescribable pleasure of the vampire’s Kiss, as her life drained away.

            Stasya Afanasii awakened from death mere minutes later, feeling the coldness of hunger begin to gnaw at her stomach. She still had the claw-wounds in her back, chest and stomach, but somehow the pain from them did not feel as intense. Around her, the night seemed more alive; every sound, every smell, every sensation seemed that much more intense. She scrambled to her feet, brushing the dust from her hair, looking around wildly as she tried to imagine the changes she had undergone. Not far away, her Sire stood, and looked at her. When he spoke his voice was cold, devoid of emotion;

            “My name is Alexander Gideon. Before you start wondering, let me make it clear that you’ll never see another sunrise. The daytime is barred to our kind, and especially so for our Clan – we are of the Mekhet, from which the Khaibit bloodline branched off in ancient times. You’ll become familiar with the other four Clans in the fullness of time, and possibly with some of their bloodlines as well. You might also want to be aware that fire will burn your flesh like kindling, so it’s best to stay the hell away from naked flames unless you really know what you’re doing. Apart from that, welcome to immortality.”

            Stasya blinked, trying to keep up with what was being said;

            “Erm…I’m Stasya Afanasii…so I guess the living forever part is true? Well, I assume we can still be killed, given that you didn’t want to fight that last demon toe-to-toe. Though saying that, these injuries I have don’t feel half as painful.”

            “Nor will they; your physiology is somewhat different now that you’re dead. When I turned you I fed you enough blood that you wouldn’t go mad with hunger upon waking. That blood is the source of all of your power as a vampire. Try it now – concentrate on those wounds, and imagine the blood flowing into them, healing the damage.”

            Stasya did as asked, directing her thoughts towards the blood in her body, directing it into the injuries that the demons had dealt her. The feeling as it happened was unlike anything she had known before; she could feel her body reconstitute itself, cell-by-cell. Within seconds, the wound left after one of the beasts had smashed its claw through her ribcage had completely healed.

“Oh my God!” She could barely believe the excitement in her voice as he stared at the now-flawless skin; “that’s incredible! Can all vampires do this?”

“Yes, but for crying out loud don’t shout about it! Secrecy is the first rule of being a Kindred, above and beyond all else. Now like I said, I gave you enough blood to stop you going mad, but you’ll be feeling the hunger after healing up a wound like that. If you’re going to survive, you can’t let yourself go hungry. The closer you get to starving, the stronger your predatory instincts get. You get hungry enough, and the inner Beast will take control; when it does, the only certainty is that you’ll come to your senses covered in some poor bastard’s entrails. Frenzy is never pleasant, so it’s best to take a little blood, often. It’s best to avoid draining your prey unless you absolutely have to.”

“So I can’t just feed and kill as I like?”

“If Kindred acted like that, then the whole world would know we exist. You have to be careful, and part of the reason I hunt demons is because they are generally far less careful than us. My other reasons come down to heritage, but I’ll teach you about that later. I think it’s time for you to take your first hunt. Plenty of faceless juice-bags in a town like this, so it should be easy to find someone.”

“My first hunt…okay. So we just find someone, knock him out, and then I feed. And I’m not supposed to drain him…that I can handle.”

“We’ll see if you can handle it when you take that first bite, Stasya Afanasii. Prepare yourself, though – because feeding is never as good as the first time.”

Alexander set off at pace, and Stasya quickly began to follow. She was embarking on an entirely new life now, and it seemed to her that there would be a lot of lessons to learn before she could really understand what this deathless, vampiric existence meant.

No, Leland Burke did not actually die by my hand. The thought crossed my mind...well, more than just crossed it. But for the first time in near of a decade I can say that my heart wasn't in the hunt, and I didn't pursue him beyond the bounds of Newcastle...in fact, I don't believe he was aware that I was following him. If Burke has disappeared and cannot be contacted even through mystical means, then there are many other reasons why that may be the case.

Let Prince Richtenstein whine all he likes. I'm no Kinslayer.

In the wake of February's chaos, it looks like things may be pulling together again for Newcastle. "Prince" Knight has issued a wonderfully snivelling apology for her dicatatorial behaviours, apparently in light of realising that she cannot actually run a city without the collective support of its most powerful Kindred. As a result, my intention to destroy her has been put on hold. Sadly the same cannot be said about Leland Burke, whose ashes I am currently deciding what to do with.
However, it means that outright hostility has instead become political debate over what is going to happen regarding the Praxis of Newcastle. Personally I feel it would be unwise to allow Alex Knight to continue as Prince, as it gives the impression that the Seneschal of Middlesbrough is better at making decisions for my city than its resident Kindred are.

What to do, what to do...regardless of what happens, it will take an extremely compelling reason for me to observe Alex Knight as Prince. I'm less inclined to just destroy her now, but nonetheless I see very little to be gained and potentially a great deal to be lost from keeping her in power.

Then there's the various troubles the domain is currently facing; it appears that the Carthian Movement has been putting together an 'army' of martial arts-trained mortals to act as their strong arm. I can think of any number of means by which they could be disposed, but none of them will bear well on my already-failing moral centre. Probably just slipping some steroids or something into the water supply and having the academy closed down could be an option, but it wouldn't actually prevent the humans in question being a danger. Slipping something a bit more dangerous in, like E.coli for instance, would be more effective at neutralizing the threat they represent. Of course, if they just attack any members of the domain I could carve my way through the lot of them while they stumble around blindly, but that would be equally damaging to my ethics...I'm close enough to the Beast as it is, and by some miracle I'm still sane enough to recognise my predicament. Perhaps a more dangerous (or rather, less readily dealt with) problem which we have lies in the Psychic Cell Project which has been plaguing the domain. Once again I find my attempts to preserve stability laying at odds with my remaining shreds of morality; if I have to start killing off large numbers of psychically-augmented humans, I am unlikely to survive this conflicty with my mind in tact. I never thought I'd say this, but it was easier when we just had a Dragon to deal with.

[Gideon’s Apartment, Quayside]

[Newcastle]

[11:45pm]

            The series of breathless gasps escalated into a barely-suppressed scream of delight as the bedroom’s occupants came to the climax of their mating. Slick with sweat, the demon Lisariel collapsed onto her partner, his undead body flush with recently-ingested blood. Rolling off of him, she reclined into the bed sheets and stared up at the lazily whirring ceiling fan. Next to her, Alexander Gideon’s face slid into the expression of contemplative self-loathing which seemed to be his default mood these nights. There was not a bead of sweat on him, nor did he breathe, despite the blood-induced semblance of life which allowed vampires to simulate mortal arousal. The Khaibit’s eyes devoid of emotion, he allowed an empty sigh to pass his lips. His demonic bedfellow purred and turned her head towards him.

            “That was fun, wasn’t it? You know, Alexander, fun? That thing you’re allowed to have on occasion?” She waved her hand patronizingly over his eyes as he stared into the middle distance. The demon’s face took on a look of disappointed boredom as she let her hand trail down the vampire’s chest, her red fingernails scoring lines in his skin. Gideon coughed once, before replying in flat monotone;

            “Of course, Liz; it was wonderful. I get such fulfilment out of sleeping with the enemy.”

            “Oh dear, Alex…the enemy? Me? Have you forgotten that we’re supposed to be working together now?”

            “We have a common cause; that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be destroying you.”

            Lisariel gave a burst of laughter; a high, shrill giggle of amusement.

            “I’m sure that’s what you think, Alexander. After all, you were so set on killing me when you took me to bed; and don’t give me that look. You know exactly what you’re doing.”

            The vampire sat up, hands pushing his hair back from his face. He looked down at the succubus lying next to him, the guilt of betrayal welling up inside him for the second time since October of last year. Lisariel rolled onto her front and craned her neck, keeping her eyes on him. Like with any demon worthy of the title, it was impossible to hide emotions from her gaze.

            “I guess you do love her, don’t you? Nephira, that is.”

            Hearing his Sire’s name mentioned by that creature stung Alexander, but he knew it was pointless to take the bait. Ignoring him, she continued;

            “I can see it; in your eyes…God knows I could feel it while we were fucking; it wasn’t me you’ve been thinking about for the past hour.”

            “You’re right…it’s not you.” Gideon’s reply was still flat, as if he had forgotten how to articulate. The demon raised one eyebrow in mock surprise.

            “How very heartless of you…and to think, I thought you liked me.”

            The glare that the Khaibit gave her only served to make her laugh.

            “Shut up Liz”, he stated, a touch of anger entering his voice; “We’re done here; go and get showered. I need to dress, and then we have a Revenant to hunt down.”

            “Oh, yes Sir,” she replied, her words dripping with sarcasm, before her voice became a sultry purr once again; “care to join me in there?”

            “I said go.”

            “Hmm.”

            The succubus slid out of the bed and got to her feet, her poise perfect as ever, her unclothed form sheer physical perfection. It was a struggle to remind oneself that the perfect body contained a hell-spawn with all the morals of a tiger shark. She stretched, cat-like, glancing over her shoulder at the vampire before strolling towards the bathroom door.

            “I take it you’ll lend me a towel?”

            “In the airing cupboard.”

            Alex watched the door close behind her, before rising from the bed. Gods, he hated himself. He despised the guilt he felt for betraying Nephira, and he despised the urge he felt to try and replicate the passion he had felt in his Sire’s arms. In such a short time his sense of humanity had plummeted, and with it his capacity for any kind of positive feeling. The brief, brutal lovemaking he had shared with Nephira was the first time in nearly a decade that he had even remembered what it was like to be human. With her mind missing and her body under lock and key, Gideon could feel the desire to relive that night gnawing at him from within. And once again, he found himself excusing his ultimately inexcusable behaviours. Shaking his head, the vampire moved to the wardrobe and opened the doors. He quickly extracted a shirt, trousers and underwear, before pushing aside the false back to reveal the arsenal of melee weapons concealed within. It would be worth taking a number of blades for this exercise; as Gideon was well aware, it was generally quite difficult to kill something which is already dead.

[Rooftop of Newcastle Central Station]

[1am]

The vampire crouched on the rooftop, hidden from the few wandering mortals below by the bulk of the train station’s clock tower. Garbed in black and concealed by shadows which cast more darkly at his command, the Khaibit was just about invisible in the February night. Next to him, the slender form of Lisariel almost as unnoticeable. While normally the demon dressed to attract attention, it was incredible how easily she could avoid peoples’ eyes if she so wished.

Alex breathed deep, the scents of the night air filling his nostrils, causing his instincts to flare. His inner Beast cried out within him, longing for the hunt, the chase, the bloody fight and the triumph of the kill. For nearly his entire Requiem thus far, Gideon had hunted the night’s worst monsters because he believed it was his duty to do so. Repeatedly he had told himself that he did not take any pleasure in the destruction, and that the battles he fought were necessary interferences for the greater good of the world. These nights he had almost entirely abandoned that philosophy; he still hunted the ancient enemies because he was a Khaibit, and it was his bloodline’s divine mandate to do so, but he did not deny how much it thrilled him to exercise his most violent tendencies on those creatures which had to be put down. Right now he wanted the hunt, and his patience was waning. He turned to Lisariel, his fangs lengthening as he spoke;

“It’s been almost an hour. Why exactly do you think just sitting here is going to be enough to find your Revenant?”

When the succubus replied, her voice was far from its usual tone. She sounded cold, distant, all business;

“Because he’s connected to me, somehow; the one who raised Markus Daniels from death was able to attune him so that he could track me down wherever I went. It won’t be much longer. I know that he’s close.”

“How reassuring.”

Gideon paused, briefly, before curiosity drove him to revive the conversation;

“So how did you manage to make an enemy of a necromancer?”

“Long story, Alex.”

“We’re immortal, Liz. I think we have time.”

Lisariel sighed, before continuing;

“After you and Nephira brought down my operation in Mozambique, I didn’t immediately flee Africa. There were still plenty of opportunities for me on that continent, and I saw no reason to leave it behind. So I headed south, to Johannesburg. With apartheid pretty much still in effect there was a lot of resentment, a lot of anger…a lot of people willing to sell out everything just for the chance to take some revenge. And of course, there were individuals willing to make similar deals to maintain the status quo, at least as far as it applied to them. Fun times all round for me.”

“I asked how you made an enemy of a necromancer, not to give me another list of reasons why I should kill you. But you know what, don’t bother telling me the rest; everything you do just makes the world a slightly worse place, and people pay for your games with their lives.”

The demon couldn’t resist a smile at the sound of the vampire’s disgust. All his self-righteousness would have angered her if he had been a mortal; the fact that he was an undead bloodsucker who had bedded her scant few hours ago just made the whole thing amusing. As she opened her mouth to make one of her trademark teasing replies, her sensitive ears caught the sound of military boots on the flagstones of the alleyway behind the station. Alexander’s senses were equally finely-tuned, and he was already moving as Lisariel whispered that their target was on the other side of the building. Approaching the ledge over the backstreet below, the pair looked down and saw what they both recognised as Markus Daniels. The Revenant had the same confident, half-marching swagger that he had possessed in life. Tall and broad shouldered, it did not look as though his tenure as a festering ambulatory cadaver had reduced his muscular strength. He was currently dressed in what could only be recently-acquired army surplus gear, covered by a battered grey trenchcoat which likely concealed a small arsenal of weapons. He also wore leather gloves along with a wide-brimmed hat, and kept his collar folded up, the better to conceal the decaying flesh of his face. Alexander had to admire the poetry of this particular ambush; while fights with supernatural enemies tended to be swift and deadly affairs, there was often those few moments before battle broke out, when the hunter could observe his prey and mentally slot himself into the place of the avenging hero rather than acknowledge that this was going to be a monstrously dirty fight between a pair of murderous undead and a demon. As one, Alex and Lisariel leapt from the ledge and landed either side of the undead mercenary.

The Revenant came to a halt with unnatural precision, before taking a single step back from his two assailants. In a blur of movement the Khaibit drew the Swiss Longsword from his back as blood flushed into his muscles, feeling their fibres burn with superhuman vigour. Alexander stood, facing the animated corpse of former British Army Captain-turned-mercenary Markus Daniels. The solider glared back through glazed, dead eyes; when he spoke, his voice was the breath of a tomb, a gust of air forced painfully through decayed vocal chords.

“Mr Gideon…I didn’t think I’d ever forget your face…but I didn’t expect to see it this soon either.”

“Well I can’t say I expected to see you again at all, actually.” Came the vampire’s mocking reply. Alex was aware that exchanging quips with his enemy was an extremely dangerous habit for a monster-hunter…but for some reason he couldn’t resist.

“You killed me, you fucking leech.”

“You really should have stayed dead.”

Daniels looked as though he was about to make another remark, before his petrified eyes landed on the demure figure of Lisariel, and the stiletto blade in her hand.

“I tell you what, vampire…step aside and let me kill the bitch over there, and we’ll call it evens. She got us both into this, after all.”

“I can’t do that, Markus; if you were human I would agree in an instant, but right now you’re just another murdering corpse. How many people have you killed your way through, just to get here?”

“You fucking hypocritical little shit; you dare to lecture me on the immorality of killing people, leech?”

“I don’t kill my prey if I can help it. You were a trigger-happy bastard when you were mortal, and somehow I don’t think that’s changed.”

“If that’s how you want it.”

There wasn’t any more time for words. Gideon struck first, bringing his sword up with two hands and sweeping the blade downwards into the Revenant’s chest. The blow staggered the creature, which reeled back from the impact as it saw that its ribcage had nearly been split down the middle. The vampire pressed the advantage, following up with a strike to the side. The mercenary saw the blade coming and this time took action; he parried the sword with his arm, the blade sinking through rotted muscle and hitting the bone. In his undead state, Markus Daniels had learned that pain meant nothing to him now, and he followed up his block by slamming his fist into the Khaibit’s gut. The sound as the punch connected was like a shovel hitting wet concrete, the preternatural force of the Revenant’s blow sending Gideon crashing into the wall of the station building. The vampire felt a few of his ribs give as he hit the wall, and he barely had time to duck as his enemy’s fist struck out at his face. Dodging beneath the attack, he heard the brickwork splinter as the Revenant’s blow landed on the wall. Alexander burned through more blood, his chest and arms thrumming with a burst of extra power. Ducking past the undead mercenary, he lifted his sword again and thrust it into Daniels’ back, impaling him right through. The soldier gave a cry of surprise as the tip of the sword burst out of his stomach and continued its course, vampiric strength driving the blade into the wall of the building, pinning the Revenant in place. Gideon stepped back and reached inside his long coat, drawing his machete from its shoulder holster as Markus struggled to pull himself free. He brought the blade round in a sweeping arc, guiding it in for a decapitating blow. With a burst of strength, the Revenant yanked the sword blade out of the wall and spun to face the vampire, ducking his head as the machete landed. As a result, he took the blow to the side of his skull rather than his neck. Markus Daniels may have lost the ability to feel pain, but he realised that being carved into enough pieces may still be sufficient to kill him for a second time. He knew that in this form he was tough and stronger than he had ever been in life, but it hadn’t occurred to him that the vampire’s own prowess could have increased so much in the time since they had last met. Stumbling back from the force of the blow, the Revenant’s hand scrambled for the .45 pistol at his belt. He drew the gun just in time for another machete blow to take his arm off at the elbow, sending weapon and hand clattering to the floor. Another swipe knocked him to his hands and knees, and he felt the vampire’s boot slam down between his shoulder blades, cracking his spine.

Alexander was revelling in the thrill of the fight, his Beast screaming its bloodlust in his mind. The first blow he had taken was enough to convince him that the Revenant was physically stronger than he was, and probably far more resilient, but he also knew that his foe would likely be aware of this and as such, overconfident. Now the undead soldier was lying on the cold concrete, as Alex reached down and grasped the hilt of his sword with his free hand, pulling the blade out of the creature’s body. Sheathing the machete, the took the sword in both hands and prepared to bring about a killing stroke, just as he felt the tip of a wooden stake slam into his back. Dropping the sword, he collapsed.

Markus pulled himself to his feet, his dead eyes surveying the extensive damage that had been done to his body. Was he capable of healing that kind of trauma? He wasn’t sure…as far as he was aware he had never had to heal a wound since he died. Regaining his composure, the Revenant looked down at the staked body of Alexander Gideon, and the demon that stood over him, her emerald green eyes boring into his. Daniels relaxed, walking over to his severed right arm and yanking the gun out of its hand.

“You took your time stepping in to help, Liz.”

“My help wasn’t supposed to be necessary”, she replied tartly; “He almost had you beaten. You should have been strong enough to crush a vampire as young as him.”

“Yeah? Well how the fuck was I to expect that he could fight like that, eh? Little bastard was never that good when he killed me first time around.”

The demon gave an exasperated sigh.

“Well, it’s done now, isn’t it? You kill him, avenge your own death and escape your curse or whatever it is and I get a world with one less Khaibit in it. Everyone’s a winner.”

“Hmm. Well, he may be out of the picture now but that girl he was with last time still makes him look like a pussy. What about her?”

“Oh, Nephira will be next, don’t you worry. Soon as I find the little bitch I’ll be returning the favour she did me plus interest.”

“Right.”

The Revenant reached into his coat with his remaining hand and drew a long bush-knife from somewhere within. He looked down towards where his paralysed enemy’s body had been moments earlier; there was nothing.

“What the…?”

Markus didn’t get time to finish his sentence; the shadow rising behind him on the wall peeled itself off the brickwork and solidified, reweaving itself molecule by molecule as insubstantial darkness became solid flesh. Alexander lifted the stake in his hand and slammed it into the back of the Revenant’s neck, the tip smashing through his spine and into his vocal chords. As Daniels spun to face his attacker, Gideon grabbed the .45 from the soldier’s belt and stuck the muzzle in his mouth. Two shots discharged, plastering the mercenary’s brains across the far wall. Those dead, glazed eyes narrowed, then swam out of focus, and Markus Daniels’ unlife came to an end. The body collapsed, the magic that held it together unravelling; body fat liquefied and ran yellow beneath the grey skin, muscles shrivelled and eyes melted in their sockets. Finally the skin fell away as a layer of fine dust, and even the bones blackened, vitrified and crumbled. Empty clothes fell to the floor, neutral and harmless as old laundry. Alex looked down at the pile of ashes, mixed in with the Revenant’s clothes and the stake which had almost been his undoing, before turning his gaze back towards Lisariel, who was standing in horrified disbelief.

“Impossible…the stake through the heart, there’s no way…”

Gideon unbuttoned his black shirt, revealing the Kevlar stab vest beneath.

“It was close; if you’d pushed a little harder you might have gotten the heart. As it happens, you didn’t quite get through the ribs.”

The succubus straightened herself, her eyes glowing brightly in the dark. Even now, she seemed ready to talk her way out of her situation.

“You won’t kill me Alexander…we both know this isn’t how, or when, I die.”

“I’m not so sure about that, Liz. Now seems like a very good time. You used me, betrayed me and tried to kill me, not to mention talking about destroying my Sire in front of me, which is just about the worst thing you could have done given the situation.”

“These things are predestined, Alex! You don’t kill me! Nephira kills me; she’s the only one worthy!”

Shaking his head, the vampire replied;

“Did you really not think I would suspect you? As for Nephira, you were planning to kill her as soon as you found her…well how’s this for irony, she has been in my haven in Torpor for the past few months. While we were in bed together, Liz, she was laying just a few doors down, completely helpless.”

Lisariel’s face broke into a cheated snarl, her demure mien suddenly broken by the hellish ego beneath her skin;

“You liar! You utter bastard!” she shrieked; “It’s me and her, my revenge! I’ll have her head on a fucking plate!”

The demon whirled, turning away from Alex and moving towards the mouth of the alley, running to the Khaibit’s haven with murderous intent. A column of fluid darkness cascaded in front of her, forming into a humanoid shape. The shadow-form lunged with one ethereal arm, its hand plunging between her breasts and into her ribcage. Icy fingers of darkness moved inside the demon’s body, before coalescing into solid form. Lisariel screamed again as she felt her flesh and bone being pushed apart from within, her chest being torn open around Alexander’s arm as he solidified. Her eyes met his, a desperate look of rage and torment in them as she faced the end of her earthly existence. The vampire’s face looked pained for in instant, before he grabbed Lisariel’s beating heart and crushed it. Tearing his arm out of her chest, Gideon watched the demon’s body disintegrated with a flash of green balefire and the stink of sulphur.

Glancing around the alleyway, Gideon retrieved his sword and sheathed it on his back, as well as tucking the Revenant’s pistol into his belt. In all likelihood, he would sell the thing on rather than use it. Destroying Markus Daniels had been nothing short of a mercy killing, he told himself. Vampires were a part of nature, or so the teachings of the Crone said, and for all his faults Gideon considered himself a natural and rightful predator of mankind. Things like the Revenant, animated by magic, were never meant for this world. Things like Lisariel were even worse. He knew that he should have killed her well before now. If her hit with the stake had been any luckier, she would have seen to his destruction without a moment’s remorse. She was a demon, a thing from the infernal realms whose only purpose on this earth was to spread evil and despair…and yet, Alex couldn’t help but think his unlife had come to something dreadful when he could simply stick his hand in a young woman’s chest and crush her heart without hesitating. He dreaded the night when he did that to someone who was truly innocent…if he failed to temper his enjoyment of the hunt with self-discipline, then he really did have no more right to exist than the monsters that he hunted.

[Wolf, Ram & Hart]

[Newcastle-upon-Tyne]

[3:00 am]

Through the office floor, the sound of the nightclub below could be heard; a steady, pulsing rhythm welling up from below. Behind his desk, Alexander Gideon reclined into his executive leather chair and watched in detached amusement as the short, overweight human in front of him laid out six photographs. As the mortal informant sunk into his seat, the vampire leaned forward to look over this week’s surveillance pictures. Dead, unblinking eyes scanned each picture in turn, while Alexander’s nose detected the scent of sweat gathering on the informant’s brow. Briefly, he allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch into a smile.

            Picking up the first of the photographs, he took far more time than was necessary to examine it. The picture was somewhat grainy, but it nonetheless showed a large, wolf-like beast leaping from the Newcastle Millennium Bridge into the river Tyne. The Khaibit placed the picture down on the desk, and shot a glance towards the human;

            “A werewolf…Lycanthropus venatus, the more common breed here in the northern hemisphere; I wonder what it was doing chasing something in the water…”

            “Could be worth investigating then, Sir?” came the informant’s voice; it was impossible not to detect the note of abject fear in the presence of the bloodsucker. Gideon’s reply was cold and measured;

            “It is possibly worth investigating, but I have no wish to stir up the hornet’s nest with the Lupines…more often than not I share a common cause with them.”

            “Oh…”

            Alexander picked up the next couple of photographs in turn, examining each after the next. This particular informant may be a weak and cowardly example of humanity, but even Gideon had to admit that he was far from bad when it came to photographing the city’s supernaturals. The vampire was partly thankful that his kind did not show up on such means of surveillance. Opening a drawer in the desk Alexander withdrew a locked metal box, before retrieving a set of keys from his pocket.

            “Two hundred for the lot.”

            “What?” the informant’s voice came out as a splutter, “If I went to the newspapers I’d get more than that for just one of them!”

            “If you went to the newspapers, Mr Marshall, you would be decried as a lunatic. Certainly you would if you went to any newspaper which would pay you more than what I am. And after you had gone and sold these to the media, I would find you and relieve you of your somewhat pitiable life for breaking our arrangement. Secrecy, Mr Marshall; it is the only way people in your business survive.”

            The informant was stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place, and his expression showed it. Not daring to make eye contact with the vampire, he mumbled;

            “Okay, two hundred for all six.”

            “Good. Now you can be on your way, and crawl back to your little apartment where you will doubtless drink yourself into a stupor and spend the night watching porn. Goodbye.”

            The wad of notes was handed over, and the mortal scurried on out of the office, not looking back. As Marshall left, one of the bar staff appeared in the doorway, his face apprehensive.

            “Erm, Mr Gideon? There’s someone here to see you, a woman.”

            Alex’s eyes narrowed; he glanced down towards his organiser. He didn’t remember having any appointments for tonight after Marshall.

            “Is she claiming to have an appointment?”

            “No, but she says that you’ll want to see her anyway.”

            At the sound of that, the vampire’s hand moved towards a different desk-drawer; one containing a variety of exquisitely lethal knives.

            “Send her in.”

            The Khaibit rose from his chair as the barman’s silhouette in the doorway was replaced by that of a tall and slender female. Her poise was that of royalty, and as she began to speak, her voice carried with otherworldly clarity.

            “I see Set’s dark paladin is still haunting the nights, then.”

            Alexander blinked; his grip on the concealed knife tightened. Much to his annoyance, his reply betrayed his surprise;

            “Liz.”

            The demon Lisariel glided casually into the room, her emerald eyes drinking the place in. Alexander knew better than to meet her gaze for more than a few seconds. Lisariel was a succubus of the most literal sort, and last time they had met it had not been under friendly circumstances. The demon slowly came to a halt; she was just close enough to make the situation exceedingly uncomfortable. The vampire silently slid the blade into his left sleeve and closed the drawer, before stepping around the desk to close the remaining distance between them.

            “I didn’t think I’d see you in Newcastle, Lisariel. I didn’t think I’d see you in this part of the world at all; don’t you tend to prefer areas with plenty of suffering and despair for you to feed on?”

The succubus adjusted her poise, drawing more attention to her flawless form. Lisariel, or at least the body she wore when on this plane of existence, was a creature of striking physical beauty. She carried herself with an innate authority, her every gesture one of unquestionable dominance. The deep crimson dress she wore was not merely an expert fit; it moved with her like a second skin. For all that Alexander knew, it could well be exactly that.

            “You know me, Alex, I turn up in all kinds of places. I do like this club of yours, the Wolf, Ram & Hart…what a delightful reference…though it seems your clientele consists mostly of rather sad teenage girls wearing far too much eyeliner. I think I did see a lawyer or two down there as well.”

            “Lawyers? Damn, I was going to have some kind of ward put in place against them.”

            The demon gave a burst of mirthless laughter, before continuing; “Oh dear…your sense of humour has become somewhat drier these past years, has it not?”

            Alexander sighed. “Lisariel…dare I ask what the hell you’re doing in my city?”

            “Oh dear. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected too much in the way of civil conversation from you, Alexander…there’s far too much of your Sire in you for that.”

            “I don’t see the need for civility when I’m dealing with your kind, Liz. If you sought me out then it means you want something…and I’m really not sure what I can offer you.”

            “Straight to business, of course. Well in that case I shall be honest with you,” – Gideon snorted with involuntary laughter at that remark; the demon ignored him – “and tell you that I need your help.”

            “What help of mine could you possibly need?”

            “I’m in danger at the moment, Mr Gideon. Someone is hunting me, and I think a descendant of Set’s brood might be just the help I need.”

            The vampire’s expression became one of blank amazement. He had encountered Lisariel last in Mozambique, many years ago. Back then he had still been apprenticed to his Sire, and between them they had wiped out the demon’s soul-harvesting scheme among that country’s most destitute. Now she was here, asking him for help?

            “You are in danger, and you are here asking me to help you out of it? Now I know that you have no such thing as a conscience, but this is a new low even from you, Liz.”

            “Do you think I’d be here if I wasn’t desperate? My hunter won’t rest until he’s destroyed this body, and I have no intention of returning to the Inferno. Even I don’t deserve to go back there!”

            “Of course you deserve it! You’re still the same hell-spawned egomaniac that trades in human souls! There is nothing about you that is remotely worth saving!”

            For once, the demon’s dignity was robbed. Once again her poise altered, becoming more aggressive; her fury began to radiate, a palpable miasma that filled the room. Those bright, emerald eyes glowed with barely-suppressed balefire. Lisariel’s demure hands moved towards her neck, towards the black silk scarf which covered her pale throat. As she pulled it aside, it revealed the barely-healed scar which ran three-quarters of the way around her neck. On the demon’s otherwise perfect skin, the scar looked truly hideous. Her eyes stared straight into Gideon’s face as she spoke in a quiet, threatening hiss;

            “Last time we met, Alexander, Nephira almost cut my head off. I have had a brush with this earthly ‘death’ once already, and I am telling you that I will not allow it again. You will help me.”

            “And I am telling you that I fail to see any incentive at all for me to prevent your destruction.”

            Lisariel took a deep, unnecessary breath; Gideon merely folded his arms across his chest and glared back at her. Under other circumstances he would have finished his Sire’s work without a second thought, but there was something delightful about seeing the demon come crawling to him for help; although he knew that he should destroy her and remove the threat she posed, he couldn’t help but enjoy the feeling of power.

            “There is every incentive;” she continued, now looking up at him through dark, curved eyelashes; “my hunter is not human…he’s as much a monster as I am. Tell me, do you remember Markus Daniels?”

            The Khaibit arched one eyebrow quizzically. The demon continued;

            “Markus Daniels the mercenary?”

            The name suddenly clicked in Gideon’s mind.

            “Ah yes, he was one of those armed thugs you had working for you in Mozambique wasn’t he? Former British army, in fact…if memory serves, I ran him through with his own Officers’ Sabre.”

            “You did indeed; but much like yourself, he didn’t stay dead. He’s back, and he’s hunting me down, blaming me for his death. When he finds you, he’ll want to kill you as well.”

            “And in coming to Newcastle, you’ve effectively led him to me. I suppose that was your plan? A little extra impetus to help you kill him a second time around?”

            “I can’t say that wasn’t one of the deciding factors in coming here. I have a lot of enemies, Alexander; some of those enemies are quite capable of raising the dead. Others, like yourself, are more useful for putting them back down.”

            “I’m not your pet bodyguard, Liz.”

            “No, you’re not; you’re a daemon-slayer, a descendant of Set, or so the records of your bloodline profess. Like I say, a descendant of a God is just the thing I need.”

            The vampire paused…he knew the succubus was doing her utmost to manipulate him. He ultimately had no way of telling whether her fear and desperation were genuine, or merely an act…but if Alexander knew one thing about immortals, it was that they feared death far, far more than mortal men ever could. After all, they had so much more to loose.

            “I could just let him find you, and then kill him afterwards; two birds, one stone. You’re still not offering me anything worthwhile.”

            “If you don’t help me, I will lead him straight to you, and I will help him kill you. He’s not just a shambling zombie; Markus Daniels has become some kind of Revenant, fully intelligent and incredibly dangerous. There’s no guarantee you’d be able to defeat him yourself.”

            “You don’t know how strong I’ve become in the years since we last spoke, Liz.”

            “Maybe I don’t, but all the same I think you’re going to help me. You’re not going to do it because you want to protect me, because you’ve made it clear that you don’t. You’re going to do it because it’s in your nature; because now that I’ve told you, you have no choice.”

            Gideon’s fangs, already prominent, lengthened to their fullest as he heard the demon’s words. The vampire’s dearest-held belief was that he was the master of his own destiny; he upheld his bloodline’s duty out of choice, and despised any thoughts to the contrary. Lisariel saw his anger flair into being, and played the strings of the Khaibit’s emotions instinctually.

            “You are going to kill Markus Daniels for me because he is a monster. Every monster you kill, you do so for the same reason; to prove to yourself that you’re not…one…of…us.”

            The demon’s voice was cut off as Gideon’s fingers wrapped around her throat. The vampire let out a bestial snarl, hissing through his elongated fangs. Instinctively he flushed blood into his muscles, feeling preternatural strength thrumming through his biceps. Demon or not, a moment’s effort and he could crush Lisariel’s neck. She drew a sharp breath, her eyes meeting his, daring him to do it; but of course, she knew that he would not. After all, he would need her in order to find Markus Daniels on his terms. Slowly, the Khaibit’s grasp loosened.

            “You will help me, Alexander. As I said, my hunter is a monster, and that means that it is in your nature to kill him. You can triumph over any number of enemies…but fight your nature, and you will always loose. Always.”

            The vampire slowly removed his hand from the demon’s neck; she responded merely by adjusting her scarf to cover the unsightly scar. Alexander spoke through his fangs, the Beast within him howling for violence;

            “Lead me to this Revenant, and I’ll give him a second death. But afterwards, you will leave my city…if I ever see you in this place again, I’ll send you back to your wretched Inferno myself.”

            “Oh don’t worry, I won’t be sticking around. You can have the rest of the night with your little club…I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

            Lisariel leaned in and kissed the vampire on the cheek; the touch of her lips burned his undead skin like the light of the sun. Without a further word, the demon turned and sauntered out of the office. With her gone, Gideon’s fangs receded a little, and the coppery taste of blood entered his mouth as he realised that he had bit himself. Taking a moment’s concentration to heal the cut in his lower lip, he placed his hidden knife back in its drawer and stared out of the doorway after the departing demon.

            “Bitch”, he muttered to himself.