5. Three Ghost Stories/Reunion

Game V – Three Ghost Stories & Reunion.

17th May, 2019.

‘Logan’

Act I

Scene i: Villa de Blanche, Northern France 1733.

A year after the events of Medvega, Sir Logan joined his Sire Lord Christie in a secluded lair he had established in Northern France, paid for by his personal connections and the local kindred whom supported the exiled House of Stuart. A modest whitewashed farm house shielded by unkempt hedges and overgrown forests, the Ventrue elder had chosen the discreet manor for his self exile, paranoid of Prince Mithras of London, and to a lesser extent the Prince of York whom he had once given council to. It was no secret that Mithras had aspirations to control all the Baronies of Avalon (England), and with both mortal parliaments now united in London he had made the other fiefs swear fealty to his new title as the ‘High Prince’.

After late night banter on such topics, Logan asked his Sire if he knew of the discipline (vampire gifts) he had seen the Assamites use to spectacular effect against himself and other coterie members when they had discovered the torn Aramaic codex. Aware of the gift, Christie described it as ‘Celerity’ and mentioned that the discipline came naturally to the Brujah also. He could not offer any help in finding a willing teacher, as his own contacts for that clan were across the English Channel and unwilling to aide him in the current feud.

Satisfied with the limited information, Logan was certain he could make his own contacts upon his return to Northern England and find amongst them a Cainite whom would be willing to exchange the secrets of its power.

Scene ii: Kingston-upon-Hull, Yorkshire 1735.

Having used Christie’s Dutch smuggler to avoid human and Cainite perils in returning to his native soil, Logan haunted the shrouded fog of Yorkshire’s northern lands in his business ventures, seeking inroads toward Clan Brujah and their intrinsic gifts. By the Autumn of 1735 a parley was arranged for midnight, at the end of a particular pier that serviced the dockyards of Kingston-upon-Hull.

A storm was rising out across the North Sea, ceaseless waves riding the bitter winds until they tore against the pier supports. A working class accent called for the nightwatchman to leave, whom emptied his clay pipe and shuffled past Logan on the rain slick planking to leave him alone with the Brujah, a shadowy figure seated on canvas bound barrels, facing away toward coming wrath of the storm.

‘Jack’ waited for Logan to join him in viewing the elements, making idle talk as the two predators surmised each other by cunning and instinct. Coming to the crux of the meeting, the Ventrue asked what price Jack would put on teaching another his Clan gift. In exchange he offered to pass on the Discipline of Fortitude, useful in combat to avoid loss of precious vitae.

Rising from his seat, Jack encircled the Ventrue in a meandering walk before pausing to face him, striking him down with a clenched fist to meet the wet pier. Vital seconds passed as the two locked eyes, unsure how the other would react. Understanding the sudden blow to be a test to prove if he truly had mastered the gift of Fortitude, Logan laughed as he picked himself up, assisted by the jovial Brujah. Satisfied that the northern Cainite was no pampered blue-blood, Jack laid out his price.

Clan members like himself (Jack) had been sent out from the London Court to prepare for the coming struggle against the Northern Barons and Princes. By the end of the decade there would be blood in the streets of York to remove the remaining contentious elders (and their resources). In the coming war Jack would need allies, Northern allies particularly. He had no interest in which side would succeed, as long as he and his crew survived the fire. To ensure a mutual loyalty between them, and to facilitate the transference of gifts, Jack proposed that they share three cups of blood, a rite that would bind them together indefinitely like brothers.

Agreeing to undergo the binding and aide Jack and his clan mates, whom would likewise respect and assist Logan when called upon, the two kindred agreed to meet again in the next few nights and conclude the bargain.

Retiring into a carriage drawn by horses of pedigree that had been waiting at the end of the docks, Logan was driven away by the flick of the coachman’s reigns, wheels slipping on the wet roads as a lady’s gloved hand met his own in the privacy of the sombrous cab.

* * *

Reconvening some nights later in the back rooms of a ‘gentleman’s club’, Jack arranged six mismatched bowls at either side of their dining table, gesturing for the Ventrue to begin the oath of blood. Opening a vein with a small quill knife, the crimson milk filled each vessel, spilling between the bowl rims toward the next in line as the dark venture was illuminated by the wavering yellow tails of the candle flames. He likewise drew a cut aside his own wrist, directing the sluggish flow to catch in the three hollows. Raising each in succession, the raw vitae was drained to the last saucer by both parties, locking their destinies together for the century to come...

Scene iii: Tarrow Hall, England 1742.

Watching over his darkling estates beyond the window of an upper level, Sir Logan the Vampire mused on his fate since the Embrace had revived his dying broken body, coming to be a figure of some minor circumstance now as he had been in the army decades ago.

From those days, only one of his faithful retainers still lived. The other, humble Arthur, was now buried on the property in eternal vigil, the ground marked with a cenotaph that Logan would look upon on nights such as these when he was home.

John, whom had served as his batman during military service, had accepted his master’s condition long ago, and joined him in undeath by drinking the Cainite’s vitae to hold back the encroaching decay of time. By the mid-century his duties had been extended to organizing and managing the first years of a brewery, the brick factory being raised outside a local village. The business continued to grow through seasonal delays during the harsh winters of the 18th century, making a steady profit that John would demonstrate after Logan’s rising with ledger books and correspondence from solicitors.

Logan had enough surplus to provide for charities and the regions poorhouses, signed for by others as his legal representative. The once remembered name ‘Logan McGregor, Hero of Malaga’ was fading from the public mind also, as other men bled for the King and became famous soldiers in the pamphlet news.

His generation was passing into history... ghosts that haunted the memory of that reclusive lord of Tarrow Hall...

‘Alistair’

Act II

Scene i: Chateau du Quenoy, France 1733.

The crushing wheels and hooves of a gilded carriage riding the gravel road sent the Comte’s hunting dogs into a howling chorus, warning the residents of the mansion that unexpected company had arrived. Alighting before the wide limestone steps of the main entrance, Alistair (alias Friedrich) left the cab with a bottle of the region’s famous sparkling wine in hand, tapping the grand door with the swinging brass of the lion’s mouth knocker.

A curtain moved in a proximate window, before a dim light framed the parting doors to allow a servant to look at the frock coated stranger. Clarell (a maid servant of the Chateau) almost asked what business the thin man had at the Comte’s home, until she realized that the stranger was none other than the prodigal son of the du Quenoy family, ‘Alois’ (Alistair aka Friederich etc al). Apologizing to the young maitre for the brief silence, she bowed and allowed Alois egress from the night to wait in the foyer whilst she sought for his father, the Comte Alphonse du Quenoy.

Within minutes of Clarell’s message, the aging Comte looked down at his estranged heir from the balustrade, asking him with veiled contempt for the reason of his unannounced arrival, his jowls flushed to angry blooms. He reminded Alois of their agreement, that he was only to return to the Chateau for Lent and Christ’s Mass each year.

Disregarding his mortal father’s concerns, Alois raised the bottle of white wine and asked if they might speak over a few glasses, as he had come urgently to inform the Comte of some troubling news that might reconcile their past differences. Leery of his son’s pretentious charm, Alphonse relented to speak with him, ordering a nearby servant to prepare one of the parlours with lamps and drinking vessels for the fateful reunion.

* * *

Already seated on an ornate walnut chair, Alois calmly waited for his father to join him in the lamplight of the study. After a short delay the Comte entered the room with the servant from the foyer in tow to wait upon them. A pair of wine glasses with thick stems that accommodated two thirds of the height (common to the 18th cent.) were set before ‘pater et filius’ by the silent maid, whom retreated into the wall with the furniture. Alois noted the full pocket of his father’s night robes, at the right hip where a man might secret a pistol or dagger as Alphonse settled his weight into the chair opposite the commode.

Pouring from the glass bottle he had brought for the reunion, the two aristocrats toasted to the health of the King (Louis XV). Turning his expression at the first mouthful, Alphonse remarked that the wine tasted off, to which Alois shrugged that it must have been a bad year, although he could not taste it himself. Bringing the Comte’s attention to the urgent reason for his visit, the pale man warned that the news would be upsetting, and that the maid should leave to avoid any unpleasant repercussions. Suspicious of this request, Alphonse rose from his seat and took the servant’s hand as he instructed her to wait without the room, a signal Alois picked up on before their resumed conversation.

Unbeknownst to Alphonse, the sparkling wine had been mixed with Alois’ vitae, it’s numbing narcotic easing away the elder man’s defences. Once the Tremere was sure of its influence within the Comte’s body, he began to relate aloud his encounter with a Greek man whom had revealed the true slayer of Magdalene his beloved sister; it was not the pair of serfs whom had been accused and hung in the town square of 1723, but rather Alphonse himself.

Lifting the flintlock pistol from the robe pocket to aim at his accuser, the Comte blustered in outrageous fits, calling his son a madman whom had finally cracked from all his perverted inquiries into ‘dead things’. Easily swatting the shaking gun from the hand to thump upon the floor, Alois asked him directly if this were true.

Through fits and sobs the confession unravelled from Alphonse’s tongue, crying that he had been tempted to ravish his own daughter, and through misfortune caused her death by suffocation when she fought back against his animal advances. The local sheriff and magistrate were bribed to accept the tortured confessions of two simple peasants, Pierre and Jehans, after which their necks were duly broken before the crowds.

* * *

After the hounds of the du Quenoy estate had raised their cacophony for many hours that particular night, nearby farms and villagers discussed another noise that had come about shortly thereafter, a single tearing note that cut the starlight with terror, as though the devil himself had come to claim someone’s mortal soul.

That scream of course was Alphonse, strapped to a table that was scarred like a butcher’s block as he was pushed through the length of portrait halls and crystal ballrooms by his heir, whose unrestrained glee erupted into maniacal giggling as a child would make removing the wings of a fly.

Alphonse’s destination was the private laboratory below the palatial home, a converted cellar that was ice cold to preserve the various samples and experiments arranged against the walls. There, kept like a wilting white rose was the body of Magdalene, dressed in her funeral lace inside a glass coffin shrine displayed under an arching alcove.

Sealing the workroom doors, the gates of hell in Alphonse’s tortured mind, Alois perused his surgical instruments for inspiration, coming to lay his hand on a bone saw. Tragically for the Comte there was no escape from witnessing the amputation of his own ankles, then shins; Alois had forced him to ingest more kindred vitae, its rejuvenating properties keeping the bloated old man conscious during the vivisection as he stared at the corpse of his daughter opposite his restrained seat.

Magdalene smiled in peaceful rest, on the other side of the horrors reflected on the surface of her glass coffin.

* * *

In the coming days there were many stray dogs lopping through the peripheral villages, great hunting hounds that scavenged for food before barking in fright if anyone approached them, as though they had lost their trust in anything human...

Scene ii: Dietmar’s Manse, Vienna 1735.

Summoned to by his Sire to Vienna, Friedrich (Alistair etc) joined the elder Tremere in his private study, a projecting turret that afforded a view of the city’s northern quarter washed in moonlight and blue shadows.

Asking of his Childer’s recent journeys, Dietmar nodded in empathy where necessary as Friedrich replied that he had come into some fortune during his nights in Eastern France, leaving him in a good humour that had not diminished since his return to Austria. Dietmar congratulated his progeny in whatever luck he had encountered, before he asked if he had been in communication with anyone involved with the Medvega incident of 1732.

Friedrich explained that he had not seen the chosen coterie since the spring of that year, but had remained in contact with Civan the Giovanni as per the Clan’s request. Arriving at the heart of the elder’s suspicions, Dietmar asked if they had met outside of those times the Clan had arranged, to continue perhaps some personal business without his (Dietmar’s) knowledge?

The neonate assured his Sire that he was involved in no such conspiracy, although he did admit to Civan offering him information of his own volition, information that he had recently acted upon. Troubled by this revelation, the older vampire warned his student that by such personal hooks would the Giovanni corrupt their chosen prey, a law unto themselves outside the Camarilla’s justice. Orders from the Tremere council however dictated that Friedrich would continue acting as Civan’s contact. The Clan had always defended itself against multiple opponents from the night of its inception by studying the other descendants of Cain, and communication was vital to keep this information flowing back to the Head Chantry.

Incase there should be troubles on the unknown horizon, Dietmar reiterated that his other Childer, Francis, could be trusted to act in his stead if he should ever go missing, as Dietmar had accrued many foes like their greater Clan in the long nights.

Free now to ask his own questions of the elder, Friedrich began with a request to make his own Childer, restraining them of course for his studies into the vampiric condition. Dietmar hissed that such talk was dangerous, and that only the Prince could approve of the creation of progeny in his domain. However, there were ways to skirt the laws of Prince and Camarilla if he were cautious enough, Dietmar hinted; from time to time a blood hunt would be called to remove caitiff, trespassers, and the condemned whom had wakened the ire of their peers. No one would miss them...

* * *

Moving downstairs to a secure work room under the manse, Friedrich joined his master in observing a recent experiment, helped in part by his own work in collecting the mysterious vitae from his assignations with Civan. As Dietmar spoke of his theories, a faint noise could be heard intermittently from a small chest beneath the table, the slapping thuds becoming more violent as the Elder retrieved it. On opening the wine-varnished lid the fleshy mass of a toad writhed and chewed its own tongue, animate but senseless as it jerked out of the box and rolled in a trail that left wet slime in the dust of the cell floor.

Confident that the vitae provided by Civan could be adjusted to also revivify some basic intellect in his future subjects, the older Tremere warned his charge to keep the relationship with the Giovanni amicable but distant lest they all be drawn into some trap of the eternal vampire Jyhad.

Unknown to Dietmar, Civan had already stirred the neonates interests with that fateful information whispered from the other side of death’s veil. This information had proven itself to be true after Alphonse’s tearful confession, and so Friedrich was willing to trust the Greek merchant’s next revelation: that the cordial blood of an ancient vampire could reverse decomposition as though living flesh.

Once such a body was prepared, the last ingredient would be the return of the animus to stir those long stiffened limbs. Such rites were the particular clan secrets of the Giovanni... secrets that could not be bought with material wealth alone...

‘Johann’

Act III

Scene i: Nosferatu Lair near Merzce, Hungary 1733.

Frogs sang in the wetland dusk settling over Merzce as a pair of grotesque figures wandered through the untamed marsh, deep in conversation by the time they came to a dead tree whose white boughs scratched the stars like bone fingers. One figure had limped along in a fashion between a man and a three legged dog beside the other, whom trailed a tattered vestment crowned with pagan deer antlers.

Borbala, known in mortal legends as the vengeful Lady of Sorrows when sinners vanished from the roads between Hungry and the Bavarian borders, informed her Childer (the hunchbacked Johann) that his report from the previous winter had revealed a weakness in Clan Tremere. It had come to her attention that the character description of Friedrich from the Medvega expedition could be interpreted as symptoms of an unhinged mind. The Tremere generally followed a strict criteria in choosing candidates to insure themselves, but in this case something had been overlooked. Henceforth, the Nosferatu would use this crack in their armour to learn more of their Cainite peers

At present the Tremere were being held down around Bohemia from one of their old adversaries, an order of magi. This war had been running on and off since the middle ages, likely some blood feud between rival families. There would come a time, possibly decades hence, when the Tremere would look for other havens outside the Holy Roman Empire. At this moment the Nosferatu would be ready to follow in their shadows and trace them over the continent. Johann’s target, she informed in a dry tongue, would be to follow Friedrich.

Accepting the task, Johann commented that the journey to Medvega had also unearthed the Orthodox priest, Father Miklos. Unlike many professed men of the church, eastern or west, Father Miklos was a real servant of God, able to detect the hidden world of the kindred and possibly more. In light of this fact, the stooping Nosferatu asked that a special warden be placed around the Priest and nearby village, protecting him until there came a time to use this gift.

The antlered crone nodded in approval, replying that Johann himself would be responsible for the safety of the hamlet now that Gregor had been lost to the Assamites.

Scene ii: Church of St Lazar, Medvega 1735.

Johann made his haven in the West Morava valleys, creeping along its roads and village lanes to account for any signs of trouble against the Camarilla, besides gathering local gossip to aid the Clan’s influence in the region. So far he had been able to piece together the stories of a white horse that would offer children a ride with a bow, appearing at dusk near any lonely road that cut through a forest. The monster would then carry them away and drown them in the river when it leapt into the ice cold waters. The accounts were eerily similar to the white mare that had chased them from Petrovaradin, an antitribu (anti-tribe) Sabbat they had wounded years previously.

* * *

One night as the village priest cleaned the votive holders of the church, a familiar presence slunk into the shadows and regarded the holy man’s movements in silence. Father Miklos felt as though invisible eyes were on him, pausing in his duties to look over the empty nave and altar as the crippled shade of Johann emerged from the rows of pews to greet him.

The Nosferatu’s presence made the Father reach for the knotted cross of his prayer-rope (Orthodox rosary), asking aloud if the curse of Arnold had returned to the region (see Games III & IV). A hollow voice assured the priest that his visit was not related to the mysterious events two years prior; Johann had come to ask the priest’s forgiveness for his involvement in the affair, and to receive Holy Communion. His bodily corruption had scared away previous attempts by any clergy to administer the rite, leaving him unhallowed even further in the eyes of God.

Donning the vestments for the ritual with a kiss, Father Miklos prepared for the midnight mass, illuminated by tapers at the corners of the altar. Holding aloft a bread crust, Father Miklos asked the vampire if he would partake of the flesh of Christ.

Johann extended his black tongue, taking the transmutation with reverence back into his mouth.

Raising the Chalice with both hands, he asked the vampire if he would accept the blood of his Lord.

Reaching for the cup with dirty claws, Johann assented to the charge and brought the sacred wine to his needled teeth.

Something divine had become impregnated with the wine and bread, a growing sense of tranquil being that irradiated from the Nosferatu’s innards after the blessing. Johann had felt nothing like it, not even in his mortal years as a zealot for the Roman church. This revelation gave him hope for the truth of rumoured ‘Golconda’, a name given to the transcendental heaven and the path by which an aspiring Cainite might find it to relieve the curse of their bloodlust forever.

From a rafter above, eyes watched the exchange between kindred and mortal priest through the sagging curtains of spiders webs... an angel or devil that had recently become concerned for Johann’s undead soul...

Scene iii: Nina’s Cottage

Salvation and duty to the Clan were not the only reasons Johann had returned to the region. Ever since the recovery of the torn slip of manuscript from under the floorboards of Nina’s Cottage, he had come to suspect that there might be more fragments from the book that had endangered them to the Assamites in 1731.

When opportunity came, the Nosferatu entered the house some nights after, elusive as the shadows he cloaked himself within to prowl the unlit room. As he had suspected, deposited under the planking were the remains of the ancient tome’s tan bound cover and enough loose pages to have made up a third to a quarter of the book’s total contents, were it complete.

Wavering between fear and joy, Johann was unsure how to proceed safely with the relic. He felt that it would be safest where it was for the immediate future, taking three leafs of parchment just incase his plan should prove foolish.

* * *

The discovery of the first half of the codex was reported to Borbala in a private meeting months later, after which the valuable manuscript vanished. After these series of events Johan decided inwardly to speak no more of it, keeping the three pages a secret until he can translate the Semetic tongue in which it was written.

Scene iv: Burtscheid Abbey, Aix-la-Chapelle 1742.

As the 18th century peaked, so did the fortunes of the Clans of the Camarilla. The wars of the continent alongside the burgeoning sciences of finance and politicks were turning slowly against the Aristocrats’ indentured hold of Europe and the New World beyond.

The Hapsburg empire had lost most of the territories gained during the Treaty of Passarowitz, including the Serbian regions of the Morava River that Johann had been stationed in. Those loyal to the Camarilla fled north into Hungary as the Assamites and Sabbat struggled to take back their territory in the wake of the retreating soldiers.

Now serving the Clan’s interests as a messenger around Austria, Johann learnt of a private war that had flared up between the Tremere and a society of mortal magi in his duties of subterfuge. This conflict, and the loss of territories in the south, had drained the Tremere’s resources and membership so far. He had also heard reports along the network of an attempt by the kindred of Northern England to usurp the House of Hanover (George II) and re-install the House of Stuart (Charles Edward Stuart) exiled in France. If the northern Cainite barons were successful, they would be able to halt the ambitions of Mithras, the High Prince of London, from his goal of ruling all of Avalon (England).

* * *

Information of a different nature would soon take Johann outside the German empire to the border with France. Throughout the intervening years he had sought for any clues about the underground societies of the Inconnu, whom had retired from the Jyhad of the Long Night to attain Golconda, and the Manus Nigrum (‘Black Hand’), a sect of ancients that were blamed for the troubles of the kindred world in their own quest to either destroy it or attain all in some final checkmate, dependant on whom one asked.

An informant gave him the name of a rumoured Inconnu, and her haven in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). Known only as Sister Odele, her residence was the Cistercian Nunnery of Burtscheid Abbey.

Arriving after dusk one night during the autumn of 1742, a cowled ‘monk’ (Johann) asked for admittance to the cell of Sister Odele. The silent sisters whom answered his summons at the gates of the abbey led the pilgrim to an empty room in one of the towers, closing the door after themselves. At first confused, the robed monk paced the length of each wall to discover that a brick was missing from one of them.

From the other side came a voice, warbling like a dreaming dove to ask the stranger what he sought for in the Abbey of Burtscheid. Asking the disembodied voice if she had any knowledge of Golconda, the Nosferatu listened as she in turn questioned his faith in breaking the Curse of Caine’s lust, testing his resolve to seek patiently for centuries until a revelation of its truth shone through the night.

Affirming that he would search for the truth of Golconda, Sister Odele prayed with him, the rhythm of the words echoing as a cave in the brick-sealed confines of her cell.

* * *

The serenity of the Sister’s grace soon came into question. Asking the Nosferatu if he had anything to sustain her ‘penance’ behind the wall, Johann offered her one of the rodents he kept in his pockets, explaining that he did not feed on human blood like most kindred. A lily-white hand reached out from the missing brick, the skin taut as only a young woman could have, clutching at the offering before it snaked back into the aperture. The sound of the rat’s neck snapping made Johann to wonder if Sister Odele was truly on the right path.

He verbalized this thought, framing it carefully to ask if the nun might not be mistaken in her ascetic unlife, merely teasing the beast within by starving it of the vitae it craved. Maniacal laughter broke the solemn atmosphere, a cutting staccato between wailing desperation and the ecstasy of madness.

Numbed by the behaviour of the confined Sister, he left the room as the hideous bells of her howl followed him through stone passages of the abbey, desperately seeking for the exit that would take him away from that haunted tower.

* * *

A week after this ordeal, Johann was informed that Sister Odele was of the Clan Malkavian, their bloodline cursed with insanity since the days of Caine. This revelation cast a spectre of doubt over the truth of Golconda...

‘Reunion’

Act I

Scene i: Villa de Blanche, 1759.

Fourteen years after the failed attempt to reinstate The Stuarts on the throne of England in the ‘Rebellion of ‘45’, the Northern Barons (Kindred) of Avalon had no choice but to accept Mithras in London as their High Prince. Those whom remained in open defiance of his rule had escaped for the New World, or exiled themselves on the continent to avoid the red list of the Justicars (enforcers).

Lord Christie, Sire to Sir Logan, had been condemned to final death in his absence not long after the Jacobite rebellion if he should ever return to the United Kingdom. He had re-established himself in Northern France, avoiding the wrath of Mithras and John de York, the Prince of York whom he (Christie) had once advised as an Elder. His resources and allies however remained across the English Channel, requiring much assistance from his Childer Sir Logan to work with Hans the Dutch smuggler to receive visits from his mortal lover Lord Jotham, whom was now dependant on Christie’s vitae to remain youthful.

* * *

One summer night in 1759, a small gathering was hosted by Lord Christie in his private villa, a celebration to mark the decades since his tryst to the young aristocrat in 1709. Having served as a bodyguard for the nobleman during the crossing, Logan was in attendance with his own companion, an unsteady affair with the red haired Lianna of Clan Toreador.

At first the relationship had been a means to an end in finding Jack ‘o the Docks (see Logan’s story above), but Lianna was a jealous mistress whose passions ran hot and cold, known to strangle past lovers with the strings of a violin or harp.

Taking her place as the centre of attention, Lianna entertained the shadowy guests with her musical finesse, fingers dancing over the ivory keys of the harpsichord as laughter sung in the night. Logan could hear all this and more as he retired to an outdoor balcony, removing the wig that often frustrated him on social occasions such as these.

The loose fittings of a carriage clattered along the driveway, heralding the arrival of more guests to the reunion. Having a suitable vantage to watch the horses and cab approach, Logan was not amused to recognize the occupants whom alighted from either side. One was a wide man with a square jaw and brows, the other a quill thin rake dressed in black. It was of course Dietmar and his Childer Friedrich whom the Ventrue had not seen for over twenty years. Looking over the facade of the building, the young Doctor dipped his head in recognition of the solitary figure leaning on the terraces above.

A third passenger had disembarked from the carriage, unknown to either Logan or Friedrich. Johann had secretly clung to the cab each night as it travelled from the borders of the Holy Roman Empire (Germany). As Borbala had predicted long ago, the Tremere had become desperate in their war of attrition with the Magi, seeking out new allies and lands in which to retreat and lick their wounds. Charged by his Sire to spy on Dietmar’s next move, Johann furtively scaled the stonework of the villa to find a suitable window to continue his observations.

* * *

Merging with the intimate crowd in one of the upper rooms, the Tremere from Vienna mingled and celebrated with the nocturnal gathering. After a brief reunion with Logan, Friedrich was delighted to inform the curious Lianna of how they had come to meet all those years ago in the Belvedere Palace, embarrassing the Ventrue as he made light of the many trials they had suffered on the roads to Medvega (Games II & III).

Dinner was soon ushered into the candlight, a train of kine (a derogatory term often used by kindred to compare mortals with cattle) that was paraded like a slave auction, a menagerie of age and genders to accommodate the peculiar tastes of those in the audience. After their selection, copious volumes of absinthe were forced upon the chosen meal so that the kindred diner could enjoy the wormwood wine’s secondary effects once it passed into their own veins.

Wishing to avoid the Doctor and his Sire as politely as he could, Logan excused himself from the theatre of monsters that fed with crimson mouths on the hypnotised, the air sweet with sugar and blood from the open wounds. He retired again to the balcony, musing on the arrival of these old faces from the past.

As elusive as the night, Johann called to the Ventrue, surprising the other with a mischievous croaking laugh. He asked Logan why he did not join the others in the wormwood feast, learning that like himself Logan had not given into the temptations of the blood-fuelled beast within them.

* * *

Having danced for the harpsichord playing Toreador, Friedrich bowed to the appreciative crowd before joining his Sire and another ominous figure whom had summoned him with a curling index finger. Introducing the tall sombre Cainite as Yves of Normandy (Clan Tremere), Dietmar guided his Childer’s attention toward an English aristocrat in the room, a ghoul bonded to Lord Christie. Yves warned Friedrich to memorize the visage of this handsome man, and to be ready to act when the time came for the three of them to ‘remove’ this mortal from Christie’s presence...