Chapter 5 – Heralds of War
26th March, 2021.
Act 1
Scene i: St Anne Hospital, Burien.
​
Waiting in the public carpark as they observed the evening foot traffic coming to and from the hospital entrance, Elwin and Ed finalized their plans to deal with the surviving witness, moving from their position out in the open after the headlight sweep of a departing car had passed across them.
​
Entering the admin foyer to begin their search, Elwin did not recognize the reception nurse on duty at the desk, making their task difficult when they had hoped to avoid the eyes of strangers. Seating themselves in the waiting area nearby, the Tremere anxiously searched the faces of any hospital staff approaching the foyer until he found the familiar in a trainee doctor coming down the hall in the company of a nurse.
​
Interrupting the doctor before he could leave the corridor, Elwin excused his intrusion as though it were only a coincidental meeting, reminded Lewis (the doctor) about their shared past at med school. Having now gained the doctor’s confidence, he continued to ask if Dr Lewis could help him learn about the critical condition of Paula Lang, a patient that had been admitted some nights earlier due to a vehicle accident in Burien.
Still seated in the waiting room, Ed’s attention was on the wall mounted television as it flashed images from a news update about the bribery scandal involving developer Sebastian Green and other city officials. Hounded by the press and their reaching microphones, Green’s lawyer denied the allegations against his client as they fought their way down the courthouse steps. The news segment confirmed for Ed that his photographs were having the desired effect, throwing a monkey wrench into the developer’s plans for Holly Park.
* * *
With confirmation of Paula’s location and that she had not woken since her admittance to the recovery ward, the two Cainites had discretely made their way back outside the building so they could re-enter the hospital through a private door often used by the staff when they had a chance to smoke on duty. Skulking around the corridors without further hindrance, the pair let themselves into the patient’s room, leaving the lights off as they stood over her injured body on the bed, limbs wrapped in plaster as the oscillating beat of monitoring equipment displayed her limping heart beat.
​
Reading the chart at the end of the bed, Elwin was concerned with guilt as the data showed her condition had been stable since the crash, with signs she would recover. He and Ed had hoped to find her otherwise so that their job would be easier. Debating in whispers about the current situation, Elwin paused to take a sample of her blood from the fingertip.
​
At that moment his inner compulsions swarmed his self control, the razor edge of his teeth severing the joint so that his dry lips could slake themselves on the dripping red wound. Able to sense the lust of the beast’s nature within the hearts of the kindred. Ed immediately drew his hungry friend back from the sleeping woman, calming him until his soul returned from the mist of primal needs.
​
Surprisingly, Paula had not stirred, adrift in an induced coma besides any other pain medication she might have in her system. From the taste of her blood Elwin was able to determine that she was no ghoul, a suspicion he and Ed had shared before entering the hospital. The temptation to save her from the Prince’s death order finally compelled them to go with an alternate plan, deciding that they would instead use a wheelchair to take her out of St Anne.
​
To keep Paula alive without the aid of the life support equipment at her bedside, Ed bit into the flesh of his inner arm, allowing the vitae to flow into her mouth so it could strengthen her with its innate properties, making her a temporary ghoul until the curse of Caine subsided.
Removing her from the bed to a wheelchair, the pair disappeared from the scene, taking the young woman to a reliable safehouse in the suburbs where she could be hidden until her full recovery...
Scene ii: Myth Nightclub, Columbia City.
​
Leaning on the bar as the restless nightclub moved to pulse of New Wave music, Aurore caught up with her mortal friend Connie whom worked behind the counter. As they spoke, Aurore’s attention fell on a handsome thug whom she had known before her embrace, their meeting arranged the night before when she had begun searching for Andy Tibble.
​
Recognizing her as well from where he stood at the end of the bar, Derek waved her over, too arrogant to show any appreciation or respect even for an old friend like herself. After commenting on her ageless visage, Derek remained aloof to try and draw out the reasons why she was looking for Tibble, inviting her to continue the discussion near the far wall so they could have more privacy.
​
According to Derek, Tibble was running with a new crew known as the “Serpents”, bikers from Tacoma that had been doing a little business in the southern districts of Seattle. Some nights previously Tibble had ended up in hospital after a confrontation with some unknown rivals, from which he had fled as soon as he was able to walk on crutches. Believing Aurore’s concern for Tibble to be genuine, Derek gave her a note with the address of the safehouse he was hiding in.
​
Thanking him for the information, Aurore departed from the nightclub soon afterward to continue the hunt.
Scene iii: Gorst, Kitsap County Washington.
​
Riding the ferry service from Seattle Terminal to the dark shores of the Western Sound, Aurore studied the ripple reflections of light bending on black waters as she pondered, reviewing what she had learnt since the full moon (Chap 4, 2:iii).
​
Arriving at Bremerton, she disembarked in her car, passing the naval shipyards until the roads took her into the unlit countryside, headlights stretching for miles as she followed the road signs to Gorst. A backroad branched away into the unknown, on which she drove until a letterbox leaned out from the weeds, painted with bold numbers that matched the address given to her by Derek.
​
Cautiously approaching the farmhouse through a yard of rotting machinery, Aurore knocked on the door, the sound of a television muffled by the walls as she listened for signs of life. Dry hinges whined as the door crept open, where the magnified eyes of an old lady in glasses looked up at her, bony hands gripping a walking frame to support herself. Answering the strange woman with a polite ‘yes’ to confirm that Tibble was there, the frail granny screeched at Andy, summoning him to the opposite end of the hallway where he limped into frame, his broken body held rigid with an arm and leg cast, neck brace under his chin like a platter.
​
Surprised to see Aurore at his door late in the evening, Tibble’s nervous instincts were washed away by the kindred’s velvet voice, allaying any false suspicions he might have about her intentions in case he decided to use the gun he was holding out of view. Tracing her way through the horded beer cans and ashtrays to a seat in the lounge room at the back of the farmhouse, Tibble excused the mess, awkwardly settling into his own chair before they spoke about his association with the Tacoma bikers and his recent ‘accident’.
​
Tibble’s story of meeting the Serpents (bike gang) confirmed for Aurore that they were one and the same as the Anarch faction that existed outside the Camarilla. By his account, the Anarchs had learnt of a drug deal near the Nevada border, ripping off a substantial package of heroin.
​
The swindled party had finally caught up with the bikers, chasing Eddie (+girlfriend Paula) and Tibble through SeaTac, where they became divided. Like Eddie, he had been driven off the road, but he had been allowed to live so as to deliver a message to the rest of the Serpents. Lifting his shirt to show Aurore, the dressed wounds of an inverted ankh had been carved down the side of his ribs, the ‘message’ he was supposed to carry back to Tacoma. Instead, he had fled the hospital without warning the others, hiding in the lonely farmhouse and cutting off contact with the outside until the situation passed.
​
The interrogation he had experienced that night had frayed Tibble’s mind, flashbacks of the knife-edge torture and a woman who spoke with a Mexican accent. Aurore asked him for the address to the Serpents’ clubhouse, assuring him that she would be able to warn his friends so he could remain hidden at the farm.
​
She knew what message the inverted ankh read: the Sabbat were back in Washington, on the warpath for Anarch blood...
Scene iv: Starter Restaurant, Burien.
​
In another part of the state, Mikhail was graciously welcoming a visitor to the restaurant office, embracing the avuncular Cainite as family before helping him take a seat at the desk, producing the restaurant business ledgers for the elder to inspect.
​
Peeling through the pages with inhuman alacrity, Lukyan, the Antonov family liason for the west coast, commented on some of the marginal profits he was reading. Mikhail assured him that the business was still in its first few months, and just beginning to establish its reputation in the Burien community.
​
With the audit concluded, Lukyan inquired about the political scene of the local Seattle kindred, as he was only acquainted with Oran’s formidable reputation. Mikhail filled him in on the divided city-courts of Seattle and Tacoma, looking to Lukyan for any guidance on which side to avoid, trapped as they were between the two factions in Burien. Placing his faith in Oran as the one who would emerge as victor, Lukyan also wondered aloud if the Seattle prince was responsible for the intruder that had killed one of Mikhail’s men, exposing the Antonov family haven north of the city.
​
Dismissing the bodyguards from the office door, Lukyan concluded the meeting by delivering the family’s instructions in their mother tongue. Opening a dossier folder of aerial photographs, the elder pointed to a warehouse within the boundary of the Boeing aerospace company. The family wanted information on a trans-orbital delivery system being developed in the facility, hinting at its possible use by them in the final nights of Gehenna.
​
It would be Mikhail’s duty to establish a mole within the company, so that the weapon’s design information could be leaked back to the elders whom remained in the old world...
Scene v: St James Cathedral, First Hill.
​
Finding his sire in the peaceful ambience of the cathedral, Elwin came to stand beside the priest, Father Blake, as he observed the evening choir practice in the background. Disturbing Blake’s reverie by the tone of his voice, Elwin asked for the truth about the Cainite he had recently met in Burien, who claimed to be his vampire sibling. The mention of Aurore upset the priest’s temperament, leading his childer into a storage room beyond the vaulted arches of the main building.
​
With only the fixed eyes of statues and religious paintings as mute witness to the conversation that followed, Blake admitted that he had embraced Aurore nearly a decade ago, later abandoning her as a mistaken candidate that was useless to the clan’s needs. Blake warned Elwin to avoid the temptress, forbidding him from teaching her any of the Clan’s thaumaturgical secrets.
* * *
Outside the cathedral, Aurore was waiting for Elwin to re-emerge through the gothic door frame, having seen him enter the building a half hour earlier. He presently returned down the stone steps and back onto the street when she called to him from the dark, revealing her presence as she stepped forward.
​
Asking Elwin if he was satisfied with Blake’s confirmation about her past, he apologized for doubting her claim, and ready to place a little more trust in her. The answer pleased her, for she had some urgent news to share with Elwin and the rest of the Burien coterie...
Act 2
Scene i: Starter Restaurant.
​
The next evening in the restaurant office, Ed and Mikhail were engaged again with the topic of how to appease Prince Oran’s requests when they were interrupted by the appearance of Elwin and Aurore entering the wood panelled room.
​
Satisfying their questions about why he had brought the femme fatale back into their company, Elwin confirmed that Aurore had been truthful about her sire, Blake, as well as carrying pertinent news about the Anarch bikers whom they wished to repel from Burien and SeaTac.
​
Tracing the reverse ankh on a table surface, Aurore warned the coterie that she knew who was hunting the Anarchs; the Sabbat. Through a mutual friend (Tibble) she had learnt the address of the Anarch’s clubhouse in South Tacoma, bringing the information to the Burien coterie first since they also had an interest in the affairs of these lawless Cainites.
​
With the revelation of the Sabbat’s presence near Seattle, the four agreed to leave immediately and follow Aurore’s lead to the clubhouse. If they could win over the Anarchs to listen to reason and work with them against a common threat, the carry-over effect could help raise their profile among the Southern Court, giving them access to Kyrstal and Leo when the time came to enact Oran’s orders (Chap 4, 2:ii).
Scene ii: Serpent’s clubhouse, South Tacoma.
​
Driving in two separate vehicles, the coterie made the midnight journey from Burien to Tacoma, southern horizon dominated by the rising contour peak of Mt Rainier, snow capped in the gossamer glow of waning moonlight.
​
Safe on the highways, the black wilderness between the haze of intervening communities along the road reminded some passengers of the rumoured ‘Lupines’ that dwelt in the untamed forests and parklands that Washington State was known for.
​
Arriving at the skid row avenues of South Tacoma, they identified the high fence seclusion of the clubhouse on a street corner, the older workshop buildings converted into a private retreat. Circling the block once, Sascha and Aurore parked their respective cars at a safe distance from the clubhouse, where the remaining coterie emerged from the passenger doors to walk toward the shopfront. Aurore soon joined them at the door, leaving Sascha and Arry the bloodhound with the vehicles to keep a lookout over the streets.
​
Guard dogs unseen on the other side of the fence snarled and jumped against the barrier as they sensed their presence, until Ed turned their savage emotions with the influence of his vampiric aura, placating them to whimper and wag their tails as he won them over.
​
Mikhail knocked, standing in the door alcove until a voice asked who they were. Blackie, whom had come to answer the summons, recognized some of them from his gig at The Palace in Columbia City (Chap 2, 3:ii). There was a brief wait as Blackie retired back behind the door to get the confirmation they wanted, before allowing them to enter the hallway, drawn to the music and voices reverberating from the main room.
​
The gathered Anarchs and their mortal friends paused immediately around the pool tables, sizing up the Burien coterie when they stepped into the room. Their leader, handsome with a mane of dark hair, approached Mikhail and the others, testing their credentials and asking why they had come looking for him.
Reminding the Anarchs that they had recently ripped off a drug delivery containing a substantial amount of “Mexican Brown” heroin, Aurore and the Burien coterie explained that the aggrieved party they had stolen it from were now hunting them down for revenge. And to make matters even worse, they were Sabbat!
​
Snake, the Anarch leader, listened to their advice as the story provided the reason for their recent troubles on the streets. He also felt some kinship with Ed as a fellow Gangrel, a clan that was not easily swayed by the Seattle prince. Together with the news of Eddie’s girlfriend being hidden away from Prince Oran’s desire to silence her, Snake was about to agree to their proposals when the guard dogs barked suddenly at some unknown threat.
​
Shocked by the chorus of animals, they listened as the dogs furious alarm twisted to yelping pain, their bodies thrown against the outer walls of the clubhouse until they were completely silenced. Then the odour of smoke crept through the air, flames warping the interior corner into blackened ruin.
​
The clubhouse was being invaded...
​
​
​