Lay of the Land: Grand Meadow Psychiatric Institute

 "Sanitarium, just leave me alone..."

Grand Meadow? Well, yeah, I brought it up, but why would ya wanna know about the place? I guess, the place is just creepy. It has too much history and there're too many stories up North Side involving it. Ya sure ya want all this background, its kind of a lot? Alright, it's on ya then.

Not Even a Twinkle in the Eye
So back before UC was even a consideration, the most ya could find out this way was some plains, a river, and a whole mess of angry natives. The Otoe counted the area north of North Side as their lands, but avoided the space around where Grand Meadow is. "Ancient burial grounds"? Nah, or if it is, it wasn't their burial grounds. Ya'd have to track down a scholar in that sort of thing. All I ever heard was talk of mounds that they didn't go near.

Europeans came through earlier but it wasn't until the 1790s that any of them settled near Union City. A few outposts and river crossings sprung up, and that's what brought James Teesdale here. Rumors follow the rich and powerful and by all accounts, he was both. A supposed occultist, Teesdale built a mansion or hunting lodge, local history isn't exactly clear on it, not far from the river, close to the Otoe's mounds, despite all of their warnings to the contrary. So it isn't real surprising that the house burned to the ground in 1812. No one knows what started the fire, but only his eldest son escaped it, with both his wife and daughter away at the time.

The Teesdale homestead sat there untouched for almost 40 years, before it was purchased by a preacher man, Reverend Benjamin Bodycombe. Like Joseph Smith, he claimed visions led him to the place and he started a commune to practice his branch of Protestantism. History says it was all communal wives and vegetarianism. Sounds like a real party. Union City officially became a city not long after that, and Bodycombe's people weren't too popular with the townsfolk. Within a couple of years, they cut all ties and communication with UC. That's when it gets tragic. See, summer of 1857, Reverend Bodycombe and almost all of his followers committed mass suicide. The Reverend himself swallowed the barrel of a rifle. Only two little girls were found alive, but they didn't live much longer.

Foundation and Early Days
Yeah, ya think there's some rocky stuff back then, hold on. The land went up for auction, and a doctor from the East Coast, Ignatius Hopper, bought it. For a dollar. Ya can still find the submission of the plans for a sanitarium to be built there, using something called the "Kirkbride Plan." No idea what that actually means. Sounds fancy. Meadow Sanitarium, as it was called back then, was complete in 1862. We weren't a state during the Civil War but the fighting sometimes spilled over this way, and the government made use of the place as a military hospital. It wasn't until 1866 that Hopper was back in charge. He was as much a businessman as he was a doctor, and he pulled big money from back east to add to the sanitarium's grounds, building a bunch of extra housing units. They're still there, Hampden House, and all of that. If ya ever end up there, ya can see them.

Running a sanitarium must take a lot out of a guy 'cause Dr Hopper took a year long sabbatical in 1870, putting Dr Albert Cave in charge of the place until his return in 1871. Newspapers from back then have picture of the good doctor looking like he aged ten years in the space of one. Anyway, during Cave's tenure as Deputy Director, the sanitarium begins specializing in clinical insanity ahead of anything else. He's also the first to institute, see what I did there? a tier program for rich patients to get amazing care while the poor and wretched were often neglected. Unfortunately for him, he was trampled to death by a horse in 1881. Dr Edward Brake was tapped to be his replacement.

Brake became the Director when Hopper died in 1898, and one of his first acts was to have a statue of Hopper sculpted. Last time I was there, I swear the statue was watching me. What? No, I was visiting, not a resident. I'm not that crazy, yet.

Brave New Century
Things went great, I assume, until they didn't. Ya probably heard about the 1906 riot? No? It made national headlines back then. A handful of abused patients started an uprising in the East Wing of the sanitarium, killing three people and then setting a fire which killed another 130 or so.

Brake was the "turn a frown upside down" type of guy, and took the opportunity to improve the facilities. He had the burnt out wing demolished so that a newer, more modern one could be built. Rumor is that he connected the basements of the East Wing to the tunnels that already existed under the grounds, but I've never met anyone brave enough to check it out.

In 1908, two of Brake's staff were charged with negligence that led to the patient deaths from the fire. It was argued that by leaving the mentally ill strapped to beds, they had no way to save themselves. Justice was a fickle thing back then, however, and the staffers were acquitted of all charges.

1917 saw the death of Dr Brake by hanging suicide in his East Wing office. His successor, Donald Roe, found out that Brake had put the hospital into a poor financial position, and made plans to fix it. His plans were almost as short lived as his tenure, because he was strangled by a patient in 1920. Yeah, I know, a lot of Directors have died in the course of Grand Meadow's history. It doesn't stop there though.

The Dark Ages
The Nazis are best known for their eugenics program, but most of their ideas, they took from Americans. Of course, we got them back when German science aided us in building a-bombs and cruise missiles. Ah, so, Farnsworth Weaver became the next Director. He led a drug company back then, and wasn't a doctor himself, so he hired the now-infamous Dr Matthew Gorlay to be his head of medicine. Yeah, -that- Gorlay.

Then I probably don't have to tell you about the hundreds of patients that died from his experiments into lobotomy and sensory deprivation and extreme torture techniques. Did you know that Guantanamo Bay still uses some of the tricks he devised on terrorism suspects? That's what I've heard.

1933 was a bad year for the hospital. That's when Thomas Werner uncovered Gorlay's experiments and, over Weaver's objections, brought them to a medical ethics committee. The whole sordid affair has been made into numerous movies and I'm pretty sure a season of that murder story show. Gorlay was arrested for his medical fraud and Weaver ended up in prison for embezzlement. Of course, Gorlay committed suicide in his cell and Weaver died of stomach cancer years down the road. Thomas Werner was practically a hero back then, but no hospital administrator wanted to hire him. Probably because they had their own dirty laundry.

World Wide War
After Weaver died, the hospital went through a bit of an upheaval, since he owned the majority share of it. Werner stepped in and purchased it when no one else would, for one dollar. I know, that is a crazy coincidence.

During the war, in 1944, Werner pushed for the facility, simply Meadow Hospital, to be reopened with a focus on helping returning military men get right in the head. War is Hell and Werner recognized that many soldiers with "exhaustion," the term for PTSD back then, would need a facility that understood their mental struggles. It was a short term solution though, and the hospital only stayed open for a couple of years.

Werner received the Key to Union City back then, going into the '50s. And another award for public service. because of that, he was able to gather up enough funding to get the hospital opened back up for general use in '52.

He retired back in 1954 and the Board of Trustees, his group of investors, named Jeremiah Moorcock as the new Director. After Werner died in 1955, this guy worked the Board into returning Meadow to its old ways as a facility for the medically and criminally insane.

Moorcock reopened most of the East Wing and by '57, there weren't any more patients there for medical care. The same year, the name was changed to Grand Meadow Psychiatric Institute. Right, because it was such a place of learning, ya know? As a nod to that idea though, Moorcock built an addition to the medical center and named it after Werner, the Thomas Werner Annexe.

With the TWA dedicated to his "studies," Moorcock performed hundreds of lobotomies and electroconvulsive therapy experiments in the name of science. Yeah, electroshock. Never heard of that helping anyone, either. He kept meticulous notes that you can find if you know what books to look up. It came to a boil in '68 when he performed a lobotomy on a girl that was just tripping on acid. Her parents sued, he won, but it brought more scrutiny back to the hospital and someone eventually decided to act the role of karma in '73, when Moorcock was lobotomized by an assailant that they never found.

Ultra Modern Times
Johnathan Sendak took over after that, and did his best to clean the Institute up. Lobotomies and ECT was thrown into the trash heap as not conducive to true scientific advancement. There are still some bitter locals from back then, as Sendak fired a good portion of the staff and hired out-of-towners as replacements. He even convinced the Board of Trustees to sell a large portion of their share in Grand Meadow to a Japanese firm called Teijin in the late 70s, just ahead of the "Japanese Invasion" craze of the 80s. Teijin jumped into things on the condition that they chose the Deputy Director of the facility, and Sendak hired Dr Thomas Bateman on their recommendations.

About a year after the Teijin purchase, Sendak talked the Board into divesting themselves of their remaining interests, and the shares were split between Eisai and Mitsubishi Tanabe, two of Teijin's rival Japanese pharmaceutical manufacturers. Yeah, I'm old enough to remember the waves that caused in town, since Union City has never had a large Japanese population. Well, I'll show ya Chinatown, but that isn't the same. Sorry, I know some people think all "slant eyes" are the same. Not implying anything. Ya look like a good person.

The struggle between the companies made it harder for Grand Meadow to treat its patients, but when Bateman became the Director after Sendak's retirement, he worked hard to bring modern psychiatric techniques into the forefront of the Institute. He even made some documented breakthroughs with therapy techniques, all while dealing with ongoing pay disputes. The hospital continually lost money through the 80s, and Teijin was eventually able to buy out their competitors, even if they stopped looking at Grand Meadow as a profitable venture.

Ready for another tragic turn? In 1991, Bateman murdered his assistant and ran off with as much money from the hospital as he could. Ironically, he claimed temporary insanity and could never explain why he did it. Almost as ironically is that he was killed in prison by a former Grand Meadow patient. After his arrest, Dr Bridget McClusky became the first female Director hired on. Hey. women can do anything. And I guess she did a good job, since Grand Meadow mostly stayed out of the news, until she stepped down in 2006. The stress of the job would get to anyone with that kind of history to deal with.

Dr Kumiko Noguchi, a stunning lady from Kyoto City and yes, I sure do like seeing her picture in the papers, runs the facility now. I still wouldn't want to be locked up in the place, and if ya ever have to visit anyone, make it a short visit, but I sure wouldn't be mad if she wanted to spend time in a padded room with me, if ya know what I mean.

Yeah, every now and then there is a big to-do about someone famous going there for treatment, and kids make up urban legends about escapees killing whole families in the park near it, but I wouldn't dwell on that too much if ya go North Side. Just, stay off the bridge across the river late at night. It's for the best.


----Jon De Luca, $5 tour guide

Just a few minutes from I-680

(From World of Darkness: Asylum)

(OON - World of Darkness: Asylum is one of the best books in my collection. Grand Meadow is a version of Bishopsgate intertwined with the history of Union City. The book version was definitely written to be placed within the original colonies, so I had to move the timeline up a hundred years to fit with real world settlements in what eventually became Nebraska, but once I got there, it was pretty easy to slide it into the narrative. It follows so many horror movie tropes and cliches that it is almost impossible not to love the idea.)

Drowning Sorrows

 "Shape shift, nose to the wind..."

Smell. It's the hardest thing for me to put into words. Take tension, for example. It has a stink to it. No, I don't mean the way people sweat when they're tense. I mean the tension in the air, the thing people describe as "thick enough to cut with a knife." I can smell the normal musky scents of my pack, sure, but there's the bitterness of the tension overlaying it, an odor kind of like the way a penny tastes. That's not exactly it, of course, since there is the tang of burning ozone as well, but you get the picture.

It's the latest rash of violence in the city that has everyone on edge. Not the normal gang violence or robberies, those tend to come and go. Arson, a mass shooting, flayed bodies dumped in a stream, that sticks out. Alex Mei, Bone Shadow and our Ithaeur, her tension smells the strongest right now. See, every time some big shit happens, it stirs up spirits in the area. Our darlin' Alex, she gets to deal with the little fish caught up in the wake. Me? I'm double dosed with badassness; Blood Talon Rahu. Give me something to fight and to kill, and I'm a happy camper. Too much dealing with spirit courts makes me twitchy.

"Look, it's close enough to our territory that we should probably check it out." Alex has finally stopped her pacing to argue the point. She does that. A lot. Pace and argue.

"Alex, 'close enough' doesn't make it OUR territory. And murders are a problem for the police." That's Kelvin Lange. Iron Master, Elodoth. He usually gets stuck playing devil's advocate, comes with the arbiter territory, but he likes to argue just as much as Alex. Knows the ins and outs of the city better than anyone. Also a complete asshole. Also the closest thing I have to a best friend.

"A random shooting is a problem for the police. Three bodies getting pulled from a stream without a strip of flesh left in the space of a month, that sounds like Pure. Suffering like that leads to Wounds. That is OUR problem." Her point is valid. Fuck the Anshega.

"Honor your territory in all things. It means 'don't go looking for problems when they're already knocking on your door,' kiddo." Okay, he's an asshole, but his point is just as valid. "Besides, nothing says the Pure are involved in any way."

"Don't fucking 'kiddo' me, Kel. I KNOW there isn't anything in the story that screams 'Pure.' That's why I want to take a look."

That brings us back to the tension. Quick poll of the rest of the room by scent and body language says Deb, that's Deborah Hutmacher, our Irraka, also Iron Master, is going to side with Kelvin. Like normal. Old Man Puck Arnold, Hunter in Darkness Cahalith, looks thoughtful, which means he can go either way, but the fucker is so quiet when he gets lost in thought, unless prodded.

"Hey, Old Man, whachu thinkin' about this?" There, prodding.

He stares blankly at the wall for a moment, probably dredging up some half-forgotten piece of lore. Puck is like that. Knows his shit, just takes a bit to find it through the random garbage.

"Could be... That Kel is right. Human killer that the police will catch sooner or later. But... It does remind me of something that happened back in the 80s..."

I look to Alex, and I know she's suppressing a groan just as much as I am. Puck isn't just the oldest member of our pack, he's one of the oldest Uratha in Union City. Between spirits, other werewolves, and uncountable things in the dark, we don't tend to lead long lives, unless we're exceptionally lucky. Or cowards, but that isn't Puck.

"The Brethren War was just starting to settle. There was an Ivory Claw... No... No, she was a Predator King. That's right. There was a Ninna Farakh that came down from the Dakotas. It was a bloody time back then, as you all know, but even our enemies had those they considered 'too extreme.'" His eyes lose focus, so I know he's pulling this information from somewhere deep and unpleasant. "She was brutal, vicious, every bit as primal as Dire Wolf. She would skin our kinfolk alive, and leave the bodies in places where we were sure to find them as a taunt, to get us to enter into Kuruth. It took an entire pack to face her in the Hisil, and only one survived to tell the tale to the rest of us..." He trails off and I know that means there is more to the story.

When he doesn't continue, I prod some more. "So she's dead?"

Puck shakes his head, slowly. "The survivor was Blood Talon, Suthar Anzuth like you, and he told us that she was defeated. I always took that to mean 'dead,' but if these murders are connected, I'm not so sure."

At that, Kelvin returned to his argumentative stance. "If this Predator King was so powerful, and still alive, why would she wait almost 30 years to kill someone in a way that would draw our attention? This isn't the Brethren War anymore; the Pure will always be a threat, but we aren't distracted like packs were back then. And if the victims were kinfolk, one of the People would surely have sounded the alarm."

Best thing about being pack alpha is that when you get tired of the arguing, you can just make a decision, one way or the other. Before I have a chance to do so, Deb pipes up.

"I agree with Kel." As Alex starts to speak, she holds her hands up in pacification. "But, we should still look into it. Alex is right as well. Anything that is stirring up the spirit courts enough to put it on her radar can't really be ignored."

Alright, time to step in. "That settles it. Kel and Deb can put some feelers out with the other packs, have them check on their kin, just in case. Me, Alex, and Puck will hit up the Keystone, track down some spirits, see what they're saying." 

Kelvin shrugs and Alex looks pleased. If only everything in life were as easy as pack politics.

*****

The Little Papillion Creek is a glorified run off stream in the north-central part of Union City that joins up with the (average sized) Papillion Creek before meeting the Missouri River south of the city. I imagine it looked peaceful and serene a couple hundred years ago. Now, it has the Keystone Trail running along its length; a concrete foot and bike path that covers more than ten miles of distance through town. Sure, it's nice, if you're a soccer mom that needs to find some "me time" or a pet owner that needs some place for their animal to shit.

We park a couple miles north from where the bodies were found. The sun is already setting but low light isn't much of a problem for us. Besides, the less people can look at us, the better.

Puck shifts into Urhan, the wolf form of Uratha, as Alex gains a little bit of hair and mass going into the near-human Dalu. As long as we're not in direct light, we could pass for a couple just out walking their dog. Maybe we should put Puck on a leash. 

His lips curl back in a snarl and I think its from reading my mind for a moment, before I realize that he's picked up the scent of something. Trotting up the path, Alex and I flank him at a slight distance, keeping careful watch of our surroundings. Half a mile later at a brisk pace and we're at a small y-intersection of the stream. Even without shifting, the smell of rot hits me in the face like a sledgehammer. It's like a skunk sprayed musk all over itself, was eaten by a coyote with stomach issues, then was shit back out and left in the sun to bake. As strong as it is, I'm surprised that I didn't smell it sooner. I... Should have. 

Sure, yeah, I'm not the swiftest on the uptake. By the time I shift into Dalu and pick up the new scent, I'm already rolling down the hilly embankment towards the creek. So much for my double dose of badassness, The massive tan wolf tumbles after me, snapping its slavering jaws toward my face. I can hear the sounds of my packmates engaging as we go down. Pushing its mouth away with one hand and clawing at its eye with the other, I get it to back off enough to stand. Out of the corner of my eye, I see wolf-Puck squaring off with a thick-built Hispanic man in flannel. Can't see her, but I hear the usual grunts and growls of a fighting Alex behind me. 

Fucking Pure. The Urshul form of Uratha looks a lot like an Ice Age dire monstrosity. This one is big, bigger than most, but not bigger than me. I feel bones and sinew pop and realign as I match forms with it. My majestic brown and gray pelt is a hunter's wet dream. I throw back my head and let loose an ear-splitting howl that clearly intimidates the tan, as it backs off and whines. My packmates pull themselves away from their own fights to join me. A quick glance around and yep, I'm the biggest badass in this.

My body tenses as we rush into the interlopers.  I see Alex's knives flash in the glow of streetlights when she does what I've affectionately referred to as "death yoga," twisting and contorting her body to strike at Puck's flannel guy. Puck, snarling, leaps at a ragged young lady in Dalu, probably not even a year past her First Change. The tan wolf comes at me like a bolt of lightening, but I'm ready for it this time and I go low, catching one of its front paws in my teeth with a sickening snap of bone. It yelps as I shake my head from side to side, trapping it like a vise. 

Puck is getting slow in his old age. The little girl has him down. I don't smell silver, and nothing is on fire, so he'll heal if he lives. I just have to make sure that happens. The Mother gives each of us gifts according to our natures, and the greatest thing She ever gave me was pure unadulterated Rage. I let the dam burst and slip into the war-form, the nightmare-inducing Gauru. It's like being paralyzed, deaf, and blind, then suddenly having the abilities of an Olympic athlete. Any bruise, scratch, or cut sustained rapidly disappears as my entire body is filled with a desire for carnage. Towering over these fucksticks, I grab the girl off of Puck by the back of her neck and hurl her a dozen feet into a tree with an almost comical crunching sound. 

It's taboo to use Gauru in pack challenges or against allies, as it's difficult to stay in control and not become a whirling engine of death towards friends, so maybe I'm reveling in this a little too much as I scoop up the injured tan wolf and slam it back down into the concrete. I can tell it wants to shift as well, but I'm not about to give it a chance. Not that I'm afraid, of course, it's just smarter to defeat an opponent before they can defeat you. 

Guess this one realizes it, too. It croaks out some words in the First Tongue, a language that we all instinctively know from the spirit half of our nature. "Silih’mamu firha!" Uh, it's rough to translate to English, but basically I take it as "fuck, I yield." It's kind of sad, actually. Usually Pure fight us until one side or the other is dead or fleeing. Returning to Hishu, my normal dashingly handsome human self, I take stock of our situation. Tree girl is still laying in the grass. Flannel guy is torn up about as bad as Puck, which isn't great but also not terrible, and fucking Alex looks like she just took a completely normal stroll through the park. The tan wolf returns to human as well, a beat to hell dishwater blonde that is as scraggly as tree girl, gulping down great lungfuls of air. 

"We didn't see any markings. We'll leave."

I stare at her, uncomprehending, adrenaline is a bitch for conversation. Alex mutters to herself and then speaks loudly enough for the rest of us to hear. "What's your Tribe, girl?"

She shakes her head. "No Tribe." Ghost Wolves. Thihirtha Numea. Forsaken, like us, not Pure, but antisocial fence-sitters where the rest of us are pack and Tribe oriented. 

Tree girl stumbles back to the rest of us. They're all just kids, really. A bunch of omegas without the brains to tell them not to attack their betters. "So what are you doing here?" Alex continues. 

Blonde girl shrugs. "We didn't see any markings so we thought this area was unclaimed territory. Just looking for a place to rest for a bit." 

Puck coughs. Calmed, or close enough to it, I take over from Alex. "It is. Unclaimed. You just picked a real bad time to squat here." We make introductions and I bring them up to speed. Climaco is flannel guy. Tanika is tree girl, and she sure is mad at me if the glare is any indication. Ella is their pack alpha, as much as they have one. Like I said, kids. 

"So that's the deal. You attacking us when we're looking out for Pure is shit luck."

"Yeah." Ella says, slowly. "We've only been here a day, but you're the first of us we've seen. The spirits are really quiet here, too, which is why we thought we could rest."

Something in that triggers Alex. She tilts her head and vanishes from view. No one else in our pack can cross the divide between the physical and spirit realms like Alex can, inside or outside of a Locus. She's our poster child for good spirit relations, even if we have to hunt them more often than anything else. 

Ella looks to her packmates and to us, but before she has a chance to ask anything, Alex reappears.

"We need to go, now!"

"What?" It's all I can get out before she is pulling me.

"Questions later. Let's go." She motions for the Ghost Wolves to follow us as well.

*****

It isn't until we're in the car and moving, and thankfully I drove my Suburban, 'cause fitting everyone in Puck's hatchback or Alex's Camry would have been impossible, when she starts dropping information.

"It's a mess." She talks to the rest of us like we've never been in the Shadow wherever spirit courts are concerned. Whatever. I'm more interested in hunting and pulling Gifts from them than being their best friend. "Puck, did your Predator King skin victims in the place where she killed them?"

He thinks for a moment. "No. If I recall correctly, they were all butchered in the Ninna Farakh's lair north of town and dropped close to Loci that we controlled."

"Okay?" I'm driving, so that's the most I can contribute at the moment.

"The bodies they pulled from the creek, they were killed there. And before you ask 'how do you know?' the Hisil is filled with pain and murder spirits, way more than I've ever seen in one place. Way more than the stream chorus native to the area. The deaths must have attracted them like shit attracts flies, or they were born from it. Either way, I'm betting they're why our new friends were in such a hurry to attack us over territory that they don't control."

The trio look pretty crestfallen. Not really their fault that they bit off more than they can chew. Failure is a good lesson though, so maybe next time, they'll do better.

"Alright, so even if it wasn't a Pure tactic, we're still stuck with someone killing people and bad mojo spirits fucking with the locals on a busy walkway." My ability to rapidly assess a situation is legendary. 

"That reminds me of the stockyard fights in the '90s..." Puck begins.

Thankfully, we're pulling into home before he can go on for too long, and it looks like Kelvin is here as well. Deb usually works nights, but we can fill her in later. We haven't even stepped into the house before Kel is launching into a diatribe from the kitchen.

"Told you they weren't kinfolk. Just skimming the police reports shows nothing to link any of the victims together and none of my contacts have heard of anyone tied to us going missing. So it's not Puck's big bad Predator King and not really our problem, like I said."

"Um, Kel." Alex clears her throat. "I hate to have to correct you, once again..."

He comes out of the kitchen and stares at our guests. "Shit."

 *****

To be perfectly fucking clear, my house isn't a flop for homeless Uratha. I want to throw that out there just in case anyone is planning on coming by for an extended stay. I already have a constantly pissed off ex-wife and two kids that I support without needing more mouths to feed. As a one time exception to that policy, given the circumstances, I invited Ella and her folks to crash in my spare room. Hey, I get what you're thinking, but we can't fuck each other. Bad shit comes from that. And it's not like I think they're worth much in a fight. Just eight werewolves can clear out unwanted spirit problems a lot easier than five, even if three are pups. That's basic math. Besides, it'll do them all some good to see me in combat and not be fighting for their lives at the time.

Alex starts the train,"going in and wiping them out won't work." Two days later and we're still stuck on the same debate. In an ironic and sort of nauseating turn of events, Alex and Kelvin are on the same side of the argument for this one. 

"We get rid of the out of place spirits and bring balance back to the creek, all well and good until the next murder starts the process over." Kelvin pulls it into the station. 

"But that buys time for the cops, right?" Tanika chimes in. She's a Half Moon, like Kelvin, and he has been mentoring her these past couple of days. Probably because he hasn't sired any offspring, she serves as a surrogate for his paternal instincts. Or he needs to get some hobbies.

"Eh... UCPD is overworked and understaffed. If the FBI stepped in like the serial killer shows on TV, yeah, it might be enough to bandage things for now. I ain't got much faith in that happening." I respect law enforcement as much as the next guy who can turn into a nine foot hairball, which isn't enough for me to give them the benefit of the doubt here. "But a band-aid beats active bleeding."

"Whatever we can do to help, we're down. No one enjoys being manipulated." I feel for Ella. She isn't used to someone else calling the shots. It's been a while but I remember how shitty that used to be.

"What about a pact with the spirit of the Little Papio? It can't be happy about the situation." Hm, Deb might have an idea. 

My head starts pounding like the onset of a migraine, except migraines aren't something we have to worry about. It's Hammerin' Jack, our pack's totem. Like the jackhammer it embodies, it isn't a subtle spirit. <SMASH IT!> It practically yells in our heads. Ella, Climaco, and Tanika are spared by not being a part of the pack. <CRUSH! CRUSH! CRUSH!> Really, It's a great totem when you're in a fight and need to call upon some extra destructive force, but for fuck's sake, does It wants to attack first and ask questions later all of the time. 

I cringe. "Kel? Think that would help?" <GRIIIIIIIIIIIIND!>

"It's still a temporary solution, not a permanent fix, but yeah. Yeah, short term, that could work. If we can take care of what don't belong, and if these three oath bind to patrol the creek for more, we could probably get the spirit to aid us." Alex nods in agreement, as does Ella's pack. <BREAK! BREAK! BREAK!>

"The Little Papillion... Yes. There is a bridge not far to the south of where we fought that the Gauntlet is weak and we can find the spirit." Good old Puck. Might not be the best in a fight anymore, but he knows his shit. Our totem falls silent. We'll have to destroy something later to make it happy again.

"Works for me. Let's get things together and head back down at nightfall. Longer we sit on this, the more time the pain and murder spirits have to spawn."

*****

"That... Is kind of disturbing." We're under the bridge Puck mentioned in the middle of town, all staring at the graffiti on the support wall. Tanika just says what we're all thinking.

"This is the right place, yeah Puck?" His expression is concerning me more than the mural. Even when things go entirely to shit, he is the solid foundation of our pack's stability.

"This is the place, but it isn't right. This has been desecrated." He reaches out to touch the concrete surface and as his fingertips make contact, his entire body goes rigid, like from being electrocuted. He slumps forward and hits the ground hard, eyes open, mouth slack. His body writhes and contorts in front of us.

"Puck!" I'm not sure who yells it. Could have even been me, for all of my focus on shifting. Making a spirit pact becomes a secondary concern to protecting our packmate and confronting his attacker. Without the need to communicate or coordinate, we all reach across the Gauntlet. Puck was correct about the weakness in the separation of physical and spiritual here.

It looks like a fucking warzone. The Hisil has weird colors compared to what you get used to in the realm of flesh, but these colors are off from even that. There should be spirits for all the concepts that you would expect with the creek and the running trail. Instead, it's all the negative shit that Alex mentioned, and more. Blazing lights and shapes of hate spirits, knife-edged murder spirits, hyperactive concepts of insanity and mania, all attempt to dominate their lessers. They all pale compared to the spirit of the Little Papillion itself. Those shit zombie flicks could learn a thing or two from it. Tall and emaciated, with blue-tinged skin and brackish water oozing from sores, its mouth drooling foul ichor, it's almost impossible to look at. The other spirits orbit it like tiny planets, or those fish that hang off the mouths of sharks, waiting for a meal of essence. It makes horrible squishy sounds and the other spirits swarm us.

"It's a goddamned Magath!" Alex shouts as a warning to everyone. A bastardized hybrid of multiple incompatible spirit groups, these things are abominations in the eyes of any right thinking Uratha. Kelvin especially hates them, as beings that defy balance. It explains the desolation of the Shadow, and the ease with which people are provoked into violence. Magath are spiritual Wounds waiting to happen.

Hammerin' Jack's desires are still screaming in my brain when the spirits surround me. Fighting ephemeral entities is a lot less satisfying than feeling flesh tear and bone snap when ripping apart a pack of Pure, but it is a great way to satiate the spirit half of Uratha nature. The four of us move with precision and grace, shifting forms as needed to better rip into the Little Papio, while our three allies harry the smaller threats.

Deb's claws shred through one of its arms, covering her in slime and gore. She's such a neat freak normally that I'm not surprised when she spazzes out about it. Kelvin and Alex circle it in Urshul relentlessly, diving in and biting where they can, trying to keep it from returning to the water. If it were still anything resembling a normal creek spirit, its mercurial nature would make that impossible, but for whatever else this thing is, it's relatively solid and unchanging. And insane. Incredibly insane.

It slams the shards of its shredded arms through Deb's midsection applying the same electric effect that dropped Puck, flinging her into Ella's group. They momentarily go down in a pile of spirits, but the rest of us are quick to take up the slack and help them back into the fight. Spirits of concepts involving conflict are more difficult to defeat in combat, and bring much more glory when they are, so of course I'm not shying away from the attack. The boon that Hammerin' Jack gives us ensures that we hit hard and fast,

Unfortunately, the momentary break allows the Magath to kick away from us and land back into the Shadow reflection of the stream. Even if its fundamental nature has changed, it still retains enough of the original to be a bigger threat in the water than on land. Still, more dangerous or not, it needs to be contained and we follow, keeping to the hillside as it rapidly moves up the stream.

It doesn't travel far, stopping at the y-intersection that Puck originally led us to. The cause of the rotten meat smell becomes evident as the place that is merely a darkened branch off in the physical world more accurately resembles a slaughterhouse in the Hisil. This is clearly where the bodies had been flayed down to the muscle, as the tattered meat hangs in strips from immobile tree spirits. The stench of taint and decay permeates and overwhelms the senses, blocking out everything else. Kelvin and Tanika swell up into Gauru and Hulk out on all of the spirits in the area. The Magath and its attendants are so much stronger here, however, as they're able to easily bat aside the attacks.

"Ella, Alex, we need to split its attention. Ignore everything else and keep striking from the sides!" I hate yelling orders when I should be chomping the hell out of something, but without the pack bond, I can't communicate as well with the rest of them. The biggest concentration of pain spirits all converge on Tanika and she howls in torment as her Rage overcomes her ability to think. Gauru is a dangerous gamble. If you lose your shit, friend and foe no longer make a difference. Climaco is fighting too close to her and she slams her jaws down into his shoulder. Even in Dalu, an Uratha's body can't handle that kind of damage and as she pulls away, his right arm comes with her.

His screams shock her to her senses and she shifts back into the human form, devastated from attacking her packmate. We don't have the luxury of going to either of their aid. The Magath is stronger in this place but it has used much of its strength fighting so many of us that it is starting to slow.

Alex and Ella's distraction allows Kelvin to bury his claws in its spine. With the ladies throwing themselves onto each of its legs, and a mostly-healed Deb protecting me from the pain and murder spirits, I sprint towards it, shifting into Urshul in motion to ram into it with as much force as possible. Kelvin pulls downward as I impact, Alex and Ella yank outward and between the four of us, we pull the Magath apart. I drain its remaining essence, erasing any trace of its existence. The last of the spirits cease fighting against us, offering us boons in supplication.

Tanika is gone. Climaco's body lay still, his wounds unhealed. She must have realized he was going to die and fled from the Shadow. There are punishments, incredibly brutal ones at that, for turning on a packmate in Kuruth, Death Rage, but they are survivable. To not only kill a member of one's pack but to also run from it, and a battle, in cowardice... She will be hunted by all Forsaken.

We travel back to the bridge and return across the Gauntlet to the physical. Puck looks almost peaceful, were it not for the twisted expression frozen on his face. A long life of wars fought and enemies slain, we don't mourn the end of his life as much as we mourn the hole his passing leaves in ours. Raising our voices to Mother Luna, we howl his praises so that She may remember a valiant son.

*****

A week passes swiftly, with Puck's funeral, a meet up with the other local Forsaken to share the news, and the initiation of Ella into our pack. No one could ever replace him, but she has begun to gather as much lore as she can to try, starting by joining the Hunters in Darkness.

No new murders have occurred at the creek. We are sharing patrol duties with other packs, giving the area nightly checks to make sure more batches of murder and pain spirits aren't spawned. Puck's sacrifice ensures that we'll continue to do that much at least.

Tanika successfully escaped Forsaken judgement. She ran into a pack of Pure as she tried to leave Union City. Fire Touched may have recruited her, but the Ivory Claws that she met were more interested in removing her head than gaining a new follower.

For now, I have to take it that we did good, and not focus on the cost. There's a shit storm brewing in this town and my pack is gonna see it through.

Werewolf: the Forsaken Wiki

Four-Nine

"'Cause we hunt you down without mercy, hunt you down all nightmare long..."

The glory days of St. Stanislaus had passed decades ago, but a shadow of its former self still remained in the majesty of its vaulted ceilings and the intricacies of its stained glass windows. Regardless of the lowered attendance at mass or the general decline of the neighborhood, the church was like a second home to Witold "Vee" Chodkiewicz. He was baptized there, served as an altar boy, attended countless weddings and funerals, and was a Sunday staple for the majority of his 45 years of life, excepting only his military years. It was there, on his 18th birthday, that Father Barczak had taken him into the sacristy, where his father and two older brothers met them, and he learned the truth of the darkness in the world.

He was initiated into their lifestyle, a lifestyle he sought to escape by joining the Army. The things he saw during his enlistment, in the States and on deployment during the first Gulf and Bosnian Wars, forced him to face the error of his ways, and he returned home, only to find that his father and eldest brother, Józef, had been killed. His middle brother, Andrzej, had disappeared. Father Barczak had long since retired by that time, but Vee was able to track him down and get the truth about what had happened to his family.

Nearly 20 years had passed since then, and whilst Vee had worked numerous leads regarding Andrzej's whereabouts during his service to the neighborhood, none had panned out. The shifting demographic of South Side brought with it new challenges, but also new information, and insights. It, moreso than even his unwavering faith in the Catholic Church, kept him coming back to St. Stanislaus. He picked up Spanish as a third language and worked the church's community outreach program to stay abreast of unfolding situations. He found that a terrified mother was more likely to speak to a familiar face from church than a member of the UCPD when her son was involved with something shady. Being someone that the neighborhood could count on gave his life purpose far beyond just living for the sake of existing.

^^^^^

"<Vee, do you have a moment?>" The deep bass rumble of perfect Polish came from Kasper, the oldest member of Vee's Bronić cell, and the only remaining member from his father's days. Too old to be an active participant in the cell's activities, he was nevertheless a font of old world knowledge and someone that the dwindling South Side Polish community looked to as a leader. 

Setting aside his forms and paperwork, he looked up and responded in kind. "<Of course, brother. Please, have a seat. What can I do for you?>"

Slowly sitting in the offered chair, Kaspar took a few breaths to order his thoughts before speaking again. "<It's about Andrzej. There has been a... sighting... of it.>"

Vee knew that his face must have displayed every ounce of shock that he felt. Standing quickly, he almost shouted. "<What? Where? Tell me everything!>"

"<Calm yourself, my friend. I said a sighting. At The Subterranean, two nights past. It has not been confirmed.>"

"<Still...>" Vee began to pace the room. "<Why now? Nothing concrete in more than a decade. Not even a whisper of a lead in more than five years. And I trust the source is reliable?>"

"<I mentioned it was not confirmed, yes? But the source is Miguelo, and you know better than I that he would not bring it to the cell's attention without cause.>"

Vee knew the truth in what Kaspar said. Miguel Salazar had been a local problem child, a heart attack for his parents waiting to happen, until a chance encounter with a beast at Riverview Park brought him into the cell's sphere of contacts. Whilst he had not stopped being a handful, he had become hyper-aware of the strange and unexplainable during his pursuits, and was quick to tell a Bronić member if something went beyond the norm. His intuition had thus far been spot on. 

"<He would not, no. If he believes he saw my brother, I have no reason to doubt him.>"

"<Witold. This thing that Andrzej has become... You know it is no longer your brother. It hasn't been since the night we lost your father and Józef.>"

"<No matter what he has become, he is still my brother, Kaspar. That will not save what remains of his body, but I have to believe God will take mercy upon his soul. Once I set it free.>"

Kaspar cocked his head and looked sidelong at Vee. "<Then I imagine you will want to see to this personally? It has been a long while since I've been out, but if you require assistance, the rest of us will be at your disposal.>"

"<Thank you, but this is my burden to bear. Please tell the others, in case I don't return.>"

Rising as slowly as he sat, Kaspar nodded his understanding. Protection of the neighborhood required a joint effort by those that had been exposed to the secret terrors of Union City, but every member of
Bronić had personal demons that no other could be allowed to confront. For Vee, it was a matter of  honor and responsibility. Only if he should fall, would the candle need to be taken up by another. Embracing as family, the two men said their goodbyes, leaving Vee alone with his thoughts.

^^^^^

Watching cars roll along rain-slicked cobblestone streets in Union City's Historic district, Vee spent his third night sitting in a coffee house across the way from The Subterranean. For a man that hated the taste of the drink as much as he did, it was an extra special kind of Hell that he would need it to blend in. A grey turtleneck and horn-rimmed glasses completed his "hipster" camouflage. Sipping his detested beverage, he observed the foot traffic in and out of the club, noting which patrons were likely normal (if the appellation could accurately be applied to some of the more goth individuals, with their fetish gear and latex outfits) and which could possibly be something else. It could take years of exposure to pick up on the subtle cues but once one knew what to look for, they stood out dramatically. 

It was while nursing his fifth cup of the evening that Vee saw him. Built ursine large like all 
Chodkiewicz men, Andrzej stood almost a full head above the entourage with which he arrived. Dressed in an obviously well tailored, and expensive, casual suit, he cut an intimidating figure. The club's doorman didn't hesitate to allow his group the quickest possible entry into The Subterranean. Finishing his cup and tossing it into a nearby wastebasket, Vee left the coffee house and jogged across the street. 

"Yo, 'oldies night' is Wednesday, pops!" Vee ignored the club goers waiting in line for admittance. 

"Sir, you'll need to get to the back of the line." The doorman was professional, if nothing else, as a bouncer glowered at Vee. 

"Ah, yes. I would, but I was told Andrzej wanted to see me right away."

The doorman's eyes glassed over hard. Vee wondered if he had overplayed his hand, or if Andrzej was even still using his real name. The bouncer coughed and the doorman snapped out of it. 

"I understand, sir. I apologize for the delay." He stepped aside and allowed Vee access to the club.

Inside, he was greeted by a blaring cacophony of noise that only vaguely resembled music to his ears. The crowd seemed to enjoy it. With low lights and the general demeanor of the goths, he couldn't be entirely sure. Shouldering his way to the bar, he ordered an appropriately strong double shot of top shelf whiskey, overpaid with a decent tip, and scanned the place, noting the exits and which people were paying too much attention to him. Andrzej and his group occupied a large, roped off alcove, which several small groups approached and departed after brief conversations. 

He waited until things settled and Andrzej's entourage was deep in discussion to make his move. He had played out several scenarios in his mind over the years, from group ambush to guns blazing, but he threw them all to the wind as he calmly stepped to the satin rope. 

"Ah, Andrzej. You're looking quite well, for 20 years dead." The table full of pretty corpses stopped speaking and, as one, turned to stare at him. For a moment, he felt the way a mouse must feel when trapped in a room full of cats, but he just smiled at them in return. Two heartbeats passed as slow as an eternity before the big man guffawed loudly at him.

"And you got old, little brother! You, leave us." He waved dismissively at his compatriots.

Sneering at Vee, one of the monsters unclipped the partition and the group filed past him, mingling with the mortals of the club like sharks in a sea of minnows. 

"You should not have come here, Witold. There is nothing in this place for you but death."

"And you should have died with father and Józef, yet here we both are."

Andrzej glared at him, but made no move to stand or correct him. With a shrug, he responded, "I do not dispute that. But had you been there, had you done your duty, maybe they would be alive still. Maybe we all would be."

"If you regret what you've become, you could repent your sins, return to the Church, and be purified."

At this, Andrzej laughed again. "Regret? Oh, little brother. Didn't the old priest tell you? I CHOSE this. As the others lay dying, I was given the opportunity to join them, or become something much more than a tool of the Hammer. It was easy, really."

Vee broke eye contact as he dropped his chin towards his chest and reached into his pocket. "I had thought Father Barczak mistaken, but what he and the others said was true. You are lost."

The mirth at the situation was impossible to miss upon Andrzej's features, inflaming Vee's anger. "Lost? Of course not." He stood swiftly. "I could show you. You could learn the truth of power that those doddering old fools in the Church deny."

Taking a step back, Vee pulled a small white object from his pocket and started praying. Andrzej's eyes narrowed and his amusement slowly drained away, as he realized, too late, what was about to happen.

"Blessed is Saint Ignatius, who brings light to the darkest of places, who brings warmth to the coldest of hearts, who reminds even the dead of the grace of God!" As Vee raised his voice on the last words, a brilliant glowing ball of pure radiance expanded rapidly from the object in his hand; the knuckle bones of a canonized nun. The club was quickly awash in the illumination, to the concern of the patrons and the horror of the dead. 

The screams of the latter, including Andrzej, as they attempted to flee from the light drowned out the shouts of the mortals, but over the din, Vee heard someone yell a question towards one of the monsters, followed by a chorus of deafening shotgun blasts. The herd mentality of the club took over, and he was swept toward the front of The Subterranean. The pushing and shoving of dozens of hands was crushing as everyone tried to escape the gunshots. Breaking glass and shrieking voices assailed Vee as he was able to make it outside. Glancing around, he saw no sign of his brother or any of the other creatures he marked inside. He pulled away from the throngs of club goers and onlookers, intent on reaching his car. He had the answers that he needed, and even without the actions of the gunman, a war had been started. He would need to tell his cell, and their superiors in the Malleus Maleficarum, and prepare...

^^^^^

Kaspar threw the spent shotgun in his trunk, its barrel warped from the incendiary shells he had used. He knew that Witold, like every other member of the Witch's Hammer he had met, would use half measures. Not him, though. The Sources had told him about Andrzej. Telling Vee would lead him to the club, to cause a distraction, to create a weakness Kaspar could exploit. He had asked the question, "who is Cain?" as he was bid, and he had shown no hesitation in striking the demons down. He did not get them all, unfortunately, but he would, in time. Of course, Vee would never know what had happened to his brother, never know the source of the dust on Kaspar's boots, and that would keep him focused on the hunt. 

No other threat was as important as the vampires, and Kaspar would use every tool he had to destroy them. 

The Church, 40th & J St

The Club, 13th & Jackson

OON - Character Spotlight: Caoimhe Lynch

"Push you 'cross that line, just stay down this time..."

Background

Crass, vulgar, and utterly terrifying in that remorseless monster sort of way, Cardinal Lynch is the kind of "holy nightmare" fire & brimstone preachers wish they could be.

Born the fifth of seven children to a conservative Catholic family in 1820s western Ireland, Caoimhe Lynch lived the hard life of a sustenance farmer early on. Pretty enough for her parents to attract a good match, she would have been married, bred a litter of children, and died all without leaving her home county had the Great Famine not hit the nation in 1845. Her family joined the thousands of other Irish seeking to flee the country for the ample opportunities offered by the United States. So many thousands of Irish, in fact, that they were crammed on an aptly named "coffin ship" where only she and her elder sister, Caitlin, survived to arrive in America.

Making it as far as the recently incorporated Chicago in 1847, life was tough but fair to the pair, with both finding seamstress and laundering work, making enough to live better than they otherwise would have in Ireland. Though a "good Catholic girl," Caoimhe enjoyed the night life of Chicago, singing in a neighborhood tavern whenever possible. She developed a reputation for her voice, as well as a legendary temper after being disrespected by a few young men one too many times. It was the latter that lead her to be stabbed in an alleyway late one evening, and the former that convinced her sire, the Ventrue De Laurentis, to bring her back as Kindred. An admirer of her performances, he'd hoped to freeze that moment for his future entertainment, as a novelty in the male-dominated Kindred society of Chicago. Blood bound, per her sire's wishes she spent her early unlife at the bottom rung of the Invictus covenant, kowtowing to the demands of her "betters" for years.

Mortal history records that a cow kicked over a lamp and the Chicago Fire of 1871 was the result. Kindred that remember the time mark it as a reign of terror when hunters sought to cleanse the supernatural from the city by flame. De Laurentis was one such casualty, and were it not for delivering missives on his orders, Caoihme would likely have perished as well. Fleeing hunters, and the fires they brought, she traveled west nightly. By the time she reached Union City, she was exhausted, seeking sanctuary with the only Covenant she thought would aid her: the Lancea Sanctum.

She served faithfully and dutifully through the decades, growing in power and status among the Lancea despite her gender. When not attending to the needs of the Church, she spent time studying mortal and Kindred historical texts, especially those written in Gaeilge or Irish Gaelic, the language of her breathing days. As the oldest extant European language, she was convinced that she would find secrets of the earliest days of the Covenant, when Rome and Roman Christians occupied the Isles. Though it is debatable whether or not the texts she deciphered over the years have led to any Lancea secrets, she has shown remarkable understanding of Cruac blood magic practiced by the heathen Circle of the Crone.

Entering an extended period of torpor following World War II, Caoihme emerged into a city of strife. Women and minorities had risen up to fight for their Civil Rights in mortal institutions and Union City, an Invictus stronghold since its founding, was now firmly in the hands of the Ordo Dracul. Conflict between the Church and the First Estate had weakened both of their respective positions, allowing the neutral Dragons to ease into power. Not harboring ambitions towards it, Caoihme nevertheless stepped into a position of authority with the Lancea bereft of central leadership, Those opposed to the move pointed to the strictures placed against women in the mortal Catholic Church. These arguments were swiftly and easily rebuffed when she, not for the first time, reminded all in the Covenant that they weren't mortals and thus not beholden to any rule of a mortal organization. She emphasized her point with a display of Theban sorcery that silenced, literally, any further objections.

Now generally referred to as "The Cardinal," Caoihme sits on the Baron's Council as a Primogen, advising him on matters of religious import, regardless of the particular religion. Her own night to night Danse revolves around teaching her particular interpretations of gospel to a ghouled deacon so that he may spread it to the mortal masses, as well as continued study into the mysteries of Theban sorcery and the knowledge to be gained from deeper understanding of the Testament of Longinus.

Stats Block (1st Ed VtR)

Name: Caoihme ("kee-vuh") Lynch
Virtue: Justice
Vice: Wrath
Concept: Firebrand Preacher
Clan: Ventrue
Covenant: Lancea Sanctum

ATTRIBUTES
Power - Intelligence: 3 Strength: 2  Presence: 4
Finesse - Wits: 3  Dexterity: 2  Manipulation: 2
Resistance - Resolve: 4  Stamina: 3  Composure: 3

SKILLS
Mental - Academics (History) 4, Crafts 1, Occult (Cruac, Theban Sorcery) 4, Politics 2
Physical - Athletics 1, Brawl 1, Drive 1, Firearms 1
Social - Empathy 2, Expression (Singing) 3, Persuasion 2, Socialize 1

DISCIPLINES
Dominate 3
Resilience 2
Theban Sorcery 4
Majesty 2

MERITS/FLAWS
Haven (St Francis Cathedral) 3
Herd 2
Status: Lancea Sanctum (Primogen) 4
Language: Gaelish 3
Language: Latin 2
Retainer: Deacon Armstrong 3
Allies 2
Contacts 2
Resources 2

WEAKNESS
-2 penalty on Humanity rolls to avoid Derangement after failed degeneration roll

Health: 8 Willpower: 6 Blood Potency: 4 Vitae: 8 Humanity: 8
Size: 5 Speed: 4 Defense: 2 Armor: 0 Initiative Mod: 5 Experience: 204

DEVOTIONS
Veridical Tongue

RITUALS
Sinner Song 1
Theban Inscription 1
Vitae Reliquary 1
Damned Radiance 2
Blood Fire 3
Stigmata 4


Unused Caoimhe Lynch ideas;

Hunter - A "paranormal investigator" that ran into the real thing, and lost three friends that night

Werewolf - Pack Alpha Bone Shadow, with a nose for mystery and a penchant for getting her pack into more trouble than it can handle

Torn (Apart)

"The more I bless, the more I bleed for you..."

"W-w-what... The fuck... Shit!"

Clothing shredded, covered in burn marks and rips, skin struggling to heal no matter how much blood was devoted to doing so, Sara looked like a poor recruiting poster for the benefits of immortality. The attack had come out of nowhere. Her ghoul's ex-lover, a stalker by nature, had not taken the hint by Jamie's (faked) death. Revenge was a potent and not-entirely unreasonable motive, but it still caught Sara off guard.

Stumbling through an alleyway blocks from the bar, she looked for anyone to feed on. The Beast inside of her growled in hunger and frustration, needing to be satiated before she abandoned what little remained of her humanity entirely. The struggle was made the more difficult if she thought about what had happened. Losing a ghoul was never that much of a problem, since there would always be more that she could charm into her service. The upstairs haven, and the "watering hole" that was Philly's, however, was not so easily replaced.

Sara was a Carthian, a member of an anarchistic and revolutionary sect. Rabble-rousers and trouble makers, her group was a thorn in the side for local movers and shakers. That in no way endeared them to the Ordo Dracul, the scholarly order to which the city's Baron belonged, nor to the Invictus or Lancea Sanctum, the two most dominant groups in the city. And she had made enemies amongst all three factions over her decades of unlife. She survived by laying low and not drawing attention to herself, something the attack and subsequent fire would make impossible.

Food and shelter, those were the only drives the Beast would acknowledge. The moon had already slipped from view and dawn wasn't far off. The temptation to crawl into a hole and sleep was forefront in Sara's mind. The need to feed on unlife-sustaining blood was the only thing pushing that temptation down and keeping her senses focused.

It was that hyper-attuned focus that alerted her to the presence of another monster in the alley, the singular fight or flight response only provoked by her fellow Kindred. Half-feral, her fangs and claws painfully extended, she faced the interloper, knowing that she had no flight and only as much fight as she could coax from the Beast by giving it free reign over her body, when the figure spoke.

"Ah, my little one, ye've gone and fucked up now, haven't ye?"

Sara didn't need to see the speaker to recognize the soft voice tinged with the barest hint of a sing-song Irish accent. Leaning against the brick of a warehouse wall, wearing the simple black garment of a priest, Cardinal Caoihme Lynch stared at her, arms crossed and head tilted like a predator studying its prey.

Of an average 5'6" height, trim, with classic Gaelic features and hair pulled back into a functional braid, the Cardinal didn't possess traits that would conventionally be considered intimidating. If she were mortal. Nor would her garb and title be something so casually carried, if she were mortal. As the head of Union City's Lancea Sanctum church and a master of the esoteric blood magic known as Theban sorcery, the Cardinal was most assuredly not mortal.

"C-c-cardinal? Help me! Please??" Exhausted, Sara pleaded.

"Aye, I've tried. Good Lord above knows that I've tried to help ye, and the rest o'the Godless hordes in this city. But have ye ever come to confession? Have ye ever come to God when ye weren't in desperate need?"

The Cardinal locked eyes with Sara, muttering an incantation in a language long dead in the annals of mankind. Sara could feel her blood begin to boil as fresh wounds opened on her wrists.

"N-n-o, please!! I'll confess! I'll join the Lance!" The Beast, prepared for a fight, nevertheless whimpered and retreated, leaving her to her fate.

As the incantations grew in fervor and pitch, new wounds ripped themselves open on Sara's ankles, and a deep gash tore itself into her side, drawing out the little Vitae remaining in her body. She collapsed against the concrete, mewling like a sick kitten into the ground. The deep, nightmare-laden sleep of torpor tugged upon her awareness, struggle against it though she might.

"Don't ye worry, God'll hear those confessions for ye. And our fair city will be blessed for one less unbeliever in it." Curled into a ball, Sara was blissfully unaware of the consecrated dagger being pressed into her cervical vertebrae, cutting until her head was a separate entity from the rest of her body.

As the corpse transformed itself into ash, the Cardinal smiled, and whispered "trí ghrásta Dé..." before walking away, content with an evening's work

"Through the grace of God." 

Torn

 "I ride the dirt, I ride the tide for you..."

Metallica's "The Outlaw Torn" plays quietly on the radio, accompanied in bouts by the sound of strong winds rocking the car. She doesn't stop to consider the irony in that, given what she's here to do. Of course, the term "outlaw" implies some criminal element. If one's target isn't alive, but not dead either, is changing that detente really a crime? Not a murder, at least. The cans of gas in the trunk might argue for arson. To fall back upon a popular internet meme, one does not simply plead "purification by fire" as a court defense.

She hasn't really thought that far ahead, when there is no guarantee that she'll survive the night. Legal quandaries aside, if she were to stop and debate the situation with herself, she'd claim the high ground. If a coyote is in your yard, eating your cat, you don't wrestle with the morality of the situation, you pull the trigger. That doesn't change if the coyote passes for human.

She watches the generic neon "bar" sign flicker, the dying light of a flame that has drawn more than its fair share of moths, from two buildings over. Midtown hasn't seen much in the way of popularity, with the continued westward expansion of Union City, but even for those with low standards, Philly's is a last resort, hole-in-the-wall kind of place. Her "coyote" tends bar here several nights a week, and preys on the drunks in their spare time. Police have been contacted to investigate the bar numerous times, but it never goes anywhere. Why would it? How can you arrest a corpse? So she sits, and she waits, and she stares intently, letting her mind drift.

++++

Philly's was a favorite of her ex girlfriend. That's what started bringing her here. Dive bars had never really been her thing, but Jamie had a way of convincing her to do pretty much whatever. Plus, it wasn't a cliche "gay bar." Dive or not, it was just a bar. Two people going out for drinks, without needing any type of special place, where no one bothered them. Not at first, anyway.

They had been regulars for a couple of months when the new girl was hired on. She seemed an okay sort. Learned the names of regulars fairly quickly, always knew what you liked to order, personable if a little cold, somehow brought in increased business. Even invited people to keep drinking after hours in her apartment above the bar. But it was during one of those invites that she noticed something wasn't quite right with the bartender. They were all smoking, just cigarettes, and when she offered Jamie a light too close to the bartender, the new girl hissed at her and jumped back. Of course no one else had noticed, thanks to their drinking, but she was sober enough that her jaw dropped open in amazement.

Things fell apart from there. She started paying more attention to everything at Philly's, nursing any booze she ordered rather than getting drunk like before. She observed how certain regulars had stopped coming in, while others looked even more washed out and unhealthy. And the new girl never took a drink, regardless of how many patrons ordered one for her, not even water. The observing didn't go unnoticed by the bartender, who began making passive aggressive statements and veiled threats. She ignored them, until the new girl made a play for Jamie. Worse than the action itself was the response: Jamie actually went for it. True, they weren't married, but two years of dating wasn't a lightly-discarded commitment for most people. And not only was she tossed aside easily, but cruelly as well, subjected to insults and physical force from someone that she had loved, as if she were suddenly, and passionately, hated.

Moving on would have been the smart play. Were it just the relationship failing, she probably would have. It was the wrongness of the new girl that kept her calling and texting, trying to pull Jamie back, even going so far as to get law enforcement involved. But when confronted, the bartender did... something... to the police officers each time until finally, they arrested her instead, leaving Jamie and the new girl to their own devices. She was released, and resolved to just walk away.

Then she found out through former mutual friends that Jamie had died. Suicide, they said. Cremation, no funeral, no cemetery plot, no closure or place to even say goodbye.

++++

She inhales slowly, deeply, to choke back the tears. She focuses on the anger, not the sadness, to give her the strength to do what she came to do. The others that she had met in the past few months told her what the new girl was, what she needed to do to put it to rest. She pats the borrowed Taurus .40 caliber pistol sitting on her lap for reassurance. They warned that the gun would only slow it down, that she needed the fire. She hopes she brought enough gasoline, but reasons that a bar full of liquor will go up in flames without too much of a starter.

The last customer car leaves the parking lot, and she knows that she doesn't have much time to prepare her assault. Leaving the keys in the ignition, she pops her trunk and retrieves her cans. Sprinting as best she is able with the load, she runs to the back side employee entrance of Philly's, and splashes half a gallon of petrochemical goodness all over the door, trailing the remainder of the container to the apartment stairs. She covers them, as well as an old rag, as much as she is able with a second can, before striking several matches and throwing them into the liquid. With time running out, she takes her last can, stuffs the rag into the opening, and bounds for the front of the bar, and its large-paned windows. She can vaguely make out movement inside as she sparks the rag, twists her body backwards, and heaves the gasoline molotov through the glass. The shattering sound of bottles and yelling following is like music to her ears and she pulls the Taurus, waiting for her predator to run from the front entrance.

Her target isn't behind the bar this evening, however. Instead, someone she has never seen before frantically tries to put out the flames as they grow rapidly out of control. She screams as she realizes what she has done, as she knows she can't save the innocent and all her moral posturing won't change the fact that she is a killer. She only has moments to spend hating herself before she hears the tearing crash of someone breaking through the upstairs apartment's door.

Dashing around the building heedless of the smoke and flames, she sees the new girl on the ground, rolling to extinguish embers in its clothing, pieces of wood from the door stuck in its smoldering flesh. With a shout of rage, she aims the gun and squeezes the trigger multiple times in quick succession. Unused to recoil, she misses half of the shots, but the rounds that do hit cause the bartender to flinch and spasm. That isn't enough, as it staggers to its feet, equal parts fear and anger, fight or flight warring across its smoke-streaked face.

"What? You? You bitch!" It shrieks through a fang-filled mouth, charging her like a wild animal.

She is hit like a three hundred pound linebacker sacking a one hundred pound quarterback, driven back and down onto the unyielding, flaming-debris covered concrete. Dazed, she lay almost entirely helpless as it rakes razor claws across her chest, shredding clothes and flesh like paper. Guttural curses, more a cacophony of sound than actual words, escape its throat as it thrashes wildly. Through the pain, she tries to push it off of her with one hand, bucking her hips for leverage as her other hand feels around for her gun. Her fingertips find a solid portion of the upstairs door. She grips the wood as tightly as she can, feeling the tell-tale heat of fire upon it, and thrusts it towards the bartender. It screeches and pushes itself off and away from her, moving as swiftly away from the fire as it can given their relative positions. Her fingers blistering from the temperature, she throws the fiery piece at it, and dives for her gun.

The parking lot takes its toll in flesh from her as she skids across the cement, but she manages to come up with the Taurus. No hesitation as she empties the remainder of the magazine into the bartender's torso. The impact of the rounds and the flaming board are too much for it to continue fighting against her. Injured and spent, it gives up any pretense to humanity and flees from her with an inhuman speed. She tries to give chase but her own wounds bring her to her knees.

Pressing her burned hand to her chest to staunch as much of her bleeding as she can, she half runs, half stumbles back to her car, with the sounds of sirens coming closer. A small grace that the area is otherwise deserted at this time of night, she struggles to start the vehicle and put it into drive, knowing she only needs to get a few blocks away to be clear of the carnage. She hopes, more than anything, that the bartender won't survive the attack, that it will be worth the death of the innocent, and of Jamie, if it can be stopped permanently, taking at least some small comfort in knowing that there won't be any more victims at Philly's.

It never occurs to her that she left so much of herself in the parking lot, and that the past encounters with law enforcement will be remembered...