10 - The Bar Gunfight

We drive back to the bar, hoping to plan our next move.  It seems someone has already made it for us.  The barfront is riddled with bullet holes.

In a flash, we're out of the cars and inside.  Inside, it's somehow even worse.  There were several gunfighters here, with automatic weapons.  They drove up outside (cartridges on the road, not on the sidewalk) and unloaded everything they had before walking inside and dealing with who was in there.

The bartender was.  Somehow, he had avoided being shot in the initial fusillade by hiding behind the kegs - a gangster leaning against the front wall dead, and an empty double-barrelled shotgun provided testament to his defense of the establishment.

It seems those two shots were all he could fire before being overrun.  I look to the side.  He's been crucified against the wall with railroad spikes tearing apart the tendons in his arms.

The instrument lays nearby - a railroad hammer.  I say it looks like there were three men holding the bartender up on the wall, and another with the hammer to drive the spikes in.  Four crips to do this one thing.

"Or one big guy," X observes.

I concede: "that's possible - but what sort of..." my breath catches in my throat as I realize the consequences of that line of thinking. "Gentlemen, there's a vampire in the Crips."

I'm inspecting the murder scene so closely that I don't notice the three men who have walked in the door behind us until they open fire.

They burst in the door, guns drawn and firing.  We've all got holes in us before too long.  I see Vellum flip a table like cardboard, and X charge straight into the guns.  He reaches up and breaks one's jaw before kicking the next in the head, sending him stumbling.

Vellum grabs the railroad hammer and throws it across the room.  It breaks one's knee with a sound like a car crash.  I bolt across the room and shout "stop!"

I briefly survey the scene.  Three gangsters are before me, dazed or severely injured.  On the left, unconscious.  In the middle, still standing.  And on the right, screaming uncontrollably with a broken leg.

I have X force the middle to his knees.

"Who do you work for?" I ask.

"Fuck you!" he shouts, "I'm not telling you not-"

I execute the one on my right.  He finally stopped screaming.

"Okay, okay!  Don't kill me!  I just talk to Sam.  Sam talks to Scratch."

"This Scratch fellow - have you ever seen him in person?"

"No!  I wouldn't want to meet him, either!  He crucified that bartender."

"Well, you can certainly send a message for us, won't you?"

"What... how am I supposed to do that?"

Vellum walks up, with a shotglass of his vitae.

I pipe up.  "Drink it."

"What?"

"Drink that shot."

He does - and his eyes light up like he's been in a desert for a month without water, and we're giving it away for free.

X says, "We family now, right?  That means you're gonna help us, right?"

"Yes, of course!  I'll find a way to get the message to Scratch."

X: "Tell him to meet us at the 22nd Street Mission, in his territory.  We have to talk."

"Yes, sir."

"Now get out of here before I decide to kill your other friend too."

The gangbanger stumbles out into the street with his friend over his shoulder.

I kick the dead body in front of me.  It's unfortunate he had to die - but I feel like the one we were talking to would never had taken us seriously otherwise.  Besides, just a few moments before, he was trying to kill us.  Besides, it takes only one to send a message, and I let both of them leave, didn't I?

9 - Court, Part Two

While Vellum was talking with the Prince, I surveyed the room.

Closest to me, a blonde woman approached us.  Whitney - the newest Sheriff.

"Have you heard about the murders in the Subway?"  She said, visibly suspicious of us.

"Yes, of course I heard about that, you fool." I said. "I wonder if the girl will talk."

"Oh, she's talking, alright.  She gave an exacting description of your friend Cargen Nikto here - even down to that bow tie, which I see he's still wearing."

"Oh."

"However, she's also talking about a man with inch-long, razor-sharp claws that tore one of those gang-bangers in half."  She nodded toward X.  "Kind of hard to forget something like that, I reckon."

"I see."

"And then there's the matter of the train conductor.  Apparently, he saw more than we thought he did, and if he provides a matching description, they'll have to release that poor girl from the Mental Ward.  And that means she'll go to the police again.  And you'd better believe the police will believe them if there's two stories that match up."

"As well," she continued, "if there are any Hunters in Gloryhill, they are more willing to listen where the police do not.  Clean up your messes, dog - or we will for you."  She turned around and walked away without another word.

I found Dr. Hoff again - he was talking with another one I hadn't seen before, and angrier than I'd ever seen him.

"I don't appreciate what you're doing with my wares, Pellington."

"Sir, isn't my reimbursement sufficient?  You command a fair price, do you not?  After all, girls in this state die all the time."

"The reimbursement is for accidental death," Hoff spat,

"the deaths are accidental, I assu-"

"shut your festering mouth, Pellington.  You consistently return my girls without arms and legs, or otherwise mutiliated in some way.  The aesthetic aspects aside, fewer body parts means less blood, means less money commanded for my dolls.  You're cut off, Pellington.  NO MORE."

"But... but sir!"  Pellington pleaded.

Dr. Hoff slapped him across the face.  "you'll be permitted to borrow my girls at such a time as you can prove you won't mutilate them."

"But... how do I prove that?"

Dr. Hoff grinned underneath his Plague Doctor's mask.  "Until you figure that out, you'll just have to hunt for yourself."

--- ---

X, feeling somewhat out of place in the room (since he knew almost everyone, but he knew that no one knew him) found himself a comfortable space in a darkened corner.  Before too long, a cloaked figure sidled up, and nudged X.

"Enjoying - enjoying the view?"  He looked up at X, the lit cigarette briefly revealing his face - sharklike teeth protruding from a rotted mouth.  More like a lamprey than one would like to admit.

X scoffed.  "Pachuco."

Pachuco smiled like a vulture.  "I am the same.  And who are you, I wonder."

X. "I'm a businessman, get it?"

"Ah, good, good, good.  Business, good business brings power, it does."  Pachuco ground the cigarette to dust against the wall before immediately pulling a fresh one from a stale pack and lighting it.

"See any chance we can work together?"

"He's my friend, she's my friend, they're my friends.  For the right price, I'm everybody's friend."  He slipped X a office card.  "If you can pay the right price, you can be my friend too."

--- ---

I spotted Jimmy talking with Erik, and walked up.

"Oh, a pleasure to meet you..." he said, pretending not to know me.

"Emil Stone." I shook his hand, and immediately regretted it.  I came away with my hand covered in ooze, with nowhere to wipe it.  "I'm here to talk about Victoria."

"Oh, is that so?"  Jimmy glared at me, but I continued.

"Yes, I'm afraid she's been hiding things from you."

Jimmy looked scared for the first time since I've met him - but I wasn't about to sell out our mutual friend X.

"I'm concerned she might be getting in over her depth.  I saw her talking with Dr. Hoff before you walked up - and when you did she changed her tune faster than a record player."

Jimmy, relieved, walked away.  Kolbichef seemed sad, but unsurprised.  He said, with a sigh: "I prefer to stay out of her private matters.  She knows she has my aid if she needs it.  Thank you for this, Emil.  I won't forget your candor."

--- ---

After speaking with Kolbichef, I found the Prince again, about to leave.

"My prince - what a beautiful pendant, it truly suits your complexion."

He seemed startled. "A comment more befitting a Daeva than one such as you, Emil.  What is your point?"

"It really seems to catch the light, wouldn't you say?"

"Yes, it really does.  It is a very special pendant, and this is a very special girl.  Go on, introduce yourself, darling."

She looked up and her eyes burned into me like two red-hot pokers.  I felt suddenly at a loss for words.

"Uh. Where - where did you find her?  She is truly... alive."

"How do you say, she found me?"  At this, the girl moved to grab the Prince's lapel, whispering something in his ear.  "well by all means go ahead, darling."

She reached out and placed a glimmering yellow gemstone in my hand.  As she did, her touch on my palm left a red burn mark.  By the time I looked up from the gemstone, the Prince was gone.

8 - I'll see you in court

Since the last time, we've been real busy.  X has been trying to start a little gang war, and take over this city's Bloods gang.  So far, he's managed only to attract the attention of someone called Scratch - another vampire, I presume, who's latched his fangs onto the Bloods' rival gang called The Cripples.

Cargen has been hanging out with that cute nurse from the asylum.  She took two weeks off after witnessing a murder in the parking lot.  One of the doctors was shot through the windshield of his car by someone carrying a shotgun - left pieces of flesh all over the back seat of the car, that did.  The killer chose a rainy night to carry it out, relying on the cameras being fogged up and blurred.

Jimmy was trying to get more information from the doctors at the asylum - and when he discovered a ring of child sex traffickers, he chose a rainy night to ambush one of the perpetrators getting into his car.  Shot him right through the windshield with a shotgun and fled into the rain-soaked streets like a menacing shadow.

Meanwhile, I've been conducting my own investigation onto just who bought the little girl from that place.  It turns out that Ava, the hag, knew where she was all along - leading us on just long enough to keep us out of her hair, I suppose.  Either that, or we were just a useful delivery service for her.  Either way, this stinks.

I hope to find some answers at Court today.  There's higher security than usual, which makes me think that maybe Prince Augusting will be gracing all us vamps with an appearance.  He hasn't shown up recently - instead relying on his Seneschal Sullivan Poole to conduct city business for him.  It's being held in Skyfall tower, the tallest building in Gloryhill, on the top floor.

They call it "The Night Garden" for a reason - it's got the sort of ambience that a weaker-willed Daeva would spend the rest of his life trying to recreate.  The contortionists from Cargen's fairground have all been hired to act as living sculptures, twisting and deforming their bodies to mimic the souls of those they entertain.  Meanwhile, the garden pathways are lit from underneath by flameless candlelight, giving the omnipresent rosebushes a menacing, shadowed appearance.  Their thorns stand out even more clearly when lit in this way.  They say every rose has its' thorn - but these thorns have their roses.  And at the front of the room, a pedestal inlaid with gold to serve as a speakers' dias.

All of kindred high society was there - of course I could see Dr. Hoff, never one to miss a court date - and the newest Sheriff, Whitney Underwood.  She looked frail, a slight girl out of her element as an agent of the law.  And Jonathan Price, whose graceful movement belied his lanky frame.

The Seneschal himself was sitting on a gold and red Queen Anne chair near the bottom of the stairs to the helipad.  He cast an imposing form: all straight-lipped, straight-spine, with slicked back hair.  I murmured under my breath, "I know a nazi when I see one..."

Of course, Veronica's here too.

"Oh, look who it is," I mentioned, gesturing towards the spider herself.

"Mind your tone, whitey." X elbowed me in the ribs. "think about who you're talking about."

There were others I didn't recognize, but X seemed to.

When Veronica found Dr. Hoff, I sidled up with Cargen to overhear their conversation.

Veronica laid her hand gently on Dr. Hoff's shoulder.  "How's your new business, Hoff?"

Even through his mask, I could tell Dr. Hoff was disappointed in someone else's misdeeds.  "Well, there've been some hiccups, but the plan is going comfortably on schedule."

"Will you be ready to hand it off to the buyer when I locate the product?"

"The real question is if you'll be ready to provide the product when we locate a seller.  This is a dangerous game we play, you and I."

Veronica was about to respond, but Erik Kolbichef walked up.  He was one of the few here I recognized - not only was he Veronica's husband, but a high-ranking Dragon as well.  She started putting all her attention - and affection - on him.

Strange pair, those two.  Veronica, well, she was the sort of girl that guys would jump in front of a bus for.  And Kolbichef was looking like the sort of guy who'd be driving that bus.  He looked like a drowned corpse, leaving a trail of water behind him.  There was even a piece of seaweed caught in his moldy hair.

Scoffing, the good doctor walked away.  I heard a helicopter come closer and closer before landing on the helipad above us.  And with that, the Seneschal took the podium.  Somehow amplified, his voice filled the night garden, making all other conversations peter out.

"Greetings to Meine Damen und Herren of the glorious Kingdom of Gloryhill. I present to you the rightful Prince by Birthright and True Son of Caine, Augustine Corinth."

The Prince opened the helipad door and stepped inside, surveying the menagerie below him.  He was dressed in a functional black suit, with an amulet - THE amulet - around his neck.  To his right, a girl on a leash and dressed in fine silk. Even if her face was obscured by her hair, there was no mistaking her - it's the girl from our shared dream.  Funny thing, that.  Haven't seen the Prince in almost a year, and here he comes to visit Court like he hasn't even been gone at all.

He came down the stairs and into the crowd.  Vellum immediately sought him out.

"Oh, Jimmy!  I've been meaning to talk with you." The Prince said, his thick Romanian accent letting his origins out of the bag.  "I've been - how you say - "seeing a light."  He wound his finger around the girl's hair idly.

"What do you want... my prince?" Vellum added the last bit almost as an afterthought, and the Prince broke into a wide grin.

"What I want, dear Jimmy, is to give you a gift such as befits a man of your stature and reputation."

"Yeah?  What would that be?"

"I want you to be the new Master of Elysium at the 17th Street Mission." The Prince laid his hand on Vellum's arm, dead skin flaking off and tumbling to the ground like snow.

7 - Along came a spider

They're pushed into Veronica's private room, the true epicenter of carnal vices in Gloryhill, and the middle of the spider's web.  They begin questioning her immediately - but with not an effect at all.  In the end, she forces Cargen to leave of his own accord, permitting her alone with the weaker-willed X and her greed.  Not a wise move for Cargen, but he didn't have a choice.

He heads downstairs, and when he talks about what happened, Jimmy rushes up the stairs and obfuscates himself, becoming invisible to all but the most highly-trained e-

"Get out here, Nosferatu.  Show yourself."  He says.  This ghouled bodyguard's obviously been trained.

So, having been invited to, Jimmy walks up to the bodyguard and pulls his face off, revealing nightmare rows of gangrenous gnashing teeth and rotting flesh that send the guard into convulsions.

He knocks.

A moment later, the Queen of Lust herself opens the door, wiping something off her chin.  "He's all yours," she says, without a trace of disappointment.

From behind: "But honey!"

"X, you need to go with him."

"If you say so..."

Walking down the stairs, Cargen turns to X.  "You don't know what you were dealing with in there.  If she got her claws in you, the worst could happen."

X is angry.  "And you don't know what you talk, nigga.  She's perfect, so shut the fuck up."

We head out the door together and back to the sewer, to the crone's house.

After a moment of tension, Claire hobbles into the back room with a grumble.  Clever girl.

And, in return, the crone tells us where the amulet is.  The Prince Has It, she says.  She also tells us of a ritual to unlock its power.

I'm struck by the easy of getting this girl from Dr. Hoff.  It occurs to me - I know Veronica's husband.  He's higher ranked than I am in the Order of the Dragon.  I worry that the Order might want to know about the amulet.  Who needs the Coils of the Dragon when you can merely wear an amulet and walk in the daylight?

I fantasize about that as I fall into sleep at sunrise.  It's been a long, long time since I last felt the sun - and for once, I have hope that I might again.

Unfortunately, just as every night the past six months, I dream of the girl, the amulet, and her blood being washed downriver.

6 - Can I get two for the road?

I got a lead in Briarwood that the little girl's been taken to a place called The Ballroom.  A real den of all sorts of sins - Lust, Vanity, Pride and Gluttony chief among them.  Dr. Hoff hangs out there.  He runs the joint with his dame Veronica.  A former actress, they call her the Queen of Pleasure.  Lust incarnate, I say.

We pull up and take check.  There's a long line of walking meatbags outside.  Neither X nor I take very kindly when we're told to wait in line with the rest of the cattle.  When the doorman puts a word in X like a knife, X lets his wrath get the better of him.  They send out all the bouncers - but X just keeps laying them down on the cement like cordwood.  They decide to let him in anyway.

The rest of us go looking around for a more prudent way in.  Two kine stumble drunkenly out a service door to rut in the alley, and we tailgate in before the door closes.

We put on our masks and join the grand masquerade.  The Ballroom is known for a few things.  Chiefly, it's Masquerade Night, every night.  Almost all the revelers are dressed in their finest, most exotic revealing dress, with full-face masks.  Some decide to wear only the mask.  And everywhere, laying on couches and sitting at the bars, are tender, young girls wearing only a thin yellow ribbon - the mark that they're available for more sanguine pleasures.

Dr. Hoff is the one to talk to about them - and I start to wonder just why the little girl Claire wound up here of all places.  We are escorted to the VIP area, upstairs.  X and Cargen go to talk to the gams with the plan, Veronica - while Jimmy, Nick and I go see about the girl.

We run into Dr. Hoff.  Jimmy cuts to the chase, right away. "We're here for Claire."

"Oh, Sheriff!" Dr Hoff exclaims, his words dripping with artificial sweetener.  "Of course I'll let you take the girl, she's right through here!  I'm so pleased to meet you, finally.  I've heard good things.  And Emil!  It's just wonderful to see you again."

We are ushered into a small, foul-smelling room filled with piles of stained clothing.

Before long, a twisted, grotesque of a girl appears from out of the piles.  She's singing a song about pretty things, or something like that.  But then she sees us.  Or, more specifically, she sees Nick.

"OH!  PRETTY!" she squeals, spider-walking over to Nick.  Even so young, being taken with vanity.  It's a shame, really.

"Excuse me..." I start, but the little girl ignores me and talks to Nick instead.  She's playing with Nick's hair, leaving streaks of grease and dirt behind.

Cargen comes in a few minutes later, and tells us about how he felt like he should leave X alone with Victoria.  Jimmy Vellum doesn't like the sound of that, and rushes out of the room.

It turns out that the girl responds well to prmoises that slake her vanity and pride.  I suggest playing a nasty trick on Ava, the crone that kept her.  We drop her off just long enough to get the information we need - then she escapes again of her own accord.

To prove she can, her bones and spine twist and contract with sickeningly moist snaps and crunches until she is fully in the form of a rat - albeit a dog-sized rat.

Meanwhile, X and Cargen are upstairs.

5 - Briarwood Children's Home

Briarwood was founded only a few years after Gloryhill itself.  Something about the city gave it more than its' fair share of "special" children - anklebiters who thought they could fly, or would only eat paint, or were otherwise not alright in the head.  There needed to be a place to put these unfortunate souls until a time as they could be cured - and James Briar stepped up to the plate.

The original Briar was a famous French brain surgeon who fell from grace in 1914 for his experiments on live subjects.  He founded Briarwood shortly after, as a way to continue doing his experiments in a country more tolerant of scientific progress.

Briarwood Children's Home has today become an institute for the unfit - the outcast and alone.  A basic investigation reveals to me that there are those sent here by family members, thinking they are giving their loved ones a luxurious new home.  They pay great sums of money for the "luxuries" of torture devices and false promises.

When the Gloryhill Maximum Security Penitentiary was constructed in 1965, the director used this as an excuse to surround Briarwood with even more security.  Today the building is surrounded by a rusty metal security fence.  I don't know if it's to prevent the inmates getting in, or the patients getting out.  Probably both.

Briarwood itself cuts an imposing silhouette - the long, gothic mansion, and its' statue in front are lit from inside by only a few lights.  The statue is of a fatherly, doting priest with one hand raised in supplication, and the other on the top of a young girl's head who is kneeling before him to receive healing.

The five of us bundle into the entryway, and ring the doorbell.

"Hello?  W...who are you?" a voice comes over the intercom.

I answer immediately, holding up a police badge.  "Gloryhill Police Department, ma'am.  We're here to talk about a girl who was admitted here a few weeks ago."

"Oh, officer.  I'll come let you in.  These cameras seem to not be working too well."

She comes to the door a moment later, her thick round glasses making her head appear even smaller than it is.

"Hi, I'm Isabel, the night nurse.  Come in, please..." she says, trailing off as she looks at the five of us.

She continues, walking towards the reception desk.  "Are all of you police?  You certainly don't loo-"

I cut her off.  "No, just Mr. X...avier and I.  These three are merely concerned citizens."

"Oh...okay..." she says, trying to keep a straight face.  Must maintain her professionalism.  Very diligent of her.

I explain the situation, giving an exacting description of the girl.  Isabel seems to know exactly who I'm talking about, and in fact the attending physician is in the hospital presently.

She calls him down to the front desk, and after a long wait, Dr. Fontavian appears out of a darkened hallway.  He's a disgusting example of sloth and reckless gluttony.  His fat cascades down over his thighs like he's been disemboweled, and I briefly wonder how his legs even support such a body.

Not very well, it appears, because he angrily tells us to come back in two days with a warrant if we want release documents before waddling off back where he came.

Looking around, I'm just about to head back to the car myself, when I notice Jimmy Vellum isn't with us anymore.

He meets us later in the parking lot.  Apparently, Jimmy really put the screws on Fontavian.  He tells us that the good doctor sweat more than a locomotive.  He tells us he has a name, too: Dr. Hoff.

Now that's a name I know.

4 - Pretty, Pretty things

Our trail on this girl has not quite run cold yet.  The hag at least gave us a place to start.  Apparently, this "daughter" of hers used to have a fascination with those eerily too-perfect porcelain dolls.  A quick check of the phone book gives us the only place in town that makes them: Paddy's Porcelain.

We meet at the bar, and I ask X if he remembers a hand signal I gave him the day before, in the dream we had.  He did!  It appears we are genuinely sharing the dream, and we maintain some agency.  I must investigate further.

So we go to Paddy's.  We are welcomed by all the creepiest doll heads in the place.  After breaking in, we stand to survey the shop for a moment.  Little creepy dolls cover every shelf and available survace - even hanging from the ceiling by thin wire nooses.  Their paint and varnish eyes seem to follow our every move - even turning their heads to track our progress into the store.

The whole place gives me the creeps.

We see a light in the back, and find a young man with thick, black glasses and fine, deft hands.  He makes the dolls, he says.  He liked the little girl, I say.  Selfish pride and vanity, I say.  It turns out that the grandmother, in envy of the little girl's eternal life, had sent her away to Briarwood: a home "for sick, special little girls" on the north edge of town near the Gloryhill Penitentiary.

His grandmother is dead in the icebox upstairs.

As we're leaving, X spots a particular doll hanging from the ceiling, her eyes aglow with inner light as she holds a glistening, stylized heart in her hands.  She looks exactly like the girl in our dreams!  We interrogate the poor boy until he can bear no more - but he gives us nothing about who he saw, what she was holding.  He seemed to not even know what doll we were talking about, and didn't remember even making it.

This, and the fact that the boy's a ghoul make his mere existence a breach of the masquerade.  I begin to draw my gun, ready and willing to execute him without hesitation - but Cargen stops me, just as he stopped me from executing the fleeing girl at the subway station.  The justice in the situation is unknown to the others, and we drive away into the night just as the police arrive on the scene.