The Masquerade A Night on the Town

Vitaly wasn't sure exactly when he fell asleep, or woke up. He remembered staring at the ceiling of the coupe, tired, and closing his eyes a moment. When he opened them, he found himself staring at a flat, grey wall in a concrete room, He turned his head, the painful, dull ache in his jaw still present, and found his leg tightly bound in gauze, the job done hastily over his clothes. Both arms were strapped to the chair he was sitting in, and a pair of needles ran into his arm, one containing what looked like saline solution, and another blood, running from a half full bag of O-negative. Vitaly rolled his neck and shoulders, giving several loud pops as he stretched.

His tongue prodded gingerly at his teeth. Still misaligned, and still with several loose teeth. Looks like they don't plan on keeping me alive for any longer than they have to. Given the shoddy job on the leg, and my jaw still busted to hell, I'll probably he halfway into the grave from infection in a couple weeks anyway.

Vitaly craned his head to look around the room. It was dark, but he could make the silhouette of boilers and stacks of crates from the corner of his vision. A basement. Another quick scan, looking for anywhere to escape revealed a handful of slim windows about three meters off the ground, blacked out and grated over to prevent light from getting in and people from getting out. He tried looking farther back, but still couldn't see the door into the basement, or any other suitable exit.

Not that he could do much with his leg the way it was.

"You'd best hurry the hell up, Sasha..." Vitaly muttered.

With a screech, the basement door opened. Vitaly culdnt see anithing, from where he vas, but Ixis's voice vas un-mistakeable.

"Hope you had a good rest... it has been almost a day." she started, coming around to where he culd see her. Un-like before, the Kindred woman vas now dressed in a bit more ordinery leather getup, a leather jacket and black jeans, a dark red tank-top under, expozing her flat midriff, and still folowing the contours of her luscious breasts.

She sounded back to her usual jovial self, as she sat down at the edge of Vitaly's simple bed, smiling at him.

"That looks painful. Sorry about that. But, you asked for it. Aniway... in a hour or so, you are going to be interogated." her smile vanished at this, "And I dont mean anithing humans consider interogation. I mean, your mind wil be seized, controled, and you will tell us evrything you did vith that data, vhether you like it or not. And after, your mind wil be destroyed, turning you to a vegetable, before you serve as food to some of us. Some of us have Disciplines that alow us to do that. I dont, but the Elder does. And he is fucking PISSED at you!" stabbing a finger at him.

Then Ixis smiled agen, but it had a ironic edge. "You may hate me, human. You may think I'm a freak, and a monster. But think about this - this monster, is about to save your mizerable life! You are the link to who-ever embraced me. To who-ever turned me to a vampire. This ring is proof." puling out Vitaly's ring, now around her own neck. "And thats why I need you alive and lucid, to help me find them. They are of your blood, your family. Thats why, in spite of all the trouble you given me, I'm going to break you out of here, and defy the Elder of this city. I have spent my... death... looking for who-ever did this to me, and I wont miss this chance."

Then, in a moment, she had her hunting knife in her hand, bringing it to Vitaly's throat. Her voice changed to a snarl, as the Kindred woman puled him toward her, eyes blazing in-to his: "But, if you EVER give me shit like you did before, I'l decide you are no longer useful to me, and kill you. Or not... I'm going to SIRE you, to become my Ghoul. My slave. Do you know vhat that means? It means your life wil be bound to my un-death. If I die, so wil you. If I stop feeding you my blood, you die. I shuld do that right now in fact, but just because I stil kind of like you, how brave you are, I'l give you ONE more chance. ONE MORE CHANCE. If you ever fuck vith me agen, you'l WISH you wer dead. Because being a ghoul is worse then death." the striking vampire woman finished, holding his gaze for a couple more moments. Then she released him, and sheathed the knife.

"Do we have a deal? Just nod, I can guess talking hurts right now. If not, I'l leave you to the Elder and anyone else he brings along, to fuck up your mind, before they drain you dry later, when you give them all the info they want." she asked, glaring at him.

"Do you remember what I said," Vitaly croaked, "right before you summoned some hentai tentacle bullshit?" There was a wry smile on his battered, gaunt features. ""Give me my god damn ring back, or you'll see if Vitaly Ivanovich Volkov is scared of death!" He parroted, word for word. He gave a chuckle, coughing a bit, and pain flashed across his features momentarily.

"And as for my mind, if they dragged everything out of me, wrenched every password out of my mind, every key to every place the copies of that file were sent, and turned me into a vegetable, they still wouldn't have access to everything. I'm a security expert, remember?" He chuckled grimly. As much as he poked fun at it, having his mind destroyed by some undead sounded suitably awful.

"So tell you what? Since it's damn obvious you won't give the ring back, I'll help you find your vampire daddy. Everything you want to know. I'll help you do whatever shit you need, do whatever you want for a year. A year. And at the end of that year, whether we find him or not, I want my ring back. That's my offer. "

"If you dont want a few more broken bones and busted-out teeth, you'l never call him my 'daddy' agen. I had only one daddy, and hes been dead for a very long time." Ixis hissed thru her teeth, showing her canines, her glare turning venomous. Then she nodded.

"Deal. One more thing. Lose the atitude. I got sick of it about 19 hours ago, vhen you wer bleeding out in my car. Oh and..." she smirked, "...thats something you'l clean up, later. Now come on. On your feet, and keep silent. I dont care how much your leg hurts, keep it down, or you'l bring the place down on us."

Then she ofered him her hand, to pull him up at his feet, suporting him as they walked back out the door.

"Ixis? Vhere are you taking the Kine?" the vampire guard at the end of a short stair-case up, asked, confused.

"The Elder wants to start the information extraction ahead of schedule. I'm just taking this piece of shit up there, to his office. Shuld be fun to watch!" she winked. The Kindred guy, another Neonate, about the same age as her, grinned back... "I'm sure... hey, for new blood here, you sure get the job done! You'l let me know how it vent? And... how about we go dance our asses off up at the club, later?" he flirted, swalowing the attractive woman vith his gaze, lingering on her chest.

Ixis smiled, biting her lower lip softly, giving him a hooded gaze... "Sure... sounds good. I hope you can keep up vith me on the floor, tho!"

"You beter belive it!" the other Kindred chuckled, then steped asyde to let them pass thru the door-way.

They gone down a long back-coridor, the sounds of music reaching them from the club's main area. It vas late evening, past sunset, the next day, and the club has just re-opened.

"Not a sound." Ixis warned, as she culd see Vitaly's face twisting from the pain in his leg. They reached the back doors, and steped-out to the rear parking lot, behind the club. Ixis's distinktive Ford Puma vas parked at the far end of it, closest to the parking lot exit, ready for a quick get-away.

Vitaly limped forward, his face locked in a grimace as he moved towards the striking vehicle. Still, he kept as quiet as he could, his breathing steady and even as he made his way to the vehicle. He didn't know how sensitive a vampire's healing was, and now wasn't the time to find out. Still, he hobbled across the lot, eyes darting between windows as he searched for passerbys or cameras. Luckily enough for him, the journey to the car was uneventful, though he was sure any vampire with a functioning set of nostrils could trace the trail of thin blood seeping from the needle wounds in his arm.

Once inside the car, Vitaly breathed a short sigh off relief. He scanned again over the parking lot, and found nothing. Turning to Ixis, he laid out a couple options. "I don't know where you plan to go from here, but I've got to make a call to my brother. That call I made before you crushed my phone was to my brother, Sasha. Given that it's closing in on 20 hours since that call was made, he's going to pull the trigger on some kind of retaliation soon, and it's going to be big. I'm talking C4 and molotov cocktails through the door of the club, big. We can head to meet him at a bar in Hackney, or a warehouse he uses as a staging ground in Newark, but either way, I need to contact him somehow."

He gingerly rubbed his jaw with one hand. It made it a pain to talk, and though it was manageable, less talking was better.

"We can head to my flat, alternatively, or use whatever haunt you favor, unless you've got a better idea." Vitaly paused, before adding as an afterthought, "Sasha has the same ring, as well, though if you try to take it you'll probably end up with a tec-9 magazine in your skull."

Ixis looked at him, amused. "I take it your bro is a criminal of some kind? Good! Means he'l be a lot less likely to try anithing stupid, like actualy openly attacking the club. Since all it wuld do is get him police atention. Criminals dont last long atracting atention, just like us Ki... vampires. You know I always did hate that term. Kindred? That usualy means you share some kind of conections vith someone. The only conections I share vith most of my kind, is that I got a taste for blood, and have a severe alergy to sun-light. C4 and Molotovs? Bad idea. But I see guts run in the family vith you, tho. Guts or just being reckless like hell! I like that! Probably a guy I want to meet... I got a thing for dare-devils." she licked her lips.

One hand on the steering wheel, as the car reached a stop-light, the other reaching to her neck to grab the ring and look at its markings once more, Ixis added softly...

"And dont wory, I wont be taking any more rings. Yours told me all I needed to know. No more... teddy bears to need cleansing. At long last, I have a clue I can folow up on." she mused, her eyes flashing vith strange emotions. It wuld be the first sign of Ixis's own... un-hinged nature... that Vitaly wuld witness.

She shaken her head sligtly, sending her raven black hair swaying, before she added: "But first things first... lets get you fixed up. Asyde from your bro probably not apreciating seeing you like this, I... mmmmm... do think I'd prefer if you didnt smell so... delicius... right now. I like to think I have good self-control over my thirst, but your leg...", looking at Vitaly's bloody make-shift bandage, licking her lips agen. In the small confine of the car, the odor from it vas even more pervazive. She activated the air-conditioner, and set it to max.

"Any hospitals around? Maybe one vhere they dont ask too many kuestions? Or if you know how to handle wounds, it wuldnt be too hard for me to break in a pharmacy, and steal vhat we need. I have... ways to keep from being seen, as I'm sure you noticed." she grinned. Being new to London, she literaly had no idea vhere to go.

"Sasha keeps his cool a bit longer than I do, I think, but when he snaps, he's a damn animal. And while he doesn't always plan out the consequences of things too well, he's good at cleaning them up. Bombing the club," Vitaly gave a snort of laughter, "knowing Sasha, he'd make it look like another terrorist attack. He's got a bit of a political streak to him..."

"At any rate, if we keep heading south along this road for another couple kilometers or so, we'll hit Allen Street on our left. We should be able to stop at the pharmacy before heading a few blocks further down to Sasha's bar, The Broken Mirror." Another snort of laughter, realizing what kind of place vampires must have thought it was. He wondered just how many people they had tricked into thinking they were vampires over the years. "I'm sure Sasha has some contact who can fix my jaw discreetly. This sonuvabitch is starting to hurt." He said, trying to resist the urge to rub his jaw. Instead, he rolled down the window a crack, letting some of bloody odor be wicked into the cool London night. It was starting to become noxious.

Though he didn't say anything, the teddy bear comment didn't go unnoticed. He didn't know what clan or sect or whatever Ixis was, but he wasn't looking forward to having to work with a crazy person for up to a year. "Anyway, Allen street is coming up soon. One last, quick stop before we find Sasha before he does something stupid. No point in kicking the wasp nest... yet."

// scene break //