It has been an intensive five days since the encounter with the assassin. I still haven’t heard from Van Myers, and I’m too scared to call him, in case he didn’t make it. After my pitiful attempt at firing a weapon, the only conclusion I could come to was to learn about weapons. I enrolled at the local pistol club, and hired a personal trainer to teach me. I have been there every night until closing time since. While still not of professional standard, I have improved immensely at the target range, and can handle the ‘kickback’ of a pistol now. After having experience firing several types of pistol, I purchased a ‘Snub Nosed 38 Revolver’. While not large, it was powerful enough to protect me if needed.

I was walking out of the gun club and glanced across the road. Standing on the opposite curb was Grady. I decided to watch him for a moment, and stood partially behind a garden, obscured by the bushes.

He had two friends with him, they looked like members of some teenage gang. They had their long shorts half falling down, with their boxer shorts exposed at the top, chain wallets, and bright coloured shirts on. They were also wearing matching bandana’s over their heads. They were speaking very animatedly with Grady, using their hands to accentuate what they were saying.

As I watched, Grady turned and looked straight over to where I was standing. He walked across the road towards me, so I stepped out into the open and smiled slightly as he spoke.
“I never got a chance to thank you the other night.”
“That’s quite OK, I was glad I could help you.”
“So ahhh, whatsaya name?”
“Teresa Devereux, pleased to meet you.”
We stood for a few uncomfortable moments, neither of us knowing what to say, when he broke the silence. “Well, ahh, maybe I’ll see ya round?”

I nodded, and Grady strolled back across the road and over to his friends. They spoke in hushed tones while looking over to where I was standing in the shadows.

In unison, they looked up and down to the opposite end of the street at a black van going past the intersection. After it had passed, one of them pulled out a large set of playing cards, riffled through them, and pulled one of them out. He dropped it to the ground, and at that moment, a doorway appeared in the solid brick wall in front of them! I am certain it had not been there before, but as I watched, they opened the door and walked through, the door closing behind them.

I walked quickly over to where they had been. On the ground was a pile of ash where the card had dropped. The brick wall showed no signs of any kind of opening that a person could have entered through. Some kind of magic must have been at work, it could be the only explanation.

As I examined the brick work, I heard a female’s footsteps approaching from behind me. Turning around, I was confronted with Miss Tabitha Stein. I suppose if there were magic around, she had to be nearby., She looked down at the smouldering ashes at my feet and asked “what happened here?”

I explained how Grady and his two friends had disappeared into the wall, and that I had seen Grady do that once before, at the university. Excited, she said “take me to where he disappeared the first time.” With that she turned and got into her black car, and we headed to the university.

On arriving, I immediately took her over to the part of the quadrangle where Grady had vanished. She looked around and said “and you are positive this is exactly where he disappeared?”
I looked around once again, “well, to the best of my recollection, yes. But I was some distance behind him when it happened.”
She frowned a little, but seemed satisfied.
“Did anything else happen, after he disappeared?”

I began to tell her about the little girl, when she interrupted me.
“This girl, did she have dark hair, and look about 8 years old?”
I nodded, and she continued “and I suppose she led you away, staying just out of your reach, then disappeared into mist?”
The look on my face must have betrayed my surprise, as she didn’t even bother to hear my response. A knowing half smile crossed her face. At least I didn’t feel so foolish about the whole encounter now.

She seemed to want to explore the area better, and turned to me.
“You can go.”
How dare she think she can dismiss me like a school child! I defiantly stood my ground.
“Excuse me, but I don’t think so. I intend on staying here until until you tell me what is going on with this Grady chap, and the girl!”

She seemed slightly irritated by me, as one would be by a fly buzzing around. She said off-handedly “no, you will go now and leave me.”
Once again I stood my ground.
“No! I will not leave until you give me some answers!”

Before I had time to react, Tabitha had spun on her heel to me, thrust out her hand in my direction, and it felt as though I was hit by a speeding car! Suddenly I was standing still and then, like some rag doll, I was hurled backwards through the air. I landed heavily on the ground, four car lengths from where I began. I looked over to Tabitha, to see she had already turned her attention back to her investigation of the area. A hand reached down to me, and I looked up to see the sympathetic eyes of Mr Korde, Tabitha’s assistant and driver.

As I brushed the dust from my clothes, he said gently “I think it would be best if I took you home now. I’m afraid Miss Stein has a fiery temper, and you have already had a small taste of how she reacts when provoked.”
I couldn’t help but agree with him, so I followed him over to the car. He opened the rear door for me, but I asked if it would be alright for me to sit in the front with him, so we could chat on the way.

He seemed pleasantly surprised that I wanted to talk with him, and opened the front passenger door for me instead. There were many questions I wanted to ask him, about what had happened the night Kyle was killed, and who, or what, Tabitha really was.

As I asked him questions, he seemed to relax.
“Please, call me Maximillian. Tabitha and I are Tremere - Warlocks if you like” The irony of the last statement lingered in the air.
“We study the magical arts. The spell Tabitha invoked on Kyle that night was a powerful manifestation of the element of fire. When one knows how to attune oneself to the arcane, one can perform feats that are nothing short of, well, magical.”

With that, he took one hand off the steering wheel, and held it out between us. As I looked at his palm, a small ball of fire appeared! It leapt and danced around his hand, seeming to take on a personality of it’s own. It was certainly an impressive display. He closed his hand into a fist, and the fire disappeared. He said “well, it would seem we have arrived.”

With all the conversation, time had passed exceptionally fast, and we were pulling up in my driveway. He opened my door for me, and graciously bid me farewell with a bow.
“Until we meet again, Miss Devereux”.

Thinking about it now, it seemed unnaturally fast for us to have arrived home that quickly? Perhaps it was another of those magic tricks they both seemed so fond of? At least I had a few more answers now, and has made a friend in Maximillian, if not in Tabitha. It disappoints me that I have had such bad experiences with all of the female vampires I have encountered, but then, I never had many female friends anyway.

I had only been home for 10 minutes or so, when I heard someone at the front door. I opened the door to none other than Van Myers! He was frowning, and did not greet me warmly at all.

“How are you Mr Van Myers? I am glad to see you managed to defeat that woman the other week”.
Disgusted, he said “yes, no thanks to you, or Marie, I might add”.

I blushed with embarrassment, recalling how we had both fled his apartment in sheer cowardice. Nothing I could say would make any difference, so I chose to remain silent. He didn’t seem in the mood for idle chit-chat, and continued sternly “when was the last time you saw Marie?”

I told him it had been when she took me home, after the incident at his place, and that I hadn’t seen her since then. He seemed annoyed at that, but I had no need to speak to her, and we hardly frequented the same social scene.

He said “I received a phone call from the Sheriff. He has a job for both of us, to find Marie. She was seen at a Sabbat gathering. ”
“I’m sorry, but a what gathering?”
Van Myers sighed heavily in frustration.
“Sabbat. They are a group of vampires opposed to the Prince. They create havoc wherever they go, and seriously breach the Masquerade at every opportunity. It seems we are now guilty by association, and need to find Marie, to save our own hides.”

Once again I was involved in something not of my making. And, again, I didn’t have a choice in the matter. We would have to find Marie, and let her sort out her own problems. Although, I wasn’t surprised to hear she was running around with a group like that.

I said “well, I suppose we should go over to her place and see if she’s there.”
He nodded and turned back to his car. We rode in silence, Van Myers not seeming impressed at being thrust into this situation either.

Amazingly, Marie was at home. Van Myers barged his way in, and started going off at her. He was asking her what on earth she was doing messing around with the Sabbat, and putting our lives at risk as well. He said to her “I suppose this all has to do with Vissago, doesn’t it! How many times have you drunk from him now??”

She looked sheepish, and replied “only twice, as far as I know.”
He continued his onslaught, accusing her of being blood bound to a Sabbat vampire, and that he should let her get what was coming to her, but that we would have to pay the consequences as well. She started arguing back, and the situation was deteriorating from there. Finally I couldn’t take their bickering any longer, and stepped in.
“Both of you, stop acting like children and be quiet! This isn’t getting anyone anywhere!”

They looked at me with daggers in their eyes, but at least they had stopped attacking each other. Van Myers pulled out a video tape from his coat, and said “well then, perhaps you should see for yourself what ‘our Marie’ has been up to.”

He put the tape into the machine, and I watched Marie on the video . While she didn’t appear to be there willingly, she wasn’t making any effort to get away either.

I was shocked at the behaviour of these Sabbat vampires‚ and any words I had stuck in my throat, leaving me silent. Van Myers glared contemptuously at Marie, as she sat with her head bowed in guilt. She had confessed her innocence the entire time, yet I felt uneasy at believing her. Van Myers pulled the tape out of the machine, and looked over to me.
“The only way to get Marie out of this mess, is to kill Vissago and break the blood bond he has over her. I suggest we find him. The question is, how?”

I looked over to Marie. “Where have you seen him before? Is there somewhere you have met him, or a place you know he may be?”
She wasn’t sure, but suggested we could try the Boston Museum. It proved fruitless however, as there was no sign of him there.

It was probably just as well. We hadn’t really thought our plan through very well. Vissago was a very powerful vampire, and to think we could simply find him and kill him that easily, was, quite frankly, laughable. I recalled the assassin that had tried to kill Van Myers. While she wasn’t successful in his case, perhaps that is the sort of person we should try and hire to kill Vissago for us? The question was, how did one go about finding someone like that?

The Resin Dogs were the most likely people I could think of that may have known. We went driving around, and found the group at a small park area. Van Myers asked to speak to Dakota, the gang’s second in charge. Van Myers stupidly tried to force him into telling us information. It didn’t work, and all it did was get Dakota off side. He told us to leave, and that he couldn’t help us. I wasn’t satisfied that we should leave it at that, and thought perhaps a bit of gently soothing may help. I asked him sweetly if there was anything he might be able to do to help, perhaps a phone number? He gave me the number 3825 6330 and suggested it was what I should try.

I got into the car grateful that I had diplomacy in such situations. I bragged shamelessly to Van Myers about womanly charm‚ and got him to stop at a phone box. I lost my confidence when I rang the number to find it was disconnected. I leant into the car and said “I must have written the number down incorrectly?”
Van Myers, asked what the number was. I told him the digits, and he smirked and laughed haughtily at me.
“You stupid little girl. Look at what letters the digits represent.”
Looking at the telephone buttons, I flushed with embarrassment. “F&%$ OFF!” seemed to be what Dakota was trying to tell me. I sighed heavily and fell into the car seat.

Van Myers said “well, we’ll just have to try the Sheriff, and see who he knows.”
He spoke for a few minutes, told him where we were, then hung up.
“The Sheriff is going to contact some Nosferatu, and get them to meet us here.”

I was far from happy about that. Our encounters had not been very successful at all with those hideous creatures. We sat and waited tensely as the minutes ticked by. We were all surprised when the front passenger door opening and closing by some invisible force. A disembodied voice began speaking to Van Myers, as it turned out, a voice of a Nosferatu. He said he didn’t know of any assassins, but would ask around. He added not to try and contact him again. If he found the information we needed, he would be in touch.

It seemed we had reached a dead end. It was getting late now, and dawn was close. We decided to return to Van Myers apartment and see what the new night would bring.

[ The Masquerade ]

Story 2 - “Blood Bond”

[ Van Myers / Grady | Assamite | Marie (Sabbat gathering) (Video) | 32 New Hampshire Way ]
[ Hypnotised | King takes Queen | Black Aura | The List | Anastasie | Michael’s Demise | End Game ]

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