"Are you ready then?"

"Yes Sire."

“Coke.” I turn my head slightly, head coming up as someone disturbs me in my office. My office. Huh. To think I’d get a desk job after all these years.

“Yes?”

“The Prince needs to see you.”

I just nod and get up. Almost automatically I check the minor arsenal that I carry with me. Phosporous rounds, grenades (smoke, fragmentation and phosphorous), extra ammunition -cold iron, silver, hollow point and armour piercing, and shotgun shells - both pellets and slugs. Knives, both hand and throwing. Multiple guns. A pair of stakes, thin slivers of ironwood. A number of less obvious toys. And somehow, I still feel slightly naked. It’s this damn city. And my damned post.

I step outside of the side door, heading for where my bike is. Something triggers in me, a latent sense of danger. Too late, too slow. I duck to the side, but the bullet takes me in the face, ripping most of it out. I’m concious, even if I wish I wasn’t. Pain driving itself through me, my senses mitigated by the pain.

I ignore the manhandling, the pain and concentrate internally. On the Blood in my body, on sending it through my body to heal. Time passes, without ears, eyes, a nose or tongue, it makes it hard to tell how long. I know I’m driven somewhere, in some automobile.

I concentrate on my body, ignoring the rest except to store it all for future reference Instead, I heal myself, slowly. And then blinding pain, as if someone has poured salt in my wounds. I’d later learn that that was exactly what they did. It hurt, but at least I was alive and msotly healed.

In front me as I awaken is the Archon, Lady Serena and of course, Fourcourt. Yes, my most pleasurable of all teams. You can’t bring them anywhere, literally.

Still, I was alive and that was enough . Explanations would come later, as always. Before the Prince, where I recieved a message concerning a friend of mine, a late friend. Major Nichols. The last of my mortal friends, the only one to survive from my squad. The last, except for me.

I was activated once more, to complete a job that was never finished, to deal with a Tzimisce that I hadn’t killed. Not that I could expect anything else, after all, I was human back then. And ignorant of the supernatural, if not what hid in the shadows.

And of course, there was the small matter of my name. Johnathan Masters. Well, a name at least. One as good as any other, an older one than most. It had been a long time since I heard it.

My squad, har, my friends, allies... competition, all wanted to help of course. I wouldn’t let them. More to the point, I quit my current job with the Prince. He’d have to find another Keeper. Another operative, another trained, much more experienced operative was out for my blood and till I had him down, all else was secondary.

I wouldn’t let them play in my shadow world because good as they were in their own ways, this wasn’t their world. They didn’t know the rules, the way thign worked. They were children, and in my world, children died. Horribly. I should knowm, I’ve led more than one group to their deaths, nevermind the rest.

Hunter and hunted against someone older than me, more experienced. What fun. I thought I had escaped all this, all the memories and the sins. Well, not the sins, those you can’t escape. Now here I was, drawn back into a world that I never wanted. And it fit like a glove.

I told themt oback off, but I should have known beter. They never would. How not surprising. Acid in the face, enough to catch her. Seems like he’s not content to kill me, but out to torment me. Something to do with being put in torpor through a headshot just like mine for 50 years. Unprofessional, but perhaps an edge. I’ll need them all.

The first casualty on our side, the first real casualty was again the Harpy, Lady Serena. Kidnapped, when she was poking her nose into things that she shouldn’t. Even after that little warning, she couldn’t stop. What did she expect to do? She’s not a figher, wasn’t at least.

I hate it when the opponent dictates the pace, the timing. I’m not good on the defensive at least not as good as I am on the offensive. Still, what is, is. And betwen her and the busload of children he kidnapped, he had us. Me caught.

Ordered to come to the lighthouse, to show myself. Another time, another place, another person would have left him to do what he wanted with the Lady, with the children. Take him on his way out, when the timing, the location was one of my choosing. To stop reacting. Another person.

Plans were made. Simple was always the best, leaves a hell of a lot less to get messed up. Two pronged attack, me and Fourcourt. Instead of up through the lighthouses simple and very effective death trap of a stairwell, up though the air. Me in bat form, Fourcourt floated there by the Archon. Simple enough.

I fly upwards, Fourcourt floating next to me. Bat form and darkness go together like dark blue paint on Spitfires. Fourcourt of course draws attention, he’s a floating man. I let him, instead spiralling upwards to get into diving range. And dive is what I do.

I shift in mid-air, when I’m certain that I will hit him. Into the shaft that lies in the centre of the lightouse, carrying him with me. 220 plus pounds of me with all the added momentum and speed of flying in bat form smashing into him like a wrecking ball. We go in.

Not long afterwards when we land, so does Fourcourt. Doesn’t know when to quit that man. Not that I’ll complain on the extra help. I don’t have an ego on matters like this. This is just business.

Personal is after he’s dust, which doesn’t take long. Fourcourt keeps him busy whilst I hamstring, gut and nearly decapitate him. Quick and simple work, especially for a Gangrel. Afterwards, I stare at the ash for a long time before I go up. It’s a long climb, but we make it.

Serena is smart enough to get the kids out whilst we’re working things over, her bonds broken by Fourcourt already. The Prince settles the authorities whilst we slowly exit the lighthouse, leaving the children to the mortals.

Not too bad work for a few days, and the cost all in all minimal. A bit of hue and cry in the media, wasted blood and some ash. Nothing spectacular. Oh, and one dead old mortal that was no one special except to a few friends.

I find myself at the pier the next day, smoking. Staring out into the water. Some days, you can’t win, no matter what you do. Some nights, the memories and the aches and the pains all return. The recriminations for things that you should have done better, the words that you should have said. But there is one thing I’ve learnt, in all my time. You go on, whether you’re damned or alive. Because the other choices are just not worth considering. For those that have died. And who will die.

I’ll take up my job once more, do the Princes’ dirty work in Alexandria, put the past few days away in the place where I lock everything else up. Remember to tamper down on my already too large reputation, carry a few more guns, make certain of a few more bolt holes. Try to avoid reminding the others of things that they don’t know of me. Or that they do know. And go on. I’ll do this all. Later. This moment, right now, is for me. And a debt that I can never repay.