It's raining again. I'm sitting in our haven, two stories underground, and listening to the rain. At this rate the place might flood again, not that it's too disastrous for us. We only sleep down here, and we can still swim down if it submerges again. By the way, 'we' is my coterie, the Beggars. As for where I am? Well, I' m not going to give the exact name of the place - none of our coterie have been kindred for more than twenty years. We have enough trouble as it is, without attracting the attention of mad Sabbat buggers (no offence Badger). It' s an old English public school, and it's rich. It's the Methuselah of public schools, and makes places like Eton look like showy ancillae. And, like Methuselahs, no-one apart from it's minions have ever heard of it.
When the school transferred to this site, they built underground access tunnels. Four levels of them. But since then, asbestos and rising water levels flooding the lowest two levels constantly and even the other two at times have meant that it' s off limits to all but the odd gas-masked service engineer. Sunlight never reaches all but the top level.
Solomon has gone out to pick up the news. He's probably the oldest among us, but he doesn't like to say. The Nossies never really like to give out free information. Even I don' t understand where he gets most of his information from, but he's almost always right.
Little Blue has also disappeared. I think she went to find a piano to play. I'm going to have to go and look for her soon. Most people who meet her mistake her for a Malk, but when I find the young Toreador who' d been reading too many Anne Rice novels and decided it would be cute to embrace a fifteen year old piano player, I'm going to make what Sycorax does look like 'Watch with Mother' . Not for the damage to the kid, oh no. If anyone has been on the receiving end of teenage angst, they'll wince at the thought of it being immortalised in a vampire.
Sycorax himself (I think) is sitting in the corner, playing with his fingers. He's juggling them. I'm still not totally at ease with having a Tzim around, but he seems OK. All he's told us is that he' s an old pupil of the school, like the rest of us, and when the rest of his pack got turned to fertiliser by an enraged Tremere prince in the recent Sabbat defeats, he decided it was time to be declared missing presumed (finally) dead by his erstwhile comrades.
I decide that Little Blue has been gone too long, and pull myself to my feet. I brush down the long (ish) black coat that I got from a charity shop and doesn't fit, and stroll out of the haven to go and look for her.
It's stopped raining at least. I quietly prowl between the large red brick buildings that make up the school. In the boarding houses, the pupils sleep away the night, breathing slowly under their duvets. The houses are dark, quiet and cold. The detritus of the pupils is littered around the rooms, with magazines, papers and pens scattered on desks. All is quiet, no-one appears to be moving around here.
Outside, there is a similar story. The few lights that there are only serve to leave longer shadows in corners and out of the way places that most students use to have a quiet cigarette in the break, undisturbed by the teaching staff. Without even the sound of breathing, the only sound other than the night-time wildlife are my footfalls, scrunching on the occasional gravelled area, and nearly silent on the tarmac or grass that makes up the rest of the ground in the school.
There is still no sign of Little Blue. The music school is quiet, and the assembly hall known as Big School stands silent. As I stalk through the quadrangle, a voice sounds in my ear.
"Hello Ned, what's up?"
I spin round to come face to face with Solomon, un-masked in front of me. It's a good think I wasn't human, because I would probably have brought up my lunch. Although most of my associates find it slightly foul, I' ve managed to retain the skill of eating food, which helps when fitting in a little, and showing the odd child I meet that the sweets aren't dangerous.
"I wish you wouldn't do that! Little Blue hasn't come back yet, and it's not long until sunrise," I said.
Solomon lets out a string of curses that seem to indicate that at some point in his mysterious past, he must have been a vet or something. I had no idea livestock were able to do half the things he was describing.
"My thoughts exactly." I interrupted his flow of cursing because we hadn't got all night. "Look, you can help here. If you search the rest of the school buildings, I'll check round the edge of the school in case she' s decided to go for a walk or something."
With a nod Solomon disappeared from sight. I hurried northwards, intending to make a sweep of the outside edge of the school before sunrise. The retirement home, farm buildings and lake were no use, so, hurriedly now, as time was short before sunrise, I made my way around the school grounds in a clockwise direction. Eventually I reached the eastern side of the school, and crossed the railway track a t the level crossing to climb the hill that lies to the east of the school. Everything was still deserted, although I could see some lights were starting to come on in some of the farm buildings. Hurriedly skirting the farm and soon after, the small village at the top of the hill, I started to head back to the school. It would be light soon, and hopefully Solomon would have had better success.
But as I passed Byron's wood, the tiny wood that the school's Scouts used for the occasional camp, I noticed that there was a car pulled into the little parking area. It was a dark blue BMW that I hadn' t seen before. A nagging feeling came over me. The wood is private property, and I thought I knew all the cars of the people in the area. With apprehension I ducke d under the wooden bar that marked the edge of the wood, and carefully made my way through the wood. After all, if there wasn't a problem in the wood, it was a short cut back to the school anyway.
I slowly made my way through the woods, skirting the odd fallen tree, and making my way through to the centre. I suddenly caught sight of a slight red glow through the trees. It looked like the remains of a camp-fire. I slowly edged my way through the wood. There was no sign of any tents, so it couldn't be the Scouts. I was now worried. If Little Blue was here, then there would be trouble, one way or another.
At the edge of the clearing, I paused. The clearing was abandoned, and a camp-fire glowed in the centre of it. It looked as if someone had left it a considerable time earlier. I slowly made my way into the clearing. I was apprehensive of the remains of the fire, but I also know enough of the rules of the countryside, and with no small amount of worried hesitation, I started to stamp it out properly.
The next thing I knew I was hit from behind by something immensely strong that smashed me to the floor. I screamed for a second as I rolled through the still hot ashes of the fire, then I was clear of it. My attacker, a huge, clawed, red coated wolf creature with large fangs, a good nine feet high, leapt forward and pinned me to the ground. I still haven't got around to learning any Potence or Fortitude. To make things worse, my own natural strength is so bad that when I last tried to feed from a conscious victim I was beaten to the floor by a thirteen year old girl. I had taken to feeding from sleeping 'donors'. This led to my suspicion that my survival chances were that of a snowball in hell.
It's right claw was brought back, with the obvious intention of ripping my head from my body, when suddenly the creature paused. The creature then spoke the name I'd used in mortal life, which I don' t use these days because too many things can be traced to it. I nodded slowly, while still trying to keep my throat from being cut by the creatures claws.
Suddenly, it turned into a slim, attractive ginger haired young girl, with a considerable amount of noble bearing and wearing nothing more than the bead necklace that the wolf creature had been wearing (no fiend, you can' t have her phone number), who grinned. Although I regarded this change as an infinite improvement, I had a worrying thought that I knew her from my mortal life, and that going back to be evil wolf creature fodder was still very much on the menu if I wasn 't careful. Then the nagging thought that had been jumping up and down at the back of my mind suddenly managed to get my attention. I realised that the girl was a friend I had known at school (the same school my haven is now under). I couldn' t remember much about her apart from the fact that mummy owned a flashy car and a large mansion in Surrey. Recognition must have flashed in my eyes, and she laughed.
"Yes," she said, "It is me. I think I've aged a little more than you have since we last saw each other. Come with me."
The last time we'd seen each other had been a few months before my embrace, five years ago. I don't look much older than the eighteen years I was then, but she'd only been twelve. Despite the obvious good points of being invited to go with a nearly completely naked attractive woman, biological concerns don' t worry our kind, and the sky was beginning to lighten and I was worried about the sun. But the voice, although pleasant, had carried a hint of fur and claws and shredding, so I didn't have much choice. I followed her back up to the top of the wood.
About halfway up the slope that led back to the car, she paused, and moved off the path and into the undergrowth. I was now practically hopping from one foot to the other with worry at the thought of the sunrise which I was sure was only a few minutes away. She returned quickly, with a small backpack, and as we were walking up the rest of the slope, she pulled some car keys from the side pocket.
"Look," I said "I don't know about you but I have a real problem. It's going to be sunrise in a few minutes, and I really don't want to be around then. Is there anywhere I could shelter?"
She looked at me sadly "There won't be a problem."
We had reached the car. She pressed the button on the key ring that de-activated the alarm, and the car bleeped. She hurried around to the boot of the car, and opened it with the key.
"Quick, get in."
I scrambled hurriedly into the boot, which was empty apart from a spare tyre. As I lay down, the boot was slammed as the first rays of sun came over the horizon. I quickly fell into the dreamless sleep of the undead.
Continued in Part 2
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