Three weeks later, Claire was still desperately trying to find any distraction at all from the fact that they still had not heard from Eliot since his mind had returned to his actual physical body in his rightful time and place. Though it was distractions she sought, she wanted to avoid too much interaction with others, or her ever so common urge to just hide herself completely away from the world when her fears and worries got too heavy to bear. She needed a happy medium between the two.
She sought a sort of middle ground between her usual isolation in her chambers and being surrounded by the crowd at her tavern. Of course her tavern was now more of a club like that which she and Sean ran once upon a time in London. Though Raven’s Loft did offer a vastly different type of entertainment and had a much less exclusive audience.
The distraction she chose tonight was watching from a plush sofa at the edge of the main hall while Sean dealt with his usual Princely duties. This was one of the many nights when he spoke with the other Kindred in his city other than just his Primogen, and dealt with their individual concerns rather than the clan-wide concerns that his council brought to him at their regular meetings. It could mostly be described as akin to the way human royalty held court in nights past, but hopefully, with a lot less pomp and condescension.
Lucian smiled politely as he too was there that night, and had already spoken with Sean before Claire arrived downstairs. “Evening?” Claire asked him curiously as he invited himself to take a seat next to her. “Didn’t know you had any business with Sean tonight,” she added as she offered him the bottle that she had just poured herself a drink from.
“I was just here to let him know that I’ve finished getting my practice set up for human patients once again, now that I’m back in the lovely city of angels.”
“I’m sure he was thrilled,” Claire returned quietly, her eyes watching those gathered to try and claim some of Sean’s ever so valuable attention that night.
“Speaking of thrilled,” Lucian began as he filled his glass with the blood she had offered and set the bottle aside once more, “you look rather less so than I would have thought you’d be this evening.”
Claire narrowed her eyes at that statement, “What on earth should I be thrilled about? I’d love to know.”
Lucian allowed a smirk at her cynicism before explaining his comment, “A little bird, as in a servant, told me that your magical friend finally decided to return that ever so powerful mind of his to his ever so lovely body, at long last. And seeing as you and Sean never shared my concerns about that aforementioned mind, I figured you would be more than happy to have him back, for some reason,” he added more quietly.
“He didn’t just finally ‘decide’ to come back. He finally found a way to come back. And you still don’t trust him, after what he’s done just to try to help me?” she jumped to Eliot’s defense, though quietly.
“And I’m sure he doesn’t trust me still, either. The least I can do is return the sentiment,” Lucian stated wryly as he took a sip.
Claire just shook her head before continuing, “And, yes, he’s back, but... it just doesn’t really feel like he is at all, I suppose.”
“Oh, do tell,” Lucian pressed, trying not to sound too happy about her discontent with the young man who he had had trouble trusting ever since he found out that there was much, much more to Eliot than that of any other ‘mere mortal.’
But before Claire could offer any further explanation, a servant of one of the city’s other Kindred burst into the room. The young man was out of breath and looked as though he had just barely escaped the clutches of death that very night.
“My Prince,” he began through shaky breaths, “you must help. We thought she was a Toreador and that it was just going to be a regular party, but then...” he swallowed hard as he tried to quickly find the words to explain his reason for rushing there that night.
“Who are we talking about, exactly?” Sean asked as he glanced around the room at the other Toreador present and accounted for that night.
Though Claire’s worry was even more severe than Sean’s. She was the Toreador Primogen, and if one of their clan had strayed, the way some Toreadors infamously strayed into the depths of depravity and became creatures such as Thomas, then all would be looking to her for explanations and solutions even more so than they would be looking to their Prince.
The servant made himself supply an answer, “Marina DaCosta. She was an amazing singer, dancer, actress. She even worked at The Loft ages ago. We thought she was throwing a party tonight to celebrate a new play that she’d be doing or something... but...” the servant sniffled, trying to compose himself once more.
“Claire?” Sean turned to her, causing her to tense even more.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“I haven’t seen Marina in years. She left The Loft long ago, when she got the lead role in some play or another. But that was years ago, Sean,” she told him apologetically.
Sean tried to keep his expression blank as he continued to Claire, “How old is she?”
“I think she was embraced in the mid 1700′s? So a hundred and fifty at most? Like I said, I haven’t spoken with her in ages.”
Sean seemed only slightly calmed by that answer before turning back to the disheveled servant, “And what exactly was happening at this party?”
“She and some other Kindred we didn’t even recognize, they just suddenly started killing everyone. And while the rest of us tried to run and hide and just get away, they started coming back: The ones they killed. And then all of the ones who came back were mad with hunger, and they started killing too... It was a massacre,” the servant whispered through the sob he could no longer hold back.
Sean tried to hide his true reaction to that news and keep his expression calm as he nodded to where Lissa and the Brujah Primogen, Ford, waited nearby, nodding back to him in understanding before gesturing to a few of the others present and leading them out of the hall behind them.
Then Claire moved forward to speak quietly to him, “Should I go too?”
“Why on earth would I expect you to rush headlong into a bloodbath full of frenzied newborn childer, Claire?” he asked her with disbelief.
“Well, she’s Toreador. She’s my responsibility, isn’t she?”
“She’s Antitribu, obviously. Which would make her my enforcer’s responsibility, wouldn’t it?” he accented the statement as he gestured toward the door the others had just exited through.
“But I should have known, shouldn’t I have?” Claire asked, voice breaking.
“Like Daniel knew about his own sire, and Hollister knew about his own childe, and Haven knew about his own brother?” Sean stated pointedly. “She may have been part of our clan at one point, but now she’s just an old acquaintance who has become a threat that needs to be put down. And that’s what will happen,” he assured.
----------------------------------------
By the time Lissa and Ford and the other more violently inclined Kindred had arrived at the scene, the newborns’ frenzy had thankfully passed. And that fact was referenced by the shock and despair on their faces, the plethora of dead bodies at their feet, and the gleeful members of the Sabbat celebrating their little joke by finishing off any of those victims who still were barely clinging to life, or even unlife, as was the case of some of the weaker vampires who had even become victims themselves that night.
Lissa, Ford and the others did manage to dispatch the Sabbat who remained and then went about trying to deal with the newborn vampires as well as the numerous bodies who hadn’t risen again. Ford’s people began moving the corpses to a safe place to be burnt, in order to hide the evidence of what the Sabbat had done, and keep all of their existences still secret. Meanwhile Lissa’s people, being of a slightly calmer demeanor than the hot-tempered Brujah who were there that night, tried to calm and console the fledglings, as well as determine if they could be brought into the ranks of the Camarilla, despite their terrifying entrance to that existence, or if they showed signs of going the much darker path of their creators, therefore earning them the same final death as those monsters who had taken their lives and cursed them with new ones that very night.
Lissa was speaking quietly with two young men who had been turned by Marina’s own blood that night. Then they all were startled by the sound of a pained scream coming from a door leading off of the main room, where the majority of the carnage had taken place.
Realizing that there may be even more to deal with that night, Lissa swallowed hard, and cautiously moved toward the door the sound seemed to originate from. Slowly opening it to a pantry of sorts, she was further shocked by the sight before her.
Two women had hidden themselves away there at some point in the night. One wore a look of fear and despair as she leaned over where the other lay upon the floor. Though the woman laying on the floor was the more disturbing sight, as she was quickly losing her fight to stay alive as blood seeped from her neck as well as from between her legs. She was heavily pregnant and in immense pain from the labor that had started prematurely after she had been attacked earlier in the night.
“She’s dying,” the kneeling woman whispered to Lissa, tears of red trickling down her cheeks and giving Lissa a bit more information about the scene before her, confusing as that information was.
“Are you the one responsible for that?” Lissa made herself ask, keeping a wary eye on the kneeling woman.
“What? Do I look like I’m happy about that fact?” the woman retorted, glaring back from her bloody blue eyes beneath long disheveled blonde locks. “I love her,” she added in a nearly inaudible whisper.
“So, you weren’t one of the ones turned tonight, who frenzied and killed so many of the others?” Lissa had to be sure, wishing then that she had the psychic abilities that some other clans had. Then again, most other clans envied her own strange abilities as well.
“No! I’ve been one of us for years. I only brought her here tonight to show her that we could still find some happiness, despite everything. And then... this happened,” she pushed back more red tears.
Lissa sighed as the woman seemed genuine, as far as she could tell from just body language and her voice alone. “I was a nurse, long ago, maybe I can at least save the baby, possibly,” Lissa finished quietly as she moved toward the woman who was quickly bleeding out.
After several tense moments, Lissa did manage to pull the crying infant from the woman’s body, seconds before death did finally take her. Lissa sighed sadly, cut the cord, and held the baby girl out to the other woman who had watched sorrowfully the whole time.
“Why are you handing it to me?” the blonde woman asked, shocked at the gesture.
Lissa narrowed her eyes, “You said you loved her. I assumed you’d...”
“Well, you assumed wrong,” she denied as she touched the dead woman’s cheek. “She’s what I want, not... that.” She glared at the crying infant before she determinedly tore open her own wrist and showed no hesitation before dripping her blood into the other woman’s mouth.