After the meeting of all power holders in Camarilla, North America, the news travelled down on the grapevine like a wildfire. First it again shook the stereotype about Sabbat being totally mindless, and there was also the part about respectable Issac Abraham, too—it was quite a scandal for the Baron of Hollywood, but both the Prince and the Baron chose to let each other go this time gracefully. After all, he was a Toreador, nobody would blame them for being emotional. That's just what they are.

Besides, the Camarilla and the Anarchs had something more urgent to do than shouting political propaganda now: deal with this zombie-like epidemic as soon as possible, for many Kindred feared that the Tzimisce Sabbat would spread it among humans and cause massive social panic, which could fundamentally overthrow the Masquerade—vampiric terrorism, as they put it.

It was easier said than done, however, as the Sabbat now had become more discreet, so they would need some organized actions to sweep the area; And there was also the problem of how to confront a Kindred plague-bearer: a simple exchange of body fluids could bring infection, posing a great danger to anyone who wished to battle it, and the next one definitely wouldn't be as friendly as Ash Rivers. They should prepare task forces armed with special defense, instead of randomly endangering Kindred to make things worse. Regent Strauss proposed so in the meeting. Be it an antidote or vaccine of the plague, or some sort of armor that could fend it back, anything that could give them a leverage against the infection.

To do it, the best possible solution is to contain a plague-bearer alive, allowing them to do some "research", and this specific task of bringing home a sample, not surprisingly, fell on the shoulder of the Tremere clan. They were the only ones who possessed a deep knowledge in this area, and could also use Thaumaturgy to form up a blood armor on their body, avoiding the direct contact of skin with the plague-bearer, making them right now the only people who could safely go in and out of combat.

Now knowing how critical their role in this, Leona realized what Strauss meant by saying "we are strong enough", and of course, she had been assigned to the team of capturing the other plague-bearer alive, though conventionally, it was quite an unusual arrangement: she was too young and untrained to be part of this, even though she wasn't in charge and all. Most people interpreted her participance in the team to be an easier connection with the Anarchs: they could use some help from them. But Strauss had his own agenda.

"Control it, Leona, otherwise you would use too much blood…"

He was observing in the library under the Chantry, as the older apprentices were teaching Leona how to form up a blood armor. For nearly a month, she had demonstrated an amazing focus on discipline training and had seen considerable progresses, but blood armor required a high level of willpower in mastering Thaumaturgy, and Leona was always bad at that: for attacking skills, she definitely had talents, because her Strings of Curse were much more energetic and…explosive than average, and the price of that was…she had a hard time commanding them.

Just like right now, Leona was trying to guide her strings to cover her body, and let the blood wrapped around them spread into a smooth and thin coating on her skin, like the rest of the apprentices did. But because she couldn't dominate the power of it as refinedly, she pushed out much more blood than others in order to cover the same area, and it was just unpractical in actual battles.

"Interesting…"

Strauss didn't offer any suggestions or help on Leona's case, he was too absorbed in watching. What did Garrett do to his Childe in the Embrace would make her this way. He wondered. That was why he was eager to put Leona into real fights.

Of course every Tremere had their advantages and shortcomings when it came to Thaumaturgy, which was why they have different forms of strings, but Leona's condition was extreme, even taking the fact that her Sire Garrett was also the aggressive type into consideration: nearly all Tremeres have geometric shapes of forms, and Leona's was...totally irregular.

There was definitely something not right.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Noticing the weariness on Leona's face, Strauss called it a night and sent them all to rest—if he didn't ask, Leona would continue practicing until she fainted. She did that once, really scared everyone else.

"Regent…"

Apprentices greeted Strauss and left, so did Leona. She returned to her haven directly, leaving other Tremeres talking about her in the living room on the ground floor. She was a even bigger celebrity now in the whole Kindred society, but she determined her mind to disregard what other people said about her. Growing up with a life like hers, caring too much about external opinions would crush her mind for dozens of times.

So she went straight down to business after taking a shower, opened her laptop and mobile phone, checked for any leads about the plague-bearer that had popped up, in the system or some freelancer resources. Unfortunately, since the incident of Ash Rivers, the Sabbat had become even more cautious, and to keep a track of homeless population itself was hard already, so nothing really useful had come up yet, even the trail of Southland Slasher had dropped dead.

It'd been three weeks. Leona got anxious, and just when she was about to call Jack to check upon Anarchs' development, he called her first. But from the moment Jack started talking, Leona realized something was wrong: that crude humor and playfulness of the good-and-old smiling Jack had gone. He simply dropped one sentence, and didn't wait for Leona to answer:

"Come to Last Round, Damsel's missing."

The less Jack said, the more serious it got, so Leona didn't delay and rush to Last Round immediately—it's a bar in downtown area, where the Anarchs frequent, not far from the Tremere Chantry. Regent Strauss disdained that place and called it a watering hole, but after getting familiar with the people and the volume of music over there, it was tolerable—for a bar located close to slums.

The moment Leona pushed open the bar door, which was covered in graffities and heavy metal posters, her ears were flooded: there were Smells Like Teen Spirit of Nirvana, watering and pouring, laughing and shouting, snoring and swearing, even the effect sounds of those old-fashioned gaming machines. It was a torture for sensitive vampiric ears.

And of course there weren't just Kindred, too, humans were always welcomed here, and Leona could actually see them befriending with Anarchs without being treated like potential preys, which was in some sense what she loved about this place.

Usually Jack would be down in the hall to chat up and laugh with everybody, but because of the thing about Damsel he clearly didn't have the mood and just waited upstairs for Leona with Nines. It was the "restricted place" for "sober discussions".

"What happened?" Leona cut to the chase. Here with Nines she didn't need to care about any formalities.

Nines finished his beer quickly, trying to hold up his anxiety with the drink: "You know we are investigating the plague-bearer, too, right? The problem is Damsel kind of takes it too personal…she grew up in slums and she knew lots of people that were infected and taken. Told her to tell me everything, but I feel like she's been keeping it because she hates I will tell you…and she hasn't come back since last night."

"That's bad." Leona knew the worst scenario behind this, "Have any idea where we could start?"

"She has a ghoul boy named Paul, got sick, looks like the zombie symptoms so she was checking on him last night. Ghouls are nothing but trouble, if you ask me." Jack dumped his cigarette into the glass nearby, "That guy lived in this Skyline Apartment nearby, we could use your help—among the people we know can use Dominate and Presence, you are the top on the list."

Most Anarchs are excellent close-combat fighters from clans like Brujah, but they don't really specialize in manipulation and influencing, which would be crucial in situations like this. With little time to waste, Leona immediately took off with Nines to that apartment they mentioned—it was just a walking distance from here.

"You sure it's ok for you to leave there alone?" On their way, Leona couldn't help but ask. After all, Nines was the head of Anarchs—they didn't have any hierarchy of sorts, but he was acknowledged to be the "unofficial leader"—and Leona worried if it was alright for him to be away from the crowd like this.

Nines laughed at her concern: "You stayed with the bureaucrats for too long, kid, I'm not the one who sits in the tower and stays away from real actions…besides, Damsel's my responsibility, and Jack could hold the place. He is actually much more elder than me."

Nines picked Damsel up two years ago when she was dying of gunshots in a street fight and turned her. Luckily, them Anarchs were not in the Camarilla system, so what happened to Garrett and Leona didn't happen to them. He spoiled Damsel too much, as Nines sometimes would joke, always picking up her messes and teaching her little.

In a blink they've arrived at the place—it was just one ordinary residence building, well-facilitated enough to have some security service, but nothing fancy. They took the elevator up to the fifth floor, found where this ghoul of Damsel's lived, and was lucky enough to just need to pick the lock for entrance. If it was anything electronic…they would have to sneak in through the air pipes.

And the first thing they noticed when they came in, was the stink of rotten bodies.