After telling Bertram about the whole thing, he didn't seem to be surprised. In fact, according to him, stuff like this had been going on behind the Prince's back in the east ever since he was gone—local Barons screwing around and filling their own pockets, covering up anything that went wrong so that they wouldn't lose their lucrative and powerful job. LaCroix had caught several of them and made them painful examples, so most of the eastern barons behaved themselves now, but the New York one was particularly tricky.

It was a big city, therefore a big slice of cake, and the guy had put up a great act of being all loyal and fair to get the position, but he was just like everyone else, facing the temptation of less scrutiny and all those bribing offers of money and sex, then couldn't keep it in his pants. Still, if LaCroix wanted to kick him out of the game, he would need some convincing evidence, and the New York Baron had been clever enough not to give him any. So if they really managed to dig up the dirt Leona talked about, "LaCroix would definitely get thrilled", Bertram said.

But it wasn't that easy. The Baron did make lots of efforts to bury the thing about Muddy and Paul, and there wasn't trail left in the Kindred network, so Bertram turned his eyes to the vast internet, where anything—at least anything human—would leave footprints, and focus on finding out the actual identities of these two former Camarilla ghouls. After a night of hard work, he picked up something legit.

It was Muddy—probably because unlike Paul he hadn't been ghoul ever since but just a normal human, he paid less attention about cleaning up his track. By comparing what they knew about him with any human that fit, Bertram found one guy named Mike Durbin, a small-time criminal who had been in and out of prison ever since he "lost his job", every time bailed out by his rich, spoiling parents who were both famous athletes. He'd had a bad history of drugs since high school, when he tried to follow his daddy's foot steps but cheated by using chemicals.

What really caught Bertram's eyes was one interesting fact: the Durbin family was very close to a New York judge who went easy on Mike's teenage misconduct, and turned out he was the one that the Southland Slasher killed. After scooping in some old, dark corners of the human network, there were finally some rumors about this seemingly clean and beloved upholder of justice.

"So there was this rape and murder back in 2006 in NY, victim was a single Latino woman at the age of 20, leaving behind a younger brother of 4-year-old." Bertram told Leona what he found over the phone call, while sending her screenshots of the news coverage about the case, "They had four white male suspects but they were all released because 'lack of evidence'. Guess who was the district court judge? Mr. Dear Departed."

Leona could see what Bertram was trying to indicate: "You think Muddy and Paul were two of the suspects?"

"Well there was no direct connection, but soon after this thing, four ghouls were 'laid off because of redundancy' by our dear Baron of New York, and three of them now were killed. I'd say there were too many coincidences here, and I couldn't find any official records of the identities of those initial suspects, too, but dare I say it looked like the NYPD case detectives were 'Kindreded'. You know what I mean?"

"I see. Another foul play."

"What can I say? Foul play is our daily work-out routine." Bertram seemed to enjoy anything gossipy at any time, "The little brother of the poor dead girl would be 17 by now…that is, if he's human. Kid had to watch the whole process when those dickheads took turns on his sister…that's some shitty childhood trauma. I mean, their parents died of work incidents and his sister dropped out of college to work and take care of him, then she was dead, too. Jeez."

Looking at the high-school graduation picture of that smiling, worry-free girl on the report, Leona was left with no word for a long time. "So what about the little brother, then? Could he be the Slasher?" So she just asked the question that was job-related.

"The kid's name's Skelter, been transferred to foster family afterwards. The family seemed nice but…the kid had been bouncing among schools because he had 'anger' issues." Bertram further checked the files he got, "He seemed human until three months ago, he was reported missing on his way home after hanging out with his friends…then two weeks later, there came the Southland Slasher."

Adding up all they knew at the moment, it would be safe to assume Skelter was the Southland Slasher…at least, the motive did fit. But Leona and Bertram didn't talk further, for there was a sudden, noisy disturbance on the ground floor, and somebody just hurriedly knocked on Leona's door and screamed:

"Leona! We need you in the hall!"

Tremeres seldom sound so panicked like this, so Leona didn't delay and followed the apprentice downstairs, and what she saw, indeed, was a definite chaos: Anarchs, a Judicator of Gangrel clan with some Camarilla agents, were all crowded in the living room of a Tremere chantry, arguing against each other.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"This thin-blood is created by a thin-blood whose Sire was a member of our clan," the Gangrel Judicator was shouting in a voice almost like bear roar, "So he is ours to deal with!"

"Yours? You don't give a damn about thin-bloods when they need your help, now you are taking responsibility? Can you be more obvious? You are just here because this kid has info about the plague-bearer, and you want to have him so you can take the credit." Nines wasn't terrified by him, however, "And don't think I don't know what you are going to do afterwards—anything one that's no use has no right to live for you Cammys, isn't it?"

"Ha, you Anarchs are the reason why thin-blood scourges even exist in the first place! If you haven't Embraced so many useless humans and diluted our bloodlines…"

The other Tremeres, including the Regent, who just got informed of this outbreak and rushed back from his discussion with one of the elder Tremeres who was going to lead the task force, were totally at lost about what was going on or what to do. It was hilarious, though, watching Strauss' rigid face finally have some expressions.

While the center of this storm, a young, high-school boy in ragged dirty clothes just sat on the couch, looking at everyone in the room with both frightened and alarmed eyes, like a cornered, nervous animal. Even though he had changed a lot, Leona still recognized him from the pictures Bertram sent her on the first look:

"Skelter?"

Everybody stopped talking and looked back at Leona in shock, even Skelter himself. She realized something, and although she had loads of questions she wanted to ask many people here, after a few seconds of thinking, she decided to start with the boy:

"You didn't tell them who you are?"

"No. I didn't trust you guys." Then Skelter raised his own question, "How did you know?"

"I did research." Just as Leona expected, right now the attention in the room was diverted from political disagreement and moved back to where it should be—solving the problem, "You didn't kill those three people, did you?"

"No."

"But you killed Paul."

Skelter scratched his head for quite some time, with his body shivering, and admitted it eventually: "…Yes."

"You know who he is?" Strauss asked Leona, seemed almost grateful to her for turning this conversation into a calm, civil one.

"It's complicated but…to answer the major doubts that everyone here has," Leona paused and tried to find words that can summarize the things she knew properly, "He is the one we thought to be the Southland Slasher, but he isn't."

This boy simply didn't look like a killer. Not the type who would rip people's ribs alive, at least.

And then Skelter explained everything—he had to, after witnessing for the first time how the "vampire society" worked. He was attacked by a thin-blood, a Kindred whose bloodline is to weak to even use disciplines, who went ravage for hunger, and turned him into one thin-blood too instead of leaving him to die…out of guilt, ironically.

"Then Kanker found me, took me in." He said, "By then he hadn't…become what he was now. He seemed nice at first, taught me everything about…what we are and we are outcasts because we are lame, stole blood bags for us from the blood bank. Then I started…talking about my past to him. He was so full of anger, saying that I should get revenge with my superpower…And I actually thought that's cool, that I should look up to someone so brave.

"Soon he got meddled with some Sabbat stuff. Got changed, became Brother Kanker. I didn't see him that often afterwards, only like once in two weeks, and those creepy red-eyed guys would feed me and give me a place to live. I asked him what he was doing, he just said work, and every time before he came I would see on the news about the killings. It felt great to just look at them on TV screen, you know, those overdosed sons of bitches who fucking raped my sisters to death and got away with it finally got what they deserved. I knew it was Kanker, though he never bragged about it.

But then the Sabbat suddenly didn't allow him to see me, said I was distracting him. He still snuck in, told me he got punished for helping me and he was…he looked like a monster." Skelter's teeth were grinding, as if that horrific image still haunted him, "Kanker told me I needed to act like a man and finished the business he started for me. And I said yes. I thought it was easy, listening to the Sabbat boosting about how they tore people's heads down and I thought it was easy…God…what am I doing…I don't even know how to hunt, and I thought killing was…"

"Then how do you know where he is?" More concerned about Damsel's safety, Nines didn't care about the little boy's whining that much now, shook his shoulders and ordered him like a military commander, "Keep it together and answer me!"

Looked like this kind of tough treatment worked better for Skelter, he calmed down quickly: "After the Paul's thing I…wanted to talk to him, so I escaped from those Sabbat from the sewers, the passage every time Kanker would go to get into my place. I found him through his…smell, and he was following that red-haired girl in the slums, muttering to himself about something like 'she was trusted by the homeless', 'she would be a great fit'…"

"The fuck…" Jack got anxious too upon his words, "You mean he wants to turn Damsel into a plague-bearer!?"

"Where are they!?" Nines was almost gripping Skelter and lifting him up. He was known to be a veteran on battleground, and the way he was glaring at this little guy could make some boys with soft bones pee on their pants.

"I don't know! That girl noticed Kanker and ducked him to tell me to go to Last Round! Said you guys would know she was in her usual hide-and-seek places…"

Hide and seek? Leona got confused about the term, looking at Nines and Jack for answers, but they seemed to get it in an instant, like it was some secret signal that only three of them would understand. Then the head of Anarchs just turned his eyes towards Leona and Strauss, making his request:

"What are you waiting for, then, get your people moving!"