Prologue (Part III): Blood Count

The past is prologue, as they say. This was one of a handful of stories played out in this same setting with an almost entirely different cast of characters a few months ago. It’s included here as background to the current chronicle.

After following the trail of bodies to the Old Corners clubs near downtown Atlanta, Lou, Eric and Luther discovered their fledgling killer is also a diablerist — a discovery that’s driven Lou to flee into the night, alone and on foot. Tonight the agents of the court find there’s more than one new vampire in the crumbling warehouses south of the city — a discovery that leads them to a more sinister secret kept in the heart of the court.

 

Prologue (Part II): Blood Trail

The past is prologue, as they say. This was one of a handful of stories played out in this same setting with an almost entirely different cast of characters a few months ago. It’s included here as background to the current chronicle.

While the Primogen vet Louis, Eric and Luther for new roles as agents of the Prince, the Atlanta police investigate a series of brutal murders in the city’s downtown. The Primogen report the Prince’s theory that the suspect is a rogue neonate — possibly one of the many illegitimate Kindred coming out of the city in recent nights — and assign the three prospective envoys to locate the young vampire, find out what he knows, teach him about the Requiem and neutralize the police investigation. Meanwhile, Mr. Never — the elder who recruited Louis and Eric into the Prince’s service — demands his first payment of Vitae from Louis.

 

Prologue (Part I): Blood Hunt

The past is prologue, as they say. This was one of a handful of stories played out in this same setting with an almost entirely different cast of characters a few months ago. It’s included here as background to the current chronicle.

For the first time in thirty years, the Prince of Atlanta has called a Blood Hunt. You’re caught in the middle. Is this demonstration of strength from the normally soft-handed leader a sign that he’s taking the threat of vocal subversives seriously, or is something else going on behind the scenes? Opponents of the Prince are after you; they want what you’ve got. Allies of the Prince offer to help you, if you’ll seek out the truth for them. This is the last night of your old Requiem. Tonight, you take sides or they take you.

By chance, three largely neutral Kindred happen upon the last of the vampires targeted by the Prince’s Blood Hunt. After a short chase and a car accident, these three Kindred find themselves with the torpid corpse of a wanted monster in the trunk of their car. If they give the body to the powers that be — the Prince and his agents — they’ll have new allies in high places but make enemies of the fugitive’s brutal compatriots. If they give the body to the civil revolution that’s gathering strength among the city’s youngest Damned, they risk becoming fugitives themselves. So, the trio devises a cunning plan: In a staged act of subterfuge, they appear to turn on one another. One of them, a former detective named Louis Parker, takes the body to the Prince’s people, while the others, club-owner Eric and conspiracy-theorist Calvin, attempt to appease the fugitive’s allies among the insurgents.

But their public lie is taken more seriously than expected by John Cobb, a charismatic thug and known friend of the Carthian leader, Lukhas. Cobb and his cronies kidnap Calvin and use him as collateral to get to Parker through Eric: if Eric can’t get Parker — the last man to see the fugitive vampire before his destruction — to meet with Cobb’s people, Calvin will burn. But Eric and Cobb’s meeting becomes a clash of Beasts. Threats turn to rage as Cobb calls his people and orders Calvin’s destruction. Rage explodes into violence. The Masquerade is broken, a local coffeeshop is trashed in site of mortal witnesses and one mortal girl is killed in the clash to feed Cobb’s wounds, but Eric manages to get escape with Cobb’s phone.

A push of the redial button confirms it in the panicked voice of an overwhelmed lackey: Calvin’s dead.

Still smoldering with the fire of the Blood, Eric strides back into the coffeeshop and puts Cobb down with a bullet to the brain. Shutting his torpid enemy into the trunk of his car, Eric drives out into the night. Is he looking for justice or revenge?