Mort arrived back at the apartment after doing his vampire slaughtering. His cognitive dissonance persuaded him that he had done a great thing today. But he did wonder if others might not feel the same way. So he kept quiet about it and didn't tell a soul.
Abu was down by the Nexus studying it. The rest of the party was having a quiet day, licking their wounds and relaxing.
Before dark, Mort took off and returned to his Safehouse.
Friday Sunset 8:33 pm, June 20
Mina arrived at the apartment soon after dark. She didn't look very pleased.
"Where is Mort and Juan?" she asked succinctly.
"Um ... Mort in his safe-house," said Ebony. "And Juan is at the bar. Why?"
"Apparently, that nest of vampires you found with the mummy," she said. "Well, they have been all been destroyed. All staked. The true death. Some time today. Know anything?"
They all shook their heads in denial.
Mina asked Ebony to contact Mort. She did via Mort's land-line (there being no cell reception in Safehouses). Mort assured her, through Ebony, that he was innocent.
Mina looked dubious at the news, but she continued:
"It was a nest controlled by a Eastern European vampire called Dimetrius. He, and his elders survived but not the rest. This is Oberon's area. Oberon will not be pleased."
Sure enough, Ebony got a ring.
"Oberon wants to see us, all of us," said Ebony. "And ... he does guarantee our safety."
 |
| Oberon's PA Ms Anderson |
Oberon came straight to the point.
"This is Dimetrius here," Oberon gestured to the Dracula clone, "his elder Vladislav," gesturing to the Nosferatu clone, "and his other elders Auroch, Livingstone, Giania, Petra, Marceline."
 |
| Vampire Dimetrius |
yesterday. It was only the locked caskets of these elders that saved them. We do not know what happened to the servants."
"I have summoned you here for two reasons. The first to ascertain your guilt in this matter."
Jacob moved to speak, but Oberon silenced him with a wave.
"This lady," Oberon gestured to the Elvira clone. "Is Cello, a witch. She will cast a spell to check the truth of your words."
"I'm not having no witch cast spells on me," shrieked Theo. "I'm leaving."
 |
| Superior Witch Cello |
Theo stormed out. Theo hated witches.
Ebony, Jacob and Sledge nodded wanly.
Cello stood up, stretched, jiggled her massive bust, and then began incanting in Latin and waving her arms around. She threw a handful of gold dust into the air, and it slowly drifted to the ground in a large cloud enshrouding the four.
Oberon spoke: "Did you stake, or destroy, or kill any vampires yesterday or today?"
"No," said Ebony.
"No," said Sledge.
"No," said Jacob.
"Do you know anyone who did?"
"No." "No." "No."
"Zey speak zuh truth," said Cello in her husky Romanian drawl.
Oberon pressed on, pushing the bounds of the spell.
"Have any of you harmed my servants, or any of my interests in the last year?"
"um,,, no... I don't think so", "no", "don't know", "um"
"Do any of you four, in the forsee-able future, intend to harm me, or any of my agents, or any of my interests, or connected interests, or future propositions in any way shape or form?"
Cello interrupted him.
"Incipient Veracity, she does not work that way," she said. "She can not foretell future events nor can she compel ze future actions. And anyway, the spell; she has worn off now."
"You work... for me!" exclaimed Dimetrius in a very strong Romanian accent.
Oberon waved him silent, then turned to the party.
"Which brings me to the second reason I asked you here. Your group has certain skills, and has shown certain success, so I, well Dimetrius here, intends to hire you to find out who did kill his family..."
"You work... for me!" exclaimed Dimetrius again.
"You will be well paid," continued Oberon. "But I... we want the guilty brought to me, or evidence of their death brought to me.
"We kill them very hard, dead," said Dimetrius. "True death."
Dimetrius passed them a briefcase.
"I want a report every night," said Oberon. "And if you need to contact someone during the day, my PA..." he gestured to the stunning woman in a smart suit next to him. "Ms Charleston here, will take your call. She is human."
Dimetrius also gave Jacob a list of the four servants (ghouls) that were supposed to have guarded the nest of coffins during the day: Jake the Blade, Sarah the Savant, Binro the Tramp, Rolly Barton. The last time they had been seen was just before sunrise on Thursday (the day of the mummy slaying).
The party returned to their apartment.
Mina was still there and she questioned them thoroughly. She also told them that Lord Defacto, the leader of the third vampire faction in Philadelphia, was making moves into Oberon's turf.
To lighten the mood, Theo asked Mina: "What is the collective noun for vampires? Is there an official term?"
"Well," she said. "I use 'coterie' for awake vampires, and 'nest' for sleeping ones. There's also some glib alternatives: 'clot', 'stackhouse', 'stoker', 'cloak', 'voraciousness', 'vein' and 'count'. So take your pick. But just don't let a vampire hear you."
"Not all vampires have my sense of humour," she said with a deathly dead-pan face, with emphasis on the word 'dead'.
"Not all vampires have my sense of humour," she said with a deathly dead-pan face, with emphasis on the word 'dead'.
Saturday Sunrise 5:32 am, June 21
As soon as the sun was up, Jacob, Sledge and Ebony left the apartment, just before Abu and Mort arrived. The three went straight to the sewer pumping station where they had defeated the mummy on Thursday.
All the coffins had been cleared away, but apart from that, the place hadn't been two badly disturbed. Jacob was in his investigative utopia. Straight away he found three stakes, so carefully bagged them. There was also several sets of boot prints in various parts of the tunnel.
While this was going on, Sledge found a small room near the pumping area with four double bunks.
All three of them checked this room out. This was presumably where Dimetrius's group's ghouls lived. There was a water boiler and a kitchenette. Jacob took samples.
They found a secret door in one of the walls. It lead through into a small room with several monitors on one wall. Pictures from CCTVs were shown. The cameras filmed the five main sewer lines (and paths) that entered the nest (the sewer pumping station area proper). There were no cameras on the nest itself, but this made sense because creatures of the Veil can not be filmed. The camera footage was recorded onto digital micro cassettes. But all the cassettes were missing, and there were none in the drives.
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