Author Note: So, a bit of housekeeping here before we get started. This is going to be the last Seattle By Night story that will be in parts. After having had about six months since the last part to think this over, I've decided that I'm going to continue writing through to the ending of each part, keeping each story to one blog post. While I understand that this will make the stories longer and not everybody likes reading on and on and on through mountains of text... I'm in too deep to stop at this point and this is the only way I can see to get back to any consistency.
Plus side, this means that we only have five more stories to get to the end of Season 1, rather than... however many parts I'd have to split things up into.
Also, expect the tone to get much darker from here on out. I'll pop a content warning onto future posts, but I intend to draw a bit more from the overall tone of the actual Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop game. I admit, looking back over it, things were a bit goofy and we're gonna start weeding that out from here on out into the end of Season 1 and... well, whatever comes next. We'll see.
With all of that out of the way, let's pick up on the cliffhanger I left us on six months ago...
...and don't worry, we'll be getting back to Doctor Who, don't worry. It is still the 60th Anniversary, after all.
The scenery seemed to change randomly. Starry night giving way to a sunny day to a winter-y tundra before returning to that same garden with plants blooming all around.
The Middle Eastern pre-teen boy sat on a rock, admiring the poppy flower he had pulled out of the tide that had by now receded away.
"What do we have to talk about, exactly?" Sybil asked, hands still firmly in the pockets of Harriet as he observed the Methuselah carefully.
"A great deal," Lamdiel said, "it is so rare that I get to speak to a childe of my bloodline."
"How is that? You have an entire cult of them." Sybil asked, a skeptical brow raised.
"Not exactly, young one." Lamdiel said, tossing the flower aside, sliding off of the rock. "You see, not all Malkavians are descended from my descendants. I was but one that our father Malkav granted the Embrace to. There were others, and they had not a few childer themselves."
"So... are you saying that I'm of your bloodline?"
"Very good, yes." He nodded. "My grandchilde Trimeggian sired a few childer of his own, and one of them sired your grandsire and sire and... needless to say, here you are. You and your brother, Samuel."
"What does Samuel have to do with this?"
"Oh, nothing... not yet." Lamdiel said, walking toward her, arms behind his back. "You, however, are far more important than you realize. The time has come for my plan to come to fruition. You've heard my followers speak, and I am preparing to finish the Great Work. The time has come to repair the Mirror."
"The mirror?"
'You know of our curse,' Lamdiel's voice could be heard, clear as a bell, in her head, 'the mark of Caine upon our bloodline that keeps us from achieving trust greatness.'
"Our... madness?" Sybil asked.
'Don't speak. Use your mind. There are powers in your blood the likes of which you've never dreamed, Sybil.' She regarded him strangely.
'You can get rid of the funny voices?'
'I can do much, much more than that. I can make everyone's dreams come true.'
'Everyone's?'
'Everyone's. All they have to do is accept it...'
"This... isn't... real..."
"Of course it's real." Angelica looked to Ben, smiling at him as they stood together in the sunlight. "Everything is fine, isn't it?"
"I..." Ben backed away from her slightly. "This... this makes no sense."
"What do you mean, Ben?" The redhead's head tilted to the side just a little, her eyes narrowing as though in confusion. "Are you feeling okay?"
"Angelica, do you remember... Haven of Hope?"
"Of course. The shelter is still open. I-"
"No, it isn't." Ben said. "The Baali massacred everyone there."
"Ba...li? What's a Bali?" Angelica asked. "We were just at the shelter earlier today, remember?"
"No... no, I don't." Ben said. "And neither do you. We can't walk in the sunlight. There is no today for us. Ever."
"Ben, you're acting very strangely."
"No, I'm not... this is strange. All of this is strange. It's too... too..."
"...perfect?"
"...yes. Perfect." Anthony was not convinced. Nothing about this situation seemed right. Lilah Brook rarely had even the faintest hint of a smile on her lips, if ever. Robin being there, Marion being there with him knowing that she was still missing. All of it was... wrong. All wrong.
"Indeed. Now... you have studies to do, do you not?" Lilah asked. "The test for the Fourth Circle are before you. Luck favors the prepared."
"...of course, Regent." Anthony said. No, none of this felt right as he sat himself down at a rounded table and found himself seated across from Robin. The other man gave him a smile.
"Let me help you out." Robin said.
"No, no... I've got it." Anthony said, taking up a book before Robin could pick it up. "Trust me."
"Alright, alright... man as an island unto his own." Robin said, hands raised up in a gesture of surrender. "Are we still on for later tonight, though?"
"Huh?"
"The meteor shower." Robin said. "It's supposed to be quite the sight. Won't be another one in Seattle for another century, at least."
"Oh, umm... yes, right." Anthony said. "That one. Of course."
"Don't get too caught up in the books, lover boy." Robin said, pressing a kiss to the man's lips before he stepped away with a flirtatious brow waggle. The gesture was not returned by Anthony, who felt... more perturbed. 'Pined for him for so long, but this...' The Tremere shook his head, opening the book he had picked up.
"Grace, you're amazing!"
"Go Grace! Go Grace! Woo!"
"Really, you're too kind, honestly!" Grace laughed, giving a wave to the legion of paparazzi and stage door Johnnies who had crowded around the backstage exit. Two armed security guards were there to ward them off as they led Grace to a lavish, lengthy tour bus following the show. Stepping onto the first step, she turned and blew a kiss to her loving fans before she continued on the rest of the way up.
"Knocking them dead, Grace!" Isaac Carroway greeted her as she came aboard. "This tour is drawing in the big bucks! Can't wait to see how they take you in LA tomorrow night!"
"Certainly." Grace said, drapping her arms around her sire's neck and leaned in for a kiss.
"Grace! What are you doing?" Isaac asked in a whisper.
"I thought we might want to celebrate..." Grace said, her tone quite openly flirtatious as she attempted to lean in again.
"Grace, Joseph is here! And your children!" Isaac protested.
"I... what? My what?" Grace asked.
"Mommy!" She heard the cries of two young boys, both of whom rushed from another room in the bus to meet her, each one hugging her around the leg. "I... you..."
"We saw your whole concert on the TV, Mommy! You were amazing!"
"You looked so pretty!"
"Umm... yes... thank you, dears..." Grace said. She could see these boys, these boys who were looking up at her, smiling at her, adoring her. Boys who could have been no older than five. Her heart somehow managed to flutter and sink at the same time. They'd called her Mommy.
"Yes, Mommy did very well, didn't she?" The voice of Joseph Fisher came from the same doorway that the boys had run to her through, and soon she found him right there standing there. His breath cycling through his lungs as he gave her that same, sly smile and that twinkle in his dark eyes that had seduced her right out of her dress on that night long, long ago. "The amazing Grace Penderghast, songbird for the ages."
"...Joseph..." Grace felt her skin pale as she looked upon him.
"What's wrong, darling? You look like you've seen a ghost..." Her formerly very dead ex-boyfriend gave her that winning smile.
"They see what they could have. What they desire."
"They won't accept it."
"Perhaps not," Lamdiel said, gazing upon the full moon as it came down to the earth they stood upon, "but I am compelled to give them the choice." The Methuselah's hand caressed the surface of the gargantuan sphere, a snap of the fingers reducing it to the size of an apple that he scooped into his hand. He gazed upon it like one might gaze upon a rare gemstone or an ancient statuette.
"Why?"
"Why what, my childe?"
"Why are you offering this to them?" Sybil asked, her hands still in the pockets of Harriet as she watched her grandsire play with the shining sphere.
"You know that it is the blood of Caine that makes our fate, Sybil." Lamdiel said, not looking away from the glowing orb. "It is also the yoke upon our backs through these many nights. I wish to bring all of us to freedom from that yoke. To bring to an end the Jyhad that has claimed so much time."
"End... the Jyhad?"
"Not all Methuselah are the same, Sybil," The ancient vampire explained, "not all of us want the same thing."
"Evidently not." Sybil said. "That's why the gears keep turning, doesn't it?"
"Indeed they do. And we will bring them grinding to a halt."
"You mean-"
"No Jyhad. No Gehenna. No nothing." The Methuselah turned to look at her, still holding the moon in his hand. "We will bring it all to an end, and create a Paradise for all of our kin."
"I could see it." Sybil said.
"Yes, I know. You see what I see, in this place within our minds." Lamdiel said. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
"And terrifying." Sybil said. The ground beneath their feet rumbled as so many towering spires rose from it around them, even the ground beneath their feet changing as Sybil recognized exactly where they were. Seattle, right on Main Street at the Mall.
The place was in ruins.
Bodies littered the streets.
Blood flowed like wine along the pavement.
"Yes." Lamdiel said. "All of this, when the curses that the Dark Father has inflicted upon us have been cast away."
"You still haven't explained your plan."
"The Man in the Mirror, Sybil. When we have repaired it, you will see him, too," His eyes turned to hers once more, "when his Mirror is repaired, we shall bring this world to being."
"Wait, the Mirror or... the Mirror?" Sybil asked.
"Both." Lamdiel said. "The pieces are all here, for the first time since the Mirror was broken and the Man trapped within."
"And you want to free him?"
"Need to. I made a promise. Together, your coterie and I will achieve great things in the nights to come."
"No."
"...I'm sorry?"
"No. This is wrong." Sybil said. "Our kind has only survived the nights since the Inquisition because of sticking to the shadows. This... this would have the kine rising up against us. Like a roaring tide or... y'know... Black Friday shoppers."
"Those that can won't and those that can't will make the best of cattle."
"Oh, I get it now."
"You do?"
"You're insane."
"Naturally, but not about this." Lamdiel chuckled.
"And you think my friends are going to go along with this?" Sybil asked, a hand raised as she looked around the bloodied, broken landscape. "This!"
"We shall see soon enough, won't we?"
"No... no, it isn't real. It... can't be real."
"Ben, you're scaring me."
"How can I be scaring you? You aren't real." Ben said, shaking his head as he backed away from Angelica. "We aren't human. We can't stand in the sunlight. This isn't real." The redhead looked as though he'd just punched her full force in the stomach, and her eyes began... bleeding. No, vitae that replaced the tears of the Kindred.
"You could have just accepted it! We could have been happy!" She screamed at him, stepping back into the sunlight. Smoke began to rise off of her as her body burst into flame, Angel screaming as the sun burned her away into ash.
The book was blank. He picked up another book and found that that one was just as blank. Another book, the same result. Anthony was puzzled by it until he remembered, ironically, something he had read. Dreams. Hallucinations. This entire thing, it was a vision. A possibility.
"It's what will come to be," Marion was suddenly beside him, "if you accept his offer."
"Who's offer?"
"Lamdiel, of course." The memories came back for Anthony. The museum, the macabre dinner party, the Methuselah before them like some sort of resplendent being.
"Why would I-?"
"The Tremere returned to their station? Your friend and your lover returned to you? Why would you not want that?" Marion asked him.
"No. I can't believe this." Anthony stood up. "Marion is dead. She died on Halloween with a bunch of the rest of the Clan. Robin betrayed me and the rest of our Chantry to the Baali. This isn't a possibility."
"Marion Ravenwood has not suffered the Final Death." The voice of Lamdiel came from Marion's lips.
"...what?"
"Marion Ravenwood has not suffered the Final Death, Anthony Wallace." Lamdiel repeated.
"...I don't believe you."
"Believe what you wish, Anthony, but I know the truth. I have seen it, seen her. Together, we could find her." Marion's hand stretched out in offering. "Take my hand, Anthony," The voice of Marion was heard once again, "and you can have it all again. All as it was." Anthony stared at the offered hand, his own reaching up to place his own in it when a glint of light caught his eye. Upon the table, he saw a piece of what he'd seen before in Lilah Brook's study.
A piece of the mirror... the Castaneda Mirror.
Anthony jerked back from the hand offered to him and saw a look of pure murder on Marion's face.
"So you have made your choice, Usurper..." The older Tremere pounced upon him, her fangs extending.
"I... I don't..."
"Mommy? What's wrong?"
"Grace, honey? Are you okay?" Joseph asked, a look of concern painted across his face from his brows to his chin.
"This is a family matter. I'll step out." Isaac said, stepping away into the back of the bus.
"I... I don't understand. This... this makes no sense." Grace insisted.
"What makes no sense, beloved?" Joseph asked.
"Stop... stop... stop calling me that." Grace raised a hand, palm out toward him. "I... I killed you. I killed you five years ago."
"That's a terrible thing to say, Grace! You surely don't mean that-" Joseph said.
"Shut up!" Grace snapped at him.
"Mommy! We're scared!" One of her two boys cried out.
"Shut up!" Grace snapped at him, feeling a twinge of pain in seeing some hurt in the eyes of the twin boys. "You aren't real! I lost you! I lost you!" Her hands rested over her stomach, feeling a pain there that she had tried so many nights to forget. "I lost you both!" She felt her eyes filming over with tears. Her eyes were closed. When they opened again, the crying boys were gone and yet Joseph remained.
"You destroyed them," Joseph's voice took a dark tone, the darkness in his eyes seeming to radiate all around, seeming to draw the light out of any source of it in the bus, "just like you destroyed your parents... and just like you destroyed me."
"I lost my boys because of you!" Grace shouted at him. "I never even got to meet them! And that was after my parents threw me away and you threw me away! Like I was nothing!" Joseph tilted his head to the side, showing off the puncture wounds on his neck.
"I think you gave as well as you got, didn't you, dearest?" He asked with a smirk on his lips.
"My only regret is that I could only kill you once, you son of a bitch!" Grace yelled. "Go to Hell!"
"And to think, I would have given you all of this..." The voice of Lamdiel came from Joseph's lips. "...a paradise, unending." Joseph's eyes flitted back up to meet Grace's, his face twisting into an almost Cheshire grin as his proper voice came back to his lips. "I'll see you when you get there, lover..."
The four awoke much as they had fallen into this trance, all sitting at that perfectly set table with all the pieces of gore and blood still upon it. However, two chairs were unoccupied. The one Hugo had sat in, and now the one that had once been sat upon by Lamdiel. The Methuselah was nowhere to be found.
"...let's get out of here." Ben said, rising from the table. "Quickly."
"What about the dagger?" Grace asked.
"You want to explain to the cops why four randos are running around in a museum with a bunch of dead security guards and a gore pile?" Ben asked.
"I can do that!" Sybil said cheerfully.
"Shut up." Ben said. With that, the group quickly moved to get out of the museum, heading back out to the van. Pulling the door open, they expected to find two people... and instead found three.
Angelica Knox and Hope Devereaux were the obvious picks, but in the driver's seat they found-
"HUGO!?" Grace exclaimed, voicing the clear shock of the coterie.
"Yep." Hugo said. "Get in the van, we're burning moonlight and you do not wanna be here when those cameras turn back on."
"Lamdiel killed you! How the hell did you-?" Anthony started to ask.
"What you don't know about me could fill a book. Now are you getting in the van or not? Let's go!" The four got in and Hugo started driving them off.
"If you think him being alive is impressive, you're gonna giggle when you see what he brought back from the grave with him." Hope said.
"What?" Hope lifted the very dagger they had been looking for, holding it carefully in a cloth.
"How did you-?"
"What. You. Know. Couldn't. Fill. A. Book." Hugo said, the Nosferatu's eyes focused on the road.
"Hey... are you okay?" Angelica asked, settling in by Ben. "What happened in there?"
"Nothing I'd like to talk about." Ben said, gripping the arm rest of the chair he sat in tightly. A frown came to the redhead's face as she leaned against him, an arm draped around him as they drove off under the moonlight.
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