Alastair “Al” Ardent – Daeva (Zelani), Firebrands

Zachary “Zach” Kovalenko – Ventrue (Rötgrafen), Dragons

Brother Canker – Morbus(?), Plague Lord

Damsel – Gangrel (Bruja), Firebrands
Fat Larry – Human
Maximillian Strauss – Mekhet (Tismanu), Dragons
Nines Rodriguez – Daeva, Firebrands
Pisha – ???
Smilin’ Jack – Gangrel (Bruja), Firebrands
Venus – Human

Disturbed – Down with the Sickness

Genitorturers – Lecher Bitch

Al and Zach take out the Circle of the Crone’s warehouse, with a vengeance. They then meet Beckett,
famed Kindred scholar, who implies there’s more to these strange nights than politics. Back in Santa
Monica, the guys rescue a captive from the deranged ghoul Vandal, though not without cost. They’re
summoned back to LA, where the Prince gives them a new task: covering up a massacre on the shipping
vessel, the Elizabeth Dane. As they leave their meeting, they find that the Mother’s Army doesn’t forget
slights…
Al and Zach are confronted by Acolyte vampires, including the one that chased Al out of the warehouse.
Despite the Uzi Al stole, the fight doesn’t go well at first, as the boys are vastly outnumbered. However,
as things get dire, they’re joined by Carthian Prefect Nines Rodriguez, wielding a can of hairspray and a
lighter. He blasts one of the goons with a gout of flame, and sends him into the mother of all fear frenzies.
The fight continues, but Nines and his makeshift flamethrower shift the odds. The Acolytes retreat, vowing
revenge.

The guys thank Nines, and he tells them to watch their backs, and that Al should come by the Last Round,
the local Carthian bar. They bid him adieu, and decide that it probably isn’t safe to return to Santa Monica.
Al figures they need to get going fast, since even in a shitty neighborhood like the one they find themselves
in, Uzi fire and screaming vampires on fire will attract attention.

Al decides to go feed, as the fight went badly for him and he needs to feed. He decides to head over to
Confession, a night club that takes up space in a deconsecrated church, and key part of the local rack.
Technically it’s considered Invictus territory, but he figures he can be discrete, and decides to butterfly
around, taking a little blood from a lot of victims. Powered by Majesty, though, Al makes himself the life
of the party, and throws discretion out the window. In particular, he meets a young man who’s new in
town, and whose naiveté and closeted history amuse Al.

The proprietress of Confession, Venus, takes note of Al, and calls him over to have a shot and “take
confession”: it’s the house rule for newbies. He demurs a bit, offering a threesome instead, but Venus
sees through the stalling. They talk for a while and she takes a shine to him, finding something usefully
dangerous about him. She offers him a job: in the next few nights, deal with some Russian mobsters who
she owes money. She offers to pay for the service, so Al accepts on behalf of both he and Zach.

Zach goes to his haven for the first time in days. He takes a long shower and dresses in his own clothes
and generally has a relaxing morning. He also emails his daughter, writing a slightly emotional letter to
calm his nerves.

Al goes off and buys some cigarettes off an old friend [his Touchstone], a Chinese lady who runs a 24-hour
market near his haven. On his way home, he wanders by the old, abandoned hospital building, and
encounters a hysterical man, screaming about a monster. From what the man describes, he seems to have
encountered a ghost…or a vampire. Al’s curious, given the last few nights. He calls up Zach, and manages
to convince him to get out of his comfy bed and come ghostbust — again.

It doesn’t take long for them to follow the trail. Apparently the hysterical man was filming a TV show, and
as they make their way through, they find live feed of the massacre. Something kills the crew, but it’s far
too fast to see. Making their way to the old morgue, they encounter a horrible sight.
A vampire huddles over an old examination table. She eats the very flesh of one of the victims.
Surprisingly, she doesn’t attack them, and the guys are too stunned to really register the full awfulness of
the image. The vampire introduces herself: Pisha, though this is not her original name. Her yellow, ugly
eyes unsettle Zach, and he desperately wants to leave. She seems polite enough, though.

"Real terror is not the sight of death: it is the fear of death. What is the fear of death?
Terror of the unknown. Is it these eyes you peer into? No, I am not the unknown.
You and I are closer kin than you and it were."
—Pisha

She tells them the man who escaped can’t be allowed to tell mortals about her. She killed his crew for
what they saw (and filmed) of her…experiments. She tells them that they shouldn’t have helped the man;
while she has no use for the Masquerade (evidently), she doesn’t want people nosing around, especially
mortals with cameras. Al does a private calculation, and concludes that, from what they saw, even he and
Zach together probably wouldn’t be able to take her out, and reporting her to the authorities would both
be doing the prince a favor and potentially bringing on blame for not preventing the massacre. If she’s
stupid enough to kill a gang of humans, she can deal with the consequences. Instead, Al offers to make
her a deal: they’ll go after the TV producer, and she won’t fucking murder people like that again. She
agrees.

On the way out, Al finds a pile of business cards for the production company, and snags one. The sun is
coming up fast, so the guys decide to work on the problem tomorrow. The night draws to a close as Al
and Zach go home, contemplating their deal with the devil.

The next night, Al heads over to the Last Round, not eager to go kill some poor TV producer as a start to
his night. He runs into Smilin’ Jack, the vampire he and Zach met on the night of Elysium. Jack
congratulates him for surviving the shithole that is Santa Monica, and asks if Al’s still on the prince’s leash.
Al confirms this. They talk a bit about Nines’ management style, until the subject of the Elizabeth Dane
comes up. Even Jack seems disturbed by its mention. He tells Al that the Kindred said to be in the Ankaran
Sarcophagus is rumored to be a Methuselah, an ancient Elder of unimaginable, godlike power. He figures
the prince is looking for a snack. Al thanks him for the advice and goes off to mingle.

Meanwhile, Zach (wanting nothing to do with the Pisha situation) remembers that Maximillian Strauss
wanted him to find his haven. Setting out, he falls down a strange rabbit-hole of Ordo symbolism: cipher
graffiti, color-coded mortal agents, and strange alleys that don’t go anywhere. He finds his way to an old
brownstone, emblazoned with an unnatural, purple light above the door. Zach doesn’t know if it’s really
there, or if he just took part in some bizarre ritual, but he figures he’s found his man.

Zach navigates the bigger-on-the-inside haven, and finally finds Strauss. Strauss is overdressed for the
time of year, and doesn’t seem to have a hair on his body. The Kogaion congratulates him for finding the
haven, and asks for something akin to a status update, though not before expressing sympathy for what
happened to Zach’s Childe. Zach goes over the past few nights, telling him about Pisha first. Strauss is
unimpressed, telling him that “Strix” are of little concern, though Zach hasn’t heard that term. He tells
him to deal with her on her own terms, and discharge his obligations to her as quickly as possible. Rather
than Pisha, Strauss seems far, far more interested in Al’s name.
STRAUSS
Al being short for…?
ZACH
Alastair, I think…
STRAUSS
…
ZACH
Anyway, I’m still stuck with him—
STRAUSS
Let me put it this way: you should stay close with this “Al”.
At the Last Round, Al talks to Damsel, Nine’s favored lieutenant and known rageoholic. She complains
about the trouble Al’s caused, but he makes a peace offering, telling her about his suspicions over Therese
Voerman jumping ship to the Invictus, and her use of a “gargoyle”. This interests Damsel, but she says she
needs hard evidence. She’s got problems of her own: there’s a vampire spreading plague around LA, killing
off ghouls and Carthian herds. It’s gotten to the point that the CDC are canvassing the city, getting up in
vampire business. Al thanks Damsel for the info, and goes to have a quick rap with Nines.

Over at the Ordo haven, Zach and Strauss discuss the political situation: the Acolytes and the Carthians
and the lousy prince — Zach detects that the Dragons and the Firebrands have something of a rivalry he
hadn’t been aware of. Strauss tells Zach that he’s concerned about, coincidentally, the epidemic. He
disdainfully calls the Carthians a pack of Bruja, whose sloppy feeding habits he blames for the epidemic.

Zach tells him about the gargoyle they encountered, though Strauss doesn’t know how a Carthian
would’ve got her hands on that…Zach mentions that Beckett told him about gargoyles, and Strauss seems
amused.
ZACH
He says he’s here with the Prince’s permission.
STRAUSS
I highly doubt that.
Strauss gives Zach a book Beckett wrote, a treatise on vampire legends and bloodlines. Zach mutters about
his own reading comprehension issues, and takes his leave. He wonders why Strauss called the Carthians
“Bruja”; it’s a Gangrel bloodline (Zach’s had to go to town on a few Bruja), but it’s not particularly a
Carthian one.
Back at the Last Round, Nines warns Al that the Prince has an agenda against the Carthians, and the
political theater involving his and Zach’s Childer was a line in the sand. He recommends that Al try to
remain in LaCroix’s service for a while: the more the Carthians are privy to, the better. Nines doesn’t give
a fuck about what’s on the Elizabeth Dane, though. He thinks it’s all vampire superstition, or yet more
Elder fuckers preying on the people. He gives Al a few pointers on fighting, and Al warns him about
Therese. Like Damsel, Nines needs evidence, but he says he’ll start getting the wheels turning in case she
makes a move.

Al and Zach meet up and try to plan their agenda. They walk through the homeless colony not far from
the Last Round, and notice that a lot of people are sick. Both were warned about the epidemic, and decide
to take a look around as a distraction, as they’re not fully sure what they’re going to do about the TV
producer — Zach hasn’t got enough Dominate to deal with memories like that.

After canvassing the area, they’re directed to a homeless man called Tin Can Bill — sitting among his
eponymous cans — who claims he was infected by a monster. They bribe him, and he tells them about
the thing that emerged from the sewers. It killed his buddy, and scratched Bill with its claws. He shows
them the wounds, which are festering over with pus and boils. Zach realizes that Bill was bitten, too —
there’s a tumorous growth with puncture wounds hidden just beneath his scarf. Zach tries to ask about
this, but finds that Bill died in the middle of their conversation. Al sighs.

Zach suspects poor old Bill had the actual plague (the black one), or some magical form of it. Al didn’t
think vampires could spread disease, but Zach points out that neither of them knew that vampires existed
a few years ago. Zach decides to consult the book Strauss gave them. The two of them find a less plague
infested area, and pour over the book for information. They find an entry about the Morbus, a bloodline
of Mekhet vampires who feed by spreading disease. Beckett notes that Morbus are considered
untouchables in the All Night Society, and that normally vampires don’t spread disease that easily — it’s
a bit of an urban myth, though there are some diseases Kindred can spread.

Zach and Al decide to check into this plague vampire. Zach grabs some sewer divin’ gear from home, and
Al gets a quick bite at the Last Round. Meeting again, they decide to go find some hairspray and lighters,
and ammo for Al’s Uzi. They both know about a guy called Fat Larry, a black market arms dealer who
operates out of his truck, so they decide to hit him up. Larry seems to have vultured up some of the
hardware from the warehouse fire, apparently in the less-than-24-hours since it blew up. He throws in
the spray for free.
LARRY
Now, I’m gonna need to know, for repeat business, whatcha names are.
AL
Uh…Ak and…Zol.
LARRY
Now, is that from the Slovenian Ak an’ Zol, or the East German Ach an’ Zal, because
the spellings are a little different. I’m just gonna call ya’ll A-to-Zee. Together at last!
Down in the sewers, A-to-Zee track Tin Can Bill’s killer. They find themselves in the lair of a vampire they
take to be a Nosferatu. He seems to be missing parts of his skull, some disease having rotted it away; Al
can see gray matter. Above his nest, he’s crucified a man. He bares his claws, and introduces himself as
Brother Canker, a holy plague bearer. Al and Zach suggest that he might want to…stop bearing plague. Or
get out of town. Canker doesn’t take well to the suggestion, and leaps at them, falling to frenzy as his
claws grow even longer.

A brutal fight follows. Al is nearly eviscerated, and Zach’s Resilience barely saves him from Canker’s
terrible claws. Al’s Dream Visions triggers from pure fear as he frenzies: he sees that Canker is not alone
in the city. The guys only manage to finish him off with the hairspray technique and every bullet in Al’s
Uzi.

As Brother Canker burns and Al screams from pain and frenzy, Zach notices a strange tattoo on the
vampire’s corpse…

#ImnotsickbutImnotwell
#theowlsarentwhattheyseem