00:13 A.M., JULY 3RD, 2001

Ashley’s phone buzzed, and she all but leapt off her chair. Ashley’s phone NEVER buzzed. She quickly glanced at her computer screen, just to check whether or not she’d paused the game. After confirming she had - a gamer’s instincts never failed - she focused back on the little Nokia phone off near the edge of her computer desk.

She only bought it ‘cause it was new and cool and maybe she’d talk to more people if she had it. Things didn’t exactly go to plan on that front. Her ... friends? The coven counted as friends right? She even talked to some of them every on in a while. Yeah, they counted.

They weren’t into cellphones though. They were too old to appreciate the tech, but it was the future! They’d come around eventually, and then she’d have LOADS of contac-

It buzzed again, screen lighting up brightly in the dark room, and again Ashley flinched away with a small shriek. It was her message beep, silenced. Someone had sent her a message, twice. Maybe even two someones once each! Surely, it-

The phone buzzed again! She was ready this time, and only flinched a little. Three times can’t be spam! Someone actually wanted to talk to her!

Heartened, she quickly swiped the cellphone and opened the first message. The words should’ve set her heart to pounding, but it couldn’t do that anymore. She was still pretty nervous, though. Excited too. But mostly she was terrified. David was here.

‘Arrived,’ the message read, ‘fresh off boat. You got time to meet up? Don’t know anyone else here.’

Oh God, oh God, he wanted to meet. Tonight. Oh God. Her watch showed it was just past midnight, so there was plenty of time. But still, oh God. He didn’t know. Didn’t know she had kind of ... embellished her identity.

Thought she was a ‘he’, worst of all! How was she gonna deal with that?! She just wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

He was early! She hadn’t had time to think about how to approach him and now he was here and there was no more time!

This was all his fault! Not hers! She HAD to make things up or he wouldn’t be interested in her ... she was short and skinny and mousy with stupid blonde wavy horribly messy hair and stupid rat-eyes and no butt and small breasts that weren’t even the same size and she was boring and never did anything but hunt and play video games ... and when he assumed she was a guy she just had to go with it!

Who assumed someone named Ashley was a guy anyway? This was clearly all his fault! Oh God, she couldn’t go meet him! But he was all alone so far from home! She couldn’t NOT go! How would SHE have liked it if she was all alone in a dark, unfamiliar place full of people she didn’t know?

Not at all, that was how! She couldn’t just leave him ALONE - did he even have a place to sleep?! What the hell would he do come morning?! She HAD to go! He NEEDED her!

She opened the second message, which was obviously going to be him asking for her to come help him again, but kind of playing it off as no big deal even though he was scared off his wits and had no idea what to do!

‘Hey, sorry, forgot to tell you,’ the message started, ‘I’m headed to Elysium. Hit me up if you want to meet. Somewhere else is fine too, I know things aren’t peachy in the city right now.’

Oh God, she couldn’t let him go to Elysium! It was too dangerous! There was no Prince anymore and the whole place was anarchy! There was a fight in Elysium every other night! She had to warn him!

She quickly started tying out a message - god damn useless predictive text why did it have to be so bad? Midway through the text she realized she had never looked at his final message.

What if he had changed his mind and decided to do something else? She’d look so STUPID if she told him not to go somewhere he wasn’t going anyway, but time was of the essence, right? Who knew how much delay these messages had in the first place? Cingular was a shit service provider, they could’ve been sent hours ago! But she couldn’t risk sounding stupid...

She backed out of the write screen and opened the last message. Her heart sank. ‘Hey sorry for spamming you,’ it started, ‘but my friend here doesn’t want to go to Elysium, so I won’t be able to use his phone anymore. I’ll see you at Elysium, maybe! I’ll see if I can’t get myself an American number tomorrow night, bye!’

Her first thought was that she almost sent a text to a random stranger. Her second thought was that said random stranger now had her phone number. Her third thought was that David was going into an active war zone and she had no way to contact him.

Oh God, oh fuck. The first was terrifying and the second was annoying, but that last one was a bit more urgent. What was she going to do? What COULD she do? If the Invictus or the Carthians picked a fight with him, what would HE do? He wouldn’t ... he wouldn’t fight them, right? He’d run, right? But where? He had nowhere to go, she didn’t even know how he found out where Elysium was.

Maybe the stranger with the cellphone told him? But then why not tell him it wasn’t Elysium anymore? Oh God, it was a trap! He’d been sent into a trap, that had to be it!

Oh God, oh fuck. Should she go? Could she even save him? Wait, could it be a trap for HER? How? How would they find out David was coming? Was he talking to someone else? He said he wasn’t, but he called cellphone guy his friend, and you don’t just make friends with people you just met! And why? She was just some Circle neonate, no one important. No one would even miss her, for fucks sake! The hierophant would probably take revenge, but just to show strength, not out of any concern for her fate.

Nothing made sense. It was safer to stay inside, keep playing Baldur’s Gate and forget about this whole thing. But what if he NEEDED her? She couldn’t just leave him. He was the only person who ever talked to her anymore. She had no one else and HE had no one else. She couldn’t abandon him. But it could be a trap. But if he died she’d never forgive herself. But what if HE was the traitor? What if HE was luring her to Elysium to get HER? Would that ... would that be so bad...? To be ... GOTTEN? She shuddered.

She had to find out which it was. Was he in trouble? Was he a traitor? She stood up from her chair and examined the game on the screen. She was about to start the new Throne of Bhaal content too.

She really should’ve just breezed through the main story of Shadows of Amn instead of getting bogged down by the non-critical stuff. With a sigh she saved the game and turned off the PC. It was going to be a long night, damn David and damn her stupid Mekhet blood.

00:37 A.M., JULY 3RD, 2001

Ashley stood atop one of the taller buildings around Haven’s Elysium. Not the tallest one, that was too obvious a perch, and not one directly adjacent it either. Just a random close-by building that allowed a decent view into the grounds.

She had finished setting up her telescope and was looking through it patiently. The Elysium was some kind of Russian-style manor house surrounded by a walled-off garden that altogether spanned two city-blocks. The kine called it the Off-White House.

Apparently the former Prince had built it a long time ago, back when he founded the town in the whateverteen-hundreds. She supposed it was the tallest building around back then, and the wall would have been enough to dissuade snoopers. Now a bevy of four to six floor business-related buildings populated the surroundings of the manse.

The Prince never even fought the development, he just put up a constant Obfuscation effect around the entire damn place. Such was the power of the Dragon’s technosorcery, she supposed. Most others scoffed at them, but Ashley frankly thought that if the Ordo were to ever actually put serious thought to hegemony, none of the other covenants would be able to stop them.

This city, Haven, was the proof she’d point to, were she asked to prove her theory. The second largest city in America, smaller only than New York City itself, and by far the largest city in the West Coast - wherein a handful of Dragons had ruled over an ever expanding population of Kindred for centuries.

The Jewel of the Pacific was no small prize, and it was no exaggeration to say that it would not exist if not for the efforts of a single Kindred, the Mad Dragon himself: Voivode Alexei Chernoff. But he was gone now, disappeared like tears in the rain. Him and his Order all. It took a couple of days for the Kindred to notice, and more time for them to test their leashes, but eventually they did and then everything went to hell.

The thoughts helped pass the time. She hadn’t really known what to expect, but there was no activity in Elysium. At least not in the gardens, she wasn’t about to get close enough to peer inside. It had only been about twenty minutes since she’d gotten the messages. There was no way he could have beat her here with only a ten-minute head start, even if he used Kindred celerity to run all three or so miles between Elysium and the docks.

Unless he was already here, waiting to ambush her. Or the messages got to her late. Regardless, there was no activity in the area at all, which was the norm nowadays. Either fighting or nothing - no in-between. So Ashley settled for a long watch, using a Shadow’s gifts to search for prey and hide herself.

It surprisingly didn’t take long for Kindred to show up, maybe fifteen minutes. Carthians, by the looks of their clothing. Could be Circle ... she was too far to recognize their faces. But her fellow acolytes weren’t complete idiots and wouldn’t go stir up trouble in Elysium. Probably. Maybe.

Oh God, what if she had to choose between helping her covenant and helping David? What if THEY had used HER to lure HIM here? He was just some random ancilla from France though, right? What would anyone even want from him? Maybe he had secrets though, secrets he didn’t tell her about. Secrets that made him valuable.

Ashley didn’t really know David too well. They got to chatting through IRC a couple years back and eventually figured out the other was also Kindred. He seemed nice though, even when he thought she was kine. Always supportive and kind and not at all like a Kindred and oh God he’d tricked her hadn’t he?

He said he was Gangrel and he was NICE? God, how could she be so stupid? Gangrel were many things but NICE wasn’t one of them. Hell, Kindred weren’t nice, as a rule. Paranoid, cruel, cold. Inhuman. Those words much better described her kind.

But she allowed herself to be tricked. She WANTED to be tricked, because she WANTED to believe someone, anyone at all, actually cared about her pathetic, small, stupid FUCKING existence and he FUCKING TRICKED HER THE FUCKING BASTARD IF HE SHOWED HIS FUCKING FACE SHE’D RIP IT THE FUCK OFF-

A taxi pulled up by Elysium’s main gates. A tall, fair skinned man sporting short dark hair and broad shoulders stepped out after a few moments. He had a backpack and wore a coach jacket-blue jeans ensemble.

Even from her faraway perch she could see he was in shape, more like a soldier or fireman than a bodybuilder. He leaned into the window, probably to say something to the driver, and then waved him off with a smile. That had to be David. He probably had some trouble finding a cab in the docks or he would’ve arrived sooner.

She hadn’t thought about the possibility getting a ride, she had never taken a cab in her life, even before her Embrace. She’d have to TALK to the driver, some random kine she’d never seen before or would see again. No thank you.

She had had enough of that in the library in life, and she’d grown even more reclusive in death. Plus, jumping between rooftops was pleasant. And quiet. No one to annoy up there either. Just her, and that was the way she liked it. Had to be the way she liked it, ‘cause it wasn’t like she could have it any other way.

As soon as the taxi was no longer in view David tested the gate. It wouldn’t budge, she knew. It was magicked, she’d heard, imbued with some secret protection known only to the Dragons. Only the Master of Elysium could open it, and he had vanished along with his Prince.

David looked around before shrugging and just climbed the wall. That was when the Carthians - Ashley’d more or less convinced herself they weren’t acolytes - noticed him.

It was actually kind of odd that no Invictus had come to contest the grounds yet. That’s what usually happened ... when one of the sides showed up, the other soon followed. Maybe they were gathering for an alpha strike or something, there were seven Carthians hanging out there after all. It was unwise to take risks with those kinds of numbers ... and David was alone.

She lost sight of him when he jumped off the wall into the grounds proper, but she soon regained visual when he started walking toward the Carthians, waving at them like a goddamn moron.

The Carthians moved closer too, and soon they were casually surrounding David. And he did fuck all to prevent it, were all European Kindred so naive? She doubted it. Maybe David had lied when he said he was ancilla, like she had. Maybe his sire never taught him how the All Night Society worked.

If this was how he acted every night it was a wonder he wasn’t a forgotten pile of ashes by now. Or maybe they were his ACCOMPLICES, and HE TRICKED HER.

That thought went out the window when one of the Carthians who had positioned himself behind David pulled out a switch-blade and lunged. She wanted to warn him, to tell him to watch out, but he wouldn’t hear her.

Even her Mekhet speed wouldn’t allow her to close the gap in time. So she just fucking watched as her only fucking friend was FUCKING jumped by a bunch of FUCKING lowlifes just because she was too FUCKING paranoid to FUCKING TRUST FUCKING ANYONE AND SHE DARED FUCKING COMPLAIN THAT SHE WAS FUCKING ALONE AND HOW THE FUCK WAS ANYONE SUPPOSED TO GET FUCKING CLOSE TO HER IF SHE FUCKING-

The knife slid into David easily, and the Carthian goon kicked the back of his knee for good measure. David didn’t even flinch, much less buckle. His back was to her, but somehow she just knew that he had been smiling before ... and now he was not.

The Carthian goon quickly scurried away when he noticed that his target was unfazed by his attack. Sure, Kindred don’t feel as much pain as kine, but you’d have expected some kind of reaction from a guy getting shanked from behind. Blood spewed from the wound - not Vitae, just ... blood. He was blushing? Why? The taxi driver? Why keep it going when talking to other Kindred though?

Ashley supposed it was wise to not switch while out in the open, and Elysium was pretty open without the Dragons magicking what outsiders could see. David turned his head to look at his assaulter. It was hard to make out his expression, but ‘unamused’ seemed like a good guess.

The change in the atmosphere wasn’t subtle at all. David swung his gaze over all his foes, locking eyes with one at a time. Of the seven Carthians, five immediately took a step back and looked down at their feet. Ashamed and cowed, they backed off with their tails between their legs. The two leaders, the ones who were actually talking to David before fuckface stabbed him, stood their ground.

They faced off against each other, their bestial auras surely flaring in opposition. One of the two broke off soon after the contest began, submissively backing off. The last Carthian was clearly holding on for dear life but his doom had been written when his friend couldn’t cut it.

He back off too, before long, and said something. Though she couldn’t see it, she could feel David’s smile. It wasn’t the same as before. Not at all the easy smile he’d shown the taxi driver, now it was sharp and bloody; it was the bladelike, toothy grin of a shark who had sensed blood in the water.

Even his posture was different. It had been friendly before, even a bit lax. Now it was regal, imperious, like a king holding court. On hallowed ground too. The ten Invictus - you could tell ‘cause they were all wearing suits - who had been watching for the last couple minutes didn’t like that one bit.

It was funny how the Carthians quickly scampered behind David, who slowly turned to greet the new arrivals. That only seemed to tick them off further.

God, she wished she could become an Auspex ghost like the hierophant just to listen in on this whole scene. As is, the Invictus leader said something, then the Carthian leader shouted something back - from behind David of course - which prompted the other Carthians to cheer or jeer or something like the hooligans they were.

David raised a hand and that was enough to get them to stop. The Invictus leader said something and his thugs - nine of them not counting their boss - all started laughing. The Carthians shuffled uneasily, every one with their eyes glued on David. He stepped forward, let his arm drop to his side and said ... something. A single, monosyllabic word. Ashley tried to mimic the movements of his mouth, to see if she could divine what he’d said that made all of the Invictus freeze. All she managed to get, though, was ‘Bark.’

Then the Invictus attacked. She blinked in surprise and missed a millisecond of action, but by then three of the Invictus had already stabbed their short swords into David, and their boss had carved into David’s flesh with the wicked strength and precision only seasoned Kindred soldiers could exhibit. The rest intercepted the Carthians, who jumped to the defense of their ... why were the Carthians helping David again?

Whatever, they were keeping the other six Invictus busy. When she focused her attention back on David, the Invictus boss was on the floor, clearly in torpor, with his legs - separated from his torso, hips and all - already well on their way to becoming ash and bone.

Before him stood David, or at least she figured it was David. His savage talons held still where their victim once stood. His skin now presented patches of scales, like a lizard’s, and his eyes twinkled in the low-light like a cat’s. A protean body, the signature Discipline of Gangrels.

Kindred combat was all about escalation. First came posturing, usually followed by some light violence - gruesome by the standards of the living, but Kindred were nothing if not sturdy. If it wasn’t solved by then, the big guns came out and usually people settled down before too long. Then there was the final stage, rarely seen - especially in Haven. Well, before the Dragons disappeared anyway.

Fight to Final Death.

Everyone stopped to look at the broken figure of the Invictus boss, and it felt, even to faraway Ashley, like the noise of a pin dropping would be enough to escalate this conflict into the realm of Kindred actually dying. None of those present had been ready for something like that, so they all froze.

They came here for some banter and some light slapping. Whatever David had said to the Invictus, their leader decided to take things into big gun territory. Four on one, with one of them using deadly Kindred dueling techniques? That was a bit too close to killing intent for comfort. And now David was asking them a question. Were they willing to take this to its logical conclusion?

It seemed to Ashley like it took an eternity for any of them to move. In reality, it was more like three seconds.

First, an Invictus clutching one of the swords still embedded into David’s chest let go of the blade, slowly raised his arms in surrender and carefully backed away. His two buddies did the same, leaving David thrice-impaled as they copied their comrade, picked up their boss’ mangled body, and started backing off toward the Elysium walls. All while never taking their eyes off David, who himself was staring them down.

The spell broken, the Carthians and remaining Invictus disengaged. The answer rang clear: nobody wanted to die again tonight.

What followed was a hasty Invictus retreat.

After the last of their foes had jumped the Elysium walls, the Carthians erupted into cheers. Why wouldn’t they? This was total victory, even Ashley was kind of excited and she hadn’t even participated!

There were high-fives all around, most of them directed at David. The Carthian leader offered David his jacket, since David’s was ruined. David shucked the tattered coach jacket - one of the Carthians collected it for him - and put on the leader’s denim jacket. He didn’t look as stylish in it, but the alternative WAS kind of covered in fake blush blood.

Which, now that she noticed, hadn’t turned to dust yet. Weird, blush fluids didn’t last long out of the body, like at all. They’d disintegrate within minutes. At best. The Carthians didn’t seem to mind, maybe they knew something she didn’t.

Then she panicked. They were walking toward the wall opposite where the Invictus retreated to - David included. Was he just going to leave, even though he told her he’d be in Elysium tonight? What if she showed up? Would he just LEAVE her to wait in a DANGEROUS place?! A place where he almost DIED?!

Ashley’s phone buzzed and she almost threw her telescope off the roof. She quickly composed herself and made sure her telescope hadn’t been damaged - that thing was expensive!

She checked her Nokia and surely enough, there was a message. From another phone number. ‘Hey, David from IRC here,’ it read, ‘I just realized that I didn’t even tell you who I was in the first few messages, sorry about that, it was me! Also, I met some Firebrands in Elysium and turns out it’s not safe there anymore. Kinda explains why the guy I bummed the phone off of told me it was a bad idea to go. Live and learn! We’re headed to a nightclub in their part of town to refuel, feel free to come by if you want! Running out of chars, address next msg... ‘

Her phone buzzed again, with the promised address. ‘The Edge’, as the club was called, was in Southside, smack in the middle of Carthian territory. Could she really just show up? She was Circle, and while the Mother’s Army had no beef with the Firebrands, they weren’t allies either.

Was David a Carthian? He never said. Covenant business never came up, and she personally avoided it because it would’ve gotten awkward if he was Lancea or something. The Sanctified tended not to like the Acolytes much.

But Carthians never really cared too much if you were with the Circle or even the Ordo. They only really hated the Invictus and the Lancea et Sanctum. She might get along with them, right? David wouldn’t let them make fun of her by saying stupid stuff about dancing naked in the moonlight or whatever, right?

Some of the Acolytes did that, but she wasn’t into the whole dark magick scene. She kind of just joined because they let her do whatever and didn’t expected her to throw firebombs or read the Bible or deal drugs or do whatever Dragons do. Sometimes she thought she’d be better off without a covenant, but it was a scary world out there for an unaffiliated Kindred.

She could maybe just join the Carthians and at least she’d have David. He’d keep her safe ... he WAS the scary stuff Kindred were afraid of after all. Should she just go join up with them now? Would it be awkward? They didn’t have to know she kind of sat out the fight, and it was over too quick for her to even try to do anything anyway! It wasn’t HER fault!

That and hanging out with David’s friends would give her the in she needed to like talk and stuff. With that thought it was that Ashley came to a horrifying realization: David had been in the city for about an hour and he already had made more friends than she had in four YEARS.

01:33 A.M., JULY 3RD, 2001

Ashley was now on the roof of some bar or whatever right across from ‘The Edge’. She had been conflicted about whether or not to come and lost the chance to join them en route.

Eventually she just shot a message to the Carthian guy saying she’d come to put the inner debate to rest. ‘Yeah sure, sounds fun ;-),’ it read. She couldn’t send that and then NOT show up. She promised David she would, and now he expected her to.

It took her half an hour to send that text. Was the emoticon too much? Did he even know what emoticons are? How old WAS he even? He said he was ancilla, but there was still a pretty big difference between ‘I remember reading about Hitler’s death in the papers’ level ancilla and ‘Hey, I met Napoleon, cool dude’ level ancilla.

The sheer amount of damage he took without even flinching hinted at the Napoleon end of the spectrum. If he wasn’t just an elder fucking with her. She wouldn’t put it above the hierophant to do something like that, so why not David?

He wrecked an Invictus ancilla in three seconds flat after all. Didn’t even look winded after, if that wasn’t an elder’s power she didn’t know what was. Actually, she really didn’t know what an elder’s power was like. Maybe David was just a strong ancilla, or the Invictus guy was a weak one. Or both.

She had to stop delaying.

David was waiting for her inside. She had decided she’d come. She just had to bite the bullet now. No more thought, only action.

Ashley took a deep breath, as deep as it was pointless, and activated her Cloak of Night. She navigated around the kine surrounding the entrance and made her way inside. First thing she noticed was that it was loud. Second thing was that everything smelled sweaty. The third was that she really didn’t like smelly and/or loud places and wanted to go home to play Baldur’s Gate like she should be right now.

Claiming Bhaal’s Throne was her goddamned birthright, why was she in this terrible place? She sighed, knowing she had to meet David even if just for a little while. This was why she sent the text, she knew she’d bail otherwise. Steeling her resolve, Ashley slunk off to the second floor, figuring she’d be able to find the Kindred from there.

She did, pretty much immediately. They had a couple semi-private booths right there on the second floor. The booths had a circular table in the middle and a tall-backed sofa with neck-high cushions followed the rim of the table, leaving a 60 or so degree gap between both edges.

Not all of of the Kindred were in the booths, probably hunting, but David was right there animatedly talking to the Carthian leader. Was this a guy thing? One of the guy’s crew actually stabbed David, who then proceeded to stare them all down, and now they were best friends? How did that even make sense?

Whatever. No one had noticed her so far. Was she supposed to drop the cloak and approach? What would she even say to David? She really didn’t want to interrupt his conversation, that’d be rude...

She didn’t want David to hate her, so she just slid closer to his table. He was sitting in the center of the sofa, the midpoint between both edges with his arms spread over the neck-height cushions. He had a kine girl on his left arm, and just to his right was the Carthian boss and a kine girl of his own. David’s was prettier, as was right.

The rest of the goons, the ones who were around at least, were in the other booth. The kine were sleeping peacefully, certainly recovering from the Kiss. Their table was empty, so Ashley just ... climbed on. She wanted to get a closer look at David. They’d never really been able to exchange pictures, obviously. Considering all the ... less than truths David thought about her, she was kinda glad that Kindred weren’t exactly photogenic. Pictures always came out blurry and unrecognizable, regardless of how hard one might wish them not to.

David was very handsome, had a strong jaw and dark brown stubble, just the kind she’d always wanted to rub her cheeks against ... She held back. Neither Kindred noticed her, even though she was right there in front of them.

David’s eyes were light brown and he had a lot more eyelashes on his upper eyelid than on his lower eyelid. His eyebrows made him look very approachable, made his mien more ... jovial. He had very kind eyes, just like she always imagined. He had a strong nose, slightly off center like it’d been dislocated one too many times, and he had a scar on his right cheek that went all the way to his neck, passing just under his ear. It was very straight, and kind of wide. Didn’t look like a knife made it. She wondered how he’d gotten it.

She wondered if he had others. Scars he never showed anyone ... just her ... She snapped away from her fantasy and went back to his eyes. Only to notice he was looking right at her.

She scrambled backwards, almost falling off the table. David just ... kept looking right at her. He made a dismissing motion with his free arm. Ashley was devastated. He hated her. He wanted her to go away. He knew. He knew she could’ve helped him in Elysium but didn’t. He knew she could’ve prevented all of that from even happening but didn’t. It WAS all her fault. She-

“Just call me if you need anything, sir,” the waitress behind Ashley said with a bow before leaving. David went back to his conversation with the Carthian.

He hadn’t been talking to her. Of course. He was GANGREL, he didn’t have Auspex. He wouldn’t be able to penetrate her cloak. So she closed the distance again. She could feel his hot breath on her dead face and God, he was so ... august.

He moved like he owned the place. He looked like the kind of guy who was used to getting whatever he wanted. He wanted someone to show him around Haven? He got seven someones. He wanted a drink? Kine lined up and offered their necks. He wanted a throne? The goddamned Carthians would bring it to him on a silver platter, or die trying.