by Alexander Shearer (22 Jan 94)
[Written Transcript of Interrogation of Sabbat vampire under Domination by Justicar Hutchinson of Clan Ventrue. This vampire was the only of the three caught who could be interrogated, as one was accidentally killed by one of Hutchinson's Coterie, and the other managed to drive herself into torpor. The transcript begins with the unstaking of the subject. All speaking in italic is that of Justicar Hutchinson, all other speaking is by the subject.]
(Inarticulate gurgle by subject)
Your name is?
"Kevin Lloyd Brice."
Clan?
"Gangrel - Country Gangrel."
How did this start?
"Well...we were just into Tucson, going North from the border - sort of a rest-stop on the way to a better place. Tucson's okay, but it's kinda dull. Well, we had to check in with the local scouts - we carry messages, y'know. This time, instead of some punk with lots o' free time on his hands, we got this Priscus. Only time I've ever seen one - closest I got was an Arch in Baja. Well, this Priscus -"
Name?
"Uhmm...Conner. He seemed awfully serious most of the time. He had these two with him - a really serious looking guy (that was Michael) and some blonde babe in nice jeans and Gap t-shirt. Conner explained that the serious guy, Michael, was a Tremere, and Tab - that's Tabitha, the babe - was a Brujah. He said he'd tell Maria what she needed to know, and that we only had to know who they were."
Who is Maria?
"That's Maria Alvarado, she's our Pack Leader. She's really cool. Leather jacket, black hair down her back, these nasty dark brown eyes -"
Enough. What were the people for?
"Oh. Well, after about an hour and a half, Maria and Raoul (he's the Pack Priest, cool guy) came out and told us. I think they shortened it a lot. Seems this Priscus guy had an idea about gettin' some new blood for the Sect. He wanted us to go after some rare types - I'd never heard of them. Seems they were gonna stick Michael and Tab with us so we could protect them when they did their thing. Tab looked rube but okay, but Michael just looked pissed. Guess what - he was. He he."
New blood?
"Yeah, some mini-sect they thought was important. I really didn't know why until we finally got Michael to tell us."
What "group?"
"Oh...the Salubri - you know, those berks the Tremere were supposed to have picked off. Michael said there were only six or eight or so in the world, and we were supposed to go after one. I said that they must've been kickass vampires if they were the last eight, but he said that they were just hard to find."
Well, what happened next?
"We went on the next night to CalFree, made it almost to El Centro. Michael bitched about riding the bikes for the first hour or so, then gave up. That's probably cause he had to ride on Raoul's Harley, and it got his nice suit pretty messy. Tab went with Deb on her bike, but they got along all right."
Deb?
"Deborah Stone - she's this Pander babe, kinda bland, but she was getting better. Finally got her to stick stuff in her ears - it took Leah smacking her around a little and yellin' about healing and stuff. It was pretty funny."
Who is this Leah?
"She's nice - been there for a while. Leah Suvak. She was there before me - don't know where she's from - got this wavy black hair and a good smile. Strange, 'cause most of the Fiends I know are these real psycho weird types - they're just too quiet. But Leah's good - she has this thing with animals."
Well, what happened in El Centro?
"Nothing. Not much ever does...he. Well, we left, that's what happened. We were going on to San Diego, because that's where Michael wanted to do his thing."
His thing?
"Whatever it was he did to her. Y'see, it was in -"
Wait. I think we'll get to that later - it will reduce the confusion. Did anything happen on the way to San Diego?
"Yeah. We almost bought it when Ev's bike died halfway there."
Who is this Ev? And why was it such a problem that his bike died?
"Ev's just another guy - Evan Haynes, newer type, like eight months. He's one of those sol guys. His bike wasn't all that new - we'd told him to get a new one, but -"
Sol?
"Serpents of the Light."
Ah - the reformed Setites.
"Yeah."
Back to the reason the bike breaking down was bad...
"Y'see, it meant we had to either ditch the damned thing, fix it there, or walk it to the next town. The walking was out - Maria said that, but Raoul said he wanted to try 'n' fix it. Maria said okay, so we pulled the bikes off the road and towards some alfalfa field, while Raoul tried to figure out what was wrong. I just sat there, while Michael went around glaring at everyone. Tab did better - she just sorta whispered to Deb a lot.
"After like forty minutes - Raoul had pulled half the engine out, it looked like - we saw these guys - actually two guys and two girls - coming down the road, walking. Juli said she didn't know where the hell they came from, and Leah said it didn't matter, could we just go...y'see, she has a nice bike, a Ninja with a million cc and engine from hell. Nice red thing.
"Juli was watchin' these folks come closer, and Maria was starting to look annoyed - that means she's planning."
Who is Juli?
"Juli - that's Julia Dalton - she's a Ravnos, and she's cool. She never really listens all the way to Maria, and she's the only one who's really good with bags - probably 'cause she's really sweat - red hair, a coupla' freckles on her cheeks, green eyes, like that stuff...the Chinese crap?"
Jade?
"Yeah, Jade. But only the green kind, 'cause I know there's pink stuff, 'cause Ev's talked about it. Well, she's got her eyes, and she never really got pale like everyone else - Maria says that happens sometimes. Well, when she wears her cutoffs - jean shorts, y'know - and her shirt all tied up, well, the bags just fall all over her. Kinda funny to watch."
Back to the people...
"Yeah. They just kept walking towards us. Leah kinda perked up then and said that she thought they didn't look right. Maria nodded, and we knew what that meant. So I had to go around my damned bike and pull the nine out of the saddlebag. Everyone else did that, 'cept Michael, who just looked pissed, and Tab, who looked clueless. Those guys, uh, people just kept walking towards us. Everyone just sat around, keepin' their guns down...lookin' at 'em.
"They kept on towards us, and the guy in the lead said somethin' - I couldn't tell what, it wasn't English. Then he went for his jacket and we started to move. Maria said "slow" and that meant we had to wait for her. She stood up, so we did too.
"It was the weirdest thing - I mean, before we figured it out - that dude in front pulled this chunky dagger and waved it at us. A dagger don't beat a nine, so I didn't care. Maria pulled her gun up - two hands, she always does it the cop way - and aimed it at the guy with the knife. He kept walking, so she just fired. Nastiest thing was, he didn't go down, just sorta staggered, and then it just kinda fell apart from there."
And what happened next?
"The lead guy sorta freaked, made this nasty howl, then started to change. That hit me hard - a Lupine...the older guys had told me about 'em, but this was really bad. The four all did it, turning into these things - they were like ten feet tall - then just rushed us in a big blur. That's when Maria and Raoul did the same thing - they can do that."
Are you referring to Celerity?
"Yeah...I really need to learn how t' do that. Well, I saw one of them charging Tab, and she didn't look to good for this, so I sprang the claws and jumped at it. I think I surprised it, 'cause I managed to rip most of its throat out - really thrashed Leah's bike when we fell on it, though.
"Well, I looked back up when the thing went down, and saw one of them smack Deb in the guts and toss her like fifteen feet. Then Raoul whipped by and sprayed the thing with autofire - I guess he grabbed his Mac before. Maria was beating the crap out of another one, and Ev had one stuck on his tongue - man, I can never get used to that."
So you won?
"Yeah. We had to use duct tape to hold Deb's guts in, and Maria wouldn't let us drink the lupines - she said it'd mess us up, and we couldn't afford that. Ev was already pretty buzzed - he'd done some when his tongue was stuck in. He just walked around with his eyes real wide and his skin kinda flushed - looked weird with color on him.
"They'd turned into three guys and a dog, and Maria was pulling her fire axe out when I asked her if it shouldn't be silver. She said it didn't matter if it was silver if their heads were miles away, then she started hacking. We took the heads and dropped them four or five miles farther down the highway - after Raoul fixed the bike, that is."
What happened next?
"Well, Maria started bitching that we wouldn't make it to town in time, so we had to stop in the middle of nowhere for the day. Leah was pissed about her bike, too, so I didn't tell her I'd been the one who hit it."
How is it that you stopped in the middle of nowhere?
"Oh, that's sorta why they keep me around. Y'see, everyone carries a sleeping bag 'cept me, and I carry a big brown tarp. I guess they'd added two for Tab and Michael, 'cause they had them. Well, we pull way off the road, everyone gets in their bags, then I nail down a tarp over 'em. After that, I just sink into the ground, come around, and undo 'em at night. Maria says it's not a good thing to do, 'cause too much can go wrong, but what the hell - if he have to, we do it."
Interesting. Did you make it to San Diego the next night?
"Yeah. We pulled into suburban nowhere at about midnight, and kept going till we hit downtown. We were supposed to find a place, but Michael was still a bit, well, not pissed, but kinda, uh...I can't think of the word, but he didn't like Vinc."
Wait. Vinc?
"Oh, yeah. That night, we stopped on the way to SD for some food - there was a Jeep Cherokee comin' down the road - I called it, 'cause I can see in the dark. Juli yelled that she'd get the eats, so we pulled way off and she stopped her bike. She kinda waited for them to come along, then bent over and stuck her rear out at 'em as they went by. I think they almost missed her, cause the Jeep went by, then skidded slow and turned around. They came back up and stopped, and these four guys - maybe like college types, got out and started lookin' really nasty-wise at her.
"So then Deb appears behind 'em - she can do that kinda stuff - and starts shooting. She didn't shoot them badly, just sorta in the legs. We split 'em four ways. Deb still had problems with her guts, and the duct tape was falling off, so I did it again.
"After that, Maria said we had to do a Vinc, -"
That word again. What does it mean?
"Ohhh - Vinc, well, I've just sort of shortened it - it's Vinculum. It means we all drink each other's blood. Y'see, Maria had said we should do it to make us a better group of something, but I think she just wanted it so that Michael couldn't do some Tremere thing and screw us over. That's why Michael was kinda pissed when Maria made us do it."
Ah, the Sabbat's multiple blood-bond. Well, what happened when you reached downtown San Diego?
"Oh yeah - well, Michael said we were gonna have her come here, so we needed to get a place to stay."
Her? A Salubri?
"Yeah. It was all part of Michael's plan. He said he'd tell us what we had in mind once we had a hotel room. Me and Deb really cracked up on that one, but he said he was serious, and Maria said to shut up, so we had to go. Michael led us to the Doubletree Hotel, which is connected to Horton Plaza, and he said that was important."
Horton Plaza?
"Never been to SD? Okay. It's this big, multi-level mall, sorta funky, open on top and down the middle, with sort of uneven levels and lotsa blue and pastel stuff - kinda clean, though. I don't like it that much. We parked our bikes in their garage - that was kind of funny, 'cause of all the nice cars. But Maria wouldn't let us do anything to them. She gets real boring when we have something important to do.
"We went up to the desk and bought a room - Maria had someone's credit card - I don't know where the hell she gets that stuff. I ditched and went up to the room along with Deb and Ev. I think Juli stayed around and flirted. I swear, she probably still likes sex - she's just...never mind."
What happened once you were settled in?
"Maria said we couldn't hunt until we were done, so we wanted to get done real quick, 'cause four bags don't split nine ways real well. Michael said once he gave Tab her job, we'd probably need to be ready to go real fast. After he said it should be a couple of days 'till she got there, Maria said we could feed once we knew she was there.
"Michael gave tab a bunch of pictures, then she said she'd get her here. I didn't get it, but that's 'cause it's something I can't do. Tab went off into her room with the pictures, so I went to watch TV and clean my nine. Deb had got to it first, and we were watching MTV. Cindy Crawford's thing was on - House of Style, yeah. It had some thing about health drinks. Deb just looked brain dead, and Ev was cutting little "x"s in the table with a hunting knife. Maria and Raoul had gone off to talk, so I had to sit there for a while. I let Deb stay on MTV, 'cause she was so swiped, but I swear, I'm gonna turn that glammed up Crawford bitch into a corpse some day."
Funny. So, then, how long did it take?
"You mean for her to get there? Well, Tab came out the next night (and we all had to sleep in one room) and she said she thought she had done pretty well. Since she was gonna go after Tab, we just waited a couple of days, then put Tab out into the mall each night. When we started on that stuff, Maria let us take some guys from southeast, but it was a pain, 'cause we had to ditch the bodies where they wouldn't be found for a while. I hate real mud work.
"After that we were pretty kicked. We'd just hang off somewhere sorta near to Tab but not right by her - I think Deb was near her. Y'know, outta sight. Actually, it was really damn boring, just sitting there for days. Only weird thing was that we were in the middle of anarch-land and no one even tweaked us a little. Maybe someone knew who we were, but it was like they didn't see us. I never figured that part out."
So what happened when she did arrive?
"Well, it had been a while, like I said, and we were real bored, so I was up on the top level, right next to Leah and Juli. I was on this kinda bench, inset into the wall - has this blue tile to sit on - with my arms up on the wall. Leah was standin' and lookin' down at the opposite level - one lower, I think...and Juli was in the Sam Goody's, with some guy. Well, least she wasn't bored.
"That's when Leah moved, after being almost still for about a half hour. I looked at her, and she looked kinda surprised, so I got up and turned around, and there she was."
Who?
"The Salubri, the one Tab called. She'd just sorta stopped next to Tab, and now she looked all confused. Tab started to talk, and the other one just sorta stood there. Leah came back - I hadn't even noticed she had left - with Juli and told me to come on. I didn't want to move - I needed to look at that woman some more, she was...I still can't describe it. If I could ask maybe Leah or Raoul...they know words better."
Yes, but what happened when you made it to her?
"We didn't."
What?
"Remember how I said we hadn't seen any anarchs?"
Yes?
"We found three of 'em coming up the stairs right at us..."
How did you know they were the anarchs?
"Well, we didn't, right off. It was these two guys, wearing those long jackets, with leather and chains and stuff. I think the first guy had a Metallica shirt, but the other guy was behind him, and I couldn't see his. The first one was walking right at me, and he looked kinda pissed. I looked at Leah, 'cause she's pretty smart, and she whispered somethin' about blowing 'em off.
"Juli said that there was this girl behind us dressed in lots of black, and she thought they were together. Leah told Juli to slow the guys down and told me to stop the girl. I turned around and almost ran straight into her. She looked real nasty at me, then looked sorta surprised. I took a look back and there was this wall of flame blockin' the guys - I think Juli did it, 'cause she can do stuff like that. She kicked me in the knee while I was lookin' back, and I fell. Raoul always says that it's dumb to let things distract you in a fight, but I'm still gettin' used to it.
"The anarch -"
Which one?
"The babe in black. She started to run by me, so I put my claws out and cut her hamstring. She fell down, but she smacked Juli, and the wall kinda flickered. Right after that, one of the anarch guys came through - the one with the Metallica shirt - with his head down and his arms up. Leah swore and pulled her Beretta. The anarch guy slammed into high-speed, like Maria or Raoul, and next thing I saw the gun went flipping over the side of the stairs and down to the ground, and Juli got smacked into the floor."
The gun fell to the ground? Where were the stairs?
"Oh, yeah. Y'see, the stairs go out across the mall, so they're like five floors up. "
Go on.
"Anyway, I got up and so did that anarch, but she kinda limped, 'cause she was still healin' herself, I guess. Leah was gettin' the crap beat out of her by that fast guy, so I ripped the girl across her face, then pushed her over the side. The wall of fire had gone away, so the other guy was out there too. I tried to go after the fast one, but he was poundin' Juli again. The other one smiled at me and popped claws, just like mine. He jumped right when I did, and we thumped pretty hard together.
"Neither of us hit anything, so we started to roll down the stairs, holding onto each other so that we couldn't make any hits with the claws. We stopped when we ran into flat ground and a bunch of people, who all started screaming. Then some guy lifted me up off the ground, and the anarch's claws went back. Turns out it was some rent-a-cop. The other guy started to talk real nice, but I just reached back and ripped out the guy's thigh - y'know there's an artery - a big one - in there. He fell all bloody, and the other guy freaked and ditched, which was fine.
"Leah and Juli were coming down the stairs now. I looked back up, but all I could see was this huge pile of pigeons thrashin' around. Leah said we had to go quick and pointed. She was right, 'cause I could hear gunfire coming from nearby. We started to run, except for Juli, who was still pretty tweaked."
What about the Salubri?
"Well, Tab was on her, holding her down right in the middle of everything. Raoul was hiding behind one of those cement plantholder things, firing his Mac towards us. I think Maria - she was there too - saw us, but she didn't do anything. There were three ones with guns over on our side, so I just walked up behind one. Leah had stayed back, and now this big swarm of pigeons started to fly onto this one guy. She really likes doing that. Well, I just walked up behind one of them and ripped his spinal cord right out at the middle of the neck. The one guy left looked over, and Raoul managed to put some bullets through his head."
Did you make your escape then?
"Sorta. We got out of the place real easy - none of the fake cops would stop us, but we had to run straight for out cars. At least Ev hadn't gotten into it, so he could go get Michael and Deb and ditch the hotel. We made it to our bikes, and got out of the parking garage, but some fool in a police car tried to stop us. Raoul emptied his gun into the window, and we cranked it for a while. Maria made us go for a while, then we stopped in the parking lot of a 7-11. She said we had to get some people, one each, and then go to a park. We sorta separated then. I went down the road some, to this other parking lot, for some big store - like a Vons, but a no-name. It had some other places, and lots kids - high school, maybe. In that grunge crap. I knew I wanted a girl, but not much else.
"There were too many idiots there. I kinda mingled - some were really wasted. They were all just bags. After maybe a half hour, I found one. She was bigger than a lot of them, and she looked pretty cool - all black, kinda like that anarch, but she looked buffer. Her hair was dyed that funky copper, and she was real quiet. It took me forever to talk her into comin' back with me, and I'm gettin' pretty good at that - Juli's been teachin' me.
"Everyone was there but me, which sucked, 'cause it made me look dumb. Maria started in on some crap about a cool party or something down at the park. I didn't really listen, 'cause it's just the same old crap each time. We had to walk there, 'cause the the bikes couldn't carry everyone.
What happened in the park?
"We made some new bros and babes."
What?
"Brothers and sisters. We turned 'em into Sabbat. Well...almost all of them. We went through the whole thing of drinking 'em and planting 'em. Tab and Michael didn't have any, but I guess that's 'cause they had to do so much."
Wait. What did they do? Was the Salubri a part of this?
"Oh yeah. Well, after we had sorta knocked all the bags around a little, just so they wouldn't ditch, then Maria said that Michael had to do his thing. Man, that was sick. He just walked near the woman and looked at her. She said something funky about not fearing death from the Tremere and some other junk, but Michael just sorta concentrated, and she got this nasty look for a second, then looked real brainwashed, and started to drink the bags. Maria had us take up the slack - collect the blood - we had some trash bags and canteens and stuff."
So the Salubri sired all of them?
"Yeah. Michael looked real kicked after that, like he had done something cool, which I guess he had, 'cause Maria looked real happy, like when something goes right. It kinda sucked though, 'cause he just shredded her mind. She just went around and splattered blood everywhere. It didn't look right on her.
"Anyway, after a while, we managed to bury 'em - I hate that, 'cause I get stuck with most of the digging. Deb made some joke about this not being a graveyard, and Ev said he didn't think it mattered, and Raoul said it did, but that we had to make do. A while later, the first one, some guy, pulled himself out. He freaked at one of our bags - the plastic ones - and kinda went suck-crazy for a while. Next one out was cool - mine. She smashed the dirt away and pulled herself out, lookin' real pissed at everything. She bit through one of the plastic bottles and just sorta dried it out."
Was there an aspect of Vinculum here?
"What?"
Did you Bond these childer?
"Oh, yeah. We had filtered all the blood a bit, so we had their blood and they got ours. So yeah, we had a vinc, sorta. One-way. Maria said it would keep 'em together."
How many made it?
"All but one - Juli went nice, I think, 'cause hers didn't. Well, not before we had to leave. So that's six. They all looked pretty good, too, once they were done bloodin'. Maria said we'd wait some more for Juli's, but she went away with the first six, and Ev, off to somewhere else. They were gone for a long time...hour or so."
Did she come back before..?
"Yeah. I saw her comin' back, without Ev. But that was when the lights hit us."
From the helicopter?
"Yeah. Thought I knew who you were. Yeah, this 'copter came over - real loud. It swept with a big light once, then came around in this tight turn, with people in black dropping like twenty feet onto the baseball field. Maria stopped where she was and yelled at us, told us to stay. She waved at Tab, who waved at Michael. Michael pulled a stake out of his jacket - that kinda surprised me - stuck it in her back - not Tab, the Salubri babe - and Tab and Michael started to run with her. Raoul was running for his bike, Leah too, but Deb just pulled her gun out and started firing at the chopper. I could see one of those guys in black movin' for Tab, so I ran over and hit him from the side. He dropped his gun, and we ended up rollin', like with the anarch, but this guy was tougher.
"The stupid 'copter went right over me again, and I think it really screwed the guy up, 'cause he yelled real loud and tried to cover his eyes. I had my back to the sky, so I didn't look at the light. I put my claws out and tore this guy's throat out. He kept movin', so I kept ripping 'till it came off. His head, I mean.
"Once I had it off, I took a look with the dark eyes, and this guy had some pretty cool stuff. I grabbed two grenades from his chest, then turned the dark eyes off - 'cause they glow, and people shoot at 'em, and went back and grabbed his gun. Over near the parking lot, I could see gunfire, and people running around. I started to sprint over, 'cause I could see that Leah was on her bike, but the 'copter was landing between me and her, and it probably had guns or something. Inside, I mean. It wasn't ilitary or anything.
"Deb was over by the lot, along with Raoul and Leah. I don't Know where Juli went, and I didn't see her after that. Lots of guys in black were running around behind cars, firing at all of 'em. Raoul was almost pinned, but that's wehn Deb moved in. She was behind a nice car - I think some idiot's sports car, probably of with his babe in the park. She managed to catch one guy in the head a bunch of times, but then this other guy turned and sprayed her. The car kinda took it through the rear half, spraying chunks all over the place. Deb started to run around the car, so she was sorta in view, when it just went.
"This big fireball came out the back, right into Deb. I just lost sight of her, and there was this big thump of heat. Some of the guys nearby freaked and ran. Raoul chased after 'em real fast, but these other ones caught him in spray fire. He was all wild, and he just walked through those bullets.
"Leah cranked her bike, and I saw the 'copter start to raise up, like it was gonna go after her. I sprinted at the damned thing and tried to push the pin off with one hand, like in the movies. It doesn't work. I jumped, and managed to grab a strut on the skid. Something snagged my legs when we went up. I looked down, and it was one of those guys, tryin' to climb me. I had my arm wrapped around the skid, so I held the grenade with my left and kinda jerked the pin out with my claws. The 'copter was flyin' funny, tipped over towards us, and there was a guy looking at me through the window. I couldn't see any space on the damned thing, so I held the grenade on with my hand.
"It blew me off the damned thing, but I saw the helicopter spin around, and I know it hit right after I did. I landed on the guy, and he was sorta crunched, so I tore his face off before he could do anything. I got up, but it was hard, 'cause that's when I noticed my arm was gone. Well, most of it. That's when I saw you."
Really?
"Yeah. Didn't know 'till now, but you got up outta the fire and looked real nasty at me. First time I've ever seen a living vamp with fire still going on 'em. I tried to claw you, but before I could, something stuck me, and it all went out."
Yes. When you were staked.
"You got Raoul too, right."
Yes.
"What about the rest?"
We'll just have to see about that...
Details about the characters (basic game notes):
So, what did Michael do to the unnamed Salubri?
Path of Corruption. He changed her mind. Not permanently, in the sense that her basic personality remains the same, but enough to make her very pliable to their wants. Enough to do the job.
So, what happened to the Pack , the original Salubri, and the new Salubri?
They made it away, for now.