Book 2: Chapter 1: A New Vison

Over the next 125 years, the coterie quietly wanders the world, gaining experience and knowledge while carefully avoiding disruptions to the timeline. Their travels eventually bring them back to San Francisco, where they learn that Ban Stradh sustained catastrophic injuries and has entered a rare form of torpor. His motionless body was shipped to Vienna, where he now lies under the watchful eye of the Tremere Circle—if he ever awakens.

Prince Ambrogino expresses deep gratitude to the surviving coterie members—Valmont, Jarvis, and Max—for stopping Cyrano and preserving the timeline. As a reward for their efforts, each is elevated to Status 3 within San Francisco's vampiric society.

The fate of several others remains uncertain. Nathan Kent, Sting, and numerous unresolved threads seem to have faded into obscurity. It is whispered that these ancient Kindred simply retreated into the darkness, continuing their eternal lives in silence.

• Elise Sutton – Slain during the Primogen Attack by Luca Pal.
• Peter Takin – Former Primogen and now declared traitor; officially placed on the Red List.
• Vicar Kraus – Ex-Ravnos Primogen; mysteriously vanished.
• Nathan Kent – Has ascended to become one of the 12 global leaders of Clan Ventrue.
• Vanguard – Status unknown.
• Ticker – Status unknown.
• Lazo – Returned to San Francisco and resumed his role as a Primogen.
• Cliff McCloskey (Ban's mortal alias) – Fate unknown.
• Amelia Crimson – Chose to settle in San Francisco. As recognition for her part in saving the city, the Prince granted her ownership of CORE (now known as Sky Bar) at the Pyramid.
• Enzo Dante – Believed to have returned to Europe.
• Graf – Resumed his position as Nosferatu Primogen.
• Ghul & Sting – Current whereabouts unknown.

The Prince meets privately with Valmont and Jarvis. He tasks them with reaching out to Damien Bolden, a former Sabbat Nosferatu who recently emerged near San Jose. Damien claims to hold crucial information regarding Sabbat operatives Renwick and Kaine and wishes to establish dialogue with San Francisco’s Kindred.

Valmont and Jarvis are appointed as emissaries, sent to assess Damien and determine his true intentions.

A formal meeting with the Prince and all involved parties is scheduled for:

January 11, 2025 – 8:00 PM

A Chronicle in San Francisco

Under the neon-soaked sky of San Francisco, Valmont and Jarvis ascend the heights of Salesforce Tower for a quiet, high-stakes meeting. At their side: Damien Bolden, a scarred Nosferatu with a haunted past. Once Sabbat, now independent, Damien presents himself to Prince Ambrogino—a relic of darker nights, offering insight, not allegiance.

The Prince listens in stoic silence as Damien speaks. He has no love for the Sabbat, he claims—only information, skills, and unfinished business. He names names: Fabian Bullard. Renwick. Kaine. And hints that his mysterious sire connects them all. It’s a dangerous web.

Before they leave, Ambrogino hands Valmont a black envelope sealed with an arcane Tremere sigil—one held in trust for this very night, January 11, 2025. Inside: a skeleton key and a single address…
66 Greenwich Street.

There, tucked away in the shadows of the city, they find VINO—a blacked-out, fortified building cloaked in anonymity. To their surprise, it belongs to Valmont. The interior is pristine, luxurious, armed to the teeth, and ready for something… more. In the cellar: a treasure trove of vintage wine worth millions. In the corner: a port for SchreckNet. Soon, a Nosferatu tech named Diego arrives, and the network begins to hum with secrets.

But peace is never still in the night.

Damien receives a desperate call. Sonja Vossen, a young Toreador with fear in her voice and enemies at her back, pleads for sanctuary. She’s fled Boston and her Sabbat pack, pursued by her former leader—Rex Nite.

Her story unfolds like spilled blood. Phoenix. A burned Elysium. An accidental blaze that scorched more than stone. Now a Primogen named Zane Roman has given her and her companions a chance at redemption: Find Murrian, somewhere in San Francisco, and their debt will be forgiven.

Sonja isn’t alone. She brings with her three unlikely allies:

Nate Nestor – brooding and quiet.
Valentine Strangelove – dangerously eccentric.
Reyes Murik – all sharp edges and restless energy.

As the group settles into VINO, Valmont watches them, the past brushing against the present. They remind him of another time—of himself, Max, Jarvis, and Ban, when their own story had just begun.

Now, with old powers awakening and new players entering the game, the city’s nights grow deeper—and deadlier.

New alliances form.
Old ghosts stir.
And the hunt begins…

The coterie gathered beneath the red-stained chandeliers of VINO, Valmont’s sanctuary of blood and vintage silence. The scent of vitae and old wood lingered as Jarvis, Damien, Max, and Valmont exchanged wary glances. There was a tension in the air — not just between them, but in the city itself.

Talk turned first to Ban — once a companion, now a memory. A shade lost in the endless game of survival.

Then the night's grim litany began.

• CORE, once the neon heartbeat of San Francisco's Kindred nightlife, was no more. Prince Ambrogino had gifted it to Amelia Crimson, a reward for vanquishing Cyrano, the rogue. She had renamed it SKY BAR, dressing it in chrome and shadow.
• Tekki, CORE’s old maestro of the floor, now spun the decks at HELL ULTRA CLUB — a deeper, darker scene.
• The Tremere, ever secretive, had sealed themselves within their old Chantry, locking out all others with unspoken wards and unseen sentries.
• Pitt and Kent, long dormant, had been renovated. The purpose? Unknown.

But it was the Primogen Council that bore the most chilling change:

• Isabel "Raven" Gutierrez, now Director of Communication, her silver tongue said to influence both kine and Kindred.
• Horacio Nelson, the Director of War, a brutal strategist with Sabbat scars and a cold heart.
• Arias Kannakis, Director of the Masquerade, a Lasombra who knew how to erase even the echo of your name.
• 
  

And then came the whisper of Zane. Ventrue. Elder. The Phoenix Primogen.
Still obsessed with reclaiming Murran — a name now spoken in caution, like a curse. Rumors tethered Zane to Oakland, and to a mortal named Joe Cross, who once sought out the enigmatic Father Trout, now dwelling in the Tenderloin’s rot.

The silence of VINO broke when Sonja Vossen arrived. Flanked by her coterie — Nate, Valentine, and Reyes — she moved like thunder wrapped in silk.

• Reyes: ex-Hells Angel, the steel in Sonja’s hand. Old, worn, and dangerously quiet.
• Valentine: a Harpy’s Harpy, dripping Toreador allure. Poison in perfume form.
• Nate: youngest, but loyal. Eyes like storm clouds.

Sonja spoke of Murran. She wanted help — or perhaps allies. A fragile line. Rumors leaked between glasses of vitae:

• Corey Graham, an ambitious Kindred, was building a new club, vast and unseen by the Prince’s eye.
• Joe Cross had become something else after speaking with Trout.
• A group known as Eclipse Court was en route from Chicago, bringing with them winds of change. This intelligence came from Nobu, a traveler whose words were rarely wrong.

Sonja then mentioned something... someone... that Father Trout had been in contact with. But she was silenced — for her own safety. Max promised introductions to the Prince, in time.

The coterie ventured next to the Asylum — a place forgotten by most, but not by death. Only one figure lingered there: Janice Lockheart. A husk of what she once was. She spoke in a broken tone of Father Trout, and how he still owned the building.

In the basement, they found him. Trout — a Kindred priest, mad, brilliant, dangerous. His asylum was no sanctuary, but a prison, where revenants, lupines, and other half-dead things rotted in cells hidden beneath the city.

He spoke of a man named Joe, in a blue SRO, fourth floor. Years ago, Trout had helped him. Now, Damien’s visions returned — a cold, dark lighthouse, standing alone against the sea. The dream had become lucid. The lighthouse was real.

The group tracked Joe Cross to his room in a downtown SRO, its halls reeking of mold and misery.

They broke him.

With intimidation, pain, and blood, Joe spilled everything.

• Murran was held in the Navaro Lighthouse.
• Joe acted on Renwick’s orders.
• Renwick was the hand in the dark. The one calling to Zane. The one who would see Murrain rise again.

When Joe’s second ear hit the floor, silence returned.

The Navaro Lighthouse beckons — a place of crashing waves, occult imprisonment, and forgotten horrors. The coterie knows what awaits them is not just Murran — but the truth behind Renwick, Zane, and the creeping rot within San Francisco's own veins.

The Kindred of the night are moving.

The city pulsed with the heartbeat of the damned. Neon flickered outside shuttered windows, casting broken halos onto slick pavement. Within the confines of a low-lit haven, Damien, Valmont, and Jarvis whispered like ghosts.

Peter Takin had vanished — slipped into the cracks of the night. Word was he’d been named to the Camarilla’s Red List, marked Anathema. A death sentence whispered on the winds of Praxis. No one hides for long from the Alastors.

Later, Valmont and Jarvis made their way through the shadows to Elysium, that sanctified ground where violence was forbidden but betrayal fermented. There, they met with Graf Orlock — old-blooded, his eyes sunken, his tone dry as grave soil. They spoke of new tensions. Graf confessed ignorance of the gang recently risen under a Kindred named Sonja, but did drop a name that made even the walls grow still: Renwick.

“Renwick walks with the Sabbat,” Graf muttered, “but even they fear him.” A Nosferatu of terrible potency. A creature not merely twisted by the Embrace, but shaped by the dark alchemy of time, power, and obsession.

Scene: The Next Night – VINO

The coterie reconvened at VINO, a modern-night haunt for the Kindred elite—cold, clean, and soaked in pretense. Damien brought new intelligence on Zane, the Ventrue Primogen of Phoenix: an elder with old-money blood and an empire of mortal pawns — police chiefs, judges, politicians.

“Zane opposed Kent’s rule in San Francisco back in the '70s,” Damien said, fingers idly swirling the Vitae in his glass. “Said his progressive ways would rot the city from within. Wrote the Inner Council. Warned them.”

Classic Ventrue. Order above all.

Scene: The Navaro Lighthouse

Steel and salt, wind and waves — the Navaro Lighthouse loomed like a sentinel of forgotten things. The coterie approached under the weight of centuries, each footfall echoing against stone older than memory. No alarms. No lights. Just the breathing dark.

They broke in with practiced ease. Inside, the stale air clung to the walls like a shroud. Valmont’s Auspex flared. A psychic vision struck: a lone man with long black hair visiting nightly. A face veiled in sorrow and strength.

Ascending the winding staircase, they found her.

A young woman — blonde, hollow-eyed, seated as though her soul had rotted. She looked up.

“You can’t help me,” she whispered. “You’re in over your heads.”

Inside the room, wards pulsed faintly — ancient sigils, woven to cage. Not against Kindred, but against Gangrel. The trap was spiritual. Occult. A prison not of bars, but of bloodlines.

Valmont, ever the cunning one, suggested a desperate gambit: hide her within the Bag of Holding — an arcane relic carried since darker nights.

Scene: Revelation at Elysium

Back within the hallowed halls of Elysium, they coaxed the truth from the girl.

“My name is Pip Dark,” she said.

Jarvis narrowed his gaze. “Not Murran?”

“No,” she said solemnly.

And then she stood, lifted her shirt, and showed them.

Burned into the flesh of her back, scripture, coiled like a brand of ownership. A name not hers — MURRAN. Not a name, they realized, but a Discipline.

She told them of Zane — how he owned her, used her, broke her. She stole money. She fled. And she took what she thought was a diary — but it was no diary. It was arcane scripture, pages soaked in forgotten power.

She read it. And it awakened something.

Scene: Graf's Terror

Graf Orlock entered then. One look at the branding on her back, and he recoiled.

“No,” he breathed. “Not again.”

And he told the tale:

Renwick, the Nosferatu warlock, centuries dead or worse. His obsession: death. Not dying — but the essence, the art, the metaphysics of it.

He had dived into the Koldunic grimoires of the Tzimisce, whispered with Giovanni heretics, and stolen secrets from the Jiang Shi of the Far East.

From that pit of darkness, something rose: a lost Discipline, called Murran — or perhaps, resurrected.

The Antediluvians may have birthed it to enslave their progeny. The Methuselahs tried to erase it. But Renwick unearthed it in 1650 A.D., and from then, a flickering thread of Kindred have sought its power.

Not just Nosferatu cultists, but renegade Giovanni, rogue Tzimisce, and deathbound Jiang Shi.

Those who endure it speak not in words, but in sobs.

“It is the Dark Night,” Graf said, his voice hollow, “and within it, you face what even the Beast fears.”

In the low-lit depths of VINO, Valmont's haven, the air carries the perfume of blood and wine. The neon haze outside flickers through stained glass windows, casting unnatural colors over Pip — a pale, haunted kindred wrapped in layers of trauma. She speaks slowly, her voice shaking like glass on the verge of shattering.

She reveals that she was held for over a year inside the old lighthouse at Land’s End — a place forgotten by most, save those with ties to the occult and the cursed. Her survival, she says, was only possible thanks to Kicking Horse — a mysterious figure she refers to as a Gangrel, with roots in the ancient Adobe Tribe. She met him under the scorched skies of Arizona. His presence is unsettling, like something carved from an older world.

The players then decide to meet at their Elysium the next night.

As the Kindred delve deeper into Pip’s tale, a firm knock breaks the stillness. The coterie exchanges wary glances — it’s rare for someone to come to Vino unannounced.

Enter Isabelle "Izzy" Monroe, a Kindred whose aura demands attention. She appears as a blonde woman in her mid-40s, but the power behind her eyes betrays centuries. Her presence is calculated, cool, and undeniably Camarilla. Izzy introduces herself with poise and a small smile — the kind that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She claims to own The Velvet Vault, a curious antique shop nestled in San Francisco’s historic quarter.

She seeks the coterie’s assistance — a matter of sentimentality, she says. An heirloom, a black music box encrusted with blood-red rubies, was stolen from her booth at an antique showcase. Surveillance footage reveals a gang of neonates known as The Wild Ones — a chaotic, anarch-style Kindred crew recently seen flexing muscle in the city’s forgotten corners.

Following the thread, the coterie locates the Wild Ones' temporary haven: a decrepit hotel on the outskirts of the city. They arrive to find the place empty, though the front door is rigged with a crude, mortal trap — a shotgun wired to blast the first careless entrant. Max, ever the tactician, disables it. Meanwhile, Valmont projects himself into the astral, drifting through unseen dimensions to survey the interior.

Inside, they find a trove of stolen antiquities — among them, Izzy’s music box, lying dormant like a sleeping beast. The mood is interrupted by an unexpected intruder — a mortal detective, drawn by some unseen thread of fate. He is disarmed swiftly, his presence as surprising to him as it is to the coterie.

Under interrogation, he reveals he’s been tracking a pattern of brutal thefts and assaults, all tied to objects from the era of the 1906 earthquake — artifacts steeped in death and despair. One name recurs in his investigations: Ed Hall — a name last whispered two years prior in connection with the mayor’s murdered daughter.

The Kindred sense the echoes of something deeper — a resonance of history repeating itself, or perhaps a ghost seeking retribution.

Back at VINO, a call slices through the night. It’s Arias Kanakis, the reclusive Primogen tasked with upholding the Masquerade in San Francisco. His voice is precise, clipped, and heavy with antiquity. When he arrives, the coterie notes something odd — he must be invited in. A rare flaw among Kindred, or a remnant of something older than Caine’s curse.

Arias steps into the Elysium like a cathedral priest entering sacred ground. His speech is direct: the old laws are returning. The Camarilla is preparing for... something. A reckoning, perhaps. Arias speaks of balance, order, and blood spilled with intention. He notices every out-of-place object, his obsessive tendencies playing out as he straightens a crooked candleholder mid-sentence.

Arias leaves and the coterie agrees that he is something they have never encountered but they can't put their finger on it.

The coterie contacts Izzy. Damien, ever the diplomat, arranges a meeting at her shop. The Velvet Vault breathes with timelessness — clocks tick out of sync, mirrors hold reflections a second too long. As they enter, they notice a painting on the wall — one that seemingly depicts Cyrano’s Mirror, an artifact whispered of in Tremere chantries and Ventrue salons alike.

During the visit, a man enters — old, regal, his footsteps weightless. Jasper, Izzy calls him. His words with her are brief, his presence... ancient. 

As the meeting ends, Drake contacts Max. Pip is gone. Escaped. From a locked, watched haven.

As the coterie steps outside, a dark car idles in the alley, its windows blacked out. Movement. Tension. Max, without hesitation, draws his weapon and fires. Gunfire tears through the still night. Damien’s throwing stars sing through the air, puncturing tires with surgical precision.

Izzy emerges from her storefront just as the last shot fades. Her calm is gone — she stares at the wreckage with distaste, her disappointment palpable.

“You bring chaos to my threshold,” she says coldly. “I hope your usefulness outweighs your recklessness.”

 The scent of blood still hangs in the night air — copper and cordite mingling like perfume in the darkness. The car smolders under the orange flicker of streetlights, its windshield spiderwebbed from Max’s fury. The driver’s lifeless form slumps over the wheel, eyes glassy, mouth frozen mid-plea. Inside, three survivors tremble — mortal men, their fear thick and intoxicating.

Under the gaze of the Kindred, their wills crumble. A whispered command, a flicker of power behind the eyes — and their minds unravel like silk. With Dominate’s subtle touch, Javis sculpts their memories into something harmless: shadows that fade at dawn.

From their trembling lips, the truth spills out — low-level soldiers of the mortal mob, leashed hounds of Justino’s Restaurant, a quaint Italian front for darker dealings. They were ordered to keep watch on Izzy’s antique shop, though none of them could explain why the mortal relics inside would interest men such as their masters. When the Kindred are finished, the thugs remember nothing but static and fear.

At Max’s estate, silence reigns — broken only by the hum of dying electronics and the whisper of something unseen. The group investigates Pip’s vanished cell, deep within the mansion’s secure heart. A lingering disturbance stains the air — the trace of Protean mist, the scent of soil and beast.

From the tree line, a lone figure had been seen moments before the power faltered — eyes glinting like a predator’s before dissolving into vapor. Pip did not escape alone. The Kindred deduce the truth: a Gangrel, ancient and powerful, tore through the barriers of security and spirited her away beneath the veil of mist and moonlight.

The following night, the city hums with secrets as the coterie ascends the marble steps of the Fairmont Hotel — now reborn as the new Primogen Elysium. Built in 1907, its gargoyles leer from their perches, sentinels to the masquerade that plays out within. The entire tenth floor belongs to the Prince — remodeled in velvet and marble, drenched in opulence and shadow.

Within, the room swirls with Kindred of every clan and covenant. The Nosferatu gather in their corner — Draco’s rasping laugh punctuating murmurs between Remus, Graf, and the elusive Flek of South San Francisco. The Toreador glitter in candlelight — Amelia radiant as moonlit glass, Saint crooning softly to no one in particular. The Giovanni, the Gangrel, even Manfred Sheffield, Prince of San Jose, mingle beneath the slow turning of crystal chandeliers.

When Prince Ambrogino enters, conversation stills. He is elegance and danger made flesh. With a gesture, he welcomes the gathered Kindred to their new Elysium — a cathedral of power and secrecy. The marble gleams, the velvet bleeds purple, and every word spoken here drips with intent.

He introduces the Primogen — each a pillar of the city’s eternal machinery:

• Felicia Nocturne, Brujah enforcer, Head of Security.
   
• Graf Orlock, Nosferatu spider, Director of Information.
   
• Arias Kanakis, ancient Tzimisce, Director of the Masquerade.
   
• Gunner Torsten, Gangrel warlord, Director of Special Operations.
   
• Graham Corey, Toreador financier, custodian of wealth and favor.
   

Then, two new shadows are called forth:

• Basil “Ashcloak” Romanov, Director of the Underworld — his voice smooth as grave soil.
   
• Malik ibn Rashad, called Sandstorm, Director of Strategy and Long-Term Diplomacy.
   

Basil offers a faint smile as he delivers his report: Fabian Bullard of Oakland is… no longer a concern. The territory now bends the knee to the Prince of San Francisco.

And somewhere, in the cold hush that follows, the coterie feels the tremor of the city’s power shifting — like the heartbeat of a corpse that refuses to die.

(More to update in this part...)

The night after the brutal confrontation between Max and the long thought dead Gargoyle Tama, the city’s uneasy stillness is broken once again. Max, the Brujah enforcer known for his fiery temper and fists like wrecking balls, stands in the basement of the Elysium where the battle had ended. Blood still clings to his coat when a tall, sharp-featured man steps from the shadows—Malik, the Primogen for "Strategic Planning", his presence exuding the cool weight of old power.

“Max,” Malik says, voice like velvet over steel. “You fought well. But there’s a matter that troubles the Council. Tama... should not have survived.”

The name hangs in the air like ash. Everyone had believed Tama destroyed—turned to true death at the hands of Tremere  Lazo Gajic. 

Malik adjusts his cufflinks, his gaze unwavering. “Use your... company—Knight Security, was it? I want to know how he returned. And who—if anyone—helped him cheat final death.”

Max gives a short nod. “Consider it handled.”

But even for a Brujah, the thought of the dead returning unsettles him. Not even the Camarilla can control everything forever.

Elsewhere, the remaining coterie—Valmont, the death-touched Toreador; Damien, the ever-skulking Nosferatu; and Jarvis, the rather brash Ventrue—gather beneath the chandeliers of The Mystic Mansion, an Elysium revered and feared in equal measure.

Rumors ripple through Kindred society like blood through veins: a strange strain is afflicting vampires across the Bay, compelling them to seek relics of the 1906 Earthquake. Some call it madness. Others, a calling.

They hope to consult Father Trout, an old  Malkavian and high priest of the city’s fractured faith, about his lunatic kin—Debo—whose obsession with the quake and its artifacts may hold answers. It is said Debo’s family perished in that catastrophe, his mind shattered, his Embrace a mercy and a curse.

In the nights that follow, Damien delves into SchreckNet, the Nosferatu’s digital labyrinth of secrets. He searches for traces of the new Primogen: Basil “Ashcloak” Romanov, Director of Underworld Affairs. What he finds chills even him.

Mentions of Ashcloak reach back to Eastern Europe, mid-19th century. His origins—obscured. His clan—unconfirmed. Fluent in a dozen tongues, wealthy beyond measure, and entwined with every major crime syndicate on the planet. The name Ashcloak comes from his preferred garb—a gray shroud of cinders. Those who saw him in it seldom lived long enough to describe more.

The following night, Jarvis receives a call from Graf—voice hushed, urgent.
“Tekki’s dead,” he whispers. “Murdered. At Hell.”

The line goes dead.

Tekki—the radiant Toreador socialite and Elysium darling—was slain at Hell Ultra Club, the decadent domain of Primogen Graham Corey. The coterie wastes no time. Their car streaks through San Francisco’s fog-laden streets toward the pulsing inferno of neon and bass.

Outside, mortals queue for entry, blissfully ignorant of the body cooling inside. Max spots Nate, a Brujah anarch and bouncer for the Wild Ones, working the door. Damien slips through the crowd, invisible under Obfuscate’s veil, and plants a tracker on Nate. The Nosferatu smirks to himself. Insurance.

Inside, the sight freezes them.

Tekki’s corpse sprawls near a VIP table, his once-perfect face pale and cracked like porcelain. Across the floor, Graham Corey raises his voice.
“Don’t touch him!” he commands, Majesty dripping from his every word.
The power hits the coterie like a psychic wave—Valmont and Jarvis falter, their wills momentarily bent. But Damien resists. A sneer cuts his grotesque features.

“Go fuck yourself, Corey.”

The room stills. The insult burns hotter than sunlight. Fifteen of Corey’s ghoul bouncers step forward. Then a growl cuts through the tension.

“Enough.”

Gunnar Torsten, Gangrel Primogen, emerges from the entrance like a wolf entering a den. “Leash your pets, Toreador. Or I’ll do it for you.” Corey’s eyes narrow—but he relents.

Valmont kneels beside Tekki’s remains, his necromantic senses reaching beyond the veil. Whispers coil from the corpse like cigarette smoke.
I don’t know who killed me... it happened so fast... a drink... a woman... Jen White...

Ms White seems to be a waitress at the club.

Visions flood Valmont’s mind: a waitress delivering a wine bottle labeled VV. Tekki toasting, sipping—and then choking as crimson foam filled his lungs. Poisoned vitae.

Further sight shows Jen receiving the bottle earlier that night—from a man in a white van, hidden in the alley as the club’s liquor shipment arrived.

Before Tekki’s spirit fades, he whispers one last clue:

“Amelia... she took my old club... she hates me... Corey’s new venture... called Descent... 1 Hypervale Lane...”

The words dissolve as wraiths drag Tekki’s spirit screaming into the Umbra.

Damien hisses softly and summons a tide of vermin—forty rats scuttling from the shadows and sewers to his command. They flood into the club, chittering of what they’ve seen. Corey’s face twists in disgust.

“You bring filth into my Elysium?!”

The rats tell of the man in the white van. The exchange. The bottle.
A link to something deeper than jealousy or vengeance—something orchestrated.

The coterie leaves Hell with new purpose. Jen White will be their next visit.
But Damien can feel the hate burning from Corey’s gaze.

From this night forward, he has earned himself a new enemy: Graham Corey, Toreador Primogen.

The drive to Jen White’s apartment is silent and tense, the kind of silence that hums like a held breath. The city outside feels half-asleep, wrapped in fog and neon. Somewhere beneath the surface, San Francisco’s dead heart beats in rhythm with its predators.

The coterie— Damien, Valmont, and Jarvis—arrive at a high-rise on Market. Fourteenth floor. Too high-end for a waitress, too quiet for someone with nothing to hide.

As they step into the hallway, they notice it immediately—the door to 14B stands slightly open. The faint smell of blood and fear lingers in the air.

Max gestures. “Stay sharp.”

The door creaks as they enter. The apartment is chaos—glass on the floor, furniture overturned, curtains billowing from a smashed window. A cold wind howls through the room.

And then they see her.

Jen White has crashed to the streets below. Her body hits the pavement fourteen stories below with a sound that makes even the undead wince.

By the time Damien reaches the window, the killer is gone—but not entirely.

Damien’s eyes flare  as he scans the skyline. In the distance, cutting through the mist and city lights, a shadow glides between the towers—a sleek, state-of-the-art hang glider, banking south toward the bay.

Jarvis curses under his breath. “That’s no amateur getaway. Someone planned this.”

Valmont, ever the necromancer, kneels by the broken frame. He touches a streak of blood on the sill, his voice a whisper.

“She was terrified. Betrayed. And the man who killed her—he’s done this before.”

Damien  looks down at the street below, his jaw clenched. “That’s one witness gone. And one more corpse the Masquerade won’t forgive.” Damien’s voice is low, cold. “Then we find who pushed her—and why she was worth killing.”

Outside, sirens begin to echo through the night. The coterie fades into the hallway shadows, vanishing just before mortal eyes arrive. As they leave, the wind still pours through the shattered window—carrying the faintest trace of laughter from somewhere far above.

And high in the fog-choked sky, the hang glider tilts once in the moonlight before disappearing into the dark.

In a rare more, the Prince of San Francisco used his executive powers to declare Hell Ultra Club, at the Sales Force Tower, located at 415 Mission St, DECONSECRATED. 

By decree of the Prince of San Francisco, Ambrogino Giovanni, it is hereby declared that Hell Ultra Club is deconsecrated and no longer considered an Elysium. All the rights, powers and benefits afforded to kindred and the owner are hereby revoked.

Declared this day

Jan 25 2025 at 0113 hrs

Office of the Prince