"You know you can't keep running away from reality like this, Patricia."

"Watch me."

In the darkness, a woman struggled inside of her straight-jacket. The bars cast long, thin shadows on the floor, and measly cot laid out for her cell. Sitting relaxed in the corner of the cell, was a man. He was tall, balding, with glasses on a chain. His beard was kept nearly trimmed, and the lines of his suit were crisp and clean. He peered over the notes he kept on his pad of yellow legal paper. His pen had the name of some drug company on it. Clipped to his breast pocket was a plastic laminated badge which boldly declared him to be a visitor.

"Patricia," he began again. His voice was exasperated, but with a very practiced patience. "At some point you're going to have to make a decision. Do the thing that's hard, or give up entirely. Patricia, can you hear me?"

From the floor, Patrica ignored him. She looked more like a feral animal than a human being. The grime on the floor had left its mark on her hair, her skin, and her straight jacket. Her hair fell in locks like algae, blocking her vision and sticking to her skin. She squeezed her eyes shut as the man sitting above her in the only clean thin in her cell continued to talk. She squeezed them tighter, his words gradually fading into nothing but a dull buzz in the background.

There was a sound, like the rushing of blood in her ears, or the rushing of waves of a beach. She focused on it, chasing whatever thoughts and reprieve it brought her. The whipping of a leafy branch as it swing back towards her face. It didn't matter what it was.

Then, suddenly, and without warning, she came to. Her eyes snapped open. For a moment, she looked around frantically, still caught by the lingering blindness of unconsciousness. Voices were talking in the background, but they were muted and slow.

Her cheek brushed against soft carpet. She sniffed as her vision started to return. It was clean. The pattern was restrained, and tasteful. Her eyes traveled along the floor she found herself laying on. They made it to a window. She was in a building, with full wall windows.

She was in a skyscraper.

She started to pull herself to a sitting position, but stopped short at a stinging sensation in her neck. She clapped down on it with a wince. The voices were easier to hear now. A man. Frantically pleading. Another man... he only interjected occasionally. Not quite monosyllabic, but close. And cool. She still couldn't tell what they were saying.

She withdrew her hand from her neck. There was blood. In two distinct and separate rivets.

"I beg absolutely nothing of you but your clemency!" the frantic voice continued, unacknowledging of Patricia's recovery. "Anything, sir. I brought this matter to your attention immediately. My deepest regrets. Of course my sire and I will handle this problem however you direct, whether by taking in the fledgling to our clan, or by elim-"

A waves of inky black darkness washed over the entire room, blotting out the stars, the lights of the city, and everything but the velvety shroud of shadow. The frantic voice stopped, and Patricia heard the sound of gurgling. And choking. She held stock still. The sound persisted for a long, tense moment. Then, abruptly, it ended in what sounded like a sack of flour exploding.

For exactly eight seconds, there was no sound in the room at all. She trembled, and held her breath.

Finally, Patricia turned to face where the voices had come from.

Two men were watching her intently. The first was tall man. He would be described as lanky, had he not been possessed of a delicate grace. Patricia could think of no better word for him than 'elongated.' His face was long, with a hook-shaped nose, hollows under his cheek bones, haughtily arched eyebrows, deep set sneering black eyes, and a meticulously groom goatee. His black hair was slicked back,and shined like obsidian. His suit was formal, if a bit anachronistic; coat tails, a cravat, lace ruffles coming out of the sleeves. He wore several rings, all of which were over-sized, and made unmistakably out of high karat gold. He was seated with one leg draped artlessly over the other, peering at her from behind his steepled fingers

The other man looked no more like he fit the frantic voice than the first. He, too, was tall. Actually taller than the rat faced man. But he was broader in the shoulders. He had a strong jaw, tousled red hair he seemed to have tried to master for the evening. His hands were thrust into his pockets, disturbing the lines of his slacks. Though they were so worn that they didn't suffer from it too much. He had a grey blazer on over an oil-stained t-shirt. He was leaning in the corner, watching her with some mixture of amusement, interest, and pity.

On the floor next to her, where the frantic voice had spoken, and where the gurgling had been heard, there was a pile of slightly moist dust, and a puddle of dark, dark red blood.

Patricia swallowed, and tried to piece together anything that gave this moment context.

The seated man shrugged, and turned to his compatriot.

"Caldur?" he began. Patricia didn't give him time to finish.

She bowed. Full on prostrated herself. Hands on the floor, forehead too. Her messy pony-tail spilled just a little into the blood in front of her. It didn't matter. There was already blood on her cheap beige suit.

The seated man stopped in his tracks, his whole self still lolling in the midst of a gesture towards the standing man. His mouth quirked in a smile.

"My. And what possessed you to do that?" he asked. His voice was educated. Clean, eloquent, and enunciated. It was vaguely aristocratic somehow, and hinted that he was from somewhere in Europe. After another pause, he chuckled, and readjusted himself into his seat. "You may speak, little one."

Again, Patricia swallowed. She cleared her throat, but made no move to get up. For a moment, she was in her cell again. The man with the legal paper was standing up, and a guard was taking the only clean chair out as they both left her. Alone. On the floor of a cell. In a straight-jacket.

"I have no idea what's going on," she said, once again in the room of whatever skyscraper. "I don't know who that man was. He came to visit me at work tonight, and I woke up here. Whatever you just did to him, I don't care. I don't care at all."

"That man was your Sire, little one," the long man informed her.

"Will you let me live long enough that it would matter if I asked what that meant?"

The man looked like he was caught flat-footed by that response. The other one, referred to as Caldur, stifled a chuckle and looked away.

"You're something of a... unique case," admitted the long one. "I would be well within my rights to give you the final death right here and now. You were not permitted in my city. Tell me why I shouldn't."

"I have no idea what any of this is, or what rights you mean. But," said Patricia, still nose deep in mist dust and blood. Her eyes were fixed in a gold molar which was sitting in the pile. "I'm obviously far out of my depth, because up until a moment ago I had no idea men could turn into whatever it is that I'm currently bowing in," she said, resisting the urge to gag.

"You may stand, no one ordered you to bow."

"Thank you," said Patricia. She stood up, and dusted herself off. Her body was strung taught with tension. She could practically have been used as a bow string. But she forced herself to stare the seated man directly in the eye. There were five sconces set artfully into the wall behind him.

For a moment, she was in the cell, the former image replaced by the man with the visitor's badge, and four caged lightbulbs casting the long shadows of her cage.

She shook herself, blinking frantically, and forcing her mind to look at the lights. The chair. The man wearing a cravat who was sitting in front of her with growing impatience.

"I have no idea where I am, why I'm here, who that man was, who you are, or what just happened. But I owe him no allegiance, and I'm under no illusion that I'm going to make it out of this room alive without your approval. So I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get that approval," said Patricia. The words happened because they had to. They didn't come out eloquently or clean. They didn't come out rehearsed or pretty. They didn't even come off that persuasively. They came out because that's all Patricia could think to do to fight for her very survival at this moment in time.

The man smiled.

"You're not making it out of this room alive," he said. He shrugged. "But if you're useful to me, I will extend you the unique generosity of my protection. Caldur?"

"Yeah?"

"See that miss Brosnen has everything she needs," he continued. Patricia's face twitched in confusion when he said her surname, but she remained otherwise still, not so much as moving from the pile of gore. "I will be taking her on as a Ward."

"Risky move," warned Caldur, though he didn't seem to be trying to talk the other man out of it. "Ernesto's going to make this ugly."

"Ernesto is welcome to make such an attempt," said the long man, rising from his seat. He moved with a flourish that seemed to come naturally to him. "The fact of the matter remains, he could not control his Childe, and I had to uphold the law."

"You know that's not the part I'm talking about," replied Caldur.

"I do," was the only response before he left the room through one of the rear doors.

Caldur sighed, and shook his head. Patricia was still watching, like a prey animal hoping the predators won't notice it. Caldur noticed her, though, and looked at her with a wry sort of smile. The mixture of emotions hadn't changed. Amusement, interest, and pity. The only difference was the intensity. He was more amused, more interested, and definitely more pitying.

"Well, miss Brosnen," he said. "I'm Caldur."

"Patricia," she answered vaguely. "How did he know my name?"

"He said you were a special case."

"Who...?"

"That was Sebastian. He's the Prince of Toronto."

Blink.

Blink, blink.

Blink.

"Oh." Because really, what else do you say to a thing like that?