Summary:

The year is 2040. The story is set in the vast fictional metropolis of Newcastle City on the East Coast of North America. A war is brewing between opposing vampire sects. Caught in the middle are the over the hill Detective Sergeant Virgil Starke and his young partner Christine Lavelle. Follow their story and the requiems of the many kindred who make their havens in Newcastle City.

A grizzly murder scene leads our detectives onto a dangerous path of no return. While the humans have their own case to solve the kindred hounds Lance Stevenson and Laura Bishop his new partner are also on the trail of the killers at the behest of the beautiful and deadly kindred regent Maria Ramirez.

A blood hunt is likely as both sets of protagonists close in on their prey but before one is called all hell breaks lose in a bloody battle of many opposing factions. A battle that threatens to start a war in which many kindred will perish as they are sent to their final death. The humans try to work out what is happening but nothing can prepare them for the nights ahead.

Bloodlust & The Beast

Introduction: Run Reggie Run

23.50 Friday, 5th May, 2040, Newcastle City – Pop: 55 million+,Greater District 152 - Grimmstone Bay – Pop: 6 million+,

Bertram Montague Boulevard Residential District - Pop:100,000+, Oakwood Garden Park – Pop: None (500+ Illegals and Homeless)

Reggie ran like the devil himself was after him. This was not the best of times to discover that he was extremely unfit. He had to admit it, he'd let himself go since leaving school and now ten years later he was regretting it as the bastards chasing him closed in. Warm droplets of rain fell on his already saturated body. Whether from sweat or the continuing downpour he couldn't tell. He felt his legs weakening as he ran through the forested park. Tree branches and under brush cut into his flesh leaving a multitude of lacerations across his body as he ran for his life. He tripped over a tree stump and rolled forward into the mud. He struggled to find his feet as he looked around and noticed the four figures were only a hundred metres away now.

What had he done to deserve this? He'd worked hard all his life. All he had been trying to do was chat up some cheap painted faced whore in the local bar. When she had agreed to go outside and down the alleyway with him he had thought his luck was in. Then the other three had shown up. They'd surrounded him and laughed at him. They pushed him over and kicked him. They had knocked out several front teeth as the beating grew gradually worse. He'd got to his feet and ran like the wind. But it had felt like they were herding him into the park. Now he had seen his mistake, he should have ran back into the bar and called the police. Now it was too late. Whatever they intended to do to him he was all alone and afraid.

He picked up his pace after his mud bath. Trying but failing to put some distance between himself and his pursuers. He could tell they were playing with him. They could catch up to him if they wanted to. All manner of thoughts ran through his mind. Why hadn't he ever learned to fire and carry a gun? Suddenly out of nowhere a fist connected with his jaw sending him sprawling into the mud once more. Suddenly he was surrounded again. But what he saw when he looked up into their faces would scare him literally to death. He saw them, their fangs. Their distorted faces, they were monsters out of some freak horror movie. Only they were very real. Within seconds they were tearing into him with teeth and claws. He screamed at the top of his voice to try desperately to attract attention.

He heard a shot fired from a short distance away and a voice shouting a warning. He strained to look and saw two uniformed men holding guns. They seemed as horrified as he was. Then two of his attackers broke away from him and went for the security guards. Both managed to get off several shots before they were on the floor having their throats ripped out. Reggie thought of all the people he would never see again. But quite frankly there was no one he would miss. No family still living who gave a damn about him. No close friends and no girlfriend or wife. No one would miss him. Tears began streaking down his face as he begged for his life. The two beasts who had pinned him to the floor paid him no attention other than how much blood they could drain from his slowly weakening body. The sounds coming from the two men were horrifying. He couldn't see what was happening to them and for that he was grateful.

This was the last few minutes of his life. That he knew. No matter how much he pleaded they ignored him. They were not people but wild savage animals. How could anyone be so evil he thought. He was trying to break it down into something he could understand? But when he really thought about it, he knew what they were. It was impossible, insane even. They shouldn't and couldn't exist. Not in the real world. But as they bit down on his arteries, bleeding him dry he knew them for what they were, Vampires.

09.35 Saturday, 6th May, 2040, Newcastle City,

Greater District 152 - Grimmstone Bay,

Bertram Montague Boulevard Residential District, Oakwood Garden Park, Crime Scene

Detective Sergeant Virgil Starke looked over the scene of the grusome crime. His expression was one of shock. There was not much that he had not witnessed in his twenty five years in the police force. Especially the last fifteen years as a homicide detective. But this was something he hoped he would never see. The three bodies had been literally ripped apart. One was missing its head while the other two were so badly mauled it was hard to tell which parts belonged to the right bodies.

He had known one of the Park Security Officers. Joey Miller a 46 year old father of eight kids whom he had played football with in high school. Katie Miller once Katie Starke before she married was Virgil's cousin. The eldest child of his Aunt Laura Starke. What would Katie do now. Things had always been a struggle on Joey's low wages but they managed. They were the only high school sweethearts that had married and happily remained together for twenty seven years.

The thought of it brought the contents of his stomach spraying out of his mouth and mingling with the spilled blood that covered the crime scene. It was a good thing forensics had already done their work earlier that morning while Virgil had been sleeping off a hangover.

If he knew how, he would have shed a few tears for his cousin and her dead husband. It was young Helena's second birthday in two days. Their youngest child would forever remember her birthday for the day she lost her father. Shock was starting to give way to anger, justice and vengeance. Whichever bastard did this was going to pay dearly. There would be no trial for the evil fuckers who had done this if he had any say in the matter. For some reason chainsaws flashed into his mind and that dark part of him that he kept so well locked away from all who knew him raised its ugly head. It didn't stop a little smile cross his face as he thought of carving the perps up with a chainsaw.

Virgil's partner Detective Sergeant Christine Lavelle looked down at him like he was some kind of rookie but knew it was the bottle of whiskey he had drunk last night to wash down several pizzas and drown his sorrows as his latest girlfirend Erica ditched him for being a drunken old slob. But she was half his age anyway.

Virgil Starke was a man with something of a carefree and fuck-it-all attitude when it came to most things in life. At 46 he was still a Detective Sergeant after serving twenty five years on the force. Christine on the other hand was still young and hadn't given up on life like her partner. At 27 years of age she was looking to one day make captain or perhaps commissioner or perhaps a move to the FBI wasn't all that far away. She had everything going for her except like her partner a stable relationship was nowhere in sight and that's just how she liked it or so she convinced herself. Her fellow police officers looked on as Virgil wiped himself down. He tried to ignore the sniggers and finger pointing from those he worked with and like always he simply thought to himself 'fuck the bastards. I don't need any of them.'

Christine could tell he was feeling sorry for himself. Over the past two years since her promotion to Detective Sergeant, she had seen him at his very worst and very rarely at his best. She thought she knew everything there was to know about her partner but she would be wrong, very wrong.

She took all the details that they could find on the three men. Two were security officers. One was some random nobody that no one seemed likely to miss. His name had been Reggie Brown. His head was missing and all she could think was that if the frozen haunting expression on his face was anything to go by, his last moments must have been in terrible pain. And that was another thing she couldn't get out of her mind. There was blood all over the crime scene but no where near a full three bodies worth. Whatever had attacked the three men had taken their blood or so it seemed.

Christine felt like she was auditioning for a part in the Twilight Zone or some other weird TV show that cried out vampires. For all her education and training it came down to this. Three empty bodies, drained of blood. She knew already what her fellow police officers would call this. And the news once they got hold of it. It wouldn't matter that vampires didn't exist. Everyone knew they didn't exist. But from now on Christine and Virgil would be forever the two from the X-Files. She could only think that it was time for her to get out of Newcastle City and look for something a bit more ambitious. The more she thought of it the FBI was starting to sound like the best idea she had ever had. But that was for another day. Here and now they had some sick bastards to find before more corpses with all their blood missing showed up somewhere else.

21.00 Saturday, 6th May, 2040, Newcastle City,

Greater District 152 - Grimmstone Bay,

Grimmstone Corporate Plaza District, Ramirez Corporate Tower, Executive Suite #1

Maria Ramirez looked every inch the Daeva Invictus Regent she was. Her slender almost six feet tall frame carried the elegant red evening gown like she was a performing Hollywood starlet walking the red carpet. She paced back and forth, her long waist length black hair seeming to flow around her as she moved across the floor. In her youth during the 16th century she was considered a long legged awkward freak. But now she lit up the room with her powerful kindred presence and magnificent old world beauty. She had seen everything there was to see.

But it still made her angry when kindred left a mess in her territory. She looked with an exaggerated aire of distain at the savage gangrel. If it had been her choice she would have had a fellow clan member from the Daeva take on the roll of hound for this sub district. But she trusted her Baron's descision to hire this kindred. Time would tell if he actually lived up to his reputation for getting things done.

That would actually be the Gangrel Invictus Hound Lance Stevenson who was responsible for the sub district in which Oakwood Garden Park was located which was The Bertram Montague Boulevard Residential District. The Baron of that district was the Daeva Helena Goodman a delicate waiflike beauty of the early 18th century. A close associate and occasional friend who would be just as angry that her territory had been invaded by worthless Caitiff kindred and had not yet been dealt with by Lance.

Salvatori Martinez, Head Hound and Chief Enforcer of Grimstone Bay's kindred stood motionless waiting for the Regent to speak. He could tell she was more than a little pissed off. He stared daggers at his underling Lance. This was the second time in a month that this district had been the site of a kindred attack. The police were all over the crime scene and it had been too late to have the evidence go missing. There was still a chance and a lot of favours to call in inside the police department. But it was still workable.

Although that did nothing to bring them closer to finding who made the bloody mess in the first place. Lance had brought him four possible names from his sources who were in the nightclub that night where one of the victims had been seen running away from. They were unaligned Caitiff. They were also new to the city and had only just sought permission to settle in their haven. They were young and stupid and needed to be shown some discipline. But Final Death would perhaps be too harsh for new kindred still learning the ropes from their fellow bloodsuckers.

But it put them all at risk. Every violation of the rules had the potential to reveal their presence to the kine. For all the kindreds' power they still lacked the numbers to even contemplait revealing themselves to humans. The Masquerade was there to keep the kindred safe but also to keep them in line. A blood hunt would likely be called. Either to capture or destroy the four kindred responsible. It wouldn't take long to find them. They probably didn't even know they had done anything wrong. But it was common sense. Vampires had no reason to kill if they showed even the slightest bit of restraint.

Lance felt all eyes on him. He had been too busy last night with his latest kine blood doll. She had made a lasting impression but it had meant he wasn't where he was supposed to be for the second time that month. If he wasn't careful one more fuck up could mean he fell back down the rankings of kindred in the city. He didn't want to have to start all over again. But he had to admit to being slightly infatuated with the young woman. She reminded him of his first love in 1876 at the young age of 19. That was three years before his embrace. Marina Caldrick was her name. And his new flame Victoria Locke looked just like her. They could have been sisters. Maybe his memories were not as clear as what he thought. But still he needed to be on the Regent's good side so he could get permission to embrace.

The regent seemed to be growing impatient but knew too well they were all waiting for her to speak.