Author's Note: This is my first attempt at writing a fic, any criticisms, encouragement or suggestions are most welcome.

Disclaimer: I don't own White Wolf or the rights to any of its products.

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CHAPTER I: Tommy's Drinking Problem

The nighttime was a desolate place; the moon instead of keeping its usual vigil was partially obscured by thick, greasy clouds.

Panting Tommy pelted down the squalid alleyway his body racked with exhaustion and agony from the heavy gash across his ribs. He mashed his hand against the blue sports jacket he wore doing the best he could to staunch the bleeding lacerations. His skin was awash in a conglomeration of sweat and blood, his shaggy black hair clumped together by the noisome mix.

Glancing fearfully behind him, the action shaking droplets of sweat from his face Tommy crashed unceremoniously into an overturned trash can. Stumbling, he felt his knees buckle and threaten to give out and yelped as pain knifed through his torso. Stretching out an arm blindly Tommy's legs collapsed under him and he pitched forward onto a pile of refuse.

How...how the hell did this happen? His thoughts ran languidly slipping from him like water as his breathing quickened into short gasps. It was so fucking simple. Vincent and me we...we were just supposed to grab the crate and skip town, how the hell could she have known?

A noise snapped him back from his reverie it had sounded like a slight scuffing at the end of the alleyway. Please, please don't let it be her, anything but her, his eyes widened and even in his pain he managed to push himself closer to the wall pedaling his legs hoping it wasn't her or at least that he wouldn't be spotted. He knew better, or at least he should have.

"Hello Tommy" the all too familiar voice pierced the fabric of his terror driven scrutiny and he snapped his gaze from the alley mouth to her. There she was, standing over him as if by magic, smiling sardonically at him as he gaped in sheer horror at her.

It wasn't that she was monstrous in appearance that he feared her. No, she was actually quite attractive. Young looking, mid-twenties maybe, short brown hair, green eyes, and a shapely figure squeezed into a black leather outfit. It was what she was inside that made him whinny, panic-stricken and right now she was wearing her heart on her sleeve. Her mouth was caked with the last dry remnants of Vincent's blood, she took a step closer, long sharp protrusions on her fingertips gleaming in the few beams of moonlight.

"Please...Serena..." he began to wheeze but with a curt wave of her hand his pleas vanished for as much as he hated her she had a hold over him that he could not explain, nor did he care to question. "Well, well. It seems my boy Thomas doesn't enjoy my company anymore" she hissed into his ear leaning close, "perhaps he'd care to explain why he'd like to leave me?" and bit into his ear lobe.

Tommy grunted, partly in pain and partly from shock. He had expected to be contemptuously disposed of the same way he had seen Serena drive her clawed fist through Vincent's gullet, and yet he was being spared? Or was this her prolonging his agony?

"I...well, I ugh..." he began to stammer uncontrollably and trailed off as she suckled at his ear lobe. "Mmmm? Yes dear?" she stopped for a moment let go and shifted her face in front of his, her smirk showing the slightest hint of those elongated canines that betrayed her nature. "You were about to tell me something" her eyes locked to his. Skewering him with her snakelike gaze.

"Nothing. Forgive me...please" he turned his eye's away from her gaze resting his check against the cold, rough brick wall. Anything to get away from those eyes, even if should it mean his death.

Serena sighed, shook her head, and stood up. Reaching into her designer jacket she fished out a slender vial filled with a crimson fluid and dropped it into his lap. "There, something to make sure you don't croak before morning...asshole" she turned having spoken waspishly and vanished as quickly as she came, leaving Tommy to his fear and pain.

Scraping and gouging clumsily at the vial she had left him Tommy finally managed to open it. Hands trembling for reasons to do with neither fear nor pain he lifted the flask to his lips and drank deep. Sanguine ecstasy began to spread shamelessly across his features; his head tilted back greeting the sky with the look of a junkie receiving a much needed hit. The rush was all that mattered now, not Vincent, not Serena, not even himself, just the rush.

Tommy found his awareness soar to new heights, his heartbeat like a thundering drum in his ears. Warmth spread swiftly from his stomach in all directions, dulling the pain of the wound for which it was intended to salve. Colors brightened, even in the faded light, so bright that they seemed near blinding to behold. The warmth that had as so far spread now engulfed him in inferno-like brilliance.

Then it was gone, one moment spent writhing joyously in the white-hot fires of vigor and the next feeling it fade leaving only it's mark, a dull empty ache, in it's wake. Moaning as the tiny morsel of Caine's vibrant elixir did it's work and cleansed him of the worst of the wound Tommy rolled onto his side and curled up into a ball.

Sobbing grief stricken Tommy was all to well aware of what he had become, an addict, dependent on something far worse than the street drugs he'd seen hapless junkies and hobos succumb to. Wallowing in his own malignant self-pity a voice rose unbidden at the back of his mind and spoke out;

Yer goin' ta hell kid, the voice was Vincent's, we all are.

It was the only thing Tommy could think about the older man saying without losing it. Probably one of the truest things he ever heard pass those nicotine stained lips, at least it seemed that way now.

Just as he felt his composure falter, his mind begin to shift, drifting towards some unimaginable chasm of madness, sleep claimed him. The black, warm blanket of unconsciousness wrapped itself around Tommy, the deep regenerative sleep that is brought on by exhaustion taking its rightful place over him.