Chapter 58 – A Friend In Need

October 9, 2004 = Saturday

~Eliza Flores~

I arrived at the garage without a problem, but something in the back of my mind told me something was wrong. I stepped out of my car and shadow-stepped to the prince's office only to find a guy bursting into ash and pile onto the carpet. Both guards who had been guarding the door were dead with multiple gunshots to the head and chest and lay askew on the floor in the doorway. Two more piles of ash were on the high dollar carpet, and just beyond them stood the prince, who laughed when he saw me.

"With whom do they think they are dealing?" he said, his voice high as he regained his composure. "Attack me in my own office? They're desperate and have shown their weakness."

"Somebody made a mess," I said as I stepped over the bodies to join him. Beckett was still examining the sarcophagus, acting like it was another day at the office and took no notice of us.

"The Sabbat," he said as he nudged one of the piles at his feet to reveal a small pistol, "Cheap hoodlums. A pack of shovelheads with weak pistols was all they could muster. These three made it this far and my sheriff has taking care of the rest. We're currently tracking the two who fled."

Something in the back of my mind told me Samantha was involved, and I couldn't help but want her back.

"Sabbat?" I said, my head whipping up to face the prince. "Please tell me we have their base?"

"I have several agents on it right now," he told me as his phone began to ring. He marched over to it, answered it, then nodded his head before saying something to the other person before hanging up. "They're at the Hollowbrook Hotel."

"I assume we're wiping them out?" I asked him, and he nodded as he turned to face me.

"I just asked Scourge Walsh to scramble all our deputies for the assault," he told me as he rejoined me. "I'd like for you to join them."

"I'd be happy to join them, sir," I told him, almost grinding my teeth at the thought of facing the Sabbat. "Let me just fill Beckett in on what I've found out about the sarcophagus and I'll head straight over."

"Very well," he said, smiling as he turned away, then turned back to me. "Did you find out how to open the sarcophagus?"

"Yes, sir," I told him making the prince's smile broaden. "There's a key that was also stolen from the Dane."

"Do you have it?" he asked excitedly, but I shook my head. He seemed to deflate, but merely nodded. "One crisis at a time. Take care of the Sabbat then we'll start our search for the key."

I nodded as the prince returned to his desk, then looked over at Beckett. The elder kindred was studying the symbols covering the sarcophagus and I took them in at a glance. The relief of Lamastu and Messerach on the side of the sarcophagus was obvious, but like Doctor Johansen, made me wonder about their significance.

Why would a patriarchal society put a female on the side of a king's sarcophagus? She had to be important, either to the king or to the Assyrians, but the why was nagging on me. Also, why the blood?

"What did Johansen have to say?" Beckett asked me as I stood there looking at the relief.

"He gave me a brief history of whom he believes to have made it, which was the Assyrians," I told him, and Beckett chuckled.

"Assyrian origin," he said, moving around to join me. "Glad to see I'm not losing my touch."

"He also mentioned it's supposed to have contained the corpse of Messerach, the one eyed king."

"Messerach," he whispered, then shook his head. "I'll have to research that name, see what I can find."

"It's this relief on the side that interests me," I told him. "Johansen said it was of Lamastu."

"Lamastu?" Beckett said, his face growing puzzled. "She was a Lillith figure. Strange she would be on a king's tomb."

"That's what I'd been wondering," I told him.

"You have a theory?" he asked me, and I shrugged.

"Don't be modest," he prodded. "Sometimes, a wild theory can lead to truth."

"It's the blood," I told him, kneeling beside the sarcophagus. "It almost seems as if it comes from Lamastu herself and Messerach is drinking it. I've heard the tale that victor in a fight used to drink the blood of the loser, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. If I didn't know better, I'd almost say Lamastu was kindred and Messerach was her ghoul."

"It's a good theory," Beckett told me as I stood back up. "One that can be posited with the fact that Ventrue of old loved to turn and deal exclusively with royals. It wouldn't be unheard of for a Ventrue to turn a royal into a ghoul so they could rule through them."

"Plus, Johansen said that Messerach is known to have ruled over a hundred and fifty years, though he believes that the king destroyed all evidence of his predecessors."

"That in and of itself isn't unusual," Beckett told me. "Lots of kings and warlords played up the supernatural to make themselves seem larger than life. Just look at the Egyptians. Did he say how it was opened?"

"There was a crate stolen, stolen before they stole the sarcophagus," I told him. "It contained some sort of sophisticated key he wanted to study."

"The lock and key," he said, then chuckled. "An invention as ancient as greed. I should have guessed. Now all we have to do is find a victor in this nonsense. They'll be the one with the key."

"Well, we'll go looking for them in a bit," I told him as I turned to the door. "I gotta go find a friend."

"Best of luck," Beckett said before I shadow-stepped back to the garage.

I got in my car, knowing where I was headed as I head seen the dilapidated structure on my way to Damsel's. I was rough on the transmission as I backed roughly out of my space and shifted to drive before fully stopping, then made the tires squeal as I hit the throttle.

I needed to get to the hotel before the deputies started their attack. If Sammie were still alive, I needed to find her so I could get her out. If any other deputy found her before I did, they were likely to kill her to maintain the masquerade.

That meant I had to be there first, and as I slid sideways onto the street where Hollowbrook Hotel was located, saw it was nearly deserted. I parked the car next to the only person visible on the street, getting a smile from Jean as I did so. The Gangrel was dressed in full battle leather with Matilda very visible in her small but deadly hands.

"Welcome to the party," she said with a smirk as I got out of the car.

"Table for one, please," I snarked to make her laugh.

"Will that be frontline or support?" she joked with me as I opened the trunk. I shrugged out of my suit coat, leaving me with a vest over my dress shirt. I pulled out the Colt 1911 and it's belt, removing the knife and Steyr Aug magazines from it.

"Frontline," I told her as I belted the Colt around my waist. "They got something of mine."

"So you're going to risk your life for it?" she chided me.

"They took my friend," I told her as I began loading the empty magazines for the Colt and MP5, my celerity and increasing familiarity making it fast. "I have to try and get her back before the other deputies go inside."

"It's suicide," she said sternly as I slid the magazine into place on my MP5 then primed it to fire. "There's more of them in there than the last one and no guarantee she's even alive!"

"But I can guarantee they won't do it again," I said in a low tone. I looked at Jean who immediately backed up a step, her hand dipping for Matilda but I just turned away. My fight wasn't with the former Hollywood starlet. "Is there an easy way in?"

"In the alley is a window washer's lift," she told me, then pointed it out with a shaking finger.

"Good," I said, then started to move for it. "Now don't get in my way."

Jean let me go as I crossed the street, and though I was expecting to be fired on by those watching from the boarded up windows, not one shot rang out in the still night. I rode the lift up, my eyes peeled for a sniper but none ever materialized. Even when I set foot on the roof, there wasn't any sort of resistance to meet me.

"What the hell?" I breathed as I took in the empty roof. This last bastion of the Sabbat that had the entire sheriff's department buffaloed didn't even come out to meet me?

Shaking my head, I moved to the roof access and examined the door. The wooden door was half-rotted, though still solid in design, but didn't seem to have any wires attached to it. Using my potence, I kicked the door in and readied my gun to fire, but no enemies were immediately present. Moving down the stairs found me in a hallway, again deserted.

'It's a trap!' screamed in my mind as I followed the large red arrow to the end of the hallway, then stopped at the sight before me as I turned through the doorway. If I were still alive, I'd likely have had a heart attack. As it was, my blood ran cold and my hatred swelled at the sight.

Samantha was at the far end of the room with about eight people around her, every one of them holding a large caliber rifle to her bare skin. She had several large gashes across her face, two of them showcasing the bone underneath, with several more across her chest. Her hands were fastened with large metal rods to an X-shaped piece of metal, with more rods across her ankles to keep her in place and from leaving.

The moment the Sabbat saw me, they all tensed. A quick scan of the situation told me there was no way to take all eight without one of them squeezing his finger. Even if I used celerity and shadow-step, there was no way to move fast enough.

"Drop your gun or she dies," one of them barked as I thought the situation over. That order seemed to spark some life in Sammie, as she lifted her head. I could better see the mess they left of her face, but as her eyes met mine, I could see that though they had been rough with her, she still had her eyes and tongue.

"Help...me," she breathed before her head dropped back to hang over her chest. Thinking furiously, I just couldn't find a way to help her.

And in that, I had failed.

The barrels of my guns dipped with that realization and with a sigh of disgust, dropped my guns to the floor. One of the guys moved his hand to his pocket, where he flexed his hand inside before removing it and putting it back on his gun. I waited for what he had signaled, finally finding out when an arm snaked over my neck and a stake was plunged into my heart.

=o=0=o=

I came to sitting on a metal chase lounge chair, my clothing removed as well as any weapons I might have carried. My arms and legs were secured with the same type of metal rods that had bound Sammie, but there were far more of them and not just on my wrist and ankles. Every limb of my body had about six rods securing it to the chair with more on my body itself.

I could only guess that the rods were meant to make sure I never used my potence to escape. Even my head was secured so that I couldn't move, forcing me to my restraints rather than see them. I was still in the chaise lounge, but as my eyes found the metal X-frame that held Sammie, saw that it was empty.

"Sammie?" I said, not expecting an answer from the guards as they cheered around me.

"Right here, sweetie," she said, her voice strong as she answered me. It was only as I saw her again that I felt betrayed. Dressed now in jeans and T-shirt, Sammie was using a pocket mirror and a purple haze over her hands to repair her damaged face. It took me a moment to figure it out, but that fact was belied by the healthy tan on her mended cheeks.

"You're kindred?" I said, though I guess it was more of a statement than a question.

"Andrei's childe," she told me with a sense of pride in her voice. "I guess now that means I truly am going to survive this."

"You're buying your life with mine?" I asked, the shock of her words throwing a wrench into my thinking.

"I just had to catch you," she told me, putting her pocket mirror away before facing me with a look of shame on her face. "After you ripped a pack apart on your own, Andrei got pissed. I managed to convince him that I could catch you if I was given a chance, and he accepted. If I failed, I was going to be tied out on the roof to get tanned."

"I'd say you were catching some rays with that skin tone," I snarked, though I had to wonder why she didn't try to escape.

Sammie blushed as she sat on the lounge chair next to me, then ran her hand over my face as more purple haze coated it. "It's the Tzimisci way," she said as I felt my skin change. "Us fledglings and neonates use our powers to make ourselves look pretty. We can do it for others as well, making us the plastic surgeons of the night."

"Gee, thanks," I groused as her hand moved down my neck. "Why didn't you try to escape?"

"I'm marked," she said, sighing as she used her free hand to lift her hair and show me what looked like a birthmark I hadn't seen before. "Andrei's Baali mage bitch can track me wherever I go and even target her spells to me at a distance. I set one foot outside their allowances and she'll blow me up!"

"Okay, fine," I said, relaxing into my metal restraints. "But why not send me a message?"

"I did," she said sheepishly. "I was the one who sent the shovelheads to kill the prince. I figured it was a good way to get him to send you after me."

"Oh," I said, lost for words as her own hit me. "Would you be willing to join me once I get free?"

"Sur..." she began to say when a big kindred guy holding a belt-fed automatic knocked her aside and laughed.

"You even try to break out, and we'll rip you to shreds no matter what this bitch or Andrei says."

"Oh gee, maybe I should write that down," I taunted him. My taunt seemed to attract the attention of the others who pushed Sammie back as they crowded around me.

"I'm going to love watching that Baali bitch rip you apart," another said. My eyes watched Sammie as she slunk even further back, as if she understood what was about to happen and knew to get clear.

"You first," I said then shifted to shadow. The moment my body disappeared every goon leveled his gun and fired, the bullets ripping the chair and room apart with their passage.

With all the bright flashes of light seeming to hide my current state, I moved to the darker ceiling and let the idiots blaze away for many seconds, my mind already going to the tactics I would use next. The moment their big guns went click on empty chambers, I reformed my body and dropped among them, and let all Hell break loose.

Forming two blades, I quickly began cutting arms free of their bodies so that no one could reload or fight back. I kept my shadow-blades flashing, seperating flesh and bone as fast as I could as the pack around me tried and failed to fight back.

It was only when the last of the pack fell to ash that I turned to Sammy again. She looked somewhat pleased as she stood in the corner with her arms crossed. She did give me a smile as I dissolved my blades, then pointed to a dark corner after I turned my head and began the search for my clothes.

"Your clothes are over there," she told me, and I rushed over to get dressed. "I'm sorry about your clothes, though. They were shredded."

"Dammit," I hissed as I took in the ruined rags my suit had become.

"Sorry," she said, wincing as I kicked at the pile. "They're not the best at finesse."

"Like a Mack truck," I said, remembering what Mercurio told me of the Sabbat packs.

"Yeah," she said, giving me a soft smile. "I can let you wear some of mine. It's not like I need them anymore."

"Going to come with me?" I asked her as I gathered my weapons, glad everything I carried had straps to hang off my shoulders or could be hung on or from my belt.

"Can you kill that Baali bitch?"

"Just dress me and point me at them," I said, wondering what exactly a Baali was. Some exotic form of Tremere?

"Follow me," she said then turned and led me through a door. The hallway beyond was empty and lit with oil lamps as Sammie continued to lead me. When she turned down a set of stairs, a kindred sitting by a lamp had me instictively bringing my gun up but Sammie grabbed my hand.

"Hey, Claw," she said conversationally. The kindred gave her a smile, then looked at me with a grimace. "It's okay. She's just worried about you hurting her."

The silent kindred acted like he chuckled, but no sound came from him. He seemed so...neutered...just sitting there. Admittedly I had never seen one that wasn't trying to kill me and finding one that seemed indifferent to me was a shock.

Still, since he wasn't trying to kill me and seemed to be friendly I let the sword dissolve back into shadow. He was, odd, to say the least as I watched him and Sammie converse back and forth. Not that Claw ever said anything, but he had a way of pantomiming that got his point across to her.

When we moved past him, I saw him tense briefly as I came abreast of him and he reached for a bat hidden behind him. I kept moving though, and since no attack ever came assumed that he was just concerned for his well being. After turning a corner and finding more Sabbat, I almost formed another set of blades when some punk walked up to us but Sammie intercepted him.

"What's up with the naked slut?" he asked Sammie rather brusquely.

"That slut is kindred and is the one the Archbishop was concerned about," Sammie spat back at him. "You will give her your respect or we won't question it if she rips your guts out."

That seemed to scare the thug who shrank away quickly from Sammie's stern stare, but it made me wonder where things actually sat in the Sabbat. Sammie didn't seem concerned with it though and just led me on deeper into the heart of the old motel. Several flights later and the thugs seemed to thin out, almost as if they were waiting on the upcoming raid.

"What's with everyone?" I asked her as we passed a group making a blockade by nailing every bit of wood possible into a wall.

"They're waiting on the Cammies to storm the place," Sammie said as she opened a door that was almost completely broken. "If it doesn't happen tonight, we might actually be prepared."

"Makes me want to burn it out from underneath them," I said as I walked into a dorm style room.

Several beds littered the place, some even devoid of mold. Sammie walked over to a sheet and pulled it back to a bar hung by ropes from the ceiling, revealing her clothes array. I set my guns aside as she pulled some clothes out, but my eyes were on the other end of the rack where Sammie had her leather.

"I was thinking denim," she said, showcasing me a pair of skinny jeans as I pulled out a pair of leather pants.

"Leather would last longer in a fight," I told her as I tried to slip them on. Unfortunately, they proved too tight and I couldn't get them fastened.

"Hold up," Sammie said, then began running her hands over my hips and thighs. That purple haze again covered her hands as she did so, and soon she had me slimmed down enough to fit the tight leather pants.

"Handy," I said looking at the tight leather.

"You've no idea," she said as she shook her head. "It'll last for several hours so you'll want to change clothes later."

"The changes aren't permanent?" I asked and she shook her head.

"Kindred regenerate their bodies," she said with a shrug. "As a human, your body wouldn't have the ability so any change I make would be permanent. Ghouls can heal as well, so eventually they'd return to normal, but it takes a powerful fleshcrafter to make the changes permanent. It's why they gave me my eyes and tongue back before I was turned."

"They..." I said, my eyes closing at the horror of the thought.

"We do it to all our dolls," she said in a soft voice. "If they can't see they can't run. No tongue means no screaming either."

"But," I started to say, but I couldn't bring myself to look Sammie in the eyes. I brought up a mental picture of her face before she was captured and was surprised I hadn't noticed it earlier.

"It's okay," she said, wrapping her arms around my bare chest. "I don't blame you. And you're here now to protect me."

"Thanks," I said, kissing her arm. "I've got a place protected by two Tremere mages and a hunter, plus my own childe."

"You have your own childe? How'd the prince agree to that?"

"By being the one to bring the Ankaran Sarcophagus in within the prince's deadline," I told her, feeling her tense at the mention of the ancient coffin. "What is it?"

"Do you know what's inside?" she asked, and I shook my head. "They say an ancient sleeps inside, waiting to take over the world again."

"What would the Sabbat do if they got their hands on the sarcophagus?"

"Diablerize him," she said to make me tense. "I know the Cammies have rules against it, but the Sabbat practice it like a religion. According to Andrei and his mage, if you do it while they're in torpor they have no chance of surviving. If you wait until they wake up, they can take you over."

"Is it worth the risk, though?"

"For one who's almost one of the originals?" she said, then shrugged. "It'd be hard to deny, that's for sure. If he's powerful enough, diablerizing him might even make my fleshcrafting permanent on kindred."

"So who gets to diablerize him in the Sabbat?" I asked her, wanting to understand how the Sabbat worked. "Is there a pecking order for that?"

"Just who gets there first," she informed me. "Pack leader usually gets first dibs, but since we all share blood, it strengthens our packs."

"You ghoul yourselves to each other?"

"In a way," she said. "It makes you loyal to your pack, and your pack loyal to you."

"And all the humans you keep around? What about them?"

"They know who we are and what we're capable of doing," she told me. "Like Doss upstairs. He knows I could screw him over as a kindred so he'll do what he's told. In the end though, he just wants to be kindred so he'll put up a good front to show he's in with the cause and not letting things happen like letting you in when no one knows who you are.

"I guess in the end he'll be another shovelhead, then it's up to him if he survives his first encounter," she continued. "After that, he joins a pack who will have him and then he gets status."

"Sounds like a vicious cycle," I told her.

"It is, made more vicious by the war we're in. Sabbat and Cammies don't get along and it just makes everything rougher. I figure it's gotta get better when the wars over, but we're down to this last bastion and I knew my only way out was to get you to find me."

"I still need clothes."

"Leather, right?" she asked me and I nodded. "Far end. I'd love to see that on you."

I moved to the far end to find a studded jacket, but when I pulled it out I was slightly disappointed. It was a bolero style jacket, the crop top of jackets, and was heavily studded with spike studs on the arms, shoulders and back. What really concerned me was the bolero style which on this particular jacket made it more like a leather bra with sleeves, as it would leave everything exposed below my chest.

"I know it's a bit revealing," Sammie consoled me, "but it's an awesome style, don't you think?"

"I'd look like a punk rock hooker," I told her dismally. "No one would take me serious."

"It's not like you're going to see the prince like this," she countered. "You're the knight in shining armor come to save the princess."

I sighed, knowing she was right. It was a badass look, to be sure, a fact made when she slipped it over my arms. Just the look of it in the stained mirror was enough to convince me of that and that was without it being fastened in the front. The leather was thick and the zipper sturdy, which as Sammie closed it up, became clear why.

It was tight.

"There," she said, as she took in the look. I was glad I didn't need to breathe, because I wasn't sure I could. "Now, all that's left is the mage."

"And Andrei," I told her as I moved to get my guns.

"You're wiping out the Sabbat?" she asked and I nodded as I put my belt back around my waist. "But Claw?"

"I can't say if he'll be spared," I told her, watching her face fall as she understood her friend was going to be killed. "I can't even say you'll be spared."

"So if I follow you back to the Prince they might execute me?" she said, and I slumped.

"I'm hoping that if I wipe out the last of the Sabbat he'll spare you," I told her.

"But if you join me in the Sabbat Andrei will spare you, I know," she told me. "I mean, my job was just to catch you, not kill you."

"Choices," I said, and she nodded as she opened a chest. She reached in and started setting out pairs of sneakers, finally pulling out a set of heeled boots that someone had adorned with spikes. "Who had the spike fetish?"

"Some chick that came through here," she said as she handed me the shoes. "Really batty."

"What happened to her?" I asked as I slipped the boots on.

"She become a shovelhead," she said as she waited. "I don't think she survived, but she left some clothes behind."

I nodded, lacing up the shiny black boots. Once I stood tall, Sammie gave me a questioning look as if to ask me which way I was leaning. I had to admit it was definitely question worth asking. In the Sabbat, Sammie and I would be truly accepted and able to converse with our parent clans and thereby learn our respective clan disciplines.

The only problem was that if I turned against the Camarilla now, I was sure to lose. Andrei and whomever this Baali mage was were about the only big guns in the Sabbat right now when the Camarilla had the sheriff, scourge, prince, Strauss and a bevy of Tremere mages and deputies. While I was sure I could best any one kindred, the possibility of facing multiple attackers at once was daunting.

My thinking only lead me to one conclusion and that was there was no way to take down the Camarilla in time. That meant that any betrayal on my part was going to be my downfall. My best option was to keep my plan in place of overthrowing the prince slowly but that didn't help Sammie in the here and now.

The only thing I could think of was to impress the impress by wiping out a majority of the Sabbat including Andrei and his mage along with their packs. To that end, I figured my best course was to pull my old trick and burn the building down around them. That would take down both human and kindred alike as they ran for the flames and remove any barriers between them and the deputies outside.

All that was left was the last two obstacles in my way and convincing Sammie to go along with it.

"We'd be fighting too much," I started but Sammie just nodded and held up her hand.

"Then you have to kill her before I can leave," she said as she moved to a wall and grabbed a shotgun. "She's the only one that can hit me with a spell by my mark, and she's got more than a few nasty surprises down by heart."

"As I said, point me in the right direction," I told Sammie as I joined her at the door.

"She's on the second floor," Sammie said as she opened the door. "The ground floor is essentially a garage, so they put the lobby on the second floor. She's made it her library."

"Got any bags?" I asked her with a smile. "I'll take her library with me."

"Sure," Sammie said with a smile of her own. "Just let me have access to it, okay?"

"And the one I've already built," I said, making her smile even wider. "I took that one from Celeste."

"And boy is she pissed about it," Sammie said as we reached the staircase and went down.

"Was," I corrected her. "I killed her."

"Then have I got a surprise for you," she said as we stepped out on what seemed liked the bottom floor. "Hey Celeste, we got company!"

'Oh, shit!' rang in my head as I made out the Tremere kindred's face from across the room. This might just have gotten a lot more difficult.

Author's Note: Hello, I am back with another chapter! Many apologies for this one taking so long to get this chapter out, but I've recently been in the hospital. It ended up not being what I thought it was, but when you're having chest pains, you don't fool with that. Still don't know what it was, but apparently my heart is as healthy as ever and will last me thirty more years. Not bad for a man weighing a quarter of a ton.

And yes, I am proud of it. 510 pounds and I still work five days a week for twelve to fourteen hours a day. What other heavy person can say that?