Author's Note: My life sucks. Fortunately, the only way it can go now is up unless I myself die. Yes, I said myself. My father, whom lived with me for years, passed away this past Saturday. I found him dead on the floor and called it in, but he was already gone.

Yes, I'm fine, but I can understand the concern. I've heard the phrase, "Are you alright?" so often this past week it's irritating. I've also heard the phrase "If there's anything I can do to help" just as often and I may have to lean on that a bit, but I doubt it.

Sorry, not trying to rant but it's bugging me.

I will continue to update and finish this story, so no worries, but if anything about this chapter seems off, now you know why.

Love ya, and please read and review any comments, concerns or grammatical corrections or just to leave your opinion. I respond to just about everything!

Chapter 59 – Dead, One More Time

October 9, 2004 = Saturday

~Eliza Flores~

"Well look-y what we have here," Celeste purred as she made her way closer. "I'm honestly torn between incinerating you where you stand and giving you a hug."

"Like I'd let you hug me," I said, cocking a hip. If she were talking, she wasn't trying to kill me, so that was a good thing. "I'd be afraid you'd stake me."

"Yes, but you reported my death to the Cammies," she responded. "It's made them stop looking for me."

"Yeah, about that," I said, curious as to how she had made a duplicate of herself. "How did you do that little trick? Some rare Tremere spell?"

"I didn't do it at all," she said as she came to a stop ten feet away. "My being resired as a Baali requires me to be...reborn. It's the only way to shed my old curses. What's left is a shell that still thinks its me."

"I guess it's usually killed," I said and she nodded.

"It was meant to die when they Cammies raided," she said, then shrugged. "Problem is, sometimes a deputy kills someone they don't recognize and then the file is never closed. Since you reported me dead, I can now start over without the Tremere gunning for me."

"I guess that means you have the perfect memory now?" I asked and she nodded.

"Too bad I lost my library while I was being remade," she said bitterly. "I'd love the chance to reread all my spells without the fear of forgetting them. "Probably turned back over to the Tremere now."

"They're under the watchful gaze of my ghoul," I told her and her jaw dropped. "Have to say, you do keep detailed books."

"The spell for the plague," she asked getting really close to me. "Did you read it?"

"Yes," I said, noting she was so close now I was almost able to grab hold of her. "What's it to you?"

"Everything," she said, turning aside to walk slowly away. "When I was remade, it was under the premise I could provide them with what they wanted. A plague capable of wiping out kine and kindred alike, creating an ever increasing army with each night, and utterly destroying modern society."

"Why destroy modern society?"

"Some sects of the Baali want to return the world to the darkness," she told me, but when she turned to face me she just shook her head. "You wouldn't understand. Too young and foolish."

"Not foolish enough to throw out your spell books," I said and she snapped around. "Of course, I'd been dying to get my hands on Tremere knowledge."

"What would you want for that spell?"

"I don't guess you'd be interested in betraying the Sabbat?" I said to make her laugh.

"I'm only here because I was hunted by the Cammies," she said bitterly. "Ideally, I would have kept my cover with the Tremere but it was the loss of my spell that's been the worst. My embrace and acceptance was contingent on that."

"So, I'll take that as a yes," I said and she nodded.

"I guess that means you're leaving as well?" Celeste asked Sammie.

"Yes," was all she said.

"Do yourself a favor," she said as she went to a nearby table. "Diablerize Andrei before you go to the prince."

"But that'd get her killed," I protested.

"You gotta learn the politics," she countered. "Prince accepts someone from the Sabbat, everything they've done before that gets pardoned. She could diablerize us all and it would be forgiven if the prince accepts her."

"That's good to know," she said, then gave me a raised eyebrow as Celeste brought me pen and paper.

"Write it out," Celeste said. "Then I'm gone."

"Okay," I said as I began writing out the spell. Celeste inched closer as I wrote, but my mind was racing. Did I really want to give her the means to destroy the world?

With a mental shake of my head I made a decision. With Celeste looking over my right shoulder, and the pen in my hand as I wrote, I lowered my left to below the table. There I formed a large shadow-blade in my hand and waited. Once Celeste was in a position to be called 'breathing in my ear,' I spun with blade in hand and plunged deep into Celeste's gut.

The look of betrayal and shock that crossed Celeste's face was satisfying even as I used my potence to rip it out her side. The moment I began to shift the blade from hand to hand my muscles began to convulse and then I was throne across the room. Lightning lanced around Celeste and where she clutched at her side, and she stared hatefully at me.

"Bitch!" she screached as I regained my feet.

"Takes one to know one," I spat back. She raised her hand to throw another bolt and I shadow-stepped behind her. I raised my blade to cut her hand clear off her head when the lightning that danced around her found me and zapped me back into the wall.

"Gotta love elemental magic," Celeste said lovingly as she caressed a lance of arcing energy. "You can also do this," she said, as the arc of energy became a tongue flame. Thankfully it died a quick death, but it was with a sense of dread I found my feet.

Celeste summoned a large fireball and made to throw it at me. Panic filled me as I took in the flames that danced around her. I activated my celerity as Celeste released her fireball, pulling a chakram from the shadows and threw it at her. I then dove for cover as my shadow-made chakram cut through the fireball to find its target. The fireball blew up somewhere behind me, but as I got to a knee, found that my chakram had found its target in Celeste's chest.

With the shock of the chakram hitting her, Celeste had lost her fiery protection as it faded away. I didn't give her a moment to recover as I shadow-stepped again this time to the spot directly in front of her as I tackled the former Tremere. We struggled briefly for a moment as I brought my potence to bear to pin her arms down, but soon I had the woman pinned.

"So you think you're going to take us down?" she hissed at me as her eyes began to glow with a purplish red haze. "Think you're going to go to heaven? You're a cursed soul going to hell. Forcing your ghouls into sex, allowing them to rape the innocent so you can profit, I can see it all. The blood on your hands, poor Tom Cullen flinching every time he saw you because you are a monster."

"I'm no monster," I responded, but she just smiled. "But I am hungry."

That response made her go wide-eyed as I leaned and bit her neck. She tried to struggle as I fed, and I felt something warm wash over my skin as her blood thinned out to nothing. When I did finally pull back, she stared unseeing at the ceiling.

"Is she?" Sammie asked, but I shook my head.

"I didn't take the last of it," I told her. "But, to keep her from coming back," I said then made a butcher's cleaver from the shadows. I raised the blade high over my head, then sank it into her neck with a thunk. The result was immediate as Celeste's body disintegrated into ash underneath me.

I let my shadows fade as I regained my feet, but it was only as I stood that I noticed Sammie's smile. She must've noticed my curious stare, as she blanched a bit.

"I'm finally free," she said, almost in a sigh. "You have no idea what it's like to live here. I'll be glad to get rid of this place."

"Well," I said as I moved to the nearest bookcase, "Let's grab her spellbooks and scram. I've got one last kindred to kill before we flush the rats."

"My sire," Sammy said as she followed me. "You think I can get away with diablerizing him?"

"I don't know," I said as I scanned the volumes she had. Most didn't seem to be spellbooks, but texts about different topics including some schoolbooks like physics and history. "I know you don't want the person you're feeding from possessing you."

"You fed from someone?"

"No," I said, momentarily reliving the night I was taken over by Lasombra. "He was our clan antediluvian. I guess you could say I drank his blood when I was sired."

"Is he still in you?"

"No," I said, glad for the spell that Strauss and Eloise had used to expel the antediluvian. "He was sent back to the shadows, but that doesn't mean he can't escape again. I personally wouldn't recommend it."

"But that was your clan founder?" she asked and I nodded. "Well, according to the Sabbat they're all evil, but for a clan that regularly tortures its victims into insanity to call someone evil, that's saying a lot."

"You mean all those people we passed?" I asked her and Sammy hung her head.

"I've done a lot I'm not proud of," she said when she finally looked up. "Taking a person's eyes and tongue was the first thing I was made to do."

"First thing?" I asked and she nodded.

"Before I was even allowed to feed," she told me. "They love pain here, both causing and taking it. Anyone not getting on the pain wagon is first up for leading the shovelheads into battle, so I figured if I were going to hang around long enough for you to find me I'd best do what I had to to survive."

"Are there any packs out right now?" I asked her and she nodded.

"Some kindred named Riviere," she asked as I found several spellbooks on a shelf after leafing through several leather bound tomes. The name brought me up as she continued on, and a spike of fear went down my spine. "They left just before sundown, with a couple of kindred to make some shovelheads. It works best if they're fresh when they hit, means they'll frenzy easier."

"Michele Riviere?" I asked her when she stopped talking and she nodded. "How many?" I asked her and she hung her head.

"Three kindred and maybe a group of ten," she said then grimaced. "More than enough to take on a single kindred."

I pulled my phone and called Walsh, the phone ringing only twice before Walsh picked it up.

"Walsh," he said simply after answering his phone.

"Alert Primogen Riviere she's about to be hit by a Sabbat pack," I told him quickly.

"Hold," was all he said before I heard a thud and then a phone being lifted from it's cradle. The tones I heard were so quickly tapped out I could tell the scourge was in a hurry, but after several long moments could hear the scourge cursing the Sabbat for all it was worth.

It was several minutes and two more tries later before Walsh picked up the phone I was connected to. "Miss Flores, I've been unable to reach Miss Riviere. It would appear the Sabbat has already hit."

"Damn," I added.

"And I can't spare any deputies as we are preparing for a mass assault on the Hollowbrook Hotel."

"How about your ghoul, Rochelle?" I asked him. "Just send her by to report what's going on and maybe stop a masquerade breach before it starts."

"I like your thinking," he said, then chuckled. "Very well. I'll send her immediately. If you don't mind me asking, how did you come by this information?"

"I'm about fifty feet from Andrei at this very moment in the heart of the Hollowbrook Hotel."

"Really?" he said in disbelief.

"I have a friend in here that I wanted to save and I'll take her to the prince when I'm done." I told him. "I couldn't risk her being killed because of what the Sabbat did to her."

"That I can understand," he told me. "Am I to understand that you are about to assassinate their leader and start holy hell in their ranks?"

"You know me to well," I said with a smile. "I'm going to burn this place down with them in it."

"My deputies are mostly in place," he said absently. "If you start a fire and they run we should be able to round them up with no problem."

"Then let's get the party started," I told the scourge. "I'll handle Andrei personally then be right out."

"So be it," Walsh said as he hung up. I put the phone back in my pocket, and turned to Sammie.

"Everything is setup outside," I told her and she nodded. "It appears that Michele has been attacked already, but there's no indication of who won. Can the kindred you sent keep the Sabbat going?"

"I doubt they'd know how to be a threat on their own," she said, then shrugged. "Our biggest advantage is to hit hard and fast, then retreat. The leaders plan the hit and find the targets, most people are just shock troops."

"So, if they did win, they'd come back here to be caught," I asked her and she nodded.

"They're idiots that way."

"Then they can die by their own stupidity," I said, as I pulled out a tome. "Let's get this bagged and stake out Andrei. The sooner the better.

Sammie pulled a bag from behind a couch and handed it to me and we began to put them all in the bag. There weren't many too pickup, but it was the last one on the shelf that caught my eye. The spine read the 'Book of Nod' but the pages were yellowed with age and many of the pages inside seemed to be loose and added later, almost like a college student studying an old book.

"Do you recognize this one?" I asked Sammie as I leafed through the book.

"It was Andrei's," Sammie told me as she looked at it. "Apparently it's rare to have a copy."

I nodded in acceptance of her answer, and deciding it was probably worth a read put it in the bag with the spellbooks. That done, Sammie closed the bag up and slung it over her shoulder, then pointed to a set of stairs.

"Andrei's down there," she told me. "We've barricaded the entrances so the only way in was through the roof."

"A kindred with potence can't break through?" I asked and she shook her head.

"Hundreds of people with guns and flamethrowers around the building ready to incinerate or kill anyone who gets close," she told me.

"That'd do it," I said, then looked at a ruin of a couch. "Got a match?"

Sammie's face grew a big smile as she looked to a nearby barrel. "How about a burning stick?"