Tuesday, 4 November 1800. 11:02 p.m.
Factory basement
"So would someone like to tell me what the hell was so important that Queen Pederston went looking for us HERSELF?!" Sugar demanded of the general assembly, which by now was everyone but Courtney and Carleigh.
"I don't know! How should I know?!" Cathy snapped, assuming the question to be directed at her. "She just comes riding through the city like a maniac and tells us all to come back here!"
"She threw away our gas bomb!" Mei sobbed from the corner. "We were gonna kill people and take all their money!!!" Maria patted her shoulder consolingly.
"Don't worry, Mei." She said. "We can destroy them after we hear what Carleigh has to say."
The little Cappadocian still sniffled a bit, but she seemed to be partially consoled.
Ben was busy checking his clothes, particularly the ones that had been dropped. Through some amazing miracle, none of them had been damaged.
"Where are those damn ghouls of hers?!" Sugar paced angrily. "They must know!" She ran up the basement stairs to find the ghouls.
But just before she reached the doorknob, it swung open to reveal Courtney, herded in by a very annoyed Carleigh. Sugar jumped out of the way.
"Could you possibly have been a little further from our base?!" Carleigh gasped angrily, clearly still out of breath from riding and yelling.
"How was I supposed to know you'd come looking for me?!" the Lasombra exclaimed indignantly, "And if you'll forgive me for saying so, this wreck of a place isn't much of a BASE!"
"No I will not forgive you for saying that, but that's besides the point!" Carleigh raged. "We have much more serious things to worry about right now." she stepped to the center of the room, and as always, to the center of attention.
Carleigh pulled a sheet of paper out of her pocket and held it up. "This is a message from the council. It was addressed-" she looked pointedly at Sugar at that word- "to the ghouls in charge of this factory."
That caused a bit of a stir. Why would the council have sent something important to a bunch of Ventrue ghouls?
Carleigh paused, not for dramatic effect but for trying to find the words to summarize the message. "It says....they wrote to the ghouls to tell them to try to warn us."
Everyone was paying more attention to Carleigh at this point than ever before. Not even Sugar or Carid had a snide remark to make; the Ventrue had never sounded so serious.
Carleigh took a deep breath and continued. "The council has been disbanded. This message was sent even as they fled their haven." she swallowed hard. "They write that the tide has turned against them. Those who branded this mission as a conspiracy have won a following...the messenger who brought this believes that the council members have been destroyed....we're not sure by who exactly. But whoever they are, they want to destroy this whole operation...and anyone involved in it."
"Oh my god..." Ben choked. "They've-they've called hunt on us?!"
"No." Carleigh said quickly. "I don't think so. There's no hunt. But the clans have turned against us. The letter says they expect them to attack the house where we were staying--" she was cut off by Sharma and Michaela nearly colliding with each other as they shot out the back door into the street.
Most of the assembly stood there stunned for a minute, then Carid and Sugar bolted out on the heels of the Gangrel and the Assamite.
"No, wait!" Seldes shouted in vain.
"Where are you going?!" Maria shouted after them.
"Where do you think they're going?!" Sobek spat. "Back to the house!"
"NO!" Carleigh ran out into the street after them, nearly tripping over Michaela's discarded shirt and boots. The Gangrel was already disappearing into the distance, running faster than anything Carleigh had seen. But the others were still untying their horses.
"Stop!" she yelled, grabbing the bridle of Carid's horse just as the Tzimisce was jumping onto it.
"Let me go!" Carid jerked the horse out of her grasp.
"Are you crazy?! You can't possibly fight them!" the Ventrue screamed desperately as Sharma swept past her after Michaela. "They're ready for you! For all of us! They'll kill you if they find you!"
"Thanks so much for your concern!" Carid sneered, spurring her horse to full gallop.
Sugar and Jack were right behind her, and in a matter of seconds, all four had disappeared into the night.
"And you'll lead them straight to the rest of us, you bastards!" Carleigh screamed after them.
"Carleigh, take it easy." the Ventrue felt a cool hand on her shoulder. Amy patted her arm consolingly. "Even at that speed, there's no way they'll get there in less than six hours. Remember, it took us a whole night to make this journey. According to the letter, the council was afraid it was already to late for us when they SENT the message. Those four won't make it there in time to finish or start anything."
"But what happens even if there's no one there when they arrive?" Seldes asked. "What if the house was burned down? I mean, Michaela will be fine, but where are the rest of them going to stay for the day?"
"Maybe they'll have some sense and stop at a town for the day..." Maria suggested tentatively.
"Oh, yeah RIGHT." Sobek snorted. "A Gangrel, a Tzimisce, a Ravnos, and an Assamite. How much common sense could they possibly have between all four of them?"
"That's not very nice." Ben chided him.
"NICE?!"
"Okay, okay everyone!" Amy silenced them. "Let's stop disturbing the peace and get back inside. We can't do anything about those four now."
Slowly the group filed back into the basement and settled back down. Most of them were stunned, unable to comprehend the idea of their own clans turning against them.
Seldes picked up the letter from where Carleigh had dropped it in the dust. He read it in silence for a few moments.
"So what's it say? Besides that we've all been branded as traitors." Courtney called.
"We...haven't really been called traitors....have we?" Ben looked around for some sort of reassurance.
Seldes sighed and began to read the letter aloud. "We know not why, but the tide of the clans has turned against us. Those who would accuse us of trying to hold dictatorial power over all clans have won a following. Some clans call us traitors, others call us conspirators, still others call us dangerous madmen. But for whatever reason, we have reason to believe that each of the participating clans has withdrawn their support of our venture. We fear that their unprecedented outrage is so great that those who have been assigned to this mission will not be accepted back into the folds of their people--" at this line, Seldes himself felt his legs grow weak. Not accepted back into his clan? It couldn't be.....it wasn't possible. He couldn't continue for a few minutes.
No one else was feeling too strong at this point either. Anyone who had been standing a moment ago was now sitting, too stunned to believe what they had heard. Seldes thought he heard Ben quietly crying in the corner. He didn't blame him.
Finally, he found the strength to continue. "Though there may be some that still support us, they have not risen to aid us against those who do not. We beg you to try to reach representatives and hurry them to evacuate. They cannot hope to fight the force that is converging upon them. Find them and warn them, though we fear it may already be too late." he lowered the piece of paper. "That's all there is."
After a long pause, Carleigh spoke. "What are we going to do?"
"I thought you were the leader." Courtney said with surprisingly little malice.
"Leave her alone." Maria snapped at the Lasombra. "Or are you saying you need a leader?"
"And you don't?" Courtney glared at her. "What the hell are we supposed to do now, anyway?! Our clans have rejected us, we're inches away from a blood hunt..."
"But there is no hunt." Seldes interjected. "They didn't call one. That means they must not have had the support of all the clans." everyone stared at him. "oh, come on! You all know that to call bloodhunt on two members of separate clans, you need the consent of the eldest elder in both clans. So, by extension, they would have had to have the consent of all the elders of all our clans to call a hunt."
"And because they didn't call a hunt, it means they didn't have the permission of all the elders!" Cathy summarized.
Seldes nodded.
Courtney frowned. This was too much like that single moment of hope before you were dragged screaming back into the shadows. She never thought she'd be on the receiving end of her favorite game.
Sobek glared at all of them. "Oh sure. Be happy now. The elders didn't order our deaths. So what? Do you think that means they're now going to protect us? And tempt the force of whoever these people are? Are you all of such importance in your clans that you think the your superiors will stick their necks out for you?!" he waited, relishing the lack of response and the disappearance of hope from the others' faces. "They didn't call hunt because a hunt would take time and energy. They don't care if we're alive or dead. One or two or fourteen lives matter nothing."
Even Seldes couldn't come up with a hopeful response to that.
"So...what do we do?" Mei asked.
No one made an answer.
The entire group sat in a cold silence for a several minutes. No one knew what to do, say, or even think.
The silence was suddenly broken by the sound of laughter lilting through the air outside.
"Hey, Carleigh?"
"Yeah?"
"When you were doing your Paul Revere imitation, did you manage to find Alectz?"
The Ventrue paused. "Oops. Forgot about her."
"Oh, that's nice, Carleigh!"
The nine remaining members ran outside to find out where Alectz was and what she was laughing about. The Malkavian was perched on top of the roof of a boarding house across the street from the factory.
"Alectz!" Mei called. "What are you doing up there?!"
The Malkavian just laughed some more.
Mei stamped her foot. "Alectz! Come down here!"
Alectz threw her head back. "Do you hear it?! It's coming faster now! Won't be long!" she cackled again. "Don't you see it?!" she pointed in the direction Michaela and the others had taken off in. "The light! It'll be here soon! I sure hope our mushroom is enough to hide us from it!" her light cackle erupted into a maniacal explosion of laughter. "Will they make it? Will they live? But none of us live, do we?! The oak is asking the birch how to live! But the birch doesn't know! It doesn't know! BWAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!"