Wednesday, 5 November 1800. 4:57 a.m.
Home
Michaela crashed through the trees, caring nothing for stealth. She came to a stumbling halt in the clearing.
The house was still standing! That in itself was a relief. And no one was there. At least, not that she could see. What if they hadn't come at all?
Unwilling to believe that, though, Mika crept around the side of the house and peered in through the tall, curtainless, and now broken windows of the sitting room.
They had definitely been here. Not only was the window smashed, but the room was in shambles. Someone, or multiple someones, had obviously torn apart anything that could have been possible to hid in, around, or under.
As if they would have hid. Michaela couldn't think of a single person in the group who wouldn't have met any assault head on. Well, except maybe the Toreador. But everyone else would have gone to the mat to defend this place, just on general principle.
She backed up a pace and leapt through the hole in the window, managing to avoid knocking out any of the shattered glass. For all she knew, the invaders might still be here. The fact that it was less than two hours until dawn was of little import. Didn't they have safe rooms upstairs?
She crept through the wrecked furniture with all the stealth of the wolf she was. Moments of intense listening and smelling told her that no one was in the front hall either. She slipped out the door and, sticking close to the wall, made her way to the staircase.
Whoever had done this certainly hadn't been kidding around. The banister was destroyed, splintered in about fifteen places. Peering through the broken oak, Mika could see the door to the kitchen torn off its hinges, and in the doorway.....blood? She instantly ducked into a hunting crouch.
She slinked towards the door, expecting to see a body of some sort. Instead, she could see nothing but puddled blood and broken glass. Then it hit her.
The food.
Of course they had destroyed it. The deserted house gave the impression that the group had fled, but just to make sure they wouldn't be able to return, the invaders had destroyed their sustenance.
Mika hoped everyone had taken the opportunity to feed in Geneva.
Walking to the foot of the stairs, she listened intently to any sound the house might make. Her nose carefully tested the air, checking for anything that didn't belong. There were smells, alright. But they had not been fresh for over an hour. There was no one here. Even if they were upstairs, she would be able to smell them by now.
She was too late to kill them.
That last let down, the assurance that she would not have her kill tonight, made the adrenaline drain from Michaela's body, and only then did she realize how weak she was. She hadn't lied when she said she could run a whole night without stopping. But that didn't mean the effort didn't take a lot out of her. She gripped the remains of the banister for support. She should have fed more in the city. But there was no point of thinking that way. What she should have done was immaterial, she hadn't done it, and now she was paying for it.
She lurched toward the door of the kitchen. The blood on the floor hadn't dried yet; it seemed the kitchen had been the last thing the invaders ransacked. She collapsed to her knees and then to her stomach. She brushed the fragments of glass out of the way and lapped the spilled blood up from the stone floor.
Before she had drank enough to even give her the strength to get up, the sound of the creaking door made her ears perk up. She didn't dare turn around to see who had come in. Damn it, she was in plain view! Best to just lie here. People never expected much from someone lying in a pool of blood.
She heard a light gasp and realized she had been noticed. Then the smell of the newcomer reached her over the scent of blood around her. The Assamite.
"They're gone." She said, before going back to drinking up the blood from the floor.
Sharma jumped. She had thought the Gangrel was dead or fatally wounded. What was all that blood? She stepped closer and saw the glass fragments. Then she realized what the wolf girl must be doing. Sharma couldn't blame her. It was a long distance to run.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
Michaela lifted her head from the liquid. "Yes. Their scent is dull. They've been gone for a while."
The Assamite relaxed a bit. "The Tzimisce and the Ravnos were following me, but I don't know if they'll make it before morning."
Michaela picked herself up into a sitting position. "Want some?" she indicated the spilled blood.
Sharma stared. "Thank you, but I fed quite adequately in the city." As if she was going to lick blood up off the floor even if she hadn't.
The Gangrel shrugged and got up. Her fur was still dripping with the blood she had fallen in. "You came in through the front door." she observed.
"I prefer to meet potential foes head on." was the Assamite's only reply.
Michaela shrugged once more. It still seemed sloppy.
At the sound of hoofbeats, Michaela moved towards the still open door. It might have been the enemy returning. More likely, it was either Carid or Sugar.
It was Carid. The first thing the Tzimisce saw was that the house was still standing. The second thing was Michaela standing in the doorway half soaked in blood.
"Don't tell me I missed all the fun." she looked disappointed.
"Yeah, you did." Michaela told her. "But so did I."
"Then what happened to you?"
"Nothing."
"Then why.....oh, never mind." the Tzimisce swung off her horse and tossed its reins over the railing of the porch. She didn't seem concerned about it running off this time. And with good reason. The animal looked like it was about to die. She must have ridden him full gallop all the way up here.
Michaela turned and went back in the house, Carid right behind her. Sharma emerged from the sitting room a moment later.
The three of them stood there staring at each other for a solid minute.
"Well, this is awfully fun," Carid finally spoke up. "But does anyone maybe have any ideas about what the hell happened here?! Or even better, what we're going to do now? It's nearly dawn."
Sharma took a deep breath. "We'll just stay in our rooms for today. Tomorrow night we'll decide what happened. After we've all rested."
"Great idea." a new voice came form behind them. All three turned to see Sugar Kelly standing in the doorway.
"Nice to see you made it, Ravnos." Micaela greeted her.
"Thanks!" she smiled. "Oh, but about the rooms thing. Have you guys looked at the top of the stairs? What do you think those are?"
The three looked up in the direction she was pointing: the top step of the staircase. And they all saw the pile of torn black cloth spread out on it.
"The curtains..." Carid moaned, covering her face with one hand.
Sharma muttered some curse in Hindustani.
"Well, it makes sense...." Michaela sighed. "Why would they destroy the downstairs and our food supply and not destroy our safe rooms?" she shrugged. "I think I'm the only one who isn't in trouble right now."
The other three glared at her.
"Well, maybe if we found one that wasn't totally destroyed and got it up before dawn, we could all just bunk together." Sugar suggested. "Except for the wolf girl. She can sleep in the yard."
"Somehow, I don't think they were considerate enough to leave us one perfectly sized for the windows." Carid frowned.
"Well, do you have any better ideas?"
"Not really." The Tzimisce admitted. "But we haven't got a lot of time. We should probably look for some other kind of shelter."
"Tell you what." Sugar said. "I'll go look for a decent sized curtain and you guys go try to find a few small dark places."
"Okay."
The four Cainites separated and went about their tasks. Sugar hurried up the stairs and began examining curtains, Sharma went back into the sitting room, Carid went past Sugar to try to find some prospects upstairs, and Michaela waded through the puddles of blood in the kitchen to look in there. Even though she wasn't going to need shelter, it wouldn't kill her to help.
Half an hour later, search efforts had proved fruitless and three out of four vampires were getting very worried.
"Maybe we should try outside..." Sugar suggested after kicking the pile of ribboned black cloth down the stairs. "There might be some caves nearby or something...."
"We'd never find one before daybreak." Sharma said tensely. "I hope your Fortitude is viable."
"Under the beds." Carid announced. "We hang some cloth over the ends of the beds and hide under there."
Sharma and Sugar looked at each other.
"Any better ideas?"
"Not really."
"Bring the cloth up here, will you?"
Sharma didn't even bother to protest in defense of her dignity. She scooped up the pile of curtains and began to go up the stairs to the others when...
*CRASH*
All three of them jumped at the noise from the kitchen. They exchanged a glance then ran in to see what the hell had happened now.
"Gangrel?" Sharma called. "What have you done?"
"Note...to self." the Gangrel's voice said from places unknown. "Blood covered flooring is....quite slippery."
"Are you okay?" Sugar almost laughed.
"Where ARE you?" Carid called, though she didn't really feel they had time to be looking for her.
"In the wall." Michaela said simply.
Sugar circled around Sharma and looked behind the semi-intact kitchen table.
Indeed, the Gangrel was in the wall. Her legs and lower body were sticking out of it, in fact.
"What on God's green earth did you do?"
"I think I found your hiding place." Michaela sat up grinning. "There's a staircase back here."
"WHAT?!" the three others crowded around her.
She pulled herself up from the broken wall. "It might have been nice to tell us about the secret haven...." she muttered. "Well, there you go." She kicked some of the splintered wood out of the way to reveal an unsafe looking staircase leading down into the darkness. "I'm going outside." With that, she hopped over the table and trotted out the back door.
Sugar, Sharma, and Carid stared at each other for a moment.
"Should we go down?"
"Do we have a choice?"
"Does anyone have a candle?"
After a bit of debating, they decided to just get out of the sun before they were incinerated and worry about what the newfound emergency haven looked like tomorrow night.