After the warehouse job, Marek made it back to the apartment and relaxed the rest of the night. Finally the night turned to day and Marek spent that time up in his bedroom in a state of comatose, waiting for the night to come. Finally, when the sun set, he awoke and checked his computer for new e-mails. There were two new messages in the inbox, one from the same person he received one from the first night, and another from Lodin. He figured he would open the one from Lodin first, because he wasn't up for trying to solve a riddle this morning.
Lodin's message said, "Good job with the warehouse. The Nosferatu are monitoring the information the bug is giving us now, and it is all in good hands. Not bad for a first job. As a token of appreciation, there is a small sum left in your mailbox for you. But that job is in the past, and I have another one for you. This one will undoubtedly require a little more, brute force, shall we say.
There is a meeting in a small house down in the slums of the city. The meeting is actually for some of the most important and well known hunters in our city. I suggest you visit Mercurio to pick up some supplies for this, or at least practice your disciplines first. Your objective at the house is a hunter named Bach, who is the head of their operations in this city. They don't know much about us, but they do know how to kill and torture us, which is enough for them to know. With them out of the way, it will be a little easier to operate within the city without their intervention. –Lodin"
The second message was titled with another cryptic message, entitled 'The Sacrificial Lamb'. The message however was a little longer than the other one that he received from this person. The message said, "Oh what tangled webs we weave, so in order to deceive. The shepherd sends its lambs to the slaughter, and the pawn will be sacrificed. If the lamb survives, we may speak face to face." This message intrigued him, because the message undoubtedly talked about him, but why would Lodin do what the message implies. He figured that he could get some answers when they would meet after this hunter job.
Once again, he put on his trench coat and this time loaded up on all the weapons he had. He holstered both colts and carried all the ammunition that he had for them, ten clips total. He also had the katana that was given to him strapped onto his back with the handle up so he could easily reach it. Finally, he put the shades on and completed the image. He then went down to the mailbox to collect what was left there for him, and found the address of the house and an envelope containing two hundred dollars. He also figured that he had all the supplies that he needed for the assault, so going to Mercurio's for ammunition was unneeded.
He didn't want any stupid questions from cab drivers or people on other public transportation, so Marek decided that the best way to get there was to walk along the back alleys. He was in New York, but any muggers there would get a big surprise if they decided to fuck with him. He traveled the alleyways for about five miles until he reached the slums of this part of the city. All of the houses here were little two story shacks that were terribly run down. Quickly and quietly he walked down the sidewalks until he spotted his target house.
It was not hard to notice, because there were some pretty high end cars sitting outside of it, and they are just way too out of place for this neighborhood. Also there were several guards outside of the house, and from what he could tell a few of them had automatic weapons. Overall, he had little chance of getting in there without being shot, let alone getting by without being noticed.
Slowly Marek moved forward toward the house, hiding behind cars, garbage cans, whatever he could find. He was about ten yards from the outside guards, and he as trying to hear their conversation. Peering up from the car he was behind, he could see only two sentries standing outside now, the other ones must have gone inside to hear the meeting. They weren't saying much, just standing around, and one of them turned around to light a cigarette. He figured that was his chance, and he quickly snuck up on the other guy and snapped his neck, instantly killing him. The other guy turned around and before he could say a word Marek drew his katana and cut the guy in half.
Now that he was able to move freely outside, Marek gathered his thoughts and tried to find the best plan of attack. He figured that the actual target would be up on the top floor, but getting there from the bottom up would be packed with the other hunters in the building. Somehow climbing up there would be almost impossible, since there was nothing to get a grip onto if he tried to climb. The only option was to hack his way up, so he had to be at the top of his game. Marek walked up the steps and stood right in front of the doorway. He reached in his coat and readied both of his colts, preparing the assault.
Holding both guns out, he kicked the door down and saw four men standing in the entryway, and they stared at him with complete surprise. Quickly he fired a bullet into the head of each one, killing them all. The commotion caused others in the house to stir, and so four more came after him from the room to his right. Again he didn't give them time to fire their weapons as he fired rapidly at them, killing them all, but he also finished the clips. He dropped the guns on the floor and drew his sword, anticipating the fun to really begin. He checked each room on the bottom floor, and found no one else, so the rest of the hunters here were upstairs at the meeting. It must have been loud enough to drown out the noise of the guns.
He quietly walked up the stairway, holding his sword at the ready, and came to the top finding no one there. There were three doors here, one to each side and another in front of him. First door he went to was right in front of him, and he found two hunters laying there sleeping. Not wanting to cause more commotion, he quietly killed both by snapping their necks in their sleep. Next he went over to the door that was on his right at the top and found five guys standing there, leaning over a table. One of them saw him at the entrance and raised the alarm.
They went to pull their guns, but Marek was already on the move. The whole world seemed to go slower as he used his Celerity to move faster than they could move. He dispatched the hunter closest to him, and then cut down the one next to him, leaving three. Even at his speed, they had their guns pointed at him and were just starting to fire. Marek could see the bullets coming at him, and he moved as fast as he could to avoid being hit. One of the bullets just grazed his back, but he hardly felt the wound at all.
Going over to those three against the wall, he quickly started to hack and slash the three of them. When he was done, they were on the floor, some of them missing various limbs and body parts. He looked at himself and saw he had been hit twice more, but the wounds felt insignificant. He picked up one of the dead hunters guns and holstered his sword again. The gun he picked up was a 9mm pistol, and it would be good enough to finish the job. He checked the magazine and found a full clip of seven bullets, so he figured that would be enough.
He pressed his ear against the last door and he could barley hear the men talking in there, so he thought they weren't fully aware of what had been going on in there. With the pistol drawn, he kicked the door down and saw eight people standing in the room. One more than the number of bullets he had. He would have to save Bach for last. Quickly he fired and killed the three closest to him with three bullets, and then they began to fire back. Marek just stood there calmly and took out the other four with the remaining bullets in his gun. At last the only two in the room were Bach and himself, and Back stood there with his gun drawn, pointed right at Marek's head.
"Go ahead, shoot me. You've seen what happens. It's just a waste of a bullet old man."
"I will send your damned soul back to the lake of fire where you will burn for eternity!"
"Whatever old man," Marek said as he dropped the pistol. As his gun hit the floor Bach raised his and shot Marek in the side of the head. Marek staggered from the force of the bullet, but he remained standing. "Damnit that fucking hurt you crazy bastard. I think that it is time to die old man." Marek drew his sword and walked up to Bach. Bach just stood there, glaring into Marek's eyes with nothing but pure hatred, even as he ran the katana through him.
Marek pulled out the sword from Bach and let the old man fall to the ground. He wiped off the blade on Bach's clothes, and sheathed his sword. Then Marek calmly walked down the stairs and grabbed the guns that he dropped down there. He holstered the guns and walked out the door.
By the time he got to his apartment again, his wounds had all but healed again. That task was easier than he anticipated, but at least it had been somewhat of a challenge. He was starting to get used to the role he had filled as an errand boy, but he could think of it as even being an assassin for the prince. Marek took the elevator up to his apartment and took off the trench coat and put his weapons away. There was still a few hours left in the night, and he figured he would see if he got another message from that strange contact of his.
Sure enough there was a message in his inbox, saying 'Meeting our demons'. Not a bad title since it was almost fitting for someone in his position. The message only contained one line, "Let us gather at our last round, when the demons come out tomorrow." He found the message in itself clever, since he could actually decipher its meaning. The contact of his wanted him to meet tomorrow at sundown at the bar named "The Last Round" which was only two blocks from his apartment. The only odd thing was how he had found out about his success at his previous job, but in this world, news could travel quickly he has found out.
Unfortunately, whoever it was wanted to meet tomorrow, so he would have to rest for the rest of the night and then find out what this person wanted. The suspense was killing him, so to say. With the night all but gone, Marek walked over to his room and lay on his bed for the rest of the night and through the morning.
The next night, Marek was kind of excited to find out who this person was that was playing these childish games and talking in riddles. Once again, he put on the trench coat and only brought his sword with him. He doubted if anyone would try to kill him in a public place, but it was best to have some form of defense with him. You never know what is out there.
He made his way down to the Last Round and walked in the bar. Inside there was loud punk rock music blaring out of the speakers, only a few drunks telling stories of things that never happened. He didn't know what to look for, so he just walked in and sat down at one of the tables, just waiting for something to catch his attention.
He sat there for almost two hours, ant nothing happened. He was beginning to worry that he figured that last riddle wrong. A few more guys walked into the bar, but they all just sat at the bar and ordered their drinks. Marek just figured that he would sit there for another hour or two before he left. He turned and looked out the window of the bar to see the people walking outside when he heard it.
"Glad to see you showed up. At least you have proven yourself capable of thinking deeper than the surface. You would be surprised to see the number of kindred who could not interpret my messages."
Marek turned around to see the guy standing at the head of the table looking at him. He stood slightly taller than Marek himself and had long black hair. He also wore a pair of glasses that were at the tip of his nose, like an old librarian.
"Yeah well, I like to think outside the box. Please, sit down. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?"
"The name is Beckett, and I am what you might call a historian, of sorts. I like to collect the information that can be used to debunk many of the kindred myths"
"Why the cryptic messages?"
"You see, I had to test the intelligence of these new ones. If they had a high enough ability to solve my riddles, then they certainly earned the right to have an intelligent conversation with me."
"In your second message, you said something about a 'sacrificial lamb.' What does that mean?"
"Well, I am not sure you knew this, but the prince loves to send the young ones to their final death by giving them suicidal missions. But I'm glad to see that you have passed his most recent test, and that hopefully means that my knowledge won't be wasted on you."
"I don't see how that was a suicidal mission. It was pretty easy to infiltrate that building."
"I'm glad you think so. Not many in your situation would have found that situation so easy to navigate. So tell me, what do you know about this society so far?"
"Not much really. All I have to do is follow orders and things will turn out pretty good. At least that's what it has been like so far."
"What you need to learn is that there is more than what the prince tells you to do. You need to find a way to do things for yourself and not for someone else. As you also need to find things like information out for yourself, so that you have more power over those who don't have that information. You will soon find out that information on others is worth a lot in our society, and that is why the Nosferatu are so powerful. They have ways of finding out the things we don't want them to know."
"You know, I've heard that before."
"That doesn't make that fact any less true."
"So what is it that you want me to know Beckett? There must have been a reason you sent those messages to me and you wanting to meet me. Just tell me what you wanted me to know."
Beckett looked a little uncomfortable, "Alright then. I see you do in fact have great deductive skills. The fact that I wanted you to know is that I believe that there is something big going to happen in this city. If I were you, I would get out as fast as you could so that whatever it is doesn't affect you."
"That's it? What is that supposed to be, another of your cryptic messages?"
"No, not at all. Ever since a few nights ago, there has been great unrest in this city. And it is not just me or a small minority of us. Many of the kindred in our city have felt that there is something wrong in the night air."
"Well thanks Beckett. If something comes up, I'll be sure to be extremely careful."
"I hope what I said isn't lost on you. Perhaps you will grasp the meaning of this warning. Good night, young one."
With that Beckett gathered himself up and left the bar very quickly. Marek just sat there, confused at the whole conversation. It seemed to him as though Beckett had something more to say, but he could not get it out. Whatever, it probably didn't concern him at all. Marek left the bar soon after Beckett and headed back to his apartment. After the past few days, he felt like he deserved a rest so he just went up to his bedroom and collapsed on his bed. The whole day, and then night passed and Marek just spent the whole time in an unconscious state.