Celeste: Yes it IS bad. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! And as if this wasn't enough, Vivienne's computer had to die and she need probably a new one.

Thanks Topgallant (you really missed LaCroix, eh? Hehe) and rednightmare (I agree. Kent should have been there) for the reviews! You guys rock!

At last the Ventrue was pleased with herself. Katherine managed to remain more or less calm in the Prince's office and even got an assignment which seemed like a walk in the park. Even LaCroix's scolding hadn't been worse than she imagined. Finally things perhaps were going for the better and all her former considerations now sounded silly to her, because LaCroix surely had more important things to do than play her personal devil in this unlife. However this didn't mean she'd let her guard down when dealing with the re-established dictator of Los Angeles. Her new assignment was just too good a reminder not to cross him anymore in any way. Katherine only needed to be patient; hence time was not an issue anymore only surviving.

Arthur Kilpatrick's Bail Bonds was deserted this night like always with him being the sole person in the small office. Arthur could be Chunk's brother with regard to his opulence in body mass but that was all the resemblance they both shared.

"Ya' got any news on Carson?" Eagerly he glanced over the frame of his bug sunglasses. If he wasn't running this place, Katherine could imagine him in the role of a pimp, driving an old Manta.

"Bad news actually: Carson's quitting. I freed him out of a cell in Gimble's own personal horror dungeon but a bit too late. He already lost his trigger finger." Waggling with her own trigger finger, Arthur followed the motion with a sad face.

"Well, hell. That leaves good old Arthur in hot water. Carson was a good hunter. Sad that he's quitting but what's a bounty hunter without his gun?" Sighing and looking desperate, the huge man fell into his chair which ached under the heavy burden. "Say, sugar: ya interested in a job? Well it's not a job 'cause ya not licensed and all but until I get a new bounty hunter ya'll be pretty fine for that." Licensed? Welcome bureaucracy! She was actually surprised by the fact that you needed some kind of license for that in a country where everyone was free to wield guns.

"How about paying me first, then telling me about that license and then about the job you have." Not that she wanted to decline it. The hell she would! But after LaCroix's warning it was better not to have problems with the law, so she wanted to be cautious just in case.

"Oh, uh, yeah...yeah yeah. Sorry about that, uh. Here ya are." Reaching for a drawer in the desk, Arthur pulled out some sweet green bills which Katherine grabbed with a cold smile, counting how much it was and stuffing them into her pocket. 200 dollars. Well not bad for a night but still far away enough from wealth.

"And now about the license." Leaning on the desk and crossing her arms in front of her chest, she guessed through what she'd need to undergo for this license.

"Yeah, yeah. I forgot you're not from here. Well ya need to be approved by the government to get into the bounty hunter business. Taking education courses and all that." Rustling around in the mess on his desk to find paper and a pen, Arthur wrote something down. "Ya seem not dumb sugar, so I guess ya already have some kind of bachelor's college degree and according to ya accent that's also a fulfilled point. Ya got some felony convictions?" Katherine shook her head, but was now reminded that she dropped out of the military before her contract ended regularly. Only with a dirty trick was this possible but this was not the time to let thoughts wander around. "Perfect! Here is the information about the courses and stuff. You got balls – uh, pardon the expression missy – but you'd make a good bounty hunter." Smiling broadly with his yellow teeth, Arthur shoved the note toward her.

"Call me sugar again and I'll be the sugar grain which causes deadly diabetes." Her smile was poisonous and cold, indicating that she was badly offended by being nicknamed that way. It felt like a disgrace and Katherine had developed a thin hide for such things. Either that or it was the European mentality kicking slowly back in.

For some seconds, Arthur's face was frozen with a mixture of a surprised and irritated expression on it.

"Uh, yeah. Sorry for that...uh how did ya know I have diabetes?" Well, she had not known that which surprised Katherine but she wasn't showing it. "As you said: I'd be good in this job, so tell me about the little worry you have and I'll see if I can solve it." It was a bit hard trying to sound forgiving; she did not want to piss off a potential new boss, because one boss was already pissed off to the bone.

"Great, great. Alright, the guy's name is Mike Durbin. Goes by the name 'Muddy'. His girlfriend put up for his bond. She lives over there above Trip's Pawnshop. Her name is Marian Murietta, but I haven't been able to get in touch with her." Upon leaning back his enormous mass, the chair ached again like it was going to break at any minute.

"What's his record?" Hopefully not cutting off limbs or something or even worse: his girlfriend was the psycho.

"Some years ago he was charged of manslaughter but he got acquitted, else only small time stuff mostly. If ya want more information, just use the database on the computer over there." With a small nod to the side, Arthur pointed his double chin to a dirty old computer behind him on the left. That was nice! So she could also look up potential information about that Toreador if there was any and didn't need to ask. "Be careful. You're not licensed and if anything bad goes down, I don't know ya, ya hear me?"

"Sure, no problem Arthur." Stuffing the note into the same pocket where the green bills had landed, Katherine's eyes were already locked on the computer, whose old clumsy monitor awakened as she moved the mouse. It took several seconds for a screen to show up with an alphabetical index. 'Let's see...would be A for Alan and if that's not the case I'll try the R...' Clicking and concentrated, her pale fingers rushed over the keyboard. Katherine wasn't a computer specialist but she was used to them of course as long as she didn't need to hack a password or something like that. 'Bingo!' Right in the A-section, the entry 'Alan Ryan, Kent' popped up and she selected the data.

Kent Alan Ryan

Bond written 10/26/04 – Robbery – Sexual Harassment. Case #5874696 Bond Amount: 5.000$

Note: Smeary wannabe Playboy and pretty strange. Regular in 'The Last Round'. Don't go in there! No money's worth that.

Staring at the note, Katherine now understood why LaCroix wanted him dead and why it was her task to assure it: wandering into The Last Round would be...fun to say the least. 'Oh crap this is a hell more complicated.' So his name was all she needed to know? Well thanks! Asshole...but there must be some way and Katherine was determined to find it; however, walking straight into The Last Round was out of the question, so she needed a plan. Head him off? It would be fishy if the Prince's protégé lingered around near an Anarch bar. There was a solution but Katherine was not able to find it yet, so she decided to head over to the dirty holes which were called apartments above Trip's, giving her former neighbour a friendly visit.

It smelled rheumy in the floors above the pawn shop even during summer, sometimes stale and dirty even that close to the sea, though Katherine never liked the salty, cold sea. With little effort the room of Maria Murietta was found, right next to the dirty Camarilla safe house which would've been better off called a Camarilla garbage dump for unwanted Kindred. An old issue from the L.A. Sun lay on the floor and the Ventrue gave it a small glimpse.

Carnival of Death!

Written in big type, the headline was of course eye-catching. Beneath it was a gruesome and bloody picture of a corpse, hanging from a streetlight, strapped by its wrists giving the impression it was being shown off on purpose. Without a doubt L.A. was really a swamp for all that's lunatic. Glamour seemed not far away from horror like this, or you could blame it on California being an Anarch Free State.

Raising her hand, Katherine knocked her knuckles against the wooden door, waited a bit and knocked again, however only silence was there to hear. 'Great.' So Maria Murietta wasn't at home. But Katherine didn't want to wait until dusk and with her luck the woman would return by day for sure. So what now? Looking nervously to the left side where she came from and then to her right out of the window, making sure no one was there, she grabbed the door knob and tried to turn it. Closed. What else? If she could pick locks it would again come in handy, on the other hand she could take it off its hinge with a kick but that would alarm the neighbours for sure. And who said she would discover something in there? Staring once more at the floor she saw something moving behind the corner where the stairs made a kink to the left, leading out of the building. Was that imagination or her eyes playing tricks on her? Ventrue were paranoid and Katherine had started to cultivate this inheritance of her clan. Walking slowly to the corner, she gazed down the stairs into the small entrance where the mailboxes were, cautiously scrutinizing the area and its few shadows. There! Was there something moving? How could someone hide in this small area? Oh, of course.

"You are there, I know it. " Pulling out her gun, she aimed at the empty space. No response. "I'll perforate the area until I hit something." And she unsecured the gun.

"All right, all right dammit!" a scratchy female voice responded. "No need to go on a rampage." Suddenly a Nosferatu stood leaning against the mailboxes with a sour face. "Do this Imalia. Will be fun Imalia and you won't do something stupid Imalia. Fuck you Gary." Without a doubt she sounded very pissed. Only a second later Katherine would have thought it was only her imagination, and it was certainly obvious that it caught her by surprise to be right. "Oh no, don't say it was just luck?" The Nosferatu – probably her name was Imalia – threw her hands in the air and grinded her yellow, deformed teeth. "Gaahhhh!" Snarling out her frustration, she sighed heavily after that.

"Why does Gary have an interest in spying on me?" Well, there were various reasons for it, like being the Prince's protégé, possible secret and important assignments the Nosferatu Primogen would certainly love to know of.

"For information, dumbass!" Viciously those words were spat out.

"Oh thanks Captain Obvious, or shall I say Lady Sewer Rat?" No dirty Nosferatu was calling her a dumbass! Stinking sewer rat! "Then it's perhaps a good idea to ask Gary in person what he wants to know after I tell the Prince about this spying on his employees."

"Tattletale!" The high pitched voice was hurting Katherine's eardrums.

"Or you help me out for a short bit and I'll forget about it." A Nosferatu was a good bet, even Imalia who was a former magazine model most certainly had more knowledge of lock picking than someone like Katherine.

"Lemme guess: the closed door to Maria Murietta's apartment, right?" Imalia sounded skeptical, raising an eyebrow. "Do you think I can pick locks? Hell I'm a former star! I didn't need such things!"

"You're a Nosferatu, why ---"

"Yes! Yes! You're a Nosferatu, you can do all the dirty, illegal stuff, right? Stuck up Ventrue! I cannot!" Crossed arms in front of her chest indicated that Imalia was seriously offended. Well, seemed like Katherine needed some diplomacy, like LaCroix always did it: Be nice to get what you want and later on you can always stab them from behind.

"Look, excuse me for my rude words okay? I just don't like being observed." Who does? "Besides you know that it has been a frustrating night so far for me."

"You don't say..." The reply was sarcastic, and accompanied with an excessively fake smile of sympathy. "I never thought that the life of the Prince's favoured dolly is this boring without the Sabbat. Really, I'm on you for months and nothing happens. Gary is totally pissed."

"Well I can't you promise information about the Prince's secret agenda, because I don't know that either, but I'm on something." Finally holstering her gun, Katherine stepped down the stairs to look Imalia in the eyes on an even level. A small gesture, a sign that she didn't look down on her.

"Hunting kines doesn't sound like valuable information." That was right, and the Ventrue speculated on the fact that Imalia wasn't able to follow her straight into the Prince's office or even his building at all, but that they were haggling was a sign for a usable business. Seemed like Imalia was able to help her after all.

"Right but I tend to stumble upon things and besides the fact that I won't tell Gary or Prince LaCroix a word what do you have to lose? It's fair right? And you can follow me around if Gary still thinks I'm part of some big conspiracy. We could both gain something out of it." Still there was wariness on the Nosferatu's disfigured face, clearly stating that she wasn't quite convinced.

"I can follow you but knowing that I'm there you'll be able to hide the interesting stuff from me. So there's no point in that." She had an argument there.

"I know but still I won't say a word. Gary won't go batshit on you for messing up." Without any doubt it was surely unpleasant to piss off Gary Golden. Imalia was also not long in the 'Vampire business' according to her information. Katherine was able to hear her cursing about Tawni Sessions, wanting to find some dirty laundry about her. Katherine declined to do this because sneaking wasn't her métier. So Imalia was also more or less a neonate. Possible explanation for why she messed up too. "We're both not long in this; perhaps you still need help for that Tawni Sessions thing?" That was most certainly a weak spot.

"Don't mention that fat ugly-faced cow!" Bingo. "After that thing with the Prince cooled down I was on your heels! Still stuck watchin' the world kiss Tawni's big, fat ass."

"How does this sound: We'll go there and you'll be able to sneak in. I'll wait for you and won't run away. Place the cameras and stuff. I'm sure you don't need my help there. Those are humans and they won't spot you." Could never be a bad thing to have a Nosferatu on your side, more or less.

"Okay, that sounds good." A satisfied smile appeared on Imalia's face, exposing her teeth once more, only to remind Katherine that the Nosferatu's lips were somehow stitched a bit together at the ends. It looked quite disturbing. Imalia reached her a hand with long nails – more claws – and at first Katherine didn't want to grab it but that would be rude.

"Great, we have a deal." And she shook the disfigured hand; in the other one, Imalia waggled a key.

"Found it behind the potted plant upstairs." Katherine felt now like a dumbass, as Imalia had called her.

"Oh well, that makes it quite easy." Just for that she'd gambled so high? There had better be something in it!

The wooden door swung open, exposing a totally empty room. Only some old and dirty furniture was in there.

"Great, looks like she made a run." Sighing, Katherine wandered into the kitchen and opened some drawers only to discover that they also were empty.

"What about that? Are all Ventrue blind?" Turning her head around she saw Imalia who pointed to the blinking answering machine right in front of her, then pressing a button and a deep male voice came out of the crackling speakers.

"Hey, Maria it's Mike. Look I've got to hit Downtown for a few days, maybe a little bit longer. If Rheno calls, tell him to meet me down there. We've got something to discuss apparently. I'll be at Milton's place at the Skyline Lofts 2A. Sorry baby, I'll explain everything later." With a beep the message ended, leaving both vampires in brooding silence.

"Downtown, huh? So what you say? Are we off to go there?" Imalia frowned and her and tilted her head to the right.

"Since when is there a 'we'? And you promised to go with me to that ugly-faced bitch! Don't withdraw now or I'll make your life a lot more complicated." She really wanted Tawni Sessions down the drain.

"We'll go but I could miss Muddy. Besides it would be really a bad move for the Prince's protégé to break her word right? After I've got Muddy, we're off to Tawni." A last distrustful look and Imalia nodded.

"Well then stop chatting. We have work to do." Walking out of the apartment, Katherine fallowed her only to be left standing alone on the floor. Well, more or less alone. She knew Imalia was there, only not visible for the sake of the Masquerade. "And I want fifty percent of his bounty." Her voice echoed through the floor.

"No way! That was not the deal." What the hell was that now?

"I just made up my mind. We could be a nice coterie, don't you think?" Katherine had already formed one with Dean and James. It was more of a business relationship but it was a coterie fitting her blood: a pure Ventrue coterie! "Gary will cut off his sponsoring, so a nice little income wouldn't be wrong. I also prefer to shoot some nice photos but after Gary's makeover this would really suck." A rough laughter was heard and Katherine sighed.

"Only if you prove useful." If Imalia would just linger around and do nothing, there would be no payment. "Fifty-fifty is half of the money and half of the work."

"Gosh, you Ventrue are really a stubborn-headed bunch when it comes to money. All right fine. Strip off the former beauty of Hollywood." There was a bit of poison in her voice and Katherine could only answer that sentence in her thoughts as she walked through the dark alleys of Santa Monica to fetch the taxi in front of The Asylum. 'Tawni really doesn't look that bad.'

AN: So I kept my promise and include more Bloodlines characters! Yay! Again, sorry for the delay. Let's cross fingers, that Vivienne's will be back soon, because I really don't want to publish uncorrected chapters.