"What is it you're looking for?" Rob demanded.

"Ghost venom," I answered merrily as I hunted around the tombstones. Some were crooked, some tall and towering over me, a few had statues, some missing limbs, others still a fine, polished white. The graveyard was old but well kept thanks to the rich relations of the dead within and Romero's fine marksmanship.

"Ghost...what?"

"Don't look at me," Alex remarked, just as baffled as the darker redhead, "I've never heard of ghost venom."

"Are ghosts even real?" Rob queried sceptically.

I whirled round to face him, clasped my hands together and nodded eagerly. "Oh yes, at the lady by the sea a violent one dwells."

Rob shook his head in bewilderment, folded his arms and dared to ask, "and why do you need their...venom?"

"Perhaps it will ward off the unaging child."

"And who or what is that?" Rob pressed for information.

"An antediluvian?" Alex pondered. "Is it like they speak of, the end times, Gehenna?"

'No,' a voice hissed down the web, 'second childe! Old but not one of us! So close though, been so long since the old ones spoke.'

I shook my head in frustration trying to silence the whisperer, he was loudest of the web bound, he was the spider as well as a plump fly. "No," I muttered, "not so old, but not so young as he seems."

"They hide their ugliness in the night," I murmured.

"What?" Rob questioned with frustration.

Before we could talk anymore six Nosferatu appeared out of the air and attacked us. Ah Obfuscate, such a wonderful, tricky talent to have. They attacked with enhanced strength, ghostly wolves and deadly bugs. Rob immediately shifted to his disturbing half-wolf form whilst Alex attacked with his speedy limbs and I sent out visions of madness. We were heavily outnumbered and they held the advantage with Potence strengthening them.

"What do you want?" Rob growled at them in a sudden fury.

"The mad one," a possibly female answered.

"The Prince summons and the Golden Ghoul answers," I commented woefully as I dodged a blow to the head and suffered claws in my back instead.

"La Croix!" Alex exclaimed hatefully. My beloved redhead's face was stained with blood as was his chest and beetles were attempting to burrow into his arms. Rob had taken out one who now tried to crawl away as two jumped my brother.

I tried to go to his aid and felt pussing hands seize me from either side. I fought back, sending one into hysterics and head butting the other. Dazed, I stumbled to Rob, these ugly bloodsuckers had weapons, one held a spiked club, one a large, rusting dagger, another a tire iron and the fourth a knife. I heard Alex scream and turned to see the knife embedded deep in his chest, narrowly missing his dead heart. The tall, boil faced male that had stabbed him, pulled it out and prepared to plunge it in again.

I winced as the tire iron smashed against my right leg and cried out as the club hit my brother's skull. He staggered to one side, shaking his bloodied head and I screamed as I saw the dagger moving to his throat. "NO!" I yelled a protest. "Leave them!"

"Only if you come with us," one on my right side hissed.

"To the Prince?" I questioned. I was not going to the sewers to play with the murderous children of the egg headed Tzimisce.

"Yes to him," one growled out.

"Alright." If he promised me protection, no tricks this time, then perhaps I could trade information with him of the burning child. Would he believe though? Did anyone? It did not matter, Rob could not fight off the ugly dead, he stood no chance against the burning child. If I was away from here Rob would be safe and Alex, Kent, Romero and Isaac too. I should have never returned.

"No!" Rob protested and swung his claws down one's hideous face.

The fight began anew and we all moved as quickly as we could, Alex the swiftest though he was tiring. I tried to call out more madness but I was weakening and thirsting. Another Nosferatu was finished, permanently this time as Rob tore his head off and turned him to ash. For that brief moment we held the upper hand and Alex turned another Nosferatu to burning ashes but then the Ventrue and Toreadors arrived, two of each, it was clear that La Croix was desperate enough to risk Isaac's wrath for me. "The burning child has arrived in the towered city," I realised aloud, "but the madness does not give me its secrets."

I was beaten from all sides, mentally and physically, they tried to cow us into submission with Presence and Dominance but we resisted. I sent out laughter, hallucinations, and visions of death but it was exhausting and my vision became tinged in red. I lashed out with claws and fangs, no longer seeing or caring, I just wanted blood. They all held it, a blending of numerous types, all tainted with death and filled with power, ah it was a terrible sin to drink from the dead but so rewarding.

There was a terrible, bloodcurdling yell that drew me back to the grim reality of the graveyard only briefly. I watched in horror as a Ventrue's sword sliced through Alex's pale neck like butter turning my mad sire from flesh, blood and bone to dust and fire in an instant.

For a moment I was empty, I could not think, even the voices were silent, my body was still, my thirst dead. This was too much to take in, too hard for my labyrinth mind to devour. It was terrible, it shook through me worse than the burned boy's voice had. I screamed and screamed as long claws ripped at my flesh and a female Toreador's Presence forced me to my knees. My eye was gushing blood and pus, my knee was throbbing and threatening to slip free from the thin skin that bound it. I was quivering and screaming, why had they done that?

BANG! BANG! BANG! Three true shots, two through a Toreador ending its existence swiftly, the third striking through a female Ventrue's skull causing her to double over with a scream. The rescue had arrived too late. I looked up and saw him, terrible, glowing and commanding, the Baron of the land, furious in his wonderful, much deserved rage. He did not even wait for explanations, in a blur he finished off the rest, tearing heads asunder until only I, Rob, Romero, Kent and he remained.

"They killed him," Rob growled out, "that redhead, what was his name?"

"ALEX!" I wailed at last as tears of salt and blood soaked my face. "ALEX! BEAUTIFUL, MAD ALEX! HE'S GONE! HE'S GONE!" Devoured, destroyed, and dusted as soon we all would be, a victim of the wrong war, a casualty of La Croix's paranoia. I would see the Prince suffer for this, let the jester burn then! Let him be burned and crucified for Alex!

"Shit," as usual Kent could think of nothing appropriate to say.

I crawled along the ground reaching to where my sire's ashes lay and grasped at them with a sob. "They turned him to ash," I snarled, "there's nothing, nothing to fix! They took him from me! For me! It should have been me! No one wanted me here; no one would defend me but Rob and him! I should have stayed with the Prince," I mumbled miserably, "better the madness was contained with him, the ugliness hidden away; such things do not bother the Ventrue. Better he and I burned together and were wiped away from this dark world."

"No." It was the Baron who spoke up firmly. "No Ariadne, not you, it was I who let this happen, I would not have you back, even when you begged, I turned from you, blinded by vanity when I should have protected you, and him. He was so loyal to you, he would not let your appearance jade his affection even as it ruined mine, I am so sorry."

I shook my head, it was just words, pointless, futile words that would not bring Alex back to us. "He stayed to help Rob with my madness," I said quietly, "it is my fault, I endangered everyone. I should have picked a side as Nines said, but no side truly wanted me."

"We want you," Kent spoke up gently, "which I think I have proved by now kid. This is only that bastard in his tower's fault; he sent you after that coffin, imprisoned you for your loyalty and then hunted you down like a dog. This is all his doing."

"Desperate jester," I mumbled, "the old child is in the city, in the shadows burning, purging but he won't stay there. What have the power thirsting clan awakened? Why did the poet have to die for it? For me? I was going to go with them! Back to plots and prison! Stupid, stupid Alex!" I yelled as I clutched his ashes tightly in my hands until they were smaller specks mashed into my palms.

I felt the Baron's cold hands attempt to embrace me and shook them off angrily. "Not you!" I snarled. "You did not want me! I'm too hideous for the vain Baron's eyes! Do not pity me now! Cast me out!"

He withdrew, apologising once more, helpless now in his guilt and grief.

I started hunting in the dirt for the rest of the ashes, grasping at them along with clumps of the earth. "I need him," I wailed, "all of him, it's not right, he shouldn't be scattered."

"Alright crazy cat," Romero said kindly, "I'll help you find him." He was the only one willing to lean on the dirt with me, lifting up pieces of ash and muck. It was impossible of course, even I could not tell what was a fleck of Alex, what was a piece of our foes or simply the dead earth. Still I had to try; he couldn't be in pieces like this.

We stayed like this for an hour, Rob grumbling curses, the Baron remaining stoic and silent, and Kent pointing out possible pieces of Alex, too afraid of the dirt to touch them. When I thought we had them all it was the artist who suggested putting them in a box, so we carried them in Romero's pockets back to Isaac's domain where a suitable box of plated gold was selected from a collection of jewellery boxes. I sealed them inside and mumbled goodbyes. Kent uttered a few words about Alex's loyalty even when he was, as the dark haired Toreador put it, misguided, and then the Baron placed the box on the mantle above his unused fireplace after saying his own farewells. After that my pains and thirst returned and with Rob and Kent I went to feed.

It was Kent's calmness and silver tongue that lured us victims when Rob and I would have otherwise savaged people to bloody pieces. I would have killed my first victim if Kent had not pulled me back with a fierce struggle, and the second, and the third. My minds instead of being plagued by Sarah where full of visions of Alex. I saw him as my first true ally in Hollywood, even back when Xander tormented him; Alex was still kind and welcoming to me.

I let Kent lead me back to Isaac's without protest, I was too tired to argue, and I did not sneer when Ash greeted me by telling me I was filthy. The Toreadors had come at the Baron's call, partly to repay their respects to Alex and partly to discuss what to do next, respond to La Croix's brazen invasion or wait for the next one? It was at Kent's suggestion that Isaac agreed to contact Nines. I did not care anymore, the politics meant nothing to me even if I was the centre of them- the mad one who everyone thought had some priceless information hidden in the shell of insanity. Rob tired of the discussions too, he did not like being contained amongst a group, he was a loner by deed and nature, partially because he was a Gangrel but also because he had to be for so long thanks to his murderous deeds of revenge. He wanted to leave but I protested, he was not safe with me but he was less safe alone, if La Croix ever learned of him he would be sure to send his Sheriff to carry out an execution. So with several grumblings he retired to Isaac's basement instead.

I should have gone for an early rest too but my head was throbbing and the voices were screaming too loudly for me to sleep, though I could not decipher them. Instead, bloodied, bedraggled and filthy, I went to Isaac's bath, holding up one finger to Ash when he grinned and said, "so you agree you're disgusting."

I was broken, part of me was gone, my beloved creator and dearest friend. I would never see his wary, green gaze again or hear his soft, consoling words. I had never even apologised for abandoning him, leaving him to scream in Romero's basement. He had probably never understood that, how could he have? I trembled as the tears fell again. I had been so cruel and wicked to him, leaving him as Isaac had left me, turning from him because of his flaws, fleeing from him even. I had deserted him to tell La Croix of the Sabbat Malkavian who had slain his Ventrue and in turn been slain by his other self Alex. I had had to go, to protect all of us from Nosferatu lies and a prince's wrath, to tell lies of Alex, keep his personas safe but how could he have understood?

I ran a bath for myself and stared at the water miserably when it was full. It was all my fault, he had been protecting me. The sobs came loud and fast and when someone embraced from behind I did not question who it was or shrug them off. "The blame is mine," I heard the Baron say woefully. He was right, it was his but it was mine also and La Croix's. Had he ordered his minions to destroy all but me? Had he thought of Kent when ordering that? Perhaps Kent and I both were to be spared or perhaps, against the odds, he had not ordered any permanent causalities but his servants had chosen to do what they felt they had to. Well they were all dust now, Alex had been revenged and yet I still felt so empty and incomplete.

"I want to hate you," I choked out odiously, "even if you cannot help being a Toreador, I want to hate you. You're taking advantage," I accused, "because he's gone, but I want you to because I've missed you."

"I've missed you too my sweet Ariadne," he retorted softly. "I know you cannot forgive the hurt and cruelty I've caused you, spurning you when you needed me most and jealously keeping my Ghoul from you. Treating you like dirt, and all but chasing you from my domain because it hurt me too much to see you. What they did to you, poor Ariadne, and all for that bastard fop of a prince, I was jealous of him too, I can admit it now, I knew you served him for me, part of your mad game, but I wondered and worried if in your madness you liked him too and in my foolishness I let you run to him."

"I am ugly still," I reminded him, "marred by the Tzimisce."

"No," he argued, "I thought that, we all did, but we were terribly wrong and only Alex and Romero could see it. You are beautiful, it was your complicated, mad wiles that drew me to you, your personality that I found pretty and loved, it's you, and you are still you. It is hard even now for me to see that, I struggle with the Tzimisce's scars but I am trying not to, I really am Ariadne, for you, and him."

"I want him back," I rasped out angrily, "I want him back!"

"We all do," Isaac empathised.

I selfishly stayed in his embrace for a few minutes longer before returning my attention to the cold bath. I undressed swiftly, climbed in and started to wash. The Baron did not help me as he had in Romero's shack, shuddering at the sight of my scars and mutations but he did stay, an improvement for him. When I was dried and dressed once more he murmured, "you can stay in the basement, there are spare coffins, or with Romero if you would prefer, or Kent."

So I was welcome back in the Baron's domain but not in his coffin, that close comfort was still banned to me. I shook my head; I could not stay here knowing he was so close and yet so far. I needed held, a weak, self-centred need but one I could not get rid of. I was in shock and grief; I wanted someone to console me through that. "I will stay with the crypt keeper."

Isaac frowned but nodded acceptingly. "Well you will stay close," he commanded, "in the apartments with Kent, he says there is a vacant one beside him."

So the Baron had considered and discussed the possibility of me going with Romero then, was I so transparent? I looked down at my flesh hopefully but found everything opaque. I nodded slowly and murmured, "alright we will stay there."