Revision as of 01:32, 28 January 2010

Background

Jacqueline is a year-old neonate Gangrel who has the appearance of a 21-year old punk rocker. She is new to the Seattle area from Boston (or so she claims) and is the vocalist and frontman of the punk band Seven (no relation to VII). She resides at the bar/club where she performs most at the edge of downtown. At first, she had no covenant ties due to being so new to Kindred life, but after witnessing things nearly erupting in a war, she is extremely hesitant to even consider joining one for resentment at being used as a pawn. Though she has her secrets, being the new kid and having no one to even truly call a friend, she is quite naive and may get herself into trouble just by following her heart to what she thinks is salvation from her loneliness.

Notebook

They say inspiration can come from anywhere. I don't know who "they" are, but given that I have quite a bit of time on my hands, I suppose I can give their theory a thorough test. So here I am writing in a little black notebook about the daily events of my alleged life. Maybe some hack will want to publish it for me to become the next Anne Frank (I don't recommend it, wannabe publisher), but the hope is that maybe "they'll" be right and I'll get inspired for a song or two out of all this. So let's begin from when I arrived in the emerald city.

Page 1

My sire taught me all he could in the short time we had. He put extreme emphasis on the fact that if I remembered nothing else, I needed to remember to present myself to the city's Prince the moment I arrived. Given that I was quite sure Seattle didn't have some secret invisible vampire castle to find said Prince, I asked around for the only contact I had: Simeon Blade, an elder of my clan. He was professionally cordial and told me where I could find the Prince. Imagine my surprise when I found out that his royal highness was a woman named Genevieve Harcourt! I followed my sire's advice and was very humble towards her. Lucky for me, I must have made enough of an impression on her for she granted me a small place to call my own: my beloved El Corazón.

A couple weeks went by and I received notice that there was going to be a party held at the SAM. I tagged along with Simeon and met one big, tall, burly dude. He went by the name of Jericho and was Simeon's childe. Didn't really talk much though. Genevieve made the announcement that this party was in honor of some dude named Petrovsky. Apparently he's amazing and was awesome. Or something. Whatever. Jericho seemed a little rough around the edges about this. I guess he was equally responsible for whatever it was that Petrovsky was in the limelight for, but didn't care to make a big deal out of it.

While mingling (or just sitting there, people watching, in my case), Petrovsky introduced himself to me and had a scary lookin' little dude with him. This guy's name was Little Jim. How fitting. We made small talk at first, but then Petrovsky propositioned a job for us, being that we were both new in town. I didn't have anything else better to do and wanting to fit in well here, I agreed. I called Paul, my dear Paul Holloway who I met shortly after coming to town and thought was pretty, and had him drive us over to Petrovsky's estate. There, Petrovsky filled us in on what was happening. Apparently, the Prince's hound and childe, Simone, was seen killing a human by one of Petrovsky's retainers and worse yet, he claims to have seen another human on the other end of the alley with a camera. But because this chick is the Prince's right hand man, we needed hard evidence to take care of this.

Wow, what a cluster fuck! I got some info that what had actually happened was that there were two people arguing in the alley and things got heated. When a bum came through, the poor guy got attacked. I assumed one of the arguees was Simone, but now I had to find out who the other one was. I'm no Sherlock Holmes so of course Simone knows I'm snooping around and corners me. I tell her, as politely as I can, what I know and she flips out about some lobster faced something or other and runs off. Turns out Simone had a boy toy named Rosario who was an artist. Little Jim and I sneak around gathering as much intel as two amateurs can. We managed to get a hold of a freshly made photocopy of a flyer for a midnight art opening. Smells like trouble. And toner.

We arrived at the gallery and to be less obvious, they should have had a giant neon billboard with dancing girls screaming "VAMPIRE VAMPIRE VAMPIRE" for the painting being showcased, was a photo realistic piece of Simone and the homeless guy being attacked by Petrovsky! Great. I've been had. Jim was able to secure and destroy the painting, but a fire had started in the gallery and Petrovsky and his band of goons burst in with guns blazing, literally. Paul got us the hell out of there and Jim said we needed to meet up with Blade. We met in an underground parking lot. A snippet of conversation I heard was Blade asking Jim, "is she with us?" and him answering "well she's not against us." whatever the hell that means. A couple people, a nervous, computer hacker type and an unsettling rough and tumble dude show up, but Blade quickly ordered them to go upstairs. Genevieve arrived and it was a clash of the titans. Blade's retainers drove by and kicked out the body of one of Petrovsky's guys. Blade demanded that a blood hunt be called on Petrovsky and Simone for endangering the masquerade. Genevieve didn't look too happy about having to call out a death sentence on her own childe, but reluctantly does. She yells that this isn't over yet and drives away. Phew. Blade escorts us up to a condo where a small group was gathered. And now Blade wants a favor. I hope that given we share ancestry, he won't fuck me over like Petrovsky did...

Page 2

In this cozy abode, the two people Simeon ordered upstairs were gathered along with a snazzy lookin' guy with a cane. The hacker's name was Mike Smith; a twitchy, paranoid type. The gruff, grungy guy was Vince, a slum lord. And then there's Gabe; an opera singer and DJ by night. Simeon comes in and says that he has a favor to ask of us. Over in Issaquah, uncontested territory, there's an old cemetery called Arkwright Cemetery and Vince claims to have some information on where to find a guy named Rafael Pope. Simeon wanted us to bring this Pope guy to him. We were going to set off the night after tomorrow.

Oh man, a lot of this night is just a haze to me, but here's what I can remember. Simeon sent us with a big heavy duffle bag saying to give it to Pope when we find him, but to not open it beforehand. Paul drove us over to the cemetery in a white van. Classic. I sure am glad the others were there to pick up on clues as to where to even find this guy. There was something about a liar's grave and Lady Grief or something or other. I found myself just tagging along. I'm not very good at cracking mysteries; I don't watch CSI. Along the way, Gabe got caught up with some of the "locals". They were none too happy about us trespassing, but he managed to sweet talk them into letting us stick around for just a couple hours with the promise of a cocktail of drugs they could inject into their herd for a rush.

When we finally stumbled upon the mausoleum where Pope was said to be buried, Little Jim ran in with the duffle bag to try to find our guy in question. That's when we were ambushed. There were rumors circulated about a mercenary, Vincenzo from Everett, who only works for a pretty penny, lurking around town. Turns out, he was lurking around us. When I had a moment, I dashed in after Little Jim. By the time I got there, Jim had the bag open and the reason why it was so damn heavy? Petrovsky's torso. Jim kicked it over to a guy who I can only assume was Pope, for food. He went way past the limit though and ended up killing Petrovsky. Eh, he was bound to be killed anyway. Less work for others to do. He still looked pretty weak and Jim was about to shove a stake through him. Man, maybe he's getting paranoia lessons from Mike! I stopped him and offered Pope my wrist instead. He seemed pretty grateful.

We made our way outside and the fight was getting cleared up. It pathetically ended like how most playground fights do: Vince gets mad, says something nasty, and big ol' mercenary runs away. As we were making our way back to the van, Pope struck up a conversation with us. He's a really cool guy! Very charming. Given that he still could use a bit more vitae, I offered my services again after he said that now we'd be family. Maybe I finally have a place to feel at home! The others seemed a little nervous, but maybe it was just the paranoia pandemic hitting them. I don't care. I don't really remember what happened after this. I just remember being really, really hungry and Mike shoving some dude towards me.

My memory skips ahead to where we were in the van on our way back to the city, but it was starting to get light. We weren't going to make it so after getting in touch with Simeon, he said to meet at Meydenbauer Center. That's Genevieve's territory, but when we got there, Blade lead us around like he owned the place and opened some trap doors to a secret basement where we took refuge. What a night.

Page 3

After that debacle at the cemetery, I noticed that although things were quiet, the air was TENSE. I wanted to know what was going on so I wandered into First Hill, looking for Blade and a black F350 pulled up beside me. It was Carlos, his retainer, and he said that Blade will call me later. Great. Way to leave me hanging after doing you a favor, man.

A few days go by and on the first night the air felt calm, Rafael came to visit me at my club! We chit chatted for a bit, and he asked if I'd like to go for a walk. Of course, I agreed. We strolled around the area and he told me a bit about his past and what Seattle was like during his time. He mentioned that Old Seattle, the underground, used to be his territory and eluded to wanting it back. After we parted ways, I used this opportunity to pay Jericho a visit.

I had no idea what I was going to do, but it kinda felt nice to have a purpose to call on someone. He was nonchalantly friendly to me (if that makes any sense), but also pretty vague. He said he hasn't had any visitors lately, but did have a call and request from Blade which he refused. I can only assume Blade was asking if Jericho would be willing to move in order to give Rafael his old territory back, but hopefully he'll respect his childe's wishes. I left to go home after wishing him well. I hope I get to know him a bit. He may not talk much, but at least he seems genuine.

As I made my way up the street, I saw that Mike was pacing outside my club. He had Xavier, a nervous doctor type I met earlier, with him. I called out to them and Mike seemed really concerned. Well, he always looks concerned, but he looked it even moreso this time. He said that it was nice to see someone after a while of tension and everyone keeping to themselves. But then he says that I need to be careful around Pope. I told him I appreciate the concern, but that I'm fine. I've made it this far on my own anyway. When I told him that I only got to spend a year with my sire, he seemed really shocked. Apparently he's been with his mother dearest for 30 years! He said it was great that I'm so put together and I called him out on flirting with me. That might have been the wrong move as it made Twitchy McTwitcherson even MORE twitchy!

I got a phone call at this time and he took it as a chance to escape. It was Blade. I asked him what was going on. He was quiet for a bit, but then said that while he admits that I did him a favor and he owes me one, and even as we share the same blood, things go deeper than blood and didn't owe me this. I was stunned. Hell, just when I thought I was making headway on establishing a camaraderie with my kin and making friends, I get reminded that I'm all alone here. Fuck, I felt like I was going to cry. But given that this was outside in public, it wasn't the best place to get blood all over my shirt. So I drowned my sorrows and loneliness in a drink. I think I drank a little too much from him, but he'll probably just think the same anyway.

The next day, I got a call from an unknown number. It was my dear Rafael! I asked if he wanted to hang out and we made plans to meet at Gas Works Park. Since he gave me a tour of what Seattle was like before, I gave him a tour of what the park was like now. I helped him out on figuring out his phone and inputted my number for him. Towards the end of our night, he mentioned that he needs help retrieving a personal effect of his that he left behind before being chased out of the city. It's apparently a doctor's bag and he said that the contents would be a surprise for me. Hrm... I like surprises...!