The Scion Cycle XLIX: The Hollow Man (Part 3)

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Saturday July 29th, 2006
The Federal Building Elysium
Downtown Seattle

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Striding from a private room in Elysium, Scion scanned the upper and lower decks for friendly faces and caught Gunn's eye among a knot of people about midway between them. He made a motion with his head that drew him over, but Scion kept walking. He caught Charissma's eye and with another nudge of his head told her everything she needed to know.

Something is going on. I need your help.

The look was clear enough for both of them to bow out of their conversations and meet near the elevators to Elysium in a hush.

Scion explained the situation briefly and asked them to wait for his signal to leave seperately as to not alarm the rest of the Domain. The duo agreed and Scion hurriedly finished brokering a deal with the Tremere Regent for an enchantment that would allow his sword to effect ghosts and spirits, and then made a quick call to them both to let them know to meet him outside of Elysium. Then the three hopped into Scion's '65 convertible and began readying their weapons, Gunn positioning his new battleaxe so that it wouldn't be conspicuous in the back seat of the convertible, and Charisma gathering together the bolts for her crossbow in the passenger seat.

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Enroute to the Cathedral
Downtown Seattle

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"So what's the rush Scion?" said Gunn, checking the road behind them to see if they had been followed. "What's going down?"

"Yeah," Charissma chimed in, "Why did you pull us out of Elysium so quickly like that? You usually don't so something like that unless there's trouble."

"Charissma's right man. What's the deal?"

"You're right." Scion answered over his shoulder. "There is something going down and it has to do with the haunted basement of the Smith Tower."

"Haunted what?" Gunn asked.

"The Smith Tower," Scion continued, "There used to be a Giovanni stronghold there. Those Giovanni used ghosts as servants in this creepy 1930 gentleman's club called the Gaslight Lounge."

"Ugh, it gives me the creeps just thinking about it." Charissma shivered. "Goblets of blood floating everywhere, ghosts appearing out of the corner of your eye all the time, and that's nothing compared to those freaky Giovanni." Gunn nodded in agreement while Charissma went on. "I even heard that they uh... like doing things to corpses... things like..."

Gunn interrupted her. "Whoa now, you can just stop right there girl. I heard just about all I need to know about undead Italians doing the horizontal mambo with the recently deceased."

"That's gross." Charissma said.

"My sentiments exactly." said Gunn.

"You don't know the half of it." said Scion.

"I'm pretty sure I'm happy with that." Gunn replied.

"Disgusting rumors about the Giovanni aside, I've heard that many of the Founding Fathers of Seattle were embraced and then trapped as ghosts in the Gaslight somehow. Names that show up in Seattle's history books like Henry Yesler, Arthur Denny and Doc Maynard, they were ambitious then as undead, and they likely remain so as ghosts." Scion's brow furrowed. He was thinking of the red-eyed mist demon that was still at large and wondering if that creature was somehow associated with this, but he didn't want to jump to conclusions, or alarm his companions.

"And they might possess you and make you sing Christmas carols against your will." said Charissma.

It was Gunn's turn to shiver. "Man, On second thought, go back to the part about where they all be diddling the dead."

The car drove in silence for a few long moments.

"Did I just say that?" Gunn asked, to no one in particular.

"And the priest, what's up there?" asked Charissma.

"Don't know much about him," Scion said, "But we'll find out soon enough. He may or may not have power. He definitely is a potential Masquerade breach."

Scion pulled the long classic convertible to a halt in an alley a few blocks from the church where Massovia had said to meet him.

"That new axe you gave me is ready to rock. Maybe I'll get a chance to break it in tonight, but I don't know what it'll be able to do against ghosts."

"My crossbow is locked and loaded." said Charissma, her pretty brow furrowing with intent.

"A Tremere contact of mine warded this blade against ghosts and spirits. Let's hope it's worth the boon I paid. Gunn, your job is to protect Charissma while she tells me where to hit. I can't see ghosts, so she'll have to tell me where to hit. Charissma, you're going to be my eyes."

"Right." said Gunn, nodding and looking at Charissma. She nodded back.

"All right, let's go." the Gangrel said, and the three strode out of the alley, Scion in the lead, Charissma and Gunn flanking him, ready for anything. Streetlight bathed them in light and shadow as they walked, purposeful and alert toward the cathedral. They were an army of three, dedicated to a common purpose.

The moon shone haggard and yellow in the crux shadow of the cathedral's roof as they arrived, and the warm summer air rustled the leaves of the darkened churchyard trees like the skirts of mourners.

The three arrived to see Albrect Massovia, Gregor Croneweath and a frazzle-haired priest in conference on the steps of the looming cathedral. In the shadow of the moon it was made of jet, and only here and there did the wan yellow electric light from it's hollows knife out into the darkened courtyard where they stood.

"Ah, Scion, good, you've arrived," said Massovia, his mood certainly brighter than the evening, "And you've brought other warriors. Excellent, allow me to introduce Father Abernathy."

Few of those assembled knew what the priest had already been through in the bowels of the Smith Tower at the hands of the angry ghosts there, but after his ordeal within the hell that was the Gaslight, Father Walter Abernathy appeared a man astride two worlds. In stance and apparel, he had found time to compose himself: a rigorous shower, and a fresh set of clothing. But his eyes told a different story. Still widened by shock and faithful fervor, they bore an intensity beyond mere madness, but an assuredness in purpose that Scion thought was either ordained, or deranged.

Scion regarded the holy man with trepidation and whispered into Charissma's ear. "Tell me what you see."

Charissma was already squinting, her eyes red rimmed with awe.

"He's... he's glowing... so bright!" she whispered, lost for the moment in the shining aura of the churchman.

The street preacher wasn't sure what to make of the surreptitious conversation.

"Uh, guh glad to meet you... Scion?" he said the name a question to Albrecht, who nodded. Neither the priest, nor Scion offered their hands to each other.

"Father." acknowledged Scion distractedly, looking around the area for any eavesdroppers. They appeared to be unnoticed and unwatched. His mind raced with ideas, trying to determine how to cover this breach when all was said and done. He didn't want to kill a priest, he wouldn't unless the priest was evil, but if he wasn't, there were certainly those within the Inquisition who wouldn't care how many lives he saved in the basement of an old building.

"You are warriors in God's cause?" asked the priest.

Scion's mouth opened, but Gunn beat him to the punch.

"Damn right. Names Gunn. Two Ns."

"And this is Charissma." Albrecht said. Scion decided that it would have to be mental manipulation, unless there was a chance that the priest did not know their natures. If the group was going into combat however, some explanation would be needed.

"Uh, hi." Charissma responded to Father Abernathy, still squinting.

"And of course you have all met Mr. Croneweath."

Scion didn't like Gregor Croneweath. The man had recently bought his Childer Cordelia a very expensive dress in an attempt to woo her to attend a charitable function. It had been a Christian Dior dress, custom tailored. It had made Cordelia look fabulous. Scion had arranged to join them through Charissma, spoiling his little date, and the two had never gotten on since. Scion also had reason to believe the Caitiff was really a Tzimice. No proof mind you, but he considered the dress proof enough that he was possibly evil and needed to die, or at the very least be forced to watch reality television.

Scion definitely didn't like Gregor Croneweath.

"Yeah," he replied to Albrecht "We've met." And then to Croneweath, "Greg."

"It is Gregor." said the eastern European Kindred coldly, and then cordially, as if the slight had never existed, addressed the others. "A pleasure as always gentlemen, lady."

Scion looked at Albrecht Massovia and said nothing, and then looked to Croneweath. Massovia responded as if asked directly the reason Croneweath was present.

"I invited only those I trust." he explained.

Really? How far can you throw him? Scion wondered, though not aloud.

Misunderstanding the pause in conversation as the assembled waiting for him to begin his explanation of events, the priest chimed in.

"I have something to tell you mighty warriors," the wild-eyed street preacher began, "A tale of darkness and woe! I... I have just spent two weeks in..." The preacher shivered, holding his somewhat gangly arms around himself in a hug. "...In that horrid place, beset by all manner of angry wicked, godless ghosts! But after weeks of bitter temptation, weeks with neither food no water, God himself heard my cries and set me free!"

Scion was becoming more worried with every word the street preacher spoke. If there were going to be a real fight, Scion would have to move fast and use the power of the blood, something that the preacher would surely see as unnatural, unless... Scion began to turn an idea around in his head.

"Buh... but now I fear, something terrible is happening, the dark unrestful ghosts are stirring, but I believe that I can stop them with the might of God behind me! Kneel and I will pray for us."

All kneeled except Scion, who looked around nervously to see if anyone was watching the odd band on the steps of the church.

The street preacher shot him a questioning look.

"I'll stand." Said Scion. The preacher shrugged.

"St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen."

There came a sound unheard so much as felt, like a great, soundless bell had been struck where the preacher stood. The undead felt a push away from him that rattled their dead hearts in their chests. They struggled not to gasp or cry out, and as quickly as it had been felt, the sensation was gone.

"There," said the priest. "Now we should..."

"Wait." interrupted Scion. He unsheathed his sword and held it out like an offering to the street preacher, laying the flat of the blade against his other palm.

"Will you bless my blade father?" The preacher paused for a moment and looked at the sword, polished and sharp, but still bearing the notches and scratches of use. It was a killing weapon, not a showpiece, and the preacher knew it.

After a time the priest nodded and took the blade from Scion. As he spoke, Scion took cloth from his satchel and bound his sword hand in it.

"Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for mine help. Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am thy salvation."

The priest handed the blade back to Scion gingerly, as if it were a viper ready to strike. Grasping the hilt in his wrapped hand he could feel it humming and could almost hear a singing vibration coursing through the air like the reverberation from the strike of a hammer upon metal.

"Anyone else?" asked the priest.

"Gunn, your axe," said Scion. "Charissma, your bolts."

Each stood in turn as the preacher blessed them. Scion was satisfied that any supernatural actions that the trio took would seem to the priest as the workings of his prayers. They each shared a look, shouldered the weight of the task ahead and left for the Gaslight Lounge.

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Beneath the Smith Tower
Downtown Seattle

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The coterie was formed. The Preacher, imbued by God with the power of faith, The Ventrue Crusader, his sword as his shield, the Caitiff Magpie King, Lord of the Eastern steppes gripping the curved blade of a Saracen, the Brujah Street Warrior, battle-axe humming with power and intent, the Beauty, her Toreador eyes wide open with the Gifts of Caine and the Champion, destiny roiling about the Gangrel like a fire, strode down the long dark hall beneath the Smith Tower with purpose. Their footfalls would cause the world to open up it's teeth and howl.

They came to the huge oak doors that separated the haunt from the dust-covered sepia of the real. Long ago, someone had carved upon it a frightful fresco, now faded and chipped, but the coterie could just make out armies roaring at each other across a field of bones, swords held high, skeletal faces gaunt and screaming for blood. The doors had been damaged though, for perhaps eighty years or more by the claws of the undead, when the first Prince of Seattle, mad with rage, had slain every living and unliving thing within in a fit of rage that had twisted up the entire city in it's brutality and had laid the foundation for the horrors within.

But these Kindred and their man of faith knew only the barest telling of the myth that had begun the Gaslight Lounge. It didn't matter. What mattered was that the result of almost a hundred years of death and fire and rage glossed over with genteel conversation and the subtle clink of glasses held aloft by the arrogant dead was about to be lanced open like a fetid boil, and the toxins within would claim nearly all.

The temperature dropped low enough for the normally room-temperature Kindred to see their own exhalations when they spoke. Charissma gasped. Her vampire eyes showed her a roiling black cloud of shadow and fog climbing over the doors like a great mass of spiders, and behind it the fresco lived, and the howls of the dead could almost be heard clashing in the battle taking place behind the claw-marks in the wood.

"Black clouds! Oh my God..." stammered Charissma. "There's something really wrong with this place."

"I.. I can do this." said the preacher, his eyes full of fire. "I think I can seal this place!"

"How?" Asked Albrecht.

"I must get inside." the preacher pleaded, his knuckles white as he clutched his small black book of prayers. Cordelia shook her head no, not wanting to see what lay beyond those doors. Gunn gripped the handle of his battle axe tightly enough that all assembled could hear the leather of his fingerless gloves creaking against the haft.

"Bring it." said Gunn.

Scion and Albrecht shared a look, and then kicked the doors in.

The storm raged beyond the portal as they stepped through the wooden aperture into what had once been the Gaslight Lounge. Beyond lay an almost comical scene. The wood-paneled walls and richly adorned carpets of the lounge stretched out from the doorway, but simply ceased in jagged wisps a few feet beyond the doors. It was as if the brick and mortar walls of the gentleman's club had been torn like canvas, and whipped in the torrent of black winds like broken sails. What lay beyond that was far more terrible.

A cracked and broken city spread outward, a wartime memorial to buildings long past, notched knives stabbed into the black clay of the deadlands. Wrecked outbuildings dotted the land like dice fashioned from the teeth of old men cast to the earth, and beyond where the Puget Sound should have been lay a grim and cracked bed of broken ships, their splintered spars striking up toward the blackened sky. Beyond that, the seven hills of Seattle stretched outward like a fallen Rome, sacked and burned by time and the wear of the storm above.

The Maelstrom above them was a hungry maw. There was no defining the size of that storm, it filled every inch of the horizon with malevolent fury, and roiling shadow-clouds crashed like the waves of a mad sea against each other. It had a weight of it's own that pressed down upon their chests and made them feel almost short of a breath that they need not take. The air was thick with the smell of ozone and rot. Black and purple lightning crawled, crackled and boomed across its belly like serpents, and storms within storms knotted together and spun apart like galaxies fading from light. The whole massive monster rolled inward in a relentless crackling spiral that contained at it's center a darkness so complete that it left marks in the coterie's eyes as if they had been mortals caught staring at the sun too long.

Their bodies faded translucent, their weapons turned milky white like the skin over spoiled milk. They had come to the End of All Things.

"Oh my God..." stammered Charissma.

"Scion?" Asked Gunn. "We've done this before right?"

"Sure," Scion lied, "All the time." They were all way out of their league.

"Glorious." Albrecht said, the light in his eyes streaming out of them in circular afterimages as he turned. "We're all going to die here."

"Yeah, well, I've got things to do, so, let's go with the plan that doesn't get us killed." said Scion unconfidently. Gregor laughed.

"We are already dead my friends." he said an odd, light in his eyes as well. "Look at yourselves." He looked through his faded translucent hand, turning it over. He then offered it to Scion and heartily shook it. "There are no warriors I would rather die with! I am truly honored." Scion could only stare at him. Albrecht nodded.

Albrecht came here to die. Scion thought, and the instant it crossed his mind he knew it was true.

"There!" Albrecht pointed at the hills. White forms began appearing along the horizon, man-shaped and gathering in numbers.

"Charissma?" Scion shouted over his shoulder. The young Toreador shook where she stood, and her eyes were red-rimmed with unshed tears of almost overwhelming horror. More milk-white phantoms came over the hills and began to arrange themselves into a phalanx.

"Ye... yes?" She answered, still shaking.

"Get out now!" he shouted.

She nodded quickly and ran back through the doors without any question. After a moment her body solidified and she was no longer a phantom. The preacher opened his small black book and began to speak. Charissma turned back to the tattered hole in the world. There seemed to be less of the Gaslight's tattered end than there had been when they had entered the desolate landscape. The tear in the world was getting worse.

"Scion!" she shouted, but her words were carried away by the storm. The doors slammed closed behind them, blown by a gust of wind from the rising storm, shutting Charissma into the darkened hallway of the Smith Tower basement and trapping the others. The three remaining Kindred arranged themselves around the priest as the army of wraiths surged forward like a wall.