by Hikaru the Red
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by Luna

Each night he watches her go to sleep
Each night he’s in her dreams
She wonder who is this man that stalk her in her dreams
He whisper in her ear every night
She and still she wonder who is this man that stalk my dreams
He love he smell of her hair
And she doesn’t know who is this mystery man
He can’t stand the thought of losing her
But deep in his cold dead heart he know
He can’t be with her, but that won’t stop him from loving her forever

by Hans Westh

‘Pon my tortured soul
Light shines, cover my eyes
‘Fraid to loose the whole

Oh, this damned blood
Cursing in my heart-vein
Call’t mad, call’t wise
Mad, may be free reign

A thousand fractures
and the dance of the fool
Mind covered in damp cold
Covered in the softest wool

“What do you see”
Is all you ask
Answer naught
T’is my task

Remember now, and remember then
We are the Family
Family Malkavian
And should I struck down be
I know this, then
That my Embrace
Will
In
The
Family
Malkavian
… be.

by Thomas David Lake

A tale of one man’s embrace by Francisco Del Moreno.

It was a cold bleak day when I was born into darkness. Read the rest of this entry »

by Anarch

And so ended another exhausting night…

It isn’t an easy existence, being a ghoul. Despite the stories that you heard, despite the tales of Kindred who fell in love with mortals and took them under wing to love and to cherish, it is not an existence of ease.

Being a ghoul does not mean you are loved and cherished. It means that you are a servant. No. Even less than that~ you are a slave. You are there to be commanded. Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not raise eyes or voice. Do not disobey.

You are a constant food supply, kept on hand. Blood on the hoof. Be prepared to tilt your head aside and offer yourself willingly. Be prepared to be ignored, abused and degraded. Be prepared to be the brunt of their jokes and the subject of their whims. Be prepared to be neglected or cast aside or even killed, should the mood fit your domitor.

Do it for fear. Do it for obedience. Do it for this sick, perverse, twisted love that makes your heart beat faster and faster when you see them at a distance; this illness that makes you tremble when you feel their gaze upon you, this loss of hope and degradation that makes your insides whisper and quiver as you pray that they will look favorably upon your non-existent self. Oh god, please let them see me. Let them know me. Let these evil, dark creatures desire me.

No task is too menial for a ghoul. A ghoul is a food source, a concubine, a gopher and a bodyguard. To know that they rely upon you is some small gratification until you realize how easily you can be replaced. The world is seething with blinded fools who want to love these creatures. These dark Gods of the night. These Kindred.

I know these things because I long. I love and I linger and I long for that which slips through my fingers like tiny grains of sand. Respect. Adoration. Acknowledgement… and yet I am formless and faceless to them. I am without substance and without meaning. With every night that passes, I learn more and more that I am no longer myself. I am no longer Christian Delaney.

I am a ghoul. Nothing more.

~from the journal of Christian S. Delaney, Camarilla ghoul

by daedaleus@lycos.com

"The Shadows are whispering again. They have followed me here, it seems. Even here…"

Throughout history terrible secrets have been hidden, only to be unearthed by brave, and sometimes, unwitting souls. And when kindred are involved their own history is a secret that is sought at great risk. Elders rally their young and clans martial their forces in search of a glimpse of truth.

In the case of Fra Niccolo giovanni, his own scholastic skills are in the service of his esteemed uncle. A humble monk, Niccolo, seeks knowledge, or more blatantly; he hungers to know. The taste of forgotten secrets and hidden lore sets upon the tip of his tongue maddening him with their bitter-sweet delight.

It is Niccolo who discovers an archaic tome. To his astonishment it is seemingly written by Caine himself, and obtains commentary by truly ancient kindred scholars. Unlike any other account it details from a view none other could, being the account of Caine himself.

The Erciyes Fragments is a delicious read. Like a fine wine you can wet your lips on it and the taste will linger on your tongue. The elders commentary replace separate annotation & explanation (as in the book of nod the revelations of the dark mother, the black labyrinth chronicles, etc.), making it much easier to read without shuffling through pages and check each notation. All in all it’s as if it’s three books in one. Just for the story of Niccolo it’s worth every penny. Included is the tales of caine in his own view as it were and the elders themselves own commentary blend in as if they were their own tale. The ending alone I won’t spoil but for the record it’s positively delightful. Even for readers unfamiliar with the world of darkness this is a wondrous and spellbinding book. The version of events detailed will un-doubtedly give most pause to think.

Enjoy the book, Delight in it’s exquisite horror, and Revel in the thought of how things could possibly be… If it truly were a World of Darkness…

I hope you find my humble service acceptable.
Daedaleus

by milliecat@msn.com

The Tremere Anastasia Novykh drives up to the Elysium for the first time in nearly a year, having recently regained her privileges to attend from her clan. Her banishment was a bit brief, she mused, considering her outburst. Though her work had been dutiful and diligent, her behavior exemplary,Anastasia was somewhat inclined to believe her reprieve was more of a test than a show of regained favor. Or perhaps it was part of some plot to see how well a disfavored Tremere would be received by the ravenous harpies, the taunting Malkavians and Brujah, or the smirking, amused Ventrue. She muchpreferred the latter to a test of her decorum, for in such an experiment she would at least be doing a useful service to the clan, whether or not she understood it.

With a soft beep, she locks her car and walks with graceful confidence to the Church entrance. The huge doorman gives the small, frail looking kindred a respectful nod, allowing her to pass behind him through the doors.

As Anastasia tops the stairs, she sweepingly notices some few whispers at her arrival. It seems nothing more than the usual notice any kindred receives, but one can never know past the subtleties of immortal gossips. She makes her way to the couch of her Primogen giving respectful nods to those who look up at her, for almost all here have more status than she at this point. Some give this deference to their betters for the want of its return in some future time, but to her, a well-indoctrinated Tremere, she knows of the strength of the base of such hierarchies. She takes her place at the foundation of kindred society just as she does within her clan, with the knowledge that it is all a part of the larger picture, the Great Plan, the reason for her existence and that of countless others.

Vim Pyramidis in saxibus quadratis

*The strength of the Pyramid is in the stones.

Anastasia Novykh, Apprentice of the Second Circle of Mysteries, House and Clan Tremere.

by wishing@mail.tele.dk

The night of downtown Dallas was dark, but the lands of the dead were even darker. A disheveled soldier was walking through those lands in silence, side by side with the living children of the city, who never knew who he was, or why he had died in a field hospital 55 years ago. But this soul, Joe Serrin, didn’t care. The Citadel of the Necropolis loomed ahead, and tonight was a working night.

Joe entered the Citadel with only a quiet word to the gatekeeper, a squat, butcher-like figure, with a worried expression on his face beneath his rubberish gas mask. The massive Shadowlands structure was silent as always, but even more so that night. Half walking, half drifting, he made his way from the entry hall through the hallway beneath the massive stone stairs towards his room of office. It had been only a few months ago he had been appointed it, as he had proven his worth at the arts of subduing the shadow -always a valuable skill, especially so within the Hierarchy. As he walked, he tried to dismiss the thoughts of the external threats being dead entailed, and to focus on the internal. The thought that met him made him stop in his tracks,and walk quietly back to the gatekeeper.

"Listen,"he explained to the guardian wraith,"if a girl calling herself Melody comes here, she probably wants to see me, Serrin. I can be found in the sixth room of the left hallway under the stairs." The wraith stared at him briefly with empty eyes, and Joe turned around and resumed his way down the hall.

The office he came into was not big, walls covered in white tiles like a bathroom, with a single barred window filling up a good part of the furthest wall. A relic chair was placed in the middle of the room facing directly towards the window. Joe walked silently over to a bench along one wall, nearly touching the central chair, and sat down to gaze out the window at the street outside. From this location the living world was hard to see, the relic walls and window distorting his vision so that the Skin lands street was blurred and ran together with the Shadowlands like runny gray paint when viewed through the bars. Joe took off his mask in silence and stared out with dead unshielded eyes for a while. He only put on the mask again when his inner clock told him his customer was due to arrive.

"Hey," said Melody as she walked in. The young girl had been passed through by the gatekeeper with no troubles, and now she looked at him expectantly. It was a look he’d seen on so many of the strange faces of the waking dead. Save me from myself, it said to him. Joe’s mask covered his own expressions flawlessly. He himself did not even know what they were.

He could feel the angst she’d built up, and her shadow seemed to peer out at him from behind her eyes. She pulled out her knife and handed it to him, handle first. "Here. Use this. She hates that," Melody told him, smiling mirthlessly.

"Have a seat," he told her,gesturing to the relic chair. She sat, twisting her neck around to watch him as he circled her, holding the knife as though it were an athame and he an old fashioned sorcerer.

Melody started bouncing one leg as she had when, before her death, she’d taken stimulants, or had a full bladder. It wasn’t a full bladder now, just impatience, she thought. Wouldn’t he just get on with it, get it over with.

"Please, try to relax." Joe wanted to ask her if she had done this before, if she had had trouble getting in, just chitchat to ease the tension. But her boiling Angst made him more uncomfortable than usual,the way she seemed to mock him with every twitch, the way her eyes tore bloody plasmic chunks out of him with their black radiance.

He was behind her as he always were when castigation began. He judged the strength of her shadow easily, and steeled himself for the fight. Letting his own emotions loose was the hardest part, making them work for him in order to break through her defenses and into direct contact with her dark side. It was impossible not to feel pity for those who had to go through it, baring the deepest recesses of themselves for the sake of their sanity, and it was with remorse he pulled back her head and slit her throat.

Joe caught a glimpse of himself, his fingers digging into Melody’s shoulders,just as his vision disappeared and he found himself somewhere else entirely, a place created by his own conscious will and the malice of the customer in his hands.

What he could perceive around him was a room built up of granite rocks, piles of skulls and books lining the walls, and torches burning with blue-green fire on the walls. Arcane symbols were carved into the stone floor, and invisible incense and essences flooded the air with an ethereal scent. Everything was an illusion, but so were the Shadowlands outside, the line between reality and dream was non-existent for the waking dead. These trances always reminded Joe of that subtle truth.

When he looked up, a figure was standing before him in the twilight. This not-quite Melody… The first thing that struck him was her beauty, the next thing her hatred. She had Melody’s indigo skin and pale hair, but her ears sharply pointed like a faerie’s. In her slender hand she held a heavy silver chain, which wrapped around her waist and terminated in shackles around the wrists and neck of a very young girl. The girl seemed not to notice the bindings; her expression was calm and introverted, as though nothing could disturb her tranquility.

The shadow of Melody smiled. "Another fly caught in my web… well met,brave warrior." She looked over his khaki jacket and gas mask with disdain. "I think it’s time for me to show you that who you’ve found is*not* the childish coward sitting in your little chair…" With a sneer,the Shadow raised her right hand and black-blue fire enveloped it like the striking of a match. Her left hand pulled forth another set of manacles on a chain - this one of blackened metal - and with the hand holding them, she beckoned the Pardoner to come forward and face her. Her eyes burned white as well, and a thin, greenish tongue appeared to loll from her grinning, fanged mouth.

Joe closed his eyes and sighed, and felt the dungeon setting around him go numb as he dictated. When the smell of brimstone and the crackle of flame had faded away, he set his mind to pick apart the anger and shame that was the cause of all this, slicing through the near-solid emotion with his own logic and compassion. Though it was never routine, a job was a job and he had to keep himself from being caught up in whatever illusions the sick and virulent side of the client’s soul could conjure up. It was all Angst - hate, self-loathing,jealousy of the living. That he could wade through the deepest recesses of her instinctive emotional universe untouched was a miracle in itself - but so, some would say, was life after death.

Jonathan could feel Melody’s outward soul turning and whimpering around him, barriers collapsing and pillars snapping and falling apart within her.Everything was a world within a world within a world.

When he opened his eyes again, there were no walls or scrolls or manacles, only the image of Melody’s shadow lying curled up on the ground. Her ears were pointed and her robes black, but her realm was replaced with a gentle calm of non-existence - in her inner world only herself and the man in the mask remained.

Joe broke off the link, and slowly opened his mind outward. His eyes could see,and the thing they saw was the iron frame of the barred window.

His attention was snapped back to his client when she shifted in the chair.Melody sighed a long sigh, and a wispy white cloud floated out of her mouth,dissipating as it left.

"Well, that was fun," she said with an attempt at a smile, and opened her eyes slowly. She held out her hand, wanting her knife back, and he set it in her palm carefully. The wound on her throat had healed, the plasma solidified once more, and she crawled out of the chair. Joe nodded to her when they against stood face to face, and they conducted the exchange of payment in silence. As the girl skipped out of the office and down the hall, her ethereal footsteps sounding like shifting dust, Joe sat down on the bench and considered taking off his mask, to breathe freely a little, before the next client would arrive.

by milliecat@msn.com

by Jeanette

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