Thread: Life and Death - 12-7-09

OOC: The following takes place at the same time as the Battle for the Prairie begins.

"GET HER ON THE COUCH!" Renata yelled over Kirsi's screams as she, DeAngelo, and Sophia came running into the room.

"Labor?" DeAngelo asked Renata who was clearly no more knowledgeable about the topic than he was.

"I don't think she’s supposed to bleed like that." Sophia, having taken her feet in order to help the other two lifting her gently, pointed out.

"Where the hell are the wraiths... shouldn't they have come to us at the first sign of trouble?" DeAngelo questioned his two female companions.

"How the hell should I know... maybe we should call a doctor?" Renata said, obviously uncomfortable and uncertain what exactly needed to be done.

"YES!" Kirsi screamed between sobs.

"No!" Sophia snapped, slowly glancing around the room with a far away look in her eyes. Cautiously she continues, "Something's very wrong here. Stay with her." With that the 'young girl' leaves the room.

Renata's jaw opens slightly, her eyes matching saucers as the child-like demeanor of Sophia melts away for a moment in the seriousness of it all. She follows Sophia with her eyes until the girl is out of sight, she was still unsure what exactly to make of Constantino's sister at times. Finally, she looks back to DeAngelo who stood transfixed on a grunting, weeping Kirsi.

"Please... tell me ... you know how to deliver a baby?" Kirsi manages to sob to DeAngelo.

"Um...."

"Of course he does." Renata quickly lies. "Now just relax and for God's sake whatever you do, don't push!"

---

Sophia moves through the house silently, her eyes paying no real attention to her physical surroundings but, instead, those in the lands of the dead. Needing to confirm her fears she walks outside and looks around ... fear grips her heart as she sees absolutely nothing.
Letting her eyes return to look only at the physical, she breaks into a dead run for Constantino's office. Throwing open the door she let's her eyes slip into the shadowlands again, this time looking for anything with a duel existence in both the physical realm and in the shadowlands. After all, whatever had the ability to discorporate the family's entire wraithly defenses was no normal spectre.

Her eyes catches on the brand bearing the family symbol displayed on the desk. Not quite what she was looking for but it would have to do. Snatching it up, it occurred to her that maybe he kept something of greater power where he slept. Leaving the office she walked down the hall, past the den where she could hear the human girl still squealing and groaning. The scent of her blood called to Sophia but feeding would have to wait until danger had passed.

Opening the door to the basement area of the house she could immediately see where some of the wraiths had gone. Emelia flittered out of sight, moving very fast down the hallway and into the ritual room. Perhaps, she mused, her brother's wraiths had brought the thing down here hoping to trap it somehow or to just keep it as far from the girl as possible. Or maybe, she considered as she reached out for the door handle, the thing had a fetter in here. Could the old man who controlled this city before, Cici, have a few more unknown secrets.

Sophia opened the door only a tiny bit to peek inside. Caution was key here. She would assess the situation and respond as was appropriate.

A wave of heat so intense that it burned her skin washed over her. Sophia fell back hissing unconsciously, struggling to take control of her beast before it controlled her. She'd thrown the door open in her scrambling and now could see clearly what was occurring inside.
The thing defied any description and hurt her mind just to gaze upon. It smelled of rotten eggs and char, it moved like water on glass and faster than anything she'd ever seen before. Her mind raced back to her conversation with her old friend... and suddenly she knew what the thing was and sadly - as it turned to look at her with a toothy grin, it seemed to know her.

---

Sophia's screams, amazingly, could be heard over Kirsi's. DeAngelo turned and moved quickly towards the door and Renata started to as well but Kirsi grabbed her hand. "NO! Please... don't leave me!"

Looking to DeAngelo, Renata received a reassuring nod. Sighing she patted Kirsi's hand as her cousin departed. "I'm not going anywhere Kirsi. Just keep focusing and breathing... you're going to be okay. I'm sure that Constantino will be home very soon."

"Sal too?" Kirsi asked, not knowing anything about the previous night's debacle.

"Sal too." Renata figured she may well have been lying again but if there had ever been a time for lies... now seemed a good moment.

---

Sophia flew through the air and collided with the brick wall for the second time. THIS was getting to be painful. Steel rebar broke through the concrete and punctured through her flesh, the scent of her vitae now filled the air but it could have been far worse. Emelia had thrown herself in between Sophia and the thing the first time... that had bought her a chance to find out just how useless the brand would be against this thing and that NO, it wasn't a spectre. Emelia discorporated from the vicious claws the thing wielded.

The crusader had been a bit more effective than she had been with his soul steel sword and manifested form. He had taken quite a bit of the flesh off the thing. Sophia had nearly made it to the upstairs door to call for help that time, but the thing was so damn fast! Silently she wondered who in Venice was going to be pissed over the loss of that one.

As she pulled herself off the steel that held her feet a good foot of the ground, she recalled the nanny that was sent back with them and how easily the poor wraith had discorporated. Damn odd. She figured someone sent to protect the children would have proven more of a threat. Collapsing to the floor she noted the smashed trinkets laying about the room; a snow globe, a brass pair of baby shoes, something that once was porcelain. It made sense then. Fetters.

DeAngelo appeared in the doorway then and sputtered some sort of curse. She knew the scholar was going to hold up no better than her. Someone had to get word to Constantino and if she didn't do the right thing, the family would lose everything they'd invested here. Catching her cousin's eyes she commanded him, "RUN!"

Picking up the left behind soul steel blade she charged forward to buy DeAngelo a few moments to flee. Crying out as she rushed forward, remembering her sister, silently wondering at her brother's well being and whereabouts; she pushed the blade deep into the thing's leg. It screamed out, if that could be called screaming and she considered for a moment that it had been a fantastic hit... if not quite where she meant to shove the blade. If she lived through this... she'd have to learn how to use a sword apparently.

---

DeAngelo raced past the den and from the sound that Renata heard, apparently, out the front door. "What the..." Renata was now truly concerned. Looking down at the human laying helpless before her, the human so many of her family seemed so very concerned with, she knew it was time for drastic action.

Reaching up to the necklace at her throat she called out "Mikey, you are summoned to me. Appear now and do no harm to myself or those in my care!" A moment later her husband appeared. Kirsi sobs quieted, as if having a wraith nearby made her feel more... not less... safe.

"We're leaving." Renata said standing up, pushing her blood into her limbs to enhance her own strength. "And no one is to stop us. Do you understand Mikey?" Her husband nodded obediently as Renata gently picked up Kirsi and made her way to the front door.

---

The beast's grip around Sophia's throat burned. She could feel her skin and muscle snapping in the same way that one might pop a zit or blister only it then curled on itself like leaves exposed to too much heat. Her throat might never be the same she realized. Sometimes, if the wound was bad enough, it never healed fully. Funny that even now, when it seemed most assured she was going to die, how trivial thoughts like you appearance suddenly came to mind.

Kicking and failing for all she was worthy seemed to do no good. She wondered if DeAngelo would tell the family that she had sacrificed herself. Surely her wraith would not escape to Venice once this was over. Blood tears were filling her eyes so much that everything in her sight seemed shades of red and pink. Camarilla fools! Her friend had been right all along...

---

This was it. Wetting her lips she tried to push out a word here and there until she'd completed the first line...

"Deus meus, ex toto corde paenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum,"

The monster squeezed her throat tighter and the beast inside screamed as the last blood she could bring herself to spare seemed spent on just tolerating the pain, and not resisting much in the way of damage.

Sophia felt herself falling. Was this death? Everything seemed dark; she couldn't see the thing anymore. She could hear a voice, "SOPHIA!" A rough Italian male voice. "GIRL!"

Blinking she realized there was something in front of her, she wasn't dead, the demon had dropped her to the floor. Grabbing what was left of her throat, tendons, bone, barely anything left at all really she shuddered and again pushed back her beast that threatened to overwhelm all reason.

"Zio...Patrizio?" She rasped.

"RUN!" He ordered. Sophia knew that his presence meant that her brother was here. No reason to be a hero now. Pulling herself to her feet, she stumbled out of the room, the sounds of combat behind her. It hurt to move and she couldn't make herself run, looking down to what was left of her burned feet she could see why. Sophia collapsed in the hallway. "...tino..." she rasped. "tino..."

The demon wailed on Patrizio and for some reason the old man didn't strike back but worked feverishly at some other task. Was this Constantino's plan? It was madness... Patrizio was a valuable wraith, he'd be lost if he didn't at least try to defend himself.

Again and again she watched ephemra float away from the form of her uncle and still there was no sign of Constantino. She'd never heard of anything like what Patrizio was trying before; was it necromancy at all?

A flash of light, Patrizio's pain wracked screams, and the cacophony that only hell itself could produce melded with Sophia's sob, "...Patrizio.." And then everything was still. The soul steel blade clattered to the ground, smoking and no where in the physical or shadowlands was there a sign of her uncle or the demon.

Sophia felt a tear roll down her cheek; she was surprised she even had a drop of blood to spare even for her beloved uncle. Closing her eyes she told herself she'd just rest a moment... only a moment.

Everything went dark.