Thread: Steppin' Up (atn: Madam Dulac)

The butler smiles and excitedly motions her in. He shakes his head negatively at Tala's question about Madame Du Lac but takes her arm in a friendly fashion and starts giving her a tour.
It is obvious that the girls that lived here were in the great battle, all of their belongings are still in their rooms as if they had expected to come home. Each room is typical of a young lady of proper breeding. There is a diary only in Lisa's room.
The master bedroom, presumably Madame Du Lac's room, is stripped almost bare. It is obvious the woman slipped out in the confusion of the battle. There is nothing personal left behind, not a brush, not a dress, not a hair. The bathroom even still smells of bleach.
The butler's smile fades as he leads Tala toward the basement...

Tala walks through the bedrooms like walking through a tomb. Images flash through her mind of the dead and the dying on the field that day, the sounds of children screaming... impaled on spikes meant for Chrinos werewolves overwhelms her senses at least until she sees Lisa's diary.

For a moment she lays a hand on the diary. "I'm writing a tale about her to be sung at the moot." She says dryly. "I tried to protect her and instead I sent her to her death. I owe her more than a story." She knows the old man can't say anything in return and that is a comfort. No amount of platitudes would really ever make the blood wash from her hands. That diary would tell her what she didn't know about Lisa... if Lisa knew what Tala had so calously sent her back to... and while she could look, she decided for her own sanity it was best she never know.

Continuing down to the basement she looks to the butler. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to be here for you sooner. There are a lot of reasons I could give you for putting your life on the line... but none of them excuse my inability to do my job. Be certain that I will never let you down like that again. Everything changes... today."

The butler nods to her solemnly, as if her words mean more than she could realize. He turns on the lights to the basement and leads her down the stone stairs.
His shoes echo off the stone as he leads Tala into a large cavernous room that is pristine at the entrance. There is a table with six place settings a short distance away. The entire back half of the room is sectioned off by a wall of bars and single cell door. It is obvious the cell has had recent activity although it is empty now. Just outside the cell is a massive deep freezer chugging away, keeping its contents cold. He simply points to the freezer and won't walk any farther.

Tala stares at the door a moment before whispering, "Gaia, grant me strength..." Stepping forward she reaches for the handle, hoping to find pot roast and tv dinners but not expecting that at all. Turning the handle she calls up every ounce of willpower she has not to blanche at whatever might be inside the freezer that this butler was so keen on her seeing.

The freezer is full of slabs of meat and human carcasses in various sizes of meat cuts. It is now painfully obvious that cannibalism was occurring here. There are three heads in the freezer as well. All of them bear Silver Fang pure breed of 4 or 5.

Over the totem link, Tala's anguish can be heard: Dear Gaia they ate my kin... oh dear fucking god ... they ate them!!!

Tala covers her mouth, swallowing back bile and stumbles backwards. She looks to the butler, "Tell me we have the names of these ... people somewhere?" Her eyes glisten with unshed tears. "And please tell me that monstrous woman is dead."

The butler points to the freezer and nods his head sadly, confirming he has their names. He then pantomimes an hourglass shape and shakes his head negatively. He pantomimes picking up luggage and sneaking away.

As Tala looks closer at the heads, they are all male, and with her galliard knowledge she can tell that at least one of them was garou and not kin.

Over the totem link: "Son of a... not all kin. They ate Garou too! I'm not sure yet, but I think Madam Dulac made a break for it. If she did and there is any hope of catching her and making her answer for these crimes I want to do it. Owl... do you think you can get us a bead on her trail? We need to stop her before anyone else gets hurt.

Shadow... if you can get here asap that would be good. I want to heal the last of my kin so we can find out what he knows. He can't speak as he had his tongue cut out.

"So, Madam Dulac ran away then?" She asks. Regardless of the answer, "Go fetch the list of the dead and if you have any next of kin for us to contact we'll need that information too. I'll go to them personally as soon as we sort things out around the household. And I need some clean sheets... enough to put the separate body parts into. These folks will want what's left of their loved ones to bury."

Tala looked back into the freezer and she could see her mother laying dead on the floor, blood smears on the wall, the sounds of police radios and chatter filling her ears and overwhelming her senses for a moment. Shaking her head she tried to will the sadness back into it's hole. She didn't have time to mourn again. The pain in her soul was vast and the hole that ever threatened to reswallow her spirit, deep. Only her family could help her now. I need you Dark Riders... please hurry.

Owl tells you that getting a trail will be extremely difficult as she has used something to cover her route.

The butler walks over to a small closet door set into one of the walls. He opens it and pulls out a massive ledger book. He sets it reverently on the dinner table and opens it to the first page. As Tala looks at the page, names and numbers swim into focus, as does the horrifying fact that according to the first few entries, this cannibalism has been going on since the day the Du Lac family settled in Robin's Tale. There are over 100 years of names in this book. All of the names are male, many of them are garou. The story the book tells is that with each cotillion Madame Du Lac held, one or two young men never went home.
The butler walks off to get the clean sheets, leaving Tala to soak in what the ledger has to say.