we live out dark fantasies

samae| i

.... at forty seven teréz körút, budapest, hungry .. may thirteenth, nineteen forty one ...

Isabol tramples down the stairs on a broken right heel.. shifting as silent as she can. The cover of night still handy at this late hour. The knife tossed and burried into some trash, her skirt and hair straightened. Its well passed curfew, and certainly patrol or the sentries will be smoking and waiting with their hounds leashed, and telling stories about polish hookers.

She turns down the emptied cobble stone alley and cautiously makes her return to a small apartment above a bistro, all the while scrubbing her hands precisely, and pulling on black wool gloves.

The patrol is thin and returning to her post is easy enough in the light morning drizzle... she carefuly climbs her studio stairs and closes her door with ease. she strips down, throwing every article of clothing into a bucket, scrubs it clean again, washes her hands and face four times, before checking her necklace and then passing out on her tiny cot.

....

" Isabol! " Duartes yells, " Isabol!! Are you listening to me?" She startles and nearly drops the note pad she is writing on..

"I pay you to take notes, not day dream as a seceratary! "

Smoke fills the studio where the tiny newpaper makes its editorial selections. Mister Duartes puts out a cigarillo and leans forward at his desk. "Did you get all that? Three Officers, each of their throats slashed visciously, with clean percision by the assasin.. "

Isabol starts to nod saying, Yes, and just continues jotting words on the page.

Duartes grumbles, clearing his foggy throat before continuing,"This is an upsetting event for the army settled here, after such a peaceful and understanding transitional state the city has been going through. This is the same assasin suspected of eight political murders between Budapest and Krakow. Officials have tagged the same name, Samael, to this case, yet the suspect remains at large... Are you getting this, Isabol? I will not repeat this twice for you.."

" Yes, Mister Duartes, I'm not missing a single thing. I'll get this to Print right away, if thats what you want. "

The cheif journalist nods affirmatively before lighting another cigar, and waving her out of his office..

Isabol jots the final scribblings before heading towards the editors office with the article, calmly and coldly smiling down the hallway.

~

© B. McLean 20070420
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ref|ections | i | stolen

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*************

london.july.200x.

Rain comes down from the sky, sliding through cracks in buildings; sidewalks; window frames. Gray skies and puddles line up reflections on the streets. These reflections flitter from pavement, to plastic umbrella, to car, to a cafe front, where a half filled room of psuedo intellectuals sip cappuccinos, reading their scene or speaking roarously of the new theater show.

A dark haired man sits at a small table. Young looking, he jitters over his mug, testing the liquid for a drinkable temperature; sips and replaces his mug to the tabletop. Checks his watch. The passing thought of leaving strikes him, he then moves back to the article he is composing on a laptop.

The doors open, and a gaggle of darkling teens shuttle inwards, drenched from rain. They pass bookshelves and magazine racks, then the young man's table, just to line up for another fix of caffeine. One of them pockets a book on the 'Occult guide to Apartment Living'. The man looks up, only after they pass, to catch them in the corner of his eye. He shakes off an odd thought, goes back to his article.

"I'm here," a voice echoes from behind his head.

Without turning the young man replies, "About time, Mister Cayche."

The second man, appearing to be in his forties, pulls out a chair from the opposite site of the tiny cafe table. He wraps his wet coat over the chair, "Call me Michael." He sits, shaking out his white-gray hair of rainwater. "I thought we attained a first name relationship at least, Geist?"

The young man lets a sharp intake of breath pass his teeth, he then looks up from the display. "Don't call me that. Not ever.” Geist glares sternly, “Call me Tom. I feel like a ‘Tom’ today." Ever so slightly, he grins.

"Alright then. Are you always so poignant about what you are called," he smiles, "or have the black hats figured out your favorite name this week?" Michael asks, shifting in his seat.

Geist stares at him straight, saying "Look, do you want the info I found. I can get going. I have enough trouble on my heels as it is." He moves back a bit and closes his laptop.

Michael gestures to him not to move, "No, don't go. Laughingtree asked me to find out what I could for him.” He leans inward, “So, I'm here. Tell me you found her whereabouts at least. You Adepts have to be good for something."

Geist starts to answer when he is cut off by Michael's expression. He pauses as Michael glares past his shoulder. A man in a long coat enters from the wet streets.

Michael moves to stand, speaking

"...Dylan?"

_____________

71200RD-Report-00217 start
Confirmed 'RD'0132#
Subject incarcerated in facility 231.
Interrogation is about to commence.
71200RD-Report-00217 end

*************

Evening is falling where a bonfire glows in the early twilight.

Pinpoints of light appear in the blue-black sky where the hemisphere is pulling away from the stormy skies. Two men sit talking by the heat of the red and yellow light. Sparks crackle and fade back into the flames. They are surrounded heavily by evergreens, which are still damp from the day's rain.

"Grandfather, why can you not see?" A man in his late twenties asks. He wears long black braids under a buckskin hat, a black t-shirt, a plaid worker vest underneath an earth brown duster, and a small pouch hangs from a string around his neck. He passes a very old wooden long-pipe to the old man.

The Grandfather smiles, accepting the burning pipe. The corners of his clay skin wrinkles as his eyes squint to meet the corners of his thin lips. "Even the animals cannot travel to some places, my little-johnny-tree. Animals do not have keys to many places that man has locked from them." Grandfather looks towards the sky, where the night edges of shade are touching wet blue-gray air.

He smiles knowingly again. "The Manitou have settled. The way shall be clear soon enough." He slides a handful of long feathers over the wet ground, over the fire, and back to his side. He puffs the pipe, passing it back.

John takes the smoking wood, holding it lightly, then looks away from Grandfather and stares back into the fire, searching for a better question to ask his guide.

A cackle rings out through the evergreens from mad crows. John looks back down the hill to see a white-haired man walking up the path. He takes a drought from the pipe, pouring greasy smoke from his mouth.

"Who is that?" Grandfather asks, squinting again over the fire.

John passes the pipe into the old man's hands, "He is a friend, Grandfather. Perhaps he knows the clear way." He stands solemnly, while Grandfather smokes the pipe and stares into the fire.

Nearing the site, Michael asks, "You smoking a pipe up here all by your lonesome, Laughingtree?"

John walks towards him, smirking, "I suppose I am. Care to join me?"

Michael shakes his head, holding up a hand, "No thanks. Knives and candles are my thing. Long drive back to the reservation here, isn't it."

"Not when its home." John turns to start placating the edges of the fire with sand. Crows screech out and fly overhead. Five, then eight, followed by two or three. They pepper the failing sky for a few moments. John looks up, "hmmm… moot."

Michael stands open-toed waiting for Laughingtree to finish putting out the flames. Grows impatient, then speaks to John's back, "I'm afraid I only have bad news followed by worse, regarding Hawkfoot."

John doesn't look away from dowsing the pit. He simply sighs and continues his work.

Michael takes that as a sign to continue talking, regardless of mood. "Well, after she was arrested for sabotaging the work site and they could find no human-rights group that she was affiliated with, Cheyenne was moved to a cell in the central Police department. She is incarcerated until trial."

John looks back angrily, "They can't do that. She has rights that..."

Michael cuts him off. "That's right. She would. If only she was in that cell, in Police custody."

"What?" John stalls, "Well, then were is she?"

Michael looks at him, "According to the," ahem, "unofficial records, on the sign out sheet, she has been turned over to the government's custody for questioning, regarding national eco-terrorist groups."

"You have to be kidd..." John starts.

Michael cuts him off yet again, "Did you want our friendly neighbourhood Vee-Aeys translation or the paper print off version I've been giving you?"

John curls his right hand into a fist. He is unsure what will get punched first… the face… the gut... "Tell me what's going on bloodwitch or I'll just beat it out of you."

_____________

71200RD-Report-00217 follow up
Confirmed 'RD'0132#
Subject incarcerated in facility 231.
Interrogation Inconclusive.
Uncooperative. Charges pending.
Moving Subject at 2300 hours to Treatment
and Interrogation NWO Unit 9453.
71200RD-Report-00217 end

*************

Every moment leads to following moments. Un-circulated. Unfiltered. Yet cycled and repeated. Millennia of ages old are some moments. Never ending. Never sleeping.

Cheyenne Hawkfoot shudders and wakes in her gray concrete cell. Her long straight hair piled around her, knotted and tangled with clotted blood. She leans up from the hard cot they've left her to lay on. Now in a windowless room, which is barred only on one side. The tiny light available flickers from a florescent pod down the corridor.

She stares down at her watch. Shit, its eight o'clock, she thinks to herself. Sits cross-legged, trying to meditate; maybe journey a way out of here. Focusing and clearing herself she feels trees rush by her, a stream trickles over rocks and earth, and then she hears little other than her heartbeat.

Yet, Cheyenne's mind wanders back... to her running. Not from the workers that spotted her. No. Running from the men in black suits that came out of nowhere, as if they had been there waiting. The man that grabbed her as she climbed a fence; the suit she toppled on to... the same pasty man that got her knife in his gut. Visions of them still rolling through the grass violently, as his warm copper blood spilled over her as she fought to get free. Her running again and then the gun fire echoes... the chamber echoes…

Her body starts, thrown back into the cell, and then she realizes it’s another cell door slamming shut.

Footsteps...

She wonders if the man died before or after everything went black. She wonders if she'll do time, wonders then if they'll even bother charging her in a court when they could hide all traces of her birth... her life… the mirror-shades could just blow her away right here and now...

___________________________________________

ref|ections | ii | onslaught

"And…. we get in there… how?" a girl asks, her blonde hair tied back and ready for espionage, while looking through binoculars at a concrete compound which had been fenced-in.

John had picked up some stragglers. Michael left him with information about a false television communication facility just on the outskirts of town. A few individuals decided they wanted to help Cheyenne, no matter how dangerous John had repeated the situation would be.

Father Packett and Lisa insisted on helping get her out some how. Both Choristers knew the dangers. Lisa wouldn't let Cheyenne stay ‘locked up or… um… worse’. As for the Father, well, it was unlikely the old codger would let his student go into battle without him.

Lisa put down the binoculars and stared blankly back at John, "We need to get in there, but it looks like they have twenty guards roaming around."

"Ten, according to Geist." John said, trying to stay quiet and low, not wanting to give their position away.

"Eleven, by my count. And that's just ou'side. Looks ta be another three through the windows at least." The Father tucked his flask away, drying up the corners of his whiskey lips with his Irish tongue. Then pulled a cross out, kissed it, and placed it over his chest.

A moment passes with no words.

John sighs and then moves to stand, "Well, we best get in there and get her out."

The preacher reaches out and snatches him down, "You'll not be going anywhere till we figure out a plan." He says this firmly and stares directly through Laughingtree.

"I can distract them," Lisa pipes up cheerily, interrupting the fragile moment. "Won't take me a flick of a cat's tail, neither." She smiles. Reaching into the Father’s suit jacket and grabs his flask. She opens the silver lid and douses her blouse and sweater with the sweet smelling liquid.

Jack stutters, thrusting out a hand, “Hey, tha’s eighty years old.” He grasps his flask and she grins widely. She turns with a bounce and leaves the two men under the evergreens.

Laughingtree moves again. "See Father Jack, we have a plan," he chuckles, then smiles weakly, "Let’s go."

Lisa heads the opposite way around the trees towards an SUV they borrowed.

Sighing, Father Jack shakes his head over the young fools he is following. Stepping quickly to keep up with John, he then says "And jus’ how do you propose we get back out?"

_____________

*************

| cell beeps… a pause… no ring… no tone… |

“Verbena… that you?”

“Why yes Dylan, it is. Master Rowland needs to include some Tradition ‘tact’ in that training of yours. Even your heritage seems to fail you.”

“My apologies Master Cayche. There was no ring or reply.”

“I see. What can I do for you Dylan?”

“Did you speak with Laughingtree?”

“Of course.”

“What did he decide to do?”

“After nearly beating me, I suspect he went to go and beat up some Technocrats.”

“You’re not serious…”

“I’m not but I am afraid John was very serious as he got in his truck.”

“Oh, no.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t try to stop him?”

“Would you try to stop Laughingtree on the warpath?”

“No, I suppose not. Did he say he was heading straight there?”

“No… something about supplies in town, then something about ‘sorry asses getting kicked’.”

“Oh, no!”

“I’ll say it again… yes.”

“I have to go!”

“Best of luck.”

| beep |

“Was that Romaro?” a rough voice asks.

Michael stares at his phone, “Yes, it was.”

“What is he doing?”

Turning back to his student, a puzzled and sad look crosses his face, “Joining the kicking-of-sorry-asses, I’d imagine.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes… now back to your studies young McCormick. They’ll need all the help they can get.”

Michael lites another candle, adding to the glow of his ritual room. Spins a large bowl thrice work wise. Crushes a handful of prepared herbs into the bowl. He pulls a loose sleeve up to his elbow; forearm bare and exposed. He breathes deeply, ignores the world, and diligently begins to carve a Nordic symbol of life and the middle-tree into his crimson scared arm.

*************

/‘It can’t be!’ Cheyenne’s voice echoes in her head. She blinks… puts her fists up to rub her eyes clear, ‘the gun shot… it took out the back of his head!?! He… he can’t be living… what the fuck?’ /

The pasty skinned man stands in front of her gray cell. Fully suited. Clean. Undamaged. Perfect… as if he’d just rolled off the assembly line.

“Deviant,” his face contorts, as if its cuts him to mouth the word, “it is my duty to inform you that you will be transported at twenty-three-hundred-hours to a facility more suitable for your needs.” He stands there, unmoved and emotionless.

“My… needs?” Cheyenne chortles.

“Reprogramming,” Pasty-man states this matter-of-factly, “we do not have the resources here currently in order to redevelop your skills; you will never be useful in society again otherwise.”

“What do you mean?” Cheyenne asks, “I don’t understand.”

He looks at her lightly. Sorrow and a kind of confusion are in his placid gray eyes. As if trying to coo a child tenderly, he says, “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” He turns and walks slowly back down the corridor from which he came.

Yelling after him, “You can’t do this! I have rights!” she screams, “Why don’t you just shoot me and get it over with!”

Her only reply is the sound of his footsteps on concrete, and then the main cell door closing again.

Cheyenne drags her knees up close to her chest, wrapping her arms around them on her tiny cot. She sobs ever so quietly, “Why are you fucking doing this?” She holds that moment ever so closely, ever so tightly. She wonders, now more than ever, what magic is… She wonders if magic is getting the hell out of here.

_________________________________________

ref|ections | iii | rundown

The gates-man doesn’t remember seeing the car before it hit the tree thirty meters in front of the main fence. His mind wheels quickly, as he heads down the stairs, adding notes to a mental report…

/Ess-yuu-vee swung off main trail into a tree/single driver?/smoke from engine?/possible gas leak/

_____________

*************

“That was rather eloquent,” Father Jack states, staring through the trees to see if his student is even moving inside the vehicle.

“C’mon, move your ass old man,” Laughingtree holds open the bottom of a fence line he has cut, “she apparently knows what she’s doing.”

*************

Click.

The cell-lock opens. Cheyenne raises her head from her knees. She gets up to investigate the sound. She tests the door and it swings free of her hands. Cheyenne walks cautiously down the corridor, passing other holding cells. Reaching the main cell door, she finds it unlocked as well.

She continues down the concrete corridors, smelling for a trap. As she turns right down yet another passage, she then hears the thunder of heavy boots on the ground. Two figures move quickly towards her. A third shadow jumps between them and is toppled to the ground before Cheyenne can move.

She finds herself frozen as a voice speaks to her, “Hey cousin,” Laughingtree smiles as Hawkfoot hugs him tightly, “lets get you out of here.”

_____________

313-07 Incident Report 70-313 start
\Alarm held\ Unidentified vehicle
has minor accident in front of Station 231.
Driver unidentified, unhurt.
Sent away from premises
313-07 Incident Report 70-313 end

*************

Sirens welcome the trio as they step out of the cellblock.

“Damn. Must have not subdued that cell-guard long enough.” John moves quickly, the others follow as he heads for a series of cargo crates.

Searchlights turn on the compound. “Halt!” rings out over the compound megaphones. Bright lights block their way, which is then followed by a hail of gun fire… they hit the ground as a reaction, but then head towards some of the stacked crates.

“Where tha hell do we go now?” Father Jack calls out. John points forwards and they continue to move in the shadow of the large containers.

Searchlights chase them as they move through the maze of wooden shipping crates. The shuffle past line after confusing line of equipment and large boxes before them. They drop against a box covered over by a blue packing tarp.

Beside John’s arm, a pinpoint of light opens up the concrete. Dust fills his mouth and eyes. He rolls back a few feet hoping to avoid being hit himself. They all get up to run again farther down the line of crates.

Cheyenne takes a step forward… stalls as her body jars and stops, hitting the ground hard… the burning kicks in… the sound of the shot echoes into her mind… John moves to her side calling for Jack. He pulls off his shirt and balls it up covering the wound… the blood drenching his hand…

Her gut open and burning, Cheyenne is past believing in there ever being such a thing as luck. Her body, legs, and arms all contort as the flash of pain tears through her again.

Father Jack stumbles to their spot under a series of crates that are against a fence. He then realizes that two guards stand above them, brandishing either rifles or nightsticks, grinning wildly. The spot lights find them one more time and the men look down from the crates above.

That moment fuses with a full brightness, the compound, perhaps the world has blown up brightly in an unfolding white light… sparks flying.

The electric sounds and lights go out, stopped dead. And for one peaceful, serene moment, everything is silent.

Everything is dark and dead.

______________________________________________________________________________

ref|ections | iv | recovery

313-07 Incident Report 70-313 updated
\Alarm held\ Unidentified vehicle
has minor accident in front of Station 231.
Driver unidentified, unhurt.
Sent away from premises**

Guardsmen attacked
Suspected escape of Reality Deviant 'RD'0132#
Assailants unidentified.
Breach of compound\Alarm Sounded\
313-07 Incident Report 70-313 end

*************

The sound of hustling boots and yelling brings back the reality of it all. And in the darkness the two guards turn and drop to the ground.

On the crates, a figure is standing there, in the place of the guards. “Now is ‘not’ the time to be lying down. Climb up here and get over this fence before some generators kick in.”

A slender hand reaches down for Father Jack and pulls him up. Looking at the man’s features in the dark, Jack says, “Romaro? How did you get…”

“Later, later,” He says, helping the old man over the fence. “Laughingtree, get Cheyenne up here!”

John begins, “She’s been hit, I don’t think she can…”

“Hurry or it won’t matter!” Romaro jumps down to help him carry her up. Cheyenne winces from the pain in her side. John helps him move her up and over the crates. Father Jack waits on the other side and helps her down.

John and Romaro look back as they hear a new snap of six or so guards that must have spotted their position in the dark.

“Laughingtree, Go!” Romaro pushes him up and over the fence line. Fire opens again, and Romaro jumps down and disappears into the darkness of the crates.

John looks back, sees nothing but the dark, and calls out for him. No reply. Only the scuffle of men headed their way.

Father Jack had moved farther up the line of forest trying to carry a dead-weighted Cheyenne. John catches him easily. “Where’s Romaro?” Jack says, breathing heavily.

John looks back into the darkness, “I don’t know. We should get going.” With that he takes Cheyenne by the torso, out of Father Jack’s arms, and lifts her easily. She grimaces and can’t seem to mouth anything other than the word fuck, while she holds tight to her bloodied shirt-bandage and her slipping life.

Just then, they hear a loud crack, beyond thunder, echoing back from the fences. Bright lights flicker from the compound. And then everything goes dark again.

“What was that?” Jack stares back as they jog forward.

Laughingtree hefts Cheyenne over a small ridge, “Who cares…”

_____________

313-07 Incident Report 70-313 updated
\Alarm held\ At Station 231.
Unidentified vehicle has minor accident
Driver unidentified, unhurt.
Sent away from premises**

Guardsmen attacked
Suspected escape of Reality Deviant 'RD'0132#
Assailants unidentified.
Breach of compound\Alarm Sounded\
3 Unidentified Assailants
All escaped facility
Pursuit initiated
313-07 Incident Report 70-313 end

*************

Lisa helps them get into the utility vehicle. Sliding Cheyenne into the back seat, John follows. Father Jack gets into John’s truck. He then fires it up and drives off in a westerly direction from the section of forest where they were parked.

Starting the engine, Lisa drives up the dirt road, keeping the lights off.

A roar tears overhead as a helicopter passes them. A searchlight swings widely and misses them. The light flickers off into the tree line ahead of them.

“Hold on,” Lisa says, “this could get bumpy.” She swings away from the service road and uses the tree line to cover them above. Evergreens rush by as the truck is engulfed by the darkness.

______________________________________________________________________________

ref|ections | v | reprise

Laughingtree sits alone in front of the fire, the only glow in the darkness. Flecks of charred wood drift in the air around him. He grips his pouch tightly and kicks at the earth beneath his boots. Memories of a cold hand and a sleeping face become a tide of pain.

He stares into the fire, his green eyes now rimmed with flame. He tosses green branches and then water on the fire. Smoke and steam rise as the deep murmur of song leaves his throat. He sings of the burning stars held by grandfather sky, and the land, mother of our being. He asks for thunder and sings for spirits, medicine, courage, protection; all these things.

When all is done, Laughingtree walks away, letting the fire pit burn. His boots hit rock and earth heavy, as his footprints point towards the reservation downhill. The fire smokes into the great night’s sky.

Yet all the spirits of the land have no medicine for Laughingtree now.

~

© B. McLean 2002.ED based on White Wolf's Mage: The Ascesion

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This is a work of fiction. The Camarilla and Mage: The Ascension are all registered Trademarks of White Wolf Game Studios. Any use of White Wolf Game Studios' copyrighted material or trademarks at this site should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks. Any references to real people (living or dead), or places are is unintentional, and thus should not be taken literally. All Characters, Items, Settings, or Plots Created by & or for use within the Camarilla Fan Club are the intelectual shared property of the Camarilla Membership and not a challenge to the products of White Wolf Pub. Inc.

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