“I love you. Don’t die.”
Celia Flores

Thursday morning, 10 March 2016

GM: BREEP BREEP BREEP BREEP BREEP!

Celia’s eyes snap open. It’s day. She can feel the sun weighing her down like a leaden cloak. Roderick’s phone is screaming its alarm off.

Celia: Day. Again.

Hunters.

It’s her first thought. The thought that makes her bolt upright in bed. That makes her shake Roderick by the shoulders until he, too, wakes up.

Mid-City. They’d been targeting Mid-City. Lebeaux had told her it was their plan and she’d come here anyway.

No time to think about it. No time for regrets.

“Get up, get up, get up!”

GM: He sleeps like the dead man he is.

Celia: What the fuck is the point of the alarm on his phone if it doesn’t even wake him.

GM: It woke her.

Celia: Lucky him she was here to fuck him last night.

His ghouls are on the way, at least. That’s the point of this system. Alerts him. Alerts them. How far away, though? She doesn’t know.

Licks wake up when their bodies get hurt.

She doesn’t remember who told her. Mel, maybe. Or Lebeaux. Someone who was supposed to look out for her, inform her of that kind of shit. Until recently she hadn’t had a reason to test it though; she’s not much of a day riser. She recalls the knife in her side from the hunters, how quickly she’d come to then.

Recalls, too, how swift her Beast is to rise to the surface at such an attack. And the Brujah? Twice as bad. How many times has he smashed her face in because he couldn’t control himself? Anything beyond “zero” is too many. The idea of just whacking him across the face to get him out of bed comes with its own set of problems.

Maybe something else, though. Blood brings people out of torpor. What’s a little daysleep compared to that?

She hopes he can forgive her.

Her fangs sink into her wrist. She presses it against his mouth.

There’s one good thing, at least, from her forcing him into that third drink: his sire might feel it. Even during the day. Maybe it’ll wake her. Maybe she’ll know something is up. Who collars someone during the day, right? Send her own goons to check it out.

Admittedly, Celia doesn’t know if that really is such a good thing. She’d just watched Veronica abuse the fuck out of Coco’s other childe; if the Brujah primogen gets her hands on Celia can she really expect better treatment? Roderick had said once that they weren’t close, but what sort of sire just hands over their childe with no retaliation?

Does it matter, if it saves Roderick’s life?

She’d been willing to sacrifice herself for her mom once. This isn’t any different. There’s a short list of people she’d throw everything away for and he’s one of them.

Maybe it doesn’t even count. Three nights, that’s what it’s supposed to be. Today is day. Not night. They’d just done it hours ago.

Maybe his collar had snapped completely last time and he’s not even at that point.

Maybe it’s a fucking pizza delivery guy at the wrong door.

Desperation makes her take the same calculated risk. If it goes south, if they both get knocked out, if Roderick wakes up raging and takes it out on her, she can’t chance being taken to someone else and being forced into a bond. She can’t have someone else wake her, collar her, claim her.

Maybe it’ll get him out of bed. Like waking up a dude with your mouth.

Fangs sink into his flesh, too. She draws right from the source.

She shoves at him with her free hand. The alarm blares nonstop nearby. Four ways to wake him up. Four things vying for his attention, drawing him forth from his deep slumber.

GM: Her lover abruptly jolts awake. A growl sounds from his throat as his arms lock tight around Celia. Fangs stab into her neck as he drinks deep.

Celia: Who knew that all you need to wake a vampire is the same sort of trick that works on any human male: offer them sex.

Celia’s relief is short-lived. She licks closed the wound on his neck and shoves the phone at him instead.

GM: Celia finds it hard to do both with his arms around hers. The snarling Brujah rolls over, pinning her beneath him as he drinks his fill.

Celia: It should be hot. It should be the exact way she wants to wake up every evening, with Roderick’s arms around her and his lips on her neck.

Now, though, it isn’t hot. It isn’t sexy. It isn’t enjoyable.

It’s terrifying.

Someone is trying to get into his haven and he’s too busy trying to fuck her to notice. They’ll be in any minute and he won’t even notice when the stake slams into him from behind, then his weight will pin her to the bed and she’ll be helpless and they’ll both die.

Their kind are used to the mindless, wanton writhing of vessels. But she doesn’t give him that. She shrieks instead, pleading with him to stop, that they’re here, that there’s danger. Anything to bring his attention to the moment.

GM: Celia’s screams don’t take long to get through to him. He pulls back, concern writ across his face even as her blood stains his lips.

“What’s wrong? Am I hurting you?”

“INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT! WOLVES WEARING COVERALLS!” screams Roderick’s phone. The voice is staticky but distinctly clear, like a newsman from the ’50s.

Celia: The phone chimes in before she can. She shoves it at him once more.

GM: “What the fuck!?” he frowns.

He taps in the code to unlock it.

“Shit! Three guys out there!”

He springs off the bed. “Fuck! The middle of the fucking day!”

He pulls her outside the bedroom, grabs the bookshelf against a nearby wall, and pulls it across the carpet. Celia sees a door in the space where it used to be.

“Get in, hurry!”

Celia: Three. She’d taken two on her own. Maybe they can take three. And his backup has to be coming, right?

She’s already thinking of how they can best ambush the men when he moves the bookshelf. She doesn’t stop to consider it, just nods, snatches her phone, grabs his hand, and hauls him in with her.

He’s delusional if he thinks she’s going to let him close her in some secret hiding place and leave him behind.

GM: He shakes his head. “I’ll hold them off. Even if they get me, they won’t think to look for a second lick behind the wall.”

Celia: “I’m not leaving you,” she hisses at him, “get in or we’re both fighting.”

GM: “No time to argue.”

He pulls open the door, grabs her, and tries to shove her in.

Celia: He tries. He fails.

Celia is quicker than she looks. Whatever she’d said to him about not focusing on speed years ago has clearly changed. All that time in a dance studio finally pays off when she executes a quick spin around him, just out of reach of his grasping hands.

“You’re not the only one who knows how to fight. Close it. We can jump them. They only expect one.”

GM: “Goddamnit!” he yells, making another grab at her as the Toreador all-too literally dances away. “I’m not letting more hunters rape you!”

Celia: “Roderick, please, you’re wasting time—they’re going to be in here any minute, we can easily dispatch three of them between us. Close it. Close it or get in with me. I’m not losing you because of some misplaced sense of chivalry.”

GM: He makes a frustrated snarl, and then he’s gone in a blur. Celia’s suddenly shoved through the door. A baseball bat, phone, and family pictures fall over the floor or against her bare chest as Roderick pulls the bookshelf closed behind them.

He closes the door against the shelf. Locks it.

“Okay. Fine. We’ll hope they don’t find this place.”

Celia: “Silence your phone,” Celia whispers to him. “Turn off your alarm.” She’s already done the same.

GM: Celia looks around. There’s a bed on the other side, along with a laptop, phone, some guns, handcuffs, a mini-fridge and microwave, and assorted other survival supplies.

Roderick frowns as he does exactly that.

“It shouldn’t have said that,” he whispers.

“The alarm is just a beeping noise.”

Celia: “Tampering?”

GM: He thinks for a moment, then tugs it between his hands, and finally snaps it.

He walks up to the wall and taps a monitor. “We can still see what’s going on.”

Indeed, Celia sees three men dressed like plumbers or repairmen working on Roderick’s keyless front door.

Celia: “You said it alerts your people? How long?”

She really needs to step up her haven game.

GM: “Depends where they are. But they’re on their way.”

He shakes his head.

“I need to get better at this.”

Celia: “At… what? You, uh, seem prepared.”

GM: “All of this,” he says with the faintest hint of scorn. “They’d have caught me with my pants down if you hadn’t been here. Just lying in bed, all by myself, waiting for them to drive the stake in.”

Celia: “Could call building manager, tell them you’re away from home and see someone trying to get in. Unless you think they’ve been compromised.”

GM: He thinks. “Good idea. I might as well call the cops, too.”

Celia: “No cops.”

GM: He bends and picks up an old-fashioned flip phone from among the supplies and taps into the keypad.

“Why not? They’re in the prince’s pocket.”

“I’d rather capture some hunters ourselves, but better to have them locked up than out on the streets.”

Celia: “Prince isn’t the only one with people in the department,” she says, thinking of Lebeaux. “Not worth the risk.”

GM: “Sure, there’s Lebeaux, but he only gets away with it as long as he hides in the Quarter. Mid-City cops belong to Vidal.”

“Bess is just going to call 911 herself anyway, if I call her.”

Celia: Celia shakes her head. She pulls out her phone and unlocks it to dial Mel.

GM: He shakes his own again. “God, I’ve been so sloppy. Coco’d be right to chew me out.”

Celia: “First time. You didn’t get picked up, that’s what matters. We’ll get through this.”

GM: “I’ll kill them, if they try to do that to you again,” he says grimly.

Celia: “Or… we let them, and you pick them off while they’re trying to fuck me.”

GM: “You either know just who you’ve reached, or you’ve dialed a very lucky wrong number,” purrs the ghoul’s voice. “Leave a message, and I’ll give you a ring back first thing.”

Beeeep.

“Absolutely not,” Roderick says flatly.

Meanwhile, on the screen, the hunters have gotten through. They can’t be anything else, because they have stakes, guns, and knives out. They close the door behind them after slipping under the barrier, then fan out to search the apartment.

They’ve pulled masks over their faces, for all the good it does them now.

Celia: Celia leaves a quick message, sends an SOS to Randy that includes a series of emojis and a pin with the location, and assesses this new room for any spot they can use to make a stand.

GM: Celia’s phone buzzes with a text. It comes from a number that glitches and changes and whose presence on the phone makes the air chiller.

KILL THEM FOR ME AND WE’LL BE FRIENDS, it reads.

Then:

;)

Celia: What. The. Fuck.

GM: There’s also, she notices, a panoply of missed calls and text messages whose senders are marked Mom and Emily.

Another one pops up from Emily:

WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?

Celia: A problem for later, once her life isn’t in danger.

GM: Roderick snarls at the screen.

“That’s why I took the family pictures, by the way.”

Celia: “Smart,” she tells him.

“Listen to me,” she whispers, “I’m going to hit them with star mode, and we’re going to take them out.”

GM: “I’m pretty confident I could take three breathers with surprise.”

“Know why I’m not?”

He looks at her.

“I stand a hell of a lot more to lose than to gain from that fight.”

Celia: He also thought he could take Caroline, so she’s not sure she trusts his judgment. But the words warm her, and she takes his hand in hers.

They’ll get through this.

They have to.

GM: He squeezes her hand back.

Looks down at their naked bodies. Chuckles.

“This would almost be sexy.”

Celia: “Hush, you, we’ve already got a track record for fucking at inopportune times.”

GM: “Pretty sure ‘while hunters commit a home invasion’ would be a new record even for us.”

He glances across the room. “I’ve got weapons in here, do you want one?”

Celia: “Claws.”

GM: “Yeah. Why I asked.”

“I’ve got guns.”

Celia: “I can’t shoot,” she admits. She never learned.

GM: “I really have to teach you. Hunters take a bullet like any other breather.”

Celia: She’d asked him to four years ago, but she doesn’t bring it up now. Just nods.

GM: He looks at his phone.

“I’ve texted my renfields. One rents the unit next to mine. They’ll be here soon.”

Celia: “Don’t hesitate. If they get in. If they see us. Trust me to take care of me. Just take them out.”

GM: Roderick frowns at the monitor.

“What are they doing…?”

They’re looking into the mirror in the kitchen. Shining a light over it.

Celia: “What’s in there?”

GM: “Nothing. It’s a totally ordinary mirror.”

Celia: “You don’t keep secret documents in there?”

GM: “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

“Though if you’re curious as to its history, it used to belong to my grandma and she kept it in the kitchen, so that’s why I have it there.”

Celia: “Was your grandma a witch?”

GM: “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” he repeats.

The hunters are still looking it over.

“What the fuck is with them…?”

They finally turn away.

Celia: “We need to kill them.”

GM: He shakes his head. “Rather not risk you.”

Celia: “The closer they get to the door the less opportunity we have to ambush them.”

GM: “And rather take them alive, if we have to fight.”

Celia: She’ll kill them on her own if need be.

She doesn’t say it.

Just nods.

GM: “Even beyond the morals, I want to know how the hell they found me here. What other hunters they may know. Which other licks may be in danger.”

Celia: Celia would rather have a friend.

GM: Roderick takes up the bat and positions himself to the left of the door, though keeps his eyes on the monitor.

“Fewer surprises in a fight, the better. What do you want to do if they get in?”

Celia: “My strength is charming them. Not fighting. Make them underestimate me, get close. Star mode. You come in from behind. Bite them and they usually stop resisting.”

GM: “I’d do that if it was one, but there’s three. First one through gets a bat to the skull.”

Celia: Makes sense. She nods.

“I can hide then. Surprise attack.”

“You got any stone skin?”

GM: He shakes his head. “Classic Brujah, sorry. Star mode, super-speed, super-strength.”

“Okay. First one comes in and goes down. You’re a hunter following from behind, what do you do?”

Celia: “Pull back. Fire from afar. Or duck, assume they’ll swing again, face level. Fire though.”

GM: “Let’s assume they know guns are useless.”

Celia: “Literal fire, maybe. Grenade?”

“Would they risk that? They expected to find you sleeping. Guns are probably for your renfields.”

GM: Roderick shakes his head. “Grenades are a whole ‘nother league of messy than gunshots, in several senses of the word. Legal sale of explosives is limited to pretty much the construction business. Large booms are the sort of thing that can bring the ATF or FBI running and get flagged as domestic terrorism. If I were a hunter I’d probably consider grenades more trouble than they’re worth, in a populated building like this.”

“And yeah. The guns are probably for my renfields. God, they’re better-prepared than I am.”

Celia: “Now you know how to fix it. It’s fine. We’ve got this. I took on two on my own after they cuffed me. It’s fine.”

“I’m not afraid. You’re here.”

GM: He smiles and squeezes her shoulder.

“Hmm. What if, to get them all in the room, I lie ‘asleep’ on the bed? You turn into a cat. They try to stake me, I get one with the bat, you transform back and get your fangs in another. I take out the third, same way.”

Celia: She looks around to see if there’s anywhere he can hide.

GM: There’s the mini-fridge, though not much vision there. She could also move around the various survival supplies and the cases they come in.

Celia’s phone gets a text.

Celia: Celia gives a nod. There’s not much he can hide behind; her getting smaller is their best bet, even if she thinks she’d be better bait. She leans in, touches a hand to his cheek. She doesn’t have time to tell him everything she’s feeling, but…

“I love you,” she whispers to him. “Don’t die.”

GM: He pulls her close and kisses her head, closing his eyes for a moment as he runs a hand through her hair.

“I love you too. Don’t either.”

In the monitor, the hunters are carefully inspecting the apartment’s bookshelves.

Celia: It’s enough to make her dead heart skip. All it took is a handful of near-death experiences.

GM: Roderick pulls away and hefts up the bat. His expression turns grim as he looks at the monitor.

“The shelf might not fool them.”

Another text buzzes up from Emily. There’s one from Alana, too.

Mistress, your family’s trying to find you!

Celia: Little busy, she sends back to Alana. Stall them.

“It probably won’t. We can always ambush them out there.”

GM: I’m telling them you’re taking an off day.

Then Alana gets the text.

Mistress, you’re awake?!

Celia: She should know better than that.

Celia scowls.

Ran into an old friend.

GM: “Here’s pretty much the same setup as the bedroom,” Roderick shrugs. “If we run into the common area, harder to surprise them.”

Emily is going crazy, mistress. She was yelling and screaming and being very unreasonable. I don’t know why you put up with her.

Celia: What’s wrong?

GM: Just breather things. It was very hard not to tell her how presumptuous she was actually being. I’d never dare talk to you like she was.

Celia: Watch how you talk about my family. That’s about as clear as she can make it. Tell me.

GM: I’m sorry, mistress. There was just so much yelling and screaming I couldn’t make sense of it. You don’t deserve that kind of treatment in your life.

“Who’re you texting? Renfields?” Roderick asks.

Celia: She’s got a bad feeling. A really bad feeling.

“Something is up with my family.”

Find out.

GM: Of course, mistress. I’ll text her right now.

“Shit, right now?” says Roderick. “How bad?”

The hunters approach the bookshelf in front of the safe room.

Celia: Celia shakes her head. Her life is in danger. One crisis at a time. She motions toward the bed.

GM: They methodically sweep the bedroom, too. They check the closet and under the bed. They come back out and carefully go over the bookshelf.

Roderick lies down on the bed back-first, bat nearby, and closes his eyes.

Celia: She locks her phone. Her form blurs, shifts. The world grows around her and a moment later a cat is slinking into position.

GM: Time passes.

But not that much time.

Celia hears a heavy object shifting across the carpet.

Clicking noises against the lock. Those go on for a little while.

The doorknob slowly turns.

The door swings open.

Three man creep in. They’re big men. Grim men. Masked men. Their stakes are already out.

They look at Roderick’s sleeping form.

One nods.

Celia: Ventrue always think that their powers of command are somehow the best. But there’s an inherent flaw in those powers they do possess: they need eye contact and they need their vocal cords. Celia has already learned that the ability to shift people’s emotions doesn’t usually need either.

Which means, as she crouches low to the ground and waits for the right moment, she can hit them with what she wants to as soon as she wants to do it.

If Celia or Roderick make a mistake, they lose everything.

It’s a subtle thing, the power that she wields. The combination of attention and invisibility. Smoke and mirrors, she calls it: making someone focus on something that isn’t her. Like throwing one’s voice, maybe.

She taps into that now. Sends it toward Roderick. He’s just a silly sleeping vampire, secure in the fact that he’s gone through all this trouble with his secret room. Look at him, passed out there on the bed. Useless. Like a lump. They’ve heard some licks are stupid, aren’t they? This is probably one of them. All this time they’ve been in his home and he hasn’t even stirred. Hell, they could probably take him one on one.

Silly, silly vampire.

GM: Maybe they could.

But the cat draws their gazes.

She can’t see any looks on their masked faces.

Just the way they all silently turn to look at her.

Staring.

Celia: She stares back at them.

She’s just a cat, after all. Even licks have pets.

GM: One of the men looks at the other two.

He doesn’t speak.

Wouldn’t want to wake the sleeping lick.

At last, he shakes his head.

The others look at the cat for another moment.

Then they turn away.

They approach the bed.

They ready the stake over Roderick’s chest.

He doesn’t once move. Doesn’t once breathe or blink. He sleeps like the dead.

The man positions a mallet over the stake.

Then, suddenly.

One freezes.

Three hissed words escape his lips:

“No food bowl-!”

That’s when Roderick strikes.

The baseball bat streaks through the air, smashing into the man’s skull with a grisly, bone-shattering crack. The man doesn’t scream. He just hits the floor in a heap and doesn’t get up. Blood pools across the carpet.

Celia: Celia strikes from behind.

Powerful hind quarters propel her through the air to launch herself at one of the men, her form blurring and shifting as she dives. Her claws are the only part of her that do not change, that do not sink back into her body. She is not some housecat whose belly they can rub when she flops over for them, not some pet they will collar with a little bell that goes ding-a-ling with each step.

She is a monster. A predator.

A Beast.

Her Beast comes howling to the surface. She doesn’t fight it, not this time. She lets it out. Lets it have its way with these men who thought to take her lover from her, these men who would drag the both of them into some dank basement to pull apart, these men who scamper through someone else’s apartment, tear through someone’s life, like the rats that they are.

It was an animal that left the ground, but a Beast that lands on his back with fangs and claws and murder in her eyes.

GM: Propelled by her once-feline haunches, Celia’s weight smashes into the startled hunter like a cannonball. He goes down in a heap. She goes for the throat. The larger, stronger man grunts flips her halfway off, rolling under her as he drives the stake towards her chest. It goes wide and stabs her collarbone as her fangs pierce his neck. Too slow. Celia drinks ravenously as she straddles him. His blood is sour with his fear and salty with his hate. A delicious change from her usual sweet fare. There’s nothing fake about the emotions in his blood. But there is no ecstasy for him in the Toreador’s embrace. Only terror. And pain. He weakly tries to fling her off, but Celia shreds his triceps with her claws. She grinds against his crotch with hers, tries to guide his cock up her cunt. Too bad he’s not hard. Her Beast still wants to mate, even if that’s not how it reproduces.

Celia: Fight, fuck, feed. That’s all the Beast wants. All the girl wants, too. Kill, rip, shred. Drink. Drink, drink, drink. She drinks it down, mouthful after mouthful of the salty, sour combination of his blood. Drinks until her Beast is sated, until she can’t take any more into her body, until his heartbeat ceases in his chest. All the while she grinds against him, desperately seeking the release that the rest of her wants.

It isn’t enough. Even naked, writhing against him, legs spread around his hips to press herself against the fabric of his jeans, she can’t get to the area she wants. She needs to be filled. Some distant part of her mind registers that he’ll be hard eventually—rigor mortis affects muscles and there aren’t any in the dick, but sometimes during death blood rushes to the genitals—but not soon enough. Not soon enough for the girl or the Beast, who both want to celebrate this victory over their enemies with a good, hard fuck.

There were three, though. And a lick besides.

She sends it out from her in a wave. A powerful, cresting crescendo, a combination of potent charm that would make anyone drop to their knees to worship the dazzling, exquisite, marvelous creature that she has become in death.

Fight, fuck, feed. She’ll do all three.

GM: Maybe the hunter screams. Maybe he doesn’t. She just shreds his pants with her claws (does she slash his penis too?) and soon there’s a firm cock filling her slit. She rides it up and down as she drinks. She drinks until that overpowering salty sourness feels like the only flavor that’s ever existed in her mouth. She drinks and feels each beat of his heart pumping more of that rapturously genuine taste down her throat. Every beat of his heart exists for her pleasure. His life exists for her pleasure. She drinks until the only part of him still pumping is his cock. She moans wantfully as the flow of blood down her throat ceases. More. She needs more. She rides the corpse like a stallion, burying the dead man’s still-erect penis up her cunny as deep as she can. So close…

Roderick smashes into her, tackling her off the corpse. He’s coated with blood, an irresistible aphrodisiac on his naked body. The Brujah’s furious eyes are as lost to the Beast as Celia’s own. The roar he gives is equal parts rage and bloodlust as his fangs savage her skin, as his red-smeared fist gorily crunches in her nose, as he tries to pin her beneath his weight. He might be trying to kill her. He might be trying to fuck her.

Neither Beast much cares.

Celia: The girl wouldn’t mind being pinned. Not by him. Not like this.

But the girl isn’t the only thing in her head right now. The Beast stares out from behind her eyes, and the Beast knows what the other one is after: blood. Not in a fun way, not in the way it wants; he wants to hurt, to maim, to kill.

She doesn’t want any part in it. Neither of them do. Beaten twice into a bloody smear on the ground, watching him take out two hunters in a matter of seconds… No. No thanks.

She scrambles to her feet and flees.

GM: Roderick blurs after her, his preternaturally fast footfalls slamming against the carpeted floor in an almost constant thud-thud-thud, like a heavy rain. Objects and sundry crash aside in his wake. Celia blurs ahead of him. He catches up. He’s faster. But she’s nimbler. A cat can go all sorts of places a human can’t go. She dives under chairs, under the couch, up inside cabinets. Roderick mindlessly rampages through the house, smashing apart possessions and furniture. There goes his grandmother’s mirror with a shatter. There goes his JD. There goes a lot of things. The cat hides under the sofa.

Eventually, the sounds of destruction cease. She hears a choked sound like someone sobbing. But the thirst in her gut is overpowering. It burns her up from inside. Like another cat inside her stomach clawing to get out.

All she can think about is the three bodies in the secret room.

Celia: If he’s crying it means he’s not feeding. And if he’s not feeding it means she can feed. Three bodies. All hers. She literally licks her chops at the thought of the feast that is waiting for her. Wants it. Needs it. Hers, all hers, every single bit of it while he’s distracted by emotions.

Her tiny gray form blurs out from under the couch and back into the bedroom, through the still open doorway to where the men lie dead. The first man to die was hit by the bat, his head almost exploding from the force of the Brujah’s swing. Bits of brain matter and bone fragments sprayed out behind him when he fell. But she’s not concerned about that. No, her focus is on the pool of blood seeping from the open wound.

She doesn’t even change forms. She just darts toward it, licking up the spilled blood as if she were a cat with a dish of cream.

GM: But a cat can drink less at once.

Celia: She realizes this. Her form shifts abruptly, and it’s Celia on her knees with her mouth on the floor, scooping the pool of blood towards her with her hands.

Literally licking the floor.

It doesn’t last long. Head wounds bleed a lot, but she knows there’s more left inside him. She sinks her teeth into the flesh of the dead man to get the rest of it.

GM: The blood is already starting to cool, but that delectable salty-sour flavor so rich with adrenaline is still strong. Celia can drink as much as she wants. Three. Whole. Bodies. She drinks and drinks until her Beast is fat and gorged and purring quiescently, until she can almost feel the blood oozing through her pores. It’s so rare that her kind gets to overeat.

More buzzes go up from her phone on the ground.

Celia: Only when she has fully slaked her hunger does Celia begin to pay attention to her surroundings. Three bodies to clean up. Roderick crying in the other room. His first kill; she’d told him just last night that is sure if anyone could make it through their Requiem without killing someone it would be him. She should go to him, offer what comfort she can. Her phone, too, buzzing with news from her family. Something is wrong. She needs to fix it. Her mind spins towards her daughter, her mother’s dreams, Donovan’s chilling words at their last meeting: You will remember this as a nightmare, with your husband’s face in place of mine.

Lucy.

Roderick.

She has to help them both. She reaches for her phone so she can bring it into the other room… and never makes it.

Her Beast purrs in delight at the meal, the killing, the fucking; it’s tired now, it wants a nap. It drags her into unconsciousness. Her body slumps over on the floor.

Another corpse to add to the pile.