What De Rousseau didn't know was that the creature known as Black Abby was no longer in Arras. The night roads that flanked Arras were thick and dark and entirely too foreboding. Were any wildkin hidden away in the black, inky spirals of trees then they at least schemed and plotted quietly.

The first night had been easy. Newly fed and ruddy cheeked for it, Black Abby rode with her back straight and her head held high, her expression dripping with a brand of confidence found primarily in those young and unapologetically headstrong. It threatened to overwhelm the nagging need to get as far away from her home as possible, but she was Black Abby Dekker and the things that dared to scare her never did so for long.

The night had been brisk and lovely and once Arras was no more than a series of twinkling mountain lights behind her, Black Abby and the horse were granted the mercy of a warm draft of air blowing through from the south. The Northern Star was at her back lest she get too befuddled and The Future Emperor had seen fit to carve out uncomplicated roads all over France. As the horse trotted along, her ears perpetually pricked back, Black Abby mentally recounted her plan over and over again.

If I make it to Paris then perhaps I can find at least a small amount of rest. I can trade my horse for another and then strike out for Grasse. Sophie shall be there and maybe she will show enough mercy to mineself and hide me. After all, everyone will be looking for Black Abby and not some silly little English girl in a filthy old faille.

But as it so often did, Night passed the reins of her large, dark horse over to her sister Dawn and it turned Black Abby into an impatient, nervous thing. Stopping meant time lost, but reason told her to find safety before the sun could bleed through the sky, for day meant sleep not only for her but for De Rousseau. Black Abby buried her filth streaked heels into the old mare's side and the animal hesitated before stopping altogether. A tug at the horse's reins lead her from the beaten path. Through thickets of brambles, ancient dead leaves and trees with canopies so thick that even Black Abby had trouble navigating through them there lay a small natural stream, the grass around it tauntingly green.

Beyond the small waterfall lay an ancient barrow and Black Abby quickly dismounted the horse, allowing her to amble around as she so pleased. The beast needn't be tied to anything- she had been fed from Abby's wrist not twelve hours before- and Black Abby was confident that even the blood bond would not be enough to keep the creature there if something gave it a startle.

As the sorrel mare grazed, Black Abby went to investigate the barrow. Though she had taken great pains to avoid the waterfall, it still managed to saturate both her hair and her dress. Combined with the almost teeth chattering chill of the inside of the cave, the union birthed only discomfort. Black Abby shed her dress once she was inside and stuffed it beneath a small boulder. Cold and naked, her hair darker and heavier for the water, the Malkavian continued her exploration of the cave and found that it stretched further than she once would have guessed. The beauty of the stalactites was lost upon her, as were the crude, colorful scribbles that decorated the flatter walls. The smattering of bats that called the place home had already retreated to the ceilings, forced there by the blinding promise of an impending sunrise.

To her relief, Black Abby discovered that she was the only one of her kind to occupy the barrow, though she was by no means alone. She had company in the small room. She eyed the body that lay in a crumpled heap in the corner, studied the fragile, leathery skin that still clung to its bones and the moss that grew from it. Its mouth was open in a frozen scream of agony and its clothes, musty and rotting but still functional- she noted with not a little bit of glee- pegged the corpse as at least a decade old.

"Salut, my friend," she said agreeably to the body. "Mind me not a bit. I wish only to sleep here and then I shall be gone."

Once she had stretched out on the dusty floor, assured that she was at least safe for the time being, Black Abby closed her eyes and let an unfightable sleep pull her in.

That second night had not been as kind to Black Abby.

After pushing her way through a wave of bats and garnering more than few bites to her face and neck and arms from the terrified creatures, she found that her dress was already displaying the first signs of black mold. With little rivulets of blood drizzling from already healing wounds, Black Abby maneuvered her way back into the little annex and made quick work of undressing the corpse that had kept her company throughout the day. Its brittle arms snapped beneath her less than gentle handling of them and with each wafting of mossy, dried flesh, she made a disgusted face.

The shirt was tattered but long enough to almost be a dress on her and the pants were stained with things that she didn't care to think about. The jacket was more or less in tact and smelled of old decay but such things were easy to ignore. After she had stuffed all of her hair into the hat she had found behind the body, Black Abby hurried out of the barrow. She made sure to sidestep around the little waterfall and upon resurfacing, the old mare -whom she had suddenly decided to call Rowan- ambled up to her. The last of the bat bites to heal, the one there where her neck met her shoulder, provided just enough blood to perk the horse up.

She chirped to Rowan and stroked her neck and calmed the naturally nervous creature just enough to make the climb up and onto her back. The tattered old reins were taken up again and the redhead guided the mare back to the road. It was there that, for whatever reason, things began to feel impossible. Black Abby had comforted herself with the idea that Marie would return, that all would be made right in her world, but that seemed hopelessly hopeful the moment that she was faced with the seemingly endless stretch of darkness before them.

The sounds began once she and Rowan had moved a mile away from her former rest stop. Something in the forest darted about the limbs closest to the road, rustling leaves and disturbing a lone owl into flight. As Rowan's ears perked up, so did Black Abby's and the sudden flash of curious yellow eyes glimpsed in a ditch lifted her defenses back up at a rate that birthed a short lived wave of panic.

The beast rose from its hiding place once they were a few paces ahead and Black Abby forced her attention on the road. From the corners of her eyes, she studied it; a beast no bigger than a fox hound covered in a swine's wiry black fur, its back contorted at an unnatural angle and its legs bowed like a goat's. Its feet and its hands were still human in appearance, but its face was long, its maw lined with yellowed, razor sharp teeth leading up to a pig's snout.

Black Abby crooned to her frightened horse, well aware that any display of fear would likely cause Rowan to rear up and throw her to the ground. So as she comforted the mare, she closed her eyes and tried to force her thoughts into the beast's head. She cleared her mind of everything that didn't involve communicating with the creature and soon a fog of primitive want and little humanity was fought through and what shred of sentience the beast may have had, Black Abby clung to it.

"Get out of here. I've no want to fight you, Gangrel. You don't want to fight with me, either."

A voice filled her head, little more than a raspy growl that sent the tiny hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

"Not you I want," it said. "Want horse."

Though her eyes had glossed over, her leading of the horse nothing more than muscle memory, she could still see the monster. It had picked up its gallop behind them but still kept a few feet away, its jaundiced eyes now centered upon Rowan's flanks.

"Men in hell want ice water, dear. You'd do well to go back from where it is that you came."

Black Abby could feel the tension in the air rise and she saw the wildkin ripping open the belly of her dear horse in another part of her mind. Just as the beast had stopped into a crouch, preparing to strike, Black Abby's eyes flashed with a sharp spark of madness. The Gangrel creature's head was suddenly filled with images of a young woman, the huntress that it had once been and the lovely blonde boy that had courted her so many moons ago. With that vision, the beast let a name slip- Adelaide- and Black Abby plucked it from the monster's memory.

"Adelaide, go home. Go home or I'll show you exactly what became of your darling suitor. Go. Home."

Adelaide recoiled and stumbled hand over feet across the dusty road in a frantic bid to escape, her large head shaking from side to side. Angry and confused, she opened her mouth wide and released a sound that was part woman's scream and part wolf's howl. It would be simple to say that the Gangrel woman did return home; that she lived her unlife out until her final death.

But Black Abby was by no means merciful. She was not the sweet, delicate creature that she appeared to be upon first glance. Still foggy eyed, she turned her head to one side and Adelaide stopped mid-run. Shivering and whimpering, she c*cked her own skull and drove her terrible teeth deep into her chest, tearing away muscle and nerves and gnawing through bone despite the ungodly amounts of pain that wracked her body. Her heart was taken between her jaws and a shake of her head freed it from its muscular trappings. As her body began to crumble away, a scarlet tear tumbled into the fur of her quickly disintegrating cheek.

The redhead did not see it, but the wind picked up some of the dust left behind and blew it past the pretty rider and her horse. From her perch upon a slowly calming Rowan, the girl smiled.

She was Black Abby Dekker and the things that dared to scare her never did so for long.

Another limestone house in Simencourt looked no different than any of its cohorts; it was plain and void of the creeping ivy that seemed to plague the little town, but like most houses it hid a variety of secrets. The parlor beyond the door, a beacon of irony with its red paint, was sparse in its furnishings. An old wooden table, dented and crudely carved from one single hunk of plane tree dredged from the faraway Canal du Midi, hosted six ramshackled chairs cobbled together from bits of boat planks.

At the head of the table, bathed in the pitiful light of a few ceiling hung oil lamps, sat the hulking form of Agrican P?tain. The Brujah was dangerously silent, his massive hands cradling the sides of his face and kneading the skin up just enough to gift him with a striking resemblance to a bulldog. His two guests seemed to have no opinion on the sudden contemplative nature of the rabble man. A fellow with a narrow face and watery brown eyes, his dark hair greasy and limp. Every sound, every pop brought about by fire meeting animal fat, seemed to push him ever closer to that crumbling cliff marked Nervous Breakdown. Across from him sat a young woman who appeared to be fresh out of her teens, her dark brown haired pulled up and twisted into a bun so severe that it pulled at her face and sharpened the hard edges her dull green eyes. Her body was covered in a dress of black crepe and black lace; the uniform of someone in constant mourning. While Agrican brooded and the other man, saddled with the unfortunate name of D'louie fidgeted, the young lady glanced to the hourglass in the middle of the table.

"Bakar will be here," assured the little Shadow Keeper, the heaviness of her tone outweighing the naturally sweet cadence of her voice. Only D'louie looked up but something kept him from staring at Anouk Barinaga, and so his eyes darted everywhere but at the woman or the odd dance that her shadows had engaged in along the walls.

Bakar was a spry fellow. Ever dashing, ever folding and unfolding like leaves on a rare plant as he slipped through the streets. Even so, a cane never left his hand. It bore the craftsmanship of the large, brooding, introverted Renaissance Man who sat in the chair of the seneschal in the unassuming little limestone home. Blue eyes of a gas flame's light took note of the moon's spot on the sky with shoulders slumping beneath, and on down to his hand, which stroked through the perfect manicure of beard. He'd never let on how much he resented the cut of his beard, at least not to any except his wife, when he felt like raging against the world. But, a few particular raps at the door, a lengthy exchange with the beetle-browed ghoul who answered, and the dodge of a gray tomcat's careening path towards an alley with a fresh, fat mouse lodged in his jaws all prefaced his entrance to the parlor.

"Pardon the delay, all." He tipped his hat from his head and handed it off to the ghoul with nary a look, soon crossing behind the severe, brooding little executioner with her kibosh traded for her bun. "The Warlock Primogen required much reassurance of the relevance of his endeavors, tonight. Mind you, they bear as much importance as the precise numbers of hairs surrounding a jackal's anus, but nonetheless, one must pacify the children when they hold dynamite in their blood."

He dropped into his seat, still with the mahogany cane topped with the head of a leopard in brass. Once he sat, a serenity and calm fell like a blanket. The fire's pops seemed softer. The table's sturdiness under elbows more forgiving. The flame's taunts muffled. He alone dared to look from D'louie, to Anouk, and finally to Agrican, dropping his chin for a nod. "Please? let us begin."

(Thanks to Bakar's player for playing this part out with me! Also, it's kind of easier to break this scene up into three posts.)

It was very possible that throughout all of this, D'louie was having some sort of episode beneath the table. Anouk waited until the calm after that storm to dare a touch to the space between her husband's shoulder blades.

"I'm more partial to the flaming Lupine idea, myself," she crooned, "but if I may volunteer myself for the gathering of this information, then I most assuredly will."

Agrican lifted his head and the twin caterpillars of his brows in one go, nonplussed by the Toreador's quickly soothed reaction. "I believe that would be beneficial, yes. And what say you of your wife's charity, Bakar?"

"Hm?" The hand at Bakar's back brought out the responses of his finely-tuned senses, practically merging through the touch to meet his wife in the space between the physical, in the churn of blood shared, passing through their unseating hearts.

He began. "? DeRousseau himself and the legion of ghouls at his beck and call will naturally wonder what the sheriff is doing asking around to note dissenters. I would recommend bringing Helene to interview the Kindred, ma cherie, while you head up the search amongst the kine at the edges of the operation and those who arrive from afar?"

Anouk found a smile somewhere deep down and marked it with Bakar's name. "Of course, love. I need not let my excitement get in the way of my wits."

As if on cue, her shadow drifted from beneath the table to join a company of phantom oil lamps and furniture on the walls. D'louie squeaked like some sort of man-mouse from his hiding place. But there was still the matter of Agrican and the reason he seemed so stuck on helping out the sociopathic spawn of a woman who no one could stand.

With those thoughts churning in her head, Anouk made her announcement. "I shall meet with Madame de Lorme as well. There is nothing out of the ordinary about that."

There was just a taste of affection in how she spoke of the Nosferatu woman; a hitch that bled memories of a Time Before when the hideous creature had only been so on the inside. Green eyes found Agrican then and releasing Bakar's hand, she moved to her feet.

"I should like to call for a reprieve for the rest of the night, if that is alright." Asked the girl of her brutish host. The Brujah, deep in a stew of his own thoughts once more, only nodded. Anouk and her hideous shadow moved for the door and it was there that she waited, ever patient, for her other half to join her.

Bakar could not have been more relieved when Anouk suggested that they abscond. The beeping thing beneath the table left the corners of his mouth slack. Agrican's lack of subterfuge often brought the old Basque some measure of comfort, yet this night, he felt, for the first time in a while, nervous about it. He set his hand upon the table, yet put no weight into it as he stood.

"Gentlemen?" With a salute from his cane, he started toward the door. The bug-eyed ghoul swung around, had in hand, offering it with a drop of his gaze as Bakar plucked it up without a second through, setting the doff on his noggin and followed his wife out of the odd, yet oddly productive meeting.

Anouk did not entertain the ghoul with a second glance. There was a place for everything and everything had its place, after all. Out on the dimly lit street, the road beneath their feet little more than heavily pebbled dirt, the little Lasombra tipped her chin to her beloved, her eyes growing narrow with the knowledge that she was about to bestow.

"The man is besotted with the woman he insists on saving. We all know it." She gripped his arm and held it up while her other hand repositioned his cane so that it was pointing at the shadowy figure of a raven perched upon the rickety sign of Simoncourt's only public house. Then she continued. "That bird knows it. He may very well want De Rousseau dead, but his heart is with Madame Dekker. Let us do what you have suggested, but humor him. It will not harm anyone and when she meets her doom then we can pat him on the back and say that we tried."

The dilettante wore his clan's byname well. His coats, rather hi clothing in general, seemed just shy of a good tailoring, a hint bare in the thread, if charmingly so. The air of the stumbling, rambling artist fell, however, once he emerged at Anouk's side, his arms crossing as his grip on the cane set its weight to meander between his fingers.

"Likely, she's managed to Bond him to her?" He swallowed an idea, an ephemeral concept as his weight shifted, sliding a heel back to set his posture more in line with Anouk's, creating a sense of unity with her posture. "? I doubt it runs both ways?"

He permitted her lift of his arm and point with his cane toward the bird. The single white feather at the bottom of its left wing put a smile to his lips beneath the expertly manicured thicket of hair 'round his cheeks, though his considerations drew the more serious, lengthy face, that of a paupered saint left to his contemplations.

"He will be inconsolable if he learns of her passing, if she does indeed pass. She withstood Marie at her most petulant; the world can do little to top that? lest she arrives in the Balkans." A shiver rattled from the base of his spine to the back of his head as his cane dropped back to his side, twirled and clutched with a soft clatter as his elbow remained extended for his beloved Keeper. "Nevertheless? the minefield of a raging Agrican aside, the sooner we pull our beloved royal highness to look upon the light of dawn, the better we may relax."

"Yes, yes," she drawled. "I know, and De Rousseau will be dealt with, lover and soon. I'm simply asking you to lie to the man, tell him that we will try our best to save his paramour. We need our heads steady, and that includes Agrican's." There would be no warning sent to Black Abby, not by Marie's old guard. "Let that bitch distract De Rousseau while we feed him to the sun." She threaded an arm through his and the vicious little creature dished out a loving nuzzle against the limb.

Bakar closed his eyes, drew his lips thin, and tipped his chin once to seal her words. Still, he worried his thumb over the back of the jaguar's head atop his cane. He tilted his head over to look upon his vicious little bride with a broad smile and sleepy, creased eyes as they strode the Rue towards their humble little home, dallying in the shadows until the sun's rays crested over the horizon.

On the third night, Black Abby found company along that lonesome road.

He had introduced himself simply as Benjamin with a silent 'n' and he was a dangerous sort of handsome; swarthy and dark eyed, his black hair cropped close to his skull. His clothes hung from him, too big and no doubt stolen, but the white horse he rode upon was handled in such a confident way that it let Black Abby know that he was, at least, a cunning thief.

She was well aware of the knife that he kept hidden between his back and his belt, stained with blood no matter how often he washed it. She also knew that once their mutual game of cat and mouse ended and if he had his wish, that knife would be kissing a deep line across her pretty throat. There were others, no doubt, but she was a lady and a lady didn't dare ask. So it was that Black Abby found him to be ideal company.

"I'm going to Paris," she exclaimed with a coquettish flutter of her copper colored lashes. "I've always heard that it's a lovely city."

Benjamin listened intently, be it false or genuine, and smiled as she pronounced her words with an English snap. She was attractive, even in her filthy, odorous clothes and Benjamin, though a scoundrel he was, could always appreciate beauty; even though something deep down inside of him told him to be wary of the pale rider. "You're not from France?"

Black Abby shook her head. He proved a wonderful distraction. He was harmless, though he need not know such a thing yet, and though his hands may have been covered in blood, he was charming. They both had that in common.

"Oh no. I'm from England, actually. I moved to Arras about.." she paused to readjust those years, for she dare not scare the boy by saying it had been just shy of seven decades, "ten years ago."

He leaned forward on his horse, his arms crossing over one another on the horn of his saddle. "Ten years," he muttered in appropriate wonder.

"You've yet to run away. My, my, Mademoiselle Dekker, you are quite the creature."

The redhead bowed her head in order to hide the amusement that saturated her grin. "You are the perfect gentleman, but please, call me Abby."

"Abby," he repeated. He took the lull in her attention to look her over once again. The only thing of value that he could see was the new pocket watch hanging from her neck, the tick tick tock echoing almost in time with the dry chirps of surrounding cicadas. Even the horse appeared to be on its last legs, suited more for a glue factory than his hidden stable.

"Is your name really Benjamin?"

He sighed and shook is head. "No. No it is not. Is your name really Abby?"

Black Abby snickered and ran a hand through Rowan's rough mane. "Yes, actually. It is."

The horses trotted along at a steady pace, comforted by the presence of the other. Black Abby drew bolder still as a sudden silence stretched on and she fixed her keen green eyes upon his face with such intensity that he shuddered.

"You're not a good man, are you?"

Benjamin shrugged. "I suppose it depends on your definition of a good man, m'lady. I have the strangest feeling that you are not a good woman by some standards. I am good at what I do and that is all that matters. I'm assuming you are as well, or you wouldn't be taking company with someone such as I."

"Such as you?" Questioned Black Abby, her mouth forming a small smile. All around them the wind blew. The forests had since receded to form a dark border around what seemed to be endless indigo fields. Benjamin slipped on the hat that she had gifted him with, the smell of his own body odor drowning out the scent of musty decay.

"Such as I, yes. I am no gentleman and you, m'lady, are something else entirely. I cannot put my finger on it and that shakes me to no end." He removed the hat and placed it upon his horse's head, his own face a lit with a dashing smile. "You know that I shall not attack you this night. I only hope that, whatever you are, you would show me the same mercy."

Black Abby's smile faded away and the dour girl was something like herself once again. She was not a creature of mercy, but neither, she reckoned, was Benjamin. Black Abby nodded. The night saw an uneasy truce between two entirely different sorts of predators. When they reached a fork in the road, one- she knew- leading to Paris while the other stretched on to Bologne-sur-mare, the riders bade their horses to stop.

Her pocket watch was safe, but Black Abby straightened when she saw the highwayman reach for the knife tucked away in his belt. He pointed the black towards her, only to flip it around and offer her the handle.

"It has been a pleasure, Abby, but this is where we part ways. Take this," he gestured to the knife with a tilt of his head, "and always keep the wind at your back. As I am sure you're aware, there are things in this world more vicious than you or I."

Black Abby took the knife, savored the weight of it in her hand, and then hid it away in one of her boots. Benjamin seemed pleased with this, and with a tip of his gifted hat, he directed his horse into a brisk gallop and soon he was little more than a speck on the horizon. The redhead watched him until he was out of sight, unaffected by the thought that sooner or later he would meet is end, be it by gun or sword or a hangman's noose, and with a click of her teeth she and Rowan began their journey down the road that would, within another night's travel, lead her to Paris.

Black Abby hid the moment that her feet had touched Parisian soil. She was not there on vacation- to bask in the artistic Mecca that was the City of Light- nor did she care to sight see. The unrest that drenched the air, spurred by an unborn revolution, was almost palpable. Contrary to popular belief, rebellion did have a smell; it was the salt of sweat, of toil and desperation. Of long nights spent hunkered in fear until the thing that scared you most just up and vanished or finally reared its head.

Black Abby lead her tired horse through the thick fog of it with her head down and her heart heavy. The stench could have been her perfume.

People littered the streets and what a potpourri of people it was! Ruddy cheeked fruit merchants that- by misfortune or laziness- had put aside their cleaning duties until after the sun had set. Young couples in their dandy duds and debutante dresses canoodling beneath lamplight. Criminals darting in and out of the shadows, just looking for their next mark. Homeless folks and beggars, mostly unseen and some stepped upon.

If they all happened to look her way then not of one of them would have seen a thing, so cloaked was Black Abby. Almost no one but not quite.
A lovely, honey thick voice seemingly rolled out of nowhere.

"You there!" It shouted.

Black Abby turned to find a young woman standing in the carved stone doorway of a building, its wooden sign proclaiming "Parfumerie" in a delicate white script. The girl was beautiful in a wholly superficial way, her eyes almost violet in the light of an oil lamp. Her honey blonde, had been styled into a heap of curls upon her head. She was dressed in a robe ? l'anglaise, crafted from a light linen, dyed a lovely lilac and streaked with cream colored stripes.

Though Black Abby was no longer riding, her grip on Rowan's reins tightened and curiously she waited for the other woman to speak again.

It was not a long wait.

"Come here, my darling!" Crooned the woman and she held her arms out to Black Abby, wrists exposed and her expression turning to one of concern. "Look at how filthy you are! No childe of Marie Chalfont should ever carry on so!"

Black Abby's ears perked up at the mention of her sire's name and she clenched her fist tighter still, until the dirty leather of the reins bit pale ridges into the palms of her hands.

"How do you know Marie?" She asked with a tilt of her head that repositioned a few, wind scrambled red locks down and over her cheek.
The woman laughed and oh, it was enchanting. It was lying in a sunny field. It was that first kiss from a shy boy. It was safety and care and, Black Abby knew, purposefully disarming.

"Everyone knows of Marie, lovely," continued the woman. "Everyone knows of *you*."

It was then that Black Abby remembered the knife in her boot, and Benjamin's parting words chose that very moment to fill her head;

"..there are things in this world more vicious than you or I."

The woman watched her closely and there was something fundamentally off about her smile. It was *too* inviting.

"Don't stare at me like that, dearest Abby. I mean you no harm. I cannot say that the others who claim residence here are of a like mind, so please. Do come in. There is a bath and food and a bed waiting for you." The woman gestured to the opened door and little by little, Black Abby felt her defenses slip away.

Black Abby was hungry. She was tired and a bath would not hurt, not when she had gallivanted through the countryside for four nights in a corpse's clothing.

The inside of the shop was full of smells, some so strong that they brought Black Abby's eyes to watering. A long wooden counter stretched from one window to a farther wall and ornate perfume bottles lined it, some empty but most full.

"Samplers", came the woman's answer to a question that Black Abby had not yet verbalized. The shelves that lined the back wall were filled with ingredients- everything from essence oils of osmanthus, bois de rose and life-everlasting to jars of tobacco, hemlock, straw and snakeskin. The combination of all of them, while a delight to most mortal noses, made Black Abby sick to her stomach.

The woman had mistaken the tense look upon her guest's face for one of adoration and quickly she plucked a small, curvy bottle from the counter. After opening it, she waved it beneath Black Abby's nose and much to the ginger's shock, she realized that she recognized the smell. The woman smiled and replaced the bottle, only to lift the dainty stem of her wrist up for Black Abby to smell.

Of course, thought Black Abby as she sniffed, that's it. This blasted creature is wearing it. Her hostess beamed.

"This is my absolute favorite," she explained. "A touch of tobacco to lure you in, a drop of essence of heliotrope to grab you and then a liberal dousing of night blooming jasmine to keep you there."

There was another smell there, lurking just beneath the ones that the woman had rattled off. Copper. It sent Black Abby's nostrils to flaring. Just as she turned to leave, the woman moved between her and the still opened door, effectively blocking all but the view of two pretty young men leading her horse away.

"What are they doing with Rowan?"

"Henri and Frederic are simply taking her to my stables. There she will be fed and groomed and fitted with new shoes," and if as sensing the apprehension burrowing into Black Abby's heart, she continued. "No harm will come to your mount, lovely girl. No harm will come to you, either, not with me around."

Black Abby drew her fingers along the glass hip of a perfume bottle bearing a crudely made label.. Ambergris. She looked up suddenly and over to the woman. "Do you have a name?"

The woman laughed, delighted. Grabbing her skirts and lifting the edges, she crossed her ankles and let that movement guide her upper body into a bow. "Annette Bouchard, but you may call me Anne."

"Yes, well. Lovely to meet you, Madame Bouchard."

The smile faded from Anne's face but she was quick to find it again.

"Riigght. Well let us get you up to your room, lovely Abby."

Black Abby was quick to follow, if only to escape the stew of those scents. The perfume in which Anne had so liberally doused herself was, at least, tolerable. Anne lead her up a flight of black metal stairs to a landing that housed one fainting couch and one tacky pink oil lamp perched upon a small, wooden table. This lead to a short, dead-end hallway, each side lined with three red doors. Anne chose the last one on the right for Black Abby.

Beyond the door lay a surprisingly modest bedchamber. It was small, but still much bigger than anything Black Abby had ever claimed as her own, and one wall hosted a single sized bed, its linens sinfully silk and colored red. Another wooden table held yet *another* oil lamp, this one gold leafed and still reeking of heated animal fat. Last but not least was a simple, almost disappointingly ramshackled wardrobe. It was to this that Anne moved.

"You're a Toreador," observed Black Abby, and she leaned against the doorway. It was a rude question based on nothing more than assumption, but one could not take back what had already been said and Black Abby simply was not bothered by it enough to try.

Anne peeked around the door of the armoire, her eyes narrowing. "Oh yes. Such a clever girl you are. "

When Black Abby didn't reply, Anne changed the subject. "A redhead should wear nothing but green. Forever and always. Red tends to drain the color from the flesh and white? Oh white is better left to virgins."

A copper brow arched up and Black Abby could have sworn that Anne blushed then. "Oh dear! Not to say that you aren't, but there is a wedding ring on your finger."

Defensively, Black Abby brought her hand to her chest and covered the silver band with the palm of the other, but still she said not a word. It was none of Annette's business. It was no one's business but her own and the long ago departed soul that had once so lovingly claimed her heart. Realizing that she had perhaps misspoken, Anne buried her head into the wardrobe once again.

"I'm sorry. That was rude of me, but here," she wrangled a garment free, despite the noisy rustles of protests from its brethren. "Here is something for you to sleep in, darling dear."

It was a long green nightgown, the shade of which- Anne insisted- matched the colors of Black Abby's eyes. It was modestly cut, its sleeves billowy but tight around the wrists and the buttons that lined the front weren't anything if they weren't gold. Black Abby watched as Anne arranged it upon the bed, and then she dared to grab Black Abby's hand. The redhead balked but did not pull away, but her expression did shift to sour. Anne only had her best interests a heart and besides, she had been a friend of Marie's.

No sooner did the thought cross her mind did another spring forward.
"No she didn't. She never said how she knew Marie."

Soon the observation had dispersed into wispy waves of thought fog, only to disappear completely by the time Anne had brought her to the door of a charming little bathroom. A green cabinet held an assortment of bedpans that were covered in thin layers of dust but Black Abby did not care for things that she could not use, and so her attention was given to the beautiful cast iron bathtub in the corner, its claws making it seem as if it would suddenly bound off and away.

It had been almost two months since Black Abby had treated herself to a proper bath and when Anne offered to have her boys bring up fire warmed buckets of water, she could do little more than nod her head.

Even with their mistress gone, Henri and Frederic took extra care not to look too long at Black Abby's naked form, still fetching despite the muck and dirt that blackened parts of her flesh. They were gentle with her and even slightly frightened, but they brushed out her hair on the count of one hundred and while Henri did that, Frederic took a small stick to the tips of her nails. Anne was making good on her promises and next came food, offered in the way of Henri's wrist.

The young man, fresh out of his teens, seemed eager to give into the delights of the feeding while his brother looked on with something like jealousy. Black Abby was gentle with him, not because she wanted to be but because some part of her wanted more than anything to please Anne, and she even licked the wounds closed when she had finished.

The twins insisted on helping her dress, an offer to which she scoffed, and once they had left her alone, Black Abby returned to her room for the night. The gown was where Anne had left it and Black Abby savored the feeling of silk against her skin. She brought the collar to her nose and inhaled the scent of fresh clothing deeply to commit it to memory, for such things were a rarity even during the best of times.

She didn't see her hostess until an hour before sunrise, and by then Black Abby was comfortable enough to retire early. Beneath the blankets, she was warm and when Anne sat next to her on the bed, the redhead even managed a genuine smile.

"The early bird catches the worm, does it not?" Anne smiled and didn't so much as hesitate at raking her fingers through Black Abby's hair. ''I am so glad that I found you, ma chere. I hope you sleep well. Tomorrow is a big day. You get to meet the Prince."

Black Abby would have followed her to the ends of the Earth and back again, and had Anne's charms wavered for just a moment to give her time to think, then Black Abby may have realized just how dire her situation really was.

The sheer act of awakening had painted the world of Abigail Dekker's kinder personality with multiple shades of pain. Between Black Abby and the personality that had long ago been beaten down and drowned out, the alternate known as Squeaker had awoken to not only a world of hurt but also, of all things, water. The murky churn of the Baltic sea had joined forces with dead, airless lungs to keep her just low enough that the moon had trouble breaking through the darkness.

It didn't matter. Every blink of contrasting colored eyes in the salt water brought burning and no clarity. Each attempt to swim was met with the pieces of the ever growing realization that her body was absent two very important extremities; and while what blood hadn't been shed by De Rousseau's unquenchable anger had healed her wounds, there was barely enough to keep her awake, much less bring her arms back.

Squeaker had no clue how long she had been floating- days, weeks, months?- and none of that seemed too important. The only mercy that Fate had dealt her was the ignorance of never knowing that she had been staked; the piece of chair leg long since wiggled free by curious, blood thirsty sea life. The poor girl tried to sob out her frustrations but the water rushed in and filled a useless stomach already tick bloated with brine.
Will I just float like this forever?

The universe had a wretched sense of humor. No sooner had the question crossed her mind did Squeaker get her answer. The seafloor had grown frightfully high, so much so that bits of rock bit into her knees, the scratches barely visible in their wait for sluggish blood to rise to the surface. A large wave pushed Squeaker forward only to break against her head and order every last strand of dark copper hair out along her back. With her cheek in the crush of it all and water rushing from her mouth, the miserable girl could only entertain the idea of lying there until sunrise and trading the pain she felt for fire and ash and the oblivion that, she hoped, came After.

Her vision returned to her soon enough and the first thing that she saw was the gelatinous form of a beach stranded jelly fish, its tendrils still twitching toward the ocean. Squeaker almost smiled at how very similar their predicaments were, only for another spasm to hit her like an invisible hand squeezing at her middle. More water rushed passed her lips and something hard clinked against her bottom teeth before it was washed away.

Squeaker narrowed her eyes and the object came into focus after a moment. Small and metallic. A ring. Even with no fingers to check, she knew what it was. Her wedding ring. Squeaker and Anger had never been good friends, for she was much more adept at fear, but fire raced through her veins and it didn't matter how the ring had ended up in her stomach. It didn't matter that she had no fingers with which to wear it.

Squeaker needed that anger to dash the thoughts of meeting the sun from her head. Her likeness to the jellyfish ended then and there and with that rage only gaining momentum, Squeaker buried a foot in the sand and pushed herself forward. Something was moving to her left. Something on two legs that smelled gloriously of copper. When the Beast raged, she shook her head and ignored it until her lips had met the sand and the tip of her tongue had worked its way into the ring.

Squeaker pulled it into her mouth and worked it beneath her tongue, her teeth clamping together the moment two strong hands gripped her waist. While Black Abby would have protested to the very last, Squeaker went limp and didn't so much as twitch when she was hefted over a shoulder as easily as one might lift a bag of onions.

Whatever had her was Kindred; she had known that from the stench, but something was off in the way that the creature moved. Whatever had abducted- saved?- her moved quickly, but with a gait more suited to a goat than anything pretending to be human. As the ocean became little more than a spot on the horizon and larger rocks jutted from the land, her captor bounded from boulder top to boulder top with an ease that sent her mind into a panicked scramble.

It was that fear that forced her gaze downward.

A muscular human backside cut perfectly into toned thighs, but that was where that familiarity stopped. The beast's lower legs were covered in wiry black fur and were warped, the shins bent back in an angular jut that lead down to two cracked dark brown hooves. She tried to scream around the ring in her mouth, for Squeaker, in her perpetual cowardice had never seen such a monster, but pain twisted the sound into a pitiful muffled keening.

The beast paid no mind and when she began thrashing, its very human fingers dug deeper into her side; not so much to hold her there, it was too gentle for that. It almost seemed to Squeaker as if it were trying to keep her from hurting herself.

She was exhausted by the time they had reached the forest, the Dahurian Larch and Manchurian Ash clumped together so closely that a child would have had trouble squeezing between them. The beast had no such trouble and took to the wider trails; ducking beneath low limbs and leaping upon fallen trunks with an ease that might have struck Black Abby as strangely beautiful, but the creature's grace only intensified Squeaker's terror.

But suddenly the forest broke into a clearing, the grass growing there greener than anything she had ever seen. The purple-blue buds of skullcap and camomile with their yellow heads haloed in white riddled the verdant patch in random clumps. The beast stopped in the middle of the fairy ring and carefully, gently, lowered Squeaker to the ground.

It peered down at her curiously from a face carved into severe, rodent angles. A pink nose twitched at the air and his eyes- for she knew it was a he from the appendage that hung there between its legs- were big and round and colored pink, their pupils missing. Squeaker rustled up a nervous smile and shuddered when he returned the gesture, his teeth a mishmash of bucked yellow and razor white.

Then Squeaker thought of how easy it would be for those teeth to tear through her flesh. How easy it would be for them to rend muscle from bone. With that jittery smile still twisting her lips, she closed her eyes and thought of all of the things that she had yet to do. She could hear the beast's hoofsteps, smell the stench of blood and earth.

But Death had yet to shuffle the multifaceted mind and body of Abigail Dekker into a new hand. It was said that Fate favored the reckless, the bold and the flawed and even when more footsteps- human from the sounds of them- joined the beast's, Squeaker came to the realization that Oblivion, too, had no hand in this game.

Squeaker was in hell.

Perhaps that was an overblown observation; the workings of a fevered, underfed mind. She had tired to escape, had kicked and squirmed until the metallic lick of metal chain had bled through to her dreams. They were nothing so innocent when glimpsed through the twisted glass world of delirium. A monster was holding her down; a Golem forged of fire and iron with teeth sharpened to horrifying points.

Terrified and confused, Squeaker cried out for her mother, for a woman long since dead, because Mother would help her. Mother would defeat the Golem. She had always been so wonderful at fighting the monsters that lived beneath Abigail's bed, but unbeknownst to Squeaker, Lucy Baker could not have predicted- nor navigated- the nightmarish marsh of her daughter's mind.

"Mother..."

Another beast howled a lonesome tune somewhere in the distance and she could feel and hear the very foundation of the Rat Devil's house shake from the power of it. Somewhere in the shadows of a Dreamscape painted with pain and horror, a different sort of monster lurked; a pale woman with long red hair and wild green eyes, her naked form- though hidden by shadow- very distinctly covered in blood.

Squeaker opened her mouth and screamed, unaware that the sound traveled no further than her own mind. And then a cool hand touched her forehead.

Her eyes fluttered open and it wasn't Nikaja crouched by her bed, but her mother. She was small and too thin, her face a map of wrinkles drawn by age and a life lived too harshly. Her dark hair had gone almost completely gray and twisted into a braid, leaving only a few strands to frame her face and perpetually watery green eyes.

Squeaker immediately relaxed and took in the room around her. Cold tempered but warm with love, the walls streaked black with coal; it was the house of her childhood. On the outside looking in, her lips simply trembled but still she spoke to the specter of her mother. Lucy Baker wasn't dead here and had never been. She had finally arrived to save her little girl from the monsters.

"Mother, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.."

"My lil' wan. My poor lil' wan,"Mother Baker's accent was musical, if only by virtue of The Rebel County, and her voice was a startled dove of a thing."Here la, stahp cryin' so."

Compassion and a love so brilliant that to look upon it burned the Beast inside of Squeaker; those were the things that Squeaker glimpsed in her mother's eyes. Seemingly undaunted by whatever she saw in Squeaker's gaze, Lucy continued stroking the girl's forehead, gifting her with what comfort she could. She then smiled a nearly toothless smile down at her daughter.

"Why're ya sorry like?" Lucy brushed a rough knuckle beneath one of Squeaker's eyes and then the other."Y'ere m'heart, my sweet girl. Ye'll get there."

Ye'll get there. And therein lay hope. Humming began somewhere in the distance, coasting on a voice that she didn't recognize and it was wonderful. Abigail Dekker wouldn't die for a long time, and Squeaker suddenly felt as light as a feather. There was a future. Ye'll get there.

The image of Lucy Baker and that little brick box began to warp and fade and Squeaker, for the first time in what seemed like eternity, relaxed.

"Mother..." That last utterance brought her back, however briefly, to reality and to the fuzzy vision of Nikaja Kasianenko.

Agrican's looming form, so much larger than her own, made Annette Bouchard feel six inches tall. While he stood there scrutinizing everything from her clothing to her soaking wet hair to- she imagined- the rotten husk of her soul, Annette kept her gaze on a sprig of grass foolishly blooming between two beige foot stones.

The Prince of Paris had prepared a speech during her four day trek to Arras. In her head she had been a proud diplomat delivering her oh so gracious apology to a genuflecting Agrican Petain. In the outcome of her fantasy, the large man was grateful and eager to bestow praises upon the petty, pretty Frenchwoman for her humility and everyone lived happily ever after.

But that didn't happen. Instead Annette stood shivering in Agrican's shadow, her lovely cupid's bow mouth parting and closing like a land stranded fish. The hurt in his eyes, the weight of the sorrow and anger that resided there filled her with a deep and dreadful shame. She wanted more than anything to simply turn and run; to head for home and hide beneath the lovely little lies of the sycophants that panted at her feet.

Perhaps she would have gotten her wish had Agrican not pummeled that silence into oblivion. "What do you want?," he growled and a grimace followed that showed every one of his grime slick teeth. Before Annette could answer, a large hand captured a narrow shoulder. Unphased by the cry that echoed from Anne's throat, Agrican pulled her off of her feet and shoved her into his house so quickly that she had to fall onto her knees to keep from kissing the floor.

Staring up at him, her eyes wide with animal terror, Annette finally found her voice and the words smacked quickly into one another, setting off a chain of babbles broken only by miserable sobs.

"I..I just wanted to let y-y-you know how very sorry I am. What I have done to Madame Dekker was unspeakable. I..I f-f-feel like everyone knows my crime and that they are all judging me for it."

The wooden floor was cold beneath her hands but still somehow warmer than the glare that Agrican bathed her in. His anger was almost palpable; a beast that gnashed and snarled but never drew close enough to bite.

"If I disappeared,"Annette thought, "would anyone I know be this angry?"

"No they wouldn't, Madame Bouchard." Annette looked up at the man in surprise and disgust, for how dare he read her mind? How dare he? With his burly arms crossed at his chest, Agrican kept his eyes upon her as if the mere act of looking away would cause his fury to lose momentum.

"Do not speak. I'm talking now. What did you think revenge was, little girl? Did you think it would make you feel better? It's a horrid circle, one that is hard to break once it begins. What Madame Dekker did to your father was unspeakable, but you've simply stooped to her level."

Indignant and suddenly brave, Annette caught his stare and twisted her mouth into a horrid scowl. "But.."

In a flash he was on his knees before her, the large fingers of one calloused hand digging into the flesh of her cheeks. "I told you that it was my turn to speak. Your actions have consequences. Disregard my affections for Madame Dekker. You have ruined this town and the Kindred in it. It is your fault that we now must cater to a man who is incapable of lacing his boots without setting them on fire."

He shook her so roughly that her jaw began to rattle, but the pain that courted every nerve in her body was a surprisingly welcome release from the shame and horror of a hard hitting realization. She could not argue even when he released her from his grasp. Agrican was right and she damned well knew it.

"Whatever fake apology you can offer means nothing simply because the person that you should be apologizing to is gone. The only thing you have done even remotely right is visit me instead of the rest of my circle. They are not as warm as I."

Anne shuddered and cupped her elbows in the palms of her hands while violet eyes that were brimming full of opaque pink tears trailed the man's frantic footfalls; a pacing that stretched from one wall to the other and back again. Swallowing hard, Anne let her gaze trail around the cold stone room. Dents decorated the walls and a broken bunch of what appeared to be kindling lay in a corner. I'm going to die here. This man is going to rip my head off.

"I'll do no such thing," muttered Agrican as he fell into a lean against the large table in the middle of the room. The fight was still there in everything that he did, but it was dying out. A temporary state that filled Annette with a small, stingy scrap of hope. "Why would I kill you? You see, Madame Bouchard, you still have a conscience. Killing you would be a mercy, I think. What tortures that you will visit upon yourself make anything I could do to you pale in comparison."

She tried again. "Monsieur Petain.."

Agrican silenced her with the rise of one hand and Annette could here the defeat in his voice. She could see it in the slouch of his shoulders. "No. I don't want to hear it. Just go. Go back to Paris and continue playing pretend. Just know that you and your lap dogs are not wanted here. It would do you well to stay there and any thoughts of visiting Arras again had best be entertained once I am dead and gone."

Anne knew that she was lucky. Miserable and cold, she rose to her feet. She had another apology waiting on the tip of her tongue, one that would never be spoken. Madame Dekker, wherever you are, I am so sorry. I will live with this for the rest of my life.

Abby would never hear her apology, and thus was tragedy of it all. Long after Annette had thrown herself back into the tempest, Agrican poured over the words plucked from Prince Anne's head.

It was not perfect but it would do.

With her brown hair blown askew and her body clad in reindeer hides accented by multicolored beads crudely carved from bone, Nikaja cut an imposing figure in the winter crush. While Philo scratched at the permafrost with one of his cracked hooves in the hopes of finding at least a field mouse to feed from, Nikaja stood as still as she possibly could and watched The Red Girl's mental tango with Father Frost.

The twitching, the mumbling, the rocking too and fro; Nikaja had witnessed only those things. Her wild eyes had not glimpsed The Horse, The Lady or The Beast like The Red Girl had. With no comparisons shared in what bits of language they had stolen from one another, their experiences would go on to light two very different fires. While Black Abby Dekker fought with demons birthed by the freeze and her own tattered mind, Nikaja had witnessed survival in one of its most brilliant forms.

Nikaja and Philo had the preternatual equivlant of antifreeze in their veins, an adaptation that The Red Girl couldn't have known about, much less developed.

Under the watchful beady eyes of Philo, his mouth twisted into a snarl of confusion around the limp body of a dead pine marten, the Gangrel woman marched to where The Red Girl sat and placed her long fingered hands gently upon her shoulders. Black Abby's first instinct was to swing and though it was easily ducked, the pseudo assault plucked the newly buried 'good' from the small garden of English that Nikaja knew and dropped it into the air.

Oddly matched shades of green, frostier for the weather, gifted blue with a wide, delirious stare. Black Abby opened and closed her mouth, her blue lips hiding twin rows of too many teeth a good majority painted with blood taken moments before from her own wrist. Nikaja could not have known what she was thinking- some could shield their minds in such a way that not even they were privy to their own secrets- but she thought she had understood.

Respect should never be confused for trust, but it was respect that eventually pushed Nikaja to help the Malkavian to her feet. She eyed the slowly healing gash marring The Red Girl's wrist and then looked back to her face; whatever scathing question Nikaja had meant to ask died quickly on her lips. Black Abby stood staring off in the direction of the Baltic sea, hidden behind miles upon miles upon miles of thick forest and rocky mountains. Longing and hatred danced hand in hand with the madness in that look, and her concentration was only broken when Nikaja began tugging her back toward the shack that they shared.

A shrill whistle rose up from the corners of Nikaja's mouth that sent Philo's pointed ears to perking up. A gruesome schluuuuiipp was mercifully stolen away by the biting wind as Philo separated the marten's fur from its body. Then he slung the carcass over one boney shoulder and rushed to join his companions.

Once tucked away in the safety of their little home, Nikaja crouched upon a pile of furs and Black Abby seated almost too primly upon the bed, Philo presented the redhead with what remained of the pine marten; less hesitant about the gift once Nikaja had given him her blessing with a nod.

The furless little body was already nearly frozen when it hit the ground at Black Abby's feet, causing her toes to curl reflexively. Philo simply crouched simply watched the seeming rejection with a simpering that tugged at his rubber black lips. Upon noticing the Red Girl's hesitation, Nikaja lifted her chin to her and spat.

"Never refuse gift, dorogaya moya, if is given freely."

When Black Abby brought the poor creature's corpse to her lips and buried her feeding teeth in its flesh, only then did Nikaja nod her approval.

Survival was survival was survival, regardless of the means.

It took exactly four years for Annette Bouchard to break her promise to Agrican.

For all of her cunning, Annette was entirely driven by her emotions, had been described by some as a walking case against romanticism and all of its lurid trappings. Some would have said, had they been asked, that thoughts better left to poets long dead and those yet to be born, had driven the former Prince of Paris- for she had stepped down a year after her fateful meeting with the Brujah before she could be forced out- to the door of the little limestone building in Simoncourt. She no longer held her head high and a slump had taken her shoulders where one had not existed before. In those four years, a pitiful speck of time to Kindred- it was Annette's heart that had turned her against the world.

Anne didn't know what awaited her beyond that door and had long since stopped worrying about what the Brujah man could and would do to her for breaking her oath. His words had haunted her for a long time, stripped her of her peace of mind, and every time she closed her eyes, she heard them as a soundtrack for her rotten soul and saw the self-satisfied sneer on Jean de Rousseau's face the night that he had explained to her what had become of The Problem of Black Abby Dekker. She only had to knock once to reveal the hulking form of Agrican standing in the doorway, a giant hovering a doll's house, and even with her head bowed she could feel the fog of hatred that practically rolled off of the man.

"Annette Bouchard?" His great voice boomed. "Do all *artistes* have a death wish?"

Before she could answer, before she could flinch or mew despite her resolve, one of his giant hands slapped into a clamp against the back of her neck and reeled her roughly into the house. The door slammed as she hit the floor and a sharp cry followed the pressure of one of his feet against her back.

"Just don't kill me before I tell you what I know!"

Though the heel buried in her spine did not move, Agrican still lifted it enough to keep anything vital from cracking beneath her pretty flesh.

"You have to the count of seven."

Her fingers curled against the floor beneath her and she flinched when he rattled out a gruff one somewhere near her left ear.

"...You were right," she cried. "Madame Dekker isn't dead."

"..2.."

"Before I stepped down, I made friends with the Malkavian primogen..."

"..3.."

"He..he said that they would know if she was dead."

On the count of four, Agrican buried his foot so deep that the vertebra beneath it snapped like dried twigs. Until it began to heal, Annette felt nothing more, and perhaps that was a mercy.

"Russia! She's in Russia! My God, she's in Siberia!"

Five had just teetered off of Agrican's lips when her words registered in the large shells of his ears. Slipping his foot to her side, he pushed Annette onto her back and crouched down like a great gruff cat by her head, his meaty paws hanging between his knees. His expression turned from snarling rage to something far more thoughtful.

"I'm thinking that no one would miss you, but people tend to stake their sentimentality in the very worst of people," he chuckled as if the entire exchange hadn't just happened, as if Annette wasn't lying broken at his feet. "You're either brave or incredibly stupid for coming back here, but I should think you have enough sense in that pretty head of yours to know better than to lie about such things."

While Annette looked up at him, his face obscured by his beard, the blood began knitting together the ruined bits of her spine, and when she tried to sit up, a giant hand pawed her back down again. A horrific realization washed over her. After years spent of being the cat, Annette found herself playing the part of the mouse.

"You're not going anywhere, Madame Bouchard. I want to investigate your claims, you see, and I need you at my side until I'm finished. Otherwise I'll think you're a liar, and we wouldn't want that, would we? Liars don't die, not the ones who cross my path, but they do often wish for death."

She watched as he rose to his feet and stood up only when he lifted his hand for her to do so. She was in no position to argue and in her self-inflicted martydom, Annette had not taken into account that there were far worse things in the universe than the merciful embrace of death. Confused, a bit scared, but surprisingly relieved and thankful, she bowed her head to him once again. Agrican shook his head, his top lip curling in disgust, and crossed his arms over his barrel of a chest.

"You'll not act like a whipped donkey in my presence, Madame Bouchard. I do not own you and frankly, I've never been into kept women. When this is over with, you may go wherever you please, but until then.." And he motioned to his shabby living quarters, "..do make yourself at home."

"You want my trust?" Nikaja asked as she stood beside of the pile of fur and straw and splintered wood that composed Black Abby's bed. The sun had just settled beyond the horizon and what nightmares plagued Black Abby's sickened mind during those brightly lit hours paled in comparison to the image of the Gangrel so close to her head.

"I could give a jot about your trust, if you should like the truth." The Red Girl stared hard into the ice blue eyes peering down at her, her mouth forming a thin line on her pale face. Then just as suddenly, Black Abby smiled at Nikaja and made it a point to show the other woman every one of her teeth.

"You earn my trust today," spat the Gangrel, "or I stake you to tree. Choice is yours."

Before Black Abby could debate, Nikaja was gone with only the rustle of the bones that decorated her furs to mark that she had ever been there. Growling and grunting beneath her breath, more animal unease than human frustration, Black Abby threw her long legs over the sides of the cot only to stop when the weight of Philo's gaze became apparent. The ratfaced creature had nothing remotely resembling arousal on his features, not even when faced with the devastating sight of the naked Malkavian. Instead there lurked that perpetual doggish curiosity that seemed to haunt the wildkin.

"I'd ask just what it is that your dear master", and she made sure to throw a heavy emphasis on the word," thinks I could ever do to earn her trust, but I doubt that you could answer me."

Nose in the air, she reached for the patchwork of rabbit and reindeer hides that she had worn for years now and slipped them over her head, her long fingers tugging and tying the bit of leather rope tight first around her waist and then her ankles.

Squeaker had already earned Nikaja's trust like a dog too submissive to do more than wet itself when brought face to face with its superior. The thought set sour on Black Abby's mind; she who had respected Nikaja for her complete lack of trust in her.

Philo was gifted a disgusted glare as Black Abby passed him by, the weight of the look completely lost on the poor boy. He still wagged his goat's tail, still followed on her heels. Good. That was good.

Even Verkoyansk had no secrets when bathed in the ultra glow of a full moon. The light coupled with the snowfall and ice, turning their desolate slice of Earth into a ghost's land; some far away place visited only by those suffering fevered dreams.

Nothing normal could hide on those nights, not with spring lingering just close enough to paint the white pelts of some of the wildlife with a mottled brown brush. Rabbits scurried past Black Abby's feet, and one just barely missed being snagged by Philo's snapping jaws. Less than half a mile away, the unmistakable crushcroonsh of a reindeer's hooves turned Black Abby's ears up. It may as well have been behind her for how much the landscape amplified the sounds of its trek.

She tried to scope Nikaja out but found neither hide nor hair of the woman. Philo, since finding a comfortable perch upon an ice blistered tree stump, waved happily at her when she looked his way, forcing Black Abby to return the gesture.

Then Philo took off, his crooked legs eating up a remarkable length of ground before Black Abby could so much as wrap her mind around what was happening. Snow exploded around the two Kindred like dust, their speed confusing a passing group of scrawny gray wolves.

A third party joined in their chase; a beast that only Black Abby could see. It matched her move for move, the gnarled pitch eyed monster; the same creature she had seen when Nikaja had forced her to brave the elements. Where Black Abby's hair moved behind her like a red curtain, the stringy wisps on its head barely moved. Though she tried hard to keep her attention on the fleet-footed Philo, her strange green eyes ventured sidelong just every so often to glimpse the twisted horror that ran at her side.

The landscape transformed; flat tundra became snow capped mountains and wild rapids frozen mid-splash. Trees were outnumbered by stumps; the stamp of human progress. It felt as if they had roamed for days on end, and soon Black Abby could feel her bones ache and her borrowed blood turn from quicksilver mercury to slow pouring syrup. Her fangs ached in her gums, and the rattle of unseen chains coincided with Philo's abrupt stop.

Beyond them the land sloped down into a valley, one pounding with the telltale pulse of warmer life. Buildings built of sturdy wood, their roofs pointed towards the sky. People roamed the ice stricken streets. Men and women and children bundled in furs and skins, and not a sniff of Kindred blood amongst them.

To see life, to smell the stink of sweat and hear its vital hum sent Black Abby's heart soaring.

She spun around on her heels to face the beast that had followed them, and hid a strangled sound behind the tight purse of her lips when she realized that she and Philo were alone.

The beast was nowhere to be seen, and she was absolutely starving.

"It's very cold here."

Annette's voice, the same sweet and sultry chime that had hurried many a mortal to the bliss of her feeding teeth, grated on every nerve that Agrican had. The captain of the ship had looked at them like they were fools when he had told him that he was heading into deep Siberia, and with a lady no less.

Let that whelp deal with her then. Agrican would have been more than happy to tie Anne to the good captain and let her talk his ear off for all of eternity.

The snow was knee deep on him, and Annette's nymph weight barely made mark in the crush where she stepped. How was that for fair? Perhaps all of those brooding thinkers had been right. Maybe God was dead.

"I'm freezing, Monsieur Petain! Perhaps my informer wasn't as good as I had hoped!"

He turned to face her shivering form and stared beyond her at the shards of ice broken wooden shrapnel jutting from a pine. It took all that he had not to introduce her heart to that wood.

"Malkavians are all connected. I don't know how. Don't know why. Your informer probably picked up on her location from that." His bulky shoulders slumped in defeat. "For your sake, he had better be right. Now come on. We've a few nights still to Verkoyansk."

He trudged past her and kept marching, even as the ice riddled rain stung his eyes and painfully licked at his face. Annette's silent footfalls soon trailed behind.

"I'm cold. Freezing. I'm not made for this..." She stopped mid sentence as Agrican circled back around her to the clump of wounded pine trees. His massive fingers, backed by his insane strength, snapped one of the spikes free. He gave her no warning, gave her no time to prepare for an attack before his fist met her solar plexus. The blow knocked her to the ground, her body forming a panicked snow angel beneath her.

Fatigue, the sort that left most men mad, danced through Agrican's eyes and drew fear in her own. His movements were almost graceful, from the way he straddled her without really touching her, to the way a burly arm drove the stake of wood beneath and behind her left breast.

While inside of her own head, Annette screamed from the pain and the shock and the complete inability to retaliate, Agrican hefted her up and over his shoulder as if she weighed little more than a sack of feathers.

He grunted his regret. "I knew I should have thrown you overboard, you hay haired chicken."

Then, in the flurry of winter's departing, Agrican Petain smiled.

"Do you hear a horse, Madame Bouchard?"

Agrican peered back at Annette's prone form, the shard of pine wood still jutting from her chest, and he grinned. The cold over the past few days had driven the man near mad. He finally thought Annette, who could not move her body now, much less her lips, a suitable traveling companion. Of course the conversations were decidedly one-sided, but that cottoned to Agrican just fine.

Dragging the former Prince of Paris by her hair, he followed the fading trail of hoof prints before them, and kept his ears open for the telltale sounds of the unseen horse. Little beads of ice had formed on his beard, giving him the appearance of Santa Claus' younger, slightly madder brother. The one, most likely, kept in the attic for everyone's safety.

"What's that? I'll remove the stake just as soon as we find dear Abby. I'm a man of my word, after all."

He paused. Just ahead lay the ruins of a beaten and broken old wagon. Though he could not smell any lingering scent of the driver, the musky odor of the horse was almost a solid thing. Scratching at the side of his face, he glanced from side to side and released his grip on Annette's hair, causing her face to hit the frozen ground precariously close to nail riddled board.

With snow crunching beneath his feet, Agrican latched onto the horse's scent and followed it to where it was strongest. The beast was newly dead, its throat ripped out but what most would assume were wolves. Agrican knew better. Tracking its blood in his wake, he prowled deeper into the forest, and what he found widened his eyes in shock.

The corpse of a fur clothed man lay slumped against the trunk of a massive tree. The horse's scent had faded, had become sweet with the onset of faint decay, and was replaced with the smell of a reindeer hidden beneath the rank of copper. Gripping its reins in a pale hand, its rider turned her head and her sharp, shark's eyes upon Agrican. Faced with his confusion, with his relief, Black Abby smiled and each one of her too many teeth had been splashed red.

"Monsieur Petain. So good of you to join me."

"You cannot take me back to Paris," squealed Anne. She was understandably weak from having a stake jammed into her heart, but certainly not weak enough that she could not thrash and kick and scream like a rabid banshee. "They are hunting me there!"

Black Abby shared a baleful look with Agrican. The man twirled the stake between two fingers almost playfully. Annette's pleas continued, and much to Black Abby's horror, red tears ran down her cheeks and were frozen there just seconds later.

"Are you being hunted?" Black Abby then tutted, her tone that of a parent trying to soothe a rambunctious child. "Poor dear. No one would want to be hunted. Not so good a feeling, is it?"

Grass, dead but still something other than the delirium inducing blandness of the snow, peeked out here and there around them. Agrican ventured ahead, leaving Black Abby alone with Annette. If Annette died then so be it. He was not one to toy with natural selection.

Her already pale complexion shifting to a sallow gray with Agrican's abandonment, Annette's eyes tested the boundaries of their sockets and her blue lips pursed together. With Agrican she could have found compassion, even if it would only be a tiny scrap. Black Abby had only a passing affiliation with such an animal.

Black Abby's eyes followed Agrican until he disappeared, but it was easy enough to follow the already filling imprints left by his feet. One dark red brow, peppered with snow, lifted up and she frowned down at Annette.

"You drugged me and had my arms cut off, you little wench. You delivered me to that man because...why?" Her tone told Annette that she knew exactly why. "Because I killed your father? Are you ever going to stop crying over that?"

At some point the scenery had given way to a land almost completely verdant, save for the errant patch of snow here and there. It was still cold, but it was tolerable, and Black Abby could smell the salt in the air.

With the Malkavian's word still burning in her ears, Annette took this time to begin her struggling anew. "My papa was my best friend! My confidant! How would you know anything about that?!"

Black Abby rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the path. Her voice was calm, leveled. Almost cruelly so. "Yes, I would know nothing about having a father. I was hatched from an egg, you see, like a starling. Your father was a pederast who Embraced his own daughter and went so far as to slaughter Paris' rightful prince in order to make his pwecious wittle pwincess happy."

The veins in Annette's forehead bulged with willed blood, such was the fury of her anger. "You know nothing about him! You do not get to talk about him! Serge Bouchard was a good man!"

"A good man at what?" Asked Black Abby, her eyes narrowed and her mouth a tight line. "He was certainly good at catching fire, if that is what you are getting at. Did you mean that he was good at killing his betters? Because I certainly hold people who kill another while their back is turned in the highest of regards."

The rope was beginning to cut through the cloth of Annette's dress and into the flesh of her waist. Her blood scented the air. If she could just get free then maybe she could finish what Jean de Rousseau had started. Maybe she could..

Black Abby clicked her tongue against the top of her mouth, her nostrils flaring with the scent of tempting copper. Ahead she could see the shore and the sparse gathering of ships bobbing like the heads of dozing old men in the water.

"Stop that," she snapped. "You have already lost enough blood. Keep at it and you will frenzy, then I will have no other choice but to kill you."

And Annette stopped, her face frozen in a mask of fear. Black Abby was anything if not good for her word.

They dumped the trunk containing Annette into the first cesspool they passed. Eventually Black Abby's psychic fingers would wriggle free from what passed for Annette's brain, but until then she could mingle with the rest of the offal.

Surprisingly this act weighed heavier upon Agrican than it did his red haired compatriot. As they reached Grasse by night, the scent of flowers impregnating the air, he turned to the woman who rode beside of him and voiced his guilt.

"She was not so bad. Not really."

Black Abby nodded once, and thus was the extent of that particular conversation. Their horses trotting along at a steady pace, both mounts well fed and well rested, it was not long before the pale rides turned their eyes to the star littered sky.

"What will you do?" Agrican asked. "What will you do when you return to Arras?"

She smiles, whimsical; dreamy. "Oh dear boy. I am going to take Jean de Rousseau's head and shove it so far up his arse that he will be able to see out of his mouth. I have been waiting for this for a very very long time."

Agrican crossed his arms over the horn of his saddle and laughed a deep, husky laugh. They still had days before they would reach Arras, and neither seemed in too much of a hurry to get there. After all, they had planning to do and all of the time in the world to do it in.

Arras had changed very little, the tentacles of a budding, bloody revolution having yet to reach that far. Soon, though, soon. While other Kindred may have steeled themselves for it- regardless of if they would find joy in the bloodshed or disgust- Black Abby and her little coterie had a different war on their minds.

With the darkness as their cloak, Black Abby and her sullen giant guided their horses through the streets. Every so often Agrican would dismount and knock upon one door or another, and if someone would come to the door then they would speak in tones so hushed that even Black Abby's ears could not pick them up. When they deigned to do so, both Agrican and the respective occupant would nod before the huge, hulking man returned to his companion.

Some faces Black Abby recognized- Anouk and Bakar, for instance- but the others, and there were only four more, were incredibly new to her. They served as a reminder of how long she had been away from home.

Once they were safely housed behind the doors of Agrican's chateau, he explained the newcomers to her over cups of cooling tea, their expressions somehow dour and amused.

"The four, they are newly arrived from Paris."

"They look like children," Black Abby remarked, her mouth twisted into a sneer.

"To some, we look like children. They are not, I assure you. I promised them that I would help them with the problem of Annette and they promised to be of assistance during our..eradication..of His Most Clueless."

"How many of them did you end up killing?"

The Brujah laughed his gruff, rumbling laugh and held up two fingers. Black Abby nodded her head in approval.

"And what would our little angels be, Agrican?"

"Samedi, she is a Clanless one," Agrican said after some thought. "Arnaude, I believe, is of the Rose Clan, as is Pierrette. Vallois is of your clan."

Black Abby's head bobbed along as he ticked each vampire off of a mental list, and when he was finished she leaned across the table and steeped her fingers beneath her chin.

"What are they? Mm? Camarilla? Sabbat?"

Agrican laughed and moved to meet her in the middle of the table.

"Neither. I think you would call them Anarchs?"

The gingersnap turned her head to one side, her lips brushing against his; her voice rolling out in a velvety purr. "What will they do?"

Agrican stiffened, his eyes half lidded; daydreaming. "Keep Jean's lackeys busy, I would imagine."

Just as it seemed their lips were destined to meet, Black Abby reeled back, chuffed with both his answer and the look of disappointment crossing her friend's face.

"Excellent. We shall meet with them tomorrow, so have Anouk round them up. I hear the sun calling my name and I dare not answer."

Jean de Rousseau was bathing in his chambers when Black Abby emerged into his "workshop", the same wretched room where he had years before liberated her of her arms.

She did not shudder when she drifted past the tables, though her lips pulled into a slow growing snarl. A soft keening caught her attention and she looked up into the eyes of a pale as paper Collette, her hands trembling around a washcloth.

Black Abby knew the ghoul would cry out for her master, and was surprised when she didn't. Instead, Collette seemed to understand the determination on the Malkavian's face; she understood the intent. She dipped her head and stepped away from the door that she had been standing in front of, allowing Black Abby to pass as silently as a phantom.

When the door closed behind the redhead, Collette locked it and pressed her ear against the wood. It was the clicking of the locks that snared Prince Jean's attention, and every bit of color he had stolen from Collette's blood faded from his cheeks. His eyes grew buggy and wide and wild at the sight of Black Abby, and maybe he knew that the hardness in her eyes was because of him.

"Things in this world move in a circle, don't they, Jean?" She tipped her head to one side, the thick red curtain of her hair cascading over her shoulder.

The man didn't answer, and Black Abby could feel the tendrils of Dominate trying to take root in her broken mind. It was because that she was so thoroughly dotty and so filled with hate that they didn't, a fact that startled Jean about as badly as her presence in his room.

"Are you not going to talk, Jean?" She rolled her shoulders, cracked her knuckles and took a step forward, causing Jean to scuttle into a perch on the edge of the tub. "If I recall correctly, you've always enjoyed the sound of your own voice."

"You are supposed to be dead," he cried. "I killed you!"

"Did you? That comes as news to me."

He hadn't the time for Presence when Black Abby reached him, her mind a fortress and her flesh as good as steel, forged over the years in the freezing No Man's Land of Siberia. Her fists plunged through his chest, her thumbs hooking around his collarbones, and she was disgusted to have his blood on her.

"Please, I'll give you anything. Please, the sun is almost up, listen to me!" He was on the verge of hysterics, the pain in his voice as good as any gospel, and Black Abby peered sidelong to the heavily curtained window. Outside the sky had just begun to pink.

"Tickityboo," she growled, her teeth snapping just inches from his nose. Every bit of hate, every bit of anger exploded then and there, filling her body with a strength it shouldn't have been able to lay claim to, and she lugged the simpering, screaming man over towards the window.

Then she slammed him through it, the glass biting into the undead flesh of both of them. Black Abby embraced the pain, plowed through it, while Prince Jean squirmed like a fish on a line, his face a horrid painting of red tears and white skin.

As the sun filled the sky and the urge to sleep filled them both, Black Abby forced her glaring gaze to remain on Jean de Rousseau's eyes. He had ruined her home, had damned near ruined her, and she wanted to see the exact moment when he discovered that he was going to die.

That came when their flesh began to burn. As the flesh of her arms sizzled and Prince Jean's screams were reduced to sickening gurggles, Black Abby gritted her teeth and held him until the pain became too much even for her. When she let him go, she watched as the Ventrue plummeted to the ground, the collarbones still gripped in her fists turning to ash just as the dust of Jean de Rousseau hit the ground.

She stumbled back then, pulling the curtain from the window, and had it not been for Collette, she would have been nothing but ash herself. Vindicated even as she was tossed into a closet, Black Abby fell asleep with aching arms and Collette's blood in her mouth.