Midnight Gravity  |  Episode 25: What We Do in the Shadows
Companion Piece by Jonas Tintenseher

Olga surveyed her new packmates with the critical eye that had kept her Final Death at bay for decades. There were five present, with one more out hunting, gathered around a pile of smoldering embers that just barely tempted the Beast to Rötschreck. Apart from their dress — lots of leather and tattered denim — Olga could easily imagine them back in her village, begging in the streets for a single drop of blood.
               “Well,” she said at last, in a thick accent that muffled her amusement, “it is a pleasure. I thank you for welcoming me into your...hovel.” Olga gestured at the crumbled overpass under which the pack had camped down for the night. “It is a very nice hovel.”
               Two of the pack seemed to be keeping a close eye on her. The first, a leatherclad biker with so many piercings that their face glittered in the meager firelight; this had to be Deimos, the pack’s priest. A Tzimisce, according to the letters she’d exchanged with their ductus.
               The second, though, was another member of Olga’s clan; she could tell by the way the shadows seemed to gather around her like a shawl, shielding her from even the embers’ glow. The vampire was moon-pale, with hair to match, and dark crater-circles around her eyes. They called her “Ghost”, apparently. Olga was inclined to agree.
               As Olga surveyed her cousin, the younger Lasombra averted her gaze, pretending that she had been staring into space. Olga didn’t try to catch her eye again, simply moving on to scan the rest of her new packmates.
               With Deimos and Ghost identified, the other three were relatively easy to name: Gatcliffe, a scruffy Gangrel with catlike eyes; Skafe, a second Lasombra, whose bowl cut struck fear into Olga’s unbeating heart the way no fire ever could; and Kowalski, one of those clanless “Panders” that Olga had yet to encounter in her homeland.
               None of them spoke. Olga supposed that she couldn’t expect much civility from her brethren in the Sabbat, especially an American pack. Apart from Deimos, they were practically fledglings! It was no wonder that they had not followed their elders east. She had expected far more from their warleader’s letters...and she was still somewhat irked that none of them had so much as asked her name or answered her greeting.
               With an aged sigh, Olga summoned her strength and lifted a hunk of concrete to serve as her seat. As she joined her new circle of comrades, the rumble of a sputtering engine heralded dim headlights that swung around the bend in the road, lighting up their makeshift camp.
               “Ah, excellent,” said Deimos, their voice rattling as though it had to pass over yet more piercings in their throat. “You have auspicious timing, zhenschina. This is a good sign.”
               Olga’s lip twisted into a momentary snarl — more from their poor pronunciation than the term of address — but she decided to give Deimos the benefit of the doubt. They were pleased, after all; why ruin it with her indignation?
               The rusty pickup truck pulled off the road and came to a rolling stop inches from a fallen concrete pillar. The driver stepped down with a touch of elegance, leaving the truck running. The fuzzy headlight beams revealed a statuesque woman with straight, greasy hair, and a smile that stretched across her skull like torn elastic.
               Martha Creighton. The pack’s warleader, a Ventrue antitribu and Camarilla turncoat. Olga had been quite lucky to make her acquaintance.
               “Miss Artemievna!” said the newcomer, arms wide in celebration. “I see you arrived in one piece. I trust you had no trouble following the directions I gave...?”
               Olga waved a dismissive hand. “Your states are large, but they are nothing compared to the vastness of the steppe. Your directions were adequate.”
               To her credit, the warleader’s smile did not waver, despite Olga’s calculated attack on her ego. “Then you must be hungry! You’ve come quite a long way, after all,” said Creighton, clasping her hands together.
               Without waiting for an answer, Creighton curled a finger at Gatcliffe, and the two of them circled the truck. Olga glanced at the other pack members, eyebrows raised, but they didn’t offer an explanation.
               With a heavy thud, Gatcliffe dropped a young man at Olga’s feet. Creighton set another body in front of Deimos. The two mortals appeared to be breathing, but unconscious.
               “I recall you mentioning, in one of your letters, your refined palate,” said Creighton. “I guarantee you will find no sweeter sanguine satisfaction from here to Charlotte. And never before sullied by Kindred fangs!”
               A thickening swirl of shadow lifted the man off the ground, propping him up like a puppet. Olga drew him close, studying his features, inhaling the scent of the lifeblood that flowed within. It was certainly tempting...but something made her hesitate. She glanced at Creighton out of the corner of her eye.
               “Oh, don’t you worry about me,” said the ductus, her smile never faltering. “I saw to my own needs in town. My...family’s...predilections, you understand. But you’re our guest of honor, Miss Artemievna! Please, feast!”
               The rest of the pack seemed to be waiting for her to make a move. There was some war of wills bubbling beneath the surface; Creighton was testing her, and Olga was testing the pack in return. She couldn’t know for sure what the Ventrue was testing her for...
               But, as with their priest, she saw no reason to upset the status quo on her first night. Olga shrugged, pulled the vessel closer with her dark tendrils, and sank her fangs into the young man’s neck.
               She had come quite a long way, after all.

Within a few weeks, Olga had learned several pieces of crucial information about her new pack. All but Deimos and Creighton had been Embraced within the last twenty years; neither the ductus nor the priest had been in contact with any other Sabbat pack since the Lasombra schism; and while she was still uncertain of Creighton’s true age, Deimos had at least forty years on Olga, soothing her worries that this entire endeavor had been for naught.
               Her packmates had yet to truly welcome her in, and that was just fine with her. They were ignorant fledglings who knew nothing of the great crusade, or the true history of the Sabbat. All the better for Olga’s plans. She had chosen well.
               On one hazy summer night, the pack had infiltrated a campground somewhere in the south of whatever national forest they’d been circling — Olga hadn’t bothered to learn the geography. Gatcliffe had sniffed out a family of five in a remote part of the woods, prime meat for the hunt.
               As the pack’s warleader, Creighton separated them by task: Deimos would keep animals away from the clearing so as not to alert the kine; Skafe and Gatcliffe would circle the tents to catch any runaways; and Creighton herself would pacify the mortals, one by one. Kowalski, who Olga had begun to understand was largely treated as a useless burden, would keep watch by the road.
               Olga and Ghost were made to watch from the shadows and maintain a shroud of silence over the clearing, in case the poor unsuspecting mortals tried to call for help. It was the first time she’d gotten a chance to be alone with either of her younger Lasombra packmates, and she appreciated the opportunity despite the menial nature of their assignment.
               The two Magisters crouched amid the brush, with eyes on the two nylon tents propped up some fifty feet ahead. Without needing to coordinate, they entwined their shadows together and slid them forward, trapping the tents in a field of dampened light and sound. The mortals were asleep; they’d never notice the difference.
               As the rest of the pack moved into position, Olga waited a few calculated seconds before speaking. “I have not been on such a hunt since my earliest nights,” she mused. “I did not know that my American cousins were in such dire need of excitement.”
               Ghost didn’t react, except perhaps to glance at Olga out of the corner of her eye. Their shroud reduced her normal speaking voice to a whisper, but she knew her younger clanmate could hear her.
               “Is this what we have been reduced to?” Olga continued. “The Sword of Caine, now a blunt and broken instrument, forced to bludgeon families to death for simple sustenance?” She affected a heavy sigh. “We were free, once.”
               “Too soft for this hunt?” asked Ghost, her voice a low rasp.
               Her shaky posturing brought a smile to Olga’s face. “Oh, I have torn apart my fair share of families, milaya. It is the circumstance that gives me pause. I see, now, why so many of our clan have chosen the ivory collar over this...paltry freedom.” Olga hung her head low, brushing aside the wide, flat leaves that hid them from sight. “Oh...such shame I feel!”
               Ghost’s eyes twitched, but she said nothing. Olga shook her head and waited for a response. Across the clearing, she could just barely make out Gatcliffe finally approaching the tents. She blinked, once, twice, a third time — and the veil of night melted from the forest, letting her get a glimpse of Skafe following close behind the Gangrel.
               Somewhere to their left, Creighton appeared, making a beeline for the larger tent. Soon, it would be time.
               “Our clan are cowards, then,” said Ghost at last. “Trading freedom for a collar.”
               “And culling our ranks with every prospective conversion,” said Olga sadly. “But do not begrudge them the collar, cousin. Ours may be lighter, but no less tight. And not half as comfortable!”
               With that, she chuckled and adjusted her stance, gesturing at the grimy, humid night. Again, Ghost offered no reply, but Olga thought she could see the gears turning in her cousin’s head. She had done enough for the night. Everything was chocolate.
               Some kind of scuffle in the larger tent caught her attention. Swift as mice, Skafe and Gatcliffe slipped inside to subdue the struggling parents, just as Creighton backed out of the opening, straightening the cuffs of her wrinkled coat. The warleader waved a hand, gesturing for the rest of the pack to converge, and ducked into the smaller tent with nary a sound. Olga glanced over at her comrade, but Ghost had already padded forward into the clearing.
               A blinking firefly wandered into the penumbra of her shadowy cloak and disappeared. Where had the insect gone? Where had the light gone?
               As mother and father were dragged from their tent, silently screaming, Olga smiled and rose to her feet, emerging from the treeline to join in the banquet.

               The third Anarch seemed torn between helping his allies and attacking his enemies. Deimos made the choice for him, barreling into him and knocking them both down onto a stack of wooden pallets that shattered instantly. Calm as ever, the pack’s priest clamped down on the Anarch’s neck and forced him to look into their eyes.
               “Be still,” they commanded. The vampire flailed for a moment — but then the fight went out of his eyes, and he went limp on the concrete floor.
               Olga was locked in a brawl with the Tremere, desperately trying to hold on while the warlock tried to impale her with the corroded knife. Extending her consciousness outward, Olga coaxed the Tremere’s shadow to tug at her ankles, weakening her stance for just long enough that Olga was able to grab her other wrist and pull it behind her back. Thus disarmed, Olga snapped the Tremere’s knife arm, eliciting another scream of pain, and pushed her other hand in as far as she could, tearing open a huge gash in the warlock’s shoulder.
               She might have claimed a victory there, but Olga’s Beast wouldn’t let her rest. She forced the Anarch to her knees, planted a foot on her chest, and pulled with all her might, ripping the Tremere’s arm free of sinew and bone with a sickeningly sweet symphony of gory cracks and squelches. The warlock immediately fell into torpor as streams of thick, tantalizing vitae poured from her wounds. Olga almost heaved with nausea trying to resist the urge to lick it off the floor...but resist it she did.
               Deimos, meanwhile, had staked the third Anarch in the warehouse with a splinter of wood, and Skafe and Gatcliffe had managed to pummel the Brujah into submission. Skafe, at least, hadn’t come out unscathed; his face was broken and bloody, and his right leg had been twisted halfway around at the knee.
               “Go, find Creighton. I will tend to the Magisters,” said Deimos. Gatcliffe nodded and scampered away. Olga was about to follow — We do not need tending! screeched her Beast — when she glanced down at her hand to find that the Tremere’s burning blood had corroded it to a stump. The sudden pain that shot up her arm was almost refreshing; she hadn’t felt such a thrill in years.
               Skafe limped over to an undamaged, albeit blood-spattered, crate and sat down, wincing. “Shit, man. That guy fuckin’ wrecked my leg.” Sneering, he kicked at the head of the fallen Tremere and missed, nearly toppling off his perch. “Ah, shit.”
               “Focus,” said Deimos stiffly, kneeling before him. They placed a hand on either side of Skafe’s broken leg. “Mind the Blood. Envision yourself whole and unblemished.”
               “Yeah, easy for you to say, you twisted — FUCK me!” yelped Skafe, as Deimos forcibly snapped his leg back into place. The fledgling Lasombra collapsed back on the crate in pain, even as his vitae roused to mend his shattered knee.
               Once she felt steady enough to walk, Olga made her way over to stand beside them, cradling her burned hand. All their wounds would heal, in time, but she would do well to avoid any further damage for the night.
               “I don’t even understand what happened,” whined Skafe, still moaning in pain. “Why were there a bunch of ‘narcs here anyway? This is our turf!”
               “You may observe the answer in their affiliation,” said Olga, utterly deadpan. “The Anarchs care as little for our war as they do for the Tower’s laws. Especially after Prague.”
               “Huh? Who’s Prague?” asked Skafe. Olga could muster no response except to slide her eyes over to Deimos, but the priest’s expression was unreadable.
               “We are beset by foes on all sides,” said Deimos. “It is good that we remain strong in the face of such adversity.”
               “Yeah, if Creighton didn’t get fuckin’ ashed already,” muttered Skafe.
               Deimos affixed him with a piercing glare, and the Lasombra faltered.
               “Um...I mean...yeah. Strong. We’re strong,” he said.
               Deimos turned back to Olga. “You acquitted yourself well, zhenschina. I thank you for your assistance. I might not have survived without your intervention.”
               Olga’s eyes narrowed. Her Beast flicked its tongue. “Dama,” she said.
               The priest’s expression didn’t change. “Hm?”
               “Dama. It is more appropriate. Devushka, if you must. I am not so old as to be your grandmother.”
               For the first time since she’d met them, Deimos’s implacable facade cracked. Their eyebrows knitted together for a brief moment, before giving way to their serene calm once again. “I see,” they said, voice level. “My apologies...dama.”
               Olga pressed her lips together in a thin smile. “Unneeded. And you are most welcome.”
               Deimos nodded their head once, then took a step back. “I will...see to the others,” they said, as if hesitant to press her patience. “We will make arrangements for these ones later. Stay alert.”
               The priest vanished among the warehouse’s shelves, leaving Olga alone with Skafe.
               “Fuckin’ idiot ‘narcs...thinkin’ they could get the drop on us...ha!” Skafe slid off the crate and threw another weak kick at the torpid Tremere. Olga watched him with a hawk’s eyes, wondering how best to make inroads to his psyche.
               “Tell me about Ghost,” she said suddenly, almost surprising herself. “Is she your childe?”
               “Mine? Nah, I dunno where the hell she came from,” said Skafe. He splashed around in the pooling blood like a child in the rain. “She was the greenest lick in the pack before you showed up. Only been riding with us for a couple years.”
               “She shows great promise,” said Olga, and she meant it. “She is quite powerful for such a young Kindred. Perhaps her sire was much older than either of us.”
               Skafe shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”
               Olga nodded and circled around him, careful to avoid dirtying her shoes any further. “Do you know your own sire, Skafe?” Her mouth folded around the name like it was anathema to her.
               “Never met ‘em,” said the fledgling. “Probably the same lick that whacked me with a shovel. Ha! Hope I get to do that to some fucker, one day.”
               “And what of Ghost’s affiliations?” asked Olga. “Do you think she can be...?” She purposefully trailed off to dangle the possibilities before Skafe’s mind’s eye.
               Skafe snarled and wiped a trail of vitae from his nose, smearing more of it across his cheek. “Had that thought myself,” he said. “She doesn’t talk much. Feels like she’d definitely sell us out if she had the chance. I can’t fuckin’ imagine what it would take to be that weak. You’d never catch me fuckin’ thinkin’ about betraying the cause.”
               “No, clearly not,” said Olga flatly.
               Like a hungry dog that had just caught a whiff of steak, Skafe whipped around and leered at Olga, eyes wide with sudden anticipation. “You think we should put ‘er down?” he hissed. “You think she’s gonna fuckin’ betray us? Ohhh-ho-ho, just say the word, and I’ll —”
               Olga cut him off with a raised hand. “I think nothing of the sort,” she said, channeling Deimos’s tranquil force of will — the only thing that seemed to placate the rabid fledgling. “But, should my suspicions be confirmed...you will be the first to know.”
               Skafe grinned and nodded furiously, teeth cracked, gums bloody. “She’ll never even know I’m there. Show her what a real Lasombra can do. Fuck! Or — or, or, maybe, I’ll make sure she knows...yeah...she’ll know it’s me. She’ll hate that. Ha!”

Fire blazed from the metal barrel, nearly igniting Kowalski’s curly hair — the Caitiff stumbled back in fright, falling onto her hands in the dirt, dropping the box of matches. The rest of the pack stiffened, tempering the red fear. Creighton did not speak until everyone’s shoulders had relaxed.
               “Blood brethren,” said the ductus, hands clasped, “tonight, we welcome a new hound to the pack. Though she was not known to us, she was known to our cause, and we are honored to share our vinculum with her.”
               The pack murmured their assent. Creighton cut open the inside of her wrist with a fang, smiling all the while, and turned her arm over a dented chalice, letting the first drops of vitae settle in the cup. Deimos took it next, simply willing their blood to flow from under their fingernails and into the chalice.
               “In nomine Caine...” intoned Deimos as the chalice was passed around the circle.
               Gatcliffe spat a mouthful of blood into the cup rather than cut open his arm.
               “...et Patris...”
               Skafe used a pocketknife to make the incision. His vitae was sluggish to move, as though reluctant to participate in the ceremony.
               “...et Gladius...”
               Kowalski borrowed Skafe’s knife. She still seemed shaken by her close call with the fire.
               “...et Sanguis Sancti.”
               Lastly, the goblet came to Ghost. She looked over at Olga before summoning up her blood, as though searching for something in her expression, some secret trust or disapproval. Olga simply returned an inscrutable smile, daring the younger Lasombra to come to her own conclusions.
               Then her vitae fell into the chalice — paler and pinker than the rest, to match her complexion — and she handed it to Olga, who swiftly followed suit.
               “The chalice, if you will,” said Creighton. Olga handed it over. The Ventrue sauntered up to the barrel, unfazed by the flames, and held the chalice over the dancing glow.
               Olga tensed her shoulders. It would have to be soon.
               “By the sacred ritae handed down by the true disciples of Caine, all shackles of the Blood are hereby shattered, for a new bond to rise in their place,” said Deimos.
               Creighton took the first sip from the chalice, initiating the Vaulderie. She shuddered and rolled with satisfaction before extending the cup to her second-in-command. Rather than passing it around again, the members of the pack individually approached the fire to drink from the cup before returning to their place in the circle — Creighton never let it go.
               When Ghost’s lips touched the rim, however, guided by Creighton’s hand on the back of her head, Olga finally made her move.
               “I must say...” she began, pausing to ensure she had their attention.
               Six heads turned toward her, with six pairs of eyes glowing like animals’ in the flickering light. Creighton’s smile still did not falter, but there was something else hiding behind her gaze.

               A whirlwind of bodies descended upon her, but Olga had chosen her moment well. The swaying fire meant that her packmates had no escape from the shadows, especially not under the meager light of a new moon. Before any of them could touch her, great arms of darkness rose from just beyond the firelight’s radius, lifting Gatcliffe and Kowalski into the air before slamming them both down on top of Deimos.
               Skafe let loose a pathetic battle cry as he charged toward her, but he still hadn’t fully recovered from the fight with the Anarchs — Olga took his punch to her gut without much fanfare, and delivered a bone-shattering kick to Skafe’s right knee in return. The fledgling howled and collapsed, desperately trying to mend himself, unable to make his vitae comply.
               As Gatcliffe and Deimos rose to their feet, Creighton shoved Ghost forward, screaming at them all to “GET HER!” Olga didn’t like her chances against the four of them at once, but she would rather die fighting here than spend one more nauseating second in their presence.
               The Gangrel and the Tzimisce both began to change before her eyes, manifesting foot-long claws and horrific spikes of bone, respectively. Olga tried to strangle them with their own shadows before they could strike, but the transformations were too quick; in moments, they were upon her, knocking her down and tearing into her cold flesh like so much dead meat.
               Olga grunted and gritted her teeth, focusing on one thing at a time. She could hear Skafe moaning and Creighton shouting commands, but she pushed the sounds out of her mind, narrowing her senses down to the two bloodthirsty Kindred on top of her.
               Gatcliffe’s claws pressed into her chest, as if the Gangrel was hoping to grab her heart and rip it out. Olga managed to snap his arm at the elbow, but took a slash across the neck from one of Deimos’s bone spikes in all their thrashing.
               “Bring her closer to the fire! Into the light!” screamed Creighton, bloody spittle flying from her mouth.
               Cradling his arm, Gatcliffe backed away from Olga’s head and grabbed her left ankle with his good hand, while Deimos tried to keep her pinned down. She squirmed and flailed as hard as she could, but neither vampire seemed to care — until they pulled her too close to the barrel, and she kicked it on its side, spilling burning embers and chunks of firewood into the dirt.
               Wounded and surprised, the Gangrel was momentarily overtaken by Rötschreck, stumbling away from the spreading flames — but it was enough for Olga to channel her strength and knock Deimos back. She leapt to her feet, bleeding but still perfectly able to bite, glancing back and forth between her one-time packmates —
               And found herself staring straight into Creighton’s eyes.
               “STOP,” said the Ventrue, irises pulsing with glowing, reddish veins; try as she might to resist, Olga could not force her limbs to move. She was frozen, paralyzed, and Creighton wasn’t about to avert her gaze for even a second.
               The rest of the pack circled around the two women, waiting for an order from their ductus before continuing their attack. Creighton pulled a splintered rod of wood from her coat as she came closer — was the battle-fury shaking Olga’s vision, or was the Ventrue’s hand trembling?
               “You...could have had...anything,” growled Creighton. Her sycophantic smile had faded for the first time that Olga had ever seen. “And yet you choose to be caged?! To be — to be collared, while your brethren bleed and die for your selfish self-righteousness?!” The Ventrue fumed, perhaps a hair’s breadth away from the frenzied grasp of the Beast. Of course, Olga could not move to reply — until Creighton commanded her to “SPEAK!”
               Olga’s tongue loosened, and she was compelled to answer. “I choose the freedom of the collar, over this...pathetic descent into obscurity,” she spat, pouring venom into every word. “While you languish, I will flourish. While you suffer, I will feast.”
               A great fury overtook Creighton’s face, and Olga could not help but laugh, awaiting her imminent Final Death. Then the Ventrue straightened her back, composed herself, and raised her makeshift stake.
               “No,” she said, voice quivering with barely suppressed rage. “You will die.”
               But as she lifted her hand to plunge the wooden shaft into Olga’s heart, a tenebrous serpent sprung from her own shadow, encircling her arm, and yanked her wrist backward, pulling the Ventrue to the ground.
               The rest of the pack looked around in fear and confusion, wondering who could possibly have attacked their warleader when Olga was so clearly petrified. But the paralysis faded when her concentration was broken — and taking their eyes off of Olga was a fatal mistake.
               A tidal wave of shadow crashed down on the Sabbat hounds, driving them apart, pushing them to the edges of the firelight. Their scattered yelps and cries were smothered by darkness, leaving two heaving figures standing over the restrained form of Martha Creighton.
               “You chose well,” said Olga, forcing the words up through her tattered throat.
               “You made some good points,” said Ghost. The barest hint of wry levity seeped into her voice as she looked over her former warleader. “And I never liked taking orders from her.”
               The rest of the pack didn’t surrender, but they didn’t need to. Against two Lasombra in a dark forest, none of them stood a chance.

               Ghost looked over their captives with a disinterested eye. After a moment’s deliberation, she dragged their other cousin forward and threw him to the ground. “Skafe, then,” said Ghost. “Creeps me out.”
               Olga nodded. “Stake him. We will need them in one piece.”
               She shuffled over to crouch in front of Deimos, and pressed Creighton’s stake, now slightly scorched, up against the priest’s chest. Before she could drive it in, however, Deimos tried to speak through their own shadowy coil. They lifted their head, as if asking for the chance to talk, but closed their eyes — promising not to attempt domination if their last request was granted. Olga considered simply driving the stake in anyway, but Deimos had, at least, attempted to be polite to her before.
               With a flick of her wrist, the suffocating tendril of shadow vanished, allowing the priest to speak.
               “You have shown great strength, as befits a warrior of Caine,” said Deimos, keeping their eyes shut. “I am honored to be sacrificed for your pursuit of power, dama. All Sabbat must envy you.”
               Olga couldn’t help but feel pity for the wayward priest. They might have risen to great heights, if they hadn’t been shackled to Creighton’s ego. She patted their cheekful of piercings.
               “Mm...you tried so hard, Deimos,” said Olga softly. “I think you were the best of a bad bunch. You were not true Sabbat...”
               With a burst of strength, Olga slammed the stake home, paralyzing the Tzimisce with a shocked expression of pain. In their last moments of consciousness, Olga leaned in close to whisper in their ear.
               “...but the Camarilla will not know the difference.”
               As Deimos’s eyes stopped twitching, Olga turned to the ductus. She twisted the shadows that bound her, forcing Creighton to look directly at her, and hammered her own will into a spike, poised to drive straight into the Ventrue’s mind.
               “All of this...for a mere fleeting shadow of power,” sighed Olga. “Well! If it is power you want, then climb.” Gagged and bound, Creighton couldn’t and didn’t respond, but Olga wouldn’t take that as an excuse. “Climb, you sniveling worm! Climb the tallest tree you can find, all the way to the highest branch, and press it into your heart. Stake yourself atop the world, so that you may greet the morning sun in all its glory, as you deserve.”
               She jerked her head upward, and the shadows holding Creighton down dissolved. The Ventrue looked at her in abject horror as her body moved against her will, compelled to follow Olga’s commands.
               “GO!” barked Olga.
               The Ventrue turned and ran into the forest.
               Feeling quite pleased with herself — apart from the pain of her injuries — Olga stood up straight, and pushed the paralyzed Deimos down next to Ghost’s staked prize.
               “What about the others?” asked Ghost — the torpid Gatcliffe and the terrified Kowalski.
               “Well...I am feeling famished,” said Olga, and licked her lips. Bloody tears ran down Kowalski’s cheeks, staining the shadows red.
               Then Olga felt the telltale prickle on her skin that warned of dawn. The day-sleep would claim them soon. They had to find shelter, and then transportation, for themselves and their hard-fought sacrifices both.
               And besides...the fledglings wouldn’t suit her refined palate. No doubt their vitae tasted of mold, or dirt. They would have to make feeding arrangements come nightfall.
               She glanced at the remaining captives with utter disdain. “Do with them as you wish,” she said. “They will not pursue us.” She hefted Deimos onto her shoulder and made for the road, trudging toward the old overpass where they’d passed many an infuriatingly boring night.
               Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ghost clench a fist, wearing a similarly dispassionate expression. The last she ever heard of her temporary packmates was a delectable crunch as the shadows constricted, crushing them into useless heaps of flesh and bone that would soon flake away into ash.

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