Reaching Out, Reaching Up

[Sansa]

As soon as the sun set on Kings College, Sansa said an awkward goodbye to Rod Stafford and took her leave of his flat. She stopped at a few stores, buying a new outfit so she wouldn't have to show up at the Dunsirn flat in sweatpants, and acquiring a new mobile phone as the mages had made her last one disappear and hadn't seemed to give any thought toward getting it back to her.

She called Ewan Dunsirn and left a message. "It's Sansa... I'm fine, sorry for staying out all day, I'll explain later. It's not Liam's fault." She paused. "Bye."

Sansa looked down at her mobile and chewed her upper lip before entering the next number. It was one that Gabe had made her memorize, but also promise never to call, so she felt more than a little conflicted as she pressed the number buttons. The impersonal voice that picked up the call eventually told her that the man he represented would meet with her. A place and time were given.

And so she found herself staring up at the Barbican Arts Centre around eleven, a flood of memories washing over her. With effort she started up the steps, gaining resolve with each one she took. Sansa wasn't quite sure what help she could get from the Prince of London, but it would be better than Rod's grudging assistance. Anything would be better than his cold judgement.

The front doors were unlocked, and she stepped inside, not quite expecting Roland Salisbury to be standing in the entrance waiting for her, but a little worried that he wasn't. She walked through to the art gallery, her ballet flats making little noise on the floor.

[Roland Salisbury]

There were two types of people to be found in art galleries. For some, a venue like the Barbican was a window into the human soul. Each brush stroke and daub of paint was precisely chosen, placed with all the care of a master craftsman and capable of communication so much more than words.

- and then there were people like Roland Salisbury.

He stood in front of an eight foot by three foot canvas, painted solid black. The view was good, in that while he stood in front of the canvas, he had a good angle on the galleries various entrances. He could also be seen by the coterie he had stationed throughout the gallery: a group of equally disinterested looking men and women loitering about in front of artwork that they didn't have the capacity or inclination to understand.

Given what had happened on the last occasion that Kindred had gathered at the Barbican, Salisbury was taking no chances where security was concerned. The thought of that night stirred up mixed emotions and memories of Prince - no, Gabriel Rodermark. What was it that Sansa Martin hoped to inspire in Roland by contacting him out of the blue and asking for a meeting, here of all places?

Salisbury turned towards the sight of the young woman, taking stock of her appearance with a glance.

“Miss Martin.”

[Sansa]

She resisted the urge to run her hands through her long hair, trusting instead that everything was still in place. How would she address him? She hesitated a moment, and then did a little curtsey in the light blue sundress she had bought to replace her missing clothes. "My Prince."

Sansa looked up as she straightened, and added, "Thank you for meeting me." She hoped she didn't sound too timid...and not too bold, either. "I... need help. Ah... Ga- Gabriel was killed. Last weekend." She clasped her hands together in front of her, her fingers icy cold.

[Roland Salisbury]

Some part of Roland had been waiting to hear those words for so long now.

For decades, he had been steward to the city of London. When the Prince had been dethroned, it had been Roland who had shouldered the responsibility of filling the void he had left behind – but the title had never sat comfortably with him. It had always felt as if he was merely... holding onto it, keeping the city safe as he had always done until Gabriel returned. It was a foolish thought, given what an idiot Rodermark had been, but as a Ventrue he was nothing if not a conservative.

If Gabriel had met his Final Death, did that mean Roland's time as Prince was over? His brow wrinkled into a frown as he contemplated the prospect of ruling London for decades and decades to come. He returned his attention to the painting.

“By whose hand?”

[Sansa]

"A human," she said simply, looking to the side as she couldn't help but remember the bloody scene. "Vampire hunters, I believe." Sansa paused. Now that she was here, and they were talking, she wasn't sure how much to tell him.

"Last night they followed me to a house of a...friend. Another bunch of men. Hunting me." She wrapped her arms around herself as if she was cold. "The humans of the house were murdered, even though they had no idea what...what I am."

[Roland Salisbury]

Roland inhaled, slowly. It was an old habit that he hadn't quite shed with his mortally. A long, deep breath in which to consider the gravity of what he'd just heard. The death of a powerful member of the Kindred community was one thing, but to lose someone – even an exile – to a hunter, a kine no less? That was... difficult.

Gabriel had never been the Camarilla's greatest warrior, or even anything more than a passable fencer, but he had committed diablerie on the vitae of an ancient, feral Gangrel. That hot blood would take a long time to cool in his veins. It would make him reckless and perhaps, Salisbury thought ruefully, sloppy.

With all this in mind, what Roland said was simply: “Ah.”

Though it wasn't the girls doing, and Roland blamed Gabriel for all of it, wherever Sansa Martin went murder and misery inevitably seemed to follow. He frowned and reached out to her, settling one hand on her shoulder.

“I'll... see to it.”

[Sansa]

She flinched, hard, as he touched her shoulder, and found it hard to relax the tension even after she realized she was in no danger. One objective down.

"I... I need a place to stay." Sansa looked down, humiliated. "I don't like to ask but my current place is ...it isn't good for long term. Gabriel handled all our money, and I don't know how to get into it now."

[Roland Salisbury]

Salisbury withdrew his hand. It was important to remember, he thought a moment too late, that he was dealing with a Toreador and not just any Toreador. The blood of their clan was already thick with melancholy, but few of them embodied their tragic ennui so purely as the young woman standing before him. Barely more than a fledgling, she had experienced almost nothing of kindred society save for the brief, violent clash with the Baali some years ago. There was so much she had to learn, so much that Gabriel should have been teaching her -

The waspish buzz of a mobile phone interrupted Roland's train of thought. Reaching into his blazer pocket, he pulled out his smart-phone and frowned at the screen. “Excuse me, I must take this.”

He took a step away from Sansa, his back turned to her as he held the phone to his ear. The conversation was efficient. Roland said little, asking only short questions. After less than a minute it was over and he turned back to Sansa, his expression no more or less neutral than it had been before.

“If you will uphold the Traditions, I can arrange somewhere safe for you to stay, temporarily – but first we need to take a drive down to the Thames.”

[Sansa]

She was nodding before he finished talking. "Yes, yes I will. I can. Thank you." Sansa knew she started to talk quickly, like Gabe, when she was excited, so made an effort not to slip into his manic mannerisms. She pressed her lips together, and took a step backward, toward the door. "You won't even know I'm there."

Roland nodded, distractedly, and she followed him out of the Barbican to where a car with darkened windows was waiting. He opened the back door and let her in first, then went around and joined her in the backseat. His driver pulled smoothly away from the curb as Sansa put on her seatbelt.

[Roland Salisbury]

A glance in a rear-view mirror confirmed to Roland that the coterie he'd brought with him were following behind in a second, identical car. The driver had turned out onto Aldergate Street before he spoke. “Where to, sir?”

“Factory Road. The old Tate and Lyle pier.”

The driver nodded, tapping the address into a sat nav unit. It didn't matter that he and Roland had been living in London for long enough to know the city inside out; Roland insisted on the use of such technology, if only to make sure that they could arrive as promptly as possible. “Twenty minutes. Maybe half an hour in this traffic.”

Whitechapel, Stepney, Limehouse and Poplar flashed by the cars window, still alight and alive in spite of the late hour. Kindred or kine, London never slept. Roland glanced at his watch as they made the turn onto Silvertown Way. To their right, across the waters of the Thames, the O2 Arena was lit up blue and red. The banks of the river were crowded in equal parts with industrial buildings and parks, a strange duality.

The car came to a halt at the back of a redbrick and corrugated iron building. The driver got out, Roland following wordlessly. The coterie approached, scanning the surrounding area: dark, silent. The group shared murmured words as Roland opened the car door for Sansa.

“Miss Martin, I need you to-”

The whip-crack of a gunshot shattered the stillness of the night followed by a distant shout. Roland flinched. As one, the coterie drew firearms from inside of their jackets and began to stalk – in a military formation – towards the source of the sound.

“I need you to come with me.”

[Sansa]

There was something eerily familiar about the entire situation, and the sense of déjà vu only got stronger as the car came to a stop. Roland put his hand out to help her from the car, but she shrank back at the sound of gunshots.

You already died, Sansa, she scolded herself, forcing herself to take Salisbury's hand and get out of the car. Her summery dress felt flimsy and stupid as she followed the elder Camarilla as ordered. Walking directly toward confrontation, the opposite of what she and Gabe had been doing for the last five years, felt very wrong.

She wasn't that girl she had been, though. She was strong, and fast. She had the blood of the Toreador, and could protect herself, as she had done against the kine who had taken Gabe from her. Sansa looked around her, the breeze carrying murmurs that seemed to come from behind her. They always seemed to get louder when she thought about Gabriel.

[Roland Salisbury]

Sansa was not alone in her deja vu. The Isle of Dogs (http://sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?15578-London-Burning-Revelations/) incident was almost six years ago, but the passage of time had done little to mend the damage done on that day. For Sansa Martin, the damage was irreparable. Roland had witnessed her first awakening into her new existence as a Kindred, born among the crackling hell-fire and malformed corpses of Kindred, Garou and Baa'li hell-spawn alike. The Camarilla had gained a member in Sansa and almost certainly lost one in Gabriel on that day.

Rodermark and his childe's own melodrama aside, it had been ill-advised to meet with the Garou as they had done. They had been on the back-foot from the start – but not this time. This time he thought, reaching for the strength in his blood as they neared the sounds of shouting and gunfire - this time, they would have the upper-hand.

[Sansa]

She forced herself to stand tall, and to trust in her strength and agility. A simple bullet would not permanently harm her. Sansa pulled her long hair back into a tail, securing it with a bit of elastic as she trailed behind Roland and his henchmen. The juxtaposition of the frivolity of the Games going on across the Thames with whatever it was they were walking into was almost jarring, and she had to force herself to concentrate on the situation at hand.

Roland's men fanned out, using hand signals to communicate as they made their way into the red brick building. Sansa balked at the entrance, but as Roland stepped inside she steeled herself and did the same. The gunshots seemed quieter, as though they were on the other side of the building at the banks of the Thames.

[Roland Salisbury]

Roland pressed against the cover of a doorway, listening to the clatter and clang of noises reverberating throughout the inside of the warehouse. He stole a glance around the door-frame: the room beyond was lit by strip lights on the ceiling, their fluorescent light barely bright enough to reach the warehouse floor. Crates and shipping containers of all sizes covered the floor, though there was space enough to move between them – and get a line of sight on firing a gun through them.

On a cue, another frenetic burst of sound rattled through the building, the hail of gunfire under-written with shouting voices. Roland ducked backwards as he saw a flash of movement, someone darting between the shipping containers. A second shape – familiar – sprung upwards onto the top of one container, leaping the distance between it and the railed walkway that clung to the upper half of the warehouses four walls.

[Dylan]

Dylan landed with a clang. Beneath him, someone swung the muzzle of their gun upwards and fired, shots shredding through the metal grating. Dylan's running footsteps rang loudly against the walkway for an instant, charging away from the gunfire and towards the figure taking cover at the opposite end of the walkway – and then, surging forward, he was silent. His flesh misted away, his bulky frame suddenly nothing more than a ghostly apparition. Lurching out of cover, his prey fired off a handful of rounds before Dylan misted through him, twisting and turning, suddenly solid once more and tearing at the hunter's throat with teeth and claws.

Below, another gun was silenced as one of his pack pounced from the cover of a crate onto an unprepared foe.

[Sansa]

She tried to focus, to look at what was happening and process it rationally and figure out where she could be useful. Roland ducked back behind a shipping container, and she stood there for a moment, completely exposed as gunfire rattled in the warehouse.

Sansa's head snapped upward, looking at the catwalks that crisscrossed the warehouse. Someone was attacking, but who? Someone was defending ... or maybe they were attacking, and the other defending. She came back to her immediate surroundings with a gasp, reaching for the power of her blood and accelerating behind a crate.

Sliding down out of sight, her blue and white dress was crushed against the filthy concrete floor as she moved to her knees to look for Salisbury and his men. He was across from her, still standing safely behind a metal shipping container as the sounds of fighting grew nearer. Nearer and nearer. Gabriel would - They had often - he was useless, better off without him dear - Gabe hadn't ever -

Sansa clamped her hands over her ears, screwing her eyes shut and leaning against the shipping crate in her crouch, the thoughts coming too fast to keep up with. Stop, just stop. Stop stop stop.

[Roland Salisbury]

Roland had scarcely moved. He was listening still, listening and watching when he could. He could hear the Scourge of London moving through the warehouses upper levels, the mistakable snap and squelch of a Gangrel let lose from his leash. The air was thick with the scent of kine blood; a good sign. If his estimations were right, the fighting would not last much longer. Feeling the buzzing of his phone in his pocket, Roland frowned and reached for the device. A figure in a hood sprinted, panting, into view and thrust his gun at Sansa.

“No,” Roland barked out the word as an order, his voice reverberating with the power in his blood, and the kine froze. In ordinary circumstances, Salisbury would be loathe to draw upon the Kindred power to dominate others in such a heavy-handed fashion – but he could not deny the brutal simplicity of it. Unable to bring himself to squeeze the trigger at Sansa, the hooded gunman swung around and fired at Roland -

[Dylan]

- Dylan barreled shoulder-fist into the hooded gunman, the two of them crashing to the ground in a heap of limbs. The gunshot ricocheted against the ceiling and the firearm was soon slapped aside as the Gangrel claimed another throat, clawed fingertips raking through the gunman's shirt and the armoured vest beneath as if they were little more than tissue paper. Wide, unbelieving eyes stared up at him as he crouched, hunched over the gunman's body with nostrils flared and chin dripping with blood. He sniffed the air and, with a curl of his upper lip, swung his gaze towards... Sansa.

He didn't know how she was here – he didn't know why – but the truth of the matter was, he didn't care. If ever there was a deserving candidate for the Scourge's justice, it was Sansa Martin and her clan-forsaken sire. Teeth-bared, he tossed the body of the gunman aside and charged at Sansa.

[Sansa]

"No," she breathed, transfixed as the Gangrel barreled toward her, her back pressed against the crate. For a moment she considered fleeing, or at least attempting to flee, but couldn't quite get her legs moving.

She'd already lived past her expiration date. Without Gabriel... Sansa closed her eyes, her arms out as if she would embrace the Scourge as he tore through her flesh.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

I fell on the Scourge like lighting,crashing down from above. The moment I revealed myself, his eyes darted up to meet me – the look of ragged, feral fury in his gaze darkening to a murderous menace. We collided, Dylan's broad chest taking the impact of my fall with no trouble at all. He staggered a step, but it was for only a moment. Resisting the overwhelming urge to go to Sansa, I kept her at my back as Dylan lunged in, swinging wildly. He was strong – stronger than I could ever hope to be –but my blood was not without its strengths. What I lacked in brute force, I gained in quickness of limb. A blur of movement, I side-stepped Dylan's incoming blow and caught his hand, spinning the big Gangrel away from me - away from Sansa - with the full force of his own momentum.

[Sansa]

When impact seemed nearest Sansa felt her self preservation instinct flare into belated life, and she brought her hands in defensively -

- only to hear the grunt and crash of the Scourge in front of her, vibrations traveling through the floor into her body, but little else. Sansa's eyes flew open and she touched on her Celerity again, on top of the crate in a blink for what good it would do her. A Kindred was fighting the Gangrel, his body blurring with speed as he redirected blows. She felt a tug on her blood, a sort of sixth sense, and it confused her.

The warehouse to her back, however, was clearly full of Kindred and kine trading bullets and blows. The kine were holding their own for the most part. Hunters. She leapt down from her perch, the crate between her and Scourge, a bullet whispering through the ends of her hair as she landed in a crouch. The nearest kine immediately slashed at her with a knife that had an extended wooden handle, but she grabbed his arm and leveraged her body against his elbow, snapping it.

Exit, find the exit. She turned away from the kine she'd dropped on the floor, a nearly fatal mistake as he brought his gun up with his other hand. Sansa managed to react quickly enough to kick the gun away from him, and then stomped on his throat. Part of her was revolted, the other fascinated as he gurgled, but the power of her vitae would only last her a little while longer before she would need to feed and rest. Her eyes were drawn back to the dying kine, his heart faltering...

Sansa used her speed to return to Roland's side. Logically sticking with him was her safest bet, and she still needed his help. Running away would not get her his favor.

[Dylan]

They'd come for the hunters – but Dylan was done with them now. There was a bigger threat to be dealt with now, a much more heinous crime than just trafficking in ghouls for sport, as the hunters supposedly had been. For six years, Gabriel Rodermark had eluded the law of the Camarilla. Dylan had saved the man's life on more than one occasion and now he felt it only right that he should be the one to deliver him to his final, true death – but Rodermark would not come quietly.

“Coward!” the Gangrel spat as he swiped again at the blur that was the former Prince of London. Rodermark was fast, but he couldn't avoid Dylan forever.

[Roland Salisbury]

For the first time in living memory, Roland Salisbury did not know what to do. The situation – already one that inspired a great deal of concern – had suddenly become doubly complicated. An unpredictable variable had entered the equation. Such was the shock of seeing Gabriel again that his train of thought simply... stopped. It took a shout from Dylan to restart it, to remind him that he could not allow this to become another Isle of Dogs.

Two quick steps forward and he caught Dylan by the shoulder. Thinking that he was about to be assaulted by Gabriel, the Gangrel twisted around fiercely – but as his eyes met Roland's, he sagged, the tension in his muscles withering into nothing as his blood frenzy evaporated, his will completely Dominated. With a gesture, Roland called two nearby Kindred to his side and had them shoulder the Scourge's considerable weight.

Breaking eye contact, Roland looked to Gabriel next, wordless at first, though the meaning in his expression was clear: don't make me regret that.

“No words. We deal with all of this now. The rest... later.”

[Sansa]

Sansa remained where she was as Roland stepped out from behind the shipping container to deal with the Scourge and Gabriel.

Gabriel

is

dead

?

She felt her arms go limp, but the pull was there, the tug that told her yes, this is Gabriel. But it was wrong...wrong but right.

"Your face is wrong," she blurted, and unexpectedly burst into bloody tears.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

I had met few beings in my life who could bring about order quite so swiftly as Roland Salisbury. I suspected that even before he had been embraced, he had been a man of supreme self-confidence – quiet in his assuredness – yet in death the blood of his clan had made him all the more compelling. He quieted the Scourge with a touch. When he turned his eyes on me, I felt the after-effects of the pacification and for a moment was light-headed and heavy-limbed.

It was a passing sensation. Roland blinked and the power he held over me was gone, the sound and fury within the warehouse once again hammering into me. Behind me, I heard Sansa blurt out something – but it would have to wait. Doubtless, she had grown adept at waiting in the years since she'd had the misfortune to make my acquaintance. A minute longer wouldn't kill her, would it?

Knowing full-well who and what was within the warehouse, I stalked back into the fray with Roland at my heels. We'd fought side by side in years gone by, though with blades rather than bullets. Some things did not change, however. Roland was precise, firing two quick shots into the head and chest of anyone who made the mistake of popping into his line of sight. No gun had been offered to me, but I would of refused had it been, relying instead of inhuman speed to propel my victims against the sides of shipping containers, bruising flesh and breaking bones.

Roland had brought just over a dozen Kindred with him, two of them to each of the fools who thought to stand against them. As much as I desired to shuffle each one personally from his mortal coil, I was neither brave nor arrogant enough to do so and was silently thankful for the coteries presence.

The feeling – as you might imagine – was not mutual

[Roland Salisbury]

In total, it took sixteen minutes to bring silence to the warehouse. Near silence, at least. By the time the kine had been put down, Dylan had roused out of his temporary stupor and was foaming at the mouth, held back from his intent to murder Garbiel Rodermark by the hands of Roland's coterie. Sitting near Salisbury's feet, Sansa continued to murmur and sob intermittently, barely seeming to register the presence of the Kindred who moved about and around her. One by one, they were dragging the bodies of the dead to where Roland stood. They were lined up neatly – as per the Prince's request – in rows. Not out of any sense of respect for the dead, but because it was easier to search and dispose of their bodies this way.

Roland didn't bother to watch as the kine corpses were dealt with, he knew his men and women would be thorough both in searching for potentially important pieces of evidence and in leaving no trace of the presence here behind.

His focus was instead on the only two Toreador in the room. Neither one looking at the other. Roland frowned.

“Put the two of them in a car and take them back to the Shard.”

His words were all the excuse Dylan needed to shove past the hands grasping him. He grabbed a fistful of blonde hair and yanked, dragging a stumbling Gabriel towards the warehouse door. A decidedly less enthusiastic Venture stepped forward, gesturing for Sansa to accompany him.

[Sansa]

Sansa didn't move right away, and gasped as though she'd been splashed with ice water when the Kindred touched her arm to guide her. She stumbled forward, her ponytail bedraggled and her eyes reddened. Someone had given her a handkerchief, and she clutched to it, dabbing her face to attempt to clean up the mess she'd made by crying.

In the car, however, she found it difficult to keep her cool. HE was there, his nearness practically maddening. Sansa reached out hesitantly, and touched the sleeve of his shirt. Real. She pulled her hand back almost immediately, a touch of Celerity used in her emotional panic. "I don't understand. You were dead. I saw you die. And you... look..."

She grasped her temples, squeezing her eyes shut. Conflicting images raced through her mind. Gabe, brown haired and eyed, laughing with her in the kitchen. Blond and blue eyed, listening to her play the violin. Brown hair, raving and stalking back and forth in one of his fits. Blond hair, walking on the beach in the moonlight listening for heartbeats. Two faces flipped back and forth in her imagination, the changes coming faster and faster until it was just a blur.

Too much, child.

The images stopped, though she could hear laughter in her head. It sounded like Rod, laughing at her. The car jerked forward, and she slowly released her head, smoothing her palms over her hair and releasing it from the elastic to let it fall freely. Sansa stared at the other occupant's knee, but didn't look up at his face.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

In the front of the car, Dylan grunted. Even in my own time as Prince, the big Gangrel had been a man of few words, yet I understood plainly the derision and disgust he meant to express in that single, rough sound. His eyes met mine in the rear-view mirror and the wrinkles on his brow deepened. Once, I would have cautioned that the Kindred who earned the ire of the Scourge was a fool with a clear desire for Final Death – but if I have learned anything in these past years, it is that there are fates worse than Final Death.

I turn my head a fraction, enough to see Sansa staring at the space between us. It is the closest that we have been to one another in years, and yet I have never felt so far from her.

“Sansa,” I begin, and almost flinch; my voice sounds too loud in the confines of the car.

[Sansa]

Her hands tightened at the sound of her name in his voice, but she didn't look up. Something was wrong, and if she looked at him - it was right but not right. "Gabriel," she replied, overly calm after the emotional turmoil of the last few minutes. "How are you here?"

[Gabriel Rodermark]

Pathetic as it is, I didn't want her to look at me. I was a mess, a far-cry from the well-kempt Prince that Sansa had first met so many years ago. There was a grubby mixture of dirt and blood under my nails and ground into my skin, and the vanity of my grand-sires made my blood burn with embarrassment. A ridiculous notion, but blood is blood and I could no more deny the compulsion it carries than I could live without it.

What was I supposed to say to her? There was the practical answer, the explanation that told her how I had come to be inside the warehouse-turned-gunfight. That wasn't the question she was asking, of course, though it was the one I wanted to answer.

"I came in one of the containers... from Prague. It was the only way to get back into the city. Back.. to you."

[Sansa]

There were tears filling her eyes, blood starting to pool on her lower lids, and she felt confused and happy at the same time. Sansa looked up finally, looked at him, and her eyes overflowed, trickling down her cheeks in two bloody tears. "I don't understand. You're... you were dead... a week ago. I saw you, in our kitchen.

"You look different." He looked a mess, and part of her was turned off by how filthy he was, but the confusion was beginning to ramp up again. Sansa closed her eyes again, another tear escaping, and wiped at her cheeks to keep the blood from falling on her dress.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

There was another low growl in the front-seat of the car. Dylan, like a dog, had sensed the rising emotion and was reacting in kind. This wasn't the reunion I had hoped for, chaperoned by the Scourge, but in my heart I knew that even if we had been truly alone, I would not have felt any less disgraced. I could feel Sansa's disgust; it made me want to bathe in bleach, to scrub away the dirt and the years and go back to what I had once been. Worse than that, though, were the tears. I squeezed the armrest in the car door beside me. I couldn't look at her. The guilt of what I had done to her – what I had made her – felt heavier than ever before.

“I've.. been in Europe.. for years, Sansa. Thaddeus sent me away.. after I escaped from the Tower.”

[Sansa]

The Scourge was like a dark cloud pressing in against her, and the whispers told her a number of inventively insulting things to say to him, but Gabriel's voice cut through them and demanded her attention. The car jostled them as it turned down another street, and Sansa shook her head. "No, you rescued me from the Tower. We've been together, all this time."

She forced herself to look at him, to really look at him, a spike of anger at his lies bubbling up through the confusion. "Why do you have two faces?" A part of her knew why, and her face twisted in a grimace of betrayal. "Are you really Gabriel?"

[Gabriel Rodermark]

Two faces... my lips shaped the word, but no sound came. I had to look at her now, to search her expression for any trace of where all of this was coming from. Once, I could have mapped her face like the stars, her freckles constellations that I had gazed at for countless nights. Now, she was like a stranger to me - and I to her.

“Of course I am Gabriel. What - Sansa.. what's happened?”

Without thinking, without meaning to, I was reaching out for her hand.

[Sansa]

"You had brown hair," she said, her mouth twisted as she tried to give words to the turmoil inside of her. "But you don't have brown hair." His hand moved toward hers, and she unconsciously reached for him, completing the connection without thought. Sansa remembered once, long ago, when she had thought he had cold hands. When he'd listened to her play her violin for the first time, embarrassing her with his undivided attention.

Now their hands were equally cold. "It wasn't you, was it." Five years. Five years. She was going to lose it again. Deep breaths, child. The Scourge in the front seat snorted derisively, and Sansa's eyes flicked to him, focusing that terrible feeling of betrayal and violation in the pit of her stomach against an enemy.

He could tear her to pieces without a thought, and the Scourge looked over his shoulder at her, perhaps sensing her focus. Sansa tensed, like a coiled spring, her hand tightening on Gabriel's.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

A sound came from Dylan, something close to a sneer. Whatever empathy and humanity had once been in the old man had long since withered and faded away. Perhaps making him the Scourge had sped up the process, indulging his anger towards everyone and everything, but I suspected that he would have been a remorseless bastard regardless.

Sansa squeezed my hand. A shiver of sickening elation passed through me. Was it merely fear, or did she want to be close to me – did she need me? We had been apart longer than we had been together but the blood-bond between us could never truly fade. Such was the paradoxical blessing and curse of our blood.

“Where have you been, all of this time?”

My own confusion was plainly written into my features now. Had Roland not kept watch over her?

[Sansa]

His voice brought her back from the brink, from the edge of haphazardly leaping at the Scourge and letting him take her down into her Final Death, and Sansa realized she was gripping Gabriel's hand. She released him abruptly, as if she'd been burned, and huddled back into her seat, leaning against the door.

"I've been here," she said at last, remembering he'd asked a question. "In London. Gabe insisted we keep to ourselves." She used the name without thought. What else could she call him, the man with whom she'd shared a life for so many years? Sansa's face twisted up again. "He lied. Or you're lying." She looked up at the other Gabriel, intensity gleaming from her blue eyes, but as soon as she traced his features she knew he was not lying. A sick feeling settled into her stomach, and she looked away, unable to bear it.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

“Calm down back there,” Dylan growled, in a voice that said he wanted us to do anything but. I had no time or mind for his threats, however.

'Gabe insisted.' Her words twisted in me like a blade. Who would lie to her like that? Who would or could mangle her perception so completely? Who would want to?

I had enemies within and without of the Camarilla. People who wanted to see my head mounted on a pike, dozens of them. But if they had gotten to Sansa as a way of getting to me – it had been a long game and one with little in the way of rewards. No, this was the work of someone who wanted her and saw this as the only way to get to her. Someone with a fractured mind. Someone...

It came to me like a bolt from the blue.

“...Jude?”

[Sansa]

"Who the hell is Jude?" The car stopped, and Sansa looked out the window at Shard London Bridge. A Ventrue appeared and opened her door, and she escaped the car like she'd been suffocating to death inside it. The cool summer night air filled her lungs as she drew breath to speak, but she fell silent.

What was going to happen now? If Gabriel was only just now back, then he would be facing punishment for what had happened in Mexico. The punishment that she and Gabe/whoever had been hiding from all this time. Roland had been his friend, or at least his ally, but what would the Prince of London do now that the former Prince had emerged?

Sansa looked down the sidewalk, to freedom. Was she just to become another pawn in a ridiculous Kindred power play, as Gabe had warned her so many times? We stay hidden, or they'll just use us for their own ends. And were Ewan and Liam Dunsirn any different?

[Gabriel Rodermark]

We were shepherded out of the car without a word. Truth be told, I had no words to offer. I'm not a violent man, no matter what rumours you may have heard. In that moment, however, I could think of nothing more I would to do than tear the eye teeth out of one very specific Cainite's thick skull. I had nothing other than my instinct telling me that Jude was behind this, but I would have bet my life on it.

A hand was pushing me towards a glass doorway – the smell of Dylan strong and offensively close - but my steps faltered for an instant at the sight of the Shard. A new feature on the London skyline, built since my exile from the British isles. It was everything a Ventrue could want in a base of operations: sharp, polished and tall enough that it's occupants would be able to see just about anything in the City of London. Had it's construction been commissioned by Roland himself? If so, I had dramatically underestimated his arrogance.

The hand guiding me became more insistent, trying to take hold of my upper-arm. I shrugged it off, frowning at the nameless lackey attempting to man-handle me.

“Where are you taking us?” I looked between him and Sansa.

“Somewhere safe. Prince's orders.”

[Sansa]

"I can't stay," Sansa protested, even as she was taken by the arm and propelled to the doors. True, she'd come to Roland asking for a place to stay, but now that it was in front of her, she balked. "I..." her voice trailed away as the Shard enveloped her, the doors closing behind them. She felt trapped. Panicky.

You are no fledgling, to fall apart at the slightest touch. Stiff upper lip! Sansa closed her eyes briefly, to calm herself. She could feel Gabriel standing near her, a faint tug on her heart that felt like home. In the turmoil of her mind, the sensation made her feel ill. She opened her eyes, shaking off the guiding hand of the Ventrue at her elbow. "I apologize. Of course I will do as the Prince commands."

She wasn't quite sure which Prince she was referring to.

[Dylan]

At the main entrance of the Shard, the Scourge of London stood by the handful of discretely dressed, discretely armed Kindred standing on guard. He looked up, as if he could see through the glass and metal and right to where the two traitors were – and for a long moment just stared. He had been so close to putting an end to that self-entitled fop. So very close. Gritting his teeth, his eyes flicked between the guards for one last glance.

“Don't let either of them out of your sight.”

With a snarl, he was off back out into the city and the night.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

Inside, the foyer was littered with unpacked fixtures and fittings. The finishing touches were yet to be applied to the Shard, but there was no time to take in the sights. The guided tour continued as we were directed into a lift with a mirrored ceiling and walls.

“Someone will meet you on level 53,” said our guide, who stretched into the lift just far enough to swipe a key-card across the button panel. The doors slid shut without a sound.

We were alone, however briefly – and everywhere I looked, I could see my own reflection.

[Sansa]

The hem of her dress was dirty. Sansa plucked fretfully at it, trying to brush away the filth from the warehouse with one hand while she clutched at her bloody handkerchief with the other. Her hair, loosened from its ponytail, was curling over her shoulders and hiding her companion from view. When she looked up the mirrored walls revealed the truth, and she tried to look at him through the reflection without being too obvious about it. He was slim, blond, and disheveled, his hands and nails dirtier than she'd ever seen them.

Gabriel lifted his eyes and caught her looking, and Sansa stiffened, her eyes darting away toward the floor indicator. 48, 49, 50... Her stomach twisted in knots, but she stood as still as a statue, as regal as she could manage. The Prince, Salisbury, would help her. He had promised to arrange for a place for her to stay, if she upheld the Traditions. The elevator doors opened, and she stepped out quickly, letting Gabriel follow her.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

I have known enough Kindred in my time to know that no two are like. Yet, the broad strokes that we paint our clans in are rarely far from the truth. Malkavians are unhinged. Brujah are angry. The group waiting for us in the fifty-third floor wore their bloodlines on their sleeves, metaphorically speaking. They were well-groomed, professional-looking and mirrored, in every feature, the Ventrue who had 'welcomed' us on the ground floor.

I didn't recognise any of this group, however. Not only because of their homogeneous appearance, I realised, but because they were new to the city. At least, they had arrived since I had departed. How many new Kindred had made London their home, in the five years that I had been absent? How many had Roland welcomed, or recruited, into his community? Enough to staff the Shard with a significant presence, at least.

A blonde, with her hair scraped into a bun so tight that it pulled her expression into a slight frown, stepped forward.

"Prince Roland has provided apartments for the two of you to rest in."

The floor we'd arrived on now looked like an up-market, business-class hotel. The nameless Ventrue gestured down to the hallway to the left, where two doorways stood open, cold artificial light shining from within. She held out a pair of key-cards and I took one, knowing that it would have a twin somewhere else. I looked to Sansa, wondering whether she would take the card, worrying what would happen if she was left alone...

"If you need anything, we'll be waiting outside."

[Sansa]

Sansa took the keycard offered, ignored the man at her back and the gaggle of Ventrue entirely, and walked as gracefully as she could toward the rooms with the same number. Her Bloodline ensured that she could be very graceful when she wanted to be, so she practically glided away, her skirts swishing satisfactorily. He'd left her to the metaphorical wolves, and deserved her scorn. Of course he does. Abandoning you like that. And yet...she felt drawn to him still. Sansa hesitated at the open door, the immaculate apartment in front of her looking like a page from a magazine, and turned to see Gabriel standing there like a bedraggled puppy in front of his own doorway. Her fragmented mind wanted to love him and hate him at the same time, and still the other Gabe, the one she'd adored for years and made her whole life flickered through her memories.

The pang of regret and pain at his loss was there, even while she stared at Gabriel right in front of her.

Come.

Her head snapped around, looking directly northeast.

Come to me, Sansa.

She gripped the doorway so tightly she put fingerprints into the trim, the compulsion to run straight through the walls toward the summons nearly overwhelming her. "I can't stay," she said. "He's calling me." Unnatural joy flooded her body, coupled with dread. Which was the real imposter? The Gabe who called for her, or the one standing beside her?

[Gabriel Rodermark]

He.

It felt like a century had passed since I had first met (http://theholo.net/forum/showthread.php?14259) Sansa, and it was all because of him: Jude. I had taken her from him, erased him from her memories, and he had repaid the favour. Now, the old blood-bond that had once held us together - the connection between sire and childe - was a distant echo, shrouded in as much fog as her memory of that fateful night at the Barbican would be.

I watched her, as she looked with fierce intensity at... something, nothing. There was a gleam of her new keeper's blood in her eyes. Guilt plucked at my heart, to see what the years in Jude's care had made of her - but then, had she been any different, at my side? Shunted from one crisis to another, either with blinkers drawn over her eyes or blood splattered on her face.

I pushed my shoulders back, trying to force my tired body into a less abject posture.

"The Prince won't allow it. We... are both fugitives from the Camarilla."

[Sansa]

Gabriel's words brought her back to earth, his advice carrying weight that she felt in her bones. "Of course. I can't go."

Sansa, I need you!

She fluttered like butterflies were caught inside her rib cage. He wasn't dead. How could he not be dead! He was staked. Vampires die from being staked! That's why Rod was holding one to her chest the other night. What? Who told you that? Oh dear. The whispers rose again in her ears, dissolving into maniacal giggles and then fading away just as quickly.

A laugh bubbled up in her throat, and she called on the power of her blood, using Celerity to run to the elevator and mash the call button before anyone can stop her. No, the lift will take too long. Sansa darted for the stairs.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

I watched her flee, half-resigned to the fact that she was gone already - if not gone from the Shard, then almost certainly gone from me, her mind tangled up in mania borne of five years spent in my brother's company. The other half of me knew that I had to protect her herself, from the consequences of slipping Roland's leash. That was what I told myself, at least.

When I called out to her, my words thrummed with the power of our blood, dominating her will: "Sansa, you have to stay."

[Sansa]

The door handle was in her hand, stairwell open to her, but instead of dashing headlong down the stairs Sansa abruptly... stopped. Her vitae thrummed in response to the call of her sire, her true sire, and she was rooted to the spot. Ventrue kindred surrounded her as she paused, their expertise in the discipline of Presence and Dominate compelling her to walk back to the rooms that had been offered her.

She met Gabriel's eyes, a sudden rush of fear nearly overwhelming her as she could still feel Gabe/Jude calling to her like a distant bell. "I will try again. I cannot stay here when he is calling me." She closed her eyes tightly, calling on whatever scraps of self control she had left. "Am I to be Dominated and left in a closet?" A dark memory threatened to rise, of a pale woman and her vizier, and she pressed it back down.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

Her words hit me like a punch to the gut. The look in her eyes, it looked like the frenzy of an animal in a snare. Wriggling and writhing to get free and tearing the flesh from her bones in the process.

My heart bled. I couldn't bear to look at her. “Christ. Just.. let her go,” I relented, raking a hand back through my greasy hair. I was tired and hungry and the mix of those two fatigues amplified the upwelling of guilt that I'd pushed to the back of my mind for so long.

The kindred at the head of the Ventrue coterie, the severe blonde, met my eyes. “That isn't your call to make,” she said, her voice calmer than it felt like she had any right to be. But that was why she was there, wasn't it? That was why I'd kept Roland and his clan so close to me – because they could look at suffering with clinical detachment, applying logic with the precision of a surgeons scalpel.

“Go to your room,” the woman said, “We'll see to it that she's safe and secure.”

[Sansa]

She walked into her room at the behest of the Ventrue, her eyes tracking to the windows. There were heavy blackout curtains, and the glass seemed to have a tint to it, but they were pulled open at the moment, revealing the lights of the city.

Sansa flexed her hand, forming it into a fist. Maybe she could break the glass and escape that way. The blond Kindred walked past her to the windows and pulled the curtains shut, perhaps reading her mind. "Sit," the woman commanded, and Sansa sat in the nearest armchair, closing her eyes.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

For a long minute, I watched through the open door way.

I don't know why, or what I was expecting, hoping for. As if she was a startled animal and they would soothe her with soft words and touches. No, Roland used – I had used – Ventrue enforcers for a reason. They would do exactly what Sansa had said: Dominate her until she was sedate and repeat until the Prince had reached some final decision on what to do with the pair of us.

A hand at my elbow made me start, my nerves as taut as steel. Another of the coterie gestured for me to go to the room I had been allocated. Once I was inside, the door was eased shut behind me.

I sat down on the bed, listening to the sounds coming through the wall from Sansa's room.

Some time later, there was a knock at the door. I looked up from the end of the bed, where I was still sitting.

“Come in?” The invite was perfunctory, but no invitation was needed, in truth. It was merely courtesy that compelled Roland's staff to knock. The same ritual was in the process one door down; I could hear Sansa moving in response to it.

“The Prince would like you to join him for dinner.”

[Sansa]

The calling had stopped, but she still felt a tug on her soul where Gabe... Jude? was waiting for her. A thinner thread drew her toward the rooms next to hers, but Sansa went through the motions of showering and dressing into the clean clothes provided for her: slacks and a silk tank top, complete with matching pumps. Not her style, but she put them on anyway.

Her hair hung in damp curls around her face, her freckles standing out a bit against the paleness of her skin as she regarded herself in the mirror. She wasn't sure how long she stood there, staring, getting lost in her own reflection and the small imperfections she could see in herself, but when someone knocked on her door she turned and walked over to it, opening it to reveal the stern blond Ventrue.

"The Prince would like you to join him for dinner," she said, and Sansa nodded.

"Of course." She felt a little like a robot, but moved smoothly from the room into the hallway, faltering for a moment as Gabriel joined them. A light touch of Dominance shivered up her spine, and she straightened her posture, walking with her new captors toward dinner and all that might entail.

[Gabriel Rodermark]

They lead us to dinner in a room that felt as if it were full of nothing. It was sparse – a chrome and glass table surrounded with functional but empty furnishings and settings. Floor to ceiling windows looked out over the London skyline, twinkling with the lights of the city, so near yet so far.

Roland sat at the head of the table. Arrayed about the place, far enough away to be discreet yet undeniably present in the shadows, were his coterie. Shadows clinging to the walls. Dylan lurked a few paces behind Sansa, his features a grim set as he watched the two of us with knife-sharp eyes.

The table had been set for a formal dinner. Plates and cutlery were arranged in anticipation of at least three courses, but no food was displayed. Wine glasses stood empty beside our plates,.

I watched Sansa. Her eyes looked everywhere but at me.

[Sansa]

She stood quietly, her eyes picking out the coterie around the room before settling on Roland Salisbury. "Please, sit," he said, but it was a command, not an invitation. The Scourge at her back took a step forward, nearly vibrating with angry energy, but Sansa stood still for one moment longer before walking to the table. She took a seat to the Prince's left, while Gabriel sat on his right.

Her eyes tracked to the knife on the table with the rest of her silverware, but she closed her eyes for a moment, took a breath, and opened them, looking up at her dinner companions. Not so far gone, no, no, not yet. Sansa didn't attempt a smile, but at least she didn't scowl as she waited to see what Roland had in mind for the rest of the night. She had asked him for help, and so she would attempt to cooperate.

[Roland Salisbury]

“Thank you for joining me this evening,” Roland began, and as if that were a command, discreet attendants came forward and began to fill the three sparkling wine glasses with healthy measures of chilled blood.

“I can see that your continued presence here is.. unsettling to you both. What I hope you understand is that my decision to temporarily house you here is an act of.. significant clemency on my part as Prince.”

As he spoke, Dylan prowled about the edge of the room, like a restless ghost.

“I need to understand, from both of you, what your intentions are going forward.”

[Sansa]

"I asked you for help," Sansa said, speaking almost before she formed the thoughts in her mind. "I told you of the vampire hunters. Of Gabriel -"

She faltered, staring only at the goblet in front of her and the viscous liquid within.

"What I said earlier tonight, you must understand, I thought it was the truth. But I was fooled, and probably foolish as well. He was staked, not dead." Sansa looked up, daring to meet Salisbury's gaze. "He made me drink. And he calls to me now. Release me, and I will be gone. I will leave London."

[Gabriel Rodermark]

I watch Roland as he watches Sansa. His face is a mask of attentive concentration, but I know the wheels that turn behind his eyes. I know the calculations that he has already made, the decisions that are near enough etched stone, because it was once my job to come to those same conclusions. I had depended on Roland's level-headed counsel as my Primogen, and I had no doubt that as a Prince he would preserve the sanctity and security of the Masquerade with the same cold, clear-headed efficiency.

"You must understand that I can't allow you to leave London," he said, his attention shifting from Sansa's dipped gaze to my own. When our eyes met, I could feel the faintest buzz of blood calling to blood, as if an innate part of his Ventrue heritage sought to assert it's, even unconsciously, over me, to tame the unruliness that came with my own, temperamental Toreador blood.

"Not yet, at least," Salisbury added, reclining in his chair and taking his glass to hand. "Gabriel?"

"My intentions were only to... escape what I found on the continent, and to warn you and the others of it."

For all our disagreements, for everything that I had done that contravened the laws of our society, I could no more leave London forever than I could walk down Oxford Street broad daylight. The city was a part of me, and the strongest ties I shared were with those who called the capitol their home. At least, they had been. My actions and time away from England had burned most of the bridges behind me, even - it seemed - those with the only childe I'd ever sired. If I had any allies left in London, doubtless they could be counted on one hand. That my life was forfeit to so many could work in my favor, however, if Roland saw the value in making use of me instead of sacrificing me on the altar of the Camarilla.

"Our city is under threat again, Roland. I want to help protect it."

I looked between the Prince and Sansa, a meaningful glance.

"This mess is partly of my own creation. Let me help to fix it."

[Sansa]

Can't allow you to leave London.

Sansa stared at the table, forcing the tears back by willpower alone. Would Salisbury imprison her? Put her to work in some way? Or perhaps something else, something she couldn't even imagine.

Her eyes lifted to the goblet of blood, and she reached out a slim hand and lifted it from the table, taking a sip as the two men talked.

"I, of course, serve the will of the Prince," she said quietly, trying to regain some dignity as she put the goblet down again.