The Witching Hour

[Sansa]

On her backside on the cold floor, Sansa stared up at the door with wide eyes as it spoke to her. Or rather, the man on the other side of the door.

The voice was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place it. "Do... do I know you?" She crawled back to the door and pulled herself up, pressing her body against it. "Let me out! Let me out of here!"

[Thaddeus Post]

"Steady...steady!" The Tremere supported the former Prince, and cut off his line of questioning. "We're going to her next. If how they've treated you is any indication, we'll probably need you to control her."

Gabriel was staring at Jenny, his look that of a starving man. Which he was, from a certain point of view. And it wasn't something that Jenny was unused to, with her Caribbean good looks. Post nodded to her, but she was already fishing out a blood bag. "Cold, I'm afraid," she said softly, giving it to Gabriel, who snatched it from her. The ghoul pulled out another one, ready to resupply the Toreador.

"We should be going," said Thaddeus, pulling Gabriel along with him as they passed the slow moving Anarch guard. "We are on a time limit."

[Gabriel Rodermark]

Gabriel made an attempt at opening the blood-bag with dignity, but his hands were trembling. As they passed the Anarch guard, he tore into the pouch with his teeth and groaned involuntarily as the ice-cold vitae trickled down his throat. The shadows of the Towers dank corridors began to shrivel and shrink, as the pulse of the world around him throbbed louder, details that had moments ago been murky and insignificant suddenly sharpening into a kind of hyper-reality. The scrape of Post's boot-heels on the ground, the scent of Jenny's breath, the chill of the stones under his own bare feet, the distant sound of voices - letmeout!letmeoutofhere!- and Rodermark staggering through it all, like a new-born fledgling seeing the world in full, glorious technicolour for the first time.

[Jude]

“You don't remember...”

Of course. It wasn't enough to take her away from me, Prince Charming had to take me away from her. His kind can tell such silky smooth lies, pluck a thought, a person, right out of your head forever. But not me and my mind.

Furious at just about everything – but in particular the stubborn door handle – I shove and grunt and smack until the old lock gives and the door folds inward, spitting rotten splinters at the ground like bits of broken teeth.

If Lefty can get into her mind, so can I. The blood of Malkav is in me, the blood of the trickster. It ripples over my face and into my voice.

“It's me! Gabriel!”

[Sansa]

"Gabriel!" Sansa sobbed with relief, throwing herself at him and clinging to him like a limpet. "I knew you'd come, I knew it."

She spoke into his chest, "Why are they doing this to us? Can we leave?"

Sansa looked up into his eyes, her own dilated wide. "I'm... so hungry."

[Thaddeus Post]

Thaddeus clucked his tongue absently as he pulled the former Prince down the halls of the Tower. Gabriel was looking around with increasing awareness, his steps growing stronger as they went along. The Tremere passed him another bag of donor blood as they passed a second slow moving Anarch. "Almost there..."

Rodermark was moving on his own power by the time they reached the cell where Sansa was being held. Post frowned as they rounded the corner toward it, an unexpected scent or sensation in the air, and then Gabriel was running forward, bashing through the remnants of the cell door and into the room, calling Sansa's name.

Thaddeus stopped at the ruined entrance, bending down and picking up a bit of wood. Turning it over in his hands he passed it back to Jenny, who placed it in her satchel. "Apparently we were beaten to the punch, as it were."

The Prince turned around in the center of the room, his eyes still a bit wild. "It's him," he growled. Post didn't get a chance to ask who "him" was before Gabriel was stalking out of the room past him.

"Before we go running off on another crusade, we do need to get out of here." Thaddeus tapped the timepiece on his wrist. "Sansa's whereabouts will have to wait, at least for the moment."