Horse Guards Parade (Let the Games Begin)

[Rod Stafford]

"Sarah. Abbie. They- Oh, god."

Sully slumped against the wall; words tumbling over parched lips, frayed with breathless anxiety. The bathroom was blue with moonlight, which glistened and swam in Sully's wild eyes as he searched for some glimmer of salvation. His eyes fell on Rod for the first time, and his face sank, raw with grief.

"They killed her, Rod, like an animal. Oh, Jesus Christ!"

On the other side of the door, came the uniform drum of footsteps upon the stairs. Rod sunk under the burden of his housemate's weight, his spindly legs having surrendered the battle altogether, and promptly led him to the window. Sully was dumped unceremoniously upon the toilet seat while Rod worked the old wooden frame out of atrophy, and by the time the window groaned open, their attackers were surely upon them. The night air stuck him like a knife. In the distance, a stampede of hysterical youths, whom he recognised as his former guests, were vanishing up the street. It was with handfuls of flesh and cloth, and a sudden explosion of scuffling, that Rod threaded his friend through the window and onto the roof of the shed outside. And then he was almost upended by the pull of Sully's vice grip.

"Rod, come on!" said Sully, there was confusion upon his long, tear-stained face, "Let's go!"

"Get off me, Sully. I'll be right behind you."

"But-"

"Sully!" Rod cried out, as he heard the bathroom door burst open behind him. He tore himself free at last, and Sully, released to the will of gravity, tumbled into the garden. When Rod turned, he was faced with the glaring spotlight of some unsightly weapon, and braced himself. He was too late.

[Sansa]

The not-policeman still had the presence of mind to unload his back up piece into the window and brickwork of the building as he fell to the ground, which placed him firmly into a category of 'terrifyingly competent.' Sansa caught another bullet in her backside as she flipped back over the bed, but she literally didn't have time to worry about that at the moment.

She knew what was going on in the hallway, and as Abbie was still hunkered down beside the bed and the threat in the room was gone, Sansa burst out of the bedroom. She leapt onto the back of the man pointing his machine gun into the bathroom and ripped off his throat protection.

He went down in a heap under her weight and velocity, and she tore into his neck with bloodied fangs, sucking out the warm life giving liquid.

[Rod Stafford]

Bullets barked in protest, stitching holes into the bath tub and shattering tiles all the way to the ceiling. Rod fled out of the line of fire and pressed himself flush against the wall, where he watched, racked with both horror and relief, as Sansa tore her way though the intruder's neck. The gunfire stopped. Careful not to disturb the vampire as she indulged in her sangineous feast, Rod took a tentative knee and prized the submachine gun from twitching fingers. Its grip was warm against his palm; warm, and slick with sweat; this guy was a rookie. But a rookie what?

Denied time to ponder the question, Rod snapped upright with a start as another stranger staggered into view at the end of the corridor. He sported a grizzly beard, and a weathered cap which obscured his eyes, grey tangles of hair sucked upon his jacket like greasy snakes, and his clothing betrayed a throwback from the punk era; all sun-bleached jeans and heavy clunking boots. Still dazed from having been flattened by his murderous comrade, the stranger advanced a noisy step, then slumped against the wall to take a shot at the vampire.

It was a technique he'd used many times before, one, in fact, he'd used only earlier that evening to escape Sansa's werewolf babysitter; there were no words required, just the ability to refract light in an unchanging medium. An impossible feat, if you were to ask astronomer Willebrord Snellius, but not for a willworker. The strange ramshackle assasin raised his weapon, a compact crossbow, no bigger than a pistol, and fired a bolt into the floorboards with a reverberating twang. In the time it took the intruder to recover from his misfire, Rod took aim with the surprisingly heavy submachine gun, and gave the trigger a squeeze.

Click-click.

Their eyes met for an instant and then the intruder was gone, already reloading his crossbow as he dodged into the bedroom. Rod followed in hot pursuit and, unaccustomed to the checking of one's corners, became the recipient of a heavy blow to the back of the head. He stumbled forward sluggishly, and face-planted beside the bed, where, from his unique perspective, he spotted Abbie; her empty eyes glimmered in the gloom.

[Sansa]

Sansa lifted her head as Rod shoved past her, all pretense at neatness forgotten as warm arterial blood ran down her chin. Her eyes stared at the space where a window had been, her wounds already healing as her vitae was replenished, and sounds filtered in through her ears.

Footsteps on the first floor, one leg dragging, but ultimately heading out the front door. A thump and a soft noise of body hitting carpet in the bedroom.

She was standing in the doorway behind Rod's attacker before he'd even moved from hitting Rod in the head, but he was quick, and as she put her hands out to snap his neck he was turning and shoving his crossbow at her torso. Sansa shouted "No!" with all the Presence her fed state could muster and his finger froze on the trigger.

She slammed her hands down, breaking his arm, and then threw him across the bedroom into Rod's wardrobe, which exploded into a mess of wooden pieces and tangled clothing. Sansa crouched over Rod's body, heard his heart still beating, and then launched herself at the intruder to finish the job.

[Rod Stafford]

The sounds of violence provided little more than a watery backdrop for Rod, as the cold snap of reality took root in his bones, and blossomed, filling him with grief. Abbie used to stare at him like that from across the living room, he noticed everytime, and everytime she disguised it with a well-timed flick of her curls before returning her attention to the television. His cheek pressed against the thinning carpet, where he waited for that familiar flick of hair, and the coy averted gaze. But it never came. Then something else caught his attention. Rod blinked away his sorrow, and snatched at it from under the bed.

For all her ravenous enthusiasm, Sansa's charge propelled her backwards into the wall. Rod then came crashing down upon the man, as he lied broken amongst the fragments of cupboard, and buried the stake deep into his chest. The horrified shriek sent tremors through the wooden stump. Rod held fast, hissing through his teeth, poised over his victim like a hawk over its prey.

"Traitor!" cried the man, spitting blood onto his chin, "You are a traitor to your own kind."

He had a thick Russian accent, and moaned pitifully when the stake scraped against his ribs. His death was inevitable but, as Rod was keen to remind him, his suffering was not over yet. And although his breathing was ragged, when at last he spoke again, his voice remained surprisingly strong.

"Dere's a cull coming, boy, and you have sided... vith de beasts. Argh!"

"I am on no-one's side!" Rod spat, "You killed my friends!"

"Your friends... dey vere just collateral damage..." his words were starting to rasp at the back of his throat, he smiled: "Deir blood is on your hands."

A roar, wild and full of rage, errupted from Rod as he tore the stake from the Russian's chest and plunged it into his throat, silencing his last gargled scream.

[Sansa]

Sansa stared at Rod, her eyes wild and her mouth open, panting as the Beast urged her to go and take more blood. Blood. Rivers of it, pouring into her until she was full to bursting and then taking in even more until the Beast was all that remained -

She blinked hard, biting her own lip with a sharp fang as the Russian slumped to the ground, his heartbeat silent. The only sound was the thump of Rod's pulse, and Sansa turned toward where Abbie had been hiding.

"No!" she cried out, falling to her knees beside the young woman, rolling her lifeless body over and seeing the bullet wound in her back. There was a hole in the brickwork of the outside wall, where a bullet had bunched through the mortar. "No, no." Guilt rose up like a tsunami, and then anger, and she stood up, looking out the broken window to where the 'policeman' had fallen. There was nothing on the ground except broken glass and a smear of blood.

[Rod Stafford]

In the dying moments of his murderous rage, Rod sucked hungrily at the air, as if it could possibly quench the inferno within. Blood was everywhere; on the walls, on the floor, on his hands, arms, and face - he was robed in the afterbirth of his kill. His hands started to tremble, and it spread like a fever throughout his body, until the ghastly corpse was drained from his sight, awash with glistening watercolours. Rod rolled off the body and slumped against his bed, where he silently wiped his eyes dry. Sansa was still with him, and after a moment, he acknowledged her presence. When he spoke, his voice was hollow and hoarse.

"Sansa, what happened to you? Gabriel, I mean. How did he die?"

[Sansa]

She tore her eyes away from the window, and stared blankly at Rod. Then she shook her head slightly, her shoulders slumping a bit. "He was attacked in our flat while I was out. Two men, both locals from the accents."

Sansa knelt beside Abbie's body and gently closed her eyes. "Mortals, that is, not vampires. I killed one of them, the one that staked him. The other..." She paused, remembering forcing her blood into the terrified man's mouth. "The other I let go."

[Rod Stafford]

He nodded in understanding.

"It follows you around, doesn't it? This world of ours; it clings to you like a second skin, and no matter where you go..."

The Russian's cold blood was dripping from the tip of his nose. He dragged his hands over his face, which only served to coat it with an even spread of crimson, and cradled his chin upon steepled fingers. He shook his head.

"No matter where you go."

Downstairs, there was the sudden sound of footsteps; a firm and steady beat upon the wooden floor. Rod was immediately on his feet, and one look at Sansa confirmed that she heard it, too. The footsteps stopped, and the house was eerily silent, and then they resumed, softly, up the carpeted stairs.

[Sansa]

Sansa tensed up, her enhanced senses working overtime as the newcomer continued up the stairs. She couldn't smell the metal of any firearms, but that didn't mean that this was a friend coming over to help hide the bodies.

Her thoughts tracked sideways to Liam Dunsirn, and if he'd be any help with this mess she was in, but she quickly squashed those ideas in favor of the more immediate threat of who is that and what do they want. She celerated to the side of the door, just out of sight and ready for just about anything to poke it's head inside.

[Mr. Plainview]

It was the sound of the finest Italian leather upon the most threadbare of dusty floors; an abrasive clash of standards, like sea bass and cola, or caviar and french fries. The pace was casual, painfully so, of footsteps not belonging to a house fresh with corpses. Louder they became, until in the open doorway appeared a man in a beige three-piece suit. He paused for a moment to scrutinise, with evident distaste, the body on the bathroom floor. Then, with a smart quarter turn he eased his weight onto a walking cane, and found Rod sitting amongst the bedroom chaos.

"I hope you don't mind. I let myself in. The back door, you see, it..." he paused to run a finger down the wooden doorframe, after inspecting it for dust, he gave a thin, reptillian smile, "Wasn't quite there. Mr. Stafford."

[Rod Stafford]

"Mr. Plainview!" Rod uttered, stunned.

One quick glance at Sansa, and one almost imperceptible shake of the head, was enough to withhold her impending pounce. In the presence of a gentleman so handsomely dressed, Rod found his own presentation sorely lacking and absently fumbled with the unbuttoned cuffs of his shirt, decorating them with bloody fingerprints.

"This is a surprise!"

[Sansa]

Sansa took a step sideways so she wasn't right by the doorframe, and then pulled away from the wall slightly to get a better view of the newcomer. Something about him reminded her of an old memory... Roland Salisbury, the current Prince of London. She hadn't seen him in years, but the air around this Mr. Plainview and how he held himself was very similar.

Not a Kindred, though. Sansa became conscious of her very bedraggled appearance (blood dripping off her long hair, down her chin and neck and soaking her clothes), but stood tall anyway.

[Mr. Plainview]

"How reassuring," he replied, with cutting insincerity, "After all, it would not do for someone in my position to be... predictable."

Thereupon, he stepped inside, and studied his surroundings vague curiosity. When he spotted the blood-drenched body on the floor, he gave the barest roll of the eyes. On his second pass of the room, his inspection stopped with the vampire, which prompted at last the barest flicker of interest. He gave her a smile like creased paper.

"Miss Martin. A pleasure, I'm sure."

[Sansa]

Sansa raised an eyebrow at being addressed by name. "What position is that, exactly?"

Her eyes tracked to the window where the cool night air was blowing inside, and then she turned her head toward Rod. "Your friend you helped out the window is probably calling the real police right now." If he didn't get killed in the alley by the man I threw out the window. A lot of defenestration going on tonight.

[Mr. Plainview]

"Oh, I'm counting on it."

His hand dipped inside his jacket to retrieve a gold pocket watch. It rested gingerly upon his finger tips while he watched over it. Then, using the tip of his cane, he gave the floor a light rat-tat. More footsteps upon the stairs, heavier, faster. Although preoccupied with his watch, Mr. Plainview could practically taste the sudden apprehension in the air, and sought to assuage the doubting pair.

"Friends of mine," he said, and on cue, three suited men strode past the bedroom, "For all its splatterhouse charm, I don't imagine the Met would look too fondly upon this particular mise en scène."

[Rod Stafford]

"You mean... you're here to help us?"

There was a quavering note of nervous relief in Rod's voice, and it sickened him to recognise that in himself. He was not six years old, and had not been caught with his hand in the cookie jar - there were corpses on the floor. It seemed Mr. Plainview had elected to not answer his question. When Sansa spoke, concern for Sully surfaced from his thoughts, which simmered like a broth in the aftermath of the violence. He had to believe he was alright. Mr. Plainview's associates were at work in the bathroom, their words a murmur through the sturdy Victorian walls; Plainview himself could very well have been waiting for a bus, judging by his body language; Sansa carried the blood-soaked look off well, which was more alarming than it perahps should've been, but it left Rod feeling at something of a handicap in dealing with the situation. From London to Chicago, and back again, he was no stranger to drama and death, but it didn't get easier with experience.

In his shell-shocked state, Rod at least had the presence of mind to establish for Sansa one or two of the myriad facts absent from the equation:

"Mr. Plainview is an..." he paused to select the right word, "Acquaintance of mine. We've met each other before. Once. Today."

[Sansa]

"That's reassuring," she said quietly, her body language stating that she was not reassured at all.

"I should go." She looked down at her clothes, and then up at the ceiling, a little sigh escaping. Mr. Plainview couldn't stop her from just vaulting out the window, but then was she going to use Celerity all the way back to the Dunsirn flat? She would be back to needing to feed by the time she got there.

Of course, there was the matter of the night having tracked past it's midway point, inexorably drawing them toward sunrise.

[Mr. Plainview]

"Indeed you should, Miss Martin. But first, take off your clothes. You too, Mr. Stafford, let's not be shy."

If there was any duplicitous humour in such an outlandish request, Mr. Plainview hid it masterfully. In fact, judging by his tone, he may very well have asked for the time, but that he was still studiously inspecting his pocket watch made such a fantasy highly unlikely.

"Also, towel yourselves off on something, if you'd be so kind. Let's not be trailing gore throughout the house. You have thirty seconds."

[Rod Stafford]

There was but a moment's hesitance before Rod obliged the peculiar request. His ruined shirt was cast aside without ceremony and with an inelegant hop he disposed of each of his favourite shoes. Sansa was immobile, and looked to be on the verge of violence or protest - it was difficult to tell. After a swift trip to his dresser, he offered her one of his towels wearing a look that could only be described as deeply apologetic.

"Sansa, please. He knows what he's doing. We have to trust him if we're going to get out of this mess unscathed. Besides, I'm sure we don't have to go in the nack. Do we?"

In that moment, Mr. Plainview must've felt Rod's gaze pleading with him, and sighed:

"You may keep your modesty intact."