Vandell lay with his great maned head pillowed on stone, one massive arm of his hulking Crinos form sheltering the tiny body that slept curled against and warmed by his fur. As always Kaliegh had fallen directly to sleep with the first light of dawn, but Vandell wasn't yet ready for sleep. He listened to the last birds of Autumn greet the coming morning outside and above the cave in which they lay, then stretched his senses a bit more and listened to the early risers of the Sept as they began going about their day's business. He looked down at Kay as she slept without breath or sound and wondered again at the strangeness of it all. How could he love a vampire? He didn't know... and didn't care. It just was... and it was right. His ears twitched and he raised his head a bit as he heard footsteps in the passage from the grotto. Annoyance curled his lip as he waited for the visitor to appear. They usually waited for a bit before coming to bother him with questions or decisions to be made... but someone obviously desired an early start. He raised his head further and narrowed his eyes against the shadows as the figure came into view, his Crinos mien giving its best approximation of a frown. This was no member of the Sept... Limbs clad in black suede studded and embroidered in silver. Torso, forearms and head armored with silver-gold chain. High boots with silver buckles down the sides, and a heavy and ornate sword at the waist. The visitor stepped fully into the cave and straightened, reaching up to draw aside the veil of chain-mail that obscured her face. Vandell sat nearly fully upright, startled by recognition.
"Fiandell," Murren murmured, using Vandell's ancient name. "My once and never love... I need your help..."
Vandell shook his head, surprised and bewildered by Murren's appearance, her words... her admission to something that had passed between them so long ago... something she had sworn to his face she would forget... Murren could see even in his Crinos face the confusion that struck him, and she stepped forward to crouch in front of him, glancing down at the small redhead that lay curled next to him. She reached out and brushed the thick mass of hair aside to reveal Kay's gently sleeping face, then looked up at Vandell, watching him shift from Crinos to Homid.
"Do you truly love her, Fiandell?" She murmured, her tone abstract with thought and memory. "Please... just this once... do not lie to me. Speak your heart in naked truth... do you love her?"
Her gaze was so earnest, her eyes so intent and deep, Vandell found himself forced to look away. A dozen answers leapt to mind, some kind, some glib, some misleading... but somehow it was the truth that moved his lips to quiet speech. "Yes... I think I do..." He almost started away as Murren laid an armor-gloved hand to his averted cheek, but her voice was soft and kind even as it pleaded.
"Then help me, Fiandell... or... in a few weeks... watch her die..." She expected the look he shot her, his eyes showing her words had stung as if each were a slap. Before he could speak, she continued. "T'Ling'quiut is awake... and he is coming for the Kindred of Kelthaven." By the look that followed in Vandell's eyes, Murren knew no further explanation was needed, but as he looked down at Kay she laid a hand on his arm. "No... do not try to wake her... and leave no note or word. If... if we succeed, you will be in her arms soon enough... and she will forgive you." She paused, knowing her next words were closer to likelihood, "And should we fail... it is better that she never know." Vandell nodded after a moment, knowing Murren was right, but somehow unable yet to take his eyes from Kay's peaceful face. Murren straightened and moved to collect the pile of clothes that were obviously his, returning with a soft touch to his shoulder. As he looked up she offered the bundle forward. "There is little time... dawn is upon us and we race the sun." Mutely, he accepted the clothing, slipping his arm from beneath Kaliegh and standing to dress. Slipping on the jeans, he laced the vest and glanced at Murren where she stood - arms about herself and eyes a thousand miles... perhaps years... away. "Won't they miss you at the manor... maybe suspect what you've done?" Murren turned her head to look at him, then once again glanced down at Kaliegh sleeping between them. She shrugged slightly, returning her gaze to him. "As with her... if we succeed, it will not matter... if we fail, it will matter even less. They can not help us... and a few more weeks of living is better than nothing..."
Vandell ran his fingers through his hair and tried to fight off the somber shroud of her tone. He frowned abruptly and turned to her as a thought occurred to him. "Wait... isn't there a rumor that the Valeska woman and the Justicar's wife are going to try and get those elder kindred to help with this... they call him the 'Walking Man' now, right?" Murren nodded even as she crouched and reached for a thick woolen blanket that lay to one side, a gift to Kaliegh from the Sept. She gently spread the warm cover over the sleeping vampiress before answering. "Yes... and we must be sure they have no need to do so. I am sure they will find a way to convince the Senjenae to come to our aid... this must not happen." She straightened to face Vandell's puzzled look, and answered him before he could ask, her words patient. "The Senjenae are the first Chylder of Cain, true... and perhaps nothing can stand against them, but T'Ling'quiut is only somewhat less powerful and aged... and his allies are many. Power would meet power in a swift escalation... each would draw upon all they had in a battle that would swiftly be simply for survival of the fittest." She sighed and tuned away, knowing he could never fully understand. "I am sure the Senjenae would triumph in the end... but they would have spent every drop of vitae that has passed beyond them in the process, T'Ling'quiut would make sure of that. It would be the Gehenna we all fear..." she looked back at him, trying to add weight to her words with her eyes. "No vampire beyond the second or third generation would survive... anywhere..."
Vandell stared at her for a long moment, trying to fathom something he had only limited knowledge of. Finally he shrugged and offered Murren his hand. "I guess I'll just have to trust you. Where are we going?" Murren took his hand with a small, thankful smile. "Lhazhong, Tibet. Where we met him the first time..."
Vandell saw the edge of true fear in her eyes, and tried to offer a reassuring smile. "No problem." With an effort of will and ancient secrets of the Garou, he opened the portal.
They stepped within, to the side, away...

Gray sky above - streaked with white like the fingers of God across the heavens, an icy wind whipping across a barren plateau - lashing dust from the cold Tibetan soil, lees and hollows already filled with alpine snows that were but the first advance of the brutal winter to come. Vandell looked around in the dim, overcast light and shivered despite himself. The cold in the air didn't bother him, but the bleakness of the landscape sent a chill far deeper than temperature could reach. He glanced up at the sky, dull gray despite the early afternoon hour, then turned to his silent companion - following Murren's eyes to the structure that squatted like a sleeping dragon on the edge of the plateau.
Built before the time of the great Khans, the structure nonetheless held heavy overtones of the Orient. Lions roared in stone from the corners of the multi-faced building, dragons snarled in gold and jade from beneath the corners of its peaked roofs, and creatures more fearsome, loathsome, and terrible than those cavorted in bas relief along every wall in ways that both drew and repulsed the eye. Low and sprawling for most of its bulk, the temple's most striking feature was a high, multi-tiered tower that jutted upward several stories from its center. They stood just beyond the first dust-swept steps of a long staircase that led to the only visible door in the entire structure... directly at the top of the tower. Vandell tore his eyes from the structure, feeling his dinner of the night before lurch and grumble in his stomach. At least this time he kept it down, unlike the first time he had looked upon this place. He turned to Murren and frowned, laying a hand on her shoulder and pitching his voice above the keening wind. "You must be exhausting yourself fast, being awake and abroad in daylight... shouldn't you rest?" He tried to peer past the shadows that clung to her skin like a black veil, wondering how she could see past that shroud of tamed darkness that shielded her skin from the sun. Murren shrugged and pointed at the ground. "What I need will come soon enough, I dare not risk sleeping past when he might awaken... we have no more than one chance at this."
Vandell followed her pointing gesture and crouched to examine the ground at their feet. It took less than a moment for him to discern a shallow depression in the soil leading from the edge of the plateau to the foot of the stairs, a long track obviously worn down by the passage of many feet. Along it he could make out footprints, several sets of them... and very recent. He stood and glanced again at Murren, knowing what she meant... and feeling colder than ever...

They came in early evening, just as the sky threatened nightfall. Six of them robed in scarlet and white as though on pilgrimage, their heavy hoods completely covering their heads and obscuring sight. Each walked with a hand on the shoulder of a young boy in front of them in complete trust, each boy's eyes picking the way for the robed supplicant. Though the boys wore the red robes of the Shaolin temples, Vandell felt his skin crawl even at this distance as they topped the edge of the plateau. He could feel the taint of the Wyrm strong in them, and snarled as he rose from his seat on the steps and stood beside Murren.
"Ghouls." She agreed, "...and not young ones." She caught his arm as he began to move forward, "The mortals likely have no idea what is to happen here, let them go. But the ghouls... do not kill them... I need them." He nodded and stripped off his clothing swiftly, wondering how long it would be before one of the approaching party noticed them.
His answer came even as he shifted to Hispo form, dropping to a four-legged stance and shaking his paleolithic maned head. The foremost ghoul glanced up from the path at his feet and stopped short, mouth hung open for a second at the sight of a nightmarish wolf-like creature and a female warrior in gold and black standing at the foot of the temple-fortress' stairs. As the ghoul's little-boy voice rose in an alarmed cry, Vandell and Murren surged forward - matching Vampire swiftness to Garou speed. The knot of ghouls and pilgrims split and scattered as they struck. With only six targets it was brutally short work, with Murren's hands and feet cracking skulls and shattering spines, and Vandell's gaping jaws tearing legs from beneath running forms and ripping the bowels from those that tried to crawl away. Spurred by the snarls and screams, the pilgrims tore the hoods from their heads and fled for the edge of the plateau, sure at any moment one of these demons would strike them down. Neither did, they had what they wanted.
Vandell shifted form to Crinos and paced away from the scene of carnage, refusing to watch as Murren moved from one whimpering form to the next. He stood and waited, staring at the evil temple in the last light of day. After a while the last of the whimpers stopped, and Murren joined him silently. He didn't look at her. "Ready?" He growled in the Garou tongue, knowing she would understand.
In answer she nodded and put her foot on the first stair.
They reached the top of the temple just as the shrouded sun touched the horizon. Murren's pace quickened as they delved into the darkened interior, and Vandell wondered why they had waited for nightfall. T'Ling'quiut would awaken at nightfall, and even Vandell knew that a sleeping antediluvian vampire was slightly better than an awake one. Within the topmost tier of the temple they found no stair or any other door, only a square opening in the floor of the temple-like room with a candlelit and stained floor visible some four stories below. Without a word Murren stepped forward and dropped into the hole. Vandell followed after a glance around the uppermost chamber with its tapestries and carvings of horror. He had a feeling it wasn't going to improve. Stone walls flashed past and he landed in a crouch, turning to locate Murren even as he surveyed the expansive room they had dropped into. He stood at the edge of a grand and circular domed chamber, the walls a maddening display of twisted stairs and obscene carvings. The air was cloying and thick with incense smoke that spewed from dozens of hanging braziers, and everywhere the scene was lit by flickering candles that seemed to occupy every flat surface and niche. The center point of the room was the vast circular inlay that Murren was already striding across, at its middle another hole led into the subterranean depths of the temple. Though it had been over five hundred years, Vandell remembered that hole... he had barely gotten out of it alive.
As he loped to her side, Murren surprised him by turning abruptly to face him. He drew up short and looked down at her from his eight-foot height, tilting his head in question. She laid a hand on his shaggy chest, feeling his heart beat like the thunder of ages beneath the thick muscle there. She looked up into his deep red eyes, and he was surprised to see tears staining her cheeks beneath the armor. "He is awake, Fiandell." She whispered, her voice shaking with barely restrained terror. "I need you now, my lost love... I hope you can forgive me." Before Vandell could react to the strangeness of her words, her other hand came up with a speed so blinding he had no time to think. The blow took him beneath the chin with all of her ancient speed and strength behind it, and he thudded to the tiles of the broad inlay almost at their edge - sliding to a stop utterly unconscious. Murren felt the ancient power stir beneath her feet even as she rushed to Vandell's side. She felt T'Ling'quiut pause and shift his awareness, noticing her as she turned Vandell's giant head and exposed his throat and the powerful pulse there. She felt her enemy begin to rise through the vaults below her, felt his curiosity and annoyance at her presence even as she sank her fangs into Vandell's throat and tasted the first hot rush of his Garou blood.
Murren had tasted the blood of Gaia's Chosen in the past - thick, powerful, and intoxicating - but never like this. Vandell was more than Garou, his mother had been one of the Aelfannan, sister to the Sidhe and daughter of immortals - perhaps even gods. Vandell was almost nine hundred years old... opening her lips to his blood felt as though she was kissing the fires of creation.
She drank deep, pulling hard against the flow, taking as much as she could hold... more... Her veins and arteries boiled as his blood mixed with hers, her muscles burst with fiery energy, her senses exploded and her mind reeled. As T'Ling'quiut rose solemnly from the pit in the center of the room, Murren could take no more. She tore her teeth from Vandell's throat and screamed in pain and rage and ecstasy, surging to her feet and spinning to face the cold stare of a vampire that had seen seven millennia before her own thousand-year span had begun. Her eyes glowed like coals, her armor seemed to dance and move with light and shadow of its own, and the very air around her seemed to hiss and crackle as she locked eyes with T'Ling'quiut, a mad grin spreading her blood-stained lips.
T'Ling'quiut hesitated only a fraction of a second, slightly confused and more than slightly astounded by the spectacle she presented. Dimly he recognized her, and it confused him that she should be here a second time - knowing he had almost destroyed her the first time, only deigning to let her escape because she really constituted no threat to his ancient might. In that fraction Murren shot forward, covering sixty paces in an eye-blink, far too fast to follow with the naked eye. But still... not fast enough... It felt as though she struck a wall, rebounding from the force of T'Ling'quiut's gesture of mind and Discipline. Even as she sprawled across the tiles, Murren felt the antediluvian's thoughts crush into hers, encountering and pulverizing the first of her mental shields and barriers. She screamed at the feeling of his thoughts like white-hot knives in her brain, but gathered her will within her core of self and struck back. She felt the Garou-fueled blood burning in her as she forewent defense and attacked instead, driving every memory of pain, fear, and madness she had ever felt back in one single bolt into the mind of her enemy. T'Ling'quiut faltered and shifted to block her mental attack, freeing Murren's mind from his terrible onslaught. She leapt to her feet and rushed him again even as she saw tendrils of darkness rise from the floor and reach for her. None reached her before she reached him, but her hands seized only air as T'Ling'quiut dissolved into mist. She leapt the hole, momentum too great to stop at its edge, and rolled beneath the questing tendrils of darkness. She whirled on one knee at the edge of the tiles, seeing the faint mist in the air that marked T'Ling'quiut's presence. Incorporeal as he was, little could touch him... save sunlight, mind... and fire. With a hiss through her rictus-like, drunken grin, Murren called to the candles of the room. The tiny flames that filled every nook suddenly roared like forge-fires, and Murren felt her hair crisp from the heat, but the effect came as desired as T'Ling'quiut retreated back to solid form to escape the fire that filled the air. Murren caught his eye as he turned on her, she saw he was no longer aloof, no longer serene, no longer annoyed... she caught a hint of fear in that look and laughed despite herself. T'Ling'quiut snarled, his marble-like face moving for the first time, forming into a sneer, and at a gesture of will the facades and carvings around the room cracked from their places and flung themselves through the air. A deadly hail that was composed of literally tons of stone converged on Murren in a flash, and with little option she leapt upward for the ornate ceiling with all the speed she could muster. The collision below her feet was deafening, and threw pulverized rock and dust to every corner of the room, filling the air and obscuring vision. Murren released her grip on the ornate roof and dropped into the boiling cloud. A fraction of a second too late she realized she had misjudged, one foot finding floor, the other the open space of the hole to the vaults below. She toppled and fell, unable to reach the edge with either out-flung hand in time. With an evil grin of triumph, T'Ling'quiut followed her into the hole.
Murren struck water with an explosive splash, and impacted the mud-slimed bottom of the chamber only slightly slowed from her fall by the shallow pool. She twisted and kicked, getting her legs beneath her to stand even as she heard a howl begin in the chamber. Muted and confused by the water surrounding her it seemed to come from all sides. As she gained her footing and stood out of the water - she saw that it did. Alcoves and passages marched away into the darkness on every side, forming a catacomb that seemed endless and defied comprehension, and from all sides advanced T'Ling'quiut's guardians. Horrible creatures that spoke of twisted humanity, blood, and death. Ghouls reshaped into machines of war and pain. The flesh-crafting Tzimisce would call them szlatcha, anyone else would call them nightmares. Murren spun full circle, realizing she was utterly surrounded, then glanced up as T'Ling'quiut sank into view high overhead, hovering near the slime-encrusted ceiling with a satisfied smirk as he watched his guardians advance.
T'Ling'quiut's smirk faded somewhat as he saw Murren rise to a fully erect stance and close her eyes. He had expected a battle at the least, and would have struck her down as she fought. He had hoped even for panic at the sight of his personal guard, making her that much easier a target. Instead she seemed completely calm, though a drunken grin still curved her lips. T'Ling'quiut sensed something was amiss, and garnered his power for a direct attack, opting not to wait for his ghouls to strike. As he focused his blood he reached out a quiet tendril to touch Murren's mind, seeking a clue as to her plan.
...blood ...generations ...potency ...dark magic... Too late he gleaned her intent, and though he struck with all speed it was too slow, she had already moved - even faster than before. The water and stones exploded from the force of T'Ling'quiut's mental blow, but Murren wasn't there. She had entered his temple a fourth-generation vampire, once-removed from his own might. From Vandell she had drawn some of the most potent living blood in all of creation, gorging herself on a power that would drive most kindred to drunken madness. And now she had focused that blood into ancient magic ritual that allowed her for a short time to transcend the limitations of her place in the lineage of Cain. Murren had entered T'Ling'quiut's temple his inferior in almost every aspect... but now... ...he faced an equal...
...and she was Brujah...
...born to fight...
...bred to kill...
T'Ling'quiut spun in the air trying to follow Murren's movements, catching sight of her in time to see her seem to literally run up the wall. She reached a height even to him in a flash and spun, kicking off of the wall and streaking through the air toward him. He saw the deep red of her skin and the boiling mist that seemed to surround her as she struck him, and he howled in agony as her burning wrath seared his flesh. Stunned by the pain, T'Ling'quiut was unable to stop their headlong flight, and had not prepared himself for a physical blow such as that which came when they struck the far wall. He felt bones like iron within his ancient limbs and torso snap as they struck, and fear became panic as they tumbled through the air with Murren's grip on him boiling his marble flesh. He lashed out with his mind as they struck the pool, just as he struck with his claws in an attempt to fend her off. Even submerged in the pool he heard her insane laughter as she slammed his mental attack back into his own thoughts, making him reel with the force of it, and he felt his claws rake uselessly across her armor - snapping against a metal forged in another world. He struggled and burned in her grip, panic rising and consuming him as she struck him again and again. He felt great chunks of his flesh torn away by her claws, and every touch burned with hellish agony. He tried to shift form, but her blows and the pain made it hard to think, impossible to concentrate... he felt frenzy rising on a wave of unholy fear... he was too weak, too drained... she was too strong, too wild... if he lost control now...
Too late.
Many kindred call it rotschreck, some call it death-frenzy... whatever the name it is the final madness caused by fear of true death. A strong vampire will leave carnage in their wake when suffering this madness, friend and foe alike torn apart in an effort to simply escape and survive. A weak vampire driven to this madness might even overcome a stronger enemy, if surprise and luck both side with them...
Murren was not surprised... and T'Ling'quiut had run out of luck...
Murren's entire body ached as she dragged herself from the hole and back into the temple's main chamber. Her legs shook and threatened not to support her as she stood and staggered over to where Vandell lay coated in debris and dust. Her legs and strength gave way as she reached him, and she fell to her knees beside him. She had spent so much in the battle that her blood felt like a thin trickle in her veins. It was an effort to even hold her head up, and she decided not to try. Clumsily brushing some of the debris from his pelt, she lowered her head to Vandell's chest, feeling it rise and fall and hearing the heart-beat still strong within him. She had drained him - yes, but the taking of the ghoul's blood previous had ensured the intoxicating lure of his potent blood had not driven her to kill him. He would live, and the Garou heal quickly. In a few days he would be strong enough to take them home.
Home that was safe again... for now... for a time... until the next time... Murren closed her eyes and tried to ignore the agony in her every muscle and limb.
She wondered if Devon, her chylde, would forgive her for what she had done down in that hole. She wondered if Vandell would forgive her for what she had done to him to make it possible...
She wondered if either knew how much she loved them both. Perhaps she would sleep...
...maybe for a while...
...maybe for a long while...
...until the next time...