A Vision

I shan’t ever understand the whims of these kindred. What invented pleasures or pains they derive from their practises. With music that rattles the bones, liquor enough to make one ill, dressed up worse than those West-end walkers! This place is a fetid nest for the depraved. Although my head feels less swollen and haunted in this place, looking at writhing flesh like maggots in an open carcass I still feel like I ought to be sick.
 
I can feel myself become flush with fever and fatigue and so I seek refuge upstairs, with Mr. Anton and Miss. Larissa following close at my heels. We pass a veterinary that presents itself as a café (although at the moment it is closed). Ducky is waiting for us in the room upstairs and she tells us non-too-politely that this is her domain and that she expects us to respect it as such. She is quite filthy with Mr. Anton for letting it slip to Mr. Crowe that she had helped us the day previous. Mr. Anton is (unsurprisingly) indignant and quarrelsome. I get the feeling he is not often invited to tea, and that this Ducky is not much for hosting as they are both rather loud and I am starting to get a headache. There is a box she wants Anton to stand in although I haven’t the faintest what ‘snitches are bitches’ means, but it serves to further inflame Mr. Anton’s rage.
 
It is then that Ducky reminds us all of the six tenets of the Camarilla, particularly the tenet of Domain and Hospitality. I admit, I am not listening well and have taken up residence on the couch as my head feels quite sore and I am sure I shall faint at any moment.
 
After much length and discussion, Mr. Anton apologises and after some consideration Ducky does not make him get in the box.
 
She finally tells us why she has brought us here – she is seeking a book: Insights of the Snake Prince.
 
A contradictory woman, she tells us that there is no time limit on this delivery but she needs it soon. We may find it in a book store near Minotaur’s on William Street, or near Lightning Ridge Opals, but she cannot obtain it herself due to her poor relations with the kindred in that area.
 
We are told that we may have one drink downstairs, but as I have mentioned previously, I have no need to eat as I am not like these blood-sucking fiends but rather something different entirely. We are also warned not to mention her name or that she has asked us for favours, and that we ought to be careful of Leslie Taylor - the prince.
 
Downstairs, Mr. Anton finds a red headed woman wearing what can only be described as poured on rubber, although I’d rather not dwell on what sordid affairs they indulged. To my dismay, Miss Larissa was much the same with her own company, although she kept secret behind a thick velvet curtain that was difficult to peer around.
 
Thankfully soon, a limousine arrives and takes us to the Elysium. Although it is a fine ride, I tire of it quickly as it feels much longer than it ever had before, and the windows are darkened and the drivers glass is up.
 
When I have had about enough and I have mind to tell the driver to quit his aimless meandering, suddenly everything falls away. Or rather it feels like I am sinking except when I reach out I can only touch the darkness and it is inky and congealed. And then, in a manner that was all at once and yet very slowly, I dreamt.
 
There was a great city, that burns and is rebuilt a hundred times or more, and every time it rises up again it is more grotesque than last, with hard steel lines and flat, lifeless surfaces. And in this moment a hand breaks through the bloated storm clouds above, bestial and all-powerful. It scorches the skies fire red and lays all to waste, shattering glass and twisting metal, the streets drenched with blood. I feel all together tightly scrunched up and torn to pieces in the sight of this invincible darkness.
 
Then the premonition comes. A flash of lightning breaks the sky apart and a symbol is drawn in the threads of light. Then a sound so loud you could hardly hear it, and when my ears are left only ringing, another sign is carved into the carcass of one of the buildings, dripping ichor and fluid. The last symbol comes with torrential rain, that washes the ground before me blood red.
And then the voice spoke to me. It spoke:
 
Et quis non habet animam et octo civitatem, sed quod producat ex imperio obumbratio.
 
Although I am often plagued by night terrors, none have felt so visceral that I felt they could take me completely into their madness.
 
I woke and wept, and not even Miss Larissa’s warm embrace could soothe me from my horror.