Maude's Investigation

Chicago

Maude & Elodie’s Apartment
August 31st, 2017

Google Doc

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An Abridged Legend for Maude’s Conspiracy Wall:
• Apollo - Jason Newberry
• Ladder - Prince Kevin Jackson
• Shepherd - Marcel
• Siouxsie - Alexa Santos
• Elodie - Elodie, because what single word could ever contain her multitudes?

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Maude stares at the apartment wall with static, unblinking eyes. As each dusk eclipses into night and they awaken from their daylight slumber, their very first thoughts are always concerning the wall.
From floor to ceiling, nearly every inch is covered in photos, newspaper clippings, hand-scrawled text, transcriptions, and various scraps all connected by coloured threads. Each shade represents different degrees of connection; relationships distilled to a hued spectrum.
But through the mess of paper and string, the only connections that matter are the ones that lead back to her.
To Maude, Elodie is everywhere. She's the scratching behind the walls and the moaning underneath the floorboards. She’s in the mirror, staring back at Maude where their reflection should be. She’s standing across the street, vanishing behind a car. She’s screaming Maude’s name to wake them from their sleep, just to disappear when they open their eyes. But more than all of that, Elodie is here, living in these threads. Not just some vision or facsimile of her - no, Elodie’s real beating heart is woven into the web of this seventeen year long investigation. The deeper Maude goes, the more clues they unearth, the louder it sounds - and the more real she becomes.
Maude’s closer now than they’ve ever been. The once low rumble of Elodie’s heart sounds like thunder now.
The pages with Maude’s active investigation are piled on top of old layers; the clues that once led them to Elodie the first time all those years ago - a victory so short lived it became just another failure. The red string of fate was pulled taut until it snapped - a violent end to Maude’s human life and the slate wiped blank, Elodie disappearing once again.
It then took seven undead years for Maude to come across anything concrete.
Maude follows the string connecting Ladder to Apollo and remembers that night in his office: Elodie’s visage in the mirror guiding Maude towards the unseen letter on the desk, careful fingers unfolding the paper they were never meant to read.

You're to behave yourself and follow the protocol, your interception of the night clan's fledgling did not go amiss. This new group is approved by me, they have an assigned guardian, and I have my uses for them. Back off.
Consider this your one and only warning Newberry Apollo; we have a deal. You get to keep your little "new" pet, when you know full well they were meant for final death after what they did to the other black spiked hairy puppy you picked up. Stay in line or I will bring your secrets to the light.

K

The best clues are always those that provide more questions than answers. There is no truth without complexities, and the letter Maude discovered was rife with them. Apollo’s relationship with Ladder being just one layer, the most insignificant. Everyone has secrets and Apollo’s are none of Maude’s business - they trust him implicitly.
The real intrigue is nestled in the pet meant for final death. The black spiked hair is too evocative to be anyone but Elodie - it’s as if the words never existed on the page at all, just another vision of her contorted on the parchment.
Maude tries to work up theories, ideas, but their mind halts to a frustrating blank - like mismatched pieces from separate puzzles trying desperately to fit together, their awkward ridges refusing to mold in place.
The roadblock redirects Maude’s mind back to just before they left the office that same night, when Maude pressed Apollo on Elodie once again - just to receive the same look of disappointment as always.

"Maude, you need to let go. You need to accept Elodie is gone, for your own good. For your own peace of mind."

Maude knows he’s right, of course, because Apollo is never wrong about anything. Letting go is exactly what Maude should do. The healthy route beyond the madness. But giving up without closure, without answers… Maude’s mind would never find peace. No matter how much it pains Maude's heart to disappoint him, it’s the one facet where they must let him down.
Afterall, it’s not up to Maude to let go when it’s Elodie who has her claws dug into their skin.
Maude follows the threads again, tracing the ones that lead from Elodie to various groups - vague connections brought up when Maude questioned Shepherd.

“Ah, a dark thing. The rumour I heard was that there was some secret enforcer for someone in the Camarilla or the Anarchs. A brutal, secretive creature that dealt with Sabbath Lasombra and the Capone Gang, even Second Inquisition. My own investigation in the matter ended up in me being certain that asking around about this was dangerous and I stopped.
No, I am not willing to further investigate the matter for any price at the moment.”

Before this, Maude never felt as if finding Elodie was something to fear - even if their last encounter ended in violence. It was still their Elodie, their soulmate, in the end. But now she has been framed as dangerous and brutal - not a person, but a creature - by someone of Shepherd’s stature, who himself felt finding Elodie was too dangerous a trail to follow.
Danger is not something that Maude will shy away from if it means finding her. Even if Elodie herself is that very danger.
The words brutal enforcer haunt Maude’s mind, however. A familiar stir in their gut rears its head, guiding them to what is perhaps the most important thread on the entire wall thus far - the one joining Elodie to Apollo.
It’s as if the taste of his blood still coats Maude’s tongue - the memory of its sweetness moving Maude to swoon for a moment, the taboo of their mutual kiss an unforgettable joy. How lucky they were to receive a gift so wonderful for their birthday: irrevocable proof of how special Maude is, of how he really does love them.
Apollo; the sun in Maude’s eternal night.
Maude has to force themself to move past their exchange and instead remember the vision that it had triggered. The way the world melted away until they began to see the past through Apollo’s eyes, a malformed but instantly distinguishable Elodie before him.

"My love, it matters not that they fear you as a brutal enforcer of death, or that you're a prodigy of all the powers granted to us as Seers. You're my Childe, I will always love you."

Childe. Elodie is Apollo’s childe. The thread extends from Apollo, to Elodie, to Maude. A twisted version of a family tree.
Something inside Maude begs them to be unnerved by this. Such a simple truth kept hidden from them, and for why? It’s their own lineage. But Maude can’t find the strength to be upset; can instead only focus on Elodie’s tears, her distress, and how gentle Apollo was in soothing her.
As gentle as one can be when describing someone as a “brutal enforcer of death”, of course.
After that night Maude was left at a standstill - they had many clues tied to countless questions, but no real leads. Elodie remained an idea, a concept, and despite her presence always just beyond their reach, Maude still needed something tangible to make her real.
Siouxsie - with a thread connecting her to Ladder by way of being a hound and a Malkavian tinged thread connecting her to Apollo - was the best idea Maude had for a compass. So they turned to her direction for the summer.
The short nights spent by her side flash in Maude’s mind:

Siouxsie's job description is to hunt those who evade justice, so who better to ask to help in finding their Maude's friend? The fact that there's a blood hunt for Elodie is a bridge that shall be burned when they get to it; for the moment it was enough that the eerie dead-eyed punk hound showed sharp teethed excitement in hunting down the errant Malkavian, she'll do us well.
As they dove deep into their investigation, the sultry summer nights became a dark and dangerous labyrinth, each twist and turn leading them closer to the truth. Siouxsie, with their expertise and inhuman determination, proved to be essential, she had found evidence for a possible stash of documents belonging to this secret enforcer; but the weight of their quest was starting to take its toll on Maude.
With each step closer, Maude's ability to focus and recollection of events suffered. Each new clue fell into their brain like sharp metal upon ceramic tile.
The city was alive with the sounds of music and laughter, but to Maude, it was a symphony of deception and danger. They felt as if they were walking a tightrope, always one step away from falling into the abyss of madness that threatened to consume them.
But they pushed on, driven by their desperate need to find Elodie. And at last, after four long months of investigation, a single name cleared the fog of Maude's mind, awakening them in a rush of vitae.
"...velvet" Siouxsie's deadpan voice rushed in, her monotone a flash flood razing through the valleys of Maude's mind.
"What?!" Maude said, the beast barely held back.
"The stash of documents... is at the Blue Velvet"

Maude has to find those documents. It almost doesn’t matter what they contain - most importantly they’re something that belonged to her. This will be evidence that Elodie is more than a thought, more than just a feeling or vision. It’s immutable proof that Elodie existed - no, exists - in this world.
How long has it been since Maude has had more than just a hunch or hearsay? This stash could change everything.
The price to be paid, however, is that they must somehow liberate them from the Blue Velvet. The Elysium where Maude has already barely escaped being spotted while snooping where they don’t belong.
As Maude curls their fingers along the red string tying their own name to Elodie’s, they hear the scratching behind the walls, the moaning underneath the floorboards and the deafening roar of her heartbeat. She’s out there, somewhere, and Maude will find her.
At any cost.