Hunter Session 23

Previous: Hunter Session 22

Everyone had been so wrapped up in dealing with the werewolf problem and worrying about Haji's letters that they were rather surprised to realize that the day Melba's letter arrived was also Valentine's Day. For that day, their concerns were all but forgotten while the hunters scrambled to find gifts for their respective significant others. Arie won his bet with Randy by taking Samantha and Dana on the last of their three dates. Melba came back to her apartment after work to find that Paladin had tried to bake her a cake and failed miserably; it was completely inedible, but they had fun attacking each other with the frosting. (Paladin then abruptly lost interest in her when she tried to get affectionate, making her begin to wonder exactly what had been going on with him lately.) Randy almost completely forgot about the holiday, but remembered just in time to pick up Leslie and take her out to dinner and a movie, after which they shared a good-night kiss. And Charlotte's meager plans were completely upstaged when Charlie took her to the riverside to show her his paintings (which, she noticed, had become a lot more colorful and vibrant since she'd met him). He then gave her a package containing a stunning portrait he'd painted of her. Charlotte was delighted and, not too surprisingly, asked him if he'd like to continue the evening at house. (This time, Twitcher decided to just take a walk.)

The next morning, Randy checked the mailbox again, and found another scroll that certainly hit home for him: "Innocence is sweet until plucked." He concluded that this had to refer to Leslie and resolved to protect her. He was also disturbed that Haji had used that particular terminology to refer to her, given her creed. He wondered what else Haji knew about hunters - and who was giving him the information.

Around noon, Melba met Charlotte and Jonas, following a plan from the night before. They headed to the warehouse district of Minneapolis to investigate the building where Charlotte had last seen Temple, hoping to get rid of him and the problem he posed so Haji couldn't use him against Charlotte anymore. They found the warehouse very easily, unchanged from the last time Charlotte had been there and appearing completely abandoned. Cautiously, they walked through the unlocked door and began to investigate the deserted building. Charlotte and Melba cased the perimeter while Jonas stood in the center and tried to use one of his abilities to find out what had happened there recently.

After a few minutes of silence, Jonas cried out. Charlotte and Melba rushed to him; he was physically okay but shaken up. He said that he'd seen back to the night before, when Temple and eleven other vampires had been into the warehouse, along with twelve humans. The vampires had slaughtered the humans and drunk their blood, apparently as a Valentine's Day celebration. Jonas said the vampires were sleeping under the ground and would emerge at nightfall. He directed the others to a pile of debris in a corner of the warehouse. "When they removed the blocks they saw twelve human corpses, discarded unceremoniously in a shallow grave. Once again, Charlotte and Melba were in complete agreement: for this, Temple and his minions had to die. They went back to the apartment building to begin planning their attack (leaning, at first, toward firebombing the entire warehouse as soon as the vampires rose, then waiting at the door to make sure none made it out of the blaze).

Shortly afterwards, Randy showed up at Melba's apartment, heard the story, and also prepared to confront Temple. However, when Charlotte and Melba began calling other members of the network to provide backup, Randy decided to call Leslie. Of course, she was horrified to hear about the other hunters' destructive plan and hurried to the apartment building to try to dissuade them from killing anyone. They argued for a long time, with Leslie claiming that she could find good in all monsters if she was only given a chance (apparently, she was making headway with one vampire in this group, who went by the name of James) and Charlotte and Melba insisting that the vampires would only kill again if they didn't strike now. Finally, Charlotte made a deal with Leslie to focus the attack on Temple and be especially sure to ensure James's safety. Leslie wasn't happy, but realized it was the best deal she was going to get under the circumstances.

The hunters spent the next few hours assembling a hasty strike force consisting of Arie, Charlotte, Chet, Leslie, Lisa, Melba, Paladin, Randy, Saria, Shirley, and Twitcher, then hurried to the warehouse district and arrived just before sunset. Hiding nearby, they waited for about two hours and saw ten vampires leave the warehouse, none of whom were James or Temple. After assuring themselves that no one else was going to come out, the hunters went in, with Charlotte leading the way. Inside the warehouse, Charlotte immediately recognized Temple, sitting on some boxes and whittling idly. Suppressing her rage, she stepped forward and began to speak to him, trying to humor Leslie and Randy by seeing if she could find any shred of remorse or conscience that might convince her to spare his life. What she found was that not only did he bear no regrets for killing those people the night before, he didn't see any reason to care that he'd hurt Charlotte in the past. She drew her sword and warned him that now she and her friends would not hesitate to kill him; he responded by smiling maliciously and growing a set of fierce-looking claws. With that, Charlotte and Temple lunged at each other.

Suddenly, Leslie cried out, "JAMES! NO!" Faster than anyone else could react, she pushed her way through the crowd and jumped in between Charlotte and Temple. Everyone felt a surge of power go through the room and knew that she'd done something to Temple, though no one could say quite what. It all happened so quickly that neither Charlotte nor Temple could pull away fast enough to keep their respective weapons from impaling Leslie. Only the intervention of Melba (with Rejuvenate) and Randy (with Bluster) kept her from dying instantly. She crumpled to the floor, inches from death.

Randy called an ambulance and waited until it arrived; Leslie was comatose, but there was still hope that she'd pull through. Knowing things had gone horribly wrong, the rest of the group began to scatter before the authorities showed up. Charlotte glanced at Temple to see that he was sitting in a corner, completely catatonic, crying tears of blood. When she told him to get out before things got any messier, he didn't even respond. Resisting her strong urge to simply kill him on the spot, she turned to Melba and Paladin and said, "Help me get him in my car before I change my mind." Astonished, they obliged. Charlotte's house then became a complete circus upon her arrival as everyone helped her cover the windows in her basement so Temple could stay there during the day. She tried again to talk to him, but he wouldn't respond and just kept crying. Ultimately, she left him alone in the basement and resolved to try again later (though Charlie once again stayed overnight to make sure Temple didn't try anything).

The next day, Melba got an unexpected phone call from Charles the werewolf. As he'd predicted, his family had been proud and delighted when he proved that he'd killed the other werewolf. After he told the whole story, they'd expressed interest in meeting the people who'd helped him. He wanted to know if Melba and any of the other hunters would be interested in eating dinner at his family's home that night. She accepted, and brought Randy along with her. The evening was extremely weird - they hung out in a huge and creepy house that belonged to Charles's parents, ate a lot of meat at dinner, met a lot of very strange people who were apparently related to Charles in some distant way, and got called "vigilantes" about a thousand more times. Still, they managed to get into the werewolves' good graces. Afterwards, Charles said he'd have to invite them over again sometime. While Melba and Randy were a little frightened by that proposition, they had to admit that it was a good way to win more allies if they ever needed them.

After sundown, Charlotte and Charlie once again ventured into the basement to talk to Temple. He still seemed incredibly depressed, crying at the slightest mention of Leslie or any of the many crimes he'd committed over the years, but was at least willing to talk (especially after Charlotte offered him another pint of blood from the lab refrigerator). Whatever Leslie had done, it had worked wonders. Temple (who now really preferred to be called James) expressed great remorse for everything he'd done and apologized repeatedly to Charlotte. When she assured him it was okay, he insisted, "No, you don't understand. It's not." Deciding to take advantage of his newfound penitent spirit, she asked if James knew Haji - which made James go catatonic again. When she convinced him to talk again, all she gathered was that he'd had past dealings with Haji and that "Haji's a Tremere, man." After much more roundabout and evasive questioning, James suddenly blurted out, "I gave your arm to Haji." In an eyeblink, Charlie put his hands around James' neck, lifted him off the ground, and began screaming incoherently as he throttled him. Charlotte separated them (barely) and demanded that one or both of them explain what was going on.

Charlie then took Charlotte aside and explained that the the Tremere practiced a form of magic known as Thaumaturgy. If they had any of a person's belongings or some literal piece of them - such as a severed - they could use it to do all sorts of awful things to that person. When James added that "Haji said it's the second one he got," Charlotte realized that Haji had a personal item from all four core members of the group of hunters. He had Charlotte's arm, Arie's backpack, a lock of Melba's hair (ripped out of her head by Celicia Fargo the night the rest of the group fought the vampire in the refrigerator), and he almost certainly could have made off with something belonging to Randy during one of the many times they'd fought (which would have been the first one he'd gotten). Even the prospect of now having James as a solid ally thanks to the information he'd given them couldn't ease the new collection of fears and doubts the news opened up for Charlotte. Somehow, the group would have to find a way into Haji's stronghold to reclaim their belongings and, hopefully, kill him in the process. The only question was how to do it without dying themselves, and without violating the pact and touching off a war with the vampires that could be more destructive that anything Haji alone could dish out...

Next: Hunter Session 24