Chapter 25: Epidemic 5-3

I'm sorry, what?" I demanded, my voice possibly a little too loud for where we were. "Justine was Sa-"

"Keep your voice down!" Kamala hissed, baring her teeth in frustration. "Yes, your Sire was Sabbat. Please do not broadcast it to the Kindred that may be occupying this tunnel."

"But she...she didn't look like Sabbat." I said. The Sabbat I'd seen were only vaguely humanoid in form, with unnaturally long, spindly arms and sharp claws. I assumed they were all like that, but if what Kamala was saying was true, then that was a bad assumption.

Kamala scoffed. "Sabbat doesn't have a look, neonate. The shovelheads that are often thrown at you are merely cannon fodder. Internally, they can look just like you and I."

That made sense. But still, something wasn't right here. Something was off. Justine had told me not to trust the Camarilla, sure, but she also told me not to trust the Sabbat. If she was aligned with them, why would she tell me that? Yet again, I felt like a pawn. I had before, but at least I felt like I knew the game, even if I didn't know exactly who's pawn I was. Now? I didn't know the game at all. Just what was Justine trying to tell me?

"I don't understand." I said. "Strauss said she was an exemplary member of the Tremere. Why would she join the Sabbat?"

I saw Kamala's expression change, as if she was weighing and carefully analyzing the words she was going to say next. I got a small, vindictive sort of satisfaction out of the fact that she had to walk on eggshells around me. Even if it wasn't because of me, it was nice seeing that my questions were knocking her off of her balance, so to speak.

"She'd gotten interested in...things she shouldn't have been interested in." Kamala said. "Forbidden magics. False lores that the Tremere had long debunked. Ancient texts. She'd become obsessed with things she shouldn't have. Things such as Golconda."

Frowning, I asked, "What's Golconda?"

"Didn't I tell you that your Sire became obsessed with things she shouldn't have?!" Kamala hissed, irritation flicking over her features. "Are you really going to follow her example?"

"I'm just asking!" I protested. "I don't understand why she'd join the Sabbat! Especially when I keep getting told how great of a member of the Camarilla she was!"

Kamala's lips pressed into a thin line. "Listen, you aren't even supposed to know any of this. Just know that-"

Before Kamala could finish, all of the lights in the sewer tunnel suddenly turned off. There was a brief period of silence as we looked out into the darkness. Quickly, we both activated Auspex so that we could see in the dark, and then it became very apparent that we weren't alone. Ahead, I saw about a dozen Kindred, all Nosferatu. Judging by their clothes, I figured they were probably Embraced homeless, some of whom were in the middle of their monstrous clan transformations, some of whom were fully transformed. I saw rows of deformed skulls, jagged teeth, dripping claws, and glowing eyes. We were outnumbered.

"Fryse!" Kamala called out. I could feel the silent thrum of her will pulsing out into reality. The sewer water began to churn and warp, then it rushed past us, turning into a wave the size of a school bus. The wave crashed into the group of Nosferatu, then I heard a sharp crackle as the wave immediately froze over, encasing the dozen or so in a thick sheet of ice.

Some of them broke out, of course. I could tell they were under the influence of the Beast, judging by their jerky, inhuman movements. I quickly took my axe out of my satchel and stepped forward, swinging the silver blade at one right before he made contact with Kamala, beheading him and turning him into ash right then and there. Another lunged at me, but I bought my axe around, cleaving the vampire right through his midsection and sending him flying. More and more broke out of the sheet of ice, and some came from behind us. I lifted my arm, channeling my will into my axe.

"Incircum!" I called out.

Throwing my axe, it was set alight with a blue-white aura. It sliced right through one of the Nosferatu attacking us, then began to curve in mid air, circling us three times and slicing through all of the Nosferatu in its path. This forced a couple of them to fall back. My axe flew back into my hand, and I followed up by slamming my axe into the ground, channeling my power into the water, shouting, "Conlisus!"

Lightning went through my axe into the water, spreading through quickly and shocking the majority of the Nosferatu surrounding us. I willed the lightning to not touch Kamala and I, which created a circle around us in the water that the lightning wouldn't touch. I saw several of the Nosferatu turn into ash and several more back away. I kept the current running through the water until they were out of sight. Once I was sure we were both safe, I pulled my axe out of the water, gripping it cautiously in case any surprises were incoming.

"Good work, neonate." Kamala said. She sounded almost...impressed? "We'll have to be a little more cautious going forward. It seems the sewers are crawling with Brother Kanker's progeny."

As we went deeper into the sewers, I could tell we were getting close to something. The walls were covered in a thick grime that collected into nests that slimy rats crawled in and out of. More and more Nosferatu would pour out from the shadows and flood at us, but Kamala and I would take them down with relative ease. Even though this is the most action I'd gotten in months, it seemed I was taking to mowing other vampires down easily.

On the other side of the tunnel we were walking through, I heard flashing lights and saw gunfire. Ahead, Damsel was firing an automatic rifle into the darkness, with what appeared to be a giant panther right near him - Tanner, I presumed. An entire horde of Nosferatu, each under frenzy, were running after them and Damsel was just mowing them down. Kamala and I took off in a sprint and, once I was close enough, I made a full swing into one of the shovelheads, turning him into ash. Damsel was moving back at unnatural speeds, reloading so quickly that she was a blur. It was a split second before she was ready to open fire again.

"Out of the fucking way!" She barked. I complied quickly, throwing myself and Kamala to the side as Damsel sprayed-and-prayed the crowd of ten or fifteen fledgeling Nosferatu that were after us. When she had to reload again, there was a vampire that lunged at us from the massive cloud of ash that came as a result of so many dying so fast, but Tanner caught him in midair, his unnaturally sharp teeth and claws digging into the vampiric flesh like butter, killing him immediately.

"What. The. Fuck?!" Damsel growled, slinging her AK onto her shoulder. "You fuckers were supposed to text us when you got a lead! The only reason we're down here is because Tanner caught your scent!"

I chuckled awkwardly. "It um...slipped my mind?"

"It 'slipped your mind'?" Damsel asked, incredulous. "Next time those fucking shovelheads crawl out of their rat holes, it's going to 'slip my mind' not to shoot your ass too!"

"Enough." Kamala ordered. "Tanner, can you get Brother Kanker's scent?"

Tanner morphed back into his humanoid form which, now that I thought about it, was looking less and less "humanoid". He crouched down to the ground, not seeming to mind the dirty water to his feet. He looked up and sniffed the air, then looked around for a bit. Once it seemed he was satisfied with just sniffing the air, he stood up and nodded.

"Just down the way over there." He said. With how his voice sounded, I understood why he didn't speak much. It was somewhere between a low, resonating purr and a growl. Definitely inhuman. "He turned the tunnels into his nest. His progeny are crawling all over the place, hidden in the darkness."

Kamala sighed deeply. "Of course, it can never be simple, can it?"

"Should we call backup?" I asked.

Both Damsel and Kamala glared at me. I'd gotten the sense that I said something very wrong. Maybe I underestimated both of their prides. It would make sense that neither of them would want to accept outside help, perhaps for different but similar reasons.

"Fine." I mumbled. "Just wanted to help."

"Onward then?" Tanner asked Kamala.

She looked down through the tunnel. In the distance, a light could be seen, perhaps a part of the waterway where the light wasn't cut off. At the very least, would indicate we're moving in the right direction.

"Mhm. Onward." Kamala said.

I had severely underestimated just how many Nosferatu can fit in a small space. The sewers were nowhere near spacious enough for half of these people to be here, I was convinced, yet here they were, attacking us in the dozens. We managed to mow them down fairly easily since they were just shovelheads with a couple of nights worth of experience and probably no fucking idea what they were or what was going on. In a way, I felt sorry for them. I didn't feel sorry enough for them that I wasn't going to cut them down, however.

"Fulmen!" I called out as I threw my axe. As if charged with electricity, tendrils of pure energy burst from the weapon as it flew down the tunnel, shocking many of the vampires just enough to turn them into ash. I recalled the axe back to my hand and swung my axe right at a wolf that one of the Nosferatu shovelheads summoned, keeping it from lunging at Damsel. We were all back-to-back. Damsel was, at this point, more or less out of ammunition, which forced her to fall back on her combat knife.

"Knuse!" Kamala roared, and an arctic wind blew through the entire tunnel with sharp shards of ice carried with it. It blew forward quick enough to throw the shards straight through some of the shovelheads, killing them instantly. Others were flash-frozen and then shattered by the winds tossing them into a wall. With Kamala's spell, we were clear in the tunnel. We were also low on blood. I could feel the Beast's hunger bubbling within me.

Distributing some of my blood packs to each of them, we all stopped for a drink. Those were the last of my blood packs, which meant that I would have to cool it on the thaumaturgy for the night. That wasn't a good start, especially since feeding off of anyone in the streets could end up pretty disastrous. While the blood plague wasn't fatal to Kindred, it could be carried to them, and the only known cure at this point was death. I thought offhandedly that LaCroix would just love for me to get infected, since he seemed to be itching for an excuse to kill me these nights.

We advanced onward through the sewer tunnels, cutting down more legions of Brother Kanker's sewer rats. With how many he'd embraced, it was a wonder that I didn't see anything about the homeless in town missing. Was the city really that apathetic?

We eventually came upon a room that looked like a maintenance shaft. The sewer water was relatively clean and ankle-deep, with five pillars on either side of us moving all the way to the end of the room. While the water was clean, the room itself wasn't. My nose was assaulted by the smell of death and decay. The walls were painted with blood and waste, like some kind of twisted art gallery. Bodies were torn in half and strung all over the place, hung from the pillars like Christmas decorations. A garbage fire was lit, and some poor bastard was crucified on the graffitied wall behind it. Tanner, Kamala, Damsel, and I moved deeper into the room. Once we were a few feet from the crucified homeless man, Brother Kanker appeared out of thin air.

He was hideous, even by Nosferatu standards. His skin was gray and abnormally pulpy, as if it were ripped off of his skeleton, put in a blender, and grafted back onto him. It was covered in scars, tumors, and boils that were pulsating and leaking puss. His skull was misshapen, more like a goblin's than a human's, and his eyes were a deep, piss yellow. His mouth was a half open maw because his teeth were too long for him to fully close them. His hands weren't hands, but long, bony talons dripping with blood.

"You lot found your way down here, did you?" Brother Kanker asked, his tone dripping with malice. "Following the smell of entrails and rotting flesh? Looking for a free meal, little bloodsucker? There's meat galore in my kingdom."

"This is fucked up." Damsel hissed. "What the fuck are you?!"

"I am Brother Kanker...High Lord of the diseased halls of the dead. Look around you! The blood, the bloated bodies, the maggot-ridden mortal shells… These are signs, the coming of a new age!" The vampire replied, his tone absolutely pregnant with delusion.

"...Right." I said. "Why are you feeding on the homeless?"

"They are weak, sick, hopeless. I bring them new purpose." Brother Kanker said. "They are vessels of darkness, carrying the diseased truth in their veins."

That seemed to send Damsel into a rage. Before Kamala or I could stop her, she blurred forward, baring her teeth like a frenzied cheetah, her eyes wide with anger. She lunged at Brother Kanker and, to my amazement, Brother Kanker caught her without the slightest bit of trouble, his clawed hand wrapping around her throat. He lifted her off of the ground with minimal effort, the electrical aura that signified Potence forming around him, tendrils of energy whipping off of his body.

"Y-You sick fuck!" Damsel choked. "You only feed on the helpless to j-justify your s-sociopathic urges!"

Brother Kanker threw her like a ragdoll. Like a speeding bullet, Damsel came flying towards us. Kamala did a strange hand gesture as if she were catching a softball, running forward and shouting, "Langsom!"

Damsel's velocity slowed, but she didn't stop. I caught her before she hit the ground, carrying her bridal style. She looked up at me for a split second before her features contorted in anger again.

"L-Let go of me!" She shrieked, and I did just that, dropping her. She plopped right down into the water.

"Asshole." She grunted.

"We are all monsters, fellow Cainites." Brother Kanker continued, spreading his arms as if giving a sermon. "We are all obligated to accept the nature and hungers of the Beast...and sate them accordingly."

"We do accept them." I said. "We live with it night to night, just like you do. Difference between us and you is that we don't let it rule us!"

The Nosferatu sneered, lowering his head and glaring at us in a gaze that looked absolutely feral.

"Is that your final answer?" He asked.

"This was never a dialogue." Kamala said, clenching her fists. "This is your final night, rat."

Brother Kanker burst out laughing, leaning back slightly. He was deluded, absolutely insane. Whatever was left of his humanity was clearly long gone. Finally, he stopped laughing, and he pulled out a military knife from his belt strap.

"Come, then!" He shouted. "Join the disciples who have gathered here, floating in their own putrescence! I will show you the mysteries of our Brotherhood as I feast on your flesh!"

Then, like a pin dropping in a minefield, the entire room erupted into chaos. The lights went dark, and for a second I thought he was pulling out something like Obtenebration. The truth was much scarier. Swarms of thousands of rats burst forth from the ground, locusts and wasps came from the vents, covering the minimal light in the room. Pure pestilence flooded into the area, glowing eyes, sharp fangs, and diseased claws all coming towards us, all under the command of Brother Kanker.