As Far As You Know
Teasers
Case #0138
Detroit Investigation by assigned archon, Codename “Cricket”
Case #0138 Date: 10/30/2000
Summary: Investigation into suspected breach of the First Tradition, along eastern Cass Street.
Report:
Rumor found its way to me via the local Brujah that there is a mortal speaking with the clanless crowd down in the second-tier racks along Cass. The guy must be some kind of shadow-walker because he vanishes every time the Brujah happen to find him. Nobody's got a good look at him so far, he moved too fast. Obviously some kind of Sabbat spy. I was selected into finding out what was going on.
The official jobs are the best, that's for sure. Half of the time, the boss will actually tell you the truth with what's going on and what they want you to do about it. I was hoping this was one of those times. Just find out who it was, why he was breaching the Masque and tell the new sheriff Mendelson so he could deal with the spy in question or use him for blackmail material on a rival; whatever. Simple, right? So it seemed.
I waited three nights down around the dive bars and crack houses before I caught the scent. The Sabbat’s tricks I know kept the kine from freaking at seeing a guy stepping through shadows and walking among them. That was a good start. Of course, that fell apart when a torn-up up guy with a face like a plastic surgery accident slammed right into me from behind, babbling about them "being after him". At least I could pump him for information, so I dragged him into a smoky apartment upstairs between two families that didn’t believe in showers, judging by the smell. I knocked out the inhabitant before he could get a good look at us and asked my bloody friend what was up.
Apparently a Sabbat gang was following him, had been since he crossed over the river with them. Half killing him and twisting his face up wasn't enough, they wanted to rip his limbs off before draining him, dump his ugly trunk in a school for the kids to find the next day and laugh all the way home to Sabbat-land. I asked him why he didn't leave town. "I have my reasons," he said. I decided not to probe, and let the guy on his way. Good thing I did, because a minute later two guys looking like the kind of punks that Sid Viscous would reject came to the door, asked with all the politeness of hired leg breakers if I had seen a deformed guy, kind of beat up. One of their thralls, so they said. I pointed them the other way, and they half turned when the floor opened under their feet. They were pulled howling into the darkness right before my eyes.
I jumped out onto the fire escape, taking the time to bulk up. Say what you like, I was in no mood to be dumped into some Sabbat freakshow. I followed a hunch after the bloody guy and sure enough, there he was, getting into a car on the corner and looking a lot better. Too predictable for my tastes. He thought he'd got away, but I followed on the wing and headed him off at the door to a warehouse. This time when he ran into me I'd had time to brace. Manacling him with my left hand, I asked him what he was doing. I was honestly curious, plus the boss wanted to know.
It turns out that he was an information broker for the Venetians a couple years back. They asked him questions, he gave them answers and didn't get his legs broken or his soul sucked out. Seemed a fair deal to him at the time, until Camarilla people turned to him for information. He thought he could play two sides against the other. He got greedy, and the Family doesn't like people who get greedy with their money. He was brought to the side of the warehouse I found him at and suffered a near-fatal accident courtesy of a two-by-four injection through the ribcage and left to burn.
When he woke up, he was all alone, with the stake in his hand. The first thing he did was set up a group of breathers to be his bodyguards and track down his clanless friends for him. At first the licks didn’t expect to be approached by mortals that knew their names, and a some didn’t come back. Finally though, a few of the caitiff joined up and they formed their own little brood to keep the Sabbat away from the Cass neighborhood. Since then there's been a weird kind of war going down that nobody that hasn't seen it would know about. The punk Sabbat keep trying to eat my mark here, and in return he sends his breathers to burn them in their sleep. Not something we want to carry on happening.
The only problem is that I can see it in his eyes. The desire to be rid of these guys is burning back there and it's not his beast that's making him think that. He honestly can't stand to be in the same place as them but he can’t or won’t go to the Prince for help either. So he leads his vigilante operation, does his best to run the Sabbat out of town while trying to save his own clanless anarch skin. He's marked for death by everyone.
I found out, when I was heading to the Cathedral with him, that he had never been presented. And he'd never been through a frenzy. Either he was way younger than he claimed, or was descended from the sheriff’s clan. I tried to explain the concept to him, tried to get through to his head the kind of problems he could have caused sending mortals to kill Sabbat. He didn't listen. All he could think of to say is "Serves them right."
Unfortunately, further questioning was cut short when we arrived at the church. Those places give me the creeps, even when they aren’t full of lunatics, but Tommy-boy walked right in. That’s when Mendelson and his priests jumped us. Assuming the suspect to be my thrall, they tried freeing him. Unfortunately, there were several more of them than was necessary and before I could get them to listen to me the suspect was given the opportunity to escape. Perhaps thinking that he was in enough trouble already, he just stood there while I informed the bishop who he was, and how I did not appreciated being assaulted and having my thumb bitten off for performing his job for him. The priests locked the suspect in chains without protest, and the sheriff dismissed me from his presence.
I sincerely hope His Eminent Justicar will reassign me elsewhere once this symposium is over.
Stryck Wiki