EQ Mafia Day 4: A Cold Day in Hell

Verileah stormed into the bar like a mad woman. Her hair, normally neatly braided, was a snarled mess of wild strands and matted clumps. She wore a black band around her arm and her eyes glowed with blazing fire.

“Bartender! I believe you have a note for me.”

“Er…begging your pardon, miss, er, Guardian…but that note is meant for the one they call the sheriff.”

“You will give the note to me or you will die.”

“I’m told I’ll die if I give the note to anyone –but- this sheriff! Killed by the kinsman of Brujah, I’ll be!”

Verileah drew out a small, sharp dagger. Her expression never changed as she held the knife to the bartender’s throat. She spoke in a strangely calm, quiet voice.

“Which of us, bartender, has a knife to your head? The Kinsman of Brujah? Or the Guardian of New Taanan?”

The bartender apparently saw Verileah’s point, and fished the note out from among his many pockets and handed it to her quickly. Still maintaining her cold expression, she pulled the dagger away and shoved it into a leather scabbard.

“Brujah’s kinsmen are being held in a facility known only to the Guardians until such a time as we see fit to release them. We feared they would wish to avenge Brujah after last night.”

The Bartender seemed calmed by this news, though he let out only the smallest sigh to show it. The Bartender did not wish to find out which way Verileah’s mood would swing next, nor did he wish to look into her cold, dead eyes any longer. As much as he wanted to find some excuse to run to the kitchens and hide until she had left, he could not contain his curiosity regarding the mysterious letter Brujah had left in his care. He kept his eyes on the counter as he cleaned it, hardly aware that the bar already gleamed and indeed was beginning to wear slightly by the time Verileah was done reading the note.

At this point, not very many things would have surprised the Bartender. He was an old man, and had seen much in his days. Still, his very blood chilled and he shivered violently when he heard Verileah’s insane cackling laughter as she threw the note back to him. All of those listening in the tavern lowered their heads and backed further into the shadows. Verileah stopped laughing abruptly as her face snapped back to her former blank expression. She spoke to them all in a loud, flat voice.

“You people deserve each other. All you seem to want is more death. I have half a mind to release the remainder of the Fanatical 6 with orders to burn this entire damned tavern to the ground. Even as you die you scheme and plot to kill more, and who among you knows who is innocent and who is guilty?”

With that, the Guardian spun on her heels and walked out the door. Her hands shook and her chin trembled, indeed her entire body felt exhausted from that display of control. How she had wanted to rage and throw things and break glasses and scream and sob! As she walked back to her quarters, hot tears streamed down her cheeks.

She wiped them away quickly enough when she heard a scream coming from the tavern she had just left. For half a moment, she wanted to keep walking away. She wanted to let them at each other, to do as she had sworn she would and wash her hands of the matter. But her oaths as a Guardian went deeper than things said in a passion, and she ran back to the tavern as swiftly as possible.

The scene was becoming all too familiar. A dark elf’s body, spread out on the floor with a crowd gathered around it. This time, Verileah recognized the body as belonging to Kiltheranos, and sighed heavily. Verileah could see no wound on the body save the mysterious bleeding scar he had carried as long as she knew him. It was only when she walked around to his other side that she saw the sticky dried blood, apparently coming from a grievous wound to the back of his head. It was clear that someone had struck a terrible blow and then dragged his body to the freezer of the kitchens to be discovered this morning by the bartender, who may well be having the worst day of his life. After looking more closely to ensure her suspicions were correct, and checking to see if any evidence was left behind, Verileah went through the motions of getting Kiltheranos’s body removed and the Tavern cleaned.