01: A call for help

Zack has work to do.

Zack wakes up. The sound of the train, screeching against the rails, irritates his awakening self. The abandoned warehouse is humid and damp smelling. The ceiling of his would-be bedroom has mold spots.

Zack sits up slowly, reddish eyes studying his surroundings. He ate well last night. She didn't fight back. But as he had gone to sleep in this place, he had gotten a text from Pen, his progenitor, asking to meet as soon as he woke up. So, there was that.

He stands up. His back doesn't ache, and he kind of misses that from the old days. The warm days. He still is a tallish half latino, with short, smooth and abundant black hair. He still has a good jaw, long nose and brown eyes. He's still fit and in his late 30s -- forever.

Zack peers out the glassless window. The night appears calm. After donning a dark blue denim jacket and pants, with his gear and running shoes, he walks down the stairs and through filthy rooms with graffitied walls, ancient discarded condoms and other trash.

He takes a taxi and arrives at Pen's estate.

Pen. Penelope Black. His vampiric progenitor, but also his former academic mentor. The one who saw the signs. The one who snuck into his apartment one night, and stopped his self-inflicted death by a merciful kiss of fangs. The one who now commanded him in the ranks of the Cassandrans.

Zack knocks on her door after paying the cabbie with his meager change. The oak door opens to old money, the maid asks no questions, nor does she look him in the eyes.

Penelope is an old lady. Was an old lady. Now she was just a wrinkly, yet still attractive vampire. Before her Embrace, she would have been in her seventies. With enduring white hair and wearing a black dress, that in eternal mourning for her husband, she sat by a posh sofa watching the flames.

"I used to enjoy the warmth." she says as he opens the door to her bourgeois living room. "Now I just honor the memory of that feeling, and that is alright." she adds, before turning her red eyes to Zack.

"You look healthy, my child." she says with a faint whisper of approval, "I have a job for you. The lycans have lost one of their own. A young one. Normally that wouldn't mean much, but the corpse has been drained of blood. The Queen herself wants this solved, and fast, and us Cassandrans must deliver."

The Queen. The one who must pay one night. Zack's jaw tenses, something that does not escape to Pen's unblinking gaze. But she makes no comment on it.

"This needs to be done, child. Swear upon blood, now, that you will solve the murder so that there is justice."

Zack does not hesitate. He bites on the heel of his palm with his fangs, the sting distant and half memory.

"This Elegy I swear." And he shakes Pen's veiny, wrinkled hand.

Sing an Elegy
Heart 5, +1 Connection
6, 10 - MISS

Pen then gives him the address of the victim in Suburbia's outskirts, then returns her gaze to the fire. There is nothing else to be said. Zack walks out alone. The night is young.