(OOC: Post mostly complete. It's good as-is, I suppose, but if no posts follow in a day or two, I'll edit the second part so Marcus actually gets moving ;-)
Khalidah looks down upon her prey from the rooftop of a neighbouring building, patiently waiting while he closed up shop. Her Lord and Master, Marcus Medullis Priscus, had heard a rather disturbing rumour. One of his numerous connections had informed him of a Human plot to cure vampirism - as though it were some form of disease. The man she now watched was an alchemist and, so Marcus' source informed him, a member of a group of Humans who sought to eradicate the 'vampire threat' through chemical means.
Earlier in the evening, she had confirmed the Human's intention, intercepting a message intended for the man by one of his co-conspirators. That man was currently bound in a cellar, no doubt anxiously awaiting his captor's return. And return she shall, but not before picking up another guest...
The vampire drops silently to the alley, her bare feet touching the earth with nary a sound. Pulling her veil tighter, the vampiress listens as he fastens the lock to his door and makes his way down the street. Staying deep within the shadows, she stalks her prey...
Having done her research, the skilled assassin slinks ahead of the hapless Human and slips into his home well ahead of his arrival. With all the patience of a being that has walked the earth for a millenium and a half, she stands just inside the door, eyes closed and arms relaxed at her sides. Finally, the door opens, as do the girl's eyes. The inhabitant of the humble abode closes the door behind him, and slams back against it as he turns around and sees the silent sentinel standing before him.
"Who are you?" he asks, more outraged than concerned. That would change.
"My identity is irrelevant," answers Khalidah, in a perfect facsimile of her victim's native Italian. In her line of work, fluency in a multitude of languages was a vital skill - doubly so for this particular language, as it had been the lingua franca of her Master's base of operations for centuries. "Suffice it to say, you are of interest to me. I require an audience, but not here."
"What the-" the man never finishes his protestation. In the blink of an eye, his assailant strikes him hard in the temple, rendering him unconscious and sending him to the floor in a heap. The vampiress takes up the body and, quickly and silently as she came, takes leave of the house. Moving faster than any Human can see, she covers the quarter-mile's distance to her safe-house's cellar in mere moments.
Her earlier victim is awake, his complaints, muffled by a rag stuffed and secured in his mouth, grow silent as his captor enters the room, another victim in tow. "I believe you know this man?" She smiles as the messenger looks away from the alchemist. Wasting no more time, the assassin strips the Human of his clothing, as she had the other, and secures him to a table, with leather strips binding him at ankles, knees, waist, wrists, chest, and forehead.
The man's body properly secured, Khalidah slaps him gently to rouse him. "What?" the man moans as he comes to, disoriented and obviously unaware of his predicament. "Where am I?"
"Your location is irrelevant," responds his captor, and the memory of the assault suddenly comes back to the alchemist. He tries to rise, of course, but is stilled by his restraints. "As I mentioned before, I require an audience with you. Tell me," Khalidah whispers, as she cuts the man's cheek with a fingernail, sharp as a shard of glass, "are the rumours true? Do you plot against my people?"
"Y-your people?" the man replies, not quite as panicked as the messenger had been, but still quite terrified. The vampiress carefully collects a few drops of the man's blood and sets them between two thin glass discs. Eyes wide in confusion, the man asks, "Who a-are you?"
"Who I am is irrelevant." answers the assassin, as she carefully sets the blood sample on a table beside the one she had collected from the messenger. "We are discussing what I am, and what you intended to do about it. Now tell me, do you seek an elixir to destroy my people?"
"N-no!" the alchemist cries, growing ever more terrified. "I-I wish only to h-help you! T-to c-clean your b-blood of the p-plague that infects it!" As he speaks, his gaze turns to the table where the blood samples lie. Alongside them, he could make out the glint of metal, the form of which he could not quite make out from his position.
Khalidah follows his gaze and takes up one of the objects, revealing it to be a wicked blade, quite sharp in appearance, and the man has little doubt as to what she intends to do with it, as he soils himself on the table. "Disgusting Human," she whispers calmly, wrinkling her nose at the malodorous stench. "You cannot clean that which is not dirty, Alchemist."
The woman sets the knife back on the table, and removes her veil and hijab. These she sets in the corner of the room and, as she continues to undress, addresses the poor sod that sought to 'help' her kind. "My kind have been around for over three thousand years, Human. Did you know that?" She removes her robe and carefully folds the garment as her victim marginally shakes his head, apparently unable to speak.
"I myself have been around nearly half that time, and do you know what I have seen?" Her blouse and hose follows, as again the man shakes his head. "I have seen disease, death, famine. So many afflictions assaulting the Human race. You are the ones that require help, Alchemist. And not from me and mine."
Stripped of her garments to avoid the stain of blood, Khalidah crosses the room again and takes up the knife that had so profoundly frightened the man. Terrified now more than ever, the Alchemist closes his eyes and begins to pray. "He will not save you, Human. Not in this life, nor the hereafter. Under the right circumstances, you may have had the opportunity to relish this One Life for centuries. Unfortunately, you chose to walk a different path. For that, your life ends here."
At that, she plunges the blade deep into the Alchemist's chest, eliciting an abbreviated scream that she knows will not reverberate outside the walls of her reinforced chamber of Hell. The messenger on the next table closes his eyes and begins weeping as he contemplates his own end. By the morning, the gruesome task of dismembering the pair of scheming Humans would be complete, and their exsanguinated remains disposed of in the River Arno.
"It is done," whispers Khalidah, standing in the shadows of her Master's bedchamber. Marcus nods in silent acknowledgement, and his assassin takes her leave. It is just before dawn now, and the Gaul spends his remaining hour contemplating the goings-on of their Human adversaries. He and his coven were not diametrically opposed to Humankind, but such impudence as seeking a 'cure' for their condition would not be tolerated.
"Does she know of such plans?" Marcus wonders, his thoughts turning to his old friend and master of the largest coven of their kind. "Perhaps on the morrow I shall update her on these... developments..."
