Activity Log, February 8-9, 2001 Over the past month, the subjects have gathered each week for court, but they have engaged in few activities of note. This seems to have been quite generally true, from what my other sources have observed. Possibly a period of settling-in after the turmoil of the war and the weeks just after? I would have imagined there would be more jockeying for status, but perhaps it looks ill to be too aggressive in pursuing such matters. In any case, there was little of interest. I was able to delegate the observations to Elizabeth, leaving me some time to collate and study the evidence I have gathered thus far. However, when Elysium locations were announced this week at court -- the Guggenheim for Isabella, a place called The Music Room for a Kindred named Hope, and Pitt's for Pitt -- I surmised that social activities in the city might be resuming. That night, I chose to begin monitoring the subjects personally again. It is fortunate I did so, as they have been once again engaged in the larger picture of vampiric society, and I do not believe that Elizabeth could accurately document such fascinating events. After court, the subjects gathered at the World Trade Center, as seems to be customary for them. Apparently Ari is acquainted with the owner of the restaurant, so they can use the back room without many questions being asked, despite Ari's absence. Unfortunately for them, Julia's abrupt arrival moments after theirs garnered them some unwanted attention. She slammed through the door and attacked the group -- I was quite impressed that she managed to restrain herself sufficiently not to hurt them, considering the degree of her fury. She began to shout at them about how they had betrayed her trust and told others about the failure of the battle with Mobea. Evidently the entire city has been laughing about this for some time, and she was not even aware of it. She seemed most upset because of the consequences of their actions -- it seems that Jan must be looking quite the fool, and the Archons appear very weak as well -- but she also demonstrated anger that they broke their word to her. She appeared to be targeting Parker and Ethan, and seemed quite upset that Nathaniel was not present to accept his share of the blame. Parker admitted telling Cliff and Ari about the matter, but claimed that none of them had told any others. Julia told them that the Nosferatu might easily have been spying on them, if they were truly discussing private matters in such a public place at such an easy to discover time. After Julia left, Ethan called one of the Nosferatu and shared with the group what he learned: someone had indeed been spying on their conversation, and he deemed it likely that the Nosferatu had then sold the information gained. They immediately decided that they should find a safer place to talk, so they went to Parker's apartment -- quite an unkempt place, I must say. There they searched for lurking Nosferatu and found none. During the discussion that followed, they realized that none of them had seen Nathaniel for some time, and they would like to gain the results of his strange insight into matters. After looking for Nathaniel in St. Patrick's Cathedral and at Pitt's, they learned that Angel had given Nathaniel a studio and had been sponsoring his art. Sophia was at the studio, admiring Nathaniel's work -- evidently a childe of hers has been posing for him, I imagine as her way of taking some credit for Nathaniel's inspiration. I am not certain why she chooses to play such foolish games. The subjects decided, however, that this model of Nathaniel's might know something about his current whereabouts. They repaired to a theater called "Center Stage" where a beautiful young woman was performing quite an enthralling dance. I cannot put my finger on what it reminded me of, but I was quite moved despite not actually being there. I believe that I will take Elizabeth to one of the actual performances; I have seen far too little of this enormous city with my own eyes, and it would do the girl good to get some culture. After the rehearsal ended, the subjects went backstage and spoke with the woman who, perhaps unsurprisingly, was vampiric in nature as well. She told them that her name was Hannah Williams, that she had been in the city even before the assault (but a Sabbat infiltrator would hardly be so explicit!), that Sophia had taken her under her wing, and that she knew about another piece of work that Nathaniel had done outside the studio, somewhere in Queens. After speaking alone with Ethan for a moment, she decided to accompany them to the installation site to help them find Nathaniel. This site could not precisely be called artwork as far as I am concerned, though I make no pretenses to being a member of the avant-garde. It was an ordinary house in Eastern Queens which had one wall entirely blown off; the entire interior was bare but painted with elaborately ordinary scenes of home life. Stephen and Jamie were examining the work when the group arrived. Stephen seemed quite friendly and Jamie suspicious, but they had indeed seen Nathaniel more recently than the others had; they had been in the area two days ago when they heard him explode the house. Jamie said that the police had come, put up police tape, and gone. She hypothesized that they were in the pay of whichever elders were sponsoring Nathaniel's art not to interfere further. The subjects seemed rather disappointed that Stephen and Jamie could not help them further, and decided to split up for the rest of the evening and meet the following night. It seemed that the rest did them good, as they had the idea of checking Russian Orthodox churches for Vassily; they thought he might haven there, or at least spend time there, and Ethan told the others that he had learned Nathaniel was likely with his sire. Cliff, Hannah, Ethan and Parker visited a Russian Orthodox church on the Upper East Side. They entered the church, which was lit mostly by racks of flaming candles. Oddly enough, Cliff seemed rather afraid of even entering the room and hung back by the door. I know that the vampires are affected by fire, but I had not thought their fears to be that extreme. I must investigate his nature more closely, indeed. Vassily and Nathaniel were in the front of the church, praying. Nathaniel asked his friends to leave, claiming that he was there of his own free will; Vassily did not even intervene. However, the group refused to allow the matter to rest -- quite rightly, I believe -- and argued with Nathaniel, trying to convince him to merely talk to them alone for a few minutes to resolve matters. Nathaniel seemed quite torn and upset, but decided to remain with Vassily instead of coming with the group. The mortal priest present attempted to calm the situation, but in the face of his failure, decided simply to hurry out of the way and into another room. Hannah followed him, likely to be certain he was not calling the police. At this point, what I believe happened is simply that Parker lost his temper and attacked Vassily. Nathaniel stepped in front of his sire to take the blow, and as Parker's claws sank deep into his friend's belly, Vassily let out a howl of rage and despair. Parker immediately looked terrified and fled the church, as Ethan tried to drag Nathaniel away from his sire. Vassily continued to howl, causing Ethan to have a similar reaction to Parker, but Ethan managed to pull Nathaniel to the door of the church as he fled. Cliff, who huddled by the door, was affected shortly afterward, and joined the others just outside the church door. Vassily appeared not to move while the group held a short argument. Nathaniel asked the others to leave him be, not to hurt Vassily, and to let him return to his sire for further teaching in his duties. The others now seemed ready to allow him to do so, and Nathaniel reentered the church. Hannah had left the side room with the priest by this point (though later events would show that he had indeed been successful in calling the police) and attacked Vassily with gunfire; the end result was that she seemed to have the same terrified reaction that the others did. I must study further this fascinating ability of Vassily's, though from its potency I imagine I would not like to study it first-hand. Fortunately I have managed to obtain the victims of an earlier use of his powers, who are only now beginning to return to sanity. If only that fool of a Tremere had not wiped their memories, I would have been able to learn so much more! In any case, Vassily and Nathaniel were able to use the subjects' temporary incapacitation to flee out the back of the church. Ethan and Cliff climbed to the roof of the church to see if they could track them, while Parker fled and Hannah attempted to pursue the two Malkavians. The police arrived only moments later, in time to see Hannah carrying two guns at the scene of a purported crime; I imagine this will likely not be good for the Masquerade. Parker attempted to distract the policemen by firing at their vehicles from a distance, but his efforts were counteracted by Ethan's leaping from the roof of the church into the middle of the group of policemen, while baring his fangs in a quite terrifying manner. The policemen fled; Ethan and Hannah fed together from some of the innocent bystanders in the affair, and Cliff remained behind to make certain the individuals involved survived. (He seemed quite upset at Ethan and Hannah; had they deliberately tried to kill potential witnesses?) All of the subjects seemed extremely upset and distracted, both by Vassily's maddening presence and by the probable fate of their friend, and in this mood they separated for the evening. Transcribed and maintained Elizabeth Kent