Activity Log, May 14, 2001 After over a month of relative inactivity, I was glad to see the subjects take the initiative to gather together once again, spending an evening at Hope's club, The Music Room. I had been afraid that their decisive victory over their enemy Richard Mason might have sated their desire for advancement and safety, but it quickly became clear this was not the case. A number of the subjects pursued their own agendas upon arrival at the club. Jo approached her sire, Clay, who seemed to have little interest in her. He said he wished to release her, but the Prince insisted he take some time to teach her. He claimed to be glad that her friends were teaching her, and that he didn't want to infringe on her independence. Truly, I am surprised at how cavalier his attitude toward the childe was, given the effort that he and Jacob went to. I am certain that obtaining the right to sire in the face of Julia's disapproval must not have been an easy thing. The others conversed quietly until a young Asian man in a green sweatshirt tapped Hannah on the shoulder. As she turned, he struck her hard across her face (provoking not a few startled gasps from those recalling the prohibition against violence in Elysium), and delivered a message not to feed in the territory of the Kindred known to them as Slant. While Hannah's fury raged, her friends prevented her from attacking the young mortal and breaking the laws of the Kindred, most fortunately for her. Fortunately, Alice approached the group, possibly with the intent of heading off any accidental breaches of the law. She gathered the group and asked them whether they would help her locate Richard Mason. It seemed to her that he had disappeared without a trace, and that questions were being asked from above about his whereabouts. The group seemed a bit nervous, but claimed (perfectly truthfully, considering Prince Catherine's manipulation of their minds) to know nothing. Alice seemed to believe them, but was rather disappointed that they would not aid her. Hannah seemed distracted by Alice's approach, and Parker seized the opportunity to continue distracting her. He brought the group over to Stanislaw, who was sitting rather disconsolately alone at a table against the wall. Parker and Hannah inquired what was wrong, and Stanislaw explained to them that his childe, Larry, had fallen under the spell of Sophia Gagnon. (Cross-referencing with my files indicates that Miss Gagnon, the well-known stage star, is the sire of Ethan Cypress and the adoptive sire of Hannah Williams, both subjects. I am not sure whether this is significant, though I imagine that very little is left to chance among the Kindred.) The group sympathized with their friend for some time; Sophia had arrived at various parties with Larry on a quite literal leash, and all Stanislaw's attempts to have his childe see reason failed abysmally. The group attempted to help their friend find ways to free his childe of Sophia's unnatural influence. Jo attempted to shame Sophia out of her manipulation, but failed quite impressively. Parker suggested a more risky but more direct solution - that the group pay her a visit at her penthouse in the Four Seasons and use physical force to retrieve the errant Larry. Stanislaw and his friend Kate both agreed to help with this plan, though I must admit it seemed rather rash to me. However, given Stanislaw's usual good sense, I decided not to intervene just yet. After retrieving their weapons, and picking up Parker's dog Max and his cat Sugar, the group went to the Four Seasons. Hannah, Parker, Jo, Kate and Stanislaw were present; Cliff was not, while Ethan had already departed for Seattle. They managed to get into the hotel with only slight trouble; the security guards attempted to stop them, but once in the elevator they tied up the guards at gunpoint. Shortly afterward they also disabled the security camera in the elevator, though I am concerned that their images may have been captured. When they reached the penthouse, Parker pushed the emergency stop on the elevator and led the group forward. A servant of Sophia's opened the door to them, but was immediately overwhelmed by a rush of five bodies into the room (seven, I suppose, including the animals). The animals began to wreak havoc on her fine furnishings, aided by Jo and Hannah, who smashed anything that came into their reach. Parker, Kate and Stanislaw forged forward to the bedroom, where Sophia and Larry were in dishabille. Larry seemed rather upset that the group had interrupted his private moment with his mistress, but not nearly as upset as Sophia, who raged at them for invading her haven. Sophia backed away from the group; Stanislaw and Kate immediately leaped forward to disable Larry and quickly began to haul him away from the scene, protesting all the way. The subjects, however, showed a bit more spunk and attempted to engage Sophia in combat. With lightning speed, however, Sophia grabbed Hannah and tossed her from the penthouse balcony. Hannah managed to cling to the balcony railing as Sophia lunged at Parker to give him the same treatment. Parker allowed her to grapple him and lunged forward himself, taking them both over the railing. Twisting in mid-air, Sophia caught the ledge of the rooftop, while Jo grabbed Parker from behind and prevented him from falling to the street. Unfortunately, the thrashing bodies knocked Hannah from her perch and she began to fall rather rapidly. Sophia immediately began to climb back onto the balcony, this time clearly in a hissing, cold rage. Jo smashed at her fingers with anything that came to hand, giving Parker just enough time to draw his gun and send two shots through Sophia's arm. Sophia released the ledge and pinwheeled backward through the night in a tatter of white silk and lace. At this point both Sophia and Hannah were falling through hundreds of feet of space. If they were to land on the concrete ground of the alley below, who could tell what would ensue? If Hannah were to be incapacitated, I would lose a great deal of research effort; if Sophia were to die, the entire group would be killed. For my research, I had no other choice. I arranged a gust of wind to blow Hannah within reach of another balcony, whose railing she managed to catch just enough to send her flailing through the glass doors of the room below. Sophia was an easier problem, as she had fainted from her wounds and from sheer terror. I simply arranged for her to slow and stop moments before reaching the ground, and I laid her out in the alley most comfortably before waking her. Upon waking, Sophia immediately fled into the night - wisely, I must say, as she had no way of knowing that the subjects did not wish her dead. Hannah, however, found herself in the bedroom of a mortal couple. Menacing them with her gun, she ran for the elevator and joined the group as they made their way down. Stopping on the third floor, they leaped from a vacant window and left the scene. The subjects decided to return to Hannah's to regroup. Kate and Stanislaw departed with Larry, though not without thanking the group profusely and assuring them that they would share any negative consequences of the night's actions. Hannah insisted that there was no debt between them, but Stanislaw and Kate explained that friendship was more than debt, and that they considered the subjects their friends. I must say, I was most glad to see the subjects making contacts; it will certainly aid my research. Only a few minutes after Stanislaw and Kate had departed, a battered station wagon pulled up outside Hannah's apartment and Stephen stepped out. He called the group down, seeming extremely distressed. He showed them Jamie's body in the back seat - not dead, he explained, but unconscious. It seems they had been attacked and pursued back from Seattle all the way to New York. Stephen and Jamie had lost everything they owned, even their motorcycles. Fortunately Stephen had recalled how Hannah had helped them escape from Alice, and so he had driven to the city to beg her aid again. Hannah and the others immediately brought Jamie's body into the house. While Hannah prepared a room for the two in the basement, Parker attempted to feed Jamie some of his blood, hoping to wake her. When this expedient failed, Hannah called Stavros, the leader of the Nosferatu who she seems to have quite a relationship with. Stavros suggested that they might require more powerful blood and suggested they might try asking Alice. Parker immediately contacted Alice and asked for her blood, but Alice seemed quite reluctant. She was quite bitter about the strength of her blood, explaining that it came from a powerful sire - Caissus Germanicus, Prince of London and Regent to Mithras - who had sent her here to be Jan's scourge, a job she had little taste for. I must admit her tale was quite fascinating, and I shall have to arrange a watch on her if it is at all possible. However, Parker was forced to return without any of her blood, and the group slept uneasily and warily, not knowing who pursued their friends or how they might wake young Jamie. Transcribed and maintained Elizabeth Kent