Amaranth, a summary novel

Charles start to feel stalked. Things where he lives do not seem like they should. Some things, things he can’t really put his finger on seems off. Sometimes things, when he left something on a table, it disappeared. When he is out, working, or prowling clubs or whatnot, suddenly he see shadows in the corner of his eye, or a back hasting around the corner, out of sight. Is someone keeping an eye on him? If so, what do they want? If they wanted to harm him, they would have had several occasions to do just that by now…

After a long night of patrolling and watching Evan’s crew, and all of their stupid bickering, Charles finally got home, barely making it to the door before the sun reached the horizon. This job is real boring, nothing ever happens, he is starting to miss the old days, then things actually happened, and what you did had some importance, now, lately the jobs has gotten lousy, boring. But then again, he probably owe Joseph that much. He’s the one who accepted him, and got him on the track of personal achievement and enlightenment. By the lack of anything more interesting to do Charles makes himself ready for sleep.

He dies for the day, the dead slumber is soothing. But suddenly he is taken aback by the intense fear of the sun! Is he dreaming? He force his eyes open. He see light through the fog of his eyes. The windows are sealed, the door is shut. No, no sunlight. He turns his head, and would probably have let out a sigh of relief, but there are no sigh, no sound, and no breath. Then he sees her, how come he did not see her before? Right by the side of his bed.
What the?! It’s Wildfire… Is it not? There is a glow, her skin, she looks alive, and she is not as pale as he remembers her. She is breathing, there is SUN out. She’s looking down on him; he’s look straight into her big green eyes. It’s like she stares right into his soul, she makes a face, small wrinkles appear on her cute little nose, and she tilts her head and just watches him. He feel her warm hand touching his arm.

In a half-koma he utters; “Wildfire?! What are you doing here?... During the day?”
She then replies in a low, almost paranoid voice; “I need your help, hurry to Green Station 32” She then start to shiver, and pulls the hand resting on Charles arm away, she starts to turn toward the door while she says in a mellow voice “Hide”.
Charles, know to take her advice, and in matter of seconds he is melded with the bed, as if he was never there. She smiles at him. She then opens the door. Searing rays of light burst through the door, almost blinding what visage Charles might have. She disappears into the sun, into the day. As she’s getting out of Charles flat, he tries to reach out to her, he tries to feel what she’s feeling. He get the cold impression of dread, of utter failure… Yet, there is a tiny tint of hope. Before too long, the urge to sleep get a hold of him, and he finally succumbs to the day sleep he was so abruptly awakened from.



Night comes, Charles feels the urge to wake, and he gets up, while cautiously scanning the environment for safety’s sake. He is alone, Wildfire did indeed leave, and she walked right into the burning sun, and disappeared. He gears himself for another night of work, bringing what he deems necessary. Not before long, he’s on his way out, down the street. The night is dark, wet and windy. The streets reeks of wet pavement and exhaust between the racing cars. There must have been quite the rain storm earlier. People are hasting back and forth, to and from cabs and stores, as if they expect the rain to continue any second. There, on the left hand side, Charles see no. 16, then there's only a few avenues down the road. After a while he passes the train station, and a little further on his left hand side there is an old brick building with huge letters painted on the wall “Green Station 32” And a little down to the left there is what seems like a industrial metal door, with the numbers “32”. Charles takes a quick look around. There’s not many people here, not at this hour, not this early in the week. There’s a few people smoking outside the Irish Pub Charles is supposed to meet Evan and the crew later tonight, but that’s mostly it. He remembers Wildfire telling him to go to “Green Station 32”, and now he’s here.

He tries the rusty door handle carefully. With a click the door slides open. He now stares down a short stair leading down to a long corridor, it’s dark inside. He ventures forth. When he passes the stair, he heads further into the corridor. It’s humid and silent; the air reeks of humidity and old unvented air. He stops for a second, looking at his watch, 23:04, an hour more and he has to meet the Crew at the bar. He looks up, further down the corridor, then picks up his cell, and turns back heading for the exit. Well out, he finds Wildfire’s number and gives it a call. After a while he thinks he hear the faint sound of ringing deeper within the building. It suddenly stops and he hear the beeping you get when someone hangs up. With supernatural speed, he rushes in the entrance, down the stair and inward the corridor. He stops in front of a door that is barely open, letting out some light.
Charles enters the room silently as he looks around; The room is mostly empty, dirty and abandoned. A mattress lies on the floor just past the door, a couple of stools next to a small table where there lies what looks like old stained newspapers or some such. There’s a puddle on the floor, it reeks urine, and looks worse. He tries to look further into the room, tries to look further into what the human eye cannot behold. He sees something, feels something, a presence, there, in the room with him.

Widfire, suddenly appears out of the blue right in front of him, there is clearly sounds of commotion further down the corridor. The redheaded girl looks afraid, not “Oh no” afraid, but real, scared to her very core afraid. She lets out a sob, with tears, and says with a shivering voice “They’re killing her! Help her! Please… *sob* Help me…” She keeps on crying, and then before Charles get to react or reply, she grabs her chest with a painful expression in her face. She looks at Charles with her desperate and teary eyes. Then the sound of a wet “thud” is heard in the room further down the corridor. And the Girl is gone.
There are hasty steps racing past the room Charles are in. Charles hurries out of the room, hoping to catch whoever runs past, but there is no one to be seen. Nothing, when he looks at the exit it looks like the door is closing slowly, the door starts to scream this intense metallic scream that old doors that’ve had way too bad maintenance get. Charles then moves slowly further down the corridor, to the room next to the one he just visited. Stealthy he sneaks toward the door, the door is open. As he peak inside, two arms are visible, tied together lying there on the floor. To see whose lying there he has to move further into the room. As he enters the room inch by inch, he gets a better view of the room. The room is bigger than the previous room; there are some shelves with old document boxes, looks to be a record room of some kind. He sneaks further into the room. In the middle of the room lies the girl, looks awfully lot like Wildfire, but its impossible say for sure from this angle. Her cloth is stained with blood. There are pools of blood all around her. As he approach, centimeter by centimeter, he find that both her arms and legs has been tied up. Her wrists are cut open, deep long cuts. And with all the blood around he could easily guess what made the wet "thud" sound earlier. She lies halfway on her belly facing away from him. He reaches out again, to see beyond what is there. There's next to no aura, it's weak, too weak, not like the usual paleness in a Kindred’s aura. Charles has seen this before, on one of his coterie mates back in the days in LA. It's the aura of a dead person, a dead person not walking that is. She's slipped away... Could it be torpor? Or is she on the verge of final death?

There is a hint of panic in Charles face, he turns her around, and sees she has been staked, right through the heart. He can see her face now, it's no question about it, even through her beat up face, he would still recognize Wildfire any day. He starts to carefully remove the stake. As he does this, he sees a note lie within her bra. He get the stake out successfully without any splinters. By the looks of it, the bleedings have stopped. Probably because of the lack of blood. It is clear that she has precious little time left, unless something drastic is done. Thoughts are clashing within his mind, to save her, he would have to give her blood, fast. The only source nearby is him, but that would bind her to him. But it is ten times better than the alternative, besides, she might not even notice. Charles sits down beside her, slit his wrist, and put his hand to her mouth. Force the blood into her mouth. It slowly seeps inside. After a few moments, her pulp and bloody face starts repairing itself inch by inch, the same with the cuts on her wrists. Charles stops, removes his hand from her mouth, and relaxes for a second. He has at least saved her from final death. Though, the torpor has to go its course. He picks up the note he found on her and starts to read the blood stained piece of paper:

“They came after us, they found us. All are dead…
I made it though, I found her. It’s amazing, at first I thought I was loosing my mind. My mirror image, I have none. But suddenly I had, and it fucking talked to me.. It was me, but it hated me. It did not make any sense. I tried to avoid confronting any mirrors, where I might see her. Then one day she came to me, in person! As real as I am. . She knew a lot about me.. Maybe it actually was me? She told me about what would happen, as if she knew anything, hah! However, for some reason she stopped hating me. She seemed sad, she said she did not want to die. She plead me to flee, and that is just what I did, but they came after me, no matter what I did… They always found me. Two days ago I came here, to Fresno. Charles is here, maybe there is still time. I have to warn him, he has to flee, flee far away from me, from us. He must not go back. If anyone reads this, warn him! Before it is too late, they must not get to him too. He know where the others are. I’ll send her, or me… I don’t know. I told her that if she want to live, she had to get him.”


Further down on the note, there’s something scribbled down in haste.

”they are here, they have come, they found me, us… Where is she?! I hope she found Charles, I hope she made him run like a mad man.. No… I hope he’s coming here, to help me. If so, he’ll probably die, as will I. I just don’t want to be alone, we don’t want to be alone anymore.”


Now Charles has a grim expression in is face, things just got a whole level more serious. Who was after her? After them? What is going on here? What the hell is wrong with Wildfire?

Charles fondles his phone, while cradling Wildfire's body close to him and glancing around. He hastily punches Evangeline’s number: It rings a long while, until he reach the voice mail "Hello, this is Evangeline, I'm busy at the moment, so please leave a message after the beep" "Beep". He curses out loudly, and then dials Josephs number, the automatic voice explains that the person he’s calling is out of reach. He franticly scrolls through his list of contacts to find his Sire. He calls, waiting in suspense. She picked up?! She picked up! Finally. He explains the situation, and persuades her to come over right away. He then call Evans crew letting them know there has been a emergency and he won’t make it tonight. Evan, being rather impressed by Charles work thus far, gives him some slack, and tells him to give him a call if things get too serious.

Charles puts his jacket around Wildfire to cover some of the mess. He starts to carry her back to his haven as stealthy he can. Making it back without any major problems. He places Wildfire comfortably in the bed, while feeding her with some more blood he had stored in his fringe. Now, he has to wait, till Stella arrives, and they’ll have to take it from there.




That's as far as we've come. The last part was a bit hasty, since we really hated the play by post approach, and we wanted to get it over with. I've tried to sum it up as best as I can.