Time Crunch - Part II

Several nights had passed since the decree from Chevaux de la Mort severed their protection, and the underground apartment of the Mayfair Coven had grown quieter. A quiet that was more focused, more tense than the usual. In the corner of her main chamber, Lady DeathBreeze Mayfair sat within the small office space she had carved out for herself, the glow of her laptop casting pale light across stacks of notes, ledgers and a calendar with red marked X’s on passing days.

Columns of numbers filled the screen as she carefully filled out forms and recalculated requirements, fingers moving with deliberate precision across the keyboard. The Realm’s bureaucratic mechanisms were cold and unforgiving; lineage numbers, age of turning, active bloodlines and everything had to align perfectly. Having the Mayfair Coven being accepted as a Rogue House was probably the hardest path they could have taken, yet that is what they needed.

Across the room, Nommz occupied the worn leather couch, half-watching the room rather than doing anything in particular. One arm rested along the back of the seat, his posture relaxed but his eyes occasionally drifting toward her. He knew better than to interrupt when she was deep in calculations.

At last, DeathBreeze exhaled quietly and leaned back. “That should be enough…” she murmured to herself before pressing the final key. The form transmitted through the Realm’s system, vanishing into the digital abyss where vampire authorities weighed the fate of Houses and Clans like accountants of the damned.

To their surprise, they did not have to wait long. She had been in contact with some of the devils in charge of the documentation, they knew the request would to be sent soon. Their earlier exchange suggested a positive outcome in many ways as her goals seems to have aligned with purpose. She had hinted to the devils that she made certain discoveries about the veil of immortality, but the devils stood remarkably silent about the knowledge she shared. How strange, she thought.

A sharp notification chimed. Her eyes scanned the response once, then again. Her expression hardened as she read the explanation: The Mayfair Coven meets the minimum membership requirement; however, several vampires are considered too young in age to be counted toward official standing.

A new submission could be made in the next month. There was no way for her to explain why she retain some mortals of being turned into vampires for protection. She could not tell them that each of their souls were carefully chosen as disciple of Nexyra and Tharos. She wondered if the information she had spoken of earlier had frightened the devils. What if she knew too much?

Thirty days… but the death clock had already begun ticking the moment Chevaux de la Mort signaled them out of their inner protection. It meant they had less than thirty days to save the Mayfair Coven from vanishing officially and there were no more chances of going Rogue from it. DeathBreeze slowly closed the laptop and looked across the room at Nommz. “That was fast,” he said, reading the tension in her posture.

“It was a refusal.” Her voice remained calm, though the words carried weight. “We have the numbers… but several of our fledglings are too young. They won’t consider them.” She rested her hands against the desk. “They’ll accept a new form in thirty days.”

Nommz straightened slightly to the news as she toyed with a nearby pen nervously. “We don’t have thirty days. Once a house loses its affiliation with a clan, it is given a month to pledge elsewhere before it is wiped from existence. We didn’t build so much just to be eradicated that easily. Tharos will show us the way…”

Silence lingered between them for a moment. A cold silence that reflected the long rest a corpse might earn after its existence ended. She was slightly irritated by the refusal, but hopeful to find a solution. The last month had been quite hard on her, yet she managed to get through without too many scars. She had hoped for a positive outcome, but nothing truly worthwhile ever came from the easy paths… .

Then Nommz rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “My uncle Babu is still an Arch,” he said slowly. “Maybe there’s a way he could intervene… reset the death clock on the House somehow.”

DeathBreeze considered the idea, though her mind was already elsewhere. In the past several days she had received messages, offers, suggestions, some opportunistic responses, others simply curious. Most she had dismissed almost immediately. One name remained in her thoughts as she responded to her partner. “Perhaps, giving a try isn’t a bad thing” she said to Nommz, “but I’ve been reviewing other possibilities as well.”

She turned back toward the laptop and began pulling up records from the hidden databases maintained by the Realm of Vampires. These archives were carefully concealed from human eyes, yet to immortals they were merely another library, one you simply had to know how to enter.

As she searched deeper, patterns began to emerge. The name locked in her mind kept appearing everywhere she looked: Rhavyn Kitaj Alastor Braveheart.

They had spoken recently. Rhavyn knew of DeathBreeze’s ambitions and the philosophy behind the Mayfair Coven. More than that, she was her Knight Commander, someone who had stood beside her in past endeavors. There was some history there. Trust earned through actions rather than politics solely.

DeathBreeze leaned closer to the screen as new files appeared. She found information’s about the Clan Daggers of the Serpents Shadow, a clan led by Lady Rhavyn Kitaj.

Their records spoke of symbolism and beliefs that felt strangely familiar. Different still, but oddly familiar. The Setite beliefs shows a god named Sutekh that had a few similarities with Tharos while Zillah, seemed to have a few assets of Nexyra’s. Perhaps these were older names for forces that had once been the same, reshaped through centuries and mythologies. Still, fragments of ancient religions long buried beneath would further explain centuries of vampiric traditions. This would require deeper study, but time was short and other matters demanded attention. Some aspects differed from what the Mayfair Coven practiced, but the core felt close enough to suggest a possible alignment. Closer than most.

Lady Mayfair reached for her cellphone and dialed Rhavyn’s number. When the call passed to voicemail, she left a measured message, her voice calm and respectful.

The following night she tried again. This time, an answer came. The response was simple, yet carried enormous consequence : The Mayfair Coven would be welcomed within the Clan Daggers of the Serpents Shadow.

DeathBreeze lowered the phone slowly and turned toward Nommz who was still around her when the call happened. He watched her carefully.

“Well?”

“They would take us,” she said.

Nommz blinked once, absorbing the idea. Joining another Clan was not something he had expected so soon after leaving the last one. It was not the original plan. He paced slowly across the room, hands resting on his hips as he thought it through. “You trust her?” he finally asked.

“I respect her a lot,” DeathBreeze replied. “And what they believe… it is not so far from what we already are.”

He stopped pacing. For a moment doubt flickered across his expression, old loyalties, old habits resisting the change. But then he nodded slowly. “I like her,” he admitted with a small shrug. “It could work out.” He looked toward the desk, toward the laptop that had just delivered their rejection, then back to her. “It’s not something I’m used to,” he continued thoughtfully. “But… it might be the first real step toward what we want.”

Rebuilding was not an easy path. Yet to secure survival and ensure that the Mayfair Coven would not vanish into dust, risks sometimes had to be taken.

And risks were all they had left in their hands to stand a chance.