Lucas Arrete's Questionnaire

Lucas can be seen turning the wheels of a rack, screams punctuating his statements as he savors the torment of the evening, the sickening crack of bone, the rending of ligaments. All of it his own personal symphony as he dances between each turn of the rack, monologuing to the poor torture victim as he hears the man cry out that he'll pay him anything, that money is no object.

"Money? It isn't that hard to earn. Especially when you're just taking the bills out of people's pockets or collecting whatever they thrust forth at you when they're begging for their lives, but, even a man like me needs a cover. Thankfully the rise of Ghoul fever has made it fairly easy and accepted for my level of disfigurement to enter the non public facing work force, and Amazon doesn't care how I meet their numbers or question why I don't need to go to the bathroom more than once a shift. It's funny really. How the vile structures you kine built up for yourself enable things like me to crawl into the crevices, and funnier still how you view it as something that can shackle me, that can dissuade me. I will evolve beyond these concerns in due time, and then, all you'll get from me in exchange for these pathetic offers is my laughter."

The rack is turned again as he finishes the statement, and the rending of flesh and a final scream signals the end of this interaction. As Lucas moves over to check out the remains he looks disappointed as he grabs and arm and begins draining it of it's juices. 

A man holds forward a knife, attempting to ward off the powerhouse of a man that has him cornered outside of a music festival. The rhythmic thumping and ear drum bruising intensity of the music a perfect cover for what Lucas was about to do as he knocked the knife aside and drove two of his fingers through the underside of the person's jaw, lifting them off the ground as their blood gagged screams gurgled through the area as the man begged him for mercy, asking what he wanted

"What I want? Silly little Kine, it is obvious what I want. I want to prove to the world what you really are. cattle. That there is a step beyond you silly arrogant little animals, and what better way to do so then by embodying that change?" 

There is then a secondary gurgle as his fingers are driven up through his lower mandible, and Lucas rips it free before catching the man in a pose as if leaning down with a dance partner as he says 

"Ah but enough with the foreplay, give me a kiss."

And then, he dives in. Devouring eagerly. 

Lucas would chuckle as he sits on top of the corpse of a recent kill, allowing blood to drain into an oak keg as he sits in the midst of a scene of carnage, swirling a wine glass soaked from top to bottom in the blood flow he would capture from the jugular of a particularly unfortunate survivor as he'd say

"Ah, I do love a good rumble, but sometimes people forget. I don't though. How could I? To know how superior I am to the rest of you is merely to draw breath to me. Ever since I was embraced the power that courses through my veins has been apparent, and I have no intention of letting anyone wield their mortal might over myself. I remember it as though it were yesterday. My father, looking down at me with disappointment. Me in my mortal ignorance not understanding why he seemed so disappointed and had never been satisfied with me or my mother despite me being born in his spitting image, and then, breaking that tension he said "Lucas, it's apparent that birthright will be enough. Tonight son, you will become more, and shed this pathetic mortal shell." I'd not understood at the time, and even screamed when he had forced his fangs into my neck and fed me his blood but when I came to. Oh how I understood. The fresh power, and rage in me driving me to murder my mother as my first feeding as she cried for me to remember who I was, but she didn't understand. Who I was, was dead. It's funny, but in providing my first feeding she gave me life twice. I'd feel sympathy for her if her being kine didn't make the very crime of my birth an incident of zoophilia on my fathers part." 

My Father, Nathan Malkovic. A pathetic thin blood nosferatu who burdened me with my appearance, but similarly gave me my powers. Without him I would be nothing, and as my sire and my father he is owed all deference despite his decrepit ignorance and his harsh tutelage, but in doing so he taught me how to hunt the kine, and he taught me how to process them. I owe him everything.

The other is my cat, Smerples. A wonderful little thing, and a reminder that not everything that came before is terrible, but he is a needy little fellow. Desiring attention even while I'm working, but, he has taken to enjoying the scraps from my work and that makes him useful as much as he is a comfort. He is the sole reason I maintain a semblance of mortal life. 

The last is my boss, Eugene Goodman. He runs the deli I work at. It's a good excuse for why I always smell like blood, and he helps me stay in contact with the local bloodbank for the lean times thanks to his sister who works there. He's a good man, I may embrace him one day. He'd be one of the few deserve it. 

Lucas's form breaks through the shadow of his movement, bringing him into the dim, orange light of the dying incandescent bulb above him. The flicker occasionally allowed his latest victim to see the yellow light that his captor's eyes gave off each time the room darkened. Lucas's snake-like tongue curls out of his mouth and licks the protruding rat-like teeth that accompany his ghoulish countenance alongside his exposed gums that leave him with his eternal twisted grin is a man strapped into a strange approximation of a dentist's chair built out of scrap. The screams of the man fill the air as he realizes that this isn't even a serial killer but a monster before him. Lucas places a clawed finger to his mouth as he says

"Sssh, sssh, sssh, sssh, sssh, sssh, sssh, sssh, sssh, None of that now, or I'll have to cut your vocal cords, and I think we both know that I don't have the medical ability or inclination to stitch your throat together again quite right. My father found that out the hard way when he revealed the origin of my heritage. Well. I didn't mind that so much myself; after all, only so many vagrants and homeless in New Jersey aren't there?"

He'd say with a maddened cackle as he'd turn to produce a horrible contraption, a sort of pseudo set of braces with upwards-facing spikes arranged along each tooth, and the restrained man's wails would renew once more as Lucas bolted it into either side of the man's skull. Drilling in ever so sweetly, he turned the bolts with the sickening crack of bone, signaling when the device replaced the joint connecting his lower jaw to his face. The torture implement turned his screams into muffled gurgles as he no longer had the capacity for them. Lucas continued his monologue with a sadistic little spin as he would swap between the sides every other sentence, tightening the bolts and, in turn, drilling those spikes into his teeth by hand. 

"They tried their best, you know. Provided me with tutors and attempted to guide me toward becoming a learned cainite scholar, but that was never my thing. We fought constantly at the dinner table about it, even on the nights when we'd have more than a glass of blood with dinner. I suppose I should have known my father, and I would always come to blows. It didn't take a genius to see that I was a maladjusted reprobate, a monster of the highest caliber, even among Kindred. Without mercy, without remorse, human weaknesses that I had discarded before my first breath. Ah, if only Caine could have seen me then. My father's throat in my teeth, gorging on blood as I lay claim to my incredibly meager inheritance by force, and the terrified cries of my mother before she too did the only thing I remember her fondly for in attempting to kill me. It taught me how humans fight when desperate and corner themselves if they let it seem like their only choice. Just like you did." 

Lucas's next turn would signal a crack a bit louder than intended, however, and as he'd look down at the now limp body of the man, he'd realize that he'd gone too far and sent the man into shock. The vampire would shrug however, and lean in to feed, as he'd say with a sickening cackle 

"Ah well, waste not want not."

Lucas laughed as he stood over the grave he was digging. Within it was the bound and prone form of a pretty young-looking woman, the girl dressed up in hot topic apparel, the iconic showcase of various goth paraphernalia, including a Brothers of Blood t-shirt that was now quite appropriately spattered with blood as Lucas raised his shovel in response to a plaintive cry from the girl within and said 

"What? Are you shocked? This entire zoophilic episode has never been close to a real relationship, sweetheart, but rejoice. I've figured it out this time. I was buried alive too when I was first embraced, screamed at my father for years about it; the trauma of being crammed inside that tiny box chased me until I tore his throat out with my teeth, but now, after the last three failures without it I think it is the key. You need to come within an inch of death in the grave's embrace and feed on my blood, and if you can do that, then you can become like me. Just as you always wanted." 

 The woman's screams indicated that this was not what she had always wanted. Yet Lucas continued unabated as his maddened fixation drove him to bury this woman alive and pour his blood into a funnel he had left in the grave dirt. Then, he would wait, the moon cresting over the horizon until Lucas stood disappointed as he could no longer hear her screams beneath the Earth and he would sigh dejectedly, seemingly genuinely saddened as he'd say

"Seems like that wasn't it, a pity. I liked that one." 

Then he would turn and smooth the grave dirt over and roll a mat of false grass over the unmarked grave to hide it from observers before fleeing into the night, another failed experiment, but he wasn't about to give up. 

That I might not ever become a real vampire. No matter how many souls I eat, no matter how many atrocities I commit. There's always the fear in the back of my mind that it's not enough. That I was born too distant from the glory of Cain to ever reach the true heights of my kind. You can't undo genetics right? Even with magic there are limits to the predisposition of your soul and no matter what I do there's always the belief that I am not enough to really equal the greats in the craft. 

I mean. How does one equal Caine? He literally invented murder. So when you're really in love with doing evil you look back at the history of the world, you see your Pol Pots, your Stalins, and your Dahmers and you realize.

How far you have to go even when you've truly dedicated your everything to it and you have to wonder.. can I ever be as good as them?

Oh, and also. 

I used to fear dying unloved, but then I got into a relationship with a woman who agrees on the superiority of the Cainite and that's pretty nice actually. Harvard's expensive though so now I have to worry about Money. Disability checks for my "Ghoul Fever" disfigurement only go so far.

My "Gifts" are the obvious result of emergent Cainite supremacy. Every soul I devour through the sacred rite of diablerie makes me stronger and these souls are what I do the jobs for. Though sometimes the emergent nature of these jobs brings about a new nature I wasn't entirely aware of until it physically manifested itself. 

For instance one of the things that has come about since my descent into Hell and obtained the personal blessing of Caine himself is that my physiology seems to be quite adaptive and has begun taking on demonic traits. I suppose that comes part and parcel with sacrificing dozens in the name of the dark lord himself from whence all sin, and thus even Caine comes from.

Still, these powers are not wholly within my control. I grow as a result of my actions, and thus they naturally emerge over time the more I pursue a specific avenue of hunting as happens with all Cainites.

I can't say I've been displeased a single time however. Though one day I do hope to conquer that hateful sun 

Spirituality is integral to the existence of the Cainite. 

We cannot deny God exists because his actors on this world can repel us, harm us with their faith, and shield their domains from us with it. 

This is proof, undeniable proof in fact, that God exists. it is however not proof that God is "good". 

It is proof that God shelters the weak who fall before him in humble supplication, that he deigns to grant you his mercy only when he sees that you have acknowledged that you are less than him is proof positive that he is the original narcissist. After all no one who does not acknowledge him as the one most on high gets into his little immortal country club in the sky when they die. 

So to me that belief is exactly why I embrace Satan, the lord of Darkness. For darkness there is the cold reality that only the strong prosper, that the cunning thrive, and in it. Proof that your merits grant you success. Not praying and dreaming for a better tomorrow to be handed to you by your sky daddy. 

No one can deny that the harbingers are the first and largest conflict with any existing world view. 

They are.. for the most part. Proof that people no matter their walk of life can become more. That there is a chance for those willing to risk death and mutilation to become something more. 

This was always somewhat known. Gaia exists for the Werewolves alongside their spirits that they make their fetishes out of. Crazy war beasts that they are each and every one of them are berserkers empowered to a degree that even the greatest among us need fear a fully realized pack of their best coming after us. 

The harbingers are.. more than that. 

They prove that there are some nebulous entities beyond even my knowledge who exist to give strength to those willing to prove their merit. 

And it proves that there are souls out there which are so much more delicious than even I could imagine. For while power sources are typically distinct these contracts muddy the water. Allowing them to blend. 

I bet that the souls of one of these imbued would taste great. 

Hmm. 

Torture implements on the walls, a rack as the centerpiece in the room sat over a large grate that allows the blood to drip down into a storage tank. A coffin built into a nice secure spot in the wall that has a stone recess that covers it to allow the cainite to both see intruders and be protected during the day. All nestled within a castle that is well defended but connected enough to a settlement of kine for food. 

A perfect room would likely also have an altar to the dark powers. Allowing sacrifices to be made when it is time for a bid for power, and of course a walk in freezer for us to store fresh meat so that we can sample the finer delicacies that come with the exploration of Cainite cuisine.