Arnold Culler sits in his office at Avalon, the sleeves of his shirt are undone and his suspenders have been shrugged off his shoulders – the top buttons at the collar on his shirt undone, showing off some chest hair that was colored more mud-and-ashes than salt-and-pepper. His coat and hat tossed on a chair opposite the desk. His cell phone sits on the desk in front of him, attached to a wall socket by a thin cord. The digital clock on the little screen on the front reads 4:15AM Downstairs the few employees left were finishing the duties of the night before they departed for the night.

The last few weeks had truly been a roller coaster. Arnold had never ridden a roller coaster before, but the term somehow seemed appropriate to him.

There had been many cities on his road between Sacramento and Jackson, none of them had been what he was looking for. The reputation of his failures in Jackson had followed him far, and in the southeast he had been a pariah in the First Estate. He had even considered himself Unaligned, for a while, but could never see himself joining another Covenant. As far as he had been concerned the ones that weren’t religious mystics and fools were so absorbed in the nuances of their own unlife that they missed the POINT of being given so much power over the Kine And the Carthians, the honor-less vermin, they were worst of all.

No. In the end he would remain loyal to the First Estate.

As he sat at the desk he recalled his reunion with the Covenant in Sacramento. He had been so eager to rebuild old bridges that he had nearly made a serious social gaffe. The big man chuckles, as he remembers how palpable the tenseness in the room was when he had barged in to that first meeting. Arnold had been lucky, that night, that the mistake had not followed him.

Then two Princes later he’s literally sifting through ashes at the scene of a brutal murder, the hotel-room where he found the datastick that identified Bethem as the monster that preyed on them.

He had not been frightened when he met that monster in the flesh, under the streets of Sacramento. Not, at least, until the werewolf had pulled that trick with the fire. That had, in retrospect, been a little scary.

He had been frightened when the affliction ran through him. Looking out he had seen his allies falling, suffering from the same thing as he. Bella suddenly becoming corporeal and twisting and writhing to the ground. Sunshine appearing from the shadows and clutching himself in pain. The air filled with his own screams and the screams of the Kindred in the sewers with him.

As he sits there he hoped Bethem, with his nigh-godlike Blood, had gotten it worse than all of them.

Now he was the Reeve. A situation he had never considered. Fear, and brutality, these were his tools. Tools that had served him well as Archon, but the position of Reeve required some grace and subtlety. It required one to be a Jack-of-All-Trades, in many ways, for he now had to have a one-up on every Kindred in the city - excluding, of course, the Prince.

Asa Clarke had given him a way back in. His time out of grace with the First Estate was over, and it was thanks to him. Arnold couldn’t help but think that perhaps, moreso, it might have been thanks to Bethem, and then the Lost Nights, but it didn’t matter now. He would support Clarke’s rise in power and through him he would continue to find his own influence increased. That was the way things worked.

Arnold’s thoughts turned to the situation he and the Prince had spoken of – of the issue with Priscus O-Yama and the Kine law enforcement agencies. The more he considered it the more he came to the conclusion that he wouldn’t need to intervene, at least not at this point. If, and when, it came to the Priscus’ attention Arnold might pay it some more mind, that is if O-Yama requested the help. The point was that it just really wasn’t Arnold’s problem… Yet.

Before he turns in for the day he muses to himself that he might have to find a way to give one of those roller coaster things a try some night.