Charlotte's haven was a vision of organised chaos. It certainly seemed to fit the 'chaos' part - stacks of paper and notepads were piled over the top of her desk, her bookshelves groaned under the collected weight of their burdens, and one wall was dominated by a map of Sacramento that had attracted a small swarm of post-it notes. Even the area set aside for her computer sported an orbital belt of memory sticks and external hard drives. To all intents and purposes, it looked like an explosion in a library.

But there was a system. Everything had its place, everything was where it should be, and Charlotte did not react well to any suggestion otherwise. Partially illuminated by a pair of lamps, she sat at her desk, hunched over like a great, pallid spider before a more untidy pile of paper.

The fruits of Joe's labours. His ignorant, fumbling explorations into the Kindred condition hadn't been too dissimilar to Charlotte's own, and now that he was dead - not her fault, she reminded herself - she fully intended on ripping through his studies in the search of any paltry scraps of information she hadn't come across. Karl, the vampire who seemed to have been at the root of the problem, had also donated his journal to her research efforts, though he'd only find that out when Trask brought him out of torpor, halfway across the country.

In many ways, these were the moments that Charlotte lived for. The nightly drudge of feeding, the consorting with other Kindred, many of whom where deranged or deluded...everything paled before the thrill of discovery. The moment of anticipation where one hung above a pile of notebooks, mind aflame with the possibility of what knowledge might lie within...

Understanding. True, complete understanding. It was her goal, her drive, her obsession. If she had to tear that ideal of total knowledge from the bloody womb of the world, so be it.

But it would have to wait. With a pang of regret, she sorted and tidied the pile, then placed it next to the others. Reaching down, Charlotte pulled out a large, heavy medical textbook and placed it upon the shrinking space of her desk. Joe's death hadn't been her fault, but despite what she had told Jackson and Trask, she hadn't been able to confirm exactly how the writer had died. And if she had found him injured, wouldn't have known what to do. That failure nagged in the back of her mind, an insulting reminder of a gap in her knowledge. One, at least, she could easily fill. Study of this sort wasn't intellectually stimulating, but Charlotte told herself, it was necessary.

Kindred were, by nature, static creatures, often content with simple survival, or the hollow, empty accumulation of rank and privilege. Charlotte refused to let herself be the same. She would learn, grow, and change - and change and change, until she had achieved the perfection she desired.

And then, she told herself, as she flipped open the textbook's cover, I will find ways to improve further.