San Francisco. San. Santos, Sanctum, Sacred, a holy object, place, or person. Francisco. Francis, Frankish, Frank, a free person, freedom.

This was precisely the most terribly ironic name for a city to have a vampiric aristocracy roving about and imposing its will. It was almost sickeningly amusing to her, but she allowed it, willed it, towards amusement rather than offense. "Radiant's" sense of irony was tickled. Her fingers tapped out the piano music in the white bar near the designated Rack she had slipped into unnoticed. She was still trying to decide if there were a meaningful difference in taste among the Kine here, but mostly she concluded that it was much more enjoyable when she fed from those who deserved it.

The Great among you have committed Great Sins against God. If this were not true, She would not have sent a punishment so Great as I to you.

There were far too many Sinners and Slaves in this city for its namesake, but at least she was most certainly offered many things to do with her nights, and many people to punish. Her dead heart felt more than simple hunger - which was not, of course, to say that didn't mean the one she'd followed here was getting off easily tonight.

A little justice went a long way. She was visibly improving lives, she could see, in what small ways one like her could. Improving lives that mattered, lives that had earned it, at the expense of those who would otherwise ruin them. One was an important word, however, as she was indeed but one, and was not leading some band of merry bandits with which to make a more profound impact along the shore. And her mind returned again to that old copy of the Water Margin amidst her collection, her private library perhaps as old as she. Nearly as old as her bones, and nearly as well preserved, they sat in a set of trunks in her small, well placed apartment in a restaurant cellar.

Was tonight to be different in any meaningful way from her usual ritual? Stalk the wicked and inflict upon them a loss of half of their blood, the tax for being allowed to live any longer at all. She walked the streets unheard, unseen, to watch and wait. She was warden for those which providence had left out of prison, and left for her. She administered their punishments, for men were wicked, and in the absence of strictly enforced rules, all hell broke loose. And she crawled out of hell to straighten things out.

She was happy to correct their transgressions, extending a mind of bureaucratic oversight into matters corporal. Or perhaps she was simply providing tutoring services in moral rightness and community vigilance? Her tutoring fees were quite modest, even if they were extracted forcibly, and resembled more of a tax. She was entirely happy to engage in such semantic debate, but conversations were few and far between these days - as were her potential peers. Surely somewhere in this city lurked adequate scholarship to entertain her awhile?

But, again, these nights seemed ever so intent to take on a more carnal aspect. In this city of sin, sans-sheriff, she had much work to do as a volunteer deputy.

All work and no play was rather dull, but no one had ever informed her she might be excessively interesting. Perhaps this lack of approval contributed to her ency and her wrath. Perhaps she had always had a penchant for sinister justice. She'd ask her mother, but that seemed a rather improbable task this century. With such philosophy set aside, she set about her work of punishing tonight's next miscreant. Three were on her agenda still, this evening, so she proceeded efficiently onward.

None of them would sin tomorrow; she deprived them of the liberty to do so. But it might take her awhile to realize why she was never finished. It would take a great deal for an immortal to avenge her own death.