Heathcliff Staley exits the site of his new office, an apartment in the same building as the nasty slumlord he'll be 'renting' from. It's eight o'clock, early enough that the old heads sit and sip forties with the young bucks on the stoop. He nods amiably at them. "Evenin'." They look at the rather meek-looking Nosferatu warily as he walks around the block and returns carrying the last box of random pots, pans, small appliances, and knick knacks with which he will protect the Masquerade. One of them is kind enough to open the door for Heathcliff, who thanks him politely and walks upstairs. He sets the boxes down and opens the strong security door Greevey had acquiesced to in their negotiations.

On the way to his office, Heathcliff sees a man leaving another apartment on the same floor. Heath has noticed the apartment is rented by a Latina and her four children. The man is nicely-dressed, a middle-aged white guy wearing a suit worth more than everything in the apartment he's leaving.

At the door, the man hands some cash to the mother, then leans in to kiss her eldest daughter. The girl wears garish make-up, somewhat smeared, and her hair is somewhat disheveled. Oher than that, she wears only a cheap, thin nightgown, so sheer she's clearly naked beneath the gown. Heath would be surprised if she was older than 13.

The living room is already set. Mr. Staley had only ordered a few pieces of cheap plywood furniture from a certain Scandinavian retailer, enough to give guests a place to sit. This was clearly not a place that invited you to stay long. Along the same wall as the front door, there is a small television. Towards the center of the room, there were two beige loveseats facing each other across an oval sandalwood (colored) coffee table. There was a taller, sturdy-looking table is in the corner of the large front room, adjacent the kitchenette, and its borders are defended by four tall, black chairs, almost stools, except they had backs. He sat his boxes down next to it, noticing how nice and new the beige, square-patterned carpet is. Nicer than any of the photos he'd seen submitted in the complaints of the tenants. Odd, that. Maybe Greevey was just trying to make the place nice for Heathcliff. That's even odder.

He walks toward the back bedrooms, one of which contains a simple, sheetless futon frame and mattress. It kept up appearances, and, who knows, he might actually have to sleep here some time. He looks at the window disapprovingly, and retrieves a bottle of black spray paint from one of the boxes in the kitchen, and sets to work.

As Heath is working, he smells something unusual. This strikes him as odd, for two reasons. First, as a vampire, he shouldn't be smelling at all unless he chooses to do so, as he doesn't breathe.

Second, the scent he smells is the unmistakable, slightly metallic smell of blood.

Something about the scene downstairs was niggling at his brain, scraping at the door of consciousness to be let in and officially Thought, but the scent of blood overwhelms it. Blood...it was times like this that remind Heathcliff what he truly is; despite his efforts to remain as human as possible, he isn't. He lets the spray can fall to the floor as the Beast tells him to FIND THE BLOOD FIND IT FIND IT NOW WHERE IS IT WHERE'S THE BLOOD, HEATHCLIFF ?!? He starts circling the room, sniffing like a cartoon hound as he goes along to find where the scent is strongest.

Sniffing around, Heath detects that the smell of blood is strongest from the larger of the two bedrooms. It seems particularly strong by the bedroom window. He doesn't see any sign of blood, or of anything else of note. There is an air vent under the window, but there's no detectable airflow at the moment, nothing to explain the blood scent, or why Heath smelled it in the first place.

Heath puts his hand by the air vent, and when he determines that it is not blowing in the smell of blood from somewhere else, he knows it has to be here. Bad Heathcliff knows its here, too. Blood...sweet, sweet blood...is messy, it has a tendency to spatter. Heathcliff decides it must be here, somewhere, and he needs to find it or he'll never be able to bring unknown Kindred here. The carpet is new, the paint fresh... covering the blood? First, the agitated Beast implores him to pull up the edge of the carpet nearest the window and search there. If he sees nothing there, he'll look around for some paint thinner and to strip the paint from the wall around the window.

When Heathcliff pulls up the edge of the carpet, he doesn't see any blood, yet the smell is stronger... and when he feels around to pull back the carpet further, his fingers make contact with something wet and sticky... yet when he lifts his fingers to look at them, and looks at the floor, he sees nothing.

The Nosferatu looks at his fingers disbelievingly. The smell was strong, he knew it was there, WHERE'STHEGODDAMBLOODAT!?! Calm down. Brea- nevermind, just calm down. "Dammit!" Heathcliff yanks violently at the carpet in his frustration, pulling up as much as he can grip in both hands and tear in one go.

It isn't difficult for Heathcliff to tear back a section of the carpet, and when he does so, he is able to see that some of the wood floor underneath is discolored. Then, as he watches, he sees some of the wood grain redden and thicken, and blood start to flow from the floorboards and the spaces between them, as if the floor was injured and bleeding.

The...floor...is...bleeding. The Seneschal raises the velvet rope for a VIP question from the growing queue waiting to enter Club Consciousness. "Why?" He tries to pull his eyes away from the floor long enough to look about the room for some explanation.

Heathcliff is astonished to see a young woman walk through the door and into the bedroom. She is dressed for bed, wearing a thin cotton nightgown, pink socks and pink panties, visible through the nightgown. She carries a Bible and a rosary in one hand and a glass of water in the other. She has long, glossy, black hair, dark eyes and Latin features. She isn't stunning, but she is pretty, in a shy, innocent sort of way.

She stops a few feet inside the door, looking in Heathcliff's general direction but not directly at him. As he watches, blood starts to stain her nightgown near her navel and to flow from her mouth. She takes a couple steps toward Heathcliff.... then becomes transparent before fading completely from view.


Heathcliff looks on in shock, then appreciation for her effortless beauty, then in slack-jawed horror as the blood starts to pool from the woman who's suddenly appeared. He tries to reach for her just as she disappears. It takes him a few moments to put together what he's just seen...an apparition. He remembers the angry spectre of Bridgewater well, and how he made the Nosferatu hallucinate, yes, it was just a hallucination, of course. The deceased ghoul's fierce anger toward Doctor Lazarus had, by its own admission, kept him in this world and fueled his unholy abilities. But this woman hadn't seemed angry, though. What was keeping her here?

What did she want? What is going on here? he asks himself, still trying to figure/block out what he'd seen downstairs. He looks back down at the floor, to see if the blood is still there, and calls out, "Miss? Can you tell me your name?" he asks, hoping that would lead him to the other answers he needed.

Heathcliff gets no immediate response, but when he looks back down at the bleeding flooor, he sees some of the blood start to sink back into the floorboards. As he watches, what is left forms letters... MARIA.

"Maria..." he says aloud. Damn it, why did she have to write in blood? It was distracting as hell, even if he knew it wasn't real. Or was it, in a way? "My name is Heathcliff Staley. I've met...someone like you before. I can help you. Can you tell me what you want?"

After a few moments, the blood flows from the floorboards again, only to be mostly absorbed again, leaving behind a different word...JUSTICE.

Maria's shade answered. This was good. They were communicating. She understood that he could help her, and told him what she wanted. Was it something that Heathcliff could deliver, though? Maybe. Mister Staley had spent enough Friday evenings in watching Ghost Whisperer to understand that seeing justice done is a common reason for ghosts to be trapped here...specifically, the ghosts of the murdered. The floorboards of this apartment are stained with blood, and there is new carpet everywhere.

"Maria...this is your blood, isn't it? You were murdered. Can you tell me who did this to you?"

Suddenly, Maria appears again, her nightgown stained red with blood from wounds on her abdomen and breasts and dripping from her mouth. He also notices blood on the front of her nightclothes, near her sex, and on the back as she turns, and sees livid marks on her neck.

She looks at Heathcliff, then turns to the window and points. Following her gesture, Heathcliff sees her pointing across the lot behind the apartment building and between the backs of two other buildings on the other side of the block. Beyond there, across the next street, Heathcliff can see another run-down apartment building.

Maria turns back to Heathcliff, making sure he is looking where she pointed, and then she slowly fades from view. As she fades, so too does the blood smell, and the vision of blood on the floorboards.

"Yes, I see it," the civil servant says quietly as Maria fades from view. His Beast settles down when the phantom blood disappears with her, thankfully. Heathcliff didn't understand why she had appeared before him...had his experience in Amber Hill marked him, somehow? It was an eerie thought. How many ghosts were there, exactly? Are they everywhere, and you simply can't see them unless they want you to see them? Were they watching him, had he become some kind of beacon to restless shades? Or was there something specific that had drawn Maria to him? So many questions...

Well, this was Heathcliff's place now, and he couldn't have Maria showing up with her phantom blood at inopportune moments. He'd have to help her move on. He'd have to avenge her. "Alright, Maria. I'll help you," he says quietly, then Heathcliff simply stares out the window at the building she'd pointed out to him, until he's absolutely certain he'll know which it is when he steps outside.

He tries to analyze all she's told him, through word our deed. Her name was Maria, she had been murdered in this apartment, the nature of her wounds, the location that would lead him to her killer...and Dominic Greevey would fill in the rest, he resolved.

Heathcliff takes a moment to compose himself, then walks downstairs and knocks on his "partner's" door.