Kenneth Gilroy Glimpses

[Kenneth Gilroy]

Kenneth stood on the balcony of the motel preparing himself for the last leg of the journey. He would have thought he’d be more excited but he found the echo of feeling to be more like relief. While he was glad to be out and away from Boston it had been a different experience than he expected. His time spent in his Sire’s institution had left him a little overwhelmed and stressed during his trip cross-country. The loss of regular routine was bad enough but then there was the fact that no one seemed to know how to obey the rules of the road. Speed limit, passing on the left, turning off their brights, slowing down in construction zones, not slowing down to gawk at accidents on frontage roads. These plus more seemed up for interpretation. It annoyed Kenneth more than he thought it would.

Then there had been the hundred other things. Having to hunt on the go or risk going into hunger frenzy. The amount of construction around Cleaveland that had forced him to stop early to avoid dawn. Tracking daily sunrises and sunsets to make sure he could make it to his next destination. The worry that a cleaning lady would ignore the do not disturb sign on his door. Begging the car to not break down or run out of gas, though he did have a body bag and blankets in the back as an emergency haven. It was almost all done, though. Sacramento was just over the horizon.

A man passed by behind the vampire without a second glance on the way to his room. Kenneth stopped leaning on the railing. The guy didn’t notice Gilroy following behind him. He did notice that the door took longer than you’d expect to click shut. Turning more out of habit than actual curiosity he barely had time to register the tall lanky man that had suddenly appeared in the room before Gilroy attacked.

The nosferatu exited the room a little while later and checked his watch. Ten hours to drive before sunrise. Plenty of time.

[Kenneth Gilroy]

Kenneth would have liked more time before settling on a choice. Time, however, was not always forgiving, even for an immortal. In some ways even less so. He had been asked to choose (but not procure) a suitable sacrament for the next Black Mass and the lack of direction given was telling. He felt sure he would be judged on the vessel he decided on. The problem was he had very little to go on in regards to how his Priest might view any specific choice, their conversation being the best indicator but even that was not much to go on.

The Kindred were monsters but it was not their place to punish sinners. Still, would an atheist be a good option if they could be driven to God in their last moments? Was someone who had drifted away from faith better than someone raised outside a religious environment? Then there were the Traditions to consider. Certain people tended to disappear easier than others. The Masquerade had to be considered. He hadn’t been tasked to acquire the target but a tough capture might aggravate his superior in the Lancea.

His final conclusion was less than what he wanted. With time as much a factor as it was, Kenneth wouldn’t be able to exhaustively seek out any specific target. Rather, he would have to research those Kine available to him. Luckily there were a decent number of students at hand on campus. Some quiet observation of study groups, glances at grades, subtle questions to professors, and final some stealthy invasions of select dorms got Kenneth a reasonable candidate. David Hopson. A preacher’s son from a small time where he and his family had always been on top. College was quickly disillusioning the young man. No longer was he best in sports, merely mediocre. His grades suffered without his father to have a talk with the teacher. The debauchery and temptation of college was already drawing him away from the more puritan lifestyle; making his grades suffer even more. Better yet, his family had distanced themselves from him because of his actions.

He was practically perfect for Kenneth's purpose. Someone unused to hardship. The father was probably the same. That covered both the sinner and the saint. The lack of family connections and end of the Spring semester would make sure any mystery disappearance didn't attract too much attention. Not right away in any case. The boy's room was even at the end of the hallway on the first floor near an exit. Easy enough to sneak in and out of.


Kenneth sent a text to Josephine letting her know his choice.

I think Room 137 in Sutter Hall should fit the needs for the meeting on the 24th.

[Kenneth Gilroy]

Gilroy had not yet begun to intensively search the underground of Sacramento just yet. He had to put in some work before had. Wandering around the sewers willy-nilly was dangerous enough without risking getting lost. Doing so without a map not only exacerbated the problem but would make any search nothing more than a shot in the dark. He doubted very much he’d find the necropolis marked in bold on some chart but it might him determine any of the more obvious locations it could be.

Unfortunately the city didn’t just had out diagrams. You had to know people. Unfortunately Gilroy didn’t know a lot of people. Not those kinds of people anyway. Fortunately he did have in an in. A tiny little microbe. The city already used them to digest food waste for natural gas. All Kenneth had to do was design a better one. Kenneth groaned at that thought. It was such an easy thing to say. It was quite another to actual submit proposals for approval and secure funding; much less actually start messing with bacterial DNA. With luck though, even the beginnings of a project could get him noticed and appreciated. Even if fruition was years away.

He booted up his laptop. The screen was glaringly bright in the night's darkness. Then he started doing some research and typing a preliminary out line.

[Kenneth Gilroy]

Mary Lawrence glanced over her shoulder when she heard the door to the lab finally close. She heaved a sigh of relief. Doctor Gilroy had finally left. Now she could finally get some work done. It wasn’t that he interfered with her lab work. He mostly stuck to some far off corner working on his new and improved sewage microbes. However, just having him around distracted her. She was constantly having to check to make sure he hadn’t snuck up on her. She couldn’t even rationalize why he made her nervous. He just seemed like a creep.

The worst part was he was always working at night. Next semester she was going to be sure to schedule everything during the day. Until then she would have to put up with having her skin crawl every time she was near the guy.

An instinctual shudder ran down her spine even now that he had left the premises. Mary turned back to her work, only to discover she had forgotten to grab a centrifuge.

“Could have sworn..” she muttered but shrugged before heading to the supply closet. The centrifuges were on a back shelf with a clip board hanging nearby for signing them out. She grabbed the clipboard and glanced over it. Sure enough there was her name at the bottom.

There was barely enough time for the shiver to run up her spine before the light in the closet was turned off and she sensed someone standing behind her.


Kenneth left her alive but unconscious. He knew he couldn’t make a habit of this. Attacking students held too many dangers. He’d left off feeding for too long though. Been distracted by all the projects he was trying to juggle. He’d allowed himself this one time small convenience to a night of hunting. He promised himself it wouldn’t happen again.

[Kenneth Gilroy]

If Kenneth had been told the thing he spend the most money on in Sacramento would be clothes and shoes he wouldn’t… well to be fair he probably would have believed it. His wardrobe wasn’t very big to begin with and the Prince’s courts might not demand a new outfit every time but they did demand you dressed well. That Kenneth could live with. What annoyed him was that since arriving here, his garments and especially his footwear had been under constant assault. Being around Sergei might not ruin fabric but it did guarantee several trips to the dry cleaners to get the smell of cadaver out. Then there was his clan given assignment.

Gilroy trudged through the sewers. He was wearing galoshes but after hours of walking things tended to find their way over the rim anyway.He could feel the damp on his pant legs and the pooling water sloshing around the soles of his shoes. Kenneth had brought a UV lamp in the hopes that it might help reveal some secret bloody entrance. Instead, it only served to remind him exactly what it was he was slogging through. This is supposed to be for rain water run off he thought bitterly as a florescent bit of ‘debris’ floated by.

What made it so much worse was the lack of progress. He’d been at this for months and still found no trace of the Necropolis. Even with his new connections in sanitation, no revelatory data was emerging. When Angel had suggested he search out his Clan’s old haunting ground he had been almost eager to prove his worth. He’d felt confident he would be able to find whatever was down here. Now… now he was losing hope that even with years of searching he would be able to find the place. ‘Miles of tunnels’ was not a phrase that held the proper respect it should nowadays.

Kenneth checked his watch. Three hours till dawn. The vermin vampire sighed as he turned around to head back. He knew he would find the Necropolis eventually. However, eventualities didn’t get you respected. They didn’t prove you more than insect crawling around below the earth.

[Kenneth Gilroy]

If asked to name an evil creature with claws and sharp teeth, most people would name some predator. If asked to name a lowly vermin able to twist and writhe in impossible ways, most people would describe a snake or something similar. Most people would not think of a rabbit. Most people obviously didn’t have experience with rabbits.

Kenneth struggled the little leporine devil down. Doctor Whittaker had gotten into a car crash and Gilroy had been ‘asked’ to keep an eye on his experiments. Kenneth had pointed out that Whittaker had people working with him that were likely better qualified. While they had told him they trusted him more, Kenneth couldn’t help but feel that they simply preferred not to have to come in at 1 am. It wasn’t like he had his own projects to take care of. It wasn’t like nothing happen on nights.

In the end Gilroy had accepted though. If nothing else it indebted others to him. For having to deal with struggling animals it had better indebt him. This was only the latest in what seemed a long list of annoyances. Getting acknowledgement, going to court, searching the sewers for the Necropolis, searching the for Straiphen, with the old Whip gone the search for the homeless family would probably fall to him as well, finding a Sacrament, attending church. Kenneth had never realized how much Tabitha’s inability to trust in him with responsibility had protected him. Of course she found other ways to make up for it so end you had to be grateful for these exasperations, right?

The rabbits contorted itself again and managed to sink its fangs into Gilroy’s hand. With a snarl, the Beast mind reared its head, channeling all of Kenneth’s anger into its own hunger. Kenneth retaliated in kind. The doe’s scream sounded almost human.

By the time it ended, Gilroy was already regretting his lack of composure. The rabbit hung limp in his hands, dead. He couldn’t even get the blood sample he had needed. With another growl of frustrations Kenneth grabbed his coat and smart phone. It would be easy enough to dispose of the body. Any field or dumpster would do for that. That difficulty lay in finding another pregnant female by morning.

[Kenneth Gilroy]

Kenneth had been even more intensive in his search since deciding that actually finding the old Necropolis was next to hopeless, exempting stumbling on it by blind luck. Now he searched instead for a new home the Haunts could claim. It made the list of possible locations more restricted. Well, it brought the list under his control. He was the one making the requirements and not some Kindred he only knew by heresy.

There was still a lot of scouting to do. Street maps didn’t tell the whole story. There was looking into how much foot traffic went by a possible entrance. Any current, past, or future road construction had to be considered. And that was just worrying about discovery. Then there were all the practical considerations. Was there risk of flooding given past high water marks? Would utilities be accessible? If not how much work would it be to make a work around?

Each site then had to be examined with these things in mind and then compared to all the others to figure out which was ‘best’. And finally after several weeks (plus the months before hand) now Kenneth felt he had found what he wanted. He had happened upon a sub-basement of an abandoned building in his searches. It was basically just bare concrete floors and dull brick walls. The steel stairwell that led to it had a sturdy door, though. There was sewer access as well. The tunnels below still need galoshes to traverse but it offered opportunity to expand. It wasn’t perfect in all regards by any means. It was adequate in most, though.

Now the real work began.

[Kenneth Gilroy]

Kenneth heaved an exhausted sigh as he collapsed down on the hard metal steps. The experiment had failed.

For days he had been carrying supplies down into the sub-basement. Bags of cement; coils of electrical wiring; tiling; water filtration systems; chemicals; various paints and varnishes; candles; lanterns; plywood. Night after nights, day night after day night. He didn’t get tired per say but there arrived a certain point where he couldn’t go any further and his muscles started giving out regularly. No doubt muscular micro tears adding up over time till the system became useless despite all signs to the lack of lactic acid build.

Kenneth had idly wondered if perhaps if his blood was actually flowing in the mimicry of life if that would somehow oxygenate his body better and make the task he had set for himself easier.

It had not. In fact it made it worse. Now he was out of breath, wheezing, and sore at the bottom of an abandoned staircase and still had half the night ahead of him. When the blood stilled and the breathing stopped he was relieved not to have to deal with such inconveniences anymore. It was too late for the metabolic left overs though. Gilroys arms and legs still ached and burned from the anaerobic activity. And he had little doubt that they would continue to do so now that his circulatory system had shut down. Better than reapplying the Blush, though. He’d rather not suffer through more time of mortal weakness. His immortal weakness was plain enough. More than once he’d had to quicken the Blood to heave a cement mix a final few steps.

He was having to buy and bring down even more than first predicted. It was his own fault. He had reactivated the building’s utilities after pulling some strings. It had seemed a good idea at the time. Electricity was something that made a whole bunch of things easier right away after all. And he would need the water eventually. Things had turned out the other way though. He had gotten the water right away when a pipe burst after not being used for a dozen years. And he had failed to get power after the aluminum wiring nearly caught fire from being over-stressed in load capacity. In the end, Gilroy had ruined most of the cement he’d brought down, burned out two space heaters, and upset his lower mind with a small electrical fire.

And this was just the preliminary work. There was still the part he had to play of plumber, electrician, and construction worker ahead. For what? So that he could impress Ducard and hand over the keys to the kingdom to her? No!

After all the effort Kenneth had put in and would put in, he wanted more than that. Angel was not Tabitha and Kenneth was not the sad little childe anymore. He knew he couldn’t lead, but if he wanted a place in the hierarchy of the Clan he had to do more. He couldn’t wouldn’t let all this work and sweat and blood be taken from him. He needed to claim it. Make it his. Subtly yet overtly.

He looked down at the crate in front of him and had an idea. Josephine had had asked him to think of ways after all. Kenneth smiled and picked up the box of votive candles and headed to the far end of the room. His muscles ached, but he no longer gasped for breathe.

[Kenneth Gilroy]

Why did it have to be rats?

It was easy enough to answer but it didn’t make the vermin any less annoying. Plus there was a lot of convenience to being part of the ‘Pets to Go’ rat club. It didn’t fulfill of a Kindred’s needs but it helped to supplement the diet when life got busy. The blood was nowhere near as sweet as it could be if Kenneth had gone on a true hunt. The sensation of biting into fur and subsequently having to spit out tiny bits of fur didn’t add to the experience either. All the same, Kenneth had been busy lately and he had to stop feeding at work. You generally ended up with a fistful of scratches but at least they weren’t rabbits.

The courier was one Gilroy knew. He had made several deliveries before. John? Jack? Jake?

“Here you go,” he said happily. The box squeaked uncontrollably as it switched hands.

“Thank you, James,” Kenneth replied. Praise be to whoever invented nametags.

“Boy, you must own a lot of snakes,” the delivery boy said jokingly. It was strange but so far James seemed little affected by the Nosferatu’s curse. Maybe that was why the joke seemed so out of left field. Kenneth’s brow furrowed in a quizzical look that said all to clearly ’I don’t own snakes’ before he was able to regain control of his expression.

“Yes,” Gilroy said, in a neutral and completely unconvincing manner. It took a few seconds but then the young man’s face went slack. First with surprise and then fear as his imagination filled in the blanks of what other uses rats could have. All the time James had seemed to not be influenced by the curse came crashing down in that one look. The horror and disgust said it all.

Gilroy closed the door before any more comments could be made. And just like that, there went one avenue for feeding. That was unfortunate.

From the smell of it, the rats had started attacking each other in their panic to get away from whatever was holding their box. Kenneth would have to drain them before they had the chance to kill one another. He would have to wait though. At least until he heard the delivery car drive away.

[Kenneth Gilroy]

Kenneth could remember seeing the boy in his mind's eye. He had to admit, it wasn’t the most terrifying of images. True, there had been some blood but the cuts had been shallow and survivable. It was barely enough to be called mutilation. It would scar to be sure but less so than even an intensive surgery. That wasn't what was so wrong about the memory though. No, it had been the dulling of the eyes that made the recollection so horrific. A slow loss of comprehension as Josephine tore apart David’s memories. A quiet ravaging of the mind. That was terrifying. Maybe not to some. Maybe not even to most. To Kenneth though, it was monstrous and he was determined to protect himself from against it. At the very least, mitigate the risk.

While Sister Sterling might be an ally, Gilroy didn’t delude himself that she might not eventually turn her powers on him. Then there was the fact that there were surely out in the night that held that capability as well. For all he knew, he had already been affected. There was almost no way to know.

It was a tricky problem and not one he saw a true solution for. During an attack there wasn’t really a way to ensure information was retained. Not in a detailed manner in any case. The best he could think of was signals that an attack had occurred. His first thought was to use his watch or phone alarm. It had taken a decent amount of time for Josephine to work. If Kenneth were to set his alarm to go off at certain intervals, then when it did then he would set it again to go off at a nearly identical but slightly different interval, if there was ever a time when his alarm was off from the expected time that could be used as an indicator. It wasn’t perfect. Keenly observant Kindred might be able to figure out the habit. Using randomized interval changes that were different from day to day would help. Offsetting the phone alarm and placing it on vibrate would as well.

Kenneth still didn’t feel completely comfortable with that being the only safeguard. Detection in this case, was going to be the primary method if there was to be any hope of recovery of information. Something less noticeable and more immediate. And so Kenneth came up with the idea of biting the inside of his lip if he thought his mind could be under threat. If it later came about that his mouth was cut without him remember how or why, that could serve as another signal.

Which left the recording of information to ensure his past recollections retained their integrity. This was much simpler. First, he would need to note his plans for the day. For that he would need to buy another phone that he wouldn’t keep on his person. If the phones’ schedules differed at the end of the day then tampering would be indicated. Then at the beginning and end of any event he would send a brief descriptive message. Deviation at this point would be weak evidence. Events unfortunately were fluid enough that it couldn’t be concrete. The greater the deviation, the more suspect the memory. The next step would then be to record the day’s in greater detail and occasionally reread the log. Finally, a secondary fallback needed to be established to ensure the integrity with the primary. Unfortunately it couldn’t just be stored at some off site location, since that location itself could be forcefully forgotten. No, it had to be maintained and reviewed by someone Kenneth trusted. Which left only one name on the list of potential caretakers of his mind and Gilroy wasn’t sure that person would even reply to the letter he was writing.

Letter to Boston

Dearest Grandfather,

I know I write to you against the explicit instruction of my Mother. However, much has happened since I arrived in Sacramento…

When the reply finally arrived it came in the form of a package. Kenneth kept his hope in check as he opened it. Within were a Testament, a short letter written in a tired shaky hand, and a necklace.

The Reply

Dearest Grandson,

I admit I was surprised to receive your letter, though overjoyed when it arrived. I know your Mother’s words were harsh upon leaving and I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk to you after that. Know that her views are not my own. You taking the priesthood I think more than demonstrates you’re well on your way coming into the family business given time and I fully support your efforts as I’m sure the other items I’ve sent show.

However, before I continue, I have news of my own…

Kenneth read through the letter with a mixture of emotions. He was happy to have his Grandsire's support but he was apprehensive about what establishing this line of communication would mean. Elijah had agreed that talk-around would not be sufficient. To well and surely protect what needed protecting, it would need to be clear non-obfuscated language. For that it would need to be encoded, which would necessitate a direct and private conversation.

Kenneth was going to have to go back home. And with all that was going that wasn't going to be an option for a little while. So until then he'd have to trust with the partial measures he would establish. Kenneth held up the cross that had been included. It wasn't steel like the one he currently wore. It was a dark polished wood on a leather cord and attached to its surface was a dull golden spear head. The Spear of Longinus. Not only a symbol of the church in this case but of family. He recognized it as the one Elijah had always worn. Kenneth put it on with reverence.