“Then Ben spoke up. He said that we’re more than best friends. I am everything to him. And they should keep their heads out of the gutter. Ben put his hand on my shoulder, and I could feel myself shaking under his warm hand. I turned on the radio to try and drown out the conversation and my own spiraling thoughts. I tuned to our old station automatically, but all that came through was static. 

“Ben said he missed our radio station, too, and Tala asked what he meant. Listeners, it brought a smile to my face to hear Ben do his DJ Ben Jammin’ intro. And it turns out we had some of our listeners in the car with us! Tala and her, uh, ex-girlfriend Jinx had listened to our station during their dates and liked the music and my weird horror story visions. Asa was a little annoyed, as one of his cancer patients had listened to our station and it had given him nightmares. Gwen was unfazed. Maybe she never listened to the radio in her revenant ghoul family compound? I thought I had a bad childhood. At least I had television and music to help me escape the horrors.

“The conversation died down. Tala smelled werewolves on the air, but they left us alone. Asa could sense Diane was alive, but in pain. I took this opportunity to stare into the side-view mirror and contact Cedric. I found myself flying above the city. It was too deserted, even for this late hour. Police sirens wailed and red and blue lights flashed along the darked buildings. I descended into the Gallaudet underground sanctuary. Cedric looked as imperious as ever with his perfect mustache, but his clothes were torn and dirty, and he seemed tired. Like Joan, he was relieved that I was alive. He hadn’t been able to contact Comet or Theodore since Elysium. I told Cedric I had been out of contact while time-traveling out of the Bubble, and I had new companions and had left Thaïs and Desirée behind in Alexandria. Cedric said something about it being bad in Alexandria. They were ‘eating each other alive’ in there. I wanted to ask more but knew that there was nothing I could do for them in the moment. 

“I told Cedric that we had found the Temple. We were on a mission to try and bait George out of the Bubble and capture him to ask questions. Cedric admitted that he hadn’t trusted George from the start and reproached himself for not having spoken up sooner. I asked Cedric if he would help us lure George out. He said that he would try, but he first had something else he needed to handle. Damien was trying to raise the Lady in the Lake on Roosevelt Island. Someone named Jeremiah was bringing sacrifices from across the Bubble. Cedric was in a boathouse now, about to swim across the lake and try to disrupt the ritual.

“I told Cedric I might well be the Prophet but when he’s got something important to say he should interrupt me! I told him we’d change course and get to Roosevelt Island as soon as we could. We were about half an hour away. Cedric cut the connection, and I woke up by slamming my head against the back of the seat. Everything came out in a rush. I told them about the Lady in the Lake trying to resurrect her demon lover and the vision I had of her meeting her other self. That this was one of the apocalypses we had to stop. That her name was like ‘Hi, Ruth’ but without the ‘H’ at the end. I didn’t know if saying her name was going to hurt us. but Joan thought it would kill her. Damien had been playing music to help her sleep, but now he was waking her up. He and someone named Jeremiah were bringing sacrifices across the barrier.

“Asa put a hand on my shoulder and told me I needed to breathe. There was so much I needed to say that I hardly had enough breath in my lungs to get the words out. I inhaled. The blood within me shifted and thickened to make a larger air sac in the center of my chest. Tala stuck her head out the window. She told us she smelled Jinx to the south of us, and that Jeremiah had access to weak, thin-blooded vampires. Thin-bloods Tala had brought to him to protect. I flipped through my notes from my conversations with Damien and Samal, trying to piece together any additional information I could. 

“We drove up to a security cordon, and I used Inner Image to convince the police officer I was with the State Department. It worked and I began directing Ben to Roosevelt Island, but we quickly found ourselves pursued by vampires. Wolves running along the roofs and a large car speeding towards us. Sabbat, most likely. Tala used her spirits to ward Gwen and I against attacks, while Asa and I kept an eye out for anything that would attack us or block our path. Gwen ordered someone unseen that she called ‘John Edgar’ to attack the car behind us and not stop until they were all dead. The car spun out and crashed, so I guess that’s confirmation ghosts are real. 

“When we reached to the lakefront, Tala and Asa confirmed we were no longer being followed. The stench of sulfur and brimstone was overwhelming, and we had to stop using Auspex to keep from coughing. The smell wasn’t present in the real world. Gwen sent her ghouls to drive across the Bridge in one car and take the pedestrian bridge to the island. Unfortunately, that bridge lay inside the Bubble, so we had to swim. I looked over to see Tala transforming into a large wolf with glowing yellow eyes. I was too freaked out about everything else to even give that a second thought. The five of us waded into the water as the smell of blood filled the air.”