“But we had only minutes to daylight, and we couldn’t run. Listeners, I hope you can understand why I chose to pretend I hadn’t seen it. And maybe I didn’t! Maybe it was just my imagination running away from me. I’m a Malkavian, right? We’re crazy. I could barely trust my own senses before the Thing inside my head woke up and started talking to me. I wasn’t befriending two women who were keeping a person hostage and about to feed from them, right?

“In the farmhouse, Ben immediately ran upstairs to check that the bedroom Gwen’s ghouls had daylight-proofed was, in fact, free of daylight. I rummaged around the cabinets and put cereal on the counter. Fresh veggies and milk were in the refrigerator. I tried not to think about the people who lived here. Or what Tala was carrying. I followed Ben upstairs. I held him by the shoulders and made sure he met my gaze. I told him that he needed to eat and sleep. I told him that the knife had drained a lot from me. I made – I made him promise that he wouldn’t be next to me when I woke up. It was too risky. I was too dangerous. If the things Tala told me about ghouls are true, my commands wouldn’t be disobeyed. I hated myself more than anything as I ordered him to promise me. But I couldn’t survive a world where I woke with Ben’s bloodless corpse in my arms.

“So, listeners. That’s where I am now. In the bathtub on the second floor of a farmhouse. A week in the future. Hunted by Tremere and futuristic space suit dudes and God knows who else. Possibly being held captive by two kindred who may or may not have tied up the previous owners to drink their blood. Wish me luck.”

* * *

“Welcome back, listeners. Whatever prayers you offered must have worked. No nightmares! I woke up in the bathtub with clean muslin robes and only slightly hungrier than when I’d gone to sleep. I padded my way downstairs and saw Ben eating cereal at the kitchen table. He jumped up and ran over, clutching something to his chest. He’d gotten me a blood bag, though now he owed Gwen’s ghouls a favor. The Beast wanted to tear into it, but I was tired of doing laundry. Together, we carefully unscrewed the blood bag, and I slowly drained it dry. We left the farmhouse to find Gwen speaking with her ghouls from the Temple doorway. She refused to leave the Temple unless someone else was inside or until we had figured out how to open the doors from the outside. 

“I knew there was more I could learn from the Temple vision, but I needed to focus. Channel my spiritual energies. And what better person to ask than the one who could talk to spirits? I walked over to Tala, who stood listening outside the Temple. I told her about my plan to meditate and she agreed to help. First, she offered to find me weed, but I declined. Now, this may tarnish your idea of me as a ruggedly handsome and hardcore punk rock radio DJ, but I like to be honest with you, listeners. I’ve actually never smoked weed or done any drugs not prescribed to me by a doctor. I’ve been prone to nightmares and hallucinations all my life. Messing around with psychedelic substances seemed like a bad idea. 

“Her next offer was to enchant some candles with spirit energy, which I accepted. I sat inside the Temple, allowing Gwen to go inspect what the ghouls had brought, while Tala lit the candles. I was scared I’d react the same way I had during Hanukkah, but the flames glowed blue, and my Beast was as quiet as ever. Gwen stuck her head in and interrupted me as I was about to meditate. I started to drift off as Tala explained our plan in a quiet whisper. Blue light danced behind my eyelids. Smoke filled my lungs. 

“I opened my eyes to see the Grey Man standing before me. But he wasn’t grey yet. He was human, or as human as any of us kindred. Beautiful face and long hair. He was wearing a tunic. Cut like a Roman or Greek tunic, but made out of a strange, space age black material. Kind of like Klaatu from the Day the Earth Stood Still. Not the same man who had teleported into our radio station. A globe was nestled in the door opposite the one that led outside. It glowed with shifting patterns of gold, red, and obsidian. The shifting stopped as the man pulled the globe from the door and his hands turned grey. The grey darkened and traveled up his arms. He opened the door and stepped out into the cornfield. Late summer or autumn, if I had to guess. 

“Don’t know if it’s quite time” he said. He spoke in that old language that translated itself in my head. I could feel his emotions as he spoke. He was concerned and afraid. But ultimately, resolved. “But. Here we go again.”

“I woke up from my trance and decided, fuck it. Time travel is real. I’ve done it already. And I just had a vision of another time traveler entering our timeline to change it. I decided this was the timeline I would trust Tala and Gwen with as much of the truth as I could. I needed help understanding everything I learned. Ben and Asa and I couldn’t save the world on our own. 

“I told them I was part of a Malkavian experiment on pregnant women in Fairfax Hospital. The Malkavian Immanuel had Embraced me after I shared my visions on the radio. He had immolated himself only days later rather than be captured by a group of grey people in futuristic suits. The Tremere and Black Hand were hunting me. I had a small group of followers with a lot of information who believed I was a Prophet. They had been saved by future me who had traveled, or would travel, through time to set up the group that orchestrated my Embrace in the first place. I used to have a friend, George, who told me he was working for a small, secret part of the kindred government and wanted to help me save the world. But he had eaten a Tzimisce during the Sabbat attack on D.C. and started acting strange. George knew where the Temple was. The Tremere, the space people, and countless others were trying to find this Temple to remake the world in their own image. This included my Malkavian brother, Damien, who was also a subject of the Fairfax experiment. And finally, that the Temple represented our only hope to avoid the apocalypses hellbent on destroying the world.

“I tried to explain the revelation from my latest vision. Listeners, let me know if you can come up with a better metaphor. But for the moment, pretend with me that world is a video game. And we keep playing until we get to the boss level. But, as we’re fighting, it turns out we’re missing a key item or ally or didn’t to unlock a special ability several levels back. So, since we can’t afford to lose the game, we hit pause and reload an old save file and go back and try to figure out what we did wrong. But I guess there are other people also playing the video game and they keep trying to steal our access to the save files? Okay, the analogy breaks down there. 

“Gwen seemed utterly baffled by the metaphor, but everyone seemed to get the gist. We discussed next steps. Since George knew where the Temple was and had previously been able to track me, he was our first priority. We decided to drive to Georgetown and spring a trap for him at Gallaudet University, assuming we could reach Cedric and ask for help. We’d use yours truly as bait so that Tala, Gwen, and the armed ghouls could stake George. Then we’d find out what he knew and who he really worked for. I didn’t like it, listeners. I still wanted to believe that George hadn’t been lying to us from the start and it was the Tzimisce in his head that drove him mad. But I’d really be crazy if I didn’t at least contemplate the alternative.

“Tala also piped up and said she had something to share. Apparently, she used to be a Gangrel. But then she was inducted into a new clan, and because of that her blood can no longer bond or ghoul others. I asked if changing clans was an option, but I’m stuck with this one.”