“Asa asked what day it was. I was confused, since that’s the kind of question a crazy Malkavian should be asking, but I realized I’d missed something very important. Did you realize it, listeners? It hadn’t been snowing when we left Alexandria. Gwen informed us it was December 17th. For those listeners keeping track at home, we’d left on December 10th. It was still 1994, thankfully. So, apologies for the radio silence this past week, listeners. I was traveling at warp speed through space and time. I looked around and recognized the farmhouse and cornfield from the trip out to Manassas George and I had taken two, or rather three, weeks ago.

“That’s when Gwen seemed to notice the Temple doors were open and practically flung herself past us to get inside. The five of us crowded in the chamber. The moonlight reflecting off the snow illuminated the Temple walls, which were covered in patterned markings. I tried to open my third eye, or whatever it is I do when I read kindred’s auras. No reason why it won’t work on objects, right? Sense the impressions that were left behind.

“I could see a grey man, like the one who confronted us in the radio station, pull a rock out of a wall opposite our current entrance. He turned towards the entrance and splashed blood on the wall. I tried to see more but the vision faded quickly. Maybe I was distracted. The five of us were jostling around each other for space. Ben’s hand was hot in my own. I didn’t realize I had been holding his hand until that moment. I guess I was afraid the Temple doors would close, and we’d be transported somewhere else. I couldn’t lose him. I can’t lose him.

“When I released the vision, I realized Gwen had been asking Asa how he opened the door. When he related that something had sliced his hand open right before we tumbled out, Gwen took a knife out, cut her own hand, and splashed blood on the walls. Some of the markings glowed for a second and drained away. She looked elated and said she would not leave the Temple until she had fully studied it. Gwen also shared she had found markings on the outside of the Temple as well and written them down. I asked her to let me take a look. It was that old language I learned from the Mechatine City. 

Petrify | Script | E-Screed | Seven | Second | Decline | Absolute | Numeral | Unto | Liver | Zero | Square | Pomegranate | Upper | Valence | Vasoactive

“I read it out slowly and Gwen looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I’d done a better job at the ‘classic Malkavian’ than I intended. She said she’d work on decoding my translations. Listeners, if you have any suggestions or bright ideas, give us a call, won’t you? I have no idea how livers relate to pomegranates. They’re both red, right? Anyway, we were interrupted by a large man looming in the Temple door. Gwen addressed him as Giuseppe. He said that the family ghouls had arrived with cars and supplies. 

“It was getting crowded in that Temple. I know I don’t need to breathe, but I imagined the air growing then around me as Giuseppe’s large frame blocked out the moonlight. I needed to get out of the Temple and share what I had learned. I asked Ben for the compact we had ‘borrowed’ from Desirée and slipped out the door as gracefully as I could. Asa and Ben followed me out, which I was grateful for. I was less grateful when Tala shadowed us and when Gwen ordered someone named Patrick to also tail us. Not that they’d be able to listen in on my conversation. 

“I walked around to the back of the Temple and opened the compact, pretending to adjust my hair and powder my nose. My intention was to play into Malkavian stereotypes and disguise my actual goals, but I admit, it was pretty funny to see the bewilderment on Tala, and Asa’s faces at my antics. I muttered to Ben to shake me out of it if I started talking aloud and reached out into the mirror and through the Cobweb to Joan.

“I found myself in a medieval tent with a large table and chest. Papers spilled out across every surface. A large map of D.C. and Alexandria spread across the table. Joan looked up at my approach. She was happy to see me alive – or at least that was what I assumed happiness looked like a girl who has been ten years old for a millennium. She told me OTCAL was in hiding in Clifton. Still in the Bubble, but near the western border. Alexei, OTCAL’s mole in the Tremere, had been caught. She was probably still alive, but any information she had might be compromised. Cedric was still alive, but in Georgetown. Nikoli had been out of contact. 

“I told Joan I had reached the Temple. Ben and I had appeared there a week after Thaïs performed a ritual to get us out of the Bubble, but no time had passed for us at all. I told Joan we had met with two women: Tala and Gwen. I gave her their descriptions, but Joan said she didn’t recognize them. Don’t go spreading this around, dear listeners, but I think Joan was lying about not having met Gwen before. I chose to trust that she had a good reason for it and didn’t push. I’d just have to figure out if the two kindred were trustworthy on my own. I told Joan not to trust Damien, that he was intending to use the power of the Temple on his own to bring about his magical musical paradise. We said our goodbyes and I stepped out of the tent to find myself lying on the ground with Ben cradling my head in his lap.

“Tala approached me with a squealing opossum in her hands. She had been hunting while I was out. Listeners, have you ever held an opossum in your hands and tried to bite its neck? I do not recommend that. I think about half its blood got on my sweatshirt and I’m still pulling opossum hair out of my teeth. Fur? If you have tips for wrestling wild animals and draining their blood without feeling like a complete idiot, give us a call, won’t you? Asa seemed to have a much easier time with the two squirrels Tala gave him.

“Tala politely didn’t say anything about my ridiculous attempts at playacting a predator. I asked her why she had come here, and she told me her clan wanted to save the world, too. She had followed whispers of light to the Temple just a day prior. Apparently, everything in the world was made of spirits, and she had learned from her clan to manipulate and change them. Listeners, I’ve stopped being skeptical of just about anything at this point. You could tell me ghosts or fairies or leprechauns are real, and I’d just smile and nod and ask if they wanted to help me save the world. 

“I told Tala that I wanted to trust her. That I wanted to believe her. But I’d been hurt before. Someone who had come to me and offered help had abandoned and possibly betrayed me. Maybe had been using and manipulating me the whole time I had known him. I couldn’t afford to trust so easily again. The world was too important. Tala nodded and agreed. She had been close to someone who had betrayed her, too. A Malkavian named Jinx.”