Book of the Dead Names 17-12-08

Five days go by, five days in which Helena and I spend as much time as we can endure studying the book, it is intreaguing and demanding, but we finally get something out of it, something about making something pass onto a next stage, could it be what I need for my pilgrimage? Making this half dead half living body evolve into a living body and this strange fire within me become a soul? It says that for this to happen a thausand names must be written in the book, we know that it already has nine hundred in it. But still if it had a thausand, we still have not found how to make any ritual or incantation with it.

We go to sleep, we both are tired. Strangely enough, and for what might be at much the fifth time in all this false life I have had, I dream, strange shadows surround me, enough as to avoid me from walking from where I am, one more shadow appears and takes the shape of a young girl, about twelve years old, so it seems, black hair and eyes glowing orange, she takes my hand and brings out a feather, and puts it in my hand, but she pierces my palm with it, and mumbles some words, which I cannot hear, since a cellphone ringing brings me out of my sleep.
It comes from upstairs, Helena´s room, night time is just at hand, Helena might as well still be asleep, or whatever Vampires call that state, I run upstairs to answer, but by the time I open her door her hand is already picking up the apparatus. She answers.
I turn around and head into the shower, isolating myself from the world outside, as I turnoff the water, I see a shadow of a person proyecting on the showercurtain, I peek and see no one, I step out and dry myself, just as I reach for the doorknob I discover it will not budge, I am trapped, I feel someone behind me, turn around and again I am alone in the room, or so it would seem, I make my azoth burn and whisper a coomand so that whomever is there manifests itself, and the strange girl from my dreap appears to me on the Mirror, I feel my azoth burning powerfully enough to make her obey me once more, I tell her to tell me what she wants, her mouth opens slightly and a horrid screeching sound emerges, feeling my mind, it stuns me and makes me kneel and cover my ears, but it continues, I beg for her to make it stop, yelling to try to make my voice overcome the sound. But she won´t stop, she continues for what seems an eternity for me.
The door is opened by Karen and Helena, I breathe deeply, as regularly as this body will allow me, and take some time to calm myself a little. Then I explain to Helena what I saw and what had happened, my voice still trembling. Karen asked about “the blood” I look around and both the mirror faucet and Toilet are stained with it, I check myself, and find that my hand is covered in it, real blood, not the bloodlike humor that runs through my veins keeping this body semi-alive, and that it comes from where the feather had been pierced into in my dream. I wash it off, and see that the blood did not come from any wound, my hand is perfectly right, as right as it can be, I pull my skin on the spot, it delayst to much to recover its original state, a depressing sight that I have never been able to deal with, and I wonder on the style of life the girl it once belonged to had.been like.

We head to an internet café, Helena needs to check her e-mail, Karen and I go to get something to eat, a Pizza Hut is right at hand, a good relief of what happened minutes before. We come back as Helena finishes checking all the stuff she needed, and storing some images in her cellphone.
Karen takes us again to Lelouch´s HQ, funy enough Helena has her eyes covered, to keep the location of the place a secret, so it seems, I trust her, but Lelouch is still reluctant to do so. Still he welcomes us showing some strange attitude as he also introduces whom he calls Prince Alexander, he seems important among Vampires, but to me he is not much more than an elegantly dressed man, still he also greets us politely and starts talking to Helena, while I greet Sephiroth with little concern. Alexander leaves shortly after our arrival, and Lelouch explains that he had come to try to wake up Marianne, the rescued Elder, from what vampires call Torpor, but still the attempt seemed fruitless.

Lelouch later tells us of some strnge old demolished church in the slums of Manhatan, he said that we should head there, since the land is now property of the Chinese Embasy, which makes Claudia Greenwood a suspect, and probably gives us some relation with the Lancea Sanctum. Lelouch asks Sephiroth to pay for his lodging by going there, knowing myself indebted to the guy, and knowing that its better to keep him by my side, I claim to Lelouch that Sephiroth had saved me, the important piece in this game against the Lancea, and thus it should be Lelouch paying Sephiroth. Lelouch agrees somewhat bitterly, and then asks again, this time as some sort of important favor that we head to the building and investigate, I ask for him to give me a weapon, after all he wouldn´t let his precious gray witch, as they call me, to run into unecessary danger.

When we get there, six or seven guys, all latinos with tatoos greet us with evident fake friendlyness, the leader claims that he had a car identical to us stolen a week before and that he wanted to check if ours was not it, I do question where Lelouch got it in the first place, but I do realize it is in our possesion and that these lowlifes would never own such a car legaly. Sephiroth keeps them at bay with a cold look, still I give the guy twenty bucks to keep the car safe while we are gone, he demands a kiss from me, and I just tell him that when we come back.
We enter the ruined building, only the front is still standing, wooden planks block our entrance, but Sephiroth manages to break them to make an entrance for us, within the dim light that gets in from the streets shows us the silloughettes of some large pieces of fallen walls and even wrecked cars, Still we find a door to a small room that has not been brought down, we open it with some effort, the chain holding it shut is strong, but inside it we find only some bags, inside them we only find sand, and some strange bricks, they look white under the dim light and weight much less than stone, I keep one to have Lelouch´s people analize it. Helena lits up the place by turning a swithch on the wall, the place looks quite clean and tidied up, only the wrecked old cars can be considered garbage, even the rubble from the demolition seems to have been cleaned. Sephiroth opens a hatch he found, it leads to an undeground hallway, we enter it and fin another door, its locked, we manage again to open it. Trying to be weary of the doogs we hear barking and growling from within, still they managed to jump both upon Sephiroth and one did bite deeply into his flesh, whatever humor fuels him shone as it splattered around, Helena scared one for a while and I just made my inner fire crumble the other´s mind, the one Helena scared tried to attack me, but it failed as I just stepped aside, Sephiroth attacked it, I then realized they were dobermans, I have learnt not to trust the breed, aggressive and very intelligent. But in the end the dog ended so injured as not to keep attacking. We enter the room, only the lights from the hallways lit the inside, dimming as they reach into the darkness, and letting us see corners of some tables with plastic bags on them, I break a bag and look inside, I see a leg, I look for a light switch and find it, and then look back, and I see many tables, and many bags, body bags, what I thought to be common trashbags were body bags. At the fardest end of the room I distinguish a computer, we head to it as Sephiroth states that the bodies seem to all belong to Chinese people.
Sephiroth manages to hack into the computer, and obtains two clues, one is the image of the St.Giovanni family crest and that most of the texts inside are in Chinese, we are about to take the computer out, when a scent of burning wood catches our attention. A flute sounds, I turn around and standing between the dogs Claudia makes the instrument sing. I look right into her eyes, and have her under my grasp, I am about to whisper orders to her when a voice tells me that I will fail in my attempt, then I feel as if my back was whipped many times, my hands and feet pierced by nails and my scalp hurt by many thorns, bllod comes from my forehead, barely allowing me to keep my grasp on Claudia. Digging briefly in my mind, I recognize de voice as Luca´s.
I give Claudia three orders: to tell us what is going on in this room, to go home, and to deliver all the documents relating to this place to the pizza hut we usually go to.
Claudia starts talking as I use my Pyros to heal my wounds, its good that we prometheans are not distracted by pain, I say as I kneel and listen. In the end Claudia says that the St.Giovanni´s asked for the corspes, that more were to come, that the purpose of them was unknown to her but that she would be paid with some pure blood Chinese blood dolls. I tried to impose the same tactic on Luca, but her will is too strong, she resists my transmutations, and as Claudia heads out, she goes after her, I try stopping her by shooting at her, but she takes little damage from my bullet and escapes after throwing me a threatening look.
Sephiroth comunicates with Lelouch, tellign him about what we found, warning him about the delivery to expect at the Pizza Hut and the new body shipment the St.Giovannis are expecting The Carthian says he will warn the police about the strange body storage and with that the St. Giovannis would be in trouble, most probably the Lancea won´t have influences in the police, but the Invictus would, making Helena a valuable asset there.
We exit the old church, the gang we left to watch our car are still there. And in spite of me being covered in my own blood, the leader still asks for his kiss, I drag him to a dark spot where his subbordinates cannot see, and there I paralize him and tell him to clean the street and then hand himself over to the police, when I release him, he orders his gang to start cleaning, we go back to Lelouch´s place, not before taking Helena to get a meal from Nina, and then taking her home.