As the guards began their umpteenth tour of the building, Sorenti let one pass him and then counted to 8 slowly, at which point he shot out from his cramped hiding place, rounded the garbage bins and leaped up the back steps to the building. With a quick glance back, verifying neither guard saw or heard him, Sorenti forced the locked door and stepped inside.

Sorenti closed the door softly behind him, again checking the guards were none the wiser and looked around slowly. He had been given the details on Vesper briefly over the phone and as he crept out from the back office, Sorenti slowly began to realize the extent of the resources up against him. When he had been given the address to Vesper's private library, Sorenti had imagined some backstreet dive or underground hideaway, not an immense building the size of a department store.

He took a moment to just look around and take in the wealth of knowledge and history contained inside these modern walls. Sorenti reached inside his rucksack and from it, he placed 3+1/4" "hotdisks" in each computer he passed, then threw out mini incendiary devices around the bookshelves. Although impressive, none of the books or computers mattered to Sorenti, instead, he hurried up the fine marble staircase to the museum-like display area. After mere seconds, he saw what he wanted, the glass case almost shining in the darkness.

Sorenti produced a small penknife with his left hand, while gently feeling under the case with his right. He dropped to one knee and unscrewed a small plate with the mini screwdriver tool on the knife, revealing the hidden wires he sought. Folding the screwdriver away and prying out the clippers, Sorenti ignored the common red and black wires, cutting the almost completely hidden green one. The tiny red L.E.D. blinked out and Sorenti smiled grimly as he lifted the glass lid off the case.

Gently, Sorenti lowered a small double mirror device, aligned it and slowly eased it into position, cutting off the laser beam and redirecting it around in a circle. Breathing with relief, Sorenti lifted out the "supposed" fragment from the Book of Nod and looked at it mockingly. Holding it up, he tore it in half, letting one side spiral to the floor gracefully. The other half he held carefully and separated the two leaves, invisible before but now plainly showing.

Sorenti gently shook the fragment and caught the small piece of paper that fell out. He unfolded the piece of paper and tried to make out the vague scriblings, obviously Vesper never knew she had the location of the Chalice in her very own library. The one thing she was searching for, Sorenti had found and thanks to her too. Sorenti smirked in the darkness, removed his mirror device, pocketed the piece of paper and went back down the staircase, still smirking.

He left the building the same way he entered, again in between the rounds of the guards. He ducked through an alley and back out onto the street, immediately mingling with the partygoers and general nightlife of the city. Slipping his right hand into his pocket, Sorenti flipped up the small aerial of the black box and pushed the button. As he paused to window shop, the sound of sirens filled the air. The "hotdisks" were simply small explosives that destroyed the internals of a computer, but the incendiary devices had obviously set the building ablaze.

Sorenti was still smiling to himself as the young prostitute tried to tempt him with more flesh than clothing. Looking down at her, Sorenti felt the rush of accomplishment wash over him and after a few seconds small talk, readily agreed to back to "her place".

She took his hand and led him round the corner to an apartment block. As they passed through a dark walkway, Sorenti sensed her pimp watching them from the shadows. He stopped right next to where the large guy stood, feigning that he had to tie his shoe, dropping to one knee. The young girl smiled back flirtatiously and skipped on a few steps. As she turned her back, Sorenti shot up and struck out sideways with his thumb outstretched, then hurried to catch up with the girl.

He chased her up the steps, playing her "catch me" game, pleased at her high pitched giggles, as he did, the pimp slowly dropped to his knees, the hole in his throat from Sorenti's thumb, spurting blood in a quiet gurgle. They reached her room and the girl felt Sorenti's crotch as she unlocked the door and dragged him inside playfully.

About an hour later, Sorenti opened the door to the cheap apartment and checked the hallway, pleased to see it void of any sound or movement. He looked back at the girl as she lay on the bed, remarkably white and laying at an impossible angle. Smiling cruelly, he took out the penknife and popped out the screwdriver tool again. He had memorised the contents of the small piece of paper and folded with it a 10,000 Franc note, the single largest denomination the French had. He slipped the two, folded very small, behind the brass numbers on the door, then he set about screwing them back into place.

Checking his handiwork and the corridor again, Sorenti slipped back inside the room and picked up the girl. He had fed well on her and was brimming with energy. Pleased with the night, Sorenti dumped her body on top of her pimp's and stuck the pimp's knife in her back, then headed out into the night with so much more to be done before dawn....

((Very cool post man :smile: ))

((indeed! great post Ray...can't wait for your return...

(( Great post!! But it really makes you think. You either have done this before or saw one too many spy movies :P

:lol: giggles @kiya, yep real cool

((ok I wrote this and it failed to post, somehow losing everything I had written, so I rewrote half of it and it lost that too...so here's third time lucky lol))

Sorenti walked along the well lit sidewalk, thinking about Apartment 314 and its golden secret, memorising it's location. Before too long, he came to a magnificent building on his left, flanked by tree-lined boulevards. The burgundy clad doorman rushed to open the gilt edged doors, as Sorenti approached the broad entrance steps. The frontage of the Hotel Splendide was adorned by a multitude of lights, giving off a glow brighter than the few days he could remember. He nodded curtly to the doorman as he passed into the plush lobby, still retaining his light smirk.

He strode purposefully over to the reservations desk and was greeted warmly by the attentive clerk, already on his feet in anticipation before Sorenti reached him. After taking a rather large suite for three nights, Sorenti walked across the over-elegant lobby and headed into the Bar Splendide, chuckling at the ridiculously large keyfob he had been given by the clerk. Sorenti looked carefully around the other occupants of the bar, before hopping onto a brass, blue leather cushioned, bar stool and calling the bartender over.

Sorenti ordered a Rayzor Blayde and then laughed at the bartender's bemused expression. After explaining the specific quantities of Tia Maria, Vodka, Tequila and Coca Cola to be poured into a lime frosted glass, Sorenti handed the barman his key, making up some story about not trusting "front-desk" staff. The bartender handed him his drink and then accepted the key, Sorenti's story and, of course, the notes wrapped around the keyfob. He then waffled on that he could be trusted implicitly and would take good care of the key, but Sorenti was not really listening, his attention was fixed on the comings and goings of the restaurant staff.

When Sorenti didn't reply to the bartender's ramblings, he took the hint and ambled off to find something to do. Sorenti sipped at the drink, knowing full well how lethal the drink could be in large quantities, he left half of it and wandered across the almost lasciviously decorated seating area, heading for the kitchen door. Sorenti stopped to look at some painting on the wall as a waiter almost danced out of the kitchen, proudly bearing his trophy of food. He watched as the waiter whirled across the room, looking for the owners of the order, then he quickly slipped through the door and into the kitchen area.

Quietly and unobtrusively, Sorenti made his way through the staff areas until he came to the rear of the building. Stepping out onto the patio type seating piaza, he pretended to enjoy the night air, while looking around, glad to see no other guests had ventured out to endure "la nuit froide". He pulled up his jacket collar, adjusted his rucksack and vaulted the back fence. Turning right, he headed along the clifftops in a low run, ducking past windows and low fences.

About two miles further on, he slowed to a walk and then crossed the main road, appearing from between residential buildings and disappearing between similar on the opposite side. Sorenti doubled back and followed a parallel path from whence he had just come. Before too long, the bright lights of the Splendide came into view and Sorenti stopped behind the building directly opposite the flamboyant Hotel. It was a rundown motel with more boarded windows than glass ones, but Sorenti went in the back door and bartered the price for two nights with the old, string-vested man sitting behind the broken desk.

Musing that they key he had been given was also covered in grime, like the rest of the place, Sorenti found his way to his room, went in and locked the door behind him. He made a very short phonecall and threw his rucksack onto the sorry excuse for a bed. Twenty minutes later, there came a soft knock on his door, Sorenti opened it quickly and let the man in. The two merely nodded and then set about unpacking and assembling the various items from the case the man carried.

Just over an hour later, Sorenti gave the other precise instructions and a rough idea of what Sorenti was planning. Bill Tanner nodded curtly and left as swiftly as he had arrived. Sorenti stayed behind for a further ten minutes, checking and familiarising himself with the new equipment, before leaving the room, locking it and exiting the building the way he had come in. Sorenti peered round the corner of the grotty motel, ensuring there were no tracers or watchers near, then he confidently stepped out onto the grotesquely yellow, from the streetlights, coloured sidewalk.

His foot never connected with the rough cement of the sidewalk. Four very strong hands gripped him and lifted him clean off of his feet, carrying him backwards roughly. Sorenti struggled but to no avail as the two men slipped a bag over his head and expertly tied his wrists behind his back with steel wire. "Obviously taking no chances" Sorenti thought as they bundled him into the back of a car, following him in, one either side. The medium-sized car, from the sound of the engine, started up and pulled away, tyres screeching on the tarmac still warm from the day's sun.

Sorenti judged they were heading south, along the coast and away from the city. While he continued to track the car's route, he reached out with his mind to the two men cramping him on the back seat. Both were forcibly blocked from him, but he was able to get enough to know that neither were Kindred, nor Garou, but were in fact mortal. Sorenti pondered the shock of this finding and how on earth they had been as strong, if not stronger, than he. As he came up with only a few suggestions, the car slowed and took a left turn, finally pulling up to a stop and he was being thrown out of the vehicle.

The two men frogmarched him into a building which smelled terribly musty and unlived in. He heard doors being opened and closed as they pushed and bumped him along, before eventually they stopped and the bag was torn from his head. The lights were immensely bright and hurt Sorenti's eyes badly, forcing him to shut them. At last he managed to open them and surveyed the large, bare room. To his right was a flimsy-looking mirrored sideboard with a dish and candlesticks on it, contradicting the faded pink sofa opposite it.

Over by the window was an incongruous looking throne-like chair in carved oak with a red velvet seat, a low table on which stood a water carafe and two glasses, and a light armchair with a round cane seat and no cushion. By the throne-like chair, stood a tall elegant woman with her back to them, wearing an obvious Versace ball gown, shuffling through some important looking papers. She turned slowly to face them and addressed one of the men holding Sorenti,
"Strip him!" she barked and turned back to her papers.

The smaller of the two men stood quickly aside and produced a small clasp-knife in his right hand,
"Vite!" the man commanded, threatening Sorenti with the knife should he not obey. Sorenti tried to vanish from sight, but the bright lights broke his concentration and made it impossible. The larger man cautiously untied Sorenti's wrists from the wire and jumped back out of reach. The other man repeated his command and as Sorenti didn't obey immediately, the smaller man moved.

With a swift step and a downward sweep of his free hand, the small man seized Sorenti's collar of his jacket and dragged it down, pinning Sorenti's arms back. Sorenti made the traditional counter to this old policeman's hold, by dropping down on one knee, but as he dropped, the man dropped with him and at the same time brought his knife round and down behind Sorenti's back. Sorenti felt the back of the blade pass down his spine with the hiss of the sharp knife through leather and suddenly Sorenti's arms were free as the two halves of his jacket fell forward.

Sorenti cursed and stood up, reluctantly undressing as the man again commanded him until he stood completely naked in the middle of the room. The elegant lady sat in the throne-like chair and pulled the other chair over to her, removing it's cane seat. The two men marched Sorenti over to the small armchair and sat him down in it. Sorenti rubbed his wrists, sore from the steel wire and was just returning the feeling in his fingers when he realised the two men had bound his ankles to the front legs of the chair with more wire and were proceeding to do the same with his wrists to the arms.

Both were entirely professional and left no play whatsoever in the bindings. All of them bit sharply into Sorenti's flesh and the legs of the chair were so broadly spaced that Sorenti could not even rock it. He was utterly a prisoner, naked and completely defenceless.

((Graventhorp tore the door down, shot the mortals and the woman, cut the Prince's bindings with Lupus Mortis and handed him his clothes. "Anyhting else ya need, sir?"

((lol@Thorp.....thanks for the idea man, very gallant of you, but not even Sor knows exactly where he is lol

((No prob, he could track you down with your unnatural, clean Ventrue scent...

((Dude, now that your all naked & tied up, what is that sick mortal gal gonna do...?
Nothing like this ever happened in Bond movies...

((hehe you'll have to wait and see....but I never said SHE was mortal mwuhahaha lol :P

((PMSL @ Thorp

Sorenti, you could just shine the batlight in the sky... Bats could round up the bat-boys and kick some mortal-arse :grin:

::screams:: MORTAL COMBAT!!!!! :lol:

~batty~

(( UH OOOOoooooooh .. Sorenti's nakey ... Hhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm ... *gets evil thoughts* ... Oh the things I could say ...



Sorenti? Is it cold in there?

( Hmmm I wonder heh heh *thinks he knows who the chick is but is not sure* heh heh heh

The lady nodded to the two men, who silently left the room, closing the door behind them. There was a packet of cocktail cigarettes on the small table, from which the elegant lady extracted a bright yellow one and lit it slowly and deliberately, the gold filter glinting in the bright lights. Sorenti almost smirked at the attempted show of wealth, but his desire for a cigarette stayed his smirk.

She blew the smoke in his direction and picked up a cane carpet beater. She laid it on the floor, directly beneath Sorenti's chair through which his buttocks and genitals hung, with the handle resting comfortably on her knee. She looked at Sorenti carefully, almost caressingly, letting her eyes trail over his body strapped to the chair. Her eyes lifted to meet his and she smiled softly, catching Sorenti off guard as her wrist sprang suddenly upwards on her knee.

Sorenti's whole body arched in an involuntary spasm, his face contorted in a soundless scream and his lips drew away from his teeth in a snarl. His head flew back with a jerk, showing the taut sinews of his neck as the wire cut into his flesh. For an instant, muscles stood out in knots all over his body and his toes and fingers clenched until they were quite white. Finally his body sagged and blood sweat started to form all over him, he let out a deep groan.

The lady waited for Sorenti's eyes to reopen,

"You see, boy?" she said through an evil smile, "Is your position quite clear now?"

A drop of blood sweat fell off Sorenti's chin onto his naked chest and her cackling laugh tore threw his ears like razors. She began to speak again...

"Right, where do we start?" she questioned, "Hmmmm, ok, well, first of all...my name is Estelle, not that you really need to know, but unless you co-operate, you will be dead soon anyway, so it really doesn't matter that you know. However, it DOES matter WHAT you know...so, we'll take it from the start, nice and easy so you are perfectly clear. We KNOW you broke into miss Vesper's private library, we KNOW you destroyed her computers and half the books, we KNEW you stole something and now we KNOW it was a map containing the supposed location of this Chalice artefact, if indeed it is man made. Anyway, we know all that, so no use denying any of it...what we WANT to know, is where you have hidden this map. So, where is it?"

Her former caressing look had become sharp and vicious, her tone commanding...

"WELL?" she demanded,

Sorenti's bloodshot and pained eyes looked emptily back at her. Again with the upward jerk of her wrist and again Sorenti's whole body writhed and contorted against the excrutiating pain. She waited for the blood sweat to cease and for Sorenti's eyes to open again. Estelle puffed on her cigarette calmly, looking at Sorenti with hardly an expression on her cold face.

"Perhaps I should explain further" she whispered, "We KNOW that you were in the library as I said, we also KNOW that you went with a hooker, later killing both her and her pimp and her room, along with your two rooms have been torn apart. We found a good deal in childish hiding places. The ball-cock in the lavatory yielded an interesting little phonebook with codenames and we found some more of your papers taped to the back of a drawer."

Sorenti hid his smile at her proudly boasting of items that he had deliberately hidden that were all false, but that was little consolation now. Estelle missed the small glint in his eye and continued,

"However, I intend to continue attacking the sensitive parts of your body until you answer my questions, or die in the process. I am entirely without mercy and will not relent as I couldn't care less whether you lived or died. There is nobody to stage a last minute rescue attempt and there is no possibility of an escape. This is NOT a romantic adventure story in which the villain is finally routed and the hero is given a medal, marrying the pretty girl. You see, these things DON'T happen in real life and as I am sure the realisation is dawning on you, this is a most exquisite torture, for it is mental AND physical. It is not only the immediate agony, but also the thought that your precious manhood is being gradually destroyed and that, in the end, assuming you still live, you will no longer be a man. All you can hope for, is that you tell me soon and I spare you further pain and perhaps your life. There is no other hope for you than that, absolutely none."

"WELL? ready to talk yet?" she barked at him.

Sorenti closed his eyes and waited for the pain, he knew that the beginning of a torture is the worst. There is a defined parabola of agony, there is a crescendo leading up to a peak and then the nerves are blunted and react progressively less, until unconsciousness and death. All he could do was pray for that peak, pray that his spirit would hold out so long and then accept the long free-wheel down to the final black-out. He knew of those that had survived torture by the Germans and Japanese, that towards the end, there came a wonderful period of warmth and langour, leading into a sort of sexual twilight where pain turned to pleasure and the hatred and fear for the torturers turned to a masochistic infatuation.

It was the supreme test of will to avoid showing this "punch-drunkenness". Directly it was suspected, they would either kill you at once, or wait and let your nerves recover to the previous side of the parabola, before starting again on you.

Sorenti opened his eyes a fraction. Estelle had been watching him closely and waiting for this. Like a Rattlesnake, the cane instrument leapt from the floor, it struck again and again so that Sorenti screamed and his body jangled in the chair like a puppet on strings. Estelle stopped only when Sorenti's tortured spasms showed a trace of sluggishness. She stubbed out her cigarette and drew pictures with the end of the carpet-beater in the small pool of blood under Sorenti's chair while she was waiting for him to recover a little.