The Pit
Washington D.C. squats on the Potomac like a castrated diamond. It is a place of festering paradox. Politicians and gangsters brush shoulders on the street. Socialites sip champagne on the terrace of the Kennedy Center, and crack-heads hit their pipes in stinking alleyways in Southeast. Opulence and violence share the spotlight on the evening news. It is the capital of democracy, and the murder capital of the nation.

Radiating out from the District like the blast-waves of the Cold War bombs that never fell are the suburban sprawls of Maryland and Virginia. A half-hour outside the District and yuppie estates start to give way to hay fields. An hour out, and you are in the foothills of the Appalachians. In another thirty minutes, you can actually cross the first of those low, dark, time-shrouded hills into West Virginia.

Its getting weirder in West Virginia by the day. Ask any Garou you meet. Away from the major cities of Charles Town and Charleston, off the beaten tracks of the state roads, things start to take on a positively Lovecraftian atmosphere. Locals stare at you blankly from the porches of sagging one-room houses, and the brooding Appalachians glower down at you like dark titans who are just now stirring from an ages-old sleep. Take my advice: don't go back into the hollows alone. Even the Garou ahroun won't do that, and they are some of the most kill-crazy kamikaze sons-a-bitches I've ever met. You can meet things back in those hollows that remind you of Manly Wade Wellman on a bad acid trip.

Like the Pit.

The Pit used to be found on a lonely back-road not too far south of Charles Town. If you didn't know what you were looking for, it was easy to miss. It squatted in the middle of a cinder-bed parking lot that was itself hacked out of a noisome patch of woods that rolled down from the slopes of one of those sinister brooding foothills. No sign announced the entrance, and a single anemic spotlight cast a weak illumination over the parking lot. The building itself was a dark mass of brick and cedar, with windows tinted just this side of solid black. Above the massive front door hung an unlettered sign: a black disk slightly off-center on a red background.

Had you been so lost and so misfortunate as to wander through the front door of the Pit one night, you'd have found yourself confronted by a massive, inhospitable doorman. The Pit, you see, was a "private club," one that catered to the specific tastes of a select clientele . If you were lucky, you'd be asked to leave, and actually allowed to do so. If you weren't so lucky...

We first learned about the Pit after cleaning out a nest of Sabbat on an old farm just north of Leesburg, Virginia. In the aftermath, picking through the debris in the dilapidated farmhouse, we found the clues. Rambling journal entries, a few matchbook covers, a hand-written "menu." Not much, but the picture that seemed to emerge was not good. I hooked up with the local Glass Walker pack, and had them do a little hacking for me. What they found seemed to substantiate our suspicions, and a week of recon and surveillance convinced us that something other than USDA choice beef was being served at the Pit.

Frankly, I'd have been happy to leave it in Garou hands after that - their perpetual war against the Black Spirals was no concern of mine nor the Clan's. But I'd have lost face with my Garou friends if I hadn't followed through, and in any event the Clan, if not the Camarilla, needed to know how deep the Sabbat involvement went in this little venture.

The next full moon found me crouched in the tangled undergrowth behind the Pit, surrounded by a half-dozen Crinos ahroun, two of my clanmates and a double-handful of Garou kinfolk. I'd gotten a couple of disdainful looks from my Garou buddies when I showed up at the staging area in tac fatigues and bullet-proof vest - I suppose they expected me to go in with nothing between me and the Spirals but my good looks and my claws. But I think I regained a measure of respect when I unwrapped and slung Shiva and Kali.

Shiva was a gift from a Garou pack that, as far as I know, has no surviving members. Its a custom-built combat shotgun based on the SPAS 12 design, but scaled up to handle 10 gauge shells from a clip. Shiva had to be retooled to accommodate my smaller hand - the original designer had Crinos Garou in mind. As it is, between the weight and the recoil, most mortals couldn't use it well in a firefight. But for Kindred intent on Spiral-busting it was perfect.

Kali was a 400th birthday present to myself. Her blade is just two feet long - only a foot longer than the hilt - and two inches wide by 3/8ths of an inch thick. She gives the appearance of being stubby and inelegant, but I can assure you she is neither of those things. Her blade is a miracle of modern metallurgical alchemy: nearly unbreakable but with enough silver content to ensure that nothing "Wyrm-tainted" is going to walk away from her bite. A core of depleted uranium gives the blade just the right heft, and the long foam-textured hilt is more than adequate for two-handed work. Her guard is a mock-tsuba, and the heavy pommel sports a two-inch skull crushing spike.

For a minute, while I was strapping Kali across my back, I thought the ahroun were going to forget all about the Spirals and mug me for my play-toys. A Crinos salivating over weapons is not a pleasant sight.

In addition to Shiva and Kali, I had a S&W .40 automatic under each arm with silver Talon-clone loads, and about a dozen assorted sharp-pointy things strapped to various parts of my body. Factor in the piano-wire garrote and fingerless sap-gloves, and I felt pretty good about showing up for this party.

Now, if you're Gangrel, I know what you're probably thinking: what happened to the old Gangrel-go-for-the-throat-with-the-claws routine? Well let me tell you something, if your Sire hasn't made it clear already or you haven't twigged to it by yourself: stupidity and immortality are mutually exclusive, and the *stupidest* thing you can ever do is bring your claws to a gunfight. When you have been around - and survived - as long as I have, you realize that there is a place for ritual and tradition and swaggering bravura, but that place is *not* the battlefield. I realized that the first time I saw a Gangrel get his head blown off by a blunderbuss full of scrap silver. Ever since then, I have made it a point to stay abreast of the cutting edge of weapons technology, and to use it to my advantage. Yeah, I love a good claw-brawl every now and then, but in the world of the Kindred - the same world that includes the Garou, the Black Spirals and the Sabbat - pragmatism is the way to a longer healthier unlife. When surviving to see the next moonrise means you absolutely positively have to kill everything that jumps in front of you, never hesitate to use "the great equalizer," and never skimp on the quality.

If you don't believe me, find an older Garou, and ask him about the merits of talons versus Talons.

Both my clanmates, Glissaad and Cheyenne, were old converts to my world view (Gliss had opened the door of the Sabbat farmhouse with a LAWS rocket), and were walking arsenals themselves. I had insisted on body armor and automatic weapons for the Garou kinfolk - if this thing went sour and we had to evac, the last thing I wanted to be towing along was a bleeding mortal. Fortunately, I had the funds to foot the bill, as my Garou brothers were a little light in the liquid assets department. I'll explode another treasured myth for you - money is *good* to have. In fact, in today's world, money is the only possession a Gangrel really needs. As long as you have access to money, you can afford to travel light, bug out anytime, and leave everything behind. You can always re-provision when you get to a safe place and the heat slacks off. But don't make the mistake that some of the Rom still insist on making. Credit card and check fraud, not to mention counterfeiting, can bring you a lot of unwanted attention *fast* in a computerized economy.

But I digress...

We peered through a light screen of brambles at our target - the rear entrance to the Pit, a loading dock sunk below ground level that we assumed let into the storage area behind the main kitchen. At least, the floor plans that the Glass Walkers had hacked for us indicated that. For my part, I would believe it when I saw it; considering the "business" the Pit was in, it wouldn't surprise me if the floor plans on record were completely bogus.

A mile down the road on either side of the entrance, out of sight by virtue of the rolling West Virginia topology, Glass Walker kinfolk were setting up ersatz police road blocks, to keep out any innocent bystanders and to deal with any more "customers" that might be on their way to the Pit. Just inside the Eastern roadblock, two black Glass Walker vans were idling at the side of the road. One team would cut the power and phone lines, while the other made sure that no cell phone calls went out - they had enough gear in the back of one of the vans to out-jam a B1B bomber.

As the main team made its final checks, the decoy team was moving into position on either side of the entrance. They would launch a mock assault on the front door to draw attention to the main floor and dining area, and then fall back to make sure no one made it out of the front doors alive when we came in from behind and below..

I checked my watch, and tapped the nearest hairy shoulder, waving five fingers in front of the huge muzzle. The Crinos passed the word, and the whole team settled into a tense silence. On the mark, I led the charge across the parking lot, and down the concrete ramp to the loading dock. Shard and Shadow, twin ahroun, were at my shoulders as I leaped onto the loading dock, just as the spotlight in the parking lot went out. A babble of surprised voice drifted to us from behind the double doors, and we knew that the blackout extended into the bowels of the Pit. The Glass Walkers had done their job. The signal was given. The rest was up to us.

A split second before the satchel charge detonated at the front door, the loading dock door opened and a couple of figures stumbled out of the darkness. Shard didn't waste any time - she grabbed the first by the throat and hurled it almost casually over her shoulder, and leaped on the second. I glanced back to see the kinfolk scatter under the descending body, then swarm over it. Gun-butts rose and fell swiftly and silently.

They needn't have bothered. Between the gunshots from the front door and Shard slamming her opponent against the metal racks in the storage room, stealth was irrelevant.

Emergency lighting clicked on high up on the wall as I charged past Shard heading for the door into - I hoped - the main kitchen. Before I reached it, a young boy stepped through it; he couldn't have been more than fifteen, wearing a dishwasher's apron. His jaw fell open when he saw me.

Then the jaw split apart at the chin and swung out to the sides to form a pair of toothy mandibles. A three-foot tongue edged with shark's teeth unrolled and threatened me with a six-inch acid-dripping bone spike. Fomori: Black Spiral genetic mutants. I brought Shiva up and fired once, and was through the door before the sticky red mist had a chance to settle on the walls.

The main kitchen was where it should have been according to the floor plan, but it seemed like it belonged in the nether regions of Hell. Fomori in various stages of transformation were pouring out the far door, presumably heading for the main floor, or leaping over the stainless steel counters to get at us. On those counters, as I knew there would be, were human body parts and organs of every description, in every conceivable stage of dismemberment. I caught a brief glimpse into an open meat locker, at the gutted, decapitated human corpses hanging neck down from steel hooks. Even my atrophied stomach rebelled.

I've never condoned nor encouraged the making and keeping of ghouls, but whether I like it or not it is an accepted practice in Kindred society. Cannibals, however, are a different story. That may seem hypocritical coming from a vampire, but I used to be human, and I view cannibalism with the same contempt, loathing and horror that I do diablerie. In my book, it pretty much amounts to the same thing. And turning otherwise normal humans into cannibals through corruption and manipulation to serve the dark purposes of the Wyrm was something I and the Clan could not ignore.

Besides, a "cannibal country club" in the wilds of West Virginia was the sort of thing that could blow the Masquerade wide open. Let the inside story of the Pit make the eleven o'clock news and we might well see a wave of cannibal-slash-vampire hunting that would make the Inquisition look like a friendly gesture. I wouldn't count on humans making the fine distinction between "cannibal" and "vampire," and in the end, it wouldn't matter anyway. They'd hunt down and kill anyone who so much as bit her own lip.

So we had a higher purpose to serve in cleaning out this little Black Spiral catering concern. But that didn't mean I couldn't get some personal jollies in the process.

I won't even try to describe the maelstrom that took place inside that darkened building. The fomori wailed and screamed and gibbered and shrieked, and the Black Spirals bayed like Garou souls in torment - which I guess they were. Our ahroun roared and howled, and the rest of us added to the general cacophony with inarticulate screams of rage and hatred, and the rattle and boom of gunfire. I reloaded Shiva twice, then went to the pistols and emptied them both, threw away one and ran three clips through the other. Those fomori were tough, but not as tough as the Black Spirals. For a while, it looked like we had bitten off more than we could chew, but in the end I think they were trying to keep a low profile at the Pit, and that saved us. They just weren't manned and equipped to repel a determined, well-armed assault.

By the time we reached the stairs up to the main floor, the defenders had realized the front door was a feint and a deathtrap, and were coming back down the stairs at us. I was out of ammo by that time, so I tossed the gun away and drew Kali with a singing whine.

It seemed like a long, bloody, Hellish fight up those stairs but it could only have taken a few brief minutes. If you've ever been in something like that, you'll understand. If you haven't, all I can say is: practice, practice, practice. There comes a time when the rational mind, even the Kindred mind, shuts down under the stress of combat, and the only things keeping you alive are your reflexes and your muscle-memory. I couldn't tell you now what happened in that stairwell if you held a hawthorn stake to my heart.

By the time we reached the top of the stairs and burst into the dining area, I was soaked with blood, ichor, venom, vomit, urine and feces - fighting fomori is neither pleasant nor tidy. The sight that greeted us was no more wholesome than the one we had left behind. At the last, the remaining Black Spirals and fomori had turned on their human "customers," either in some damnable frenzy of spite, or to ensure that we would have no prisoners to interrogate. Putting the bodies back together for identification would be a forensic team's worst nightmare.

The front door team joined us, and we advanced slowly on the survivors, pushing them back against the blank brick wall that formed one side of the main room. They snapped and slavered and swiped at us with gory claws. When they were compressed into a twitching, uncertain mass of bodies, only a heartbeat away from a final suicidal charge, we cut them down. Someone put a submachine gun into my hands, and I used it like a schoolboy writing his name in the snow, if you know what I mean.

When the last of the horrors were dead, we retraced our steps, retrieving our weapons and our casualties. Mercifully, we lost only one Garou and two kinfolk, although not one of us walked away unscathed. But the mortals that weren't dead would survive, and the rest of us would heal quickly.

In a locked room under the center of the building, we found an old Navy hatchway set into a concrete slab in the center of the floor. The ahroun bristled at this, and said that it must lead into one of the Black Spirals' deep warrens. It took a minute or two of serious, to-the-point discussion to convince those rag-eared bastards that we had accomplished our mission and that we were in no shape to invade the enemy's stronghold, not that night and maybe not ever. In the end they relented, but only with great reluctance.

Outside, we divided up into the road block vehicles and the electronics van for our escape. We backed the second van into the loading area and left it. At a safe distance, the Glass Walkers radio-detonated the explosives that filled the back of that van, and the Pit vanished from the face of the Earth.

I hadn't realized how deeply West Virginia was infiltrated by the Black Spirals and the Sabbat until I read the papers two days later. Our little raid had been explained away as a "freak gas explosion," that had unfortunately killed the staff and a small number of patrons at a West Virginia roadhouse. There were no reports of gunfire or other suspicious activity. I experienced a pang of guilt at that, and hoped that none of the local citizens had been "removed" to facilitate the cover-up.

The crater that had been the Pit was quietly purchased by a subsidiary of Pentex, and was being converted into some kind of "agricultural research facility." Yeah. Right.

Our Garou friends melted back into the suburban woodlands or the urban jungle, depending on their predilections, and their kinfolk went with them. We Gangrel retreated to our covenstead in Loudoun County, where we remain to this day, despite the Spirals and the Sabbat. When the moon is high, we fare forth, and sometimes we run up into the foothills of the Appalachians in wolf-form, and stare across the Shenandoah River at the dark brooding mountains of West Virginia.

We keep a close eye on the West, my friend. Oh yes, we surely do.

Fini