Theatre of Blood

### Synopsis

The coterie visit Elysium to make both good and bad impressions. The investigation into the theatre diableries begins.

### Next

The Sultan of Sleaze

**"Theatre of Blood"** is the second episode of the first season of Spectre and the second episode of the series altogether.

## Starring

* Joseph Rose-Price
* Kamila Mansouri
* Vittoria Giovanni
* Charles Whirlpool
* Antonio Giordano
* Mike Penis
* Miriam Deonarine
* Alonso de Sousa
* Molly Strenger
* Briana Jackson
* Meera Vidyarthi
* Benny Espinoza
* Armando Rodriguez
* Kim Michalski
* Faiza Zubairi
* S. Michael Drevin

## Summary

### Teaser

In the early hours of the morning on October 29th the episode begins, with Joseph in his office conducting a meeting with a potential investor, Kamila down on the main floor is dealing with a troublesome guest, and Vittoria is mingling with the customers and showing a young woman around the store as '*California Dreamin'*' by Bobby Womack plays over an opening narration.

### Act I

Joseph is in his office listening intently as a lawyer explains the projected income and returns that an investment from Charles Whirlpool would bring to Vita Notturna. As he concludes and asks for any questions, Joseph decides that the opportunity would be beneficial and agrees to the investment plan. As the investment team see themselves out Joseph decides to head downstairs and see what the others are up to. With Tony and Kamila just manage to usher Mike Penis out of the main door, Joseph arrives just in time to hear Mike yelling about how he "knows the owner and will have all of you fired" if he can't get into the VIP section. With his curiosity piqued Joseph heads outside to hear what he has to say along with Kamila but it becomes clear that Mike has never seen Joseph before in his life and clarifies that by "the owner" he means Liam Birchwood, whom he met during Spring Break in Miami. Mike continues with his tirade, threatening to tell all his celebrity friends never to come to Vita Notturna and furthermore that he would convince Kanye West to write a diss track about the establishment. As Mike was yelling "Siri, call Ye!" into his phone several times, Joseph and Kamila had a brief interaction where Kamila expressed her shock at the fact that Joseph had no idea who Kanye West is.

Inside Vittoria converses with a young woman of similar age to her, Miriam Deonarine, answering many of her questions which consist primarily of information about the history of Vita Notturna as a business. When Joseph and Kamila come back inside and join the conversation the topic shifts to asking Joseph questions. Claiming to be into astrology, Miriam begins asking about the date, time, and place of Joseph's birth. Making something up on the spot Joseph lies to her so as not to let slip that he's much older than he should be. With one last question Miriam asks Vittoria with a sinister tone if she files her teeth, making reference to the fact that Vivi's fangs are permanently visible. With the atmosphere becoming more tense Vivi admits that she did file her teeth to give the appearance of fangs and Miriam thanks the three of them for their time and help, slipping back into the crowd. Joseph remarks that he thinks they might have said too much. An alarm goes off on Kamila's phone to signify that it's about time to get ready and head down to Penumbra so that they make good time for their meeting with Rodriguez.

### Act II

Arriving at Penumbra the coterie head downstairs and quickly realize that Vittoria hasn't received a membership card for the VIP section of the club yet. The bouncer is hesitant to let the three of them in but Alonso de Sousa, the Keeper of Elysium, appears and says that they're fine to enter. He gives Vivi a quick tour of the VIP facilities as there are a lot of useful things for a kindred to know about this part of the club and the services they provide there. He's called away by another guest and so the three are left to their own devices for a little while and in that time are approached by Molly Strenger and her two coterie-mates, Briana Jackson and Meera Vidyarthi. Molly introduces herself along with her friends and explains that they're from Glendale, meaning technically Hugo Becker is their baron, but they prefer this Elysium as it's closer and more lively than the San Fernando Library. In the process of introducing themselves Meera becomes slightly nervous to talk about herself but is encouraged by both Briana and Molly and she reveals that she's a member of the Tzimisce clan. Warming up to the group she becomes more confident and even enthusiastic in talking about things with them and even offers to show them something if someone will offer her their hand. Vittoria volunteers herself and Meera comes closer so as to shield Vivi's hand from sight of anyone else in the club as she uses Vicissitude to move Vivi's thumb into the middle of her hand -- still intact and able to wiggle about freely. Meera quickly moved the thumb back into its correct place just as out of nowhere Benny Espinoza appeared (covered in several layers of baggy clothing to hide his Nosferatu appearance) and said that while he wouldn't get them into trouble for it, they should probably not break the Masquerade so openly in the future and mentioned that Rodriguez was ready to see the coterie now.

The three headed downstairs and into the small office that serves as Rodriguez's main workplace at Penumbra and he immediately mentions how little he likes spending time in this place as it makes him feel like the school principal rather than a friend or fellow kindred. He starts off the conversation by asking Vittoria how she's fitting in and how Joseph and Kamila are doing teaching her the ropes, he also asks if there's anything she's concerned about or feels like she should tell him. At this point the coterie mention the progress they made with Sasha in the previous episode and the fact that they ran into Alastaire Dunsirn. With this out of the way he moves into the reason for calling them here which is that, as Benny told them on the phone last night, there was recently a diablerie committed outside the Million Dollar Theatre on South Broadway street. It is believed that the incident happened on Wednesday morning due to the state of the body and other evidence creating a timeline to corroborate that theory. Rodriguez also mentions that, regrettably, a similar incident happened roughly six weeks ago and due to policies related to Masquerade-keeping a lot of evidence was thrown out when the case was deemed unsolvable. In all likelihood the two cases are connected due to similar circumstances like both bodies being found near theatres and Rodriguez specifically requests that the coterie look into this case as a serial diablerie and with the mindset that it could and will likely happen again. Giving them the address to the theatre he mentions that while unable to send anyone to help them in their investigation he has made sure that nobody will bother them while they're at the scene and also has had some documents compiled to help them with working out what happened. Finally he mentions that the key to get into the alley is taped to the underside of a nearby trash can and asks if they have any further questions. With that, the coterie get started on their way to the scene immediately.

Heading up the stairs from the office Kamila is unfortunate enough to have a "Virgin Mary" (glassful of blood) spilled on her by Kim Michalski, a young Gangrel who tripped while messing around near the top of stairs. Immediately apologetic, Kamila takes responsibility for the accident while Kim goes on the aggressive and chastises Kamila, wrongly implying the situation was her fault. Joseph, who was splashed by the tiniest drop of blood from Kim's glass, gets involved and fights back against Kim and tells Kamila that she shouldn't apologize for things that aren't her fault. Faiza and Drevin, two coterie-mates of Kim, also step in and say that Kamila needs to watch where she's going and begin insulting the coterie in front of everyone at the Elysium, calling them "Bootlicker Benny's kids". Molly and the other Glendale Girls step in to defend Kamila and Joseph and the University Parkers decide it's not worth causing a bigger scene when, to them, Kamila and Joseph already embarrassed themselves to everyone, so they walk away whilst laughing and doing mocking impressions of the coterie saying they'll do anything to impress Rodriguez and how pathetic they are. Molly offered Kamila her jacket to cover the bloodstains on her clothes while Meera and Briana both console her by rubbing a shoulder each. Wondering how she'll return Molly's jacket after she's cleaned it and asking for her number, Molly suggests that both coterie all trade their phone numbers with each other and Briana says that the Glendale Girls will help out the coterie if they ever need anything from them. With that all said and done, Joseph, Kamila, and Vivi decide to walk rather than calling Tony to drive them over to the Million Dollar Theatre.

### Act III

As they made it to the crime scene, Kamila grabbed the key that had been stashed on the underside of a nearby trash can and Joseph opened the gate into the alleyway. Vittoria was the first in and gave the place a quick scan, noticing the folder that had been left by Rodriguez's people and then finding the body nestled out of sight behind a dumpster and some black trash bags. Joseph ushered Kamila into the alley and closed the gate behind him, making sure to lock it once they were all in -- just in case. Before inspecting the body Kamila read over the documents prepared in the folder which consisted mostly of the fliers and posters for any acts that had performed at the Million Dollar Theatre on the supposed night of the incident. She studied each one intently and noticed a discrepancy between two of the posters -- it seemed that two of the acts overlapped one another despite the venue only having one stage for live performances. The Golden Elephant Dance Company's act was scheduled to eat into Joan Stevens' spoken word poetry recital by an hour or more. Taking to the internet to see if any more light could be shed on this, Vittoria found picture proof of Joan Stevens being at the theatre on the night by scrolling through her Twitter account. Then visiting the Golden Elephant Dance Company's website she saw under the news section that they had been forced to cancel on the evening in question due to unforeseen circumstances. With this knowledge Kamila sent Benny a text asking if he could find any information on the Golden Elephant Dance Company or the act that replaced them on Wednesday evening and he quickly replied with "Give me a couple minutes".

In an attempt to perform some sort of medical analysis of the corpse, which by this point was dry and shriveled like a bog body, Kamila stumbled over a stray trash bag and landed on top of the deceased kindred. A lot of potential physical evidence was destroyed as a result of this, since the brittle and frail body was damaged significantly in the areas where she fell. She tried her best to examine the body in spite of the damage but could only really discern the severity of the attack, with the wounding on the victim's neck appearing to suggest that his throat was torn out by teeth rather than simply bitten and drained. Suddenly Vittoria was struck with a brilliant idea upon noticing that the body still contained one eye even though it was fairly dehydrated and withered. By staring into the eye for roughly five minutes and summoning all of her necromantic power she was able to see through the victim's eyes during the last few seconds of his life. While this vision was quick and hard to focus on, Vittoria did get a glimpse of the attacker and focused all her willpower into remembering what he looked like -- even drawing a quick sketch on her phone to show to Joseph and Kamila. While the drawing itself might not have been excellent, the fact remained that if Vivi saw this man again she would certainly be able to recognize him. Vittoria also recreated the final moments of the victim's life for Joseph and Kamila to help them understand the sequence of events and what had happened. During this recreation their attention was turned to the dumpster the body was hidden behind, which was empty save for a black trash bag caught in the hinge. With Joseph and Vittoria both refusing to touch it, it was left up to Kamila to dig it out and dump the contents onto the floor where she found two old backstage passes from Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Stage Door Repertory Theatre in Anaheim.

### Act IV

While the coterie were examining the backstage passes that they found they suddenly heard voices talking at the entrance to the alleyway. They quickly recognized the voice of Michael Drevin and what sounded like two police officers. While the coterie had not been aware of this fact, Kim Michalski had used her Protean powers to track them into this alley and Drevin had used the Path of Conjuring to create a key for the gate after working out the rough pin distribution on the lock. Seeing the officer's flashlight turn on from the gap beneath the gate the coterie realized that they were in a tough situation -- trapped in this alleyway looking suspicious with a corpse in sight of anyone who had a good search of the area. One of the officers banged on the gate, calling out and asking if there's anyone inside. The coterie were still frozen in shock when he called out once more, asking the same question. With no reply the other officer began fumbling the key into the lock before Joseph finally had no other option but to call out to delay their entrance. He pretended to be in a compromising position in the alley, groaning from supposed pain in his stomach. The cops asked him if there was someone being hurt inside but Joseph was able to spin it into making them think the report was actually about the sounds of his self-diagnosed irritable bowel syndrome. It was hard for the officers to believe it and after a lengthy back and forth they began opening the gate anyway, just as Kamila and Vittoria ducked behind the dumpster that concealed the crime scene, getting uncomfortably close to the deceased kindred. When the two officers opened the gate, Drevin was nowhere to be seen but the cops were satisfied with seeing just Joseph there, struggling to pull up his pants as he'd lowered them slightly to lend his story some credibility. They sounded concerned for him and told him that just across the street there was a bar and that it'd be better for him to go in there than in this relatively public area, then headed out along their way. Kamila's phone went off, thankfully just as the police had left the area, with a text back from Benny saying that the replacement act for the dance company was listed as "Magic with Marvin" and that this performer had played several other last-minute gigs over Los Angeles in the last couple weeks too as the episode faded out to the main theme.

## Trivia

* This episode takes place in-universe on Saturday, October 29th 2022, in the early hours of the morning.
* This episode's title refers to the Free Baronies of Los Angeles as being a 'theatre of blood' in the literal sense as this episode is the first to introduce the main plotline, with the first being primarily self-contained. It also refers to the corpse of the diablerie victim being found outside the Million Dollar Theatre.

## Memorable Quotes

"*Leave it, Faiza, they're Bootlicker Benny's kids.*"
―S. Michael Drevin[src]

"*One last question... **Do you file your teeth?***"
―Miriam Deonarine[src]

"*Do you know who the fuck I am? I'm friends with Kanye West and I'm gonna get him to write a diss track on this shitty store! Siri, call Ye!!*"
―Mike Penis[src]