A Blood Red Moon

1234, the year of our Lord

The sun rises slowly over the forests outside Edinburgh. 

Two men, ragged and rough, highwaymen most days, spot what appears to be a woman resting in the brush under an ancient tree.  They get closer, only to notice that the woman is merely the corpse of a woman, done in by the carnivorous blood pear, a strange vampiric tree thriving in these parts.

The woman shifts slightly.

There's a soft mumble coming from within her.  Then her mouth opens, as a leafy branch pushes it's way out from between her blue lips.

The two men, Hock and Boffum, step back on fright.  They are superstitious men, but what they see crawl from beneath the corpse, shielded by the bloody thirsty foliage transfixes them in their tracks.

A toddler looks at them wide eyed and smiling, eating the fruit of the pear tree, with her mouth dripping of its crimson juice...

Thus begins the unburial...

It was 1234, the year of our lord.  The ancient Lasombra, Vesta Scura, opened a throughway from the natural world into a world of bones and decay.  In that world, castles that were long forgotten in the natural world, were prominent and erect, but built with bones.  Crushed bone made up the soil of this realm and the only sign of life was nourished by a dim sun barely cutting through the dusty haze.  The life there, was a race of creature the crusaders called Djin, a word that came from the Holy Land.  These creatures, custodians of the bone realm, wandered the landscape, shifting skeletal bits from one spot to another, constantly reshaping the terrain.

Now: It is 12 year later.  A thick cloud of smoke and dust dissipates and three vampires step into the dark of night.  Enter Osbert, dedicated to the power of the elder gods; Brianaugh, the Cainite's foster mother to orphaned humans; and Abigail, a centuries old Toreador stuck in the body of a 9 year old child.  But they had companions.  And the children, where are the children?

Snow falls on the dark Scottish countyside.  The Cainites take a moment to consider that which has been lost to them.

Osbert no longer holds his ancient tome, a gift from the Old Ones, that contains unimaginable cosmic power.  Abigail, the child, she no longer has her trove of treasures in tow, nor does she carry the golden chair that has always been more than just a symbol for her obsession of art.  And Brianaugh, she has maybe lost the most of all.  She felt the greatest responsibility for their charge, the human infant that she named Moon.  Now, that infant is gone, as are her nurse, the feral boy Tonio, and the young Malkavian named Fern.
All of these are missing and this tightly knit coterie has little time to consider it.  There are voices.  Someone is headed their way.  Three voices; four riders.  When they come into view on the nearby path, they appear to be of the wealthy elite.   Merffwyn, tall and noble, wearing immaculate white garb with a jewel studded long sword; a woman with a visible ferocity, a head of fiery red hair, and a dagger marked with a golden skull on the hilt; a stocky and talkative man in dark velvet; and a man in robes and a hood with a black and withered right hand.

All of these travellers seem friendly except for the one with the black hand.  He makes even his companions uncomfortable.  It is soon discovered that the travellers are Cainites like the coterie, but one with the black hand has no time for friendship or familiarity, so he rides ahead, leaving the others behind.

The travellers share a horse with the coterie and they all ride toward Edinburgh together.  On the outskirts of town, there's a friary.  It's the home of the Black Friars.  The travellers part ways, explaining that they have business at the friary, and that Edinburgh is just over the bridge on the road ahead.  Finally, the coterie has made it to Edinburgh, but will it matter without the human child who would be Prince?