before, Ms. Evanston Bell had a wealthy husband and a mischievous streak. he took ill and she didn't mind the loss of him as much as perhaps she should have. she still had his money, anyway.
as a young widow in the late '20s she skirted all the lines between propriety and scandal-- a hedonist and a flirt and naive enough to think the rest of her life might stay just like that: beautifully poised on the knife edge between pleasure and tragedy.
now it’s been fifteen years of night. that once-sharp knife edge is blurred beyond recognition. it still feels like everyone else has a leash they’re trying to put around her mind and her blood and her future. nobody can stand to let her be her own unfettered self.
she still goes by Vic to her dearest, oldest friends. the coterie has protected her, so far, through so much. but she's outgrowing that name now. starting to outgrow her mischief and short-sighted self-centeredness.
after the massacre-- after tying up a few unfinished rounds of blackmail (rewriting everything Thom had claimed credit for, this time with her own signature, making her own deals with the Brujah, taking all the benefits for her own this time), she invested the money and influence she had left into a tiny film production studio and an accompanying theatre space. the studio, while it lasted, produced custom adult films, weird passion projects, the occasional jangling advertisement bit if the client could be trusted. Vic still dreams about those days, before it became so impossible to compete with all the real movie studios out west. but the theatre, at least, was quite profitable in the long run. the '30s had everyone desperate to escape into a technicolor wonderland. the golden age of Hollywood was good indeed to Ms. Victorial Abigail Evanston Bell.
there is a set of small rooms behind the theatre. all private, restricted access, decorated with tapestries and antique furniture. Vic might grant other Kindred access to these rooms, if she chooses-- for feeding, for grooming new pets or new childer, for off-the-record deals.
she sees Caleb as often as she can. together, they pretend nothing so very bad at all has ever happened to either of them, nor to anyone they care about.
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in the next war-torn decade of her undead existence, Vic makes herself comfortable. she's become lady of leisure, not so much in the papers (though she’s kept her contact at the weeklies-- Mr. Gregson).
for someone to manage things while she sleeps, Vic hired and seduced an eager assistant-- the young Ruby Ramos, first apprenticed to her husband’s former accountant and estate manager, now runs almost all of the businesses, the taxes, the charity work, the bribes. Ruby has power and influence she could never have dreamed of before she tasted Vic.
Bertie Carmichael is the theatre’s projectionist and film techie. he and Vic are both enthralled by the movies, the clever art and artful magic of them, the light and shadow they write and paint with. he’s worked up in the projection booth for half a decade now, in between other odd jobs. Bert and Vic flirt endlessly when nobody’s watching, and she teases him that she’ll embrace him fully someday.
her ghouls keep the theatre and the household and everything else running favorably. Chicago is beginning to forget about her, both her mortal mischief and her more recent, mysterious seclusion. and as much as parts of her might pine for the attention she once garnered sneaking into a speakeasy at the weekend, it suits her, and all the others, to be forgotten by the daylight world. she settles more deeply into the masquerade while Ruby makes her excuses to curious journalists or would-be solicitors.
until.
until...
Vic, the white-skinned, fragile-looking undead beauty, meets her final death in a wooded park on the northside. wily, blood-crazed coyotes overwhelm her. Celia and Ethel barely fight them off and get away.
what had they been after, the coterie, outside in the cold moonlight? was it worth this? and will Celia and Ethel let Vic's desperate, smothered cries haunt their daysleep, shaming themselves for failing to save her? will Caleb seek his own revenge on whichever hateful, reckless Gangrel had so viciously sent those coyotes to attack? without Vic, will Ruby and Bertie find their way back to normal mortal life?
will the sudden, final disappearance of the reclusive young heiress make any suitably wide-spread sensation in the papers, once it is discovered and proven beyond all doubt?
there's nothing left of Vic to know or to care, save a pair of pearl earrings torn from her perfect ears and trampled in the muddy cobblestones.
