Of course," Gerard says, having the dignity to at least look chagrined. "I apologize for overstepping, sir." He nods curtly. "Will that be all for today?"
"Just about," you say, weariness enveloping you as the outside world grows closer to dawn. "I'll be needed at Corliss's offices tomorrow and I may be gone for most of the night. I have a job for you in the meantime.
"Of course, sir. I'll get on it right away and hopefully have something helpful by the time you're done with your sire tomorrow night."
Gerard finally leaves you in peace and you make your way to your bed chamber, eager to put the disastrous night behind you. It surprises you how easily you fell back into the pattern of violence from your fledgling days, but now that you have the time to reflect, your entire body shudders and you feel weak in the knees. Un-life in the upper crust of Ottawa's Camarilla society is rarely dull and is filled with very real dangers, but those are attacks of a political nature, and to fall in a battle of wits rarely leads to a violent and bloody end—although it's certainly known to happen. Tonight, you faced final death on more than one occasion, and the resulting flood of memories from your mortal life brought back a heavy weight of long-repressed guilt.
Fear of dying is a persistent instinct in both mortals and vampires alike—even decades after your first death, you're surprised to still feel the faux spike of adrenaline and the gnawing fear of the grave. Agelessness, as you'd quickly learned upon your Embrace, can be stripped violently away, much the same as it is granted. Left to their own devices, a vampire's un-life could extend indefinitely, but the undead eventually desire purpose. True to the spirit of your damned nature, this desire manifests in the form of deadly politics, activism, or violence. For years now, the latter of these has been the furthest thing from your thoughts, but thanks to Corliss's prompting and Robert Ward's strangely personal attack, you're once again reminded that you are an inherently violent creature, and the thought both repulses and intrigues you, although not in equal measures.