A scattering of applause fills the room, but not everyone is convinced. Bouchard is having none of it. "You'd have us believe those cheap special effects? What actual proof do you have?"
"Give us a sample from twenty seconds ago, Alisha," Corliss prompts.
Alisha fiddles with the remote for a few seconds while the crowd waits with increasing impatience. Finally, the monitors behind you split into at least a dozen feeds from cameras placed at varying points throughout the stairwell, but none of them show the Anarchs. Or anyone else for that matter.
"Where are they?" Corliss asks, barely suppressing a snarl.
Alisha shakes her head. "It's the right timestamp, but nothing's moving."
Corliss sniffs and moves back to address the crowd. She seems flustered, but she manages to cover it quickly with that maddening calm of hers. "Technical difficulty notwithstanding, you all saw him destroyed. You felt the aftershock of the explosion. Those who doubt my sincerity will be proven wrong in time when the Anarchs fail to dog their heels at every move. And then you will thank me!" She steps back behind the podium and laces her fingers together while staring out over the assembled Kindred. "Now, let us speak of other traitors." She eyes you and Kashif in turn. "The Banu Haqim stands accused of a failed assassination against me while my errant childe was caught cavorting with and providing succor to our former Anarch infestation."
This is it. With you condemned and on stage beside a failed assassin, there's little doubt as to Corliss's intentions. As a new Prince, she'll sweep her house clean of anyone perceived as working with the recently destroyed Anarchs.