#Lore24 – Entry #284 – Sentinel City by Night #10 – The Fleshcrafter

From the Journal of Sheba O’Rourke, Private Investigator

“As I would shortly discover, my revelation that there was a Tzimisce in town wasn’t nearly as surprising as I’d originally thought.  I daresay I might’ve been the only one of my (admittedly limited) circle that didn’t know about her.  Should probably socialize more.  Noted.

Her name is Misha Kyle, works as a “plastic surgeon” in her own upscale business downtown, “Lovely Longevity Limited”, real posh clientele; reckon she’s done work on quite a few famous types, though she mostly deals in humans over Kindred.  She’s got a team that handles the little things while she works the real special jobs like my last victim, where there’s some major rearrangement to be done.  Definitely not your typical Fiend, that’s for damn sure.  Apparently, Sokolova approves of her being here, though she’s not a regular at the community meetings.

I setup a meeting with her to discuss the situation regarding Sidney Clark, and she didn’t even try to wiggle out of it, sounded almost saddened by what happened if I read her right over the phone.  Still, maybe she’s just that good a liar; can’t trust a Fiend, right?  That’s the case on the ones I’ve known over my admittedly short unlife, anyway. 

Kyle wasn’t what I was expecting; she looked normal, for one, her beauty seemingly all natural, even acted like a normal person.  None of that alien-looking bullshit with her.  She didn’t hesitate to fill me in on her backstory; got the impression she’d done it so many times it was second nature when meeting a new Kindred.  Sounded solid, didn’t feel like she was feeding me lies.  Reckon she was involved in that mess down in Atlanta back in ’99, one of the Sabbat shovelheads that survived the whole affair and managed to keep her sanity intact somehow, eventually broke free during the chaos that happened all over the place twenty years back.  Been clawing her way back to some semblance of her humanity since, and says she’s dedicated her abilities to helping those who want it, and those who really needed it at a greatly reduced cost.

Sidney Clark was one of the latter cases.  Girl was driving herself crazy between all the bullshit she’d been fed online and in school and the mental state that had come of it.  Reckon she’d had a come-to-Jesus moment and sought help afterward, and was on the way to a full recovery.  She’d been working with a local shrink on improving her self-image, chief head doctor over at the Edgewater Mental Hospital, Jennifer Tempest, and once she had progressed far enough, Misha was brought in to help with getting her physical appearance to match her evolving mental image.  Seems a real humanitarian but call me skeptical.  I’ve heard things about that flesh-warping magic, can’t confirm it, but rumor is it warps minds too, which is why the Fiends are the way they are.  Course, Kyle seems to be an exception.  Suppose anything’s possible.  Reckon she even attends church on the regular, the one ran by that Malkavian preacher I’ve started hearing about.  Not sure that’s a positive or a negative, honestly; haven’t had time to stop by and introduce myself.

Whatever the case, my initial theory that she was somehow involved in the deaths seems to have been shot down.  Couldn’t detect that she was being dishonest, even her aura seemed genuine, though those dark streaks were concerning, even if they were faded, so if she had sucked a vamp dry, it’s been a while.  If she went through that shit in Atlanta, then maybe she couldn’t exactly prevent it.  Whatever; I’ll keep my eye on her, but I’m willing to give her a chance.  Either way, didn’t learn anything useful about the case.  Won’t say it was wasted time, but I might lean that way. 

Till I can find out more about the killer, I’ll busy myself tracking Emmerson’s source.”