“Dreams do come true. You just have to die for them.”
Emmett Delacroix

---

Date ?

GM: The Quarter is a sea of glowing souls. True to Em’s memory, the Evergreen is a posh jazz club along Royal Street. Sounds of warmth and merriment emanate from within over the sound of classic Louis Armstrong.

Yet if that were all it ways, it does not feel to Em as if it were the sort of place his dark benefactor would send him.

Emmett: Forget feelings. Abélia’s love is rape and her favors are guided missiles.

But for all that, he suspects he’s at least carrying the payload rather than about to be crushed under it.

That’s fine. If Abélia won’t give him the time of day, he’ll leave things as they are with her. Her daughter’s still warm to him, after all.

And if this pays off… maybe it’ll make the loss of his conscience easier to bear.

Probably not, though.

GM: The Evergreen’s walls part for Em like so much smoke. He’s treated to an all-out assault on his senses as he floats inside. He hears laughter, and the sound of jazz, both louder now and carried through the place by means of a static-filled and barely functional sound system that hurts his ears. It sounded state of the art when he was last here. Em doesn’t smell any smoke or alcohol, despite the copious quantities of both. The rotted, once-fancy décor looks French. The first floor is a large, loud room full of carousing men and women lounging around on ruined antiques antiques while a live band plays.

The club’s walls suddenly turn solid and opaque. Em can no longer see through them. A high, alarm-like whine splits the air, although none of the patrons pay it a glance.

A tall and extraordinarily handsome Creole man strides towards Em, winks at him, and makes a beckoning motion with his finger. He strides up the stairs, away from the carousing patrons.

Emmett: Em salutes back, which is why he’s reasonably sure the playboy cannot see him.

Nevertheless, he follows. Seems only polite.

GM: The glove-wearing man looks and carries himself more like a butler than a playboy as he walks upstairs and down a hallway into a well-appointed parlor room in that same fancy French style. He opens a cupboard, removes an ouija board, and sets it down on a table.

“Welcome to the Evergreen, departed spirit,” smiles the man, inclining his head. “My name is Fabian. May I ask yours?”

Emmett: Well, fuck, Delacroix is too long to spell.

He spells out, E-M.

GM: The planchette does not move.

Hahaha. Idiot.

Fabian’s smile does not dim. “If you are unable to answer me, departed spirit, a medium can be made available. I would pray your patience until then.”

Emmett: Em waits.

GM: Fabian removes a phone from his jacket. “We have a guest who’d like to remain out of sight. Can you ensure they are suitably entertained, please?”

“Thank you. C-”

“Don’t bother, Fabian. I guess it’s your lucky night,” sounds a familiar voice at the door.

Sami Watts leans against the frame with an arm out. She wears a low-cut black dress tonight with red pumps.

“The spook’s at the table, you suppose?”

Fabian bows low. “Yes, madam. Lord Savoy would be most obliged if you were to be of assistance. I had not been aware that mediumship was among your many talents.”

“A girl has to keep a little mystery to keep herself interesting,” replies Sami. She looks at the table and closes her eyes for a moment. Em sees her fangs lengthen slightly in her mouth before her eyes open.

Emmett: He twiddles his fingers at her in greeting, crossing his legs as he sits in midair.

“Long time, no see. Moved past ouija, have you? That’ll make things steamier.”

So. It’s a vampire joint.

Hmm.

GM: Sami looks over his floating form. It’s not unappreciatively.

“That was the idea. Nice jacket. I didn’t notice it, last time.”

Emmett: He would dab if he hadn’t died before that became a thing. Instead he just winks and flourishes. “Ah, well. Can’t chat all night, but I’ll find you later, if you hang out around the hotel.”

He looks her over shrewdly, but not unappreciatively, either. “I’m here to talk to an Antoine Savoy, on behalf of the proprietor of the LaLaurie House.”

He lifts the box, taps it. “And I’ll give you a gift if you pass on the message.”

GM: She glances its way. “Mm. What’s in it?”

Emmett: “A surprise,” he says, completely honestly. “And my heart.”

“You wouldn’t throw away my heart, would you?”

GM: “I could probably use it as a blackening agent, at least.”

Emmett: He thinks back to the rotten, shriveled thing Abélia tore from his breast.

“You have no idea. So, you gonna tell this guy why I’m here?”

GM: “No, but Fabian will.” She glances at the living man. “He says he’s here to talk to Lord Savoy.”

The man bows. “Thank you for your assistance, madam. The lord has an opening in his schedule four nights from now.”

“He says the LaLaurie House’s owner sends him, too,” says Sami.

“Ah. The lord is available in two hours.”

Emmett: Em winks at Sami. “I’ll meet you at the hotel later tonight.”

GM: “I remember getting raped, tortured, and murdered the first time I accepted a gift from you.”

Sami winks at Em.

Emmett: He shoots her finger pistols.

There’s an accompanying pew pew.

GM: She cocks one at his forehead, deadpan, and fires it once without sound effects.

Emmett: His head explodes in a burst of gore and viscera. He cries out and clutches at it.

Then he lowers his hands and he’s fine. He wipes his intact brow of nonexistent sweat.

“I do birthday parties, too.”

GM: Nothing happens to his head. Em cries and clutches it without visual effects.

Hahaha, idiot! You don’t get ghost powers until I’m out of the box again!

Emmett: It’s a mime show, mate. I’ll cope.

GM: “I bet. Anyway, keep the heart. I suppose I’ll see you around.”

Emmett: “Your call,” he says frankly. “For what it’s worth, it’s one of those high-risk, high-reward deals. I’ll tell you more about it later.”

Aw. We’ll have to wait a bit longer ‘til we’re reunited, Gaspy.

GM: Don’t worry. I’m patient. Won’t be long before you’re like an ADHD kid forced to sit in class all today.

Sami knows how well those tend to work out.

“I bet. You want Fabian to get anything while you’re waiting here?”

Emmett: What the hell. “A Cafe Brûlot. With the fire and all, please.”

GM: A raised eyebrow. “I didn’t think you could still enjoy those.”

“He’d like a Cafe Brûlot, fire and all,” Sami says to Fabian.

“Of course, sir. Will there be anything else?” smiles the butler-like man.

Emmett: “I can always enjoy a drink somebody makes for me. Plus, I like a show.”

GM: “I suppose Fabian will enjoy getting to drink it, too.”

“Madam, may I inquire as to the departed spirit’s name?” asks Fabian.

“Delacroix,” Sami answers.

“Mr. Delacroix. It is Lord Savoy’s pleasure, and my personal one as well. Welcome to the Evergreen Plantation.” Fabian bows again, towards where Sami is speaking. “The lord shouldn’t wish you to be kept idle until he can see you. Are there any additional entertainments or diversions we might arrange?”

Emmett: “A movie, if it wouldn’t be any trouble. Surprise me.”

GM: “A movie,” says Sami.

“Of course,” smiles Fabian.

“See you around, again.” Sami eyes the heart-shaped box. “Good luck with the high-risk, high-reward deal.”

“You’ll probably need it.”

Emmett: “I make my own luck. Or make off with somebody else’s. Either way, I’ve only died once.”

---

Date ?

GM: The movie is the first to arrive. Some people bring up a TV into the room. Fabian selects the movie. Like everything else in the Evergreen, and the Shadowlands, it’s ruined. A spiderweb of cracks runs across the surface and the movie flickers with static. Em can make out enough of what’s playing. It’s the original 1960 Ocean’s 11 with Frank Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack.


The Cafe Brûlot comes partway through the first act.

Fabian prepares it himself over a portable grill, and briefly regales Em with the the drink’s history as he halfway peels the orange into a continuous curl and studs it with cloves. Café Brulot Diabolique, or “Devilishly Burned Coffee,” was invented at Antoine’s Restaurant in the late 1880s by Jules Alciatore, the son of the restaurant’s founder. According to Phillip Collier’s Mixing New Orleans, Alciatore was inspired by French bon vivants who would drown a sugar cube in Cognac and place it over an open flame before extinguishing it in a cup of hot coffee. Today, one can still find the drink in New Orleans restaurants including Antoine’s, Galatoire’s, and Arnaud’s—“As well as, of course, the Evergreen,” Fabian smiles.


The preparation of Café Brulot is something like a magician’s show. Outside of the flambeaux at a Mardi Gras parade, there’s nothing like it. Fabian puts cinnamon, cloves, lemon peel, sugar, and brandy in a fireproof bowl and heat on open flame. When the brandy is hot, but not boiling, he brings the bowl to the table and ignites it with match, sending up a gout of fire. He uses a ladle to stir the liquid around for two minutes before pouring the hot coffee into the flaming brandy. Then—to the delight of usually present guests—he proceeds to ladle the still-flaming mixture into demitasse cups.


“A toast, Mr. Delacroix, to your and my good health,” says Fabian as he raises the drink to his lips.

It seems a safe enough toast to make with someone who can’t talk or toast back.

Emmett: Maybe less so to a man whose heath is decidedly moot.

Still, fire burns even in the Shadowlands. That makes the drink a spectacle, even if he can’t appreciate it more directly.

He can remember how it tastes, though. That’s enough.

GM: Fabian downs the drink, hits play on the movie, and leaves the room. He returns after the caper crew has made off with their millions (or rather, been revealed to have done so already).

“The lord will see you now, Mr. Delacroix. Please follow me.”

Emmett: He doesn’t answer the lackey. Why would he?

Perhaps it would be flattering to pretend he’s taken his respite and schemed even as Frank Sinatra schemes onscreen.

But the truth? That fragile thing he keeps running over, backing up on, and running over again?

The truth is, it’s nice just to watch a movie again.

Time to go see the vampire.

GM: The Creole man escorts Em to an old-fashioned gilded elevator with an elaborate iron pull gate. It’s all rusted and pitted. A preserved 1863 ‘greyback’, or Confederate dollar bill, is framed and mounted just above the gate. The bill is torn and the cracked glass is specked with crud.

Fabian steps inside with Em before the door can even close through his incorporeal form, then presses the ‘up’ button. Em doesn’t feel any motion underneath himself as he rises.

There is no ‘ding’ sound as the elevator reaches its stop—its burnished doors merely open to a rooftop, open-air garden that would probably afford a spectacular view of the New Orleans skyline, on the other side of the afterlife. Here it’s just dismal. Em can survey carnage and destruction and decay across the ruined cityscape.

Corroded statues of disfigured angels, some brooding by themselves, others locked in passionate embraces with their fellow elohim, nestle among dead and leafless trees, rotted rose bushes, dead flowers, and withered grass. Moths and maggots infest rusted cages containing crows’ half-rotted carcasses.

A short ways off from them, a corroded marble jacuzzi beckons mockingly. Clouds of flies hungrily buzz over half-rotted corpses reclining in the filthy, stagnant, and algae-infested water.

In fact, corpses are everywhere. Some look fresh. Some are rotting. Some are skeletons. They’re as common as logs, all the way down to how they’re stacked and piled atop one another. Blood freely oozes from their cuts and gaping wounds, as well as the neck punctures that all of them have. Em’s never seen so many bodies in one place besides Abélia’s house.

He still hears the rain, endlessly weeping, but doesn’t feel it. A globe-shaped curtain of dark, hungrily crackling energy encircles the garden from the building’s railings to perhaps 20 feet in the air. Rain that hits it dissolves into plumes of noxious-looking black smoke.

The stench of blood, rot, mildew, and decaying vegetation is awful, but Em’s nose is as dead as the rest of him.

Three figures are seated around a rusty circular iron table, its surface slick and dripping with blood.

The first is a short, dark-haired man who looks in his mid-30s. His scruffy facial hair hovers somewhere between a five-o’ clock shadow and a full beard. He’s dressed in playboy-esque finery that has a casual sense of easy luxury: sports coat, dress shirt without a tie, slacks, and snakeskin wingtip loafers. A signet ring set with a crown and several fleur-de-lis for its coat of arms sits on one of his fingers. Em can’t tell what color his clothes are, beyond various shades of cheerless gray.


The second is a pallid-looking woman with a severe expression with hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her eyes are framed by a thick pair of glasses. She wears a conservative business jacket, matching skirt, lighter blouse, and darker pumps. A tablet with a shattered screen rests on her lap.


The third figure is a biracial woman in her early middle years with a bush of straw-like salt-and-pepper hair tied up in a scarf. She wears a shawl and plain cotton dress. Beaded necklaces with a crucifix and tiny leather pouch dangle from her neck. One of her eyes is glass and glows a faint, otherworldly blue—the sole splash of color in this patch of the Shadowlands. The air around her feels thick and feverish, and is blotted with writhing shadows. Phantasmal faces fade in and out like mirages, their lips ceaselessly mouthing whispers too low for Em to make out. A single rotting, disembodied hand rests on her shoulder. Its wrist vanishes into the aether.


There’s no telltale white glow around the three figures. Their forms are lifeless and ashen as Em’s own.

The first two figures continue speak among themselves, but the third one stares Em straight in the eye as he approaches.

Fabian bows deeply as he approaches to them.

“Lord Savoy, Madam Preston, Madam Bale, may I present Mr. Emmett Delacroix, departed spirit here on behalf of the LaLaurie House’s proprietor.”

Emmett: He winks at her.

Pauses and taps the sole of a dress shoe against the forehead of a blankly staring corpse.

“Well, y’all nailed the ambiance,” he ventures. “I like your eye, Ms…”

GM: The corpse continues to bleed from its neck.

“Madam Bale,” says the woman.

Her eye rests upon the heart-shaped box in Em’s hand.

Lord Savoy smiles at the same space in the air where Bale is staring.

“Mr. Delacroix! I think I’ve heard your name somewhere before, if memory serves. Where might that have been, Nat?”

“The first man executed by the state of Louisiana in some years, sir,” answers the glasses-wearing woman, who by process of elimination must be Preston.

Emmett: At last, his reputation precedes him. Famous, just like he’s always wanted. Goes to show, dreams do come true.

You just have to die for them.

“Lord Savoy,” he says. “From one dead man to another, your hospitality is a rare thing on this side of the grave. I’m grateful. I lived near here, you know. Right on Royal. The Quarter’s a good place for swindling.” He glances at the corpses stacked like pizza boxes. “I suppose it’s a good place to hunt, too.”

He glances at Bale. “Thanks for the translation, madam. I’m sure it’ll sound sweeter in your voice than mine.”

GM: Disembodied whispers sound near the glass-eyed woman as she repeats Em’s words.

“They aren’t always so different a thing, sometimes,” Savoy replies to the air with a knowing wink. “And it’s our pleasure, Mr. Delacroix! To a friend of Abélia’s, and to a fellow purveyor of the Quarter’s own pleasures. What can we do for you this fine evening?”

Emmett: “To converse with me is already a great gift. I ask for nothing more, merely a conversation. To be transparent, neither does Madam Devillers. I came here looking for somebody to give my heart, and when I listened to it it brought me here, looking for the one I would give it to. She told me to use her name to speak with you, and so I have, and I hope that you do not feel deceived by her. I am new to this side of the world, and there is much I have to learn. But, I hope, also much to tell. And much to offer, if you should like the services of a sandman who serves who he pleases.”

“I know that even Kindred dream. Dreams of blood, but dreams still.”

GM: Wow, you sell yourself to everybody. If you just could’ve kept doing that with your hole, without fucking things up, we’d be a rich man.

Or a rich man’s wife.

Bale translates.

“Indeed we do, Mr. Delacroix. I just may take you up on that offer! There’s much a freelance wraith can do for my people, and we for him.”

“But first things first. I don’t think it’s by chance your heart led you here, if Abélia also did. I wonder what we might do to unite your heart with the object of its affections?” Savoy drums his fingers against the blood-smeared table thoughtfully.

“Perhaps you should listen to it again, now that you’re here?”

Emmett: What a nice lick. So likable. So warm.

That’s probably what all the other dead people on the roof were thinking, too.

Still, it’s good advice. He listens to the box.

GM: He hears voices, like Celia’s and Cécilia’s and Sami’s, but they fade out against the sluggish thump-thump. A low whisper starts to build, hauntingly familiar. Em’s dead stomach clenches with instinctive, soul-deep unease, and he feels as if the box is somehow smiling at him.

Heh. Heh. Heheheheh.

Blood starts to leak from the box, black and oily, and it suddenly feels fleshy and sensitive underneath his hands. Like the time he carried Dino’s cut-off testicle to the gimp. The heartbeat grows stronger and faster. There’s suddenly a terrible, sucking emptiness in Em’s chest, a void that cannot be filled. He feels like he’s trying to breathe through a lungful of tar.

Oh yeah… !

There is a cavity in his chest. A gaping hole open to the air. Em feels like he’s having a heart attack, only held from the palm of his hand. The whispers around Bale rise to a fevered pitch as the faces fade in and out, faster and faster.

“…coming… "

“…rouq… "

“…heart’s desire… "

“…bargain made… "

“…heart’s desire… heart’s desire… "

“I suggest you replace your heart if you do not wish to meet Oblivion,” says Bale, the spectral hand tightly clutching her shoulder.

That’s right, Em! HERE IT COMES! HEART’S DESIRE!

Emmett: Guess this is the bed we made.

Bring it on, mini-me.

He replaces it.

GM: It fills his chest with a wet squelch, and he can breathe again.

But the hole expands.

It spreads over his chest. Em watches chunks of his corpus spiral away into black void. He pitches over backwards and the hole swallows him up. The last sound audible to his ears are the whispers fading in and out around Bale:

“…heart’s desire… "

---

Previous, by Narrative: Story Twelve, Caroline XIV
Next, by Narrative: Story Twelve, Celia XXI

Previous, by Character: Story Twelve, Emmett XII, Lamarck II
Next, by Character: Story Twelve, Emmett XIV

“We take what we wish. We do as we wish. This world exists for our pleasure and sustenance.”
Abélia Devillers

---

Saturday night, 12 March 2016, AM

GM: The family’s remaining time on Grand Isle passes quickly enough. The girls meet back at the beach house, Simmone still asleep in their mother’s arms. Adeline suggests they simply spend the night, given the late hour (plus they’d be able to enjoy the beaches tomorrow morning), but Abélia says that Caroline needs to be back in the city. The others concede the point. The Nyx is soon cruising through the Gulf’s midnight waters.

Caroline: Dark waves lap against the Nyx’s hull as it cuts through the water, sleek and effortless as a shark. If she were out alone Caroline might worry about making it home before sunrise, but she has faith in her mother. What had Cécilia said? Things just seem to work out.

Her vision pierces through the darkness, and she finds her way aft, along the port side, to where Adeline’s razor thin form sits, feet dangling off the edge of the ship through the lifelines to be irregularly kissed by the mild seas.

Caroline settles down beside her sister, dangling her own legs over the side.

She loops an arm around her younger sister’s shoulders, squeezing the two shoulder to shoulder for a moment, and lets the arm drop.

“Warmer water than the northeast. I don’t know how you survived those Connecticut winters.”

GM: “I don’t either,” says Adeline, leaning against Caroline. Mild though the seas may be, the open ocean’s winds are cold enough at night for her to draw her coat about herself. “Avignon’s winters are colder than here, but they’re still fairly mild.”

“Though of course, you never really saw them.”

Caroline: “I wouldn’t make it,” Caroline laughs. “Too far from my natural habitat.”

GM: “I remember proposing this plan to Maman, once, how you should alternate summers and school years. When she said that would be too disruptive to your life, I suggested alternating what was left of elementary school, middle school, and high school.”

“But she said that would face similar issues, only more spaced out.”

Caroline: Caroline gives a wan smile, “A trade off with everything.” A pause. “I think I would have liked that, though I don’t think my father would have signed off on it.”

“He’s a willful man. Almost as willful as Maman.”

GM: “I don’t think he would have agreed to it either. I suppose if people were to dig into his family’s personal lives, he’d have found it harder to explain than ‘summers with her mother’s family, other months with me.’ It might have seemed less conductive to family values.”

“‘Complicated doesn’t go over well with voters.’”

Caroline: There’s always that. More than affection, more than love, more than family—the image, how it affected his political aspirations. It’s more than funny how alike he is to her sire—she can’t label her Embrace anything less than providence. God has a sense of humor. “They like simple stories,” Caroline agrees.

“It wasn’t all bad though. The split gave me an excuse to escape sticky Louisiana summers.”

GM: “That’s what Nolan says too about stories. It seems like a shame. I think there is societal benefit to politicians telling more complex stories to voters, but no politician wants to suffer the drawbacks to their own career that come from doing so.”

“He doesn’t, either.”

Caroline: A light laugh, she leans in conspiratorially, “my father would cringe to hear me ever say this, even if he believes it with all his heart, but democracy isn’t about societal benefit. It’s about the mob. It’s about winning and losing, your side vs. their side, tribalism. The best you can hope is that some of those that are climbing to the top are looking out for their own interests—and that those interests align in the big picture enough with the interests of everyone else in the country.”

“Most voters,” she concludes, “are stupid.”

GM: “I suppose that has been true, historically. That’s also what Nolan says. I think the potential for that social benefit still exists, though, and it’s a shame to see it go unrealized.”

Caroline: “Not quite the tragedy of the commons, but similar principle,” Caroline agrees. “I think paradoxically if you introduced some barrier to voting you’d see more meaningful engagement.”

GM: “I’d say that’s the case already, on some level. Louisiana has fairly strict voter ID laws. Though I suppose they’re still less strict than being a land-owning white man over the age of 21.”

Caroline: Caroline shrugs. “Even the Greeks recognized that you need enfranchised people to have productive laws.”

GM: “Nolan’s decided he’s going to run for mayor. He hasn’t announced it publicly yet. What do you think of that?”

Caroline: “I think it’ll be ugly, but he’s positioned himself well.” And that there will be inevitable Kindred back splash, some of which might hit you.

“The city could do far worse.”

GM: “It looks as if Drouillard is also going to run. I don’t want him to.”

Caroline: “Nolan or Droulliard?” Caroline asks.

GM: “I’d have said Nolan earlier, without reservation. I’d rather not be known as the mayor’s girlfriend.”

“But it was under Drouillard’s watch that Gettis shot Yvonne.”

Caroline: “You don’t want that spotlight cast on you?” Caroline asks.

GM: “Yes. I’d really prefer not. You or Cécilia might do better in that role.”

Caroline: Caroline laughs. “He’s not really my type. You could try Cécilia, though.”

GM: “I think she’s fairly happy who she’s with, too. But I meant more as any politician’s significant other.”

Caroline: “I know what you meant,” Caroline answers lightly with a smile.

“It’s difficult, being in the public eye all the time, always under scrutiny. I mean, you know better than most, but it just gets worse and worse.”

She turns towards Adeline. “But sometimes that’s the trade you have to make.”

GM: “I suppose it is. It’s a very large trade to me, though, and not one I’m sure I’d like to make, even if I think he’d be the better mayor.”

Caroline: “Then you have choices to make about what you want, and about what’s most important to you,” Caroline answers.

“For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t let your worries over Drouillard factor into it.”

GM: “I think Nolan should pursue his dreams. I’m happy for him if he becomes mayor. I’m just not sure if I want to walk that path with him.”

Caroline: “What path would you prefer?” Caroline asks.

GM: “Being able to pursue my dreams in privacy and quiet, without external commitments and distractions. But I’d also like to pursue them together with someone, and I know he values and supports my doing so.”

Caroline: Caroline nods, her form lit only by the stars and the backlight from the city in the distance.

“But that does seem like the life that Nolan is pursuing.”

GM: “I’m not a social butterfly. I hadn’t met anyone I’d felt similarly about, before him.”

Caroline: “And he pushes you out of your comfort zone, sometimes in a positive way,” Caroline finishes.

GM: Adeline seems to consider that. “I suppose he has, now that you mention it. But his being mayor, or even running for mayor, would take me far enough outside my comfort zone to be someone else.”

Caroline: “So do you try to clip his wings and hold onto him, cut ties and let him go, or lose yourself,” Caroline elaborates.

There’s no doubt in her mind that the last is the worst possible option. Odd that, the thought flirts across her mind. She’d been perfectly willing to suborn her own dreams and desires, to make her dreams and desires her father’s. To content herself with the role someone else decide for her.

And yet… the idea of anyone trying to dictate her newfound sisters’ lives grates against her sensibilities like nails across a chalkboard.

“Where do you see yourself in ten years?”

GM: “By then, I’d like to be an established research professor here at Tulane. Cécilia has been encouraging me to teach students as well. Yvette, of course, thinks teaching ‘idiot undergrads’ would be a thankless job.”

“I don’t think it’s fair of me to clip his wings, especially when it’s also a question of public good. So it’s either end our relationship or accept life as a public figure. I don’t want to do either of those things, but it looks as if I’ll have to pick one of them.”

Caroline: “They can both be right,” Caroline answers of their sisters.

Typical of Yvette and Cécilia.

“Chase your dreams,” she offers.

GM: “I can still become a professor whether I stay together with Nolan or not.”

Caroline: “But will you want to? No change in a vacuum.”

GM: “I think I still would. Being first lady isn’t a full-time position or even an official position.”

“So my dreams are still on the table, whatever I decide. Otherwise this would be a much easier decision.”

Caroline: Except, Caroline knows, that the mayor’s office is hotly contested among Kindred, and she has little doubt that Nolan is in Savoy’s pocket.

That relationship isn’t a danger to Caroline—not directly—but she could readily see it becoming a flash point for conflict between elders. That conflict would become her conflict, and the back-splash would hit her sister.

“You might be surprised. Might enjoy the public life so much you forget all about research,” she almost teases.

GM: Adeline smiles faintly. “Nolan does like to say he has a knack for achieving the impossible.”

Caroline: “It’s not all bad. The spotlight.” Caroline answers. “You never get to be you, but eventually you begin to become the person you pretend to be.”

GM: “That sounds… discomfiting.”

“In what ways would you say that held true for you?”

Caroline: Caroline leans back, her arms fully extended behind her and carrying her weight as she looks up into the night, mulling that question.

The memories are faint, murky.

The easy answer would be to say that she’s always been this way, but she knows that isn’t true, mostly because of how ashamed she is of some of those memories.

Memories of being a little girl, not fully understanding why she had to sit so still, why she had to keep that smile on, why her father chided her so when she said the wrong thing. She remembers her face burning with shame. How she’d ‘embarrassed him’.

She remembers Claire all but dragging her into a bathroom by one arm when she was maybe ten. She’d been acting out at a party they were hosting. Her father hadn’t made it home. He’d been on the road all week and had promised her that he’d be there. Claire’s voice hard and sharp, her words each cutting into Caroline. ‘Pathetic. Unworthy.’ How she’d all but mocked Caroline’s tears. Told her not to come out until she could act like she belonged. Left Caroline crying in front of the mirror, every shameful tear only adding to her shame as she sobbed and tried to pull herself together.

She remembers when caught her drinking at sixteen with a couple friends. How they’d terrorized her friends. How they hadn’t spoken to her ever again. They didn’t even have to say it then, she knew what they would have said. Imagine what that story would do to your father’s career?

Remembers dreading the phone call when she was eighteen the night after she blew off a fundraiser. It’d been that time, she was in her first semester at Tulane, and god, she just hadn’t wanted to go to the charity event for her mother. She just wanted to stay home and nurse a drink, to study for the organic chemistry exam the next morning knowing. ‘Unacceptable’.

Failures that used to come back and haunt her when she was laying in bed some nights, trying to get to sleep.

She can’t remember a time she didn’t expect to go out into the spotlight, not really. She just remembers painfully the times she didn’t. That’s how getting molded works though, isn’t it? Slowly, over time, conditioned to associate one thing with praise and another with punishment. Behavioral adjustment in clinical terms. Parenting in Claire’s.

“I think the easy answer would be in the way I plan and do things.”

“I didn’t like big parties, big events. I remember as a little girl thinking that if I had a wedding I just wanted a few people there, something small and intimate. I remember wanting small events, birthdays, graduations. Being almost ashamed of those things being in the spotlight.”

She shrugs. “But you just get used to it. To thinking of these things in different ways. To planning in different ways. You get comfortable with people celebrating you, and learn to embrace it.”

“That’s the simple answer though. The truth is who I am is more a function of what I was made than whoever I originally was.”

“Framing everything in terms of how it’s perceived. Weighting words with strangers. Constant mindfulness. Ignoring inconveniences and small pains because it’s worth it sometimes.”

“Skirts instead of pants. Heels instead of flats. Smile instead of cry. Laugh instead of snarl.”

“Aristotle asserted we are what we do—that by habit we become habituated. I cannot find fault with his reasoning.”

GM: Tears never did make much headway with Claire.

“Oh, boo, hoo, hoo, Caroline. Boo hoo hoo,” her then-mother had said, leaning close to Caroline’s face and making an exaggerated, mocking expression as her ten-year-old daughter cried. “Do you think you’re impressing anyone with this? That throwing tantrums is going to change reality? You’re not, and it won’t. All it does is make you look pathetic. All it does is show me how immature you are, that you can’t even react to news as basic as your father still being on the road without pitching a fit. It’s selfish, too. Did it even occur to you that if your father isn’t home, that’s because he’s out doing more important things? But no, you can’t even be happy for him. You’re either too stupid to realize or too selfish to care. I’m glad your father isn’t here right now to see what a bad daughter we’ve raised. To see what a selfish, pathetic, crying little brat you are. I suppose if you’re not capable of acting your age, then time-outs are an appropriate punishment. Don’t come out of this room until you’re ready to stop being a failure.”

The door hadn’t quite slammed, but it had closed very sharply.

Adeline’s expression stills for a moment. She may not be Cécilia, but Caroline may wonder just how many of the emotions behind those memories are discernible to new sister.

“Do you think you would have been happier if you hadn’t had to grow accustomed to your new habits?”

Caroline: “I don’t know if I ever stopped to think about it, Adeline,” Caroline admits. “Or had a choice. That person I used to be died a long time ago.”

“They’re not even a memory.”

She sighs. “I’m sorry I can’t give you a better answer to that. But you still have a choice.”

GM: “I do, and I’m not sorry. I think you’ve given me an informative answer and an inside perspective into public life that Maman or Cécilia couldn’t have given me.”

GM: “Some of the things you’ve told me about habituation make me think I could grow accustomed to a more public life. Aristotle isn’t the only philosopher who’s expressed sentiments along those lines.”

“Some of the things you’ve told me are concerning and make me think I could compromise my identity and be less happy by remaining together with Nolan, even if I grew accustomed to a more public life.”

“I’m still not sure what decision I’m going to make. But I’m glad you’ve given me more information to consider.”

“Perhaps I should talk with more people who’ve been close to the current or previous mayors.”

Caroline: “I doubt they’d be of much use,” Caroline answers.

She lets the answer hang in the air before adding, “I don’t think any could hold a candle to you.”

GM: Adeline smiles. "That’s very sweet. But they would have perspectives that I lack, all the same. We can glean information from anywhere. "

She glances out over the midnight waters. “Nolan has some unusual choices in friends.”

Caroline: “Such as?” Caroline asks, still leaning back.

There’s more curiosity behind that question than she wants to let on.

GM: “There’s an explosives engineer named Liz Williams. I’m not sure what she has to offer him, and he doesn’t seem romantically interested in her.”

Caroline: “An explosives engineer?” Caroline tilts her head. “That’s a very strange associate. Is he planning some major demolition?”

GM: Adeline shakes her head. “He owns a waste management company. He doesn’t need to demolish buildings.”

Caroline: Caroline bites her lip. If Adeline wasn’t her sister she might bite her tongue too.

“That doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons he won’t…”

Few of those reasons seem legal.

GM: “That’s true,” Adeline acknowledges. “But they’ve also associated with each other for a while. This seems too long-term to be a simple demolition.”

Caroline: “You know him better than I do,” Caroline concedes. “Any thoughts? Shared interests they have?”

GM: Adeline shakes her head. “They don’t seem to have many shared interests, though they do hold similar views on a number of issues. I’m sure you know about the work Nolan has done with the French Quarter Response Force. All of that is only possible thanks to technology. Nolan and Liz are both very excited for what the future holds and the social progress that technology is going to make possible.”

Caroline: Savoy? Hard not to think so.

There’s a less pleasant option there she prefers to avoid dwelling on.

“It’s difficult. A lot of the charm of Vieux Carré is in its character and history, but a lot of that character is… unpleasant.”

GM: “Yes. And I don’t think the better parts of that character or the area’s history are incompatible with social or technological progress.”

“Obviously, of course, not everyone feels the same way.”

Caroline: “Sure,” Caroline answers, contemplative. “I think the roughest edges can and should be smoothed off, but I think so much of what appeals to people that visit is that what they do here, much as in Vegas, stays here. Technology is the greatest threat to that.”

GM: “It is. It’s not a new observation that privacy is increasingly becoming a thing of the past, but I’ve found it notable how not just unconcerned, but excited Liz and Nolan seem about the growth of the surveillance state and surveillance capitalism. That’s one of the views they seem to hold in common.”

Caroline: “And their interest in perpetuating it?” Caroline asks, an ugly thought forming in her mind.

GM: “Possibly. I’m not certain what Liz stands to gain from that. Nolan’s company, at least, benefits from the collection of consumer data.”

Caroline: “Ideological concurrence is enough for plenty of people. See most voters.”

GM: “That’s true enough,” Adeline grants, “though there are other people who agree with his ideology, and with whom he has more in common. I’m not sure where they even know each other from.”

“I’d press him further, but it seems hypocritical when there are enough details about our own family that I’m keeping secret.”

Caroline: “Everyone likes to keep their secrets,” Caroline agrees. “Though there are some more wisely kept than others.”

She pauses on that thought, seeming to let it drift. “And others perhaps less wisely kept.”

“I’m keeping one from Cécilia,” she admits.

GM: Adeline looks surprised. “Oh? You and Cécilia have always been so close.”

“More than any of us besides Yvette and Yvonne, in fact.”

Caroline: “It’s sensitive.”

She rolls her tongue across her fangs, seemingly considering.

GM: Adeline simply nods at Caroline’s initial statement and doesn’t press.

Caroline: But there’s no better confidant she could hope for.

“Luke went snooping in the house at Claire’s behest.”

GM: “Oh no,” she murmurs. “Do you know what they were expecting to find?”

“Or I suppose more technically, to accomplish?”

Caroline: The Ventrue fishes a tiny plastic bag out of her purse. Inside, just visible, are a handful of pale blonde hairs she passes to her sister.

“I think she sold him on something about protecting himself, maybe from infidelity down the line.” She shakes her head. “The whole being my dad’s second choice never sat well with her.”

“And… I don’t think he did it to hurt Cécilia. Hell, I’m certain of it. I know better than anyone how much pressure she could exert, how easy it is to cave on something with no obvious harm instead of fight over it.”

GM: “I see,” Adeline frowns, looking at the hairs. “Curious, though. If he wanted to directly test the baby’s paternity, you need to wait eight weeks to have a viable blood sample. And if he didn’t want to test the baby’s paternity directly, there are plenty of couples and individuals who do recreational DNA tests to trace their heritage. Luke could have brought up the idea, gotten her to hand over a DNA sample freely, and only stolen hairs if she refused.”

“But perhaps she did. There are privacy concerns about how that genetic information is being used.”

Caroline: “Or perhaps he didn’t want to touch on the topic,” Caroline offers. “It’s sort of like the prenup topic: everyone should, but most people won’t.”

GM: “Oh, I meant taking the DNA test under false pretenses. But I suppose it’s a moot point.” Adeline frowns at the hairs. “I suppose this isn’t surprising, either. I don’t think Cécilia has ever given Luke reason to believe she’s unfaithful, but to your stepmother, this must have seemed like good sense.”

Caroline: “It’s also possible she was manipulating him towards her own ends: she’s never been comfortable with how Maman won’t share details about everyone else’s father.”

GM: “Ah, yes. That’s also true. Not having a father is an aspect of our lives we simply take for granted. I’m not even sure when I last thought about it.”

“That would make a great deal of sense if Claire wanted to tease out that hidden branch of the family tree.”

Caroline: Caroline nods again. “She could be relentless in her pursuit of what she wanted, and I don’t know if she ever really trusted anyone.”

“It may all be a moot point—I don’t think Luke would actually hurt Cécilia intentionally, or that anyone else has enough influence over him to compel him to do so indirectly, but the whole thing just leaves me feeling… dirty. I don’t know if anything good comes from telling Cécilia about it, but I hate the idea of keeping a secret from her.”

GM: “Have you confronted Luke about it, or do you think you already have a full picture of motives and events?” Adeline asks.

Caroline: She shakes her head. “I haven’t had a chance yet… and with everything going on I don’t know when I will.”

GM: “What do you want to find out from him?”

Caroline: “I think it’s more what I want from him, than what I want to find out, if I’m being honest.”

GM: “What is that, in that case?”

Caroline: “His full commitment to Cécilia,” Caroline answers without hesitation.

“My father’s side… there’s so much duplicity, and jockeying for position, and backstabbing. You can hardly imagine it. Even when we’re notionally on the same ‘side’, it’s not the same as it is between us. It’s more like being chess pieces of the same color than like being a family.”

She sighs. “I know that sounds harsh, and maybe it is, but it’s not without value or purpose. There’s a method to the madness. It’s part of why we’ve spread out across the entire state like we have, and risen to where we are.”

“Being involved with Luke inherently brings Cécilia in part of that into that frey—I think that’s something she accepts—but goddamn it…”

“Not between them.”

“She deserves better than that.”

GM: “She does,” agrees Adeline. “I hope Luke can be more than that for her, but I don’t know how realistic that is to expect. I don’t know if the level of commitment Maman would be happy with for us is realistic to expect for anybody. It makes me wonder, in fact, if that’s why we don’t have a father in our lives. Ultimately, there can be no deeper trust than among blood.”

Caroline: “That’s part of what I’m torn over,” Caroline agrees. “If Luke weren’t family as well, I’d have ripped out his throat over this. As is… I don’t know if I trust my judgment.”

GM: “I don’t think Cécilia would be happy doing what Maman has done, either. She wants a husband to raise her daughters with.”

“But as far as Luke. You might be able to pressure him into confessing what he did. If Cécilia still wanted to marry him, would you be happy with that outcome?”

“Or, for that matter, if she decided she no longer wanted to?”

Caroline: “I don’t know,” Caroline admits. “There’s a lot tied up in the wedding for everyone, and I don’t want to introduce anything that blows that up. But I also don’t want Cécilia to get hurt.”

“Or if I’ll ever view anyone as good enough for her.”

GM: “Yvette never lets us forget about ‘Elliot,’ at least.”

Caroline: Caroline doesn’t take that bait.

“She could do far worse than Luke.”

GM: “She could. She’s also very social. I think she could find a new partner more easily than I could.”

“The wedding is still some time away. Most of the arrangements haven’t been made yet. If you choose to act on what you know, I think now would be the ideal time.”

Caroline: “Would you?” Caroline asks.

GM: “I think that I would. Relationships don’t have to be built on complete honesty, but they should be built on reciprocity. I can’t picture Cécilia choosing to spy on Luke in the same way.”

“I think she would also want to know the truth.”

Caroline: Caroline nods, mulling over Adeline’s words.

“I guess there’s never really a good time.”

GM: “I prefer to plan towards things. But Cécilia was happy that Luke didn’t wait any longer to propose to her.”

Caroline: “Seize the day and all that.”

GM: “That is the sentiment. And good luck. We all know you want only the best for Cécilia.”

---

Saturday night, 12 March 2016, AM

GM: Cécilia finds Caroline shortly after her talk with Adeline.

“This feels like as good a time as any to talk to Maman about Simmone, unless you think we can help our case by waiting,” she says over the steady sound of waves lapping against the Nyx’s hull.

Caroline: Caroline grins. As good a time as any: to say that there is never a good time to contest their mother’s wisdom.

“No, you’re right.” The Ventrue rises from where her feet dangle over inky darkness and casting her senses, rather than her gaze, to orient herself on her mother’s location.

GM: Caroline and Cécilia swiftly finds their mother at the yacht’s aft, a sleeping Simmone held in her arms as she stares out into the midnight sea. The pitch black water seems to have an almost hypnotic effect on the ‘woman’.

“Ah, how timely of you, my dears,” she smiles, stroking her youngest’s hair.

“Pontus has had some most concerning things to say about your sister.”

Caroline: “The sea speaks to all of us in different ways,” Caroline tests. “Some more directly than others I think.”

“We had our own concerns as well,” she adds, leaning in to brush Simmone’s hair from her eyes.

GM: The blonde child remains contently asleep in their mother’s embrace.

Cécilia nods at Caroline’s words. “What has Pontus had to say, Maman?”

“Simmone shall be most unhappy in several nights, if measures are not taken. Her dance teacher will refuse her further lessons.”

“Oh, no,” Cécilia frowns. “That class with Stephanie and Lucy seemed to go very well.”

“I concur, my dear. How many children does Simmone’s teacher have?”

Caroline: Caroline’s eyes alight. Celia’s mother.

Celia, the sheriff’s secret childe. Protecting her mother from Caroline?

GM: “Six, Maman,” answers Cécilia. “And her granddaughter Lucy, who lives with her.”

“Do you believe they have something to do why she’s going to cancel?”

Caroline: “Celia,” Caroline states. “Trying to shield her mother?”

GM: “Fret not, my dears. Maman shall take care of everything,” their mother assures.

“May I ask how, Maman?” asks Cécilia.

“I shall slay the extraneous children, of course," she smiles, “and allow Simmone’s teacher to spend more time upon her. The woman will come to view your sister as a surrogate for her own lost offspring.”

“How old is her youngest, Lucy?”

Dark waves steadily lap against the yacht’s hull.

Caroline: Caroline greets her mother’s solution with stunned silence.

“I believe her granddaughter is five,” she answers belatedly.

She tries not to default back to apprehension as she continues on the thorny issue. Pushing back has been met poorly by most in her Requiem.

“I imagine a more mild response might achieve a similar outcome,” she ventures.

GM: “I think Lucy is six,” Cécilia answers. “Her birthday is in January. I might also suggest a milder course of action, Maman.”

“Oh, this shall be as much for you as for our Simmone, sweet Caroline,” their mother smiles.

“We shan’t let the child’s blood go to waste. The seneschal’s powers of anima visus are great; we cannot risk another violation of your mind by his. We may use sweet Lucy’s blood to conceal the evidence of your blackest crime.”

The water around the boat ripples. Lucy’s reflection stares up at the three, six years old and smiling, with large eyeglasses and several missing baby teeth.

“An infant’s blood would have been most efficacious, but a child of Lucy’s years shall still afford you strong protection.”

“And I sense she is dearly loved by her family.” An affectionate smile spreads across their mother’s face. “Yes, sweet Lucy’s blood shall serve you well indeed.”

Indistinct black shapes cut through in the water. Sharp and hard like the fins of sharks. They begin streaking towards the little girl’s smiling reflection.

Caroline: “No.”

The word costs her something. Wrenches at her insides. Hurts.

“Mother, I bid you, do not do this.”

GM: Cécilia’s quiet protest is equally immediate.

“Maman. Stop. Please.”

The black shapes halt inches away from Lucy. The girl cups a hand over her mouth in a yawn.

“Why, of course, my dears,” Abélia smiles. “I live but to fulfill your wishes.”

Caroline: “For my sisters, I would tempt any dark deed, but this is unnecessary and bleak. And will not solve the question of Diana.”

She stares at the smiling girl.

“For myself, we might find a more agreeable substitute. For Simmone… I suspect her daughter fears for her mother. Harming the family will turn them ever more onward. Perhaps a more neutral location would be more agreeable for her? The LaLaurie House, for instance?”

Agreeable substitute. How easily she’ll agree to infanticide for her mother, such a firm line only nights ago.

She’s not drowning in darkness, that happened long ago. She is adrift in it though, carried away.

GM: “Simmone mislikes moving between homes with too great frequency,” Abélia replies, stroking the child’s hair.

“It would be simpler to slay the objecting daughter. And her other of-age siblings, to be safe.”

“Fret naught for Simmone’s teacher. Though her mind would be most pliable without the distraction posed by Lucy, we may render her wholly devoted to our Simmone’s instruction.”

“I would like you to spare Lucy’s aunts and uncles as well, Maman,” Cécilia requests.

Caroline: This is her mother. Who will, with a smile, slaughter half a dozen children to simply bring ease to her daughters’ lives.

“Simmone is what we would speak to you of, Maman,” Caroline continues.

GM: “Do the lives of Lucy’s aunts and uncles mean aught to you as well, my dear?” Abélia inquires.

Caroline: Caroline bites her lip.

“Compared to my sister’s happiness? No,” she answers truthfully.

She continues quickly, “But would invite retaliation, and I do not believe this serves Simmone’s happiness. Her joy. Even if it did, it invites retaliation down the line. Two of Lucy’s relatives number amongst the Damned.”

She thinks to Celia’s blood on her lips, to the girl she wronged returning among the Damned.

“And while I would sacrifice my happiness for Simmone’s, slaughtering them so would be such a sacrifice.”

She bites her lip again, a nervous habit. “Perhaps we might return to that rather permanent topic in a moment with greater context from what we would bring to you though, Mother?”

GM: There’s a peal of fluttering laughter.

“Oh, my sweet, sweet Caroline.”

Her mother’s dark eyes glint.

“You have spent too long upon your knees.”

A wind starts to whip about Caroline’s legs, blowing her skirt.

“This must needs be corrected.”

The wind rises to a shriek in Caroline’s ears. The yacht rocks beneath them.

“Do you not wonder how we travel these dark waters without molestation?”

Suddenly, all is black. All is cold. Weight smothers down on Caroline, from all directions. They’re underwater.

“Do you not wonder why the prince suffers us to make our home within his personal domain?”

Cécilia lies motionless upon the floor, as if sleeping, her hair lazily drifting through the water. Her sisters lie similarly asleep. May, Hayes, and all of the vessel’s mortal crew asleep. Does the yacht even have a crew? Caroline tries to recall their faces, but cannot.

“Do you not wonder how your sisters sleep peacefully every night?”

Motion rocks beneath them. Caroline’s hair whips past her. The Nyx cuts through the midnight waters like a shark. Faster. Faster.

“Do you not have faith in Maman’s power? In our family’s power? In your power?”

The Nyx breaks the water’s surface with a splash. The air is colder. Caroline’s skin and clothes are not wet.

“Yet you caution fear from the children of a crippled schoolteacher! From mere babes in the night!”

Caroline sees a cruise ship ahead of them. Land is nowhere in sight. Light is nowhere in sight, except from the boat’s windows. They could be in the middle of the Atlantic. They could be in the middle of the Pacific. They could be anywhere.


“Oh, my sweet child.”

Shadows envelop Caroline and her mother. They reappear on the cruise ship’s deck. It has a swimming pool and adjacent jacuzzis. Dozens of people are seated around tables with white tablecloths. White-clad servers move among the diners.


“We do not fear others’ retaliation.”

Everyone blinks or stares in disbelief at Abélia’s and Caroline’s sudden appearance. Some people start to yell or get up from their seats. Abélia does not so much as glance at them. Her smile exists only for Caroline.

“Others fear ours.”

The Ventrue’s mother gestures. Waves of blackest magic pour from her hands. A chorus of wailing screams split the night as dozens of people collapse, rotten flesh sloughing off their bones in putrescent blackening slurry. Screams gurgle from decomposing fluid-filled lungs. Hair falls away in slimy clumps. Liquefied eyes run from their sockets like milky tears. Teeth tinkle to the floor as they fall from black and shriveled gums. Half-liquefied organs splatter over the deck like overripe fruit as they slip free from crumbling skeletons. Enzymes eat dead muscles from inside out. The stench of ripe shit, expelled vomit, and necrotizing flesh is overpowering. The corpses look like they’ve been left to rot and bloat in water for weeks. All that’s missing are the clouds of buzzing flies.

Even their blood doesn’t smell worth drinking.


Elderly retirees dressed in Hawaiian shirts. Moms and dads on vacation with their kids. Kids on vacation with their moms and dads. Gold diggers with balding sugar daddies twice their ages. Yuppies enjoying the fruits of their MBAs. All are made equal in death as Abélia snuffs out their lives. Tables, chairs, dishes, and more crash to the ground as as the dying expire, the slain rot, and the survivors flee. They stampede off the deck in a blind panic that tramples the slow, the ungainly, and those simply too sick or terror-struck to flee. The scene makes Caroline think of water suddenly poured over an anthill.

Her mother’s smile is radiant.

“We take what we wish. We do as we wish. This world exists for our pleasure and sustenance. Its denizens are our prey, and we its predators. Say only the word, and Maman shall set her might against the prince himself, if it would ensure your happiness.”

There’s a low, fluttering laugh.

“But we really must train the timidity out of you, my dear…”

She surveys the fleeing droves of mortals, then raises another pale hand.

Caroline: Caroline has always known that her mother’s moral compass pointed only to her family. That Kindred and kine both have all the meaning to her of an insect crawling like an interloper across a world she rightly views as belonging to her daughters. She knows, has seen, her mother’s power to warp the world to make Caroline hers. To warp reality itself, to rewrite it to her wishes.

But it’s one thing to know, and another to see it in such stark and terrible majesty. To watch her so effortlessly snuff the life from dozens of men, women, and children with all the energy it might require to draw a breath. It’s better and worse than the Sabbat scene—lacking the cruelty but also the purpose of that slaughter.

At least… on the surface. Something quests within her, seeks an answer to a scene that a year ago would have brought her to her knees.

Because her mother did bring her here with purpose, did slaughter with purpose. Everything she does is with purpose—a singular one.

“You’re right,” she admits.

“I have grown accustomed to a Requiem on my knees.”

She looks out at the putrid husks of flesh that fill the deck before them. She pushes the sight of them a moment before, of them alive and well, from her memory. They were always rotting flesh. Always human waste. Better to view them like that. Better than to admit they were…

That thought dies.

“I like to think that the sacrifices I would make for my sisters, for you, is a strength. But it’s a weakness too. Never in my life or Requiem have I had someone who would sacrifice for me, and all the world I see only through the lens of what I might offer.”

She turns her gaze from the massacre to meet her mother’s dark eyes. “Anything to avoid being a burden. It’s selfish of me though. To you.”

“And narrow in its vision.”

GM: The screams of the fleeing and the dying echo around the pair as dozens of footsteps thump against the deck. Abélia gestures again, but no further kine perish.

Instead, a great and trembling shudder runs through the vessel.

It slowly begins to sink.

“Love is sacrifice, my dear.”

“Compelled by blood.”

“Requited in blood.”

“Through a sister’s sacrifice alone does your Maman stand before you now.”

Caroline: The heiress nods, her gaze not escaping her mother’s. “Truth then, Maman.”

“I have grown accustomed to casting everything in how it might most benefit, how I might persuade and convince.” She bites her lip before continuing, but only for a moment. “Plainly, I do not wish Celia’s mortal family taken from her. I have my own desires for her, and would see them intact for those.”

“More than those desires though, while I would see Simmone happy, I am not convinced the Simmone of this night is who she is, who she was, or who she should be. I fear she is a pale reflection of all of those things cast by those who did harm to this family, and I am disinclined to allow the actions of any other to so define her.”

“Towards that end, towards her happiness, I would not she be granted every whim and wish by only the most direct means.”

“She may yet be your eternal child, but I want her to make that decision in the fullness of knowing, stepping boldly towards that destiny rather than meekly seeking it in flight from devils that haunt her.”

GM: The last of footsteps thump away over the shrieks and cries of the fleeing. Caroline has never seen a public space clear so quickly.

There is no one left alive on the cruise ship’s deck. Just Caroline, her mother, and putrefying corpses for as far as she can see.

“There is one matter first, my treasure, before we might discuss your sister’s future,” Abélia smiles.

“Simmone is happy with her dance teacher. I bid you tell your Maman—what is the proper course of action in this matter?”

Caroline: The screams and shrieks and wet slop of rotting flesh sliding across the deck fade away as Caroline puts all of her attention on her mother. “Certainly ensure that she does nothing so foolish as disrupt Simmone’s happiness.”

“I can think of many ways to do so that will make Cécilia, Simmone, and I all happy.”

GM: “Speak, then, my treasure. These kine perish so they might further your wisdom.”

“Are we to fear the whelps of a crippled schoolteacher?”

Caroline: “We do not fear,” Caroline answers, drinking in the darkness in her mother’s eyes. She does not need to qualify the statement.

GM: Those dark eyes smile with pride, even as her mother patiently waits.

Caroline: The Ventrue lets the words hang in the air for a long moment before continuing.

“Most presently, Celia meets with Cécilia regularly. I’m confident my sister can impress upon her the importance of her mother in our sister’s lives with little effort.” Her eyes drink in the darkness in Abélia’s own, “I think it would make her happy to do so, to secure her sister’s happiness and also ‘protect’ her friend.”

“Willing compliance is desirable, isn’t it?”

Does some of her mother’s darkness creep into her own blue eyes?

“If that should fail, Celia can be reminded that her own welfare, and that of her sire, is perhaps a discrete word in the wrong ear from disaster. To say nothing of the fragility of those kine close to her. The sheriff once thought it amusing to place me within his power, to exercise that power over me. I might enjoy the turnabout.”

“If not willing compliance, I will prompt eager compliance.”’

There’s no mistaking the darkness now.

“And should they scoff at my sister’s gentle touch, or believe themselves above my firmer hand…” She spreads her arms out, encompassing the horror around them.

“Then let them learn to fear.”

GM: Her mother’s answering, pride-swollen smile is even more radiant as she brushes a tender hand along Caroline’s cheek.

“Let them.”

The cruise ship rumbles beneath them, slowly but steadily sinking into the deep. Caroline is not sure how long it will take, only that its end is surely inevitable.

“Your answer is pleasing to me, my treasure.”

“It pleases me to see you strong.”

“Tell me, now, of the course of action you would counsel for our Simmone.”

Caroline: That smile almost washes out the horror of hundreds, perhaps thousands, dying as the ship sinks beneath them.

“I would my sister’s voice also weigh in on Simmone, but most directly, Maman, she needs to be challenged. It does not do for her to clutch you in fear, however much your touch may comfort her.”

“Cécilia and I would break her of the grip the ghoul’s actions have over her. Slowly expose her to more and more. Allow her to return to some semblance of normalcy.”

GM: “Do you believe this would make her happy, sweet child?”

“She has told me, many a time, that she is happy in our company. That she desires naught but our blood for companionship.”

Caroline: “I believe she would be happier if, even if she preferred us, she did not cower in the face of others, Maman.”

“If she chooses to remain a child, I would have it be a precocious child.”

GM: “She need never lay eyes upon another soul if she does not wish it. She may wish for the moon and stars themselves, and Maman shall provide.”

Another smile.

“But should she wish for greater normalcy in her life, then I shall make the fulfillment of that wish, too, my foremost purpose. Convince your sister of the rightness of this course of action, and her whim is my command.”

Abélia glances out over the side of the groaning cruise ship. It’s so tall. Practically a building flipped sideways over the water. Little by little, the waterline draws closer.

Caroline can only guess how many people are on board.

“There is more than enough vitae on this vessel to slake your thirst, my dear.”

“Please, feast to your heart’s content ere we depart.”

Caroline: More than enough. That’s an understatement. She doesn’t want to think about how many hundreds, or even thousands, of people are dying here tonight. In the blink of an eye, more lives taken than the whole of her Requiem.

She wants to be okay with it. She wants to be able to shove it all aside. They’re just kine, right? Not even kine that she cares about.

It doesn’t make it right. Can’t make it right. A lesser atrocity she might ignore, but this is killing orders of magnitude greater, and of innocents purely for… for her education?

She wants to make her mother happy. Wants to do as she bids, but some pathetic part of her snarls at her claims, at her dismissal of the lives on the ship. Until now, until this moment, she could pretend in some moral hypocrisy that she wasn’t a part of it, however responsible she might be. She didn’t kill anyone directly, did she? Did she? It’s not her fault… is it?

And then the walls break away, break down, the dam crumbling under assault before collapsing entirely.

Why? Why are they here? Why does she have to do this? And she does have to. She knows (fears?) what her mother will do if she balks. If she expresses anything so pathetically human as remorse or horror.

And perhaps that idea, that lie begged from her is what does it. She fears what the truth will bring—not for herself though—but more than she fears that, the idea of the lie between them over this is what she can’t stomach.

Crumbling bones slosh around the deck in rotting human stew and filth, some far too small. The smell is overwhelming. And she feels so powerless.

“Maman, I…” the words die as pitifully as the kine died here.

If she were a human she might be hyperventilating as it all crushes her, is the near panic tightens around her chest like a vice, instead her chest is still and lifeless. As lifeless as she is. As lifeless as the ship will be before long.

Her mother wants what’s best for her. Will do anything for her. Will do this for her. Something black and twisted whispers that she’s being weak, too weak to claim what she’s being offered, this great gift. Would it be so bad? To cut ties to the kine? To embrace her inner monster?

But she remembers what she felt when she fought the Sabbat, when she cut the head from one, when she delivered their ‘priest’ into oblivion he so surely deserved. How right it felt to do so. And too with the demon in the Dungeon, a last act of her life that helped give purpose to it, that gave her peace.

She doesn’t want to become one of those things, even if no one knows. She’ll know. Even if Maman accepts her for it: she can’t accept herself that way.

GM: “Oh, my sweet, sweet child.”

Abélia brushes a hand along Caroline’s cheek.

Distantly, she can make out noises. Voices. Sounds of fear. Panic. Commotion.

But no one approaches the top deck.

Who in their right mind would, after what dozens of witnesses saw?

The ocean doesn’t glint in her mother’s eyes. It’s swallowed by them. Two hungry orbs that look oceans in their own right, black and fathomless. Caroline is reminded of her prior words:

“Unimaginably vast and unknowable, with depths so dark no light will ever touch them. Eternal. Something others can only rest upon lest they be swallowed up by it.”

“I think the most talented kine might be a captain on your sea—always subject to your mercy, no matter how wise he may be. We, I think,” she had gestured to her sisters across the ship, “are creatures in that dark embrace.”

The ship continues to slowly, steadily sink beneath them.

“This is displeasing to you,” her mother states.

Caroline: The scale of what her mother has done for her is staggering. As a demonstration of her will and how far she will go in an attempt to make Caroline better or happy, it’s a herculean task that shames Caroline to even think about. How few in the world could begin to do what she’s done? Certainly no other that would be inclined to do something.

But it’s a carrion gift of such staggering horror that even its impersonal nature isn’t something she can ignore. Hundreds or thousands of people are dying. Will continue to die. It’s monstrous. Utterly monstrous.

And yet… and yet Caroline feels so ashamed of her rejection of it.

What’s wrong with her? Why can’t she just accept it and move on? Isn’t this the very lesson her mother wanted to teach her?

The Ventrue bites her lower lip. She doesn’t want to admit it. Doesn’t want to make her mother unhappy.

But she’s more afraid of the lie between them. She’s so tired of lies.

She nods, her mask cracking into one of grief. “Yes, Maman,” she admits, her voice choked with grief.

“I’m so sorry.”

GM: “Oh, my poor, sweet child.”

He arms encircle Caroline, pulling her into a soft embrace.

“You don’t want to make me unhappy. But you are unhappy.”

She feels a hand stroking her back.

“Thank you for your honesty. I know this wasn’t easy for you. You have nothing to be sorry for. A mother could not ask for a better daughter. I could never bear to see you unhappy,” her mother’s voice whispers in her ear.

“What would you ask of Maman, my treasure? Ask for the moon and stars themselves, and I shall pluck them from the sky if it would but allow a smile to grace your lips.”

The ship continues to shudder beneath them.

Caroline: What does she want?

The Ventrue grits her teeth. For this never to have happened. But she knows how ridiculous and childish such an answer is.

The follow on—not to remember any of this—feels even worse. Moral and physical cowardice, hiding from the truth like a girl under the covers, or worse, sticking her head in the sand. It would almost make it all worse, make her a worse and more pathetic part of it.

What does she really want? Not to be weak. To be what her mother expected of her tonight, to make her proud.

But she knows too, that’s not in the cards. Not tonight. Perhaps a century will harden her heart. She hopes (fears?) so.

What does she want tonight? The question is more alien than Abélia has ever been to her, leviathan depths and all.

Behind her mother’s gentle acceptance, that soft whisper and touch, the building panic begins to slide away. The pull towards normalizing is so insidious, so seductive.

The purely rational part of her mind makes its argument, if the kine are going to die anyway, shouldn’t she take her fill? Satisfy the hunger here, rather than with some needless victim and simultaneously please her mother.

Another voice back, ’aren’t all kine going to die anyway? Where’s the line?’

And still, another part asks even more insidiously, when has she ever had such an opportunity? To feast and feast and feast until her Beast cries out to stop, until the she is so drunk on blood that she can’t take any more. To drown it in blood past the point of satiation.

They’re going to die anyway… aren’t they?

She’d argued the use of Nazi and Japanese war crimes related medical research during her senior year in LD debate. That the damage was done, that it was more disrespectful to the victims to put it to waste. To not save other lives that could be saved with it, no matter the suffering and human cost of it.

Is this different?

GM: She’s not sure whether her father agreed with her or not. He was too busy to weigh in on something so inconsequential as high school debate topics.

But it felt like he would have.

She feels her mother’s hands stroking her back.

“Your thoughts are conflicted, sweet child. Take as long as you require to reconcile your feelings, then say only what you would see done here. If it is within Maman’s power, she shall see it done. And if it is not within her power, she shall not rest until it is.”

Caroline: What does she want?

It should be such a simple question, but the entire premise is just alien. The answer has always been rooted in what someone wanted of her, for her, as long as she can remember. The answer was always part of the mask she presented to everyone: her father, her professors, her lovers.

Is it really possible that someone genuinely means it when they ask? That it isn’t a trap?

Her mother’s touch drains the tension in her shoulders, in her back, and just for a moment the regal bearing slips and she’s just Caroline. Not Caroline Malveaux. Not Caroline Devillers. Not a scion of Louisiana’s most powerful family or one of the Americas’ mightiest princes.

She breathes in the warm night air and it fills her cold, dead body.

“I want this to mean something, Mother. More than just my edification, I want the death of the kine tonight to be with purpose.”

“You would that we paint over my sins—let us do so here. That I should sake my thirst—that as well. And whatever other bloody lessons I must learn, or you would have me learn, I would see them done. Tonight.”

Her gaze settles upon her mother’s once more.

“You have humbled me with the scale of your love, but I would that there be no need for a future demonstration of this scale. I have no doubt of your power, nor question of my importance, but this…” she gestures to the nightmare around them.

“Don’t make make me see this again. Please.”

GM: Her mother’s arms seem to encircle her all the more tightly at that dropping of the mask. The ship may sink beneath them, and the sea’s winds and waters may be dark and cold, but for a moment she can be just Caroline.

Just a young woman with her mother.

“Of course, sweet child,” sounds Abélia’s voice. “You have my solemn pledge that I shall slay no further kine in such numbers for your edification, or for any other purpose on your behalf you find objectionable.”

There is a faint chuckle.

“Yet I am no governess to plan your lessons as might your sire. Where I see need, I shall teach. At present, I see no further such need.”

“You ask that these kines’ deaths serve a purpose. So be it. The souls of those aboard this vessel might fuel many workings of power on your behalf. What ends would you see them used towards?”

At Abélia’s words, the rot within the mob of splayed corpses accelerates. Already half-pulped flesh, muscle, and splattered organs dissolve into putrescent, equally foul-smelling black slime. Rotted bones decompose into sodden clumps of ash. Shuddering pools of liquefying flesh, dotted with clumps of hair and teeth, lurch into a semblance of animation as they half-crawl, half-seep off the deck. Clothes, shoes, phones, wallets, jewelry, and assorted other personal effects are carried after them. Caroline can’t hear any splashes as they disappear over the side. Soon, the deck stands bare and empty.

The smell is better.

Caroline: Speak what she wants. Is it really that easy?

“I want strength enough to stand outside my sire’s shadow, to carve my own Requiem from the world. I wish my mind inviolate, a terror for those that would dare to trespass in it.”

The words come more easily as she speaks. “I want to be feared more than I am loved. I want to soar on the wind when the sun rises and watch my sisters prosper, to be there beside them against any that would dare to raise a hand to them. I want to lead, not be led along, to rule.”

She looks at her mother. “I would make myself the master of my destiny, that I might take what I wish from my Requiem, not only what misers might give me.”

“I want my sire to be proud of me, but not to rule me, and for everyone that once cast me side to lay awake in fear wondering how they ever made such a foolish decision.”

Her eyes drink in the darkness. “I would be you, reflected in all your dark majesty, Mother.”

GM: There’s a fluttering laugh from her mother. Dark and full, that the wind itself seems to carry, until all the night shares in Abélia’s mirth and merriment.

“Such ambition! It thrills me so to hear you speak in such a way, sweet child.”

“Much would I give to see your words become reality.”

She gives a wistful sigh.

“Yet I am afraid the lives aboard this vessel are insufficient for the power you seek. They are of inferior worth to mine, even in such numbers. Were their worth equivalent, we could not claim them so easily.”

“Some paths to power are shorter than others. You know this well, my dear. You have walked one already. Yet I am afraid there are no truly easier paths.”

Caroline: Her mother’s words reaffirm her own, the fresh cutting out of wants from whole cloth she had been so tepid in voicing.

Caroline grins. Some were easier than others.

“I have no expectation that I could scale those heights with ease or without sacrifice, Maman, nor that they could be summited in any single night, but I thought it better to paint with a broad brush.”

GM: Her mother’s dark eyes brim with pride at her thought.

“Tell me but how you would make use of these kines’ lives to further your ascent, sweet child, and I shall see it done. Even lives of trifling worth may be put to great uses in so great a quantity.”

Caroline: How far might her mother’s powers go?

It’s difficult to say. She’s seen frightful depths to her abilities, but how deeply they drew upon her is a mystery. How greatly did her initiation into the family wear at her? She knows Abélia will give her anything, but she does not wish to deplete her towards this end. Not tonight. There are other uses for her mother’s powers that coming nights will require on behalf of her sisters.

She begins modestly.

“I told your sister truthfully, Mother—I have no desire to make diablerie a Requiem-long indulgence—but I am not yet finished. And I would not suffer the judgment of others for the lengths I will go to, not now or in the future.”

GM: “You have said as much, my dear. Fear not. That shall require but a single, young life.”

Her mother smiles contently.

“The purer the innocence, the more totally may sin be concealed.”

Caroline: A single young life.

Does she fear?

Only where this path will take her. How many sacrifices will she judge sufficient? How many compromises of her principles?

More than she wants. But isn’t that how it is, in life and in death?

The hardest paths, the tallest mountains, the the greatest heights, require the strongest of wills.

She hardens her will.

She is her mother’s daughter. She is her father’s daughter. She is her sire’s childe. Whatever else she is, she must be strong in will.

Caroline runs her tongue across her fangs. “Even the mightiest of those I would strike down and claim within New Orleans would leave me with a shadow of the power wielded by my most potent rivals.”

“But there are others. Could they illuminate the path to them?”

GM: There is another fluttering laugh from her mother.

“Perhaps, my dear. These kine’s lives may be used to illuminate a path. Whether that path leads to the fruits you desire at its terminus shall be seen.”

“I am certain you harbor few doubts, sweet child, that some of those Cainites lost to Katrina also lost their souls beneath their fellows’ fangs. Many Cainites who knew of the amaranth, I am certain, took advantage of the storm’s chaos to feast upon forbidden fruits. I would be surprised if any vanished elders remained undiscovered by their fellow Cainites, waiting for a fortunate diablerist to turn their torpid dreams to nightmares.”

A smile spreads across her features.

“But I would not be surprised to find lesser slumbering Cainites still buried throughout the city. Their vitae would serve little enough purpose remaining buried.”

Caroline: “Lesser Cainites abound, Mother. But were I content to climb the slow stairway to power, I would have no need for their blood to begin with,” the Ventrue observes.

“Still… they would present a less dangerous path than hunting more active Kindred.”

She shifts track, kiting against the wind. “Diablerie and the slow march of time are the only paths to power—personal power—that I have seen. Might the blood of the kine direct me to another? Or accelerate one or the other?”

“With the bishop and priest both, I could feel all that I left on the table, pieces of them sliding away into oblivion even as I took those parts I cared for most.”

GM: “There are means, to derive power from masses of insignificant lives such as these,” her mother answers. “There is always power in sacrifice.”

“Yet for your species, sweet child, many of those paths are closed without skill in obscure arts. For most Cainites, power lies in the Blood alone. Your forefather became what he was through murder of his kin—those whose blood was as his own. To become closer to him in power, you must become closer to him in deed.”

“For you and I alike, the lives of these kine may be used to fuel many evanescent workings of power. Through them, you may enspell men’s minds, move as lightning, weather assaults upon your body and mind, and call upon Caine’s other gifts. In my hands, the lives of these kine may accomplish still further feats.”

“But I am afraid they may increase your puissance in the Blood no further, nor allow you to consume all parts of your defeated foes. Even an ocean of water cannot age a cask of wine.”

Caroline: As much as she might have wished otherwise, it was the answer she expected. If there was an easy road to power through the kine, she’d expect to see mountains of corpses presided over by Kindred kings.

“I presume too, that power cannot simply be held in reserve for a moment of need, and must instead be directed immediately?”

GM: Her mother cups her cheek.

“Sweet child. Much as you might wish an eternity to plan, hoard, and strategize, the world moves ever on.”

“It is a weakness of Ventrue’s childer.”

Caroline: Caroline leans into that hand, eyes closed, but her mind doesn’t slow. It rarely did before, but never since she consumed the bishop. She took far more from him than just supernatural puissance. Fittingly so.

Her mind races to what ends she might turn a night of power to—tearing apart the city in search of Claire’s safehouse, hunting Gettis, bringing Meadows to heel as the seneschal wishes. The last is so very tempting—to meet the terrifying Gangrel in overmatched terms. Whatever she might share in public, whatever flight she and her ghouls forced from the scourge, she knows the truth of it: alone that night she’d have been destroyed, ripped apart by the savage.

Her mind further races to other scores she might settle, to power she might claim. An elder, alone, who so nearly unmade her in his desire to take from her. To use her. Could she challenge him? Defeat him? Claim all that he is from him? Perhaps. His destruction would do much to further her plans, to shock the few remaining of Clan Ventrue. Galvanize them perhaps into action for each other, to cease their plotting against each other for a time. That she would do so by plotting against them is an irony not lost on her.

But she has plots laid for all these goals, things in motion, ways forward, and none require her to tear through the city in a whirlwind of power.

More too, she knows herself. Knows how addictive that power would be to her. Like her father, like her sire, her vice is not sex, not drugs, not alcohol, not even violence: her vice is control, it’s power, and power she would not easily let go of. It would also tempt her: do it again.

Perhaps it is fleeting affection for the living—a vestige of humanity clinging to her pitch-stained soul—that screams at the orders of magnitude greater this atrocity is than any before. Hasn’t she always been able to justify her victims? Sinners, or killers, or monsters, all those that deserved their fate.

Perhaps it is the temperance of her life, turning her away from that final indulgence. Too aware of the terrible draw of such easily obtained might. More though, she thinks, it is the thought of her sisters.

Cécilia, she knows, could forgive her for such an black act. Cécilia would forgive her for anything. But she would know. She would always know how Caroline transgressed against God and man for a fleeting power that even now she must search for a purpose. Not to protect her family—for that she would take the power in an instant—but for transitory goals. She would know how hollow Caroline’s principles were, how little she valued Cécilia’s own. Caroline owes Cécilia more.

And Yvette. Her sister would take from it only an example, a path to be followed. She knows the darkness around the twin, knows how precarious the balance of her Requiem will be in early nights, not to descend into savagery. This act would be a beacon for her when she learned of it. A siren’s call that would lead her to a moral abyss even the damned could not withstand. Caroline has a duty to be better than that, to blaze a better path.

Then, the shallower level of it. Caroline doesn’t want her accomplishments built on carrion throne by her mother. She doesn’t want to leave any doubt of who others should fear, should respect. Her ascent might be atop a mountain of corpses, but those are bodies she will stack with purpose. She doesn’t need a fell ritual, doesn’t need the kine, to ascend. She will take from the world what she needs—with her mother’s help, but not purely by her mother’s might.

Her eyes open, once again staring into Abélia’s own.

“I am what I am, and I would not change. Let us be gone from here, Mother. I would sooner spend the rest of my night with my sisters and mother just as I would sooner trust to my own strength of will, to my schemes, to my plots, than believe in what these kine may offer me.”

“It is not power they would provide, only weakness, a reason to doubt in myself.”

“Let us leave them to their terror, they are worth no more of your strength and no more of our attention.”

GM: The bishop’s rapacious intellect, added to hers, spits out scenarios and analyses like a computer.

She’s seen how potent ghouls old in the Blood can be. Kelford, against whom she described as “a joke.” Lou, who brought down René. The Hussar. Who knows how Gettis compares to any of them? Perhaps the sacrifice of hundreds could help.

Her mother’s safehouse. Doubtless, Claire hit it well. Donovan has many matters upon his plate, but doubtless, he and other parties desire it for their own too. Perhaps the sacrifice of hundreds could help.

Coco said Meadows has ghouls of her own. That she won’t underestimate Caroline a second time. That she won’t just blunder in to the heart of Caroline’s strength by herself, surrounded by all of the Ventrue’s servants, and still claim two lives before abandoning a needless fight. The nights where anyone underestimates her so sorely seem as if they will soon be ending. Perhaps the sacrifice of hundreds could help.

Matheson. His blood and soul, if she can claim it, could add so much to hers. The bishop’s and the priest’s were no stronger than hers, yet their fruits were sweet indeed. A true elder could batten her vitae so much further. Perhaps the sacrifice of hundreds could help.

How indeed could Cécilia not forgive her. She’s lived with their mother for close to thirty years. How many sins has Abélia disclosed to her? Can this be the first time she has sacrificed so many for power?

The cruise ship continues to groan and sink beneath the pair as she deliberates. Caroline wonders how long it will take the great vessel to rest beneath the waves. They made a movie out of how long it took the Titanic.

Yet, at her choice, her mother smiles.

“You are full of surprises, my child. You make what to many would seem a strange choice. A unique choice. Yet there is its own strength in it.”

“So be it. We shall leave these kine to Pontus’ mercies. His subjects shall dine well.”

Caroline: Her mother’s agreement lifts a weight from Caroline’s shoulders she didn’t know was there. Because she spared their lives, because she stepped back from the abyss, or because of her mother’s approval? Does it matter?

“Sea has forever been a fickle domain,” she agrees.

GM: Caroline’s mother takes her hand, and then darkness gathers around them both like a rising tide.

They reappear aboard the Nyx. Everyone still lies asleep upon the deck. The cruise ship is so much taller than the Devillers family yacht, but the angle is slightly off-kilter. Caroline can see some of the great vessel has already sunk beneath the waves. The rows of white and orange lifeboats all lie adrift in the water, and far from their mother craft. Lights flicker uncertainly from the cruise ship’s windows, as if mirroring the moods of its passengers.

Abélia watches the sinking vessel contently.

Caroline: Caroline leans her shoulder against Abélia’s own, watching the lights go out in the darkness.

“Allow the wind carry their salvation to them, Mother.” She gestures to the floating life rafts. “Let those with the strength to seek it claim their future.”

“If I am not taking their lives with purpose, I would as soon we not take them at all.”

GM: “Some of them may recall your face, my treasure, and what transpired here. It would be a simple enough thing to tender them to Pontus’ true mercies.”

Caroline: She weights that risk in her mind.

The odds that one of the few that saw her clearly on the deck would be among those that survived—diminished all the more by the terror that will cloud their judgement in making their escape.

The odds that the memory of her is clear in their mind amid the terror of this night.

The odds that any of those with clear memory might clearly identify her by that memory.

The odds that any might take those few seriously, and not simply commit them for the psychotic breakdown they would be experiencing.

Their paltry numbers against the hundreds or thousands on the ship.

She laughs. “Mother, was this not in part your lesson this night? Am I to fear them more than a schoolteacher and the neonate childe among her children?”

GM: Abélia’s dark eyes smile.

“My daughter should not fear these ignorant masses, but a mother always fears for her children. It would require little effort to silence those fears permanently.”

Caroline: “I have no doubts,” Caroline answers warmly, of her mother’s claim.

“But lions hunting inspects does nothing for the lions, and even if by the most unlikely of circumstances one ever rose to threaten me, he would be only a tool in my arsenal as I hunted those who brought them before me.”

“I have few enough opportunities and rare enough inclination towards magnanimousness. Indulge me this one, Mother.”

GM: “So be it, my dear,” her mother answers. “De Corazon’s little dream is no less deceitful than its dreamer.”

Caroline: That stings. The Masquerade is important. The basis for her very existence, of the existence of all of her kind.

But then, hasn’t she always been willing to take more calculated risks with it than most?

“If you don’t bend the rules you’ll never know when they break,” she quips.

GM: Her mother smiles as she looks back upon the sinking ship.

“Your education is most incomplete where that rule is concerned, my dear. I doubt Philip or your sire shall ever tell you its truth. But that lesson is for another night.”

“As for tonight.”

“If Simmone wishes to retain her dance teacher, then the matter is settled. You and Cécilia may act as you see fit towards the fulfillment of that end, but if you are unable, I shall slaughter the Flores line stem and root.”

The cruise ship continues to steadily, inexorably sink in the background.

Thousands of lives perhaps lost, without Caroline’s intervention.

Caroline: Her mother’s remark about the Masquerade perks her interest, but she allows the matter to slide. Caroline knows that all things will be made clear in the proper time. Instead she turns to the topic at hand.

“I’m confident that will not be necessary, Mother,” Caroline answers, watching the death of the great ship. “As, I’m certain are you. Few things might resist the pull of one of your daughters. With two, it is as near to a certain thing.”

---

Saturday night, 12 March 2016, AM

GM: “I feel like I was asleep,” Cécilia remarks to Caroline after the Nyx is back underway.

“Maman must have put us under.”

She doesn’t sound curious.

Caroline: Caroline nods, watching dark waters. How many died tonight? How many more might have if she had not drawn back from the yawning abyss? The Ventrue’s cold hand seeks another in the darkness and finds Cécilia’s.

“She had a lesson for me that was ill suited to everyone else.”

Part of her wants to continue, but that is not a sin she would lay upon Cécilia’s conscience, and instead she changes topic. “She was willing to grant a stay on the Flores family, presuming we ensure that Diana does nothing so foolish as cease teaching Simmone before she is ready.”

GM: Cécilia squeezes her hand back.

She looks confused for a moment at Caroline’s words.

“Yes. Maman said she would spare the other Flores. I remember that too.”

“But, I agree. We should definitely try to keep them out of danger.”

“I admit Celia and I have grown apart since high school, but I don’t want Maman to hurt her. Or her daughter, or any of her brothers and sisters. They don’t deserve that. Mrs. Flores doesn’t deserve that.”

Caroline: “It’s for the best,” Caroline observes, her voice distant. “That you drifted apart that is.”

“It’ll be better for them too if we can find a replacement for Mrs. Flores in Simmone’s life.”

GM: “You might be right on that first count,” Cécilia agrees.

“Why do you say, though, on that second one? Mrs. Flores has taught all of us, for over ten years now. Simmone really likes her.”

“I really like her, too. So do the others. She came to visit when Yvonne was the hospital, with food. It was very kind.”

Caroline: “She’s too close to too much of Kindred society,” Caroline answers.

Because our mother will murder her entire family if she turns her attention from Simmone for any reason…

“Eventually someone will try to use her. It’ll go badly for everyone. It’s dangerous for her just to visit us, honestly, given… well, her daughter.”

She sighs.

“I’m sorry. That’s a really depressing take. I just mean that I know you and the others care about her, it’d be better for her, safer for her, if we got her… a little more out of the way.”

GM: “That is, yes. But I suppose Celia does complicate things, for her and everyone. Maybe that would be best.”

“I don’t know that Simmone will want to give her up, though. She has such a hard time with strangers. And Maman will want Simmone to have whatever she wants to have.”

Caroline: Of that Caroline is well aware.

“We’d need someone with the proper appeal to her,” Caroline agrees.

“Maybe we could make it a game of sorts for her, treat her, with the option to pick out one she likes.”

GM: “That might be an idea,” Cécilia considers. “But is it really a treat to replace a favorite teacher with a new one?”

Caroline: “I don’t think you frame it that way,” Caroline answers. “Let it be a treat, and see if you can have it take the place of the existing option.”

GM: “What if she’s not interested, though?”

“Simmone isn’t any stranger to turning down offered things she doesn’t think she’ll like.”

Caroline: “Don’t make it about her, then,” Caroline suggests. “Especially if everyone is going to be home for a while, make it a group activity… or better, make it the adult activity. I can’t imagine her being happy about being excluded.”

GM: “Maman says that’s going to come to an end soon,” says Cécilia. “Though I still think I’ll keep living at home. I don’t feel safe living by myself anymore.”

“In any case, we can try that with Simmone.”

“I’d just expect a struggle. She’s so used to getting what she wants.”

Caroline: “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Is there? Or is she becoming her mother?

“I just know how much more distressing it would be for her if she was more attached to Diana and something happened to her.”

GM: “I certainly hope nothing does. Mrs. Flores has been a really good teacher to us, for just so long.”

“But I suppose you’re right that Kindred are inherently dangerous. All the more so to have one as a daughter.”

“Well,” she amends with a faint smile, “for ordinary humans, at least.”

“Maybe there’s something we could do to help, though, if there’s some kind of trouble she or Celia is in? Especially if we’ve put them in more danger, with coming to the Garden District. Like you implied.”

“That isn’t worth Mrs. Flores’ lesson fee. And Celia insisted on not charging anything.”

Caroline: Caroline bites her lip. “Her sire threatened to kill Diana if she was caught here again. Or maybe as punishment for getting caught here.”

GM: “Oh my Lord,” Cécilia murmurs.

“All right, then we should definitely stop the dance lessons. They aren’t worth anyone’s life.”

Caroline: Caroline nods in agreement. “There’s a better answer for everyone. We just need the tyrant to sign off on it.”

GM: “The tyrant? You mean, Simmone or your sire?” Cécilia asks with an amused smile.

Caroline: “Oh, Simmone of course,” Caroline answers with a hint of levity. She’s dumped enough on Cécilia’s plate as is.

GM: “All right. We might as well do it now, unless you think there’s a better time.”

Caroline: “None like the present,” Caroline agrees. “I’ll have one if my people do homework when we get back. Line up some prospects.”

GM: “I could ask Mrs. Flores, too. I’m sure she knows other dance teachers.”

Caroline: “That’s not a bad idea… I don’t want to give her the wrong impression, though, that she’s unwanted.”

GM: “I don’t either, but we’ll have to tell her that at some point if we’re hiring someone else.”

“The Flores are fairly well-off, at least. I know they won a pretty big insurance settlement a while back. So they don’t need the money.”

“I don’t think Mrs. Flores even does private lessons anymore, actually, for students besides Simmone.”

Caroline: “Maybe you could talk to Celia about it too, have her lean on her mother?” Caroline suggests.

GM: “I might ask you the same, actually. You can be honest with her about why the lessons need to stop.”

Caroline: Caroline runs her tongue over her fangs. “She and I play for rather different teams, and she doesn’t exactly frequent Elysium. Plus few licks look kindly on things that could seen like threats to people they care for.”

It’s not exactly a no, though. “I can bring it up if we see each other, though.”

GM: “That sounds good, then,” nods Cécilia. “I can find a way to bring it up if you don’t find the time.”

She pauses for a moment, listening to waves lap against the ship’s hull. The coastline looks vaguely familiar to Caroline again. She hasn’t been out yachting after dark too many times.

“What about you, Caroline? I know there’s been a lot to process lately. With everything at the beach house, but before too. How are you holding up?”

Caroline: She stares into the dark.

A lot to process. In less than a week she’s consumed the souls of two Cainites, marking herself as a pariah among her own kind but leaping decades ahead in supernatural prowess, seen her sire’s acceptance, journeyed across the world and fought the Sabbat, joined her family and learned of dark secrets within it. Slain Claire. Deceived her brother. Destroyed Jocelyn. Claimed the Malveauxes.

Been party to the murder of hundreds.

She feels… weary. That bone deep exhaustion she associates with the end of a tournament or a marathon.

But the marathon has only begun.

“You know about caterpillars and butterflies, but did you know that the caterpillars has identical genetic material to the butterfly?”

She takes a deep breath, leaning her head back to look at the sky for a moment as she continues, “When they go into the cocoon most of their body liquefies, but it doesn’t change from from one species to the next. The caterpillar always had the genes to grow wings, and from their first steps they know how to fly, even though they couldn’t.”

She turns to Cécilia, “I think it’s a lot like that. Parts of me are breaking down, disintegrating, melting away: but they are pieces that have to go so I can do what I always knew could.”

GM: “I’m sure you must have a lot of feelings around that,” Cécilia nods. “Caterpillars do what they do by instinct. But to any thinking, reasoning person, that sort of metamorphosis would be fraught with all sorts of emotions. Normal puberty is fraught with enough emotions already.”

“But these are changes that you want? That’s the important thing.”

Caroline: “I don’t know that it really matters. Change comes to is whether we want it or not, just like the caterpillar.”

Does she want Caroline to complain about her lot? Talk about how she barely recognizes herself in the mirror? About how with so many different titans pulling on her she wonders how she hasn’t come apart?

But then… that’s exactly what she wants, isn’t it?

Her shoulders sag from their haughty posture as she leans heavily on the lifelines.

“It’s a lot,” she tentatively admits.

GM: “I can only imagine how much it is. At least your sire hasn’t called you away yet.”

Caroline: It’s interesting, and faintly terrifying that he hasn’t. She’d presumed everything would change radically. This feels very much like the same with higher stakes.

“It’s been an unexpected blessing,” she agrees.

“Cécilia…” There’s not a good way to phrase this. “There’s no one else. No one else in my Requiem I trust to help be my rudder. Just you.”

“Maman, I know, will always seek that which makes me happy, which I want. But it’s… different.”

“You’re the last person with a human perspective. The last person with a conscience. Maybe the last person with a soul.”

“When I said earlier I didn’t want you to take the offered Embrace, I meant it for the reasons I said, but there was another, more selfish reason too.”

“I don’t want you to become like me, and I need you if I’m going to retain a piece of what I am… or at least what I’ve been.”

GM: “I don’t think that’s selfish,” says Cécilia. “Wanting to retain a conscience is exactly the opposite of selfish, in fact. Your conscience determines how you treat others. You’re telling me that you want to treat other people decently, and that you’re also self-aware enough to recognize you have problems doing that on your own.”

“So if I can help you, or rather, help you to help others, I’m happy to. That’s another reason to feel like saying no to Aunt Mur’s Embrace was a good decision.”

Caroline: Caroline nods, relief spreading across her face.

“It’s not my voice anymore, that I hear when I consider the ‘right’ thing. It’s yours. And without it…”

Bodies melting, purifying in free fall. Skulls bouncing around the deck. Skulls that are far too small. The scream of the Sabbat Priest as she tore his soul from him, tore it into pieces to consume.

“It’s so easy to take the simpler answer, the fast hour, the convenient answer.”

GM: “Do you feel like you’ve been able to resist doing that?” Cécilia asks.

Caroline: The Ventrue shakes her head.

“Not always.”

An understatement.

GM: “I’m sorry, that was a bad question. We’ve all had times we’ve fallen short. I think very few people could answer ‘yes’ without any caveats.”

“Most people would probably answer what you did, or ’I’ve tried to.’”

“What about more recently? How do you feel about yourself there, and taking the easy versus hard answer?”

Caroline: The yawning abyss.

“Maman offered me something. Something dark and terrible. And I wanted to take it so badly.”

She shudders.

“But I didn’t.”

“It was eye-opening, though, to the lengths she would go. It’s almost frightening, having someone that will give and take for you without limit.”

GM: “I was wondering when she would,” says Cécilia. “She’s done as much for me too, but I imagine the temptation was even greater for you.”

“I’m glad you were able to do the right thing.”

Caroline: “What did she do for you, did she offer you?” Caroline asks.

GM: “After Mercurial Fernandez harassed me outside of my apartment, Maman offered to kill him for me. Along with all of his family members and the gang he was associated with, to tie up loose ends, and to spare me from having to deal with the stress of getting the restraining order and wondering whether it would be effective.”

“Or I suppose, she didn’t offer to kill them, so much as state she was going to.”

“I asked her not to.”

Caroline: Caroline doesn’t know if she’d have asked if Cécilia had been her sister then.

“You made the right choice. He was pathetic.”

GM: “I’m glad you think I did. Maman’s otherwise offered to kill a large number of people for me, when dealing with them was frustrating or inconvenient. Most of them didn’t do anything on the same scale to me that Mercurial Fernandez did.”

“I asked her not to kill any of them either.”

“She also offered to kill Emmett for me several times.”

Caroline: Caroline bites her tongue on that particular point.

“They weren’t even people that did anything wrong. They were just… convenient to me. Or their deaths might have been.”

“But once you go down that path… every next time becomes easier.”

“I didn’t like what it would make me to you. Didn’t like the example it would set for Yvette.”

GM: Cécilia nods. “That’s the nature of any habit. Do anything enough times, and it becomes harder to stop.”

“But you’d still be my sister, whatever you might have decided.”

“I think you’re right to want to set a good example for Yvette. She’s going to need them.”

Caroline: “It would be very easy for all the power of the Embrace, and all that mother might offer, to lead her down a very dark path,” she agrees.

Like Caroline is one to talk.

GM: “It would. I said, earlier, that the Embrace takes a special sort of character. I think Yvette has that, but that it could also be very easy for her to lose sight of humanity.”

“She’s still going to look up to you. I imagine she’s going to want to spend a lot of time with you. So you might find a second source of strength in that—in being her role model.”

A pause. “Because I don’t think her sire and ‘stepfather’ are going to be, at least when it comes to maintaining her humanity. So that leaves you.”

Caroline: Another reason she has to ascend, to race to power. Influence over her sister aside, the balance of power between Caroline and McGinn, much less him and his harpy lover, is grotesquely skewed in his favor.

While she would rather cultivate a more cordial relationship, she’s always favored the Reaganeque line: ‘peace through strength.’ All the more so in a society of literal predators.

“And you,” Caroline offers. “You’ve helped pull her back before.”

GM: “I’ll continue do my best there. But my guess is Yvette will be completely enamored with the new world her sire brings her into. She’s only 18 and her brain isn’t fully developed. I’m ultimately a spectator to that world, whereas you’ll be able to share it all with her.”

Caroline: “I’ll always find time for her,” Caroline agrees. There’s an excitement there she can’t entirely hide.

GM: “You’re looking forward to that,” Cécilia smiles.

Caroline: Caroline nods. “If the opportunity presents, I’d love to introduce her to the world ahead of her Embrace.”

“I’d rather she go in with all eyes open and her first experience not at her sire’s tender hand.”

GM: “That sounds wise. Taking her to Elysium, or something else?”

Caroline: “Elysium perhaps,” Caroline agrees. “Though I don’t think I’d want her recognized. Things to consider.”

GM: “Her sire-to-be might not either,” Cécilia considers. “Though I suppose where else would you take her? Do Kindred tend to have public gatherings at other locations?”

Caroline: “I honestly don’t really know,” Caroline answers. “I’m sure there are more specialized social gatherings, but I didn’t exactly make many Kindred friends while I was on the warpath.”

GM: “I’m sorry. I’m sure more friends would have been helpful to have in so many ways.”

Caroline: Caroline waves a hand. “I made my bed… with some help. It’s water under the bridge now. Most of them would have been liabilities now.”

Like Jocelyn.

GM: “They would?” Cécilia sounds curious. “Maman tells me it’s typical for neonates to gather in coteries for mutual protection and support. She said it was mortal connections they usually try to keep secret.”

Caroline: “I’ve cut through entire coteries of young licks by myself, and I’m hardly the match of most powerful ones in the city.”

“I’m not saying friends won’t help, or even that I don’t want them, but of the available pool from where I was?” She shakes her head.

“Too many Jocelyns.”

GM: “Ah. I can see why you might have wanted to avoid that,” Cécilia frowns. “I suppose it doesn’t matter how old or capable your friends are if they’re setting themselves on fire at your house.”

“How are things with the two of you now, by the way?”

Caroline: Caroline doesn’t let the thought of Jocelyn’s demands linger, doesn’t let the memory of the Toreador all over her, shoving her blood in Caroline’s face, float on the surface for too long before she smothers it in the dark.

Who cares anyway—it’s hardly the first ‘bad’ sex she’s had in her life.

“It’s…” she shakes her head, “it’s fucked. The seneschal bid me to bring her back into the fold, so I did.”

She shakes her head again. “Maybe if I’m gone, if the blood has time to cool…”

Then, “She thinks she bound me to her.”

GM: “I suppose it’s no surprise she’d have wanted you both to be fully bound,” says Cécilia. “That must have made things feel even to her.”

“How does that make you feel?”

Caroline: “It’s all the bond,” Caroline declares angrily. “It’s all it ever was with her. Possession at best, infatuation. There’s nothing real there. But the seneschal says keep her around, and if I have to keep sleeping with her to make that happen, then so be it.”

GM: “That sounds terrible,” frowns Cécilia. “There has to be another way.”

“Of either satisfying his demand, or getting him to retract it.”

Caroline: “It’s fine,” Caroline states without passion. “At least there aren’t any illusions about what it is for me.”

“If I’m going to enter into a blood marriage with Primogen Poincaré, it’s all a moot point in the end anyway.”

GM: “Do you want to do that, either? You felt… interested, but also wary.”

“I can see why you would, on both counts.”

Caroline: “It serves my interests, his own, and also those of our aunt’s,” Caroline answers. “That there are preconditions I need to meet in personal growth and achievement to make it tenable is a problem I’ll get around.”

“I could do much worse. He’s a near-universally respected and powerful elder who could bring in an entire covenant. We could end the war before it started.” She describes it as though she’s describing a corporate merger.

GM: “I’ll pray that’s how it goes. I don’t want to lose you in a war.”

“But I suppose even if there is one, that’s all the more reason to need new allies. Your sire will be a huge loss to the Sanctified. The covenant will need to make up for that somehow. This could be a way to.”

Caroline: Somehow.

Even on the road she’s on, it’s not enough. Not nearly enough. No matter how many licks she consumes in New Orleans, it’ll still be centuries before she can actually stand in his place.

She’s not enough. And not because of a war with Savoy or the Baron.

“I need to know about her father. Maman’s.”

GM: Cécilia nods. “Mur and Maman obviously know more about him than me, but I’ll answer what I can.”

Caroline: “I think he’s stirring, under the Dungeon.” She bites her lip. “I fear that he’ll rise again when my sire falls.”

“I need to know the story of how he was defeated the first time, in France.”

GM: Cécilia gives a grim look. “That sounds consistent with everything else you and they said.”

“I don’t know that story, though. Much of what Mur and Maman said was new to me too. Maybe we can ask them?”

Caroline: Caroline nods. “I don’t expect its a tale they want to tell, or that we’ll get it tomorrow, but… eventually.”

GM: “There’s time. Hopefully.”

Caroline: A nod to the darkness.

“All the time in the world, an eternity, and never enough.”

---

Previous, by Narrative: Story Twelve, Celia XX
Next, by Narrative: Story Twelve, Emmett XIII

Previous, by Character: Story Twelve, Caroline XIII
Next, by Character: Story Twelve, Caroline XV

“Are you… a vampire?”
Danielle Garrison

---

Friday night, 11 March 2016, PM

GM: Gui opens the door to his BMW for Jade.

“So, beautiful, where to?”

Celia: “Such chivalry,” she says with a smile.

Jade slides into the car. She supposes she’ll need to let Alana know to pick up her Genesis and drop it at the Evergreen for her later. She sends that text to the ghoul as Gui walks around to get in on his side and deposits her phone back into her jacket pocket.

“That depends. Can you keep a secret?”

GM: “Does anyone ever answer ‘no’ to that question?” Gui replies with some amusement. He starts driving despite not having a destination from Jade.

Celia: “No,” Jade admits, “but their answers let me get a good idea on whether or not they get to learn something fun.”

GM: “There’s mine. I’ll vouch that I’m trustworthy, but don’t take my word for it. I’m a vampire.”

Celia: She laughs. “I’ll rephrase, Mr. Gui. I’d like to show you something fun. Would you like to see?”

GM: “I should think so.”

Celia: She directs him toward the Evergreen.

GM: They arrive there in short order. Fabian greets them warmly. The place looks pretty empty on a Friday night with its master and many of his followers at Elysium Primo.

Empty of Kindred, at least. There’s a live music show going on, and plenty of kine eating, drinking, and having a good time at the club.

Celia: “It’s not often people throw that word around,” Jade remarks to Gui before they head inside. “It’s quite refreshing to know I’m not the only one.”

Most evenings, Jade comes here for Savoy or his warden. This evening, though, she’s here for the ghoul. She asks after Tantal and moves to find him, her arm linked through the Ventrue’s with the same amount of familiarity she’d use with… well, anyone, really.

GM: “You haven’t heard about that trend to ‘reclaim the v-word?’ It’s all the rage in Chicago,” Gui says as he walks her upstairs.

Fabian gives the pair directions. Jade finds the ghoul-turned-hunter lookalike watching TV on a couch with one of Mel’s girls in arm, probably killing time until Jade could get around to him. He looks glad to see her.

“Time for me to get my face back, ma’am?” he asks in his deeper voice.

Celia: She hadn’t heard. She’s amused by it and happy to do her part in New Orleans, she assures him. She tells him how when she’d first met Lebeaux she’d said the word to him and he’d all but flinched.

“He made sure to tell me it was very inappropriate for everyday use.”

Jade nods to the ghoul once they find him, gesturing for him to follow after her.

“That and more, as discussed. The warden has given the green light.”

Her eyes find Gui’s as she walks the pair of them down the hall toward the Red Room, wondering if he can guess what she’s about to show him.

GM: “Still only popular with younger licks,” Gui says.

Tantal kisses the girl and tells her to wait here before accompanying the two vampires.

The Red Room isn’t too red, tonight, and there isn’t so much as a single corpse. Fridays are the Evergreen’s least busy nights, at least for Kindred.

But tomorrow will be another matter. Saturdays always leave the Red Room reddest.

Celia: Empty of corpses, anyway. But there’s Randy, faithful as ever, with the bag of body parts from Celia’s haven that she’d been debating how to get rid of. Putting them in Tantal seems like a no-brainer.

She smiles at the boy and sends him on his way with a wink.

GM: He looks less than thrilled with carrying it, but thrilled as ever to see his mistress before she sends him off.

“I know him, the bail bond family,” remarks Gui.

Celia: “Mmm,” Jade nods her head. “He’s dating one of my spa girls. Useful. Though she’s been making noise about him not popping the question, so we’ll see how long that lasts.” Amusement colors her voice.

She gestures for Tantal to lay out on the table and opens the bag of body parts, slicing through the wrappers with quick cuts of her nails. She unrolls the assorted parts and sets them aside, then pulls a vial from her purse with a pair of needles and a bottle of something that looks like sanitizer but smells like pure ethanol. She rinses her hands.

“Anesthetic, Tantal,” she warns the ghoul before finding a vein with the first needle.

Finally prepped for “surgery,” Jade glances once more at Gui.

“Ready to see something fun?” The request to keep it a secret has already been issued. He wouldn’t be here if she didn’t trust him to do that much, at least.

GM: “He won’t ever love her while he’s drinking from you,” says Gui.

Tantal looks relieved to see the anaesthetic and gives a, “Thank you, ma’am.”

Butterfly would have killed to have that.

“Thought that’s what I was already seeing,” smirks Gui, looking directly at her.

Celia: That reminds her.

“Can you get the zipper? If I get blood on this dress I’m going to be distinctly annoyed.”

GM: “With pleasure.”

He swiftly peels it away. He folds the dress up and leaves it on a chair.

Celia: He’s such a flatterer.

Jade winks at him once she’s down to her bra, having already lost her panties. She’d take the former off too, but to be honest if she’s getting blood across her breasts… well, maybe she deserves it for being bad at her job. Maybe she would take it off if Gui could lick her clean later, but that whole no saliva thing really cramps her style.

Claws sprout from the tips of her fingers. Long, sharp, deadly. She turns to her task at hand, beginning with Tantal’s face while the numbing solution does its job. That’s the part that the dolls all complain about: the face and hair. And while she’s removing from Tantal rather than adding hair, she’d rather he be comfortable. He doesn’t need the pain to sink in as a lesson, after all.

Quick cuts of her claws has the hair falling to the ground in no time, and a moment later she runs a hand across his scalp (with her claws carefully held out of the way) to smooth it all over. It’s a quicker effort than adding hair; within moments his head is as bald and shiny as he was before.

It’s not impressive. She knows that. Anyone can shave a head. She doesn’t even look over at Gui to catch his reaction. Not until her claws drag against Tantal’s face and she peels the skin back, adjusting the muscles underneath to give him that round-cheeked look he’d had before. Round but… chiseled, somehow. She manages to make it work despite the implication that fat equals round. She makes him look a little more dangerous than he had been with his baby-face to account for the new muscle she’s going to put into his body.

She closes his face with a press of her fingers, smoothing out the skin flaps until it looks like his skin had never been split.

She moves lower. Claws cut into his throat so she can rework his vocal chords. She has him speak while she works to make sure that the voice is where he wants it, whether that’s his higher falsetto or something a little more masculine. Jade doesn’t judge. His body, his choice and all that nonsense.

After that the real work begins.

She starts with his chest, cutting him open and bringing in the muscular fiber from the dead guy she’d met at the club, the one that her sire had killed for her with a boot to the throat, the one whose body Roderick had seen in her fridge and hadn’t asked about.

Adding isn’t like taking away. This isn’t fat that she just scoops out with a swipe of her finger to put into a trash bag. This is the addition of muscle to his frame, bulking him up to stay the same relative size as before while replacing fat with muscle. This is the kind of surgery that every kid who has ever been fat wants: pure replacement. It’s what body-builders wish they could do with their protein shakes and their heavy lifts and their steroids.

She checks the connections, the nerves, the bands of tissues. She makes sure that the arms work when he lifts them, that if he flexes his biceps are bigger than his head, that the cells get their required blood and oxygen and everything else that they need to survive. There are tons of tiny little connections to make to ascertain that the synapses fire correctly.

She’s not a blur, not quite, but she moves more quickly than any human surgeon would while she works on Tantal, while she cuts him open and stuffs him with the new muscle and fat and tissue from the hunter, while she sculpts and shapes and otherwise turns him into the ideal version of himself. She asks how big he wants to go and he gets it.

She chances a glance at Gui when she moves onto Tantal’s lower body, her hands bloody halfway up her forearms.

“You remember what he used to look like?” she asks him, referring to the fat, baby-faced ghoul he’d been before. “When we took it out of him he said he wasn’t sure if he wanted it to go back in. I’m sure you’ve never stared at a garbage bag of your own fat, but it’s not very appealing.” There’s a movie with that image in it. The one with that cute guy who’d once robbed a casino. Her mom thinks he’s cute, anyway. He’s a little old for her. He plays the imaginary friend in the movie she’s referring to, though.

“So we spoke to the warden about it and he said that if Tantal wanted his old size without the fat we could make it muscle instead.” It’s a shy smile she sends his way. “That evening at Elysium, all those years ago, when you asked how a vampire—” she tries out the word and finds that she likes it after not saying it for so long"—could benefit from body work? What I said was very, very true. But there’s also this way."

She pads the ghoul’s waist while she talks, filling him in. Then lower, to his legs. His quads get reworked: bigger, thicker, padding him with the additional muscle from the dead man whose only crime had been that he was at the wrong place, wrong time.

Unless he’d been working with the hunters. Then fuck that guy.

Oh, and he had tried to drug her, so she supposes fuck that guy twice as hard.

She checks in with the ghoul when she gets to his feet, making sure that the anesthetic is still working, that he’s the right size. She flips him afterward, putting another needle into him of numbing solution so she can start the work on his back. Again, she starts at the top. Adds the muscle and fat to his neck, then his traps and lats and scalenes. She rounds out the deltoids from the side, smooths out his waist, adds a bit more to the glutes. All the glutes, not just the one that sits on top, since that won’t do him any good if the medius and minimus aren’t just as strong. Hamstrings and calves are last, and when she’s done… well, when she’s done he’s got the kind of calves that gym rats dream of, with a smoothly tapered ankle and a fat chunk of quivering gastrocs that a woman wouldn’t be able to fit into a knee-high boot.

Funny, that, how the big people want to be little and the little people want to be big. A lot of fat people complain about their calves, how they’ll never be small, while other people want to build them up. It’s obsessive. Reggie had told her about it: the guys on body building forums who purposefully gain weight to get the extra fat and muscle that comes from carrying around such a large load, then cutting so they can slim down and keep that same muscle in their lower legs.

Personally Jade thinks it’s weird, but then she doesn’t need to spend hours in the gym working on her physique because she’s already perfect.

Flawless, really.

GM: Flawless in appearance.

Flawless in deed.

Tantal looks relieved the entire time as Jade works her torturous magic on his numb flesh. Perhaps some part of the ghoul wonders if it would hurt more to have muscle mass added than taken away. Different kinds of pain, Jade supposes. She’s made herself bulkier for some of her guises, though never so bulky as she’s making Tantal. The ghoul doesn’t go so far as to relax while she works on him, but he starts to look less apprehensive and more intrigued as the minutes tick by and Jade literally makes him bigger and better.

Gui watches too with clear interest. His eyebrows raise at first, but beyond that, the Ventrue simply studiously watches what Jade’s doing, his eyes moving between her claws, Tantal’s body, and the gory chunks of muscle she grafts on. At one point he remarks how the muscle looks “pretty fresh” and asks what would happen if she was working with “older meat.” Would she need to freshen it up? Beyond that question, Gui remains silent so as not to distract her from her work. As it goes on and the Toreador’s motions become more familiar, his eyes start to wander her increasingly gore-caked body. There’s no bulge in his pants, but Jade can see his fangs protruding in his mouth, and he smiles when he sees her notice.

“Thayncth, mu’m,” Tantal slurs out through his still-numb and anesthetized mouth. “Tha fel… muth be’er thith thime.”

“You’f rilly buffed me up. Warden Lebyoo’ll be pre’y happy to thee me liy thith. I know I am.”

Celia: Fresher meat is better, Jade tells Gui, though even old body parts can be used. She can preserve things as she harvests them, or refresh them. Like rehydrating a dead flower, almost, or dried food. It’s not as simple as adding water, but it’s still something she knows how to do.

She tells him, too, that she can dry it out. She doesn’t need to tan and stretch and roll the hides to turn them into leather; there’s a whole process she looked up once, and it involves a bunch of brain matter and ash and curing and drying… and she can do the same thing in a matter of moments. Turn humans into… well, into leather.

“Leather belts, wallets, purses, shoes, jackets…”

Maybe even a pair of bracers.

She smiles at the Ventrue, wondering if he’s now thinking of every bit of leather he’s ever seen her wear and where it came from. Who it came from.

Jade finds a mirror when she’s done, holding it out for the ghoul to get a good look at his new body. She asks if he’d like any adjustments and smooths the rest of him out, giving him a once-over to make sure that all of her cuts across his skin have been sealed.

“I’m curious to see how your new body improves your work, Tantal. Be sure to keep me appraised. Rest this evening and this day. Tomorrow evening you’re cleared to return to duty. Stay hydrated.”

GM: “Yeth, mu’m,” the ghoul nods as he slowly gets up. “Thaynth again. You e’er nee’ thomethin from me, juth ask.”

“I’m pretty sure most of the leather you wear still comes from cows, but I suppose I can’t be certain,” smirks Gui after Tantal leaves. “You’re very dirty. Good thing for us there’s a shower right here.”

He starts taking off his own clothes too.

Celia: Well this had backfired spectacularly.

Maybe she shouldn’t have asked him to take her dress off for her.

Or invited him to watch.

Or asked him to leave with her with the implication that they’d fuck.

Had she implied that? It’s so hard to be certain these days. Seems like any stray glance or wink gets misunderstood by the people who want to get into her pants. Or at least her neck. Or whatever the vampire equivalent is.

What else is Veronica’s slut childe good for?

Not that she minds. She’d just thought she’d last more than two whole nights before she cheated on Roderick. Or one night? She’s not quite sure which of these evenings is their official “getting back together” night.

She’s reaching for the hooks on her bra when a phone chirps. She glances at where hers sits out on the chair where he’d draped her dress, but the screen is black. Her eyes drift back toward him and the phone ringing merrily from his jacket pocket.

GM: Fuck again.

Gui tsks when she starts to take off the bra and moves to help her out of it himself. “I’ve already helped you out of your dr…”

He picks up the phone.

“Yes?”

A pause.

“Keep a lid on things. I’ll be over soon.”

He flips the dumphone closed.

“Sorry, lush, but business before pleasure.”

Celia: Jade is pretty sure that if she’d gotten out of her bra any quicker he wouldn’t be able to tear his gaze away, and whatever fire had popped up would just go on burning without his attention.

She pouts spectacularly at him.

“You’re such a tease.”

GM: Gui pulls on his clothes and tilts up Jade’s chin to meet his gaze.

“Business pays in pleasure, beautiful. I’ll show you a time to make your toes curl once Harrah’s is ours.”

Celia: She likes the sound of that.

“It’s a date, then.” Which reminds her… “I’ll need to speak to you about that at some point, but go handle your business. I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow evening to discuss.”

GM: “The Evergreen wouldn’t be what it is without me,” Savoy’s master of elysium declares. Jade is hard-pressed to think of an occasion Gui hasn’t been there on a Saturday. He brushes her cheek with his fangs, licking off some of the blood, and takes his leave.

Celia: Jade watches him go, annoyed by the little pang in her chest as he leaves. She shouldn’t want him to stay as much as she does. She reminds herself that she’s with someone. She reminds herself to keep it in her pants. She reminds herself that she’s about to get fucked six ways to Sunday when she gets home to see Roderick, with fang and cock and fingers and tongue, and that Gui wouldn’t have done that for her and she’d have only been half-satisfied. After he argues with her, of course, about letting Garcia grab her ass and then leaving with Gui and getting mad about whatever it is he’s going to get mad about, and maybe they won’t even fuck because he’s busy putting her head through a wall and then Savoy’s plan with him will definitely fall through.

And that’ll be her fault, of course.

She heaves a sigh once she’s alone, glad for just this moment to herself where she doesn’t need to play the games around the others and watch her tongue and thoughts and body language. And then she finishes stripping and steps into the shower by herself because even though it would be more enjoyable if someone were here to share it with, she still has a list of things to do this evening for which she probably shouldn’t be covered in blood.

She lets her thoughts swirl down the drain with the blood, though she feels far from clean.

---

Friday night, 11 March 2016, PM

GM: The mystery number included in her mom’s group text wasn’t lost to Celia’s attentive memory, and it’s the first item on her agenda, if by dint of being the easiest to take care of. It’s easy enough to scroll back to the frantic message, copy the number, and make a call.

“Hello?” greets an unfamiliar woman’s voice after several rings.

Celia: “Mom?” Celia says into the phone. She knows it’s not her mom. But calling a random number and asking ‘who is this’ is suspect as all hell. Still, the female voice puts her at ease, if only remotely.

GM: “Oh, I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong number,” says the woman.

Celia: “Oh, I’m… oh my, is this Naomi?”

GM: “Why yes, how did you know?”

Celia: “Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry. Your name is right next to my mother’s in my phone, my finger must have slipped. Mom talks about you all the time. Sorry to disturb you.”

GM: “Oh! No, no, it’s no disturbance at all from one of Diana’s kids!” the woman smiles. “Which of her daughters are you? You don’t sound like Emily.”

Celia: What on earth is Emily doing talking to Naomi?

“Oh no,” Celia says with a smile of her own, “it’s Celia. The… I’d say eldest, but I think Emily has a few months on me.” That’s a weird thing she hasn’t considered before.

GM: “Celia! Oh my goodness!” Naomi exclaims, audibly smiling wider. “Your mom’s told me so much about you!”

“We’ve met each other before, back when you were really little. Your mom took you to our ballet performances. I don’t know that you’d remember me, though, since we all look the same in our costumes with our faces made up.”

Celia: “She has told me plenty of stories,” Celia assures the woman. “Both from back then and more recent things.”

This is where she’d say that Diana had pointed her out in photos from the old days, but… well, she has no photos left. Maxen had seen to that. Celia had been too busy scavenging for concealer to worry about her mother’s memories.

The thought tugs at her heart.

“We were just talking about you the other day, actually. She mentioned that you were looking for something new.”

GM: Naomi gives a short laugh. “Well, new is relative. I’m finally retiring from the ballet, it’s a young woman’s game, so I’m hoping to teach dance at a local studio instead. Your mom helped me land a job interview, she was so thoughtful. She’s a really good friend.”

Celia: “She really is the best.” There’s a brief pause while the wheels turn in her head. “Say, I know this might be weird coming from me, but you don’t do private lessons at all, do you?”

GM: “Oh, well, I suppose so. I haven’t taught any yet, but your mom and I talked about those. She says it’s a good way to get some variety in your teaching and earn a little side money.”

“I can’t imagine you’re wanting to get lessons from me, though, with already having an amazing dance teacher for your mom?”

Celia: “Oh no,” Celia laughs, “not for me. A friend of mine, actually. One of the girls I went to high school with has a little sister who has been taking lessons from my mom for a while, but, well… between you and me,” Celia lowers her voice, “I think her leg is acting up, and I’m worried about the strain it’s putting on her, and I think she’s nervous about leaving them without a good teacher. But if you were to take over…”

“Is that something you’d be interested in? She teaches on Tuesdays and Thursdays at their house in the Garden District.”

GM: “Oh. Oh no, are things okay with your mom?” Naomi asks. “Those lessons can’t be very long, next to how long she’s on her feet at McGhee…?”

Celia: “It’s more the added strain,” Celia says with a sigh. “She’s been doing okay at McGehee because it’s not as… hands on, you know? And she can sit if she needs to, take a break.”

GM: “Are you sure? I’d think a family might be more understanding, not to mention how there’s fewer girls and… well, I suppose your mom knows what she needs better than me, though.”

“Okay, I’ll give her a call about this.”

Celia: “I’ll talk to both of them, too, just to be sure. Pick up for a random number and get a job offer, what’re the odds?” She laughs lightly.

GM: Naomi laughs too. “Well, my husband and I are thinking about adopting, so hearing a stranger call me ‘Mom’ was… well, what are the odds of that, too?”

Celia: “Oh, you should,” Celia enthuses. “Lucy is the best thing that ever happened to me. She really just… kids just change your whole world.”

GM: “Oh, yes, I’ve met her with your mom! She’s just beyond adorable. Such a sweet child.”

“I was thinking about trying to get pregnant, but I’m a bit old for it, and seeing how well adoption worked for Emily and your mom… it made me think.”

Celia: “Meeting Emily and bringing her into the family was probably the best outcome from college. She and my mom… they’re just so happy together, and I know it’s not traditional but…” She wipes at her eyes, glad that the woman can’t see the red.

GM: “I think if they’re happy, that’s what counts. Your mom’s said how Emily didn’t have a family, so good on y’all for giving her one.”

“Oh! I go to your spa, by the way, Flawless—your mom referred me years ago. I’ve had Emily as my massage therapist, that’s how I know her.”

“I’ve wanted to schedule an appointment with you, but your staff always says you’re booked up.”

Celua: “Unfortunately I do book pretty far out. I cut down on my hours to take a more managerial role while I look for a building for a second location. Buuut…” she draws the word out, “I have some evening appointments available, if you’d like? I can text you with some time slots once I check my schedule.”

“All of the building managers and bankers want to meet during my peak daytime hours,” Celia says with another sigh. “Worth it, though.”

GM: “Yes, your mom’s said evenings are usually better for you, and how that’s when all of her appointments are. Not so late in the day is usually better for me, but… all right, why don’t you text me your hours, and we can see. It wouldn’t even have to be regular, if you’re mostly a manager these days.”

“Plus I already see Piper and I like her a lot, too.”

Celia: “Everyone loves Piper,” Celia agrees readily. “I oversaw some of her training, so I’ll take that as a huge compliment. Alright, I’ll get those times over to you this weekend and get you set up with something, and I’ll talk to my mom about the dance classes. Sorry for disturbing you so late, but I’m glad I was able to connect with you.”

GM: “Oh, it’s no disturbance, I’m so glad to finally meet you! Or talk with you, at least. Give your mom my love, will you?”

Celia: “Will do! Enjoy your evening.”

GM: “You too! I guess I’ll see you at the spa.”

Celia: Celia says a final goodbye and hangs up the phone.

It’s not quite how she imagined it would go when she’d dialed, but when does life ever go as expected?

---

Friday night, 11 March 2016, PM

Celia: Car since delivered to the Evergreen, Jade makes the trek across the Quarter and into Mid-City to the LegalWings Bail Bond offices. She’d texted the boys to let them know that she’s on her way—sometimes she meets them at their home in the Quarter, but Reggie and Rusty had said they were still downtown working on a case. Randy is… well, she thinks he’s with Mabel at their home in the Quarter, which would have been more convenient a meeting place considering she needs to talk to that ghoul too, but she’ll handle it when she handles it.

It’s not her first trip into Mid-City. Despite the hiding she had done in the back of Roderick’s car, Jade’s face isn’t an unwelcome one within the Anarch territory. She and Coco had parted on decent terms despite her childe’s penchant for splitting Jade’s face apart, and the elder had been receptive to Jade’s bid for influence within the parish. So LegalWings had been recognized as hers, and that was that. The occasional favor doesn’t much take away from being able to move relatively freely within the territory, and she hasn’t had to worry about someone else trying to edge their way into her business or getting jumped on the streets if one of the boys slips up.

Her heels click against the pavement as she makes her way toward the large glass doors of the office building, swiping a keycard against the door to be let in. Ordinarily the door isn’t locked but this late at night they don’t need people wandering in from the outside.

Jade nods to the receptionist as she passes by. Malone, she thinks; Reggie had told her once that they keep someone at the desk 24/7 for those crazy midnight cases that are all the rage these days. He’d said it with a wink and they’d both known what he’d meant. She has a bag slung over one shoulder, the same sort of leather she and Gui had been teasing about. She doesn’t think he’d believed her when she’d made her claim, not if that smirk was any indication.

Celia: Maybe she’ll make him a new hat and let him guess what sort of animal it came from. She’s all about the gift-giving these days.

She has one with her, too. Of a sort. Roxanne’s phone is in her bag, but Rusty has always liked a challenge, hasn’t he? And he’s easier to get ahold of than the Tremere detective, or at least she doesn’t want to bother him any more than she has to, so Rusty gets to play ‘crack the phone’ while they look into the rest of everything. She should have given it to him nights ago, but… well, she’s been busy.

Jade proceeds down the hall to Rusty’s office, knocking on the door before stepping inside.

GM: Someone once said to her that every elder calls in markers eventually.

She doesn’t remember who. It seems like the sort of advice most licks who’ve been around could give. Who aren’t also elders.

LegalWings, as the city’s biggest most successful company, has its own two-story building with a giant neon sign displaying the company name and its logo of a jail suit-wearing man flying out of a birdcage on a pair of wings. LegalWings. Open 24 hours, proclaims a section of neon. Fortunate for the Kindred and fortunate for the kine with loved ones in jail.

GM: 24/7, though, doesn’t mean full staff on duty. Regina seems home getting her beauty sleep, if her lack of presence in the office is any indication, but Reggie’s head turns at Jade’s clicking shoes, and he gives the Toreador’s rear an appreciative pat. He and the receptionist (Malone seems right) are talking to a Latina woman who’s looking over a document and shaking her head as she sighs angrily. Then she signs anyway, and she’s soon on her way.

“How many fuckin’ times now?” mutters Malone.

Reggie shrugs.

Celia: What is it with boys and grabbing her ass?

Not that she minds. Not that she minds even a little bit. She winks at Reggie as she passes by, crooking a finger at him behind her back to summon him down the hall once he’s done with the Hispanic woman.

Still, she’s glad it happened here where there aren’t any raging Brujah to challenge him to a duel. She’s rather fond of the middle brother and doesn’t want his head thrown threw her window if her lover decides he’s threatened by the mortal.

GM: Rusty’s in his office. It’s a big enough building he gets his own, instead of one of the tables out front. He’s typing into his computer as Jade approaches and reports that he and his brother are still looking into Summer.

Jade: Jade nods at the report.

“She’s been missing since December; I don’t doubt she’ll be tricky to track down.”

She slips the phone out of her bag and sets it on the desk.

“Have a few more things I’d like to look into.”

GM: “What and how much are you paying?” the oldest brother asks perfunctorily.

“This Summer girl is already taking a while, but I suppose as long as you’re paying for her too.”

Celia: She’ll know something is wrong with the guy when he doesn’t immediately demand payment. She appreciates how little he changes between visits.

“I imagine the usual agreement is sufficient?” There’s a lilt at the end of her sentence, room for him to let her know if something has come up that he needs different or more.

GM: Rusty nods. He and Reggie have both given Jade an hourly rate. Discounted for the pretty lady who feeds them blood.

Randy mostly just begs his “girlfriend” for blood and money when he needs it.

Celia: Randy provides services his brothers don’t, like being on call whenever she needs him, so it’s a looser arrangement she has with him in regards to blood and money. She’s been thinking about just giving him an expense account with a monthly limit.

Jade smiles at the brother in front of her and gives him a handful of names to look into. The blonde haired girl and the green haired punk from the club are just a flag of sorts, in case they’re reported as missing. Jade needs to know to get ahead of that. It’s less active searching than just monitoring. She asks for the same from the hunters she’d put down, though she adds that she’d like their known associates, if any.

And finally she gets to the heart of the matter: Lee Andrin.

There’s a brief pause after she says his name. Then, finally,

“I need him located. Quickly.”

GM: “Okay,” says Rusty. He asks if she has anything besides the name, but just nods when she doesn’t.

“A name’s enough to go on.”

Celia: “It’s possible I’ll need assistance bringing him in as well.”

In fact it’s highly likely.

GM: “Won’t be a problem.”

Celia: She gives him a grateful smile. She always enjoys watching the boys in action.

“Anything from the law office?”

GM: “Few things. Ocampo still poking for dirt on the police cover-up. The PIs have their eye on an ex-cop named Jeremy May. He’s the one who killed Gettis. He works for the Devillers family now as a security guard.”

“Ocampo’s people are searching for dirt on May so they can put the squeeze on him.”

Celia: “Mmm. I don’t suppose you have anything on him.”

GM: Rusty snorts. “We’re a bail bond agency, not an intelligence agency.”

“I can tell you he hasn’t taken out any bail bonds from us.”

Celia: That response earns a wry smile.

“I assumed as much. Doesn’t hurt to ask.”

That’s good, anyway. She’d rather they avoid that whole family and anything to do with them.

“Two more things, hopefully something you can assist with tonight.” Her brows lift. He knows she pays extra for rush jobs.

GM: “Okay. What is it?”

Celia: She nudges the phone toward him.

“Can you get into that?”

GM: He takes the Solaris and holds it under the lamplight.

“Damn, won’t be that way.”

Celia: “No,” Jade agrees. She’d already had the same thought.

GM: No oil secretions from their kinds’ fingers.

Celia: And she keeps forgetting to ask Pete.

He could probably just finger wave his way in.

But she doesn’t want to keep bothering him with this kind of stuff when she has her very own Rusty to help her out.

She gives the boy in question a winning smile.

Man, she reminds herself. He’s older than she is. Hard to remember that when she deals with his brother all the time and he comes off so… young.

GM: Alana is the same age as her mother.

Jade treats her like a child, too. The Blood just seems to bring that out in them.

Celia: Reggie is still pretty manly. All those times they… well.

GM: “Depends how many digits the password has,” says Rusty. “If it’s just four, give me probably six minutes. If it’s 10, give me probably 12 years.”

“Supposing there’s no other information you can give me on whoever’s phone this is.”

Celia: But she can.

She gives him her name, middle name, birthday. The name of her son, the name of her boyfriend, the date of her release as an independent lick. Their father’s birthday, their siblings’ birthdays. Her son’s birthday.

GM: Rusty tries combinations of those numbers to no effect.

Celia: It’s probably something stupid and sappy like her first kiss with Evan. Or the night daddy showed her how much he loved her.

GM: “I can get around the incorrect password timeouts and phone wipes, but this could still take a while if I’m going to brute force it.”

“What about her Suncloud account? That would be faster to get into.”

Celia: “Could try it.” She gives him the address.

GM: “Okay,” says Rusty. “I’ll look into this and get back to you.”

Celia: “Thanks, Rusty.”

There’s more. There always is. But she’s already dumped enough on him this evening and feels a little silly about asking him to find out if this Vinny fellow is on a dating site for her when she’s perfectly capable of doing it herself.

As soon as she finds the time. Which is why, of course, she’d waited until this evening to come see him, because she’s been so caught up with everything else going on in her unlife that her priorities needed re-shuffled. Maybe next week she’ll be able to breathe again.

She’s also a little concerned about the downward pull on the left side of his face, the tightness around his mouth, and the white around his knuckles. Pain. When was the last time he’d gotten his work done? In the shuffle of all the chaos with Roderick and the hunters and her family she hadn’t gotten on his case about it, and when she doesn’t remind him… The silly boy will wait until he’s paralyzed by it to reach out if she lets him. She doesn’t quite frown, but she gives him a look.

“Come see me tomorrow night.”

No mention of treatment, illness, or the pain; they both know what she means.

She slides an envelope across the desk for him, their agreed upon sum for his work, and finally rises to her feet.

“Always a pleasure, Rusty.”

Then she’s gone, gliding down the hall to find Reggie’s desk. He doesn’t have an office, not like Rusty, but then he’s never here. More often than not he’s out and about the city, collecting people and running errands and… well, doing whatever the rest of what being a bounty hunter entails. She’s sure it’s not as glamorous as she envisions in her mind (she usually pictures motorcycles, leather jackets, and back-alley knife fights). She even knows it’s not that glamorous, having gone with him more than a few times to pick someone up when he needed a distraction, but there’s still a vague sense of danger that radiates off of him that she has seen cow plenty of people. It passes harmlessly by her… but fuck if it isn’t a bit of a turn on.

She won’t admit to the amount of times they’ve roleplayed the dangerous bounty hunter and his target angle.

She doesn’t need to lean over to whisper in his ear, but it lets him get a nice view down the front of her dress and, well, he’s a man who appreciates the finer things in life. Like that view down her dress and everything it lets him see.

She winks at him as she goes, off to find the final brother to complete the trifecta of Dufresne visits this evening.

---

Saturday night, 12 March 2016, AM

Celia: The tightness in her shoulders disappears the moment she passes back into Savoy’s territory. It’s not that she’s worried about being jumped in the streets, just that, well, sometimes she’s worried about being jumped in the streets. Or picked up for any variety of reasons, like running her mouth at Elysium, which is less likely to happen here, though still not impossible.

Her sire had proven that to her.

Hadn’t she needed to speak to him about something? And someone else, too.

Ah, well, must have gotten lost in the shuffle of everything else going on this evening. Next time.

She pulls into the driveway of the home she’d helped purchase for the brothers years and years ago, bypasses the security with keys and cards and codes, and finally lets herself in.



Like a twist on the quintessential bachelor pad, everything is done up in mahogany and chrome and marble. Exposed brick in the kitchen adds some character (Reggie, of all people, had been the one to say that), and they’d been oddly taken by the stuffed rhino head that the prior owner had left behind in the attic. They’d opted to keep it and now it sits on their wall watching over the living room.

And the woman currently taking up space in the living room, the captive ghoul of Roxanne’s. Or Evan’s. The MILF, anyway, and now that Jade is seeing her without the stress and terror of serving Roxanne she definitely understands what all the fuss is about: she’s hot.

She spies Randy in the kitchen with Diana’s leftover cake and a glass of milk and gives a little finger wave to her “boyfriend” before turning her attention to the ghoul.

GM: Jade’s ass still smarts from how hard Reggie pinched it on her way out of Legalwings.

The ghoul is hot, for an older woman. Or because she’s an older woman, depending on one’s tastes. Evan was known to like them older. She’s a long-haired blonde with a full and curvy figure, full lips, good skin, and tight but non-trashy clothes that show off her curves. Definitely a ‘Mrs. Robinson’ type.

Or at least, she looks as if she used to be. Probably only an eye for beauty as discerning as Jade’s could spot that truth.

The ghoul hasn’t applied any makeup, her clothes have a rumpled, slept-in look, she doesn’t look as if she’s washed her hair recently, and her eyes are red and puffy as if from crying. She doesn’t smell as if she’s showered in a while either. Her hands are tied behind her back. There’s bruise marks on her face, too.

She doesn’t even look scared by the Toreador. She just offers a bleak look, like her life has gotten even worse.

Or as if it couldn’t have gotten any worse.

Celia: Jade has no doubt that Roxanne wasn’t the gentlest of domitors, if that bruising is any indication. She’d told the boys to lay off any physical violence against the woman. No touching. She’d been very clear.

At least she doesn’t quite smell yet, despite the unwashed hair and rumpled clothing. Nothing some baby powder won’t fix to suck up that oil spill on the top of her head.

Or, y’know, an actual shower and change of clothes.

Jade pulls a chair up in front of her, muting the TV in the background with the press of a button on the remote. She doesn’t even wince when she puts weight on the recently pinched cheek. Maybe it’s the cushion.

She gives the ghoul a long look and finally smiles.

“Good evening. It’s Mabel, isn’t it?”

GM: “Yes,” the ghoul answers without enthusiasm.

Celia: "And you were with the Storyvilles? Gerlette?

GM: “Evan.”

If it’s even possible, Mabel looks even more miserable at his name.

Celia: Evan. Right. Roxanne’s boyfriend. The nice one, isn’t that what she had said? Jade hadn’t been particularly close to him despite their shared clan, and he’s been missing for almost a year now.

“I doubt it’s been easy with him gone,” Jade says softly. She looks again at the bruise. No doubt he kept her more gently than her former sister had.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Mabel. I’m sorry that he’s gone. I know it hurts to lose someone that you care deeply for. I’d like to help you find out what happened to him, and then maybe find a new place for you where you can be happy.”

GM: The Toreador’s consoling words bring on a wave of relieved-feeling tears.

“Please. I just want to find him. He isn’t dead, he’s my boy, I know he’s not, he’s just… in torpor, or staked somewhere…”

Celia: Maybe that’s even true. Wouldn’t that be a blessing.

Jade nods her head. She leans forward, keeping her movements slow, and unties the woman’s hands from behind her back. She takes one of them into her own. Her skin is warm; maybe that helps Mabel feel less like she’s in the presence of a monster.

“Can you tell me about him? The last time you saw him. The things you did together? I bet there’s something I can look into.”

GM: The ghoul sniffs and squeezes Jade’s hand. “He’s a wonderful boy. Just such a good boy. We pretend to be a mother and son, living together in the apartment where his haven is, but it’s not pretend. He calls me Mom anyways, even when no’s listening…” The ghoul gives a happy, broken smile. “He likes to pamper me, draw up baths for me, and wash my hair with his hands… and when he holds me in his arms, I feel like there’s no one in the world but us…”

Celia: “Evan sounds like a real sweetheart.”

GM: “He is. He’s such a sweet boy.”

“He lets me drink from him, as much as I want, then he drinks it back, and I just feel so loved, so safe, so good, like I never have with anyone else… God knows not my husband.”

Celia: Husband.

Well there’s a loose end. She should have looked into that before she’d just… scooped her up.

Whoops.

“Is your husband still in the picture? I imagine hiding this life from him was pretty difficult.”

GM: Mabel shakes her head. “We divorced a while ago. Evan helped me leave him.”

“He is. He’s such a sweet boy.”

Celia: “I’ll help you find him,” Jade says again, giving the ghoul’s fingers a gentle squeeze. “But I need to know what you know so I can start looking. Anything you did together, anything out of the ordinary, anything he might have said in front of you?” Licks treat their servants like they’re less than a lot of the time. She’s seen it. They get complacent and let things slip and don’t imagine that the ghouls hold onto that knowledge. She tries not to, but she’s probably done it herself. It’s why she thinks the Harrah’s business will be so successful. It’s why the maid business has netted so much for her as well. She’s banking on the fact that Evan, Roxanne, and the rest of the Storyvilles sometimes forgot that Mabel is a person and not just a ghoul.

GM: “Well… the last couple nights before he disappeared, he was on edge,” Mabel sniffs. “He was scared, I could tell, but he tried to look brave around me. He said I didn’t need to worry, and we fed on each other. But he wasn’t… he wasn’t all there.”

She sniffs again.

“I wanted to hep him, with what was wrong. He’s my boy.”

“He did go to see a fortune-teller, in the Quarter. Yellow Sidra. That was very unusual, because he never went to the Quarter, and said I should never go there. He said all of the licks there would try to hurt us…”

Mabel sniffs and warily looks between Jade and Randy.

“But I don’t care about that. I just… I just want to find him…”

“He went to the Lower Garden District, too, before he disappeared. He said he talked with Accou, the… primogen, was what Evan called him. He said he admired Accou, because he also looked after his mom.”

Mabel manages a smile and gives another sniff. It’s an earnest smile, but a sad one too.

“I’m glad he talked with Accou, because it seemed to make him feel better. After he talked to Sidra, he was… oh, I wish he hadn’t, he was scared and miserable after he came back…”

Celia: Jade nods encouragingly as Mabel speaks. She gives her a wry smile at the announcement of not going into the Quarter; it’s a lesson she has instilled in her own ghouls, where and when they can travel so nothing untoward happens to them.

“It shows how much you care about him that you were willing to come here anyway. I’m glad we found each other. That kind of loyalty is admirable, and I think I can help.”

Jade waves Randy over with a plate of food and beverage for the ghoul.

“You might not want to eat with how upset you are, but keep your strength up so we can get through this, okay? His girlfriend’s mom made it and she’s a great cook.”

“I know Accou. He’s my grandsire, actually. And Evan is right, he does look after his mom. It’s really sweet, like Evan is to you. I’m happy to follow up with him about this. Do you know where he came from when he got this way, anyone he was speaking to before he got so on edge? Anything he might have said to his krewe?”

Convenient, really, that both of the people Mabel had spoken of are people that Jade has a decent enough relationship with. And Sidra still owes her that boon. Could be worth calling in.

GM: Well, “willing” was probably relative with the tied and bound woman.

Mabel looks at the casserole. “There was another lick, who asked about Evan. But she didn’t tell me that… you think Accou can help? You really think he can, that he can find Evan…?”

There’s hope in the ghoul’s voice, for what sounds like the first time in a long time.

She swallows after a moment, though, to answer the vampire’s questions, mindful she must still do that.

“Evan got worse right when he came back from Sidra. He’d seemed on edge before, but it really got a lot worse after they saw each other.”

“Before that it was a… a gradual thing, I guess. Things seemed a little more strained between him and Roxanne. I tried to help, because they were both so sweet, both so good for each other.”

The ghoul dabs at her eyes. “Roxanne took it really badly… she misses him, so much…”

Celia: “The other lick, was she tall and blonde, rather pretty?” Roxanne had said that Caroline worked for her before Jade had ripped her heart right out of her chest.

“I think she might have a reason to cover up what happened with Evan,” Jade says with an effected sigh. “And she doesn’t know Accou, not like I do. She’s new to all of this. If Accou knows something I’ll do my best to get it out of him.”

She says nothing about Roxanne being sweet. The girl was a heinous bitch, she doesn’t think the lick was any better.

“Were they fighting at all? Did they say anything about in front of you?”

GM: Mabel nods at Jade’s first question. “Yes, she had a lot of questions like yours.”

Celia: Of course she did.

Caroline is showing up all over her Requiem these nights.

Jade gestures Randy over, telling him to call Alana and get her to set up a meeting with Accou via his herald. Might as well get that ball rolling now. Who knows how far out that will be.

GM: Randy nods and gets out his phone.

“They don’t really fight much,” Mabel answers the second one. “She can be a little high-strung, sometimes, but Evan always talks her down. Then she gets sorry and they cuddle. Or feed.”

“She comes from an abusive family, but Evan is so good to her. She feels safe when they’re together. He’s so good to us…”

Mabel dabs at her eyes again.

Celia: “Did she tell you that she comes from an abusive family?” Jade sounds surprised. It’s not the kind of thing she expected her sister to spill. A little off topic, but she’s curious.

GM: “Well, Evan did. She didn’t talk about it much, at first, but after they were together a while, she started to. I don’t think she’d told anyone before, because she really broke down after she did, about how much they all hated her and how she’d ruined things and wished she could do things over again. And Evan just held her and said all the right things, like he alw…”

Mabel gives another sniff.

Celia: Well that’s a gut punch she doesn’t need. She swallows, blinking back something that might be emotion.

GM: “She would talk to me, sometimes. She doesn’t let her guard down easily. She can be really stiff and prickly. But underneath I think she’s just really, really lonely, feeling like she made her family all hate her. And that’s why Evan really touched her, why she cares about him so much, because he’s the one person who really sees her and accepts her. She’s been… losing him has been really, really hard on her, but I know she’ll stop at nothing to get him back…”

Celia: She would have. She did. Went after Meadows by herself, the idiot.

Maybe if Celia hadn’t hidden who she was from her. Maybe if she’d reached out as herself instead of hiding behind her mask. Maybe if she’d talked to her that day after Dad was arrested, or hadn’t made him fuck her, or hadn’t just left her there like a piece of garbage.

What ifs and maybes are useless, she knows. Just a trip down pain lane.

She doesn’t know if she’s ever hated herself more.

GM: “He had this idea, that after a while, he’d ask her if she wanted to call me Mom, too. So we could be a… be a family… he’s just such a sweet boy…”

Tears bead in the ghoul’s eyes.

Celia: “That’s… that’s really something,” Jade says, voice thick. “I think she’d like that.”

GM: “I, I need to see her, please. She needs me…”

Celia: “I’ll see what I can do.”

GM: “Her and Jocelyn, they’ve been fighting… they’ve all been fighting, since Evan…”

Celia: “The lick you mentioned, though. Like I said, I think she has a reason to hide what happened. So with your permission, Mabel, I have a trick I can use to undo anything she might have hidden after she asked you these questions, anything she might not have wanted other people to know. It’s possible she made you forget, and I’d like to unlock them for you.”

“So we can get Evan back.”

GM: The ghoul looks apprehensive, but nods. “O… okay, what trick…?”

Celia: Jade directs her to sit on the floor in front of her with her back to Jade. It’s less ideal than having a massage table handy, but will be better than if she lays out on the couch. At least for Mabel. It doesn’t make much of a difference for Jade.

She tells the ghoul she’s going to touch her. To just focus on the movements and let her mind and body go heavy. She starts lightly at the scalp, her fingertips brushing through Mabel’s hair. Some women think that the best part of going to a salon is when they wash your hair for you, and those are the motions that Jade does now. She’s quiet while she works, focusing her attention on the ghoul. Her hands move down the back of her neck, pressing against the tension she finds there, then lower, into her shoulders and upper back. She works above the clothing, kneading rather than gliding. Seated or chair massage like this is nothing new to her.

While she works she drifts inward. Her mind opens, consciousness projecting along the unbroken line of energy that stretches between the bodies of the two women. One moment she is Jade, the next she is Mabel.

Seven colored disks spin before her eyes. She’s not surprised that the green burns so brightly; the woman has a lot of love to give. It’s covered in dead leaves and dirt, but Jade brushes it away with a touch of her hand. It winks at her, glad to be free, but its spin is sluggish, and when it pulses she can see the effort that it takes. Like a pair of blackened lungs struggling to breathe.

Her attention drifts upward, to the combination of three that she needs to unlock to get into her memories. Vissudha, Ajna, Sahasrara. The throat, the third eye, and the crown. Jade dives in.

The world shifts around her. She’s in her seat, but she’s inside of Mabel too, and in here… in here she can see the effect that various abilities have had on her. The ecstasy of the kiss. The heady sweetness of charm. And something… blacker. Something meant to conceal. Jade follows the trail through the ghoul’s aura like she would a forest path. She whispers while she moves, telling the woman that she’s safe, that she’s a friend, that this will help heal her heart. And she’s rewarded by a different path appearing before her, one that was obscured by overgrown vines, one that holds the secrets of her mind behind a wrought iron gate. Darkness reigns here, holding in the truth. Jade presses her hands against it. Her fingertips glow. Warm, healing energy. Safety. Trust.

Out loud, she speaks. She probes further into Evan’s period of anxiety, focusing on anything he might have said after visiting Sidra or Accou. She wants to know what had him upset. Who had him upset. Maybe he said something. Maybe Mabel herself saw something. Didn’t she keep his schedule? Doesn’t she know where he was when he came back upset?

GM: Mabel becomes as putty in the Toreador’s capable hands. A massage table might be nicer, but that hardly slows Jade down, and the ghoul falls apart as she unwinds. There’s so much tension in her muscles. So much stress. Jade kneads it all out as Mabel comes apart. She cries, a little, but she feels like she’s cried so much of late that her tears are wrung dry. She moans softly, little low sounds of pleasure, and says how good this feels. How much she needed this. Jade has little doubt the ghoul might fall asleep soon, without her influence, but that will not pass while there is truth she yet seeks. Visuddha, the chakra for communication, pulses blue. There are truths Mabel must speak.

“Evan was seeing another lick on the side,” Mabel murmurs slowly. “Amandine. A Crone girl.”

“He didn’t want Roxanne to know… he loved her, he did, he gave her all his love… but he had enough for other people, too, and it would’ve just hurt her to know… she wanted him all to herself…”

“It was better this way… she got to have him to herself, she got to be happy… he got to love others, make them happy… not all lies are bad…”

Celia: It’s a familiar story. One that she’s been debating playing herself.

But how much would it have hurt her sister to find out that her lover is cheating?

Maybe that’s their real clan curse, that they have too much love to give. That not one single person will ever be enough. That she can love Roderick with her whole heart but still have room for Gui and Savoy and Pietro and Donovan and that blonde beauty in the Garden District. Even the ghouls. She can love them too, can’t she, can show them the depths of her affection with physical touch. And Star’s lover, the lawyer with the missing daughter; she helps him forget his pain for a night.

No one ever tells a rose to stop growing. Why, then, should they pluck her from her garden to put her behind a glass case, tell people they can only look but not touch? Who walks through a rose garden and doesn’t want to feel the soft caress of petals against their skin, breathe in the deep floral fragrance?

It takes a moment to re-center after her thoughts threaten to spin away. She breathes in, reminding herself who she is, where she is, her purpose of the evening.

Amandine. She sends the pulse of thought down that line between them, searching for information. How long? When? How soon before he disappeared did he start seeing her?

GM: She’s heard from more than one clanmate that their curse isn’t a curse, not truly. It’s a blessing, that they might appreciate the world’s beauty even as other Kindreds’ hearts turn hard and cold.

“A few months… they kept it secret, very secret…” Mabel recites tranquilly. “The prince wouldn’t have understood, Evan was scared the scourge would come from them both…”

Celia: Why would the prince care who Evan was seeing? She sends the curiosity along their tether, picturing his face. She had seen it so clearly last night in Caroline:’s office.

GM: Confusion meets Jade’s curiosity. “Amandine’s one of the Baron’s followers… a Vodouisant… sleeping with the enemy…”

“Evan and the Storyvilles all work so hard to impress the prince, win his favor…”

Celia: How close are they, she asks, that the prince would know who Evan is sleeping with?

GM: “That’s what Evan thought too… it’s not like the prince watches in the bedroom… but he said, Amandine said… if they were seen together, by other Kindred… they’d report it, or use it as blackmail… too much risk, not to play it safe… Evan always says how smart she is….”

Stupid, whispers Maxen’s voice in her head.

“They’d go to out of the way places… places other licks couldn’t see them… take walks together, look at the stars… love each other, where it was just them…”

Celia: She doesn’t recognize that voice in her head.

Jade doesn’t have a father.

She brushes it aside, focusing on the words that the ghoul spills to her. Secret lover. Another familiar story. She and Roderick are secret lovers too.

Amandine, though. Another name to look into.

Is it enough for him to speak to Accou about? She… doesn’t think so. Why would Evan speak to Accou about a Crone lover? Why tip his hand like that?

Why would he speak to Accou about her?

GM: “I don’t know what they talked about… it might’ve been that… but he wouldn’t tell me…”

Celia: She presses further here, watching the spinning disks in front of her, looking for signs of black or gray against their brightness. Like rot in a garden, it discolors everything in its path, and she searches for evidence of its passing now. Snippets of altered memories that she can grab onto and unravel.

GM: The garden’s rot is well-hidden, but Jade will not be denied in her search. It’s there, black and ugly and festering. Perhaps Dahlia has given her something of a green thumb.

Yet, Jade senses, Mabel’s psyche is fragile, and this garden has long been starved for water and sun. To raze away its rot may be to raze the few remaining healthy plants too.

Celia: Tending gardens has always been delicate work. Roots tangle beneath the soil, weed and plant alike, and infestations of bugs spread so easily from one leaf to another. Gardens can be temperamental things; a touch of frost can kill flowers before they ever bloom, a stray rabbit or bird can eat the leaves clean, too much water or sun can be just as damaging as not enough.

Jade stops pushing. She sits in the garden Mabel’s mind has yielded, her legs folded beneath her. Damp grass brushes against her bare skin. The circles spin around her, thick and sluggish and blackened by decay. One by one Jade calls them over, gently tugging on the tether of energy between their forms. She’s no plant whisperer, but from the ground she calls up a green stalk. Green, like the heart chakra, the one that Mabel has in spades. Green, like the dress she had chosen this evening. And green, like her name.

It’s a sign, isn’t it?

She weaves the stalks of the green plant around the orbs to hold them still. She’ll chase the rot away with Mabel’s own love. She sets it in motion, letting it work slow magic on the altered memories.

GM: Jade has little doubt that the Ventrue’s gifts could discern Mabel’s hidden truth. They’d bulldoze over everything else in the process, crude and blunt as they are.

Yet Jade’s own clan would likely fare little better. Their gifts are subtle things, and their province is feelings, not memories.

But Jade is more than her clan. She’s an esthetician. She’s seen how much comes out on the spa table. All those traumas and secrets and gossip that dumbfound people outside the industry. People never do have any idea how much their massage therapists and hairdressers and makeup artists hear from them.

All Jade has to do is coax Mabel along. Work her familiar magic with her hands, and let her Beast fill in the gaps.

“I once heard Evan and Roxanne, talking about the Storyvilles’ secret meetings with Vidal,” murmurs the ghoul. “Roxanne told me to forget it.”

“So I did.”

Celia: Secret meetings with Vidal.

The words echo through her. The whole krewe was meeting with him. And Roxanne had tried to cover it up, to prevent the truth from coming out. It could be nothing. Or it could be everything. Suddenly her plan to disseminate the information no longer seems like the lie she’d planned to tell.

And it makes sense, doesn’t it?

Inside the garden of Mabel’s mind, Jade strokes her fingers across the slowly blooming flowers growing from the orbs. With each word the black rot recedes, giving room to the light inside. She coaxes further truth from the woman with a gentle nudge of silent energy.

What did she hear?

The wind carries the question through Mabel’s garden with the floral scent of roses and greenery and golden sunshine.

GM: “Evan thought their sex hadn’t been as good,” murmurs Mabel. “She called him the prince’s name.”

“They had an argument, and Evan said they should wait to feed on each other until a while after they’d seen Vidal.”

“He’s such a sweet boy. Always trying to keep everyone happy. It had to have hurt him, but he didn’t even say that, just how to make it not happen again.”

“Then they heard me, and Roxanne panicked, saying how they needed to keep this absolutely secret. How the Hussar would kill them, and me, if they didn’t keep this secret.”

“So Evan told me not to be scared, and then Roxanne told me to forget. So I did.”

Celia: Petals spread as the truth comes out.

This is it, though. Secret meetings with the prince. Something worth killing over. Because it can’t be the sex. Calling someone the wrong name during sex is hardly something they’d be killed over, even if it was Vidal. Lord knows she’s done worse, called out…

Well.

She snips that thought before it can take root.

Jade watches the rot leech from the orbs, the colors slowly returning to their vibrant selves. She lingers on this memory, waiting to see if there’s something more. A snippet of conversation between the pair. More about the meetings. Anything that will give her what she needs: proof. Proof of her wild accusation. Proof that Vidal was using them like she thinks he was.

GM: “That’s all they said,” Mabel murmurs.

“That’s all I heard.”

Celia: Secret meetings with Vidal, though. That’s something.

The blooming petals wither and scatter across the garden’s carpeting. Jade sits quietly with the orbs, pleased by their revelations. Still, though, it would be remiss of her to not probe further into these meetings.

Gentle fingertips caress the fallen petals as the orbs break free from their green stalks. She plucks one from the ground, focusing her intention on the soft remnants of the flower in her hand.

Meetings. Other mentions of meetings. Vidal.

She lets the wind take it from her grasp.

She waits.

Perhaps there’s nothing else. Perhaps this had been the only mention. But if the krewe were meeting regularly with the prince, no doubt they might have made some other offhand remark.

GM: “I don’t remember any other times,” murmurs Mabel. “They’d all go places together without me, but they did that all the time.”

Celia: It’s enough.

As quietly as she had come, Jade withdraws from Mabel’s mind. She rises to her feet within the garden of memories, sending the orbs back to their respective havens with a gentle touch of her fingers. She retreats from the garden, pulls closed the gate behind her—white now instead of black—and skips down the forest path.

It takes her no time at all to find the familiar pull of energy directing her into her own body. Her consciousness spins along it, severing the tether between them as she goes.

Jade’s eyes open.

Her hands continue to work on the ghoul, easing the aches and pains she finds in her back.

“Thank you, Mabel.”

GM: Mabel’s face blanches with horror.

Celia: She can’t see it. But she can feel it, the sudden tightness in her neck and shoulders.

“Don’t be alarmed. You did well.”

GM: The ghoul starts weeping.

“Evan, I’m sorry…!”

Celia: “Why, Mabel? Why are you sorry? This helps us find him. This helps bring him back to you.” Jade lowers herself from the seat. Her arms slide around the crying woman like they would if it were her mother. “It’s okay,” she murmurs, “it’s going to be okay.”

GM: It doesn’t hurt that she’s had her share of practice comforting her own crying mother.

Mabel continues to weep.

“Vidal, he’s going to kill my boy, now…!”

Celia: Well. He might have already done so.

That’s what Jade had planned to say, anyway. Now she wonders at how close she’d been to the truth with her carefully concocted lie. Telling, isn’t it, that the only Stroyville who isn’t missing or dead is his childe’s lover. Meadows makes a good cover. She’d planned to use it herself to explain Roxanne’s disappearance.

“He won’t,” Jade says to her. Her words are whisper-quiet, barely a puff of breath against the woman’s neck. “You did nothing wrong. Everything you told me will help. I promise you that.”

Jade lets the woman cry herself out. She pulls Mabel onto her lap, such as it is while seated on the floor, and rubs her hands up and down her back in a slow, soothing gesture. The tears will stop coming eventually. They always do. And Jade is here for her until that time. Jade has her. Jade will make everything better.

After a time the tears do stop. And Jade, conscious of the things she has left to do tonight, conscious of her need for blood and the dwindling hours she has left to find it, takes the meal that is right in front of her. A hand winds through the woman’s hair, tilting her head to the side. Jade trails kisses down her neck until she finds the perfect spot. Her fangs grow long in her mouth, sharp as ever as they pierce the ghoul’s skin.

She drinks.

GM: Mabel cries for a while as she lets it all out. What she just said. Her fears for Evan. How much she misses him, and just wants “her boy” to “come home.”

The ghoul’s blood is sour against Jade’s tongue. It’s very different from the usual sweetness she’s accustomed to, but it’s not an unpleasant sourness, no more than salt or lemon or sour cream is. Mabel’s grief is soul-deep and haunts her every thought, Jade can tell. The ghoul truly loves and mourns her domitor as a surrogate son (and lover), even beyond the collar’s pull. Jade is hard-pressed to name the last occasion she tasted such grief, and the powerful taste lingers on her tongue, and makes her think of how Emily or Diana or Lucy would react, if she never come home one night. Such tears they would weep.

Mabel gives a last whispered, “Evan…” as her eyelids flutter. She looks very pale and does not move when the Toreador is done.

“You want me to put her to bed, babe?” Randy asks.

He looks at Mabel’s untouched plate of casserole, then starts eating from it.

Celia: Undoing the work of Roxanne had taxed her more than she’d thought it would. Manipulating Mabel’s memories left her Beast hungry. She drinks deeply, sour though it is, swallowing mouthful after mouthful of hot, red blood. It sates the Beast inside of her and leaves it all but purring in her chest when she’s done. Her tongue laps the final drops of blood from Mabel’s neck and the wound closes.

Like magic.

She thinks it every time.

She does the woman a final kindness, reaching out with her clan’s gift at warping emotions. She takes away her pain. She takes away her sadness, her grief, her misery. She removes it for this night, at least, so that she may sleep untroubled.

GM: Mabel does not respond, but the grief lines ease around her face.

Celia: Her eyes find Randy when she’s done. She rises, reaching for him, but the forkful of casserole he has shoved in his mouth halts her actions.

GM: He immediately sets it down and swallows.

Hard. He looks like he actually struggles not to choke, from how much he’s swallowed at once.

Celia: He’s not who she wants.

The thought crosses her mind and stills the flame inside of her that had wanted something more after this paltry mortal fare. She’d wanted…

It doesn’t matter, does it, because he’s not who she wants. His touch isn’t the touch that she craves. And bringing him into her arms now… it won’t turn him into that person.

She sees his eyes when she closes her own. They haunt her, even now, miles away from his influence.

But she reaches for him all the same, stepping closer so that her cheek can rest upon his chest. Maybe it was the grief she had brought into herself. Maybe it was the memories, or the mention of her sister, how she’d wanted to make it right. Maybe it was the fear, the cloying taste and scent of it, the tears that Mabel had wept.

For one moment she just wants to be close to someone. She wants to know that he will miss her if she’s gone. If, like Evan, her unlife is snatched away by a more powerful predator. Silly, maybe, to cling to the kine like this. He has no reason to love her. For seven years she has promised sex, dangled it over his head like a toy on a string, and not once had she let him have it.

And now… Christ, now it’s too late. Now she’s with someone else, someone who wouldn’t understand if she were to say she’d lain with her ghoul.

GM: Randy seems almost surprised by the motion, at first, but he wraps his arms around her and runs a hand through her hair, like she’s any mortal girlfriend seeking comfort in his arms.

“Hey. It’s okay, babe. It’s okay. I got you.”

Celia: She doesn’t need to breathe so her shoulders don’t shake. She makes no noise. But red rims her eyes all the same.

Would they miss her? Any of them, would they miss her if she died? Or is it just the collar that keeps them loyal? She’d tasted it herself, the love that Mabel has for Evan, the way she mourns for him. Real love. Twisted by the blood maybe, but there all the same. And here she is playing games with people. Breaking hearts. Toying with their emotions like… like she’s Veronica with a new plaything.

Happy noises, little toy.

She’s a terrible person.

But she takes the comfort that he offers her, even if it can’t go any further. Perhaps because it can’t go any further. Maybe, for just this moment, they can lie to each other. Maybe they can pretend that this is enough.

---

Saturday night, 12 March 2016, AM

Celia: Despite the fact that Randy isn’t who and what she wants, Jade lingers in his arms for long moments while the emotions run their course. When she finally pulls free she whispers a quiet thanks, smoothing out his shirt where it had been rumpled by her body pressed against his. She asks him to see to Mabel and make sure her needs are taken care of, and warns him that she’s emotional. She’ll need supervision.

Jade raids his kitchen for a container of salt while Randy puts Mabel to bed, and locks herself in his bathroom for a moment. Her hands blur across her face as she reworks her image to become Celia once more, the Celia that the world knows. She raids his closet for one of the outfits she had left here prior, something loose and comfortable, something that isn’t the ballgown she had worn to Elysium. When he comes back down the stairs she presses a kiss against his cheek and wishes him good evening. Then she’s out the door, aura dampened with a stray thought, to find Roderick’s kid sister.

Maybe not a kid anymore, she thinks as she gets into her car. Only a few years behind Celia, isn’t she? Mid twenties. She wonders what she’ll say to her. How she’ll explain things. How much she needs to explain. Preston and Savoy had mentioned that she knows enough, at least, which begs the question how long she has been like this. It’s not as if she and Roderick have any contact.

Celia drives toward Beach on Bourbon, the last place Dani had been sighted, to look for her trail.

GM: Late Friday night is when all the clubs’ monsters come out to play. Sweaty bodies are crammed so tight they can barely move, but they dance no less furiously. The musk of sweat, alcohol, and perfume is omnipresent. Love & Liars’ “Brother, Brother” pounds in Celia’s ears at triple decimals. Angry and disaffected youth dance to the entropic chord of oblivion.


Celia knows the lyrics well. Andi didn’t say the names Caine or Abel, but the subject matter of a man who murdered his brother cannot do aught but speak to their kind. The punk screams her fury, her pride, her curses upon the Almighty.

The Toreador’s predatory vision cuts expertly through the club’s dim lighting as she searches between faces. Stephen’s little sister is no longer so little. She’s a woman grown, dressed in a revealing black minidress with fishnets and heeled boots. There’s a lustful wildness to her eyes as she pounds her feet and grinds against her partners. Celia sees a young child of the night, heady with her newfound power and immortality, all-too ignorant of the elder terrors that have already taken umbrage at her impudence. A heartbeat still pounds in her chest. She does not smell lie Kindred. As the Toreador watches, she wraps her arms around a man and feeds from him in the middle of the club. Nobody pauses to stare amidst the revelry.

Celia: Convenient, she thinks, that Dani is here again.

And stupid. So very, very stupid. Even the Maxen of her mind agrees with her verdict as she watches Dani feed on someone in the open, flaunting the Masquerade like only a fledgling without a sire can.

There are things called bathrooms. Or corners, at least. Not in the middle of the crowd. Not that she doubts the girl’s cojones; it takes a lot of balls to sink fang-deep into someone like this in unfamiliar territory. An idle thought crosses her mind, wondering if the pair will be interrupted by the holder of said domain, but she imagines that the eyes Savoy and Preston have put on the young almost-lick prevent the club’s proprietor from getting too grumpy about it.

Perhaps, though, the feeding in the middle has merit. Maybe she knows that everyone is so busy grinding and playing grab-ass around her that they won’t stop and stare at the vampire in their midst.

She gets a drink for herself at the bar while Dani feeds, sliding a twenty to the bartender to keep her own mask firmly in place. Drink in hand, Celia joins the throng of sweaty mortals on the floor. She dances with various partners while the girl feeds, spinning and twisting and dipping her way across the floor, keeping an eye on Dani all the while.

She waits for the right moment to pounce.

GM: It’s as the DJ mixes in Andi’s “Damage Control,” seguing flawlessly from a brother’s murder to cleaning up a murder, that Dani pumps her fists, spins, and finds herself almost chest to chest with Celia. Her eyes flash with surprise.

The Toreador can make out her fangs. They’re tiny things, barely more than normal teeth with sharpened points.

Celia: Dani is hardly the first thin-blood that she’s seen. But this is the first she’s been so close to. Celia, master of deception, feigns surprise as the crowd brings the pair of them together. She woos with the opening chorus of Damage Control, voice pitched high to match the sirens in the song that Andi so effortlessly belts out every time she sings.

Celia passes her drink to someone else—someone who is happy to accept the full cup from the pretty girl—and draws Dani into her arms as if she were any other girl on the floor as the music throbs around them.

GM: If Dani is taken aback, it’s only for a moment.

She leans in to Celia’s embrace, then sinks her fangs into the other vampire’s neck.

Celia: Oh. Well. This is awkward.

Celia’s hands fist through Dani’s hair, but she doesn’t jerk away. She presses herself closer to the thin-blood as fangs find her neck, knowing that to pull away would only draw attention.

She lets the thin-blood take a hit, long enough that the bond will settle into place. And then she murmurs in the girl’s ear, “Greedy little lick.”

GM: Dani’s kiss doesn’t feel as good as other vampires’. It doesn’t leave her weak in the knees with ecstasy. It’s merely pleasant. A nice feeling. By way of comparison, it’s like having sex with a virgin, or a guy who’s only half-hard.

Celia: She wonders how weird it’s going to be when she tells Roderick she half-fucked his kid sister.

With her itty bitty baby fangs.

GM: Stephen’s sister blinks.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, GREEDY?” she shouts over the music to make herself heard.

Celia: Does she not recognize what Celia is by taste alone?

A frown mars her features. She leans into Dani, but her words are lost to the music and bodies around them. Shaking her head, Celia takes her by the hand to pull her off the floor and find a quiet corner where they can chat. Perhaps the aforementioned bathroom. Or outside, even, before Reynaldo sends someone to deal with the thin-blood feeding so blatantly in his club.

GM: Dani stands still for a moment, then seems to consider and follows after Celia.

The bathroom is less loud, but no less distracting. Sounds of fornication emanate from within. Many sound pained.

Celia: Hardly the ideal location. She imagines that the predators who have orchestrated those pained cries are too busy taking advantage of their victims to pay attention to the girls tottering into the only stall left.

At least the Ventrue won’t find them here. Awkward to explain that she’s trespassing in his club.

GM: Dani doesn’t walk into the stall immediately. She pounds her fist against the filthy, obscenity-scrawled door the cries sound from, blinks only once when it comes open unocked, and yells, “HEY! FUCK OFF!” at the larger man sodomizing a crying teenage boy.

The man’s eyes widen for a second like Dani is the bigger, stronger one, then he barrels out.

She kneels down by the teenager and asks, “Hey, are you-” but he just screams, slaps at her, and runs off.

Celia: Hip against the dirty counter that holds a handful of sinks, Celia crosses her arms over her chest to watch the display. Something that might be amusement dances in her eyes at the sight of the man running from the girl. It dies once the hand finds Dani’s cheek.

GM: “You try to do the right thi…” Dani starts, then trails off at Celia’s touch.

Celia: “They never thank you for it,” she says to Dani. “But it’s admirable to try.”

GM: Another guy comes in, gives an annoyed grunt at the full urinals, and starts pissing into the sink.

Celia: Celia gives the man a look that could curdle milk.

GM: “You want a drink, bitch?” he leers at her.

Celia: “I choke on small things.”

GM: “Fuck you, cunt.”

He moves his junk to start peeing over her.

Celia: “You’d like to.” Her head tilts to one side. Her eyes might flash, but maybe that’s a trick of the light. She smiles at him. It’s a little wider than it needs to be. Shows a little too many teeth. Not fangs, never that, not with this face.

At least until he moves.

Then she sends it out of her in a wave of crushing emotion. He does want to fuck. But he doesn’t want to fuck her. He wants to fuck the stall door, the place where it latches to close. Such a small hole is the perfect size for his dick.

GM: Celia nimbly sidesteps the stream of piss. The man’s sneering expression suddenly gives way to a look of lust. He shakes out the last piss from his newly-erect willy, pulls open the door, and starts trying to pound the tiny hole.

Celia: Charming.

“Perhaps another venue,” she says to Dani.

GM: Dani looks between the man and Celia, then Celia and the man.

Then she nods.

“Ah, FUCK!” he yells, grabbing the door with both hands.

Celia: Celia takes her hand once more to avoid getting lost in the crowd. They step out of the bathroom and Celia worms through the mass of writhing bodies toward the front door.

She leaves the man with his toy.

Door?

Toy.

Whatever.

She’s done enough good deeds for one night.

---

Saturday night, 12 March 2016, AM

GM: The pair make their way out into the night, heels clicking against the asphalt. Love & Liars still pounds from outside, but it’s low enough to make themselves heard, at least insomuch as one can in the Quarter on a Friday night. Drunken tourists and club-goers stumble along the streets, laughing or yelling about things that only make sense to themselves, some with open carry cups in hand. A few obvious tourists wear Mardi Gras beads, which Dani rolls her eyes at.

She finally looks back at Celia, questions dancing in her eyes. And some measure of apprehension.

“How did you do that…?”

Celia: Even outside, Celia doesn’t let go. She knows there are other dangers in the evening, and she won’t be the one who loses Dani because she hadn’t been paying attention. They look like just another pair of drunken college co-eds, tottering their way from bar to bar.

“It’s a trick I picked up a long time ago. A combination of tricks, actually. Usually it makes them want to focus on me.” She flashes Dani a sly smile. “You used something similar earlier. To make the man run when he was hurting that boy.”

“Have you done that before? Used the charm like that?”

She keeps her voice low, conscious of prying eyes and ears.

GM: Maybe a little old to be co-eds, if someone were to ask their ages. But still fun-seeking 20somethings, unburdened by the responsibilities of real adult life.

“Yeah,” Dani says slowly. “Are you… a vampire?”

Celia: Gui’s earlier commentary about the V-word comes to mind. She almost laughs at how different this is from her first “talk.”

“Yes. There are other words for it, but yes. Like you.” Her eyes move toward Dani. “How long?”

GM: Not really like her.

But close enough.

“Just this week,” says Dani. “You?”

Celia: A week?

Christ.

“Since 2009. How did it happen?”

GM: Dani blinks. “That’s… when you broke up with Stephen.”

Celia: “That’s why I broke up with Stephen. I didn’t want to hurt him. And it wasn’t safe, if I were around him.”

GM: Emotions swirl over Dani’s face. They aren’t happy ones.

“You really hurt him, you know. He never got over you.”

Celia: “I know,” Celia says quietly. “I had to live with that for a long time.”

“I still… I still have to live with that. Knowing what I said to him. I assume he told you.”

GM: “He said you’d cheated on him.” Dani’s voice is stiff.

“I remember what I said to you, at that dinner. How he was really into you.”

“He never got over it. And then he died.”

Celia: “I told him I cheated on him,” Celia says. The words are bitter. “I told him what I thought would prevent him from coming after me, because if I hadn’t he would have looked for, chased after me. I’m not proud of it. I should have handled it better. There’s no easy way to tell someone who is still alive that you’re not.”

GM: “You could have just told him the truth.”

Celia: “A week ago, would you have believed me?”

GM: “I’d tell him. If he was still alive.”

“You could’ve shown him. The fangs.”

Celia: “I thought about that. Telling him. There are people that help us during the day, when we sleep. I thought about turning him into that, bringing him with me into this. But it’s… I couldn’t do that to him. I thought he deserved better than that.”

GM: “Help us during the day?” Dani looks confused.

Celia: “Do… do you sleep during the day?”

GM: “Well, sure.”

Celia: “Because the sun burns.”

GM: “No it doesn’t.”

Celia: She actually blinks at that.

“What?”

GM: “The sun doesn’t burn. I looked it up in Dracula. It didn’t for him either, he just lost his powers. I guess that’s how it works.”

“What, does it for you?”

Celia: “Have you been in the sun since you were turned? Tested this?”

GM: “Yes, I tried my toe first, to see what would happen.”

“I didn’t burst into flame, so I tried the rest of me. I’ve gone outside a few times.”

Celia: “And it doesn’t hurt? At all?”

GM: “I don’t like how it feels. I’m tired and it’s bright without sunglasses. But I can if I want.”

Celia: Fascinating.

GM: “That’s not how it works for you?”

Celia: “No. We burn, usually.”

“Sometimes our Beasts take over to prevent us from even trying. Its survival instinct is… strong.”

GM: “Beasts?”

Celia: “The thing inside you. The monster.”

GM: “What thing?”

Celia: “The… the thing.” Celia stops walking. She turns wide eyes on Dani. “You don’t feel it? Pacing, snarling, always hungry? When you get mad or scared it takes over.”

GM: Dani gives her an odd look. “I’m thirsty for blood, sure.”

“Uh. Sorry for… drinking from you.”

Celia: Celia waves a hand.

“I baited you. I knew you were here. It’s fine.”

GM: “Your blood tasted… really strong.”

Celia: “I’ve always been curious, you know. What I taste like.” She lifts her brows at the girl.

GM: “Sort of like… it reminded me of makeup. Really sweet, too.”

Celia: Celia laughs at the description.

“That makes sense. Have you met others like us?”

Us, she says kindly. No reason to make Dani feel bad.

GM: “No. I thought I might’ve been the only vampire in the world. Are there many others?” She looks at Celia curiously.

Celia: “Not even the one who turned you?”

GM: Dani’s brow furrows.

Celia: “Do you remember how it happened?”

GM: “I was… here at the club, drinking. I used common sense, I watched the bartender mix everything, but someone must’ve… must’ve slipped me something. Maybe it was the bartender.”

“I don’t remember a lot after that.”

Celia: Celia nods. She’d expected as much, that Dani doesn’t remember.

GM: “I woke up in a garbage dumpster. That was fun.”

Celia: “Oh. That’s… not ideal.”

GM: A fitting origin, for the thin-blooded.

Baptized in garbage.

Celia: Celia doesn’t say that, of course.

Her fingers drum against her thigh.

“I thought I was in Hell when I woke up. There was a man standing over me and I thought he was the devil.” She gives Dani a wry smile. “Without knowing about this beforehand, there’s no easy way to transition. But to answer your earlier question, yes, there are a lot of us. A lot of us in the Quarter, a lot of us in the city, a lot of us in the world. We’re all over.”

GM: “Oh,” says Dani.

She seems to think.

“Do you want to sit down? My feet are getting sore in these shoes.”

Celia’s haven’t once gotten sore. One of the perks to undeath. She can wear whatever she wants, as high as she wants, for as long as she wants.

Celia: “Of course.” Another note to file away.

Celia leads her down the street to an empty bench. She looks around them as they walk, watching the tourists and clubbers as they go about their business. She nods to a pair of mortals that pass them by.

“What do they smell like to you?”

GM: “What do you mean?” Dani asks as she sits down.

“I can smell their blood. That’s stronger.”

Celia: “Yes,” Celia says, nodding. “But they smell human, right? Like… prey. Food?”

GM: “It smells good, yes.”

Celia: “Okay. Now focus on me for a minute.”

GM: Dani looks at her.

Celia: Celia lets her aura drop. The thing that masks her Beast disappears between one moment and the next.

GM: “Is there something I should look for?”

Celia: “Do I smell different?”

GM: Dani pauses, leans closer, and sniffs.

“Maybe?”

Celia: “Sometimes,” Celia says slowly, choosing her words with care, “we can recognize each other on sight. The reason I’m asking is because I need to know what you can do. How much you know. So I can fill in the gaps.”

“People like us,” Celia explains, “they’re not always friendly. And if you’re caught somewhere you shouldn’t be… it can get ugly.”

GM: “Well, I guess you do smell stronger. But that might be confirmation bias, since I think that’s how you… taste, too.”

Celia: Celia nods her head. “Older blood will taste stronger. Generally.”

GM: “What do you mean, we’re not friendly? Do we have a… society?”

Celia: “Sort of. It’s like… it’s like gangs, right? The older you get the stronger you get. And the strongest are in charge most of the time. They divide up the city into little chunks and parcel it out. And it prevents chaos, so we don’t fight with each other over resources. Keeps us from feeding in the same area too often so we don’t tip off the people who shouldn’t know about us. Everything is secret.”

That’s kind of a rosy way of explaining it.

“Because there are people who want to kill people like us. Just for being what we are.”

GM: “Like… Van Helsing?” Dani asks.

Celia: “Pretty much.”

GM: “Van Helsing and his people did kill Dracula.”

Celia: “These people kill licks.”

GM: “I reread the book. Looked around on the internet. I don’t know how much of it is true and how much is just… pop culture.”

“Licks is our name for vampires?”

Celia: “I’d like to help. To fill you in. Keep you from getting in trouble.”

GM: Dani nods eagerly. “Yes, please! Whatever you can tell me. You sound like you’ve been… doing this for a while.”

Celia: “Lick is the common name. Kindred is the… eh, socially acceptable term. Lick is slang.”

GM: “I’m not sure where to start. I have so many questions…”

Celia: “All right. Well. The first rule of lick club is that you don’t talk about lick club.”

GM: “Oh. Ha. That makes sense.”

Celia: “I’m happy to answer your questions, though. And to offer you a place to hunt. And stay, if you need it.”

GM: Dani pulls up her feet onto the bench and sits cross-legged as she listens.

“Hunting is feeding, I’m guessing?”

Celia: Celia nods.

GM: “Okay, dumb question. That’s… what predators do.”

Celia: “Nah. There are some weird terms sometimes, it’s not a dumb question.”

GM: “True. I’ve mostly been hunting here, this past week. I’ve been hoping someone might come by with answers. But it’s been a week, and I’ve not seen anything.”

“I talked to the bartender and he just said he didn’t see anything. And denied spiking my drink.”

Celia: Celia is about to tell her that she doesn’t want the guy who holds the domain to find her when that bartender comment stops her in her tracks.

“What did you say to the bartender?”

GM: “I told him I thought I’d been drugged, and how I woke up in a dumpster. I didn’t say I was a vampire. But I got really in his face. He just repeated he didn’t know anything.”

Celia: “What exactly do you mean by getting in his face?”

GM: “I cornered him when he got off work, not just at the bar. I stood in front of his car door and yelled at him. He didn’t blow me off. He broke down and just said how he didn’t know anything. That he was sorry.”

“I think I did it to him. That same thing I did to the rapist.”

Celia: “It’s a useful trick.”

GM: “It’s not always useful. Sometimes I can’t do it.”

Celia: “Can you do anything else like that? Anything… unusual?”

GM: “That’s it, really. I can’t fly or turn into a bat or anything like that.”

Celia: “Ah, well, very few of us can fly.”

“How long after you woke up did you corner him?”

GM: Dani raises her eyebrows at that, but answers, “Maybe 24 hours after. I was… trying to sort my own shit out, first. And I figured he’d still be there at the club.”

Celia: Celia nods again. “What day was this?”

GM: “Sunday, technically. A Saturday late enough to bleed over into Sunday. That’s when I became a vampire.”

“So this would’ve been Monday night, AM, when I talked to the bartender.”

Celia: “All right. I have some theories, but I need to do some digging to see what else I can find. See if we can track down who did this to you and why.”

GM: “You said this was like gangs, with territory. Have I been in someone else’s…?”

Celia: “Ah, yes. But I have my own, and I’ll show you where it is, and you can feed there. Discretely.”

GM: Dani’s face flickers. “I’d also like to know. Who did this to me. I think I, that I might’ve been…”

Celia: “The guy who runs this place, though—”

She cuts off.

GM: “I woke up in a dumpster.”

Celia: “Might’ve been…?”

Don’t say raped.

GM: Dani blinks. Angrily, helplessly.

“Raped.”

Celia: “Oh, sweetheart…” Celia leans over, pulling Dani into her embrace. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

“We’ll find the bastard.”

GM: Dani breaks down crying against Celia’s shoulder.

“I… I shouldn’t have been here, drinking… fucking off law school… shows what, what I get…”

Celia: She was going to law school?

Celia’s heart clenches. She was trying to fill Stephen’s shoes.

She runs her hands up and down Dani’s back while she cries, letting her get it all out, making encouraging noises to her. Sometimes that’s all someone needs, a firm hug and a friendly ear, and Celia knows that she’s been in this position enough times to want to be able to be there for someone else. Especially Stephen’s sister. But not just because of that, no. She’d liked Dani. Really liked her. She thinks they would have been close if Celia hadn’t… died.

“I’m not going to say it’s okay,” she says quietly as she holds Dani, “because it’s not. It’s not okay what happened to you. And I hate to tell you that I… that I’ve been there, I get it. It’s awful. What some of them do, it’s awful. But we’ll get you through this. And it will be okay, even if it’s not right now.”

GM: Dani sniffs as she clings to Celia.

Sniffs, like a breather.

“Tha… thanks… I don’t, I’m not gonna let them to get away with this, it’s not right…”

Celia: “It’s not,” Celia agrees. “It’s not.”

How can she tell her?

How can she say that there might not be anything they can do… all because of what she is? Someone had called her half-human once, like an insult, because she fucks and her heart beats and she breathes without conscious effort. But that’s the Blood doing it for her, keeping her skin warm. With Dani… it’s just blood. Lowercase B. She really is half-human. At least.

She wonders if Dani even tastes like she’s human.

GM: It’d be easy to find out.

“I’m so glad… I’m so glad you’re here, Celia,” Dani sniffs, holding on to her brother’s ex. “I just felt so alone…”

Celia: “You’re not alone anymore, Dani. I’ve got you.”

GM: “I’d love, I’d love to stay and…. hunt with you, that’s really nice of you to offer…”

Celia: “Then it’s yours. Now, dry eyes.” Celia pulls back, using her fingers to wipe away the tears on Dani’s face. “Chin up. We’re in this together. Come on; I’ll show you everything.”

GM: Pinkish, half-red and half-clear tears come away under Celia’s fingers. She can smell the diluted coppery tang.

Half.

Celia: She’ll pass her off as a ghoul. She’s already working through the logistics in her mind.

GM: Dani takes a steadying breath.

“Okay… where to?”

Celia: “Down Bourbon Street. I’ll show you my clubs and explain the rules as we go, and then I’ll take you to my place. I don’t stay there every night, so you’ll have it mostly to yourself. It’s comfortable and clean and you can help yourself to my clothes. I have some ideas for you, but there are some things I need to look into as well…”

Celia rises, taking Dani’s hand once more. She gives her a squeeze that reinforces everything she just said: they’re in this together.

---

Saturday night, 12 March 2016, AM

Celia: Celia talks as the girls travel down Bourbon Street. She explains the rules to Dani in as kind of language as she can find, filling her in on her new life. Unlife. Requiem. Whatever word Dani wants to use for it, but Celia provides the alternatives. She talks briefly about their society at large but most of her focus is on the city: the factions, the cold war, the way the territory is split. She’s alarmed but unsurprised to find that Dani lives in Riverbend and attends Tulane, and she makes sure to tell her that… well, that she needs to stay out of Riverbend. If Dani asks why, Celia tells her about the sheriff. She tells her about what happens to people who trespass, but how for Dani it might be worse.

There are rules, she explains, about turning someone into what they are, and it sounds like whoever did it to Dani didn’t have permission, which essentially makes her illegal. So, too, does her ability to walk in the sun. Duskborn, she says, not thin-blood, but as politely as she can she explains how others will see her.

The Quarter is safe, she tells Dani. The lord who runs the Quarter allows duskborn to settle in his domain, but everywhere else they’re hunted. If Dani makes noise about leaving the Quarter Celia quietly tells her about the massacre her friend had once witnessed, and says that getting caught is… well, she won’t have much to worry about anymore because, frankly, she’ll be dead.

She makes sure that Dani understands the severity of the situation before she moves on.

Celia takes Dani to the two clubs in her domain, Bourbon Heat and The Cat’s Meow, though they linger outside rather than going in since Dani has apparently already fed. She explains how her domain stretches down the block, that all of the residences along Orleans St, St. Peter, and Dauphine along this block are hers as well. Feeding at the club is always easiest, though.

“Except the Gardette Mansion. It’s haunted. I’d avoid it.”

At Dani’s look of interest Celia explains that they’re not the only monsters that go bump in the night. There are ghosts and werewolves (Celia calls them “loops,” like with the P at the end, which she thinks started as a joke but the term stuck so that’s what she uses now), people with magic, and more besides. Cities are safer, but even licks like them will fight and kill each other.

She warns her about feeding publicly. Warns her about cameras. Warns her about hunters, and that she was picked up by a pair at Bourbon Heat, so she’d avoid it for a week or so.

Eventually Celia takes Dani back to her place. The one she owns as Celia rather than the one she owns as Jade, since Alana might be at the latter. It’s not a large place, but it’s comfortable enough for a girl on her own, which is exactly what Dani is.





Stocked kitchen, Celia tells her, in case she still likes normal food.

Then she has questions of her own: Dani’s plans for the future. What she’d like to do. Her address in Riverbend so that Celia can retrieve her clothes and other necessities.

GM: Dani listens attentively as she walks with Celia. She has many questions, but she lets the Toreador tell things at her own pace too. Dani does ask why she can’t go to Riverbend, citing how all of her things are there. Plus school. The factional cold war seems like a little much for her to digest at once, and she asks about the larger Camarilla (“Who’s in charge? How are they elected?”) and its laws. The bit about the Fourth Tradition hits hard. Dani does not look happy to have broken the law through her simple existence.

She’s confused as to why duskborn are so hated.

She does ask why she can’t leave the Quarter. She does appear to grasp the severity of the situation, or at least as much as anyone can who’s brand new to all of this.

“I don’t… I don’t understand. Why do they hate me just because I can walk in the sun? How can they even know I can do that, if I don’t say so?!”

Dani is thankful, at least, that Celia shows her the clubs where it’s legal to hunt. She uses that word a perhaps unsurprising number of times. “Legal.”

She is very interested to hear that monsters besides vampires are real. “So, are mummies? Aliens? Dragons? What isn’t real?”

Dani is mindful of Celia’s warning and says she’ll avoid the Bourbon Heat. There’s no reason to go there when there are other clubs.

She likes the apartment and compliments Jade on how neat, clean, and well-decorated it is.

“It’s actually nicer than my current place, so no complaints…”

Celia: Celia answers Dani’s questions as best she can. She doesn’t know about aliens—“though how could we possibly be the only life forms in the universe?”—and doesn’t think dragons are real, but she says she knows a girl who experiments with animals who might be working on one, she’s just stuck on the fire part. And the wings part.

She’s glad that Dani likes her haven, in any case, and hands her a key as they take a seat on the couch together.

As far as the duskborn, though, she doesn’t have a good answer. Honestly, sometimes… she doesn’t understand it herself. Even Roderick had a strong response. She wonders if there’s something wrong with her. If she’s broken in some regard. Or if the fact that she appears more human than she is, that her life is so tied to the mortal she used to be, keeps her mind open.

Maybe she just misses the sun on her skin.

Or maybe she needs this to work so badly with Roderick that she’s swallowing down every bit of revulsion that she feels.

Regardless of the why, the fact remains that duskborn aren’t well-received in other parts of town, and even here they’re barely tolerated. Celia tells her that she’ll work on a cover story for her. She tells her that maybe they can say she’s a ghoul. As long as she isn’t seen feeding it might be a good cover for now.

She warns her about technology, too, and to not send anything sensitive over text or email or even look it up on the internet. It can all be traced back to them, and there are… well, a lot of hunters in the city.

“How much longer do you have left in law school?” Celia wants to know.

GM: Dani looks askance at the fact duskborn are so hated.

“So why don’t I just say I can’t walk in the sun, then? Is that all it is?”

Celia: “No,” Celia says with a sigh. “It’s… you read differently. Smell differently. Like a ghoul, not a vampire. They’ll know.”

GM: “That sounds like… Jim Crow. Discrimination. Just because I can walk in the sun.”

“Worse than Jim Crow. Ethnic cleansing.”

Celia: “It’s more than that, I think. The blood is power. The closer you are to the original vampire the stronger you are. The further away, the more generations removed, the… the weaker the blood, essentially. And that’s how they all see it.”

GM: “The original vampire? How close are you?”

Celia: “Nine steps removed.”

GM: “Weaker how? How many am I?”

“Sorry, lot of questions. This is all just… so much to take in.”

Celia: “Ah… I’m… I’m not sure for you, but I can test it, if you want.”

“You could be fourteen, or… maybe fifteen.”

GM: “Those numbers don’t really mean a lot to me without any context, sorry.”

Celia: Celia reaches for her hand. “May I?”

GM: Dani nods. “Okay. Go ahead.”

Celia: Celia lowers her mouth to Dani’s wrist. Her fangs sink into her skin. She draws the blood forth. She doesn’t take much, just enough to get a taste.

GM: Dani flinches slightly, but waits to see what Celia does.

Celia: The blood touches her tongue and Celia has her answers. She licks the wound to seal her flesh back together, pulling back as the sanguine liquid slides down her throat. Thin. Nothing like her brother. Similar to a ghoul, but there’s no strength to it, no potency. And no other licks in her system, none but her. It had been a long shot, anyway, long ago as her Embrace was, and even if she had tasted someone else she might not have recognized it.

Pete could tell her, she bets.

And, perhaps most telling of all, there’s no collar that slaps into place around her neck. She hadn’t waited long enough to let it cool, a risky guess but one she wanted the answer to. And now she knows.

“You can taste the difference in the blood. Recognize what clan someone belongs to, how strong their blood is, who they’ve been feeding from recently. Things like that.”

GM: “Oh. What’d you taste from mine?”

Celia: “I… I have a friend,” Celia says slowly, “who could use a sample to maybe find out more. I don’t know how soon he can see me, but if you want I can look into it, get some decisive answers.”

“You taste like a ghoul.”

There’s not a polite way to say it.

“It’s possible you can pass for one.”

GM: “Okay, so like a black person passing for white.”

Celia: “More like a mixed person passing for white.”

GM: Dani doesn’t look happy at the idea of having to hide what she is. But also like she has has no idea why she should be offended to pass as a ghoul.

Celia: “To be honest, the fact that you can move around during the day is a boon. Other ghouls can, so it can help sell the idea. And if you want to be a lawyer you could still practice. I know it’s difficult to keep jobs for a lot of people when we have to sleep during the day.”

GM: “Okay. You did ask about that, but I’m just struggling to understand. Why do they hate me?”

Celia: “Because they’re old and awful and set in their ways.”

“Because they don’t change and can’t accept anything new.”

“Because they were born hundreds of years ago and some of them are still racist.”

“Because the idea of anything that is different than them is scary.”

“Because some of them are so old they don’t know how phones work, or how to drive.”

“And they can’t keep up with the idea of a changing world.”

“And it really just comes down to something like racism.”

“That was a pretty spot-on assessment.”

“There are clans, all sorts of clans, and some of them hate each other for no reason, and some think they’re better than the others, and everything happened so long ago that no one even has the right story and it’s ridiculous and stupid but it’s just passed on and on and on for no reason.”

“I’m sure they think they have a reason. But it’s like any white person hating any black person without knowing them. It’s just… bigotry.”

GM: “So it’s basically just… beat me to it. It sounds exactly like racism.”

Celia: “That being said, there’s someone I can talk to about this. I’m seeing him tomorrow. He might have a better answer as to the why. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll see what I can find out.”

GM: “I think they must be jealous of duskborn, is why. That we can walk in the sun and they can’t.”

Celia: “Could be.”

GM: “I don’t like this. It’s… unjust.”

Celia: Celia smiles at her.

“You sound like Stephen.”

GM: Dani smiles back. A little sadly, but there’s fondness in it.

“I guess I do.”

“I miss him.”

Celia: “I imagine losing him was hard. On you and your dad.”

GM: “It was. My dad… God, I don’t know how it didn’t destroy him. It nearly did.”

“I’ve gotten over it. I’ll always miss and remember Stephen, but I’ve moved past it.”

“My dad never has. I don’t think he ever will.”

Celia: “Parents shouldn’t bury their children.”

GM: “Stephen was just… his everything. Everything in our family’s past, everything in its future.”

Celia: “I know,” Celia says to her, “I know. I thought that same thing, when I heard. We’d talked about it. How… how he wanted to carry on the family line, continue the work of his father and grandfather. How our kids would…”

She cuts off, shaking her head.

She would have married him. Had children with him. Watched them grow up to be just like him. They could have had that. And now they’re both dead. And Dani is dead, or half-dead, or something, and their dad… their dad is all alone.

She wipes at her eyes. This isn’t about her. Or Stephen.

GM: Dani squeezes Celia’s shoulder.

“Yeah. He wanted that too.”

Celia: “I’ve adapted, you know. Got used to it. Like you, I didn’t have a choice. And I’m happy most of the time. But… Christ, do I hate them for what they took from me. I remember those first nights. Hearing him on the phone, not able to understand why I couldn’t see him. And leaving him. Breaking his heart. I was… I couldn’t stop crying. Two nights, three nights before I died, we’d finally said it, you know? That we loved each other. And then it was over. I was dead. Then he…”

“And no one on this side cares what your life was, not unless they can use it against you somehow, so there was no one to talk to about it.”

“Sorry. This… not about me, sorry.”

GM: Dani hugs her.

“I’m sorry. It sounds like… it sounds like you didn’t want to hurt him. That means something.”

“It does. It really does.”

Celia: “I hated myself for what I did to him. I still do sometimes. It creeps up on me.”

GM: “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t have a choice.”

Celia: It almost comes pouring out of her then: how she’d thought she was making things right when she’d been snatched up and killed. But the words die in her throat, and she just nods her head, hugging Dani close to her. She doesn’t sniff, not like Dani had.

“I’m sorry it happened to you this way,” Celia finally says, pulling back. “I’ll find answers for you, see what else can be done. Right now the safest place is the Quarter, though, and… I mean, your status aside, it’s the best feeding in the city, so that’s good at least. Lots to do and see. If you don’t have a Beast it’s safer for you to be around people, too. Maybe convince your dad to move to the Quarter?”

GM: “That… might be hard. He doesn’t really have a reason to, does he?”

“Unless we tell him the truth. He was a federal prosecutor, he won’t blab. He can keep secrets.”

Celia: Celia shakes her head.

“You can’t tell anyone. Ever. If you do, they die, you die. It’s not my rule, it’s just how it is. There are people who make sure that you don’t talk. They’ve got eyes and ears everywhere.”

GM: “They can’t know everything.”

Celia: “You’d be surprised.”

“Don’t tell him. Put him off for now if he wants to see you. Make excuses for your classes. Let me talk to a few people, see what arrangements I can make.”

None with her sire, she already knows that much.

There’s no way he’d let her in.

Celia: “It can be problematic if you don’t have a way to hide. None of the licks know me as Celia. Fake names, all sorts of stuff.”

GM: “He… told me a lot, by the way. About your mom and dad…” Dani’s face turns sympathetic.

Celia: “He helped my mom and I out of a really bad situation. I don’t know that I’d have had the strength to leave without him.”

GM: “I’m glad he was able to do that. That’s what he and Dad always wanted him to do. Make things right through the law.”

Celia: The law hadn’t really helped much, not with Maxen.

Though she supposes some of that is on her.

Warning her sire. Selling out her family.

GM: “It’s… it might mean a lot to my dad, to hear from you that there’s more to the story, and that Stephen helped your family.”

Celia: “Do you want to know something silly?”

“Stephen and I used to talk about getting our parents together. Your dad and my mom.”

GM: Dani laughs. “Cue a bunch of ‘what are you doing, stepbro’ memes, I guess.”

“That’s sweet of him, though. He really did just want to make people’s lives better.”

Celia: Celia can’t help but laugh along with her.

“I said the same thing when he brought it up. I can talk to your dad, though. We can just say we ran into each other. I can’t tell him the full story, not about being a vampire, but I’d be happy to talk to him again. I really liked your family. That first dinner we had together… well, Stephen told you. Dinner wasn’t like that at my house.”

GM: “He did tell me that. The worst dinner of his life, he called it.”

Celia: “It was bad.”

“Is your dad still in Uptown?”

GM: Dani nods. “He still is. He keeps saying the house is too big for him, though. He’d wanted to pass it to Stephen, when… when I guess the two of you had kids.”

Celia: Celia swallows.

“That would have been really nice of him. I would have liked that. We both would have.”

GM: “I think he still wants to do that for me, at least, when I do.”

Celia: “I’ll talk to the regent. See if I can arrange to visit. Or maybe we can have your dad come here, that might be easier.”

GM: “I could call him. He’s really busy, usually, but he’d make time for Stephen.”

Celia: “That works. We can set something up.” Celia glances at the time.

GM: Definitely too late to talk to the man, but there are some hours in the night remaining.

Celia: “Probably wait until tomorrow.”

GM: “That still seems so weird you need to talk to a…. regent, just to see someone.”

Celia: “It’s not ideal. I used to think ‘hello yes you’re an immortal vampire now, please stay inside the lines.’ But they’re very… strict. You’d be killed.”

“The one where your dad lives is, uh… he was one of the licks who helped kill all those duskborn I told you about. Was happy to do it.”

“Not everyone is bad, but some of them really are monsters.”

GM: Dani shakes her head. “I still can’t believe that’s a thing.”

Celia: “It’s a big change from what you’re used to.”

GM: “Why the fuck do they hate us, just for not combusting in the sun?”

Celia: “Because they’re a bunch of assholes.”

GM: “I mean, sure, jealousy, but what you’re talking about… I just can’t picture it.”

Celia: “It’s like any culture. They marginalize what is different. What they don’t understand.”

GM: “I don’t know what I want to do, if I have forever, but I’d like to change that. It isn’t fair. It isn’t just.”

Celia: “There are a lot of people who agree with you. And you’re right. You shouldn’t be persecuted because of an accident of Embrace. It’s backwards thinking. But you have to keep in mind these people don’t change. Hundreds or thousands of years old, they’re the ones making the rules. And if you do something the wrong way, if you voice something the wrong way, if you don’t address them with the proper title, they’ll use it as an excuse to berate, hit, torture, kill.”

“I was late to an event this evening. Five minutes or so. And the looks I got?” Celia shakes her head.

“I got caught somewhere I shouldn’t be earlier this week. The person who caught me threw my mom off a roof. Told me to catch.”

GM: “What? Oh my god, did you?!”

Celia: “Yes. She’s fine.”

GM: “That… doesn’t sound fine.”

“Does she know about vampires, now? What you are?”

Celia: “No. The person who did it altered her memories. She can’t know. If she knew, she’d die. I’d die.”

GM: “What about if I want to have a husband? Kids?”

Celia: There’s silence for a beat. Can thin-bloods have kids? Her heart still beats, but…

“Vampires can’t have kids. And if you take a husband it would need to be someone who knows. Another vampire. But they don’t really marry, not like that. They have blood marriages, but it’s… the whole thing is kind of weird. We take lovers. But not really husbands.”

GM: Dani takes that in slowly.

“Why not? And we… we really can’t have kids?”

Celia: “It’s a different culture. Like if you went to Africa or Russia.”

GM: “I’m pretty sure I want them, some day.”

“Not right now, obviously, but I do.”

Celia: “So. I’ll be honest. Your kind, the duskborn, they’re new. Not a lot is known about them. I can’t have kids. My body is dead. But you still breathe, still have a heartbeat, still taste almost human. I can look into it, see what information I can find. We can run some tests on you, see what you’re capable of. I think you need to know anyway. I have some theories, but nothing proven.”

“That being said, socially, keeping a human family is very, very frowned on. If the wrong people knew about mine they’d be killed, maybe. For various reasons.”

GM: Dani looks relieved. “Okay. Like I said, not something I’m worrying about right now, but that’d be nice to know.”

“But that’s ridiculous. Keeping a family is… it’s an intrinsic right.”

“There was this court case, actually. About a deadbeat daddy who kept having kids with more and more women, and who never paid child support. He had an insane number of kids.”

“A judge ruled that he couldn’t have more until he coughed up child support for the ones he’d already had. But a higher court overturned the ruling. The right to reproduce and make babies was a fundamental human right.”

“They could throw him in jail if he didn’t pay child support, but they couldn’t order him to stop having kids. Not even being able to have a family is simply insane.”

Celia: There are plenty of people Celia thinks shouldn’t be breeding.

“Hard to have kids in jail. But I believe it. And I get it. You have to understand, though, things are different in this life. There’s no court. No arguing your case. The guy in charge says you’re guilty? You’re guilty. He kills you. Done.”

“I’ve been nice to you. I know you. And I’m not a monster. But if the guy who owned the club you were at found you? He’d have taken your head. At least.”

“And he’s not even the worst of them.”

“That’s also part of why we left. He and I are friendly, but if he’d caught me there I’d have been in trouble too.”

GM: Dani slowly shakes her head disbelievingly. “You said there were laws, with the Traditions. There has to be a channel through which to settle legal questions and to revise and update laws as needed.”

Celia: “There’s not.”

“The Traditions keep the powerful people powerful. That’s all they care about. All they respect.”

GM: “But that isn’t how the law works. Even Roman law, two thousand years ago… you had lawyers. You had magistrates. The law is an imperfect and constantly evolving body.”

Celia: “To humans.”

“Because humans change. Adapt. Vampires don’t. It’s static.”

GM: “If you don’t have that, what you’re describing sounds more like… gang rules than actual laws. A code of behavior that’s completely arbitrary and up to the whims of whoever’s enforcing it.”

Celia: “We’re not human anymore. Some of them get offended if you call them man or woman. We’re vampires. That’s it. Corpses. Dead. Sexless.”

GM: “That’s also stupid. I’m still a woman. You even say I might be able to have kids, and you don’t get much more womanly than that.”

“And, okay, even if I can’t, a woman is more than her uterus.”

Celia: “You’re thinking about it from your human perspective. What you think of as normal isn’t normal all over the world. Some places there’s still slavery, women are castrated, are seen as property. Language is different. Food is different. Religion is different. Look at any culture and you’ll see that. Even basic human biological needs: here in the States we have whole rooms devoted to using the bathroom. Some cultures just do it out in the open, right in the street. It’s not weird to them because it’s what they know. There’s no universal ‘normal.’ It’s all relative.”

“And now you’re part of a new culture. It’s enculturation. Growing up to think that what you know is normal.”

“And it’s not wrong, not morally. That’s how humans live. But we have our own culture with our own rules. And the people who don’t support what’s already in power are marginalized. Killed. Exiled. Et cetera.”

“So the Traditions… they’re put in place and maintained by the rich white men of America, basically. If you need a comparison. And you’re a poor black lady.”

Not even that.

Maybe a dog.

GM: Dani doesn’t look terribly happy at that.

In fairness, the kine are animals. Literal cattle. Thin-bloods and ghouls are a step up.

But only one step.

“All of this sounds wrong. Everything about the society you’ve described.”

“Does it do anything good?”

Celia: No.

GM: It’s kept her posh and comfortable.

Celia: “There are people who are good. Who fight for change and equality.”

“Who want better for everyone.”

GM: “Are you one of them?”

Celia: “I’d like to think so. I could have killed you and no one would have stopped me. I try not to hurt people.”

GM: “Well, I’m glad you didn’t kill me.”

Celia: “But even the people in charge of those people, the ones who fight for change, only want some change. They set up that slaughter. They’d sell you out if it suits them.”

GM: “They don’t sound like they actually want change, then. Or they only want change for themselves. Sort of like how a lot of Second Wave feminist leaders were white and didn’t want to be associated with black feminists.”

“I’d like to meet some of those licks, anyway. Who want actual change that applies to duskborn too.”

Celia: “I’ll see what I can do. A lot of them are pretty quiet about it.”

GM: Dani nods. “Okay. And thanks. I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at this system you’ve described.”

Celia: “I know. I get it. I would be too. I was for a long time.”

“The people in charge play games with people like us. Younger licks.”

GM: It helped that she benefited from the system. Strong-blooded Toreaor childe of a harpy like her.

Celia: It did help.

But she doesn’t rub it in.

“Stupid games because they’re petty.”

Besides, she thinks that being Savoy’s lapcat has done more for her than being Veronica’s childe.

GM: “I guess that’s what people in charge will always do, even if it’s worse here.”

Celia: She’s glad Roderick had his meltdown when Dani wasn’t around to see.

GM: “Hey. This might seem silly, but do you want to take a picture?” Dani smiles.

Celia: “That might not be a good idea. Your face isn’t going to change as you age. Staying out of photos should start now.”

GM: “Oh.” Dani looks disappointed. “But it has been just a week, and you’re on social media…?”

“Please? You’ve been so nice, you’re my brother’s girlfriend, and I’d really, really like to have something of us together here.”

Celia: What’s the worst that happens?

Dani gets found out as a thin-blood. They trace her back to Celia. Celia’s identity is blown. Someone kills her family. Someone kills her. Hunters tear her apart, or make her watch them kill Roderick, or…

Any number of things, really.

But she runs that risk already, doesn’t she?

GM: “I could keep it off social media. I’d just send it to you and my dad.”

“Or just you, if you’d rather talk to him first.”

Celia: “Okay,” Celia finally says with a smile. “Sorry, I know I sound paranoid. Sometimes we come out wrong in photos.”

GM: “Oh, it’s okay, all of this does sound really serious. I guess you’re used to being safe and not sorry. But, anyway!” Dani fishes out her phone from her purse, wraps an arm around Celia’s shoulder, holds up the phone, and smiles towards it. The device gives a click. She takes a couple photos, moving the camera for each one.

Celia: Celia reminds her to keep her lips together to hide her fangs. After that she smiles for the camera, making sure she’ll show up properly.

GM: Dani licks her teeth and says she doesn’t feel any. “They sort of just… appear, sometimes, when I get ‘in the mood.’ I guess like a boner.”

Celia: “That’s their term for it when they get turned on. Boner.”

GM: “That’s hilarious.”

Celia: “I thought so too.”

“I’ve seen duskborn with permanent fangs. You’re lucky yours hide.”

GM: “That does sound pretty inconvenient,” Dani frowns. “What’s your number?”

Celia: Celia gives it to her.

“Don’t send anything sensitive over text. The photo is fine. But no talk of vampires.” Celia had already told her, but she needs to make sure that Dani understands.

GM: Dani nods. “Okay, no vampires. These two came out crappy, but the others are good.”

Stephen’s sister taps off a text. The photos ping up on Celia’s phone. They show her and Dani sitting on the couch, the latter still in her club clothes sans boots. Her face and makeup look worn as if from a long night out, and perhaps even like they’ve shared something significant. But the photos are happy ones, showing the two with their arms around each others’ shoulders as they smile up at the camera like a pair of 20something breather girls.

They look like friends and equals, not a thin-blood and a true-blood.

Celia: Celia grins down at the photos. She’s happy she found Dani this evening, that she could give her a warmer welcome into the all-night society than she would have received from someone else. She’s pleased she has enough territory to share; she’ll just rely on her business a little more, feed from a few more clients to make up for the lack of hunting. And now Dani has someone that Celia thinks she desperately needed.

Maybe, she thinks, this can work. Maybe it won’t all blow up in her face.

---

Previous, by Narrative: Story Twelve, Caroline XIII
Next, by Narrative: Story Twelve, Caroline XIV

Previous, by Character: Story Twelve, Celia XIX
Next, by Character: Story Twelve, Celia XXI

“Love is sacrifice.”
Abélia Devillers

---

Friday night, 11 March 2016, AM

GM: Caroline is leaving Perdido House a few hours before dawn when the thirst strikes her. She is a bottomless pit nothing can fill. Every fiber of her being screams in want. She looks at Kâmil and Gisèlle and sees sacks of meat.

Then, she is filled.

She’s swallowing a mountain. She’s drinking an ocean. She’s inhaling a banquet. She is glutted and sated like never before. Laughter spills from her lips. Mad, rapturous, jubilous laughter. Power courses through her like lightning. She is invincible! Unstoppable! She can do anything! Anyth-

Then it fades, and she is Caroline again.

Caroline: Caroline stops dead in her tracks, overcome by the sensation. She wants to leap upon the elder ghouls and sink her teeth into their throats—it’s a cruel torment to be so full, so filled, and then return to what she is. She isn’t starving. She knows too well what that feels like. But the hunger is there in the back of her head, like always. For a brief moment, it wasn’t.

She is the scion of two dark powers. Only those two, certain, could make her feel what she did.

She reaches out to the one that has always been swifter to answer. The one that has always been there for her.

Mother?

GM: A booming voice that sounds like bones scraping across steel answers Caroline.

Return home tomorrow evening, sweet child. All shall be made clear.

Caroline: Yes, Maman.

She doesn’t know what this portends, and doesn’t press for more—she can wait the day. It sounds like good news, whatever it is.

God knows she could use some.

---

Wednesday night, 9 March 2016, PM

GM: The Walter Robinson House feels subtly different when Caroline returns. The cats animatedly play in the yard, despite the rain. They don’t seem to notice it. Caroline watches three of them, as one, pounce upon a bird and tear it to pieces. Wind whistles through grass that seems taller, fuller, almost ravenous in how it devours the falling rain. Light from the house’s windows cuts through the gloom like searchlights. Blacker than black shadows flow and ripple down the walls like like so much water. The front doors swing swiftly open to admit Caroline, then bang closed once she’s inside. There’s an almost jewel-like shine to the wooden floors. Lights burn in their holders like torches.

The Ventrue finds her mother seated in the living room, across from Cécilia. Her skin is milk white, her hair and garb darker than midnight. Her fathomlessly deep eyes flash like black diamonds. The room’s shadows writhe in equal parts ecstasy and horror as they flit in and out of Caroline’s sight.

“I am restored to the fullness of my powers. Emmett Delacroix has fulfilled his purpose. He shall not trouble our family again.”

Caroline: That much is apparent. Caroline isn’t certain she wants to know how.

She is certain that she doesn’t care. Her mother is restored. Her sisters are safe. Does anything else matter against that?

She asks about something less important.

“You have destroyed him, then?”

GM: Fluttering laughter answers Caroline’s query.

“Why, of course not. He has rendered our family a great service.”

“Great service merits great rewards.”

“I have given him what he most desired.”

Caroline: Emmett Delacroix destroyed his own life, Caroline cannot help but observe. She remembers that story from Denise, no doubt since become legend in New Orleans’ legal community, about the defendant who pointlessly heckled the judge who’d already signed off on his plea deal (and subsequently received the death penalty). She remembers Luke’s off-had mention about a “drug deal turned massacre” that cost the petty grifter his legs. Emmett, Caroline reflects, was not a particularly good judge of what was good for him.

And her mother gave him the thing he most wanted? She can’t see that working out well.

She also can’t think of a better resolution to that particular problem. Emmett only seemed like he had the potential to be a headache, for all that he might have said about wanting to be friends. She especially did not like the thought of his continued involvement with Cécilia.

That her mother extracted something of value from Emmett only raises her estimation of Abélia’s abilities. It seemed like everyone else who got involved with the conman got caught in the blast radius when his latest scheme blew up.

Then again, she considers smugly, Emmett bit off far more than he could chew with her family.

“I’m glad,” she says simply.

And she is.

GM: Her mother’s answering smile is radiant.

“Now, on to more matters of greater import.”

Abélia rouses the other girls from their bedrooms and declares they are to spend the evening “under ocean stars.” Despite the late hour, all of them seem excited by the prospect and all-too glad to get out of the house; Abélia says they’ll simply sleep aboard the yacht if their voyage takes overlong. She reminds her children to wear beach-friendly shoes.

Caroline: Getting away from the city will help her clear her mind, and getting her sisters out of the house is a victory all its own.

A victory, and a celebration.

GM: The family of seven files out to their car and drives to the city’s docks. The yacht, a tall, spacious, and sleek-looking white vessel named Nyx, is swiftly crewed and in readiness. Cécilia’s bodyguard Daniel turns out to be a useful additional crewmate after his time in the Navy. Caroline may wonder if it should take longer to get a yacht seaworthy, but remembers back to Cécilia’s words: “you’ll find that things simply… happen around Maman, and everything sorts itself out.”

The two-deck vessel swiftly cuts through the Gulf of Mexico’s midnight waters, leaving a spray of dark surf in its wake. New Orleans is not a cold city, but the open ocean at night is rarely anything besides chilly, and the girls all put on their coats as they stride about the deck.

Caroline may think, too, back to her faux-sire’s words on the dangers of travel between cities. Rarely have her surroundings felt so dark and exposed. Black skies stretch endlessly above, and black waters lap endlessly ahead and behind. The Nyx sails alone in a void. It is easy to wonder for Caroline to wonder what strange terrors haunt the seas in this world of darkness she is still so new to. The ocean is not her kind’s domain.

Yet, whatever else may be out there, can it be anything more terrible than the darkness already aboard?

Caroline: Caroline adds no such coat, and her vision cuts through the night more clearly than theirs. The sea stretches outwards to forever.

She doesn’t remember the last time she went out on a boat. Certainly years. As the city’s lights fade the light of the stars is all the clearer.

GM: The other girls don’t remark on Caroline’s lack of coat, not when their mother also goes without. Caroline recalls hearing from another Blackwatch employee who served in the Navy that all vessels 60 feet or longer are required to broadcast a white, red, and green light after sundown, but the Nyx remains as lightless as her namesake. Abélia watches the ocean without speaking for some time, her dark eyes patiently swallowing in dark sea.

Caroline: “It reminds me of you.” Caroline finally breaks the silence.

“Unimaginably vast and unknowable, with depths so dark no light will ever touch them. Eternal. Something others can only rest upon lest they be swallowed up by it.” She looks at her mother with eyes that see her so well in the night.

GM: Her mother gives a fluttering laugh.

“Such sweet things you say, my child. If I am the ocean, then I would liken you unto a smartly captained sailing vessel. Swift and sure and sleek, turned aside by neither storm nor leviathan in its unerring sojourn. Something that knows well the dangers in those sojourns, but which undertakes them regardless, knowing they must be made.”

She smiles and stares back out across the midnight sea.

“Neptune and I are not boon companions, but neither are we strangers. Nyx is most at home within his embrace.”

Caroline: “Your touch extends further and further,” Caroline observes, wondering if the vessel is touched by her as the Walter Robinson House is.

“Or maybe I only see more clearly.”

“I think the most talented kine might be a captain on your sea—always subject to your mercy, no matter how wise he may be. We, I think,” she gestures to her sisters across the ship, “are creatures in that dark embrace.”

GM: “All that we touch bears something of ourselves, my dear. All that I touch bears something of me.”

Her mother smiles.

“Seth’s children may be sea captains at most. But you, my treasure, are a hungry shark. These waters are your home. You do not fear their embrace. They are what gives you life.”

Caroline: A smile in turn.

GM: The Nyx’s voyage comes to an end at Grand Isle, a resort island and vacation spot known for its long sandy beaches. Caroline went there a few times in her youth, and recalls it as the initial setting of The Awakening, one of New Orleans’ better-known novels. Abélia carries Simmone after they get off.


Caroline: Caroline slips off her heels, trusting undead vigor against the beach’s hazards, such as they are.

GM: The seven split up, after that. Yvette and Yvonne go for a walk south. Adeline takes Noelle north. The remaining four Devillers proceed on foot towards the family’s beachfront property, a rectangular-shaped and austerely decorated house built on stilts as a flooding precaution. It’s not so spacious as the Walter Robinson House, but has two stories and rooms enough for everyone if a few people share.


“Be kind, my dear,” says Abélia as they proceed up the front steps.

“Be kind, but do not pity.”

Caroline: An odd warning, but Caroline accepts the wisdom for what it is.

Everything her mother does has a purpose.

GM: The four head inside, Simmone carried by Abélia. The house’s lights are off, but it’s only after they reach the second story that Caroline becomes aware she cannot see into the darkness.

It swallows them whole. Abélia alone seems unbothered and able to find her way as she opens a door with a faint creek.

“Close it, Abélia,” sounds a voice. “Close it at once. I don’t like the light. You know I don’t like the light.”

The voice is needful, strained, and demanding. It reminds Caroline of her Aunt Vera’s.

Caroline: Its not the first time, but it’s still unsettling. She’s become accustomed to the darkness being friendly.

GM: “Of course, my dearest.”

Abélia’s voice doesn’t sound like it normally does. There’s no trace of knowing humor or indulgence to it, no mirth that Caroline can picture glinting in those dark eyes.

Instead she sounds subdued. Almost… humble.

The door closes. The light dies.

“Hmph. So this is the newest,” says the Vera-like voice. “Come closer, girl, let me look at you.”

Caroline: Caroline doesn’t shiver: the dead don’t do that. Nor does she hesitate: no childe or child of her distinguished pedigree could be permitted that.

She turns as best she can towards the voice in the darkness and advances into the black, still on bare feet, heels in hand.

GM: Caroline neither hears nor sees anything through the gloom. Just Cécilia’s and Simmone’s steady heartbeats.

“Hmph,” the voice repeats after another moment.

“I hadn’t thought to see another of his Blood. She looks enough like your others.”

“She’s going to get even taller, isn’t she? She shouldn’t be too tall.”

Caroline: Caroline is silent, chin tilted slightly up.

GM: Abélia gives a fluttering laugh. It’s a shared-feeling one.

“Perhaps against her sire, but she shall not long stand beside him. It pleases me to see her stand strong and tall.”

“Hmph. She’s proud enough. I suppose it’s fitting,” says the voice.

“Introduce us, girl. We haven’t all night.” The voice sounds further away from Caroline now. Closer to Cécilia.

“Of course,” Cécilia answers demurely. “Caroline, this is… Aunt Mur.”

“Aunt Mur-”

“I know who she is, girl.”

Caroline: A flash of irritation as her sister is talked down to, but she remembers Abélia’s guidance.

“It is my sincere pleasure to meet you, I had not hoped it would be so soon.”

GM: “Hmph. You’ve laid eyes on me before, but I suppose this is our first proper meeting.”

Caroline: Caroline tilts her head, contemplative. Only one instance leaps to mind.

GM: “Ah… perhaps you’ve deduced where, my dear? We should be very impressed if you have,” smiles Abélia.

Caroline: “Beneath the Dungeon?” Tentative.

GM: Laughter at that, from Mur’s voice. Bitter and biting and bleak.

“Oh, my sister… "

A fainter sound of mirth from Caroline’s mother.

“Not quite, my dear… but a mere stone’s throw from the truth, and deep is the irony.”

“My sister’s manners may be ungentle to your ears, but know there is no other in all Creation who has done our family a greater service. Without my sister’s sacrifice, I would not stand before you tonight.”

“Without all that she surrendered unto me, during my hour of greatest need, your sisters would never have been born.”

Caroline: “A kind lie may sound sweeter to some ears than a harsh truth, but I am familiar enough with both that neither sting mine,” Caroline answers, orienting on Mur’s voice. “I took no offense, Mother.”

“And given what you’ve said, even were that untrue, I have every reason to forgive any offense I might take.”

GM: “Hmph. She’s properly grateful, at least,” says Mur.

“It is time you learned, my dears, something more of where our family comes from,” says Abélia, stroking the back of Caroline’s head.

“And something more of where it will go.”

Caroline: The spark of curiosity those words ignite is so bright it’s a wonder it doesn’t send Caroline’s aunt into flight.

GM: “Your aunt and I were born and baptized in darkness long ago, in a land far across the sea. Our father, your grandfather, was a figure of such wickedness that his mere steps blackened the earth and caused it to cry out for relief. What cruelties you have known among Caine’s children, and what cruelties you believe me capable of, are as a child’s playtime fancies against the evils of which he was capable.”

“Such darkness is not meant to exist within your world, my dears. The laws of this realm cannot abide it.”

Caroline: Caroline nods. “And so you exist outside of this world, pulled only piece by piece into it.”

GM: “Yes… and no, my treasure. Though your description of my being is apt, my father’s seed did not make me as I now am.”

“Hmph. Directly,” amends Mur. “We’re all slaves and pawns, in the end.”

“Don’t ever think you’re free, child,” she addresses Caroline. “There’s always another hand pulling your strings. Likely since before you were ever born.”

Caroline: “We all serve the ends of others. The best we can hope is to serve our own as well,” Caroline agrees.

GM: “Slaves we are all born, yet some forms of bondage are heavier to bear than others,” continues Abélia. “For ages beyond count, we were your grandfather’s thralls and playthings. What evils he did not visit upon the world, he visited upon us… and our siblings. I know of none who yet survive. Malice such as his cannot exist without outlet.”

Caroline: Caroline shivers. She can imagine quite a bit of suffering, but doesn’t doubt her mother when she says it was beyond her imagining.

GM: “Our only respite lay in one another. Through a sister’s love alone did we survive. It was in one another’s embrace that we each dried a sister’s tears, comforted her hurts, and plotted her escape.”

“Your grandfather’s evil could not exist without consequence. He exhaled it with every breath like a wyrm of legend. Eventually, powers besides he could suffer it no longer, and marshaled a great host against him.”

“I need not tell you they paid dearly for their choice, nor did they—could they—expect the toll in suffering and death that his fall would exact. Yet in the end, he succumbed before their numbers. They leveled his fortress, scattered its stones, salted its earth, and stationed a guard to watch for any hint of his return.”

“His evils were not paltry in their ambitions. His foes believed the rot within the Holy Mother Church had at last been cut out. The great heresy was finally cleansed.”

Caroline: “The Cathars,” Caroline speculates.

GM: “Heresy has existed for as long as faith, my child, and manifests in many strains. The Cathars were not born from aether.”

“My sister and I fled the ruins of his dark kingdom, and believed our existences to at last be our own. Many years passed, and many tales for other times, before our fates took us across the sea.”

Caroline: It matches the Catharite heresies, though. She wonders if the seat wasn’t Béziers. The slaughter there might match such a horrific conflict. She did her homework after their first meeting.

GM: “There we learned one is never free in the Jyhad.”

“There our father stood returned to us, arms spread wide to reclaim his wayward daughters.”

“Such despair had we never known after freedom’s sweet taste.”

Caroline: “The wheel always turns, and too often with us upon it.”

GM: “Verily, my dear. Bitterly, we submitted to him, lest his wheel crush us under foot.”

“But we had long savored freedom’s taste, by now, and we would not have it stolen from our lips. In secret did we plot against him, and wait until the moment when the wheel would again turn.”

“Our father had not been idle in the New World. New designs did he weave and new kingdoms did he plot to raise.”

“Their fulfillment would have been unto Hell on Earth. Only one being stood in the way of our father’s darkest dreams. A rival of power sufficient to challenge even his might.”

“Our father lay plans to destroy his nemesis. One last war in which we would serve as his captains.”

“The two generals and their armies met upon the field of battle. It was then, as our father and his rival clashed—when he needed our aid as he had never needed it before—that we drove our knives into his back.”

“This time did we make doubly sure the deed was done. This time did we leave nothing to chance. We destroyed him utterly and cast his remains beyond our world, so that a new taint might not fester and took rate upon its soil.”

“Once more, we were free.”

Caroline: Was the foe to their father her sire?

This story takes shape through before her, not in the murky antiquity, but a past more recognizable.

“I always thought I was missing pieces,” she admits. “But I simply did not see how they fit together.”

GM: “It is rare that one may possess every piece, my dear. Yet we often possess a great many more than we believe.”

“We made our homes within the city of La Nouvelle-Orleans. We allowed none to know our pasts—not our service to our father, and not that we were sisters.”

“All whom we believed suspected the truth, we slew.”

“All who threatened my sister’s sons, I slew.”

“In anonymity would we shield our family.”

“None suspected we each had a silent guardian angel sitting upon our shoulder.”

Caroline: It’s a happy end to the story, but Caroline knows it cannot, does not, end there.

GM: “My sister’s sons had sons of their own, and so too did those sons have sons, and so on down the line. Yet a rot grew within the city’s heart. One familiar to us, and yet other… had we underestimated this place, this city where the very air reeks of possibility and power?”

“Only until it was too late did we realize our fatal error.”

“Perhaps nowhere was there more fertile soil to plant the seeds of our doom.”

“Our father had many servants. Many slaves. They were drawn to his resting place like moths to a flame.”

“Only when we prepared to journey in force to the site of our father’s remains did she reveal her presence—and strike.”

“Caught by surprise, betrayed in my own hour of greatest need, I could not withstand her. She slew me.”

Caroline: Caroline’s face twists into an ugly snarl, showing teeth. Those words hurt her to even hear.

She turns back into the darkness, to her aunt. “And so you passed beyond the veil to aid her?”

GM: “She did, my dear.”

“But such aid cost her. Such aid cost her dearly. Even now does she continue to pay its price.”

Caroline: Yes, she cannot imagine such a thing was free.

GM: “Nor was it so simple a thing as one sister’s sacrifice to bring another sister back.”

Caroline: “You required anchors to this world… and she had to give up many of her own,” Caroline speculates, her mother’s invasive metaphysical lesson filling in the gaps.

GM: “One must maintain an equilibrium, my dear. One cannot get something for nothing.”

“What must one sacrifice to forestall annihilation?”

Caroline: “So you both exist in this half existence,” Caroline jumps ahead. “A foot in this world and one in another.”

“And you must pay a price for that existence.” The image of the souls devoured by her mother.

GM: "Ah, clever girl… " purrs Abélia.

“Yes… for each sister, one half of herself was the necessary sacrifice.”

“But there are many pieces that constitute our selves, and the sisters did not sacrifice the same halves.”

“One maintains a foot in this world, and a foot in another.”

“But the other sister left this world only briefly, and has remained here all the while. Another price was hers to pay.”

Caroline: Her children? Caroline doesn’t want to say it out loud.

The silence is pregnant with tragedy to come. She does not imagine her aunt would be here, living off the coast alone in the dark, if the story had any happy ending.

GM: Light suddenly blossoms amidst the gloom. Caroline sees a woman, radiant in her beauty. Soft brown ringlets of hair cascade down her back. Clear and warm blue eyes smile out from under long, coal-black lashes. Her skin is pale, but not so pale one might think her dead. She’s dressed in mid-19th century apparel: a light pink dress with the period’s telltale corset and hoop skirt. A jeweled choker set with pearls gleams around her throat. Admirers kiss her hand and ply her with compliments as she smiles demurely, glibly turning back every word of praise into one that reflects even brighter upon its bestower. Caroline’s sire asks if he might have the honor of this next dance, and she does not refuse him. The pair glide off like phantoms into the gloom.

Caroline’s sire disappears. Another hand takes the woman’s. It’s Abélia’s, but she looks different. Feels different. It’s hard to say how. It’s like looking at her through a mirror, rather than seeing the real her. The image feels somehow less present than it should be,

The sisters hold one another’s hands, then the black-haired one cries out as black blood wells from her neck, her wrists, her torso, her shoulders, everywhere. Taloned hands embrace Abélia against their owner as she drinks blissfully. Caroline remembers that face out of her darkest nightmares.

White, red, and black are her colors. Dark-feathered wings unfurl from her back like a fallen angel’s. Wickedly lethal claws protrude from her fingertips. Curved, ram-like horns jut from her temples. Shock-white hair elaborately looped around a thin golden crown falls to her ankles. A king’s ransom in jewels glitters from the crown. Objects that men covet enough to kill and die for are the only physical matter worthy to adorn her perfect form. Otherwise, she wears her nakedness like a regal vestment. Her every glance and motion distorts the air with shimmering, nigh-tangible waves of pleasure. It is only when one stares into her eyes that rapture chills into terror. Solid, milk-white orbs burn with colorless fire, eternally fed but never sated.


Caroline: Caroline’s fingernails bite into her palms hard enough to draw blood as she watches, helpless.

She didn’t think she could hate her more, but she’d been wrong.

Death was too gentle a fate. She wishes she’d rent her soul.

GM: The raven-haired sister’s face sloughs off, revealing empty void underneath. Her flesh liquefies into a viscous, oil-like substance that runs down the Catharite’s chest like hot wax. Yet even as Caroline’s mother loses form and substance, the Catharite’s embrace holds her fast. The Dungeon’s mistress will not be denied her fill.

She drinks deeply, drinks past all satiation, drinks to consume her victim utterly. Whatever manner of entity Caroline’s mother may be, the Ventrue recognizes the same fate she visited upon her clanmate. Abélia’s scream curdles blood and chills marrow with its agony. She is not long for this world.

The brown-haired sister, standing a thousand miles away in the gloom, plunges a knife into her own heart and falls to her knees. The blood rushing into the Catharite’s mouth turns from black to red.

What’s left of Abélia’s essence drains away into the void, perhaps not to safety, but no longer towards annihilation.

The Catharite drinks ravenously. As Caroline watches, the brown-haired sister wilts like a rose without sun. Her hair loses its luster, her eyes their color, her skin its lifelike smoothness. Her smile dies as her gaze empties away to nothing, little more than a corpse in a pretty dress.

“Death would be kinder,” says a voice over the corpse.

“Useless relic.”

“Should have left her childe to run things.”

“Should have never woken up.”

“…an embarrassment… undid all she ever accomplished… "

“…should have stayed asleep.”

“Should have just died.”

Caroline gazes down upon where a kingdom should be and feels only emptiness, a void in her heart and soul that will never be filled. All is empty. All is ruined. All lies in darkness and shadow.

The corpse’s image fades out.

And the darkness recedes, just enough, to show the face of Caroline’s aunt.


“Love is sacrifice-” intones Abélia,

“compelled by blood” continues Pearl Chastain,

“-and requited in blood,” finish both sisters.

Abélia’s hand rests heavily upon Caroline’s shoulder.

“Do you understand, my treasure?” she whispers.

Caroline: Caroline nods.

“Family is the only thing that matters. No matter the cost.”

She looks upon her aunt with fresh eyes. Even when the cost is everything else. Pearl, who she once considered a target for diablerie. Pearl, mocked and derided across the city. Pearl, who paid that price without hesitation. Pearl, who she might have even called a failure, who was in truth the greatest story of success, of love, of fidelity, of sacrifice.

Sacrifice.

She feels the bounds between her and her sisters tighten, can almost pluck out those inky black ties between them with the naked eye. She can feel them out there, and brushing against it fills her with joy and pride.

A family worthy of the word. Worthy of being a part of. It’s a pleasure entirely different than the ecstasy of the kiss, or the rapture that was diablerie. It’s something more permanent, warmer, more satisfying.

Caroline’s gaze settles on her aunt. “I understand that all of this is thanks to you, that everything I am or will be is possible only thanks to you.”

She goes down to her knees before her aunt, takes her hand, and presses cold dead lips to cold dead flesh. “And though you did not do it for me or my thanks, that you have it, now and forever.”

Not pity. She doesn’t pity her aunt for what became of her. Pity is a function of regret or even judgment, and she knows there is none here.

Her aunt, Pearl, Mur, whatever she would name herself, made her decision, the right one, one that Caroline has no judgment of, only admiration.

Still, even as be pays her tribute to her aunt, more questions arise. Was her mother then known as Maria Pascual?

GM: Caroline’s hand passes through Pearl’s like it’s not there. Still, the mirage-like hand makes a motion as if to take hers. The Ventrue recovers her footing quickly enough as she plants a kiss upon where cold dead flesh should be.

Pearl’s malaisful and unsmiling expression does not change, but Caroline can feel her mother’s and sister’s approval at her words. At length, the Toreador replies,

“You have done my sister and I a great service, childe. It is we who must thank you—and have.”

“To have saved my daughters’ lives was laudable, and won you our family’s friendship,” concurs Abélia. “But it was by your hand that the first third of our vengeance is now realized. By your hand, our nemesis is naught but ash.”

“That was when I knew, my dear. That was when I knew you should not be merely friend to our family, but one of our family.”

Caroline: “Nothing pleases me more,” Caroline replies.

She tilts her head. “And the other two-thirds?”

GM: Cécilia offers Caroline a hand to help her rise.

“That is for the future, sweet child,” their mother replies. “But not so distant a future.”

Caroline: Caroline takes Cécilia’s hand, with a final nod to her aunt.

GM: Cécilia squeezes hers back.

“There are plans we would lay tonight to realize that future, and things your aunt would speak with us of.”

Caroline: “As you say, Mother.”

GM: Pearl’s form fades into the black once more.

“Rot eats away at the core of the Sanctified’s strength,” she states. “Prince Vidal’s time will soon pass, and a new prince must reign.”

“Yet the old prince’s time may pass sooner than many anticipate, were certain improprieties to come to light.”

Caroline: Caroline pauses. “Evan.”

GM: “Your investigations into the boy’s fate are known to me, childe. There is little my eldest childe does not inform me of, nor am I so indifferent to events as many believe me.”

“Evan Bourelle sought sanctuary from Alder Accou on the night of his final death.”

Caroline: “He was pursued by the Hussar,” Caroline fills in.

GM: “Bourelle perished before he reached his destination,” states Pearl. “Yet the boy used a mobile telephone to contact a servant of my kin. Alder Accou has erased that knowledge from her mind.”

“The recording you now hear is of Bourelle’s final moments.”

“Listen. I don’t, I don’t have much time,” sounds a young man’s panicked voice. Distant footsteps thump against pavement. Caroline feels like the erstwhile Storyville should sound winded, wheezing for breath, but he’s dead. Was dead.

“I’ve found something. Something… oh, god. This is bad. This is really bad.”

Footsteps thump louder. There’s a metallic-sounding crash. Muffled cursing.

“I need to see the primogen. I need to see him, right now.”

Avian caws sound in the background.

“Shit!”

“He’s here! I’m, I’m ditching this phone-”

Louder caws. Another crash.

“Tell Roxanne… I love her-”

Caroline: Caroline listens in silence. She’d feared as much, after Jocelyn’s furious revelation to her.

She hadn’t exactly lied to Roxanne or Jocelyn when she pointed the finger at Meadows, but there had always been a second candidate in her mind.

GM: There’s an audible clatter. Evan’s voice sounds again, more distant, barely audible.

“Wait, sto-!”

Silence follows.

There’s more distant caws. Footsteps.

Indistinct noises.

There’s no neat and clean ending. The phone’s sounds simply die as Pearl’s voice resumes,

“Given the tenor of this exchange, I am under no illusions as to the whereabouts of Evan Bourelle: he is but shadows and dust.”

“Whatever the boy saw, it almost certainly pertained to someone close to Prince Vidal, if not the prince himself.”

“Had it pertained to Savoy or the Baron, Bourelle would have gone to his beloved prince.”

“Had it pertained to the Invictus, I do not believe Bourelle would have come to Alder Accou at all.”

Caroline: Caroline nods, considering. Finally she states, “It was disclosed to me that the prince has made habit of inviting a group of neonates to the outskirts of the city on a regular basis.”

GM: The darkness hangs pregnant and heavy at the Ventrue’s words.

Caroline: “I think I need not give voice to—and will not give voice to—the implications of that,” she continues less comfortably.

GM: “The Storyville Krewe are now all but gone,” states Pearl.

“Baker alone remains.”

Caroline: “I have a plan for that,” Caroline replies.

GM: “Speak, childe.”

Caroline: “Prince Vidal desperately needs to add to the Sanctified’s numbers, and to remind others that the prince’s justice is just that—just.”

“I would propose after the next great roundup of the dredges—Mardi Gras, Decadence—that from among them a group be spared and united to hunt down their sires. Kindred of no means given a place and a purpose, and a new lease on life by the prince’s mercy even as his justice comes to their sires.”

“If such an enterprise were led by the prince’s childe, I think that narrative only all the stronger… and if it produces a fresh group of neonates of no standing… if that is what he requires.”

GM: “Tread carefully, my dear,” states Abélia. “Such a coterie is likely to draw your sire’s eye indeed, if our suspicions are correct… but should he suspect you of having any such inkling, I cannot predict how he might respond in his present frame of mind.”

“I think the idea has merit,” Cécilia speaks up. “For all of the reasons Caroline lists. I don’t imagine her sire would have much reason to be suspicious if she were to establish it… but it might be safe for her to stay a degree removed. A sponsor or patron, maybe, more than a direct leader.”

Caroline: Caroline nods. “I would aid them, perhaps even direct, but I have greater aspirations than to lead such a band directly.”

GM: “One offers alms to wretches, but one does not invite them in to sup at one’s table,” Pearl concurs.

“But as to the larger matter of your sire.”

“I value propriety, Miss Malveaux. I remember the nights when simply being one of the Kindred implied a certain sophistication and sense of rightness—especially for my own clan. There are some Cainites who refer to the Jyhad as the Great Game. If the Jyhad is indeed but a game, then it is one which must be played a certain way, by certain rules. I do not look kindly upon those who cast aside its rules. I look favorably upon those who follow and respect them.”

“Despite my differences with your sire and the seneschal, I have always credited them with numbering among the latter. My support was integral to your sire’s seizure of praxis, and he has always treated with me the dignity such support merits.”

“For all his foibles, Augusto Vidal has done a serviceable job of maintaining my city’s character over the years, and I will be twice damned if I see it pass into the hands of a common-born usurper or a negro shaman—whatever the debts my sister might owe him.”

“Yet your sire’s continued rule is unacceptable to me for any period longer than a provisional one, given the implications of Bourelle’s final death. I would not be lonely among the primogen in this sentiment. Were the information we have discussed to come to light, it would spell a death blow to Prince Vidal’s reign.”

“As would the truth of your own appetites, Miss Malveaux, should you harbor ambitions to succeed your sire,” Pearl says severely.

“There are no secrets between my sister and I.”

“You are her daughter and have done our family a great service. For those reasons, I shall disclose your crime to none beyond this room.”

“Yet it is plain to me that you require guidance and an enduring example if such episodes are to become youthful indiscretions and not a Requiem’s deathlong habits.”

“Just as it is plain to me that your sire requires an imminent successor when his seneschal is unable to serve.”

“I offer your sire my eldest childe’s hand in blood marriage to his youngest childe. Many know already that my eldest aspires to the princedom. Fewer know that he enjoys my support. He is loyal and honorable, and I will not see his fidelity go unrewarded. Prince Malveaux-Devillers and Prince Poincaré shall jointly rule La Nouvelle-Orléans in marriage of the First and Second Estates. With the support of the Invictus, the Sanctified may at last crush the pretenders who aspire to a throne that is not theirs, and usher in a new era of peace and tranquility for my beloved city.”

Caroline: Pearl’s words are slaps to the face. First, about her sire, blow after blow to the integrity of his reign, and assaults on his character, on what he has become. They hit like the backhands of a boxer, and part of her longs to snarl out a rebuke.

But there’s truth in them. Truths she knew before she even set foot in here. Truths she might ignore for love, for fidelity, but that others will not. Emotionally, she wants to lash out. Logically, the words build an airtight wall around her that spells out the truth in each brick: the end is near for the prince’s reign.

Her rebuke of Caroline’s own crime is no less sharp. If she had been raised by lesser parents from lesser stock, they might bring stinging tears to her eyes. As is, she accepts them in the spirit with which they are offered: the truth can cut so very deeply, but like the cuts of a surgeon it is sometimes necessary.

The rebukes are too cutting to simply be one from her aunt, and propriety has its place with this elder.
“Primogen Chastain, I will take the offer to him if it is your wish, when you judge the time is right. To stand beside a Kindred of such distinction and honor would be more than politically expedient—his legacy speaks for itself—and for you. I could ask for no better pairing.”

Ask for, but perhaps not desire. There’s at least one other that dances tantalizingly out of reach.

“I would judge such an offer may be poorly received this night by my sire, however, and several yet to come, until my own worth in his eyes is solidified, and he may see me as a blessing and not a betrayal.”

“As my aunt, Mur, I would offer a more personal assurance: I have no more desire to be a slave to baser appetites now than I ever held in life. In fact, my appetites have never trended to the indulgent or hedonistic.”

“All I have done, and all I have sought to do, has been in the pursuit of being what others have wanted of me: first my father’s daughter, then my sire’s childe, and of late too, my mother’s daughter.”

“I sought not petty revenge, nor pleasure, only the strength to survive what is to come, and to be more than a princess of spun glass surrounded by knights of steel, one hard enough to survive the chaos and violence I fear will come when he goes to his rest, and who might place well terror into the hearts of any who sought to harm my family.”

“In tying my Requiem to my sisters’ lives, and my mother’s, I fear I have put them in danger, and I would that they never be forced to make the same sacrifice as you did for me. To that end, there was no weapon I did not seek to wield.”

“If the price of that is the crown my sire might pass, it is a price I would as gladly pay for them that price as you did for your own sister.”

“There was a time my highest and only aspiration was to bring credit to my sire, to be the childe he always desired. That desire rests near to my heart, but it is not all I can or would define myself by.”

GM: “You have encouraged her in this belief, sister?” asks Pearl, her voice low. “You whose soul has felt the amaranth’s bite?”

“Yes,” Abélia answers simply. “It is pleasing to me that my daughter is strong, sister. Strength is her birthright. Strength is her deathright. I hope to see many more Cainites fall beneath her fangs so that their strength might add to her own. She will need it in the nights ahead.”

“Pfah! There is no propriety in foul amaranth, childe,” Pearl rebukes. “One thickens one’s vitae at the debasement of one’s spirit. Ask your sisters which they would rather you were richer in, if their welfare concerns you so. I see my childe will still have a great deal of propriety to instill in you.”

Caroline: Many more Cainites. That is a terrifying thought.

“There is no propriety is falling beneath the sheriff’s blade, primogen, if it is a price to be paid by others,” Caroline answers in turn. “And I fear that is the most certain outcome this night. I would not place my propriety over the lives of my sisters.”

“Were I to have died alone, I would have met my fate with all the grim resolve you might admire, but my mother has given me more something else to fight for.”

GM: Caroline can feel the elder’s scowl.

“Perhaps a conversation for another night, Aunt Mur?” Cécilia offers demurely.

“Hmph,” Pearl replies. “I suppose we haven’t all night. As to the matter of broaching my gracious offer to your sire, childe. The seneschal has our prince’s ear as no other Cainite does. Convince him of the proposal’s merits, and he shall convince your sire.”

Caroline: “Are the prince and seneschal aware of our ties, primogen?” Caroline asks.

GM: “They are.”

Caroline: “Then I shall broach the matter with him when the moment seems most opportune,” Caroline replies. “I do not expect selling the virtues of your childe to be a difficult matter, primogen.”

“And I will retain hope that me might join me in time to lead me along a path that will bring you satisfaction and pride both as my aunt and as Primogen Chastain.”

GM: “I do as well, childe. I would prefer that your sire recognized the merits of this course of action, and displayed that he still knows how proper Kindred behave. I value propriety, as I have said. It is my wish that the city’s rightful prince give his blessing to your union with my childe.”

Caroline: Prefer, but not required. It is not lost upon her that her aunt is by acclaim every bit as old and close to Caine as her sire. Should the prince decline, could the seneschal might resist such a course of action alone?

She has no reservations as to the elder’s childe’s honor, or power, or even charm. Not even the pettiness of skin color stirs her concern. But she does recall the words of the seneschal, as to the perception of neonates that cleave to elders among those elders—and Poincaré is very much an elder.

Her aunt might name them princes both in name, bound in blood marriage, but such a union would be one-sided indeed this night. She has little interest in being the damsel in any story, much less the lesser partner in any union.

GM: That much, at least, she can imagine her sire would approve of.

“Several further matters remain before us, my dear,” states Abélia.

“My youngest childe, Lady Adelais, has lost a wager with her husband Lord Pierpont," says Pearl. "Under its terms, she is to Embrace a childe.”

“This presents us with an opportunity, sweet child," continues Abélia. “You require allies in the nights ahead… not merely patrons such as we, but Kindred who might fight beside you and more closely share in your struggles and triumphs.”

“There are three options before us… not all of which are exclusive.”

Caroline: That Lady Adelais seemed not the least impressed with her she leaves unsaid. Too that McGinn’s racism is unlikely to look kindly on her blood marriage to his own (black) rival.

Neither her mother nor aunt are fools—they know of whom they speak better than she.

GM: “The first is for Yvette to receive Lady Adelais’ Embrace. She has expressed dissatisfaction at mortal career paths, and I believe her temperament well-suited for the Requiem. You shall have a loyal ally, immediately, who may grow in power over the coming years."

“Our second recourse is to wait… for another sire.” Caroline’s mother smiles at her knowingly. “Perhaps another suitable one shall make him or herself known, in a few years."

Caroline: The baring of her fangs is almost involuntary at that. That someone else, anyone else, might fucking presume to sink their fangs into her sister for any reason.

But the idea isn’t as ugly as it might at first appear. The idea of Yvette’s Embrace is not a new one to her, and with Adelais as a sire few would dare touch her sister.

GM: Abélia gives a fluttering laugh. “Ah, such fierceness! I’ve little doubt you would shepherd our Yvette through the Requiem’s perils with more concern than Lady Adelais… and guard her with greater zeal.”

“But as to our third recourse.”

“I could accept the Embrace,” says Cécilia. “From Aunt Mur, rather than Lady Adelais. I’ve told you how Maman asked me earlier, if I wanted the Embrace, and I said no.” Caroline’s sister pauses. “But things are different now, than when she first asked. You’re my sister now, you’re in danger. You could use more allies. My Blood would be as close to Caine as yours, if Aunt Mur Embraced me—there’s a lot I might be able to do to help you, that I can’t as a human."

Caroline: Caroline can’t see her sister in the gloom, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know where she is.

She spins on a dime at that suggestion to face Cécilia.

Her initial reaction is even stronger than it was to the idea of Yvette’s Embrace at Adelais’ hands. No. She doesn’t even mean to send it, but it ripples with the forceful denial through the bond.

Possibilities, visions of a future, dance across her mind in the split second it takes to consider it before she speaks. A night with Cécilia, some wicked kine caught between the two. A decade from now, both as flawless as they are in this moment, and another decade, and another decade. An eternity with Cécilia beside her to share it with. Cécilia, every bit as powerful in the Blood as she is—might of body to match her might of spirit. Cécilia with her dancing in the clouds.

They aren’t unattractive visions.

But they are selfish ones. She bites her lower lip, gathers her thoughts for a moment, and continues in a more reserved, composed tone.

“Cécilia, I’m humbled that you would even suggest such a thing—and an eternity with you is one I’d happily share—but you refused for your own reasons the first time, and good ones.”

“I know you’d do anything for me—for any of us—but you don’t have to do that unless you want it for good reasons of your own. This is a path I am already on, and I will take any twist necessary on it to let you pursue the path you desire.”

God, though, there’s something tempting in the idea that gnaws at her reservations. The idea of Cécilia growing old, or being struck down by some pathetic kine illness, or being helpless before another Kindred is terrifying to her. And as Pearl’s childe? The world would be her oyster.

GM: The strength of Caroline’s denial feels as if it rocks Cécilia back on her feet.

Perhaps some of those visions make their way across the bond, too, when her sister answers,

“I can see you’re right that it would make you happy. And that is important to me, Caroline. Just as much as keeping you safe. The Requiem seems so lonely and unhappy, from everything I’ve heard. But I wonder, does it have to be? Maybe, like life, it’s just as much a question of who you spend it with.”

“But you are right, too, that I’d be doing it for you and our family, rather than for myself.”

Caroline: “You would brighten my Requiem, Cécilia, but I wouldn’t want you to dim your own light to do it,” Caroline answers sincerely.

GM: “All right. If you’re sure,” says Cécilia. “If circumstances change later, we can always change our minds.”

“What do you think so far as Yvette?”

“Lady Adelais now, or… you, later?”

“The Lady Adelais shall take a childe, be she Yvette or another canaille,” pronounces Pearl.

Caroline: Caroline is silent, finally “I believe Yvette would find much she would enjoy in the All Night Society, and she would be well poised as Lady Adelais’ childe to make her Requiem her own. I would have her enter with no regrets or illusions though.”

“If there is time, I think we might arrange for her an introduction of sorts first.”

GM: “There is no cause for immediate haste,” answers Pearl.

“I think that sounds like a good idea, to let her get a feel for things,” nods Cécilia.

“What about Yvonne, amidst all this?”

“As you once said, Caroline, telling one is the same as telling both.”

Caroline: “Yvonne’s path remains her own,” Caroline suggests. “Her temperament is likely to favor a moderate response. If events should conspire to urge her down a parallel path, Yvette shall be better-positioned than ever in the future to arrange that however we wish. I should fear it more, I think, if it were in the reverse.”

GM: “I suppose you’re right,” Cécilia says with another nod. “I don’t think Yvonne will ever want to be Kindred. But I do trust her to keep Yvette’s secret.”

Caroline: “She applies a fine balance to her twin, and one that I think is all the more important of Yvette is to be Embraced.”

She turns to Pearl. “Presuming there is no objection to the use of your childe in that way, Primogen.”

GM: “Yvette is of worthy stock. She is an acceptable childe to my childe.”

Caroline: Caroline nods.

GM: “I suppose that means we’ll be telling Adeline the truth, too,” says Cécilia. “It wouldn’t be right to tell the twins and not her.”

Caroline: “Perhaps?” Caroline ponders, turning her gaze in the black towards where her mother last resided.

“With four of us ‘in’ on things it becomes much easier to manage interactions with the All-Night Society, even if they become more common. If Adeline desires another path, there isn’t as much an inherent need to draw her in.”

“I think our mother’s philosophy has trended towards the idea that we should seek such knowledge in so far as it brings us happiness. I would not keep it from her, but nor would I burden her needlessly.”

GM: “Maybe we should have you get to know her better before deciding, then,” says Cécilia. “That’s something Maman and I would love for you to do in any case.”

Caroline: “And I,” Caroline agrees.

GM: “There is a final matter your aunt would discuss with us tonight,” says Abélia.

“Concerning Caroline’s originally purported sire and the sheriff, wasn’t it?”

“Alder Accou received information concerning them some months ago,” states Pearl.

“Passed to him by his childe Lady Marguerite, passed to her by her childe Miss Bailey, a follower of the Baron’s. She claimed to have received the information from a ghoul involved in an altercation with Mr. Baristheaut.”

“I cannot attest as to its truthfulness.”

Caroline: That catches Caroline’s full attention.

GM: “By the ghoul’s account, Mr. Baristheaut was a double agent in the employ of Sheriff Donovan, but believed himself betrayed—by either his patron, Mr. Savoy, or foul Setites.”

“By the ghoul’s account, Sheriff Donovan was either a double agent for his sire, or he was not. But in either eventuality, the sheriff nevertheless employed a double agent working for his sire.”

“I bring this information to your attention for a simple reason, childe. I would not see the sheriff succeed your sire.”

Caroline: Caroline muses, “Forgive me, Primogen, if I speak of things I know not enough about, but I would postulate this about the sheriff, and I suppose about the archdioceses as a whole.”

“The seneschal revealed to me that he had long sought quietly an heir to the prince, knowing his torpor approached. For decades, he has subtly cultivated and sought to mold candidates. A decade ago he identified his choice.”

“That choice was snatched from him instead, Embraced by another for whom I believe he had little affection, as part of a broader plot.”

“The seneschal was not easily stymied—he did not give up. Instead, he redoubled his efforts more quietly, identifying a wide range of individuals rather than focusing on a small number.”

Caroline pauses. “Those who have known him longer might speak to more accurately, but I believe he was not unaffected by that failure. The seneschal has taken only a childe once, and it is a matter he deeply regretted. I think he has carried guilt for his groomed heir presumptive’s Embrace since that night.”

“Among those he quietly chose to ‘groom’ I may be counted—though I am far from alone. He did so in great secrecy, believing one close to the prince, some great foe, was observing.”

She pauses. “Mr. Baristheaut’s return was not by chance. He was called back to the city by another—I know not who—at a specific time. I have gathered his departure from the city was not by chance either—and that he left with deep divisions with the prince.”

The takes a deep breath before continuing, “Very shortly after his return, he snatched me off the street and brought me to the Dungeon. What followed I need not repeat, save to highlight this: the seneschal’s decision to harrow the Dungeon’s depths was not one carefully considered. He dove in at haste, snatching forth his blade… and his foe did not appear surprised by his appearance.”

“She could have defeated him. Indeed, I judge his defeat the most likely outcome of that choice, barring… interference.”

She permits herself a small smile at that, before grim certitude returns. “I believe none of these events to be unrelated. Mr. Baristheaut’s return was not by chance and he did not choose me at random. Similarly, I do not believe Ms. Adler’s Embrace a decade before to have been by chance. I see a careful plot to assassinate the seneschal by the most ready means available—an action that would almost certainly have delivered the city into either the sheriff’s hands—or brought it down entirely.”

“The prince believes the sheriff wholly bound to him. Worthy of absolute trust.”

She stares into the darkness where her aunt’s projection stands.

“In this matter, I believe him incorrect. I know with certitude he has strayed from the prince’s will in at least one matter, and while many of his recent actions may be laid at the feet of fanaticism or zealous devotion to the prince’s will, I can think of few that have not done enduring damage to his reign.”

“I know not who the sheriff serves, but it is not my prince.”

GM: Caroline cannot see her mother’s or aunt’s expressions in the gloom, but the pair fall silent for a brief time.

“You believe the sheriff the agent of Mr. Baristheaut’s return, and the thief of the seneschal’s would-be childer,” states Pearl.

“The sheriff’s vicinage is no small advantage,” muses Abélia. “Had I wished to thwart the seneschal’s designs, I could think of no more proximate or capable an agent.”

“Pah. Traitor’s blood runs in his veins,” states Pearl.

“He has proven more than capable in his role as sheriff, but any childe of Antoine Savoy’s is unfit to assume the throne. And it is little secret that he lusts for it.”

“I would see him retained as sheriff, though Lord Pierpont could serve… suitably, in his absence.”

“Questions for the future, sister,” states Abélia. “For now, Donovan has much cause to bear our Caroline ill will. Even should his loyalty to the prince be true, your ghoul’s whispers false, and another hand responsible for frustrating the seneschal’s designs, our Caroline is a threat to the sheriff’s power.”

“Yes. Your betrothal to my eldest will give you a shield against him, childe,” says Pearl.

“It will not be an invulnerable one, but so much the better for you if the sheriff’s ambitions are split between another, mightier target.”

Caroline: She’s grateful for it. She is. A shield. Her mother knows well her thoughts, though—she’s aired them here. She would be a sword paired with a shield, not one hiding behind one.

Caroline bites her tongue. But then, if there are few secrets, she would not have this be a surprise to her aunt. “It is my intent to frame the sheriff for the bishop’s destruction.”

GM: Caroline feels her mother’s smile of pride.

Caroline: “His childe’s selection as the next bishop will otherwise make holding a line among the Sanctified a mighty task. It is my intent to destroy the prince’s ill-placed trust in him, and see him destroyed towards a purpose, rather than simply knocked out from under the prince’s throne.”

GM: “Hmph. Someone must take the blame for it, but the sheriff’s fall will galvanize your sire’s foes, childe. And be no small loss to the prince’s strength in its own right.”

Caroline: “There have been to many blunders of pieces,” Caroline agrees. “He must be exchanged, not simply sacrificed.”

She continues less forcefully, “I would ask, towards that purpose, of the bishop’s sire. They have announced their intention to return. In any pursuit, I feel that would be a powerful tool. Or ally. I would seek to cultivate either.”

GM: “Cingolai. Her name will not please your sire to name as sheriff, childe. But I know few others who might prove wholly to his tastes.”

“Perhaps Agnello, before he proved himself as much a beast as his sire. And his loss of face to the nigrimancers.”

“Are there any others the prince might name as sheriff, Aunt Mur?” asks Cécilia.

“Hmph. Doriocourt, if the the sheriff’s shame did not reflect upon her. Beyond the city, Holland, if his pride can be salved. Bassler, if their differences reconciled. Cade or Ward, if they might be induced to set aside their present ambitions and responsibilities.”

“Beyond those names, the prince must either reach beyond the Sanctified, or nominate ones unknown to me.”

“North would likely prove an eminently acceptable choice to many. There are several archons and former local hounds among those names, but his is the only one that is both.”

“Cingolai shares the prince’s blood, and would also be acceptable to many, but I do not believe he will be predisposed to name a Dragon as his sheriff.”

“He would sooner name Lord Pierpont, who is at least pledged to a covenant he finds less distasteful.”

Caroline: Caroline bites her lip. “I fear the era in which his wishes are realities is ending. A marriage of the First and Second estates will bring in many changes.”

GM: “Whom would you name to the post, Aunt Mur?” asks Cécilia.

“Lord Cade or Lord Pierpont would both prove acceptable to me. One could also do worse than Ward.”

Caroline: “Ward, Primogen?” Caroline asks.

GM: “Sally Ward, archon and sire to Jocelyn Baker. She is pledged to the Sanctified.”

Caroline: That’s what she’d been afraid of.

“I suspect she may return to the city sooner rather than later.”

GM: “So much the more convenient, should the other candidates prove unviable.”

“However, all of this presumes the current sheriff is to be removed.”

Caroline: “More easily accomplished when there is a piece to fill the hole,” Caroline observes, without arguing.

GM: “At present, we have but rumors and supposition as to his true loyalties. We are without proof. I am not wholly convinced he poses a danger to the city’s stability, only to one of our family.”

Caroline: “Even if he is loyal, this prince can more easily tolerate his ambitions than I might in his place. But I will bring you proof, Primogen.” She lowers her head submissively. “I understand even the faith of blood may only go so far.”

GM: “Very good, childe. If you wish to move against the sheriff now, I shall not forestall you, but neither shall I assist you. Bring me evidence of his duplicity, and you will have the First Estate’s aid.”

“That might be wise to obtain in any case,” Cécilia says thoughtfully. “I believe Caroline that he doesn’t serve the prince. But it might be prudent to discover who, and why, before moving against him.”

“Daniel Hayes, my bodyguard, says that bad intelligence, or not enough intelligence, was the #1 thing that got SEALs killed.”

Caroline: “Of that note,” Caroline continues, “whatever the future holds, it is my desire to place an individual with more personal loyalty within the hounds—or in a similar role—for the future.”

GM: “Foreknowledge may do much to avert calamity, but I fear the sheriff will not be idle in his pursuit of the bishop’s killer, my dears,” says Abélia. “Another Cainite may prove more expedient to blame in the sheriff’s stead, and the sheriff later blamed for concealing his sin beneath an innocent.”

“To place eyes close to your foe is wisdom.”

“That might be for the best if your sire is taking you away for a while, too,” says Cécilia. “It might be easier to frame the sheriff when you don’t have as short a leash.” She pauses. “Though I’d thought he was going to take you away already… ?”

Caroline: "I expect the seneschal’s influence is at play. He knows there were many matters to be dealt with before… "

At least, she hopes that’s why. Hopes that her sire isn’t having second thoughts.

“In any case, barring objection, I intend on planting the seed of doubt in the sheriff with Cingolai at the earliest opportunity. It would be ill for me if she were to fall into the sheriff’s sphere. I would ask of her temperament.”

GM: “You have seen and spoken with her already, childe, at Alder John’s trial.”

“She is a friend to my clan and belongs to the Guild of Plutus, those Kindred who are patrons of the arts. I have conversed with her. My younger clanmates find her cool and aloof. She respects intelligence. During her previous time in the city, she spent much time among its canaille intelligentsia and the linguistics department of Tulane University.”

“At several of my clans’ balls, she exhibited canaille painters and violinists taken from the university’s student body.”

Caroline: Caroline smiles. “Then we may have more in common than I’d hoped.”

GM: “She will lend your opinion little credence if you come before her alone as Mr. Baristheaut’s childe. I may arrange an introduction if you do not wish to inform her the truth.”

“Would it be a bad thing to tell her, if it’d make such a difference?” Cécilia asks.

“Hmm. It may both indicate and engender trust, were she to learn the secret in advance of larger Cainite society,” states Abélia.

Caroline: “If the opportunity presents itself, I would be grateful for such a meeting, primogen,” Caroline answers. “Though I expect these nights, and the opportunities they present, to grow rarer.”

And, perhaps hopes too. Her sister’s observation that they had expected her retreat into Perdido House already is quite keen.

GM: Cécilia feels as if she nods. “What do we want to do about the bishop’s death, in that case? It’ll likely be harder to frame the sheriff if, as you say, those free nights aren’t going to be as common.”

Caroline: “Someone has already started the frame job, pointing at the Baron,” Caroline notes. “And the seneschal is quite certain of my innocence.”

GM: “Oh? Who do you think did that?” Cécilia asks.

Caroline: “Mr. Savoy’s agents, perhaps? We know Claire to have been in contact with them. Or other hunters. Pointing us at each other is in their interest, and we know her to have been in contact with Gettis.”

She runs her tongue across her fangs. “My instincts say Gettis. He has every reason to want the attention pointed at Kindred vice hunters, given the losses they’ve suffered and exposure they now have.”

“I pushed that narrative with both my sire and the seneschal, and will continue to do so for many reasons, not the least of which include the direct danger he poised to this family and the chain by which the sheriff led many hunters around.”

She turns her attention back to her aunt. “As primogen, it is more likely information will reach you than I on the investigation. I would identify the direction the sheriff seeks to hunt down and leave a clear trail down it, while pocketing the pieces that will bring the house of cards he builds against a patsy crashing down when the time is right. If that time never comes, little is lost by holding that blade in abatement.”

GM: “You may be in a proximate position to gather information on the sheriff’s activities than I, childe,” says Pearl. “He typically does not keep the Cabildo apprised of developments in his investigations unless they have bearing upon our interests.”

“I believe your course of action to be otherwise prudent.”

Caroline: Caroline nods, “In either case. if I am otherwise detained or unable to act, I would pass what I learn to you,” she turns to her sister. “In the hopes you could disseminate it to my agents as required.”

GM: Cécilia probably nods back. “Of course. How much do you want them to know, by the way? About our family?”

“I’ll trust whatever you think is right to trust them with, of course. I just want to know how much I should say around which ones.”

Caroline: “I intend on telling only one of them anything of the family—and then only that you speak with my voice.”

GM: “Ferris?”

Caroline: She nods. “I have little doubt he has gathered something is afoot, but I would not provide any certain answers to any not of blood with us.”

GM: “That seems wise. I trust him, as much as I’d trust anyone outside the family.”

Caroline: “We all must trust someone… at least to an extent,” Caroline agrees. “There are far worse choices.”

GM: “I have said what I have come here to say,” declares Pearl. “Goodnight and farewell to all.”

Caroline: Caroline turns back to where the elder spoke from. “It was my great pleasure to meet you, Aunt Mur. And my great honor to receive your counsel, primogen.”

GM: The Toreador’s voice drones through the gloom.

“‘And the enemies of Caine were great
and fell to fighting over his trail
like hounds, the scent would not abate
through flood and moon, and much travail
the hunter’s skill was great,
as they looked for their father, and they did see
the road to Shal-ka-mense.’”

“’They came at last to that secret place where Caine hid, amongst the waters
showing himself, Caine called them under,
“Gentle sons, gentle daughters,
why do you disturb my slumber?”’

“‘And they tried to embrace their father
with steely things
and things of wood
but lightning Caine,
fast-moving Caine
would not be stopped by such as them.’”

“‘Under the curling, blasting waters,
beyond the pool of Veyd-sah-me,
in the grotto of Shal-ka-mense
did they gather, did they gather,
to embrace their sleeping father’s form.’”

“‘Found him sleeping? Found him wakeful,
battle-ready, eyes abright,
smiling at his ancient childer
waging war in the waxing light.’”

“‘Now the stars they one by one
blot their ways into lightning sky
now the fires burn hell and cinder
now the heat reveals the pyre.’”

“‘Too long! The hunters waited further,
too long! They did by Veyd-sah-me
tarry long enough to see
the light of dawn upon their father’s face.’”

“‘And in the turning, burning mark,
they saw the finger of God’s own hate,
twisting, curling, God’s own word
it set apart Caine’s lonely fate.’”

“‘And as they burned in hell-bright fires,
as they saw the melted flesh
as they burned with their own Kindred
Caine blessed more funeral pyres
taking in his bloody sacrament.’”

“‘Seek not the blood of thine own elder
seek not the blood of thy sire’s sire
seek not the blood that made thee kin
for thou will feel the funeral pyre
when thou dost pay for thy immortal sin.’”

When the darkness recedes, Pearl is gone. Simmone lies asleep in Abélia’s arms.

Caroline: A tale with a pointed end from her aunt.

The Ventrue lets out a breath with the primogen’s departure.

“Your sister remains an intimidating presence, Mother. Whatever others might say of her, they say it behind her back rather than to her face with good reason.”

GM: Laughter dances in her mother’s dark eyes.

“Words meant to paralyze lesser hearts with fear. My daughter is not insusceptible to them, but her ambition burns greater still. Her ambition drives her to master that which would master others.”

“My sister is less than she once was. But you have heard her tale, and in deed and spirit she remains undiminished.”

Caroline: “And you, Mother?” Caroline asks. A question has burned at her lips, but one so intemperate she bound it until her aunt’s departure.

“In a past life, were you Maria Pascual?”

GM: A peal of fluttering laughter greets the Ventrue’s question.

“Oh, what a notion! My tale is a longer one than was spun for your ears tonight, sweet child, and it holds many chapters. But those are for another evening.”

“Yet you are well to question. Answers come swiftest and in greatest measure to those who seek them out.”

Caroline: “I have trusted to your wisdom in the past in such matters, Mother. I trust in it now,” Caroline acknowledges. “A time for all things. That I would all those times be now is perhaps something your sister’s childe may help me grow out of.”

A mischievous smirk. “Or perhaps not.”

---

Previous, by Narrative: Story Twelve, Emmett XII, Lamarck II
Next, by Narrative: Story Twelve, Celia XX

Previous, by Character: Story Twelve, Caroline XII
Next, by Character: Story Twelve, Caroline XIV

“I am certain you are eager to claim your reward.”
Abélia Devillers

---

Date ?

GM: Em’s been to Clay Square a literal lifetime ago with Cécilia. It’s a tiny, block-sized park in the Garden District that consists of a green field surrounded by trees and an iron fence. There’s a few benches and tables to relax and enjoy picnics at.

There’s a children’s playground, too, and a paved area to play sports on. Cécilia thought it was romantic to do that ‘too-old couple playing on the swings’ scene.

On the other side, everything is shittier. The withered grass is dry and lifeless. The trees are barren. Anything metal is rusted, pitted, and bent out of shape. The catcher’s enclosure, or whatever the fuck it’s called (Em wasn’t big on sports) looks like a hungrily yawning maw.

Rain starts to fall from the black sky. It batters relentlessly against his corpus, but Em doesn’t feel cold. His legs don’t feel sore. He doesn’t feel hungry. He doesn’t feel like taking a piss.

He doesn’t feel anything.

He’s not sure how much time passes. It feels like a while. It might be an hour. It might two hours. It might be twelve hours. He supposes time doesn’t matter as much when you’re dead.

The dead have nothing but time.

Emmett: Em enjoys these moments of silence. He didn’t have many of them when he was alive, and now his existence is such that they are his only luxury. Well, not his only luxury.

He has the dreams.

Em doesn’t know either when he realized that’s what they are, the phantom FX he can conjure on a whim. But that’s really the only way to describe how he conjures them. He dreams, and his dreams make themselves seen.

He measures the time in stories, now, half-imagined fantasies and fancies that he makes swirl around him. There a couple dance, the prince dark and cackling, the princess grinning and fanged.

GM: He does have so many to choose from.

Tall and blonde? Darker and shorter? Dusky-skinned and poison-eyed?

Emmett: None of these. Frankly, the princess looks more like him, which he’d rather not think too hard about.

Other stories abound. He does not focus too hard on any one of them, and so the gloom of the Shadowlands about him is suffused with the endlessly shifting story-lights, all greens and purples and golds, Mardi Gras decorations given shadowy life.

The stories are not easy to follow. They don’t have to be; he is the audience. When he was a child, he could sometimes spend hours in a daydream, perfect loops of fantasy and meaning that he could not separate from himself until somebody said his name and the bubble popped, the dream vanished.

This is no different than that, really. There a ghost outwits a vampire. Here a father embraces his son. There a hitman sticks his gun in his mouth as (for convoluted reasons Em hasn’t entirely thought out) his enemies conspire to keep him alive.

A dozen idiot, ignoble stories. Smears of color in an ugly, corpse-colored world.

He’s still there when they come upon him, floating cross-legged in a mist of fantasy and idle nightmare.

His expression is almost peaceful.

Casket-ready.

GM: Applause echoes through the gloom.

Rain and fog part to reveal Doc Brown’s grinning face. Ectoplasmic blood leaks down his torn-open throat. He claps his hands as the illusions play out, spots of color in an afterlife of cheerless blacks and grays.

“Isn’t this a pretty little show! There’s just nothing like a splash of color in a world with so little, now is there, Emmett?”

Emmett: He shrugs as he rises himself. “We all do what we do. You bring the merchandise?”

GM: “We all try to bring a little cheer wherever we can,” the doctor agrees, smiling widely. “I tried to bring some to your bedside when I treated you, you know! Research shows patients in happier moods recover faster and more fully.”

The sounds of footsteps and the clink of chains grow audible past the downpour. Along with moans.

Emmett: “I remember.”

Stop smiling.

GM: Em sees the first of them, a broken-looking man with vacant eyes, and an iron collar fastened around his neck. Chains link it to another collar and another broken soul behind him, another man whose mouth has been… Em can only describe it as fused shut. His eyes are numb with despair. Another chain followers behind his collar. It links to another, and another behind it. As the shuffling line of thralls emerges from the fog, Em can see over a dozen souls held in bondage, all told. Some are men. Some are women. Some are men. Some are young. Some are old. One looks no older than 12. Some have had their hands chopped off. Some have had their mouths and eyes fused shut. But most numbly shuffle along without any visible restraints save for the collars and chains. Bob and Mark stroll along their sides, armed with long knives.

“Oh, I’d be surprised if you remembered everything,” the dead doctor winks.

“And here they are! I suppose you should lead the way, Emmett. Where are we headed to this merry night?”

Emmett: He gets to his feet and starts to walk, smiling vaguely.

As they proceed into the Garden District, past ruined villas and manors, Em asks, “What don’t I remember, Jared?”

GM: They are already in the Garden District, but Em’s path starts to carry them to 1415 Third Street. The softly moaning convoy follows behind them, chains clinking in its wake.

Doc Brown just grins. “You were in and out of it. And out of it for quite a bit. The hospital staff can get very playful!”

Emmett: “Including you? You always had a bit of a reputation for, ah, playfulness.”

They’re close, now. Em keeps his mind on maintaining a leisurely pace, on leading his fellow dead to their doom as calmly as possible.

Plus, he’d like to get a straight answer before Brown becomes chow.

GM: The doctor chuckles. “My goodness no, Emmett! You did have AIDS, after all. I certainly didn’t want to risk catching that. No, the two of us had to have fun in other ways.”

Emmett: “Don’t get prudish with the details now, doctor. We’re no longer in the flesh.”

Just around the corner, now.

GM: “That’s right, Emmett,” the forever-bleeding doctor grins, his dark eyes twinkling.

“We’re so much more.”

Suddenly, the fog stirs like a monster’s exhaling breath. Mark and Bob grasp their weapons.

A pained, inhumanly low noise as though the earth were screaming splits the air. They come out of nowhere. At least half a dozen figures, gaunt of figure and grim of visage, with cruel-looking weapons drawn at the wraiths. They emerge from patches of solid midnight, dark shadows clinging to them like cobwebs.

“Make this easy and you’ll be thralls. Make this hard and you’ll be soulslag,” sneers one of the figures.

“Look at ‘em all! We’ve hit jackpot!” whoops another one.

Emmett: Em keeps his calm, though it’s touch and go for a moment. A glance at Jared tells him the doctor isn’t surprised.

“You know these gentlemen, Jared?”

GM: Doc Brown’s smile notably dips.

“I can’t say that I do, but I suppose it’s no shocker someone would want to rob this many thralls.”

Emmett: He nods, then raises his voice.

“Howdy there. Whom do I have the honor of addressing?”

Egotistic pricks love the whom. Really gets their dicks hard.

GM: Outnumbered at least three to do one, Bob drops his weapon in seeming surrender. Mark sprouts molting wings and takes to the air. Several of the figures collide into him like flashes of dark lightning. He hits the ground hard, but Em can’t see what happens next as the shadowy figures fan out around Em and Doc Brown, attempting to shove them to their knees. Two other pry open steel collars. Soft moans waft up from them.

One of the figures walks up close to Em.

Real close.

The shadows run off his face like water. Em sees a slashed-open, bleeding throat. Like Doc Brown’s, but neater and tidier.

Along with a familiar face.

“Still honored, cuz?”


Emmett: Hey, Gasper. Can you talk to his Shadow and find out what our cousin needs more than anything right now? I’ll make you stronger for it.

“Jermaine,” Em says out loud. “I’m honored by my luck. Small underworld, huh?It’s been a while, cousin.”

GM: “Pretty big, actually,” his cousin replies with a mean smile.

“Bet you’re wondering why you’re running into me here.”

He holds up a forestalling hand to the shade with the collar, but the kneeling Em and Doc Brown are swiftly surrounded by Jermaine’s apparent friends.

“Well, you’ve been wandering all over the afterlife like an asshole. I thought about just jumping you, the first time I saw you.”

“But that lacked something. Being dead’s taught me to be patient. And I thought, what kind of man is my cousin?”

Emmett: “A forgivable man?”

GM: “I guess we’ll see how forgiving you are in a bit.”

There’s that same iron-hard and iron-sharp smile.

“But my cousin’s always got a hustle going. He’s always running some kind of score.”

“I waited. And you led me right here.”

His eyes sweep out across the mass of chained thralls.

“What a score. Whole shipment of Hierarchy thralls.”

Yawn. I’m already gonna be the strongest Shadow in the Underworld after you feed all those assholes to dear Maman.

Emmett: Sure, but that only happens if this conversation goes the way it needs to.

“Not compared to what we were about to spring,” Em replies. “The thralls are just the buy-in to a much, much bigger game.”

He spreads his arms, as if to welcome a hug.

GM: Oh, you’ll find a way, Emmett. You always do. I’m gonna need more than ‘make you stronger.’

“Really,” says Jermaine.

His cousin doesn’t look in a very hug-giving mood.

Emmett: That’s preposterous. Everybody wants a hug.

Still, he folds his arms. “Well, if you want to be skeptical about it, that’s fine, but I’ll tell you the same thing I told these fine reapers,” Em says, flourishing his arms from the ground, his palms open and appeasing. “There’s a woman who has more oboli than you could stuff in a fridge, just aways down the road. 1415 Third Street, actually. You ever been?”

GM: “Suppose I may in a bit,” says Jermaine.

“They must’ve been about to sell her those thralls,” says one of the other figures.

“Could do that ourselves,” says another.

“Or just take her oboli and keep the thralls.” A third.

Emmett: Em gives him a pair of finger-guns.

Timeless.

“She’s expecting me. I’ll be happy to introduce you. Help you take her by surprise. And maybe, in return, you could keep my share of the take, seeing as how we’re both victims of circumstance, ultimately.”

It was very circumstantial, your murder.

GM: “How convenient,” Jermaine says flatly.

“How about your friends here?”

Doc Brown’s smile looks more entreating than sinister.

Emmett: Em studies the nails on his dead man’s hand. The few of them that remain, anyways.

“Well, that depends on who you work for, Jay. That, and how they feel about the Hierarchy.”

GM: “I work for the same guy I’ve always worked for, cuz.”

“Me.”

Emmett: “Wouldn’t have it any other way. What do you think of the Hierarchy, boss-man?”

GM: “Hmm. So we can let go four wraiths, who I’m sure will be happy to get robbed in return for not getting slapped with Nhudri’s embrace.”

“Or we can just collar them and sell them without any risk of getting stabbed in the back.”

“Try harder, cuz.”

Em sees it in his eyes.

Jermaine is enjoying this.

Watching him squirm.

Watching him try to talk his way out of trouble.

Emmett: “Who said anything about letting us go? I’m just saying we’re wasted as thralls. I’m more the kind of help you employ. Look, I’ll make you a bet. You like bets, right?”

GM: “When the odds favor me.”

Emmett: “Okay, well, let me give you a win-win. Let me show you to the place. We’re not ten minutes from it. I won’t bolt, we both know I wouldn’t make it around the corner with this many guys on us. I’ll bring you to the lady these upstanding gentlemen had decided to rob. We’re on good terms, and she’s loaded—and she’s looking for friends on this side of the Shadowlands. Let me introduce you. If you don’t make more oboli from shaking her down than you would a few extra thralls, I’ll give you something more valuable to you, still. The name of the bitch that made me kill you, and how you can find her. And, you know, you’ll enslave me and cut off little bits of my corpus and feed them to me, and all that.”

“But, if I win, and you admit you’re satisfied, then I’m not your enemy. I’m your second. Your personal Sandman. And then I can start making you lots, and lots, and lots of money.”

He’s so close. So close to getting them where he needs them.

He only needs his cousin to bite.

GM: Jermaine stares at him.

He doesn’t smile.

Em probably can’t make him any less pissed off about his own death.

But directing that anger onto something else? Someone else?

That he can do.

That’s something he knows how to do very well.

He spent his whole life (or at least adolescence) pouring self-hate into external hate, after all.

His cousin extends a wordless hand to the prone wraith.

Emmett: Em takes it.

As he rises, he glances at Jared and happens to catch his eyes.

“Oh, and these lot have a whistle on them that summons legionaries, I’d get that off them, Jared over there looks very… whistley.”

GM: Doc Brown chuckles.

“My goodness, Emmett. Those things do have a limited range, you know.”

“But I suppose while we’re speaking of legionnaires… "

“Collar them. Now,” snaps Jermaine.

Suddenly, dark shapes materialize from the fog.

They’re humanoid shapes, garbed in heavy gray clothing under armor resembling that of the Roman legions. Their helmets mimic human skulls. Cruel-looking swords bristle from their arms.

Wordless war cries go up from both sides. Blades flash, biting deep into spectral flesh. Jermaine’s sword sends a legionnaire’s head tumbling from his shoulders. Doc Brown stabs his hands into a wraith’s face, laughing as the corpus comes apart in oozing chunks. The one menacing Bob gets basted off his feet by an unseen force. Mark vanishes into a patch of shadow, then reappears behind one of Jermaine’s crew, knife slashing across the wraith’s throat.

A few ghosts in the mass of bound thralls try to run, tugging desperately at their chains, shouting for the others to make a break for it. Many just stand there apathetically, literal dead weight against their fellows, but the chained mass starts to sluggishly move away.

Emmett: Em, for his part, works to ensure both that Jermaine’s team comes out ahead, and that the huddled masses stay conveniently in place. A nightmare mass of glaring, spectral eyes and fanged mouths straight out of a horror game (Domestic Wickedness 3: The Blob-Things, to be exact) burrows from the ground and scatters the encroaching legionnaires, allowing Jermaine’s crew with their lesser numbers to regroup. Then said blob menaces the straggling thralls, making them stumble over and entangle each other in blind panic.

Nothing’s ever allowed to just work, is it?

GM: Em’s conjured nightmare conjures dread indeed among the thralls. The ones trying to escape shriek with terror at the sight of it and try to flee back the other direction. With the battling wraiths behind them, and the weight of their more apathetic members dragging the more animated ones down, the desperate mass of damned souls gets nowhere fast.

Jermaine’s outnumbered crew, however, fares worse against the Hierarchy’s legions. Ear-splitting shrieks split the gloom, loud enough to make Em feel like his head will explode. Blood rains from the sky, melting corpus on contact. The wraiths on both sides are relentless warriors, fighting past gaping wounds, past loss of their limbs, past all the frailties of living bodies. There’s one particularly vicious Hierarchy wraith, adorned in a featureless steel mask, whose sword cuts down three of Jermaine’s crew. Shrieking black voids yawn up to swallow most of the defeated, though a few collapse to the ground and writhe with pain as their foes clamp collars around their necks. The battle comes to an end when Jermaine gives it up and dives into a shadow.

Emmett: It’s not the first battle he’s been in the middle of.

It is the messiest, though. His corpus drips with ectoplasmic ichor. He weaves and floats and dances among from the carnage, his only priority his survival and not letting that steel-faced brute catch him; the featureless figure seems to be looking at him intently, for some reason.

Probably jealousy. It’s often jealousy.

GM: “Don’t go a-running now, Emmett! We still need to meet the nice lady together!” smiles Doc Brown as the masked legionnaire lunges after Em with a collar.

He can try to still deliver the Hierarchy to Abélia in chains.

Or he can flee a free man.

Lamarck: There’s no such thing as an easy come up, but why does it always end up like this around him. Ever blood-soaked, ever spiraling further into madness. Death sacrificing death. He can see it all, the brutal slaughter, the gory explosions of wraithly forms, the terrible pull of the nihils on the bodies of his fallen combatants. No one could blame him for losing his focus in the tempest.

But in this darkest, most important of moments, his sight becomes as sharp as any one of the Hierarchy’s soulforged daggers.

And in the crystal clarity he sees one of Jermaine’s men with fury in his eyes staring directly at him. He’s a boulder of a man, and his black, veil-like clothing is draped over stone-grey muscles that shift like quaking tectonic plates as he takes a thunderous step forward in the carnage.

The hulk of a wraith opens his gorilla-like maw and starts to roar something at Emmett, ectoplasmic spittle already hitting his face, and then he is silent.

The eyes of the tank go painfully wide as his jaw drops and two ectoplasm-soaked blades stab through his gut and pull up, tearing through his dead entrails. The blades stab in and out of his form again and again, tearing two windows through the dead man’s insides.

The gore-spattered blades run him through and through, and then they go further, and they don’t end at hilts but arms, which stretch out a man-sized hole in the unfortunate wraith. The blade-handed man crawls like devilspawn out of his womb, and stands proud in the dead corpse, grasping a length of its intestines and biting into his trophy.

As he steps past the soon-opening oversized nihil that the corpse falls into, not seeming to notice the dead conman, Emmett catches a view of the mad butcher’s blood-soaked face.

It couldn’t be. But it has to be. He wears the same predatory grin he did when Emmett put on that terrible collar.

He’s back.


Emmett: When it’s all over, though, he can count. It’s five against one.

Oh, and Lamarck. Because why not. He accepted long ago that God, fate, the universe, whatever, was determined to quash his hopes and dreams.

“Let’s talk about this,” Em says, and then the collar snaps shut around his neck.

GM: The pain is as horrific as it was last time. Searing hot flames and powerful surges of numbing cold rip simultaneously through his mind and corpus. Even his Shadow screams inside his head. A shrill chorus of agonized shrieks seems to simultaneously ring from the collar’s dull surface.

“Ah, today is a good day! So many new thralls!” smiles Doc Brown.

Emmett: He screams.

A part of him knows he deserves it.

GM: “I presume you’ll want this one for yourself, sir,” the doctor addresses the masked wraith.

Emmett: “Marck,” he gasps, at some point in between the screams. “’La… Marck. The… collar. I took off… your… collar. Chains. Not collar. Please.”

GM: The masked wraith doesn’t say anything. Just folds his arms and stares at Em.

Bob laughs and glances at Lam.

“This one stole every artifact to your name, didn’t you say?”

Emmett: “Spared… the… collar.”

Lamarck: The ectoplasm-soaked butcher’s boots squelch against the wet ground as he lands his gaze on Emmett. He smiles sickly, sharpening the blades extending off his arms against each other. The metal shrieks.

Bob’s words don’t seem to affect him, perhaps it’s all water under the bridge.

“Zis von, ist very klever. Very klever in-deed.”

Lamarck frowns.

“But terribly foolish. And so green. I vould hef had gut use for you too, Emmett, but ze commander insisted. You vould hef made gut entertainment, zandmann.”

Emmett: Ah, well. Worth a shot.

OhjesusfuckthePAIN.

A distant corner of his soul, untouched by the freezing agony, watches. And waits.

Waits for them to make him walk, and lead them to their doom.

GM: The masked wraith brushes a hand against Emmett’s cheek, almost tenderly. Em feels wet ectoplasmic blood against his skin, from the taller figure’s glove. It doesn’t smell like any blood he’s been around before. It doesn’t smell like anything.

Emmett: Bad touch, he would say if he wasn’t screaming.

But he is, sadly, screaming.

“CUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNTfuckkIKeChrIST!”

GM: There’s soft laughter at his cries. Then the figure takes off the skull-patterned mask.

He smiles fondly. Like a father being reunited with a long-lost son.

Or a daughter.

“Hello, Em.”


Emmett: Called it, Em thinks.

Out loud, he says, “FUCKUNTABITCH!”

GM: Em would say his former john looks good, but he doesn’t. He looks dead.

“My sweet little boywhore,” he murmurs, pulling Em into an embrace that’s almost warm. Em feels too-cold steel against his chest as Mark brushes a hand through his hair.

“I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve spent seven years thinking of you.”

“Thinking of the things I’m going to do to you.”

“There are so many, many things.”

“I’d say I don’t even know where to start, but I do. I’ve spent seven years thinking about where we’re going to start.”

Emmett: At least now he knows that if he doesn’t pull this off, he’ll literally be a sex slave. Nothing like a good incentive.

Em looks to Doc Brown. “Rich… make you… rich.”

GM: The doc just laughs. Rivulets of ectoplasmic skin and fat run down his chin, mingling with the blood spurting from his slashed throat. He hasn’t even bothered to clean it off.

“Oh, we’re all going to come out of this rich, all right.”

“First, we’re going to visit the masquers,” says Stines. “There are some really good ones in the necropolis here. They’re going to give you an enormous pair of tits. Just enormous. They’ll be so heavy you can’t even walk with a straight back. They’ll give you long hair, makeup, giant eyelashes, fat dicksucking lips, the whole nine yards. They’ll also get rid of those clothes you have on, and replace them with something frilly and lacy that ends with a skirt, which they’ll fuse to your skin. I’m going to tell them to make the entire moliating process as long and painful as possible. They’ll be able to make it very painful, though not as much as what comes next.”

“All of that will just be the appetizer.”

Lamarck: Lamarck shakes his head at Emmett’s vulgarity with a smile that carries a certain almost paternal pride. Boys will be boys. And what’s the harm when the boy is under excruciating, debilitating pain?

But when the commander starts talking, his expression shifts, like that of a child taking their first bite out of a lemon their their parents promised would be sweet as sugar. No one cleared him on these details, it seems. He holds his tongue for the moment, but his grin transfigures into a grimace. Before the commander looks back, he hides his disgust behind his dead stare.

Emmett: Talk, talk, talk. Em doesn’t bother to listen to it. If it ends up happening, he won’t need to spoilers, and if it doesn’t, he’d rather not know to begin with.

Plus, well.

The pain.

“CooWFuckerKIKE!”

GM: Stines just smiles and pulls back, brushing Emmett’s cheek again.

“Because once you’re dolled up, once we’ve got you looking ready for one of our dates again—and you’re going to look like that forever, the process is permanent—we’re going to visit the soulforges, you and I. I’m going chain you down to a low table, with your legs spread, and stick your dick right into those furious white flames. The artificers will get to work with their hammers and anvils, and they’ll forge it into a little keepsake for me, while it’s still attached to you. They’ll only slice it off at the very end. Do you have any idea how painful that process is? Just any idea? Getting your attached penis soulforged is most painful thing I could think of to do to you, and I’ve spent seven years thinking of painful things to do to you.”

“That little keepsake made from your dick is going to be a collar, by the way. Just like this one, and just as painful. But it’ll have a little tag that reads ‘Mark Stines’ pet bitch.’ Or maybe ‘dicksucking faggotgirl.’ I actually haven’t decided. It won’t even come with a lock. I’m going to have them weld it around your neck.”

Emmett: Is he still monologuing? Jesus fucking christ, you’d think a dead man would learn to appreciate how little anybody actually cared about what he had to say.

Still, almost feels rude not to give as good as he gets.

Em howls and hacks and sputters, but sways desperately close to Stines and looks him in the eyes.

Then he smiles, a pain-fueled grimace, a smile only a corpse could wear.

“How’s… the… wife?”

He even winks. Well, winces. But only with his left eye.

It’s wildly impudent.

Mark can see it in Em’s eyes, then. The worst thing a man like him can ever see in a victim’s eyes.

Em thinks he’s funny.

“Hehheh… heh… heh.”

His laughter turns into a scream. Or maybe the other way around. It’s not a nice noise, any which way.

GM: Stines’ cheeks don’t redden. There’s no color here.

Instead, the dead man’s ashen-hued face turns black with rage. Literally black, like someone spilled paint over it. Paint distilled from seven years of pent-up, fetering hate.

Stines belts him across the face, hard, crunching in his nose with a bloody spray. He throws Em to the ground. Falls on top. Brings down his fists again and again and again, beating Em until his face is a mashed-up, bloody ruin.

“Hey, you beat him too bad-” starts Bob, with a dubious look.

“SHUT UP!” roars Stines, his eyes bulging with hate.

He beats Em some more.

And some more.

His soldiers frown among themselves. Doc Brown trades a glance with Lam.

They’ve collared and chained up all the wraiths who didn’t flee or plummet into those black rents. Everyone is just standing there, waiting, as the commander throws his tantrum.

Emmett: It hurts.

But fuck, everything hurts, and every blow that lands tells him that Stines still knows Em’s winning.

Yeah, that’s what this is.

Winning.

“Ah’ll neVer… shOw yah where shh, she iS…” he hacks, between the howling laughter. "No o-bo, oboli, for yooou… "

Give Stines something to take from him. Something to bully him into.

GM: “1415 Third Street, Emmett,” smiles Doc Brown with a tsk-tsk tone. “You did say so, yourself!”

Emmett: He shakes his head. "Need me… to int, introduce… " but Stines is beating him and he’s screaming.

Lamarck: Lamarck looks on with disgust at Stines’ weakness. It’s a weakness he bore himself. Cut on Emmett’s sharp tongue. And collared as well. It’s disgraceful.

When Emmett brings up the oboli, he breaks his quiet by sniffing the air around Stines’ body and recoiling.

“Ze smell of his Shadow ist thick viz him, gentlemen. Es ist mein professional opinion zat ze dear commander ist under ze influence of his Shadow as ve speak. He’s undergoing catharsis. Ze Shadow might ruin his mission and throw away all our oboli if ve don’t take action to reshtrain him.”

He gestures to the collar that hangs around his belt.

“I might be able to calm him. But only ven he is reshtrained.”

Looking to Emmett writhing like a maniac on the floor, some part of Lamarck still has hope for himself. Maybe this is what altruism looks like. That’s what it is, after seventy years of enslaving the freshly dead, he’s turning a new leaf.

Bullshit. Of course not, whispers the Shadow into his ear. He’s doing this for himself. For money. And he can’t afford to fail. That’s why he calls on his Shadow when it offers it’s wares, and sells off one more bit of himself to his greatest weakness.

GM: The soldiers look at one another.

“Too many fucking times,” says one.

As one, the armored legionnaires yank Steins off Em and hold him down. He howls and bellows orders until they snap a collar around his neck.

Then he just screams.

“Regs are clear, sir. I’m assuming command,” says one, a grim-faced legionnaire missing his left eye. There’s just a steadily weeping pit of gray where it used to. “You’re relieved until the pardoners can calm down your Shadow.”

Emmett: Hahahahahahaha.

Oh my god, I think I might literally die from the pain. AGAIN.

GM: He looks at Lam. “Can you do it here, or do we need to take him back to the necropolis?”

Lamarck: Lamarck takes a moment to look at Emmett as the legionnaires wrestle and collar the degenerate rapist.

Lamarck a pardoner. Perhaps he was more ‘unharrowed’ than they expected.

He turns back to the new commander and responds,

“It’s likely best vor us to press on, acting kommander, unt let him tucker himself out. I vill check up on him every zo often, but I don’t vant to let zis effort go to vaste if ve don’t hef to.”

“Ze castigation process is kvite energy-intensive, unt I very vell might reqvire zat strength to finish zis mission. Ve kan get him some longer term treatment ven ve’re back if it appears necessary,” he assures.

GM: “All right,” says the one-eyed legionnaire. He motions at the others. “Chain them.”

The remaining legionnaires attach chains to Em’s and Stines’ collars, which they hook to the thrall first in line. Stines’ face is a mask of agony. He doesn’t resist the other wraiths.

But he still manages to shoot Em a look of pure, murderous hate.

Lamarck: Lamarck absentmindedly sharpens his blade-arms against each other, thinking, and then he approaches Emmett, and asks the now chained conman,

“All right, zo, vat ken you tell us about vat ze vun at ze address ist expekting of you? On a normal trip hier, vat vould you be doing to approach?”

GM: Bob laughs.

Emmett: Em screams and gesticulates wildly to his collar.

GM: “Why the fuck would he tell us anything close to the truth now?”

“I take it back, you know. You’re not my kind of scum.”

He delivers a swift kick to the screaming wraith’s flank.

Lamarck: “Because Bob, wiz ze oboli ve ken collect from a successful operation, unt ze delivery of ze ozer thralls, ve can afford to offer zis von a chance at mercy. He ist a being of opportunity. Unt right now, beink honest ist ze only opportunity he has if he vants to get zat collar off.”

Emmett: Em gives a thumbs up.

He doesn’t stop screaming.

GM: “Or he could just lie,” Doc Brown smiles.

“Well. More, that is.”

His grin spreads.

“I’m afraid your only future is as a large-breasted sex toy, Emmett.”

Emmett: He shrugs. Pleads, with his hands.

But mostly screams.

GM: The doctor laughs.

“What a sissy,” says Bob.

“Well, it does take them some time to get used to,” says Doc Brown.

Lamarck: “Vat ze commander vishes to do viz him ist zomething he can handle upon ze castigation of his Shadow. For now, I vant ze oboli. If zat takes taking off his kollar, zen so be it.” Lamarck reasserts.

“Unt he should know,” Lamarck says, holding his literal sword-arm up to Emmett, “Zat I am proficient in zat kapacity az vell. If he gets any ideas, I’m happy to demonstrate.”

Emmett: Em manages to stop screaming long enough to squeak out a particularly high-pitched “Please!”

GM: Bob kicks him again.

“Enough,” growls the one-eyed legionnaire.

Emmett: “Enough,” wheezes Em in agreement.

GM: He looks at Doc Brown. “You warned us about this one. He was behind the illusions?”

The doctor nods. “Struck a deal with the renegades, too.”

“This was a setup?”

“Spontaneous, it seemed like.”

He looks at Em. “Well, renegade, tell you what. Answer our questions, and we’ll let you go. You won’t get any of the spoils, but you won’t be a spoil either.”

Em’s told enough lies in his time to smell another one.

“Anything you hear from him is suspect,” cautions Doc Brown.

Emmett: Em tries to disagree, but finds himself screaming instead.

Somebody should really take off that collar.

GM: The one-eyed legionnaire gestures to two others with an irritated look. They shove Em to the ground and pin him with their arms and knees. But the acting commander unlocks the collar. The sheer relief hits Em like a gut punch.

Emmett: “Oh thank fuuuuck,” he practically sings as the soulforged torture-steel leaves . “Okay! Okay, in order of importance. I’m not a ‘renegade,’ I’m just a prick, all right? I just look out for myself, like everybody else does. Nothing more to it than that. These fine gentlemen captured me, I told them my situation and how they might make some oboli and they let me go. We were on our way to the deal, my jerk cousin showed up and made like I was about to be soulslag. So I sold them down the river to him. Now you lot are in control, so I’m on your side again. Look, it’s not fucking ideological, I just really like my own skin, is that so wicked? Now, what do you want to know?”

Tongue like a fucking turbine.

Lamarck: “All right. Zo, first zings first. On an average meeting, vat’s your approach?”

Emmett: “I fly in and bow in the yard. I say whatever flowery shit comes to mind. Then the doors open. I go in. She’s normally waiting in there. The Devillers witch.”

“I don’t know what she is, exactly. Not dead. Not alive. Not a lick. But she’s got oboli. Whopping big safe full. And she’s, um, well, she doesn’t like you lot very much. The Hierarchy. She sent me out to feel out some recruits. Potential, I guess you would call them renegades, but she pitches it using words like ‘opportunity’ and ‘ground floor.’ You know, she’s looking for ambitious Caspers who don’t like wearing the uniform or getting their wanking hand turned into a cutlass.”

He chooses to wait, at this point, for questions.

Lamarck: Lamarck chews on that answer like a goat would his cud, long and slow.

“Ah, I see. Unt zer ist no one zer to open ze doors? Zey just open? You think she can see you from inside? Hev you ever tried to open ze doors yourself, without alerting her?”

Emmett: He shakes his head. “She’s got some kind of power over the house. She won’t be easy to surprise there. I know she can be lied to, though, I’ve done it before. Let me walk you up there. No chains, no collar, or she’ll know something’s off.”

The bruises and bleeding inflicted by Stines’ beating are already fading, his corpus restoring itself and his face to its usual charming proportions.

“Look, I get that I’m scum, you can’t trust me, whatever, but that’s just the best way to get her to come out on our terms. It’s not like I’ll be able to get away from you if chucking you down that elevator shaft didn’t do the trick. I’ll behave. I mean, it’s five of you against her. Like I said, earlier.” He nods to Bob. “I’m scum who can count.”

GM: The other wraiths don’t immediately reply, seemingly content for the pardoner to finish his questioning first.

It’s a tough-looking audience.

When isn’t it?

Lamarck: “So, no shneaking up on her, or her oboli. Ve hef to get her to open ze gates of her own volition. Zen ven ve’re in ve’re good to get her. Zat’s ze deal? Like ze Trojan horse. Ve just need to get through ze gates.”

His sword arms scrape against each other further. Emmett can’t help but notice how honed the edge has become.

“Unt vat vill she think ven zer are armed wraiths and legionnaires at her doorstep viz you? You don’t hev a horse to hide us in, do you?” he asks with a hint of humor.

Emmett: “I was kind of imagining y’all would do your shadow-teleporting thing and swoop down from above. Once we get there, you can get into position.”

Lamarck: “I see.” He chews on that thought too. “Do you know her to have any particular blind spots or veaknesses? You’ve lied to her? Vat does she fall for?”

Emmett: “The same lies anybody believes, Lamarck. Ones about how she’s the prettiest woman you’ve ever seen and how she’s got you wrapped around her finger. She’s smart, but arrogant, like.”

Lamarck: “Vell, zat ist all very helpful. Your ko-operation ist noted,” Lamarck says with his permanent smirk, before turning back to his fellow wraiths for their thoughts.

GM: The one-eyed legionnaire seems to consider all that he’s heard.

“What about his Shadow?” he asks Lam. “How large a threat do you peg it?”

Lamarck: Emmett sees Lamarck turn towards him once again, lean close, and inhale the dead air around him. The skin around his nose wrinkles and he slowly withdraws.

After seeming to consider it for a moment and looking back to ensure Emmett’s still held down, he answers, “Es ist qvuite ze stronk Shadow. It requires purifikation before ve kick zis off. Ve don’t vant it sabotaging ze operation.”

“I aem prepared to do zo, but I’ll need extra pathos to sustain my corpus in ze process.”

He looks to the one-eyed legionnaire.

“Akting kommander, ef I rekall correktly you are shkillt in usury. Vould you be villink to facilitate donations durink ze purifikation process?”

GM: “If I had a reason to throw pathos after this one,” the legionnaire answers levelly.

“Just snap a collar back on the fuck,” agrees Bob.

Emmett: “I might be better placed to distract the lady and give you gentlemen the opening you need if I’m not screaming in agony,” Em suggests.

GM: “Who the fuck cares what the pardoner says, sir. Let’s just get a damn move on,” says Bob.

“I suppose we aren’t getting any younger, are we now?” smiles Doc Brown.

“Cute,” says another legionnaire.

GM: “We’ve already gone to all the effort of lugging these thralls here,” says another legionnaire.

“Caught a few more, to show for it,” says another.

The one-eyed legionnaire looks at Em. “You’ll approach the house to sell the thralls. Brown and Norman will go with you. We’ll also give you some extra incentive to stay loyal.”

He produces a dull-looking knife and stabs it right into Em’s heart. The blade pierces Em’s corpus like it’s made of clay, and the sensation doesn’t hurt as much as Em probably thinks it should, though it isn’t a comfortable feeling either. A dull chill seeps through Em’s chest after a few moments.

The one-eyed legionnaire looks at Brown. “Say ‘command word’, and he’ll get what’s coming to him.”

“With pleasure,” smiles Brown.

“We’ll be watching you for any illusions, too, Mr. Sandman,” says Bob.

The one-eyed legionnaire makes a signal, and just like that, they vanish again into shadow. Em and his two ‘companions’ lead the fettered thralls up to the Walter Robinson House. It’s a short trip. The gates are closed when they get there, but Em can see through them to the other side, unlike last time.

Also unlike last time, the house’s yard consists of dead and withered grass rather than skulls. The living darkness smothering the building is also absent. The property appears as ordinary as any of its neighbors.

“Knock knock,” smiles Doc Brown.

Emmett: Dammit, dammit, dammit. One more fucking hoop to jump through, eh? Well, stick a tail up my ass and call me a bunny.

“No worries, Bob,” he says as they approach, the house’s participation in his chicanery only vaguely registering next to the knife in his heart. “Got me cornered, you have. No more tricks up my sleeve.”

Gasper, you still want me to shove these pricks down her gullet, yeah? I need a favor to make that happen, if you’re game.

Knock, knock, go his dead man’s knuckles against the door. He expects it to sound like knocking on a coffin.

GM: I’m game to cut a deal.

Em’s hand passes through the translucent gate like so much smoke. Bob and Brown trade amused looks as they follow him up the house’s front steps, their line of weakly moaning thralls in tow.

But the house itself is opaque to the wraiths’ sight. When Bob gives an experimental knock, the door silently swings open. The inside is pitch dark.

It feels like opening a coffin.

“There’s too many to bring inside,” frowns Bob. “Get her to come out.”

GM: The two wraiths look impatient.

“There’s a collar back there with your name on it, if you can’t,” growls Bob.

Emmett: “Uh huh,” Em says.

Get Brown’s Shadow to pull him into a harrowing, I’ll let you decide what we do to him when he pops back out. Even shit I’d normally fight. Plus, I’ll make you stronger, obviously. Deal?

“As you wish,” he says aloud, and steps into the perfect pitch black of the house.

GM: Bob plants a hand on Em’s shoulder.

“Yeah, leave you to go warn her we’re out here, or lead us into an ambush. Maybe you should just try yelling it’s you?”

Uh huh, I’m already gonna get a lot stronger, and there’s nothing I’d do to that smiling fuck you also wouldn’t. Swear to kill Lena, on your soul—which I’ll get if you try to weasel out—and I’ll get the good doc’s Shadow to play ball.

Emmett: You know that’s a nonstarter. Nightmares about her kids dying, take it or leave it.

Em shrugs off the hand. Worth a try.

“Madame,” he croons, “I have brought you your thralls, and those who would sell them. They shan’t fit in the house. Would you deign to meet us outside? I told these gentlesouls your beauty could make a garden bloom, and I quite look forward to being proven right.”

He glances at Brown.

An idea blossoms.

“And if she would join us… your eldest might find the company invigorating.”

GM: Em’s Shadow does not answer him.

But the darkness does.

A figure steps out. It looks like Abélia, down to the pale skin and black hair, but that’s where it ends. The cheeks are a bit rounder, the smile less knowing, the eyes less dark. Her dress looks like a real dress, moves like a real dress, rather than a living extension of the night itself. The figure looks exactly like her, but somehow robbed of all that she is.

The facsimile smiles.

“Hello, gentlesouls. I bid you welcome to my home.”

Even the voice sounds off.

“My eldest shall be along momentarily… I’m afraid she can’t see you, but perhaps you might find her company invigorating?”

Emmett: And just like that, the game is still on.

Em keeps his face composed even as he ponders his next move.

“How could we not, when she’s your spitting image?”

GM: “How could we not, if she’s as lovely as you, madam,” smiles Doc Brown. “Aren’t you going to introduce us, Emmett?”

Emmett: Em lets a moment pass so the copycat compliment can linger like the bad fart it is before he speaks.

“Madame Devillers, Dr. Jared Brown is an old associate from my breathing days and currently employed as a thrall-hunter by… well, I’m sure he can list his credentials more precisely than myself. Oh, and that’s Bob. His sidekick. Bob, Jared, this apparition is Madame Abélia Devillers, and her needs for spectral muscle are, as I’ve mentioned, substantial.”

He glances at Bob. “That means ‘large.’”

GM: “Cute,” says Bob. Em gets a very mean-looking smile.

The facsimile gives an airy laugh. “It’s my privilege to make both of your acquaintances. And you’ve some thralls to sell, I hear from Mr. Delacroix?”

“Why yes, madame. A whole 22,” smiles Doc Brown. “We’re hopeful that many of them will meet your needs.”

Emmett: “Enfants mostly, I expect?” Em cuts in breezily.

GM: “A corpus is a corpus, at the end of the night,” smiles Doc Brown. “Though there aren’t many things as satisfying as snapping nhudri’s embrace around the neck of an arrogant older wraith. We certainly have a few of those!”

“I am certain they will serve splendidly, young and old,” smiles Abélia. “Please, take me to them.”

“We’re going to ask that you bring your oboli with you, ma’am,” says Bob. “Standard rule for prospective customers.”

“Why, of course… I’m certain you’re used to dealing with all manner of unscrupulous sorts,” agrees the facsimile. “A moment, please.”

She disappears back inside the house.

Doc Brown and Brown both smile at Em.

They’re smiles as nice as is typical for the pair.

Emmett: “She’s nice, isn’t she?” Em smiles back. “And wait ‘til you meet the daughter. You’ll like her, Brown. I did. Bob, she doesn’t have any sons, but you can probably get a handy from one of the thralls. You know, as a going away gift. If the doc gives you permission, I mean.”

GM: “That’s also cute. Still not as much as you’re going to be with a giant pair of tits as the commander’s fucktoy,” leers Bob.

Emmett: Em grins.

GM: “He’s been fantasizing about what he’ll do to you for years. Had a lot of stories down in the necropolis.”

Emmett: “Yeah, and I bet you listened to all of them, eh? You’re right, Bobby boy. You’re not scum like me. I’d rather get fucked by your boss in the taint than spend my afterlife choosing to follow him around like a dead fucking groupie. At least Brown knows why he’s a rapist. It’s because he likes the power. You don’t even realize why nobody needs to put you on your knees. It’s because you wind up there your own damn self.”

He just needs Brown to crack a smile. To break ranks for a moment. A snicker will be enough, if he’s got Bob’s number right.

And he knows he has. The schmuck’s deathly garb is a wife-beater. He won’t like being laughed at.

Well, then again, nobody really does. Not even the dead.

GM: The other wraith’s face can’t turn red. But his eyes turn furious. Absolutely furious.

“You’ve got some lip on you. Command wo-!”

The knife flies out of Em’s chest.

“-rd!”

The blade turns solid black, then explodes in a shower of glassy, bleeding fragments. Em doesn’t want to think about what that would have done inside his corpus.

Dr. Brown shoots the other wraith an equally black look.

“Couldn’t leave that alone, could we, Bob?”

“Couldn’t wait all of five minutes?”

Emmett: Em stretches, his chest suddenly feeling miles lighter. “Don’t be too hard on him, doc. We can’t all be as cool as you. And let’s not get too worked up, eh? The lady’ll be back soon. And we have a sale to make.”

He regards the pitch darkness of the house plaintively. “Command word,” he scoffs. “Nobody ever bothers to change the factory settings, do they?”

GM: He’s heard of bondage couples who use “safeword” too.

And also children’s show critters.

Bob just glares.

Nobody talks. The facsimile eventually re-emerges, though, along with Cécilia. She looks straight past the three wraiths as if oblivious to their presences.

Several chests on little carts follow along with Abélia. They’re heaped high with colorless coins stamped with a masked figure and bearing a reaper’s scythe. Low moans go up from them.

Emmett: “Shall I bite one?” Em offers.

GM: “Seems like you’re pretty used to experimenting with things in your mouth,” says Bob.

Abélia only smiles and gazes out at the line of fettered thralls as if noticing them for the first time.

“Please, tell me of them. This white-haired one looks of exceptionally fine stock?” she inquires, looking towards Mark Stines.

Emmett: “I can certainly vouch for his stamina. Easy to manipulate, though,” Em chimes in.

“Of course, that might be a pro, not a con.”

GM: “Very good,” smiles the facsimile.

“I shall be happy to purchase all of these thralls.”

Doc Brown smiles back at her, then blows his whistle. It sounds like the screams of the damned. Dark shapes suddenly materialize out of nowhere, clad in the Hierarchy’s skull-and-bones armor. They fall upon the facsimile with collars and chains, burying it beneath the weight of their numbers as they bind it fast.

The facsimile, Cécilia, and the carts full of oboli abruptly dissolve into oily black sludge.

Some of the legionnaires’ gazes turn sharp with surprise.

Bob just roars,“GET HIM!” and tackles after Em.

Emmett: “Sorry, boys.” Em deftly weaves away from Bob, retreating back towards the house. “You bet on the wrong horse. Or beat the dead horse. Because we’re ghosts? Get it? Oh, never mind, I bungled it.” He sprouts wings and flaps into the air, stares down at his old tormentor. “Hey, Doc Brown? You really should have stopped smiling.”

He spreads his arms wide, the pitch-black doorway looming behind him.

“Your larder, madame.”

GM: The house ripples as though from a mirage’s heat waves.

The ground beneath the wraiths does too. The gates and fence suddenly grow solid and opaque to their deathless eyes.

Lamarck: Lamarck catches Emmett’s eyes from beside the mass of legionnaires. The blade-armed man sprouts two great wings which unfurl as he twirls into the air. At first he seems to grin, but then as the illusion melts melts away, so does his levity. There’s an unstated question in his gaze, Please.

Emmett: Em spots a certain Kraut in the crowd. “Maybe leave that one. He’s all sinewy. He’ll behave, won’t you, Lamarck?”

GM: An abyss yawns wide over the house. Enormous, tree-sized tendrils of dripping darkness squeeze about its walls, whose geometric angles seem off and no longer fully euclidean. Staring at them makes the wraiths’ heads hurt. Black, tar-like blood runs down the building’s side like oily tears. The ground is no longer dead grass, but row upon row of human skulls and flesh-picked bones.

But its true shape is but the precursor.

Lamarck: The Amerikan kraut doesn’t hesitate a lick at the offer. Maybe it’s that they’ve ran into a trap and only Emmett seems comfortable. Or maybe he’s developed a soft spot for the young sandman.

Either way, he flies before Emmett to brandish his swordarms in his defense.

“Of kourse I vill, Emmett.”

Emmett: It’s definitely the first one.

Lamarck: Perhaps Lamarck was surprised at first how comprehensively Emmett’s soul was tainted. So young, so struck with naiveté about the world of the dead. This very same soul even tried to save him from his own sins and even offered him a way out.

One glimpse at the true form of the mistress he serves dispels any and all such illusions. He averts his eyes immediately and looks to Emmett gravely.

“Vas ist das, mein Freund? Mein Gott in Himmel.”

There’s no power to his voice, no outward presence at all. Just a cold, concentrated mixture of fear and awe that flirts with Oblivion.

Emmett: “That’s my madame, Mr. All-American. Now shut up and watch the show.”

GM: The doors burst open, vomiting out a tidal wave of pure darkness. Shapes swim through it, like a spider’s writhing hairy legs, a shark’s gnawing teeth, and a kraken’s grasping tentacles, all at once, as though the night itself and all its terrors were come alive with hunger. The black tide floods over the wraiths like a vast web enveloping a cloud of flies, then sucks them in.

No one is spared. The legionnaires, the thralls, Doc Brown and his associates, Lamarck, Em: all souls are food for the void past the house’s yawning doors. The legionnaires hack away with their swords, slicing off chunks of dripping darkness that transform into scuttling spiders and writhing maggots as they hit the bone-lined ground. Em and Lam watch as their corpi blacken and rot before their eyes. Wholesale chunks disappear as though gnawed away. Em looks down where some of his used to be, and sees himself in his old apartment’s dumpster, screaming over his lost legs. He and Lam struggle and beat their wings, taking advantage of the house’s preoccupation with so many other victims to extricate themselves. Lam fights like hell and tears himself from the darkness first, coated in oily-smelling black bile. Em suffers far worse before he’s spat out, his legs resembling blackened bones gnawed clean of flesh.

A few of the legionnaires cut themselves free, too. The one-eyed legionnaire tears off Stines’ shackles and shouts something indistinct before his head disappears beneath the nightmare tide. Bob just screams as he’s sucked past the house’s doors. He does not reemerge. Mark rips open a dark tear in the ground and prepares to dive through, then screams as black tendrils explode from the rift and drag him inside. The other legionnaires, shouting not to open nihils here, sprout wings and take to the air. The house ravenously drags back several, including the one-eyed legionnaire. Each wraith is swallowed through the house’s awful doors. Stines and Doc Brown soar furiously towards the starless sky.

Emmett: It take the last drop of Em’s powers to restore his wrecked corpus, but restore it he does, as his wings propel him upwards after his fleeing foes. He has no intention of letting the two biggest fish off their hooks.

He doesn’t even have the juice for an illusion. So he’s reduced to soaring within shouting range and hollering at the fleeing wraiths at the top of his lungs. The sound seems to carry all right, though. He supposes air isn’t so much a factor.

“That’s right, you limp-dicked FAGGOTS! Fly off! You think this is where it ends? I’ll find your fucking families and give them dreams about their cowardly casper cunts! You’ll remember that I fucked you harder than either of you fucked anybody, and you’ll remember it for-FUCKING-EVER!”

Bit crass, but he’s still reeling from the tentacular rape of his corpus. Luckily, they probably are too.

GM: Doc Brown flashes Em a humoring smile but seems to have no intention of flying back to certain death. After all, Em hasn’t actually done much of anything to him.

But the same can’t be said for Mark Stines.

The hate on the other wraith’s face is as black and festering as his ravaged and half-destroyed corpus. With a wordless scream, he launches himself back towards Em as he throws a punch, frothing and spitting (though no spittle flies from his dead lips) about the unspeakable things he’s going to do.

“YOU COCKSUCKER SISSY FUCKHOLE _YOU’RE MINE!”_

Emmett: Eh, he’ll take it.

He lets Stines get close. Too close. Dangerously close.

Then he tucks his wings and falls, plummeting from the skies like a sickly angel, forcing Stines to dive with him—

—so that the dead legionnaire can see Em’s grinning face fade away like a bad dream, the grin lingering behind as his rapist enters the house’s orbit once more, and a tentacle slithers around his blackened corpus.

“Bye, Stines,” the real Em says, just a few tantalizing feet out of reach. “It was nice seeing you again. Enjoy Oblivion. I hear it’s quiet.”

Lamarck: Up in the sky, as Doc Brown smiles down at Em, Lamarck beats his wings once again, spiraling with the quiet of the dead towards his hopefully unsuspecting quarry. He can’t let him escape, not after what he saw Lamarck do.

Lamarck’s corpus is fully healed. He escaped in time. This man was too busy ogling that woman—that thing’s daughter to have gone unscathed. That means he’s weak, and for Lamarck, there’s only one thing weakness can be met with.

He readies his last collar and then his arms shoot out from his body, stretching like endless vipers before clamping the cold steel around the resident rapist’s neck. A lengthy chain, held firm in his hand, extends from the collar to let the wraith’s tortured form hang from.

GM: Jared writhes and screams as the collar clicks shut around his neck. Both Lam and Em well recall its pain.

Blackness washes up from the house like a cloud of ink expelled into the sky. Nightmares roil within the surface, teeth and claws and less identifiable terrors out of mankind’s darkest memories. Doc Brown, already free-falling through the air as his wings cease to beat under the collar’s pain, is helpless to avoid his fate. The chain is yanked out Lam’s hands as Brown hits the cloud’s ‘surface’ and sinks into it like quicksand. He struggles and flails, but it only seems to make him sink faster. His arms disappear, then his hands, and finally his head.

The last the other two wraiths see of it, he isn’t smiling.

Just screaming.

Mark Stines’ fate is little kinder. His mouth opens in alarm. He beats his wings and tries to pivot, but he’s too slow. Darkness flows into his mouth. Stines gags and chokes, but when he tries to pull it out, his hands pass through like smoke. The darkness pours out of his ears, his nostrils, and his asscrack, and his screams get shriller. He stares at Em and Lam with terror-mad eyes. Finally the darkness bursts through his pores. The wraith splinters into a thousand pieces like shattered pottery. Em and Lam hear his screams echoing from each one.

Then the darkness washes over them too, and there’s only silence.

The black cloud hungrily flows up around Lam. Thicker tendrils lined with gnawing teeth and madly swiveling eyeballs shoot up to ensnare the wraith.

Lamarck: Lamarck’s form ripples and flows as the primeval blackness begins to surround him. His visage is wrought from an unholy mixture of yellow gall and freshly invigorated blood which show easily through his stretching ectoplasmic flesh and scraping bone. The old wraith roars and thrashes against the threat of Oblivion, his skin stretching to cover every vulnerable orifice and sprouting dark scales. Grasping hands erupt from his back wielding jagged blades which slash at the gnashing mouths that bite at his clawed feet.

Wings, once feathered and corvine sharpen into powerful skin-sails stretched over a spiny osseous frame. This crop he reaps is far from free. It comes from feeding the darkness within, fueling his Shadow. But oh is it worth it. Anything as long as those rapists get what they deserved, anything to see another day, even if it cuts into his soul.

Heavy wings beat against the dark and spiral his ever-shifting form out like a missile shot out of this hell.

A monster roars.

GM: Lam’s herculean struggle send the black cloud roiling like jello in a bowl. Black tendril after tendril lashes towards the wraith and plummet through the sky after he slashes them off, trailing their own small clouds of inky blood. Dozens of hungrily gnawings maws gibber incomprehensible blasphemies. Lam beats his wings mightily and soars higher, only for one last tendril to snake around his ankle. Needle-like teeth bite deep and the wraith’s corpus blackens as ugly veins spread up from the wound. More tendrils snake up from the black cloud. The starless sky stares pitilessly down as Oblivion’s siren song sweetly beckons. Why does he fight?

Emmett: “Madame! He’s served you tonight. Spare him and he will again!”

GM: The darkness rises up Lam’s legs like quicksand, heedless of Em’s words.

Emmett: Well, he tried.

Lamarck: Lamarck’s herculean task continues. He cannot give in, no matter how sweet the sound Oblivion is. It is a falsified rest, built from lies. Oblivion is the end of all that is good, the erasure of all hope down here. He’s fought over seventy years to reach true peace, to get his last works in order. Instead of fighting that fight, Oblivion has made his afterlife into an awful death march, ever growing closer as the necessary deeds he does strengthen the darkest parts of hos soul. Today is not the day he succumbs to its lies. He is sure of it. He wills it.

As he thrashes wildly to escape, further ectoplasmic blades erupt from his legs and attempt to excise the vile tendrils.

GM: The spikes draw gouts of inky blood as Lam slices through his assailant (assailants?). Coils of darkness roil towards him like striking serpents, one after another. Lam desperately tries to drive them back, pushing his soul and corpus to its uttermost limits. Black blood splashes his face like fast-flowing oil as his clawed hands rip and tear and whir through the air.

But he is too slow. Too small. The midnight tide rises higher and higher, an avalanche that can only be postponed, but not denied. The ex-pharmacist attempts a risky gambit and tears open a nihil in the sky. He dives for safety. Darkness pours after him.

But he is too slow.

Darkness envelops him like a tar pit. Phantasmal mouths assail him from all sides. Incomprehensible blasphemies ring in his ears. The former cab driver opens his mouth to scream, and then he vanishes into the darkness just like Brown and Stines.

Another soul to sate Maman’s hunger.

Emmett: And that’s that, then. The board is emptied, but for Em and all the fallen pieces. The sandman perches on the privacy wall of the house across the street, knees pulled to his chest in a crouch that would be uncomfortable if his muscles were corporeal, bat-like wings folded around him in a chiropteran shroud.

Emmett Delacroix watches the carnage he has wrought, listens to the screams of souls whose names he does not know being torn asunder. The thing in the house gorges itself on his gift.

Perhaps he expected to feel something, some satisfaction at the destruction of Stines and Brown. Both rapacious bullies who sneered at him when he was in their power and never conceived of how he might ruin them—and now they are gone, their souls ravaged and devoured, and he is here, dead but not dead, haunting the house across the street from the devil.

And he feels nothing at all, except relieved that he doesn’t have to think about them ever again.

He can feel Gasper swelling, pushing out whatever parts of him aren’t already cast in Shadow. Good. That way he doesn’t have to feel the guilt, the doubt, the parts of him that are worth saving but too painful to live with. Die with. Whatever. No more jokes, not tonight. There’s nobody to make laugh, anyways.

There’s just the waiting. So he waits.

GM: That’s it, Em. Just a little longer, and you won’t have to feel anything at all.

The house spares little thought for Lam as he escapes.

Not next to the feast before it.

They’re all there, still. The score of chained, doomed souls. Suspended in the morass of darkness just beyond the doors, hanging from it like flies caught in a spiderweb.

Some of them look like people Em could have known. Many of them, in fact, from all walks of life. Some look like party kids whose dreams of being young forever both came true and were forever denied. Some are older adults like his parents in sensible, grown-up clothes. Some are children clad in pajamas; Em wonders how they died. Some look like old men and women who died in their beds, still clad in hospital gowns. Some look like victims of drive-by shootings or gang violence. Some have slit wrists and look like they killed themselves. Some have blackened veins in their arms like he did, perhaps dead from one shoot-up too many.

Some of them beg and plead for their lives. Unlives. Whatever those are now. Some futilely tug at their fetters. Some scream, their voices mad with terror. A few accept their fate with bleak resignation.

In the end, all stand equal before death.

All stand equal before the death after death.

The house’s doors yawn cavernously wide. The damned souls shriek their final pleas and lamentations, or just scream with pure terror. It doesn’t matter. The universe doesn’t care. It never has. Bad things happen to good people and bad people and all people, because Em was right to Miranda, all those years ago. The world is sick and broken and it will take everything from people who don’t see it coming.

It’s impossible for the score of wraiths to escape, chained together as they are. What happens next reminds Em of the way someone might suck up a long piece of spaghetti. Just like that, the chained mass of wraiths is swallowed through the doors. Just like that, a score of existences are snuffed out without so much as a soul to mourn them.

Yet, even as the house feasts, Em can all but physically feel his Shadow swelling in his chest. Like oil in his veins, it blackens everywhere it spreads. It screams its exaltation over this feast of sin.

It’s not an unfamiliar feeling.

Em remembers back to one night after a “date” with Stines.

Stines pounded Em’s ass until it bled and he could barely walk in his high heels. When he sat down in Ray’s car, the guy who drove Christina’s escorts to and from their clients, it felt like someone was stabbing him there. He stumbled up to his apartment and looked in the mirror, Celia’s makeup messily smudged over his face. In his reflection’s blank expression, one utterly indifferent to his or any other person’s suffering, he saw a terrible yawning emptiness that would swallow him whole if it was not immediately filled.

Some girls said he was a slob, that he didn’t know how to cook. But the truth was he did know how. He was capable. He just never applied himself. Like in so many areas.

He’d gotten the idea from a MeVid video. Pizza, but with a crust made out of chocolate chip cookie dough. Surface lathered with Nutella, for tomato sauce. Cream cheese, butter, and marshmallows for cheese. Extra Nutella on top. M&Ms and other candies for toppings. Bake until golden brown, then spread the gooey warm surface with frozen double fudge brownie ice cream, and lather with even more Nutella on top. Em ate and ate and ate. There was enough fat in that pizza to stop his heart and enough sugar to give him diabetes.

He drowned his emptiness and depression and self-hate in sweetness.

But it wasn’t enough. No matter how many messy, gooey, Nutella-lathered slices he crammed into his mouth, it didn’t fill him. It didn’t plug the whole. It was just another way to kill himself. So he ate himself, desperately, into a sugar-induced coma.

Then he woke up the next morning, still dressed in his whore clothes, feeling fat as a whale with a splitting headache and a bleeding ass and wanting to throw up and just shrivel up and die, if he weren’t too fat to do anything besides stew in his own misery.

He remembers, because that’s exactly how he feels now as Gasper gorges his fill.

YYYEESSSSS!!!!

YYYYESSSSSSSSS!!!!!

OH, FUCK, YESSSSSS!!!!

Almost there, Em! Oblivion’s right around the corner now!!!!!

Emmett: Right around the corner, huh? Em starts snickering.

All that, and you can’t even cross the finish line.

There’s so little of him left. Almost nothing.

But that which is there cackles in defiance, and he can feel its heat chafing at Gasper, holding him back from the edge.

Ha. Haha. Ha.

GM: Oh, guess I wasn’t clear.

I can fuck you over whenever I want.

Like, right now, before you get to talk to dear Maman. If I want to.

Emmett: That’s not going to change no matter what I say. Are you asking me to apologize, or are you just swinging your dick around for a physics lesson?

GM: Huh. That’s a good idea too.

Yeah, why don’t you apologize. Make it good, because it’d be pretty funny to hear you scream if you weren’t able to collect shit from her.

Emmett: I’m sorry, Gasper. You deserve better than disdain.

Em can’t do much about the hate seething behind the words, though. Probably makes it better, anyways.

GM: Good boy, Em.

Good boy.

Emmett: When it’s all over and done, and the house starts to look like it’s regular horrifying self, he takes to the air, until he hovers a dozen feet above the middle of the ruined boulevard. He’s reminded, absurdly, of a nature documentary factoid about crocodiles and a certain species of bird. Not filmed around here; there’s only gators in Louisiana, and gators don’t get along with anybody. But not so the crocodiles in (was it Egypt? Probably Egypt, they’ve got all kinds of mad shit down there) the documentary, who let the birds pick rotten flecks of meat from their teeth. The bits of carrion too small for apex predators to bother with.

And now that he’s staring into this evil bitch’s teeth, Em’s appreciating how much smaller to her he is than a bird is to a croc.

But he’s here, now. And she’s evil, but she’s the kind of evil that keeps her word.

“Madame. How was dinner?”

GM: The house looks much as it did when Em last laid eyes upon it. Vast and dark and terrible, and actively painful to gaze upon for too long.

But it’s different, too too. The air around him is darker, as though an enormous shadow were cast over the house’s yard. Dead trees’ rotted leaves no longer stir in the wind, nor does he hear the rain’s steady downpour. All around him is silent and still.

He remembers when Jermaine slit Sami’s throat, and the part of his soul that wasn’t dead exclaimed, oh shit! like a rule-breaking kid who suddenly realized he was in terrible trouble. He could imagine his father’s wrathful, red-hued face.

But there was something almost comforting in that wrath. If you break a rule, you’ve done something wrong, which means there has to be an opposite. Something right. Dad yells and calls you selfish and horrible and lots of other angry names, but implicit in that yelling and its promised punishments was restitution. A way to make things right again, after a good chewing out.

Em knows, like he did then, that he has done something bad. Something very, very bad.

But this time, he has the snaking suspicion he has done something there aren’t even any rules against. Because no one thought he would ever break them. Could ever break them.

And he finds himself oddly unable to summon Phil’s face in his mind, or to picture what his father would say.

There is only beshadowed stillness and silence, like an exhausted Jiminy Cricket that’s finally packed all his things in a cardboard box, and decided being Emmett Miloud Delacroix’s conscience is too thankless a job.

Fluttering laughter breaks the silence.

He turns and sees Abélia Devillers standing behind him. The real one. Or the closest thing to whatever is real for her. She looks identical to her form in the Skinlands. The same pale skin, the same midnight hair and dress, the same knowing smile. There’s even color to her lips and cheeks, as though this realm’s laws affect her not. There is little comfort in that color. Only the nagging sense there is more to this ‘woman’ than he might ever understand.


“Mine appetites are sated. You have done well, my dear boy. You have done very well.”

Her dark eyes gleam.

“I am certain you are eager to claim your reward.”

Emmett: Reward. Right. That’s why he led all those souls to massacre. That’s why he razed most of his soul.

What was he going to ask for, again?

“I would ask a favor first, madame. I would put myself in your debt, and count myself lucky to be called upon in the future.” He makes a little flourish, and a flower appears in his hand. Only, it’s not a real flower, so it’s far less banal. The petals are blades of gossamer light, the bud a miniature sun.

Envy green, dragon gold and aubergine purple. A crest of a flower, painstakingly rendered in three dimensions. It smells of the Quarter, and of lilies, and innocence both of them know is not real.

He’s so absorbed in its creation that he doesn’t remember why he’s distracting himself until he’s offering it to her.

“I would greatly appreciate it if you would impart to my Shadow some of your genteel manners, madame. It needs to be disciplined. I don’t care how much it hurts me, as long as it screams too.”

He’s expecting it when Gasper tries to seize the words in his throat. And maybe the Shadow succeeds, at that.

But Abélia is no mere enfant, and he doubts she will be misled in her own home. Misled, or escaped, or restrained.

Have fun, Gasper. I know I will.

Even if you stomp me into the dirt. Even if you try to make me regret it. I’ll never stop fighting back.

GM: Ha. Haha. Hahahahaha.

Yeah.

I know just what I’m gonna do now.

Also, you’re wrong. You will stop, once I take over for good.

Emmett: He looks Abélia in the eyes. Strains to convey his plea.

GM: She can’t help you, Em! NOTHING can!

Emmett: He’ll fight as long as he has to.

GM: I’m YOU, dipshit! If you’re sick of me, you’re sick of yourself! And there’s just one way to fix being sick of yourself, isn’t there, that you were too chickenshit to try when you were alive?

Emmett: Oh, I’m not asking her to off you. Just to give you a makeover.

GM: You’re asking her to give YOU a makeover, idiot. There is no me! There’s just we!

Emmett: I’m down. This face is getting old. And you know the best part? So is this conversation. Which means…

GM: Abélia plunges her hand into Em’s chest and rips out his heart. The pain is incredible. His heart is a shriveled, blackened thing. It looks like it belongs to a man who’s been smoking a pack a day for all his life, then somehow got the tar to show up in his heart instead of his lungs.

Emmett: He screams.

Or is he laughing?

He can’t tell anymore.

“AARgghFFANnnncKkk, yyYyOOOOuu—!”

Take a time-out, okay Gasper? It’s time for the grown-ups to talk.

GM: Guess that means dear Maman’s having a conversation of one.

Abélia smiles and holds a finger to her lips at Em’s screams, as though to shush an infant.

“Shhhh… "

Emmett: Witty. Wanna back that up with a harrowing? Maybe a few phantom dicks?

It takes a few moments to adapt to the pain.

“Thank you,” he pants again, finally. “It’s a relief to talk freely.”

GM: Oh, I have something even better in mind, Em, after how strong you made me. Don’t worry. I’ll be patient. Being the Underworld’s chum bait should get pretty old, pretty fast.

Emmett: Em doesn’t bother to respond. He lets his satisfaction speak for him.

GM: Shadows thicken around Abélia’s hands. Squelching noises that sound more like screams go up from within. When the shadows dissipate, Abélia presents him with a black and unadorned heart-shaped box. It feels cool to the touch. A steady beating pulses from within.

“From the heart, heart’s desire. Take this to she who holds your heart.”

Emmett: Em takes it in his hands, staring down at it. “Your daughter?” he ventures.

GM: A fluttering laugh.

“My Cécilia can be many things, but in this matter she is unsuitable.”

“A young man as charming as yourself is acquainted with other young ladies who hold some claim upon his heart, I am sure.”

Emmett: “What would make somebody suitable, then? And what will happen when I give it to them?”

GM: The ’woman’s’ dark eyes glint as she smiles.

“Why, you shall receive your heart’s desire, of course.”

“But you know your heart better than I, Emmett. Surely, there is another daughter of Eve with some claim to its affections.”

Emmett: He wants to ask more, but if she wants to be cryptic, there’s not much he can do about it. Nothing, actually.

“Many thanks, madame. I confess I had hoped to talk to you more. Not about my heart’s desire, but how I might be a part of yours. How I might enter your service, and learn from you. Might we come to such an arrangement? Your feast was the work of a day. Your imagination is far vaster than mine. I’m sure you grasp how much more I could do for you, with time. With power.”

The flower that isn’t a flower is in his hand again, outstretched for her to pluck.

GM: Yet when Emmett does, he finds his hand empty. A dull ache throbs in the sealed-over cavity where his heart once sat.

“No power—or denial of another’s—without price, Emmett, son of Philémon.”

Emmett: He sighs. “Thought I’d ask. I’ll see you around then, madame.”

He bows before turning back as he’s about to leave.

“A daughter of Eve? A mortal?”

GM: “Eve is mother to Caine and Seth, my dear boy, and all their daughters through them.”

Cécilia’s mother smiles.

“Perhaps it is well, if an immortal daughter should hold claim to your heart. Naught but tragedy may result from a mortal’s love for one such as you.”

Emmett: “Maybe. But I bring tragedy where I walk anyways. Thanks for the doggie bag, madame. I’ll see you when I see you.”

GM: Mirth dances in the woman’s dark eyes.

“Your heart knows its way, son of Philémon. Hold it close and listen.”

Emmett: He pauses and lifts the box to his ear.

GM: Past the sluggish beating, he hears the sound of classic Louis Armstrong jazz amidst people drinking and carousing. Such sounds are not uncommon at the city’s jazz clubs, but he knows, too, that this one is the Evergreen Plantation, a posh joint along Royal Street.

Emmett: “Lovely and fruitful advice, as ever,” Em oozes, even as he thinks. The Evergreen? He’s talked his way in there for drinks once or twice, and been taken there on dates one or two times more. Nice place.

Weird fucking crowd, though. Even for the rich.

GM: “Should its master’s servants attempt to molest you, you may inform them that the LaLaurie House’s proprietor has sent you to speak with Antoine Savoy.”

“Should you reveal my nature to overcurious fools inclined to pry into others’ affairs, or to needful wretches seeking alms, know that I mislike uninvited guests in my home. Send further Lamarcks or Celias to my door, and I will devour them.”

Emmett: “Plain language is such a rarity these days. My appreciation is unbounded, and my gratitude is overflowing.”

“Should I expect my Shadow to be in state to seek revenge immediately after I, ah, make the delivery?”

GM: Abélia’s form dissolves like oily tar. The black morass seeps into the earth as the house swells, its motion reminiscent of an enormous spider bloated from a feast and stretching its legs. Soon ready to spin further webs anew.

Emmett: “…good talk,” Em murmurs, and takes his leave.

He keeps his heart under his arm, boxed up and safe.

Perhaps he should be more grateful, more gracious. But somehow, he has the distinct impression that he hasn’t won dirt.

He’s just been shown the edge of the grave.

---

Previous, by Narrative: Story Twelve, Celia XX
Next, by Character: Story Twelve, Caroline XIII

Previous, by Character: Story Twelve, Celia XVIII, Emmett XI
Next, by Character: Story Twelve, Emmett XIII

“What is there in truth? Where’s the money, the feel-goods? People want whatever makes them feel good.”
Abraham Garcia

---

Friday night, 11 March 2016, PM

GM: Daysleep claims them instantly and recedes just as instantly. It’s a poor substitute for the sleep of the living. It never feels like they’ve actually slept, or like any time has passed. Perhaps there is a reason the elders long for torpor.

Roderick strokes her cheek.

“This is somewhat less romantic, but getting hard for you isn’t even that bad.”

Celia: She can’t help but laugh.

“You know if I were less confident that would be the worst thing to say to me.”

GM: “Hey, if you were less confident I’d remind you how we normally don’t do that.” He frowns a little. “Veronica must give you a pretty hard time, for still liking it the breather way.”

Celia: “Veronica’s idea of a good time is putting a spiked heel inside of someone’s ass, so.”

GM: “Pietro can’t seriously be into that.”

Celia: “You know when I was still a breather I saw them fuck, it was… intense. They ripped skin off of each other.”

GM: “That must’ve been really scary, if you had no idea what it all meant.”

Celia observes her surroundings look different. The apartment has been cleaned up. The salvageable furniture and sundry have been moved back into place, the trashed ones moved into a corner. The fluid stains on the cushions, and their bodies, have been cleaned up. They’ve both got clothes on. Celia’s got on a dark minidress that looks similar to the one they met in, though the cut is more modest than Alana’s usual choices.

“By the way,” he smirks, “you’re a total sleepyhead.”

Celia: “Ah, see, I was only pretending to sleep so you’d move things around for me. It worked.”

GM: “Nah, you were totally out of it. I could’ve put you in overalls, clown shoes, and drawn a mustache under your nose, and you’d have still been a total mannequin.”

Celia: Her eyes narrow at him.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

GM: “I know how serious you take looking good,” he answers somberly.

Then he grins. “So only if there’d been a floor-length mirror I could’ve moved for you to wake up to…”

Celia: Celia rolls away from him, crossing her arms over her chest. She sticks her nose in the air—at least as much as she can considering she’s still in bed—and huffs.

“You’re fired. Go away. You’re never getting laid again.”

GM: He laughs and pulls her against his chest.

“Not haute culture enough? Maybe also shaved you bald…”

Celia: “Couture.”

“I will murder you in your sleep if you shave my head.”

GM: “But whenever I’m asleep, you’ll be asleep, so I’ll always get away with it.”

Celia: “I’ll set an alarm.”

“And wake up just to smack you.”

“Then go back to bed.”

GM: “And you’ll still be bald.”

Celia: “I’ll tell all your friends you got beat up by a girl.”

GM: “But unlike your dad, I’m not insecure enough to let that bruise my ego. Coco or Opal could kick my ass anytime. Caroline also sounds like she could give me a run from what you’ve described.”

“Men of quality do not fear equality.”

Celia: Celia huffs again.

“It’s against the constitution to shave my head. Cruel and unusual punishment. You’ll go to jail.”

GM: “Mmm, but that particular piece of it only applies to the federal and state governments. Your legal defense is in tatters, counselor.”

Celia: “I’m a national treasure. You can’t deface me.”

GM: “Not even in the Constitution…”

He smiles and hugs her close.

“But you’re right. You are a treasure. A UNESCO world heritage treasure. Every country in the UN would go to war, if ours allowed such a crime against humanity to take place.”

Celia: She positively preens at the praise.

“I forgive you for thinking such heinous thoughts, then.”

GM: “It was fun to dress you, anyway. Like I said. Total mannequin.”

Celia: “You know most people would find that creepy instead of cute.”

“Ah yes my boyfriend watches me sleep and puts me in clothing.”

GM: “Hey, I was already cleaning up everything, and figured you’d appreciate it. Keeping you naked would also have been incredibly distracting.”

Celia: “Did you bathe me? I seem to recall more bloodstains than this.”

GM: “Yeah, actually. I was going to do a sponge bath, but then I figured, you’d probably want me to be thorough.”

Celia: “I wasn’t even awake to enjoy it,” she sighs. “Now we have to recreate the scene. Rose petals, champagne flutes of blood, LED candles…”

GM: “And it was a way to pass the time. Didn’t even use superspeed to make it faster. I didn’t want to leave you alone, in case… more hunters.”

Celia: “Oh. Right.”

She twists in his arms so that she can see him.

“Thank you.”

GM: “Unlikely at night, granted. But no lick should sleep completely alone.”

“And you’re welcome.”

Celia: “Have you ever heard the word ‘glinko’ before?”

GM: He thinks. “Nope. Context?”

Celia: “That was it. Just the one word. Something I came across while cracking the phones. I thought it might be a name. It’s… not a word. Not in English. Bulgarian, though, it means ‘clay.’ And there’s a ‘glinko’ mask that a cosmetic company has, it’s a clay mask people use to draw out impurities from their skin, so that makes sense, just…” She trails off, shaking her head.

GM: He raises his eyebrows. “I’m impressed you managed to get into those.”

Celia: “Yeah, well, despite what Maxen says, I’m not stupid.”

GM: “It’s not a question of intelligence, just training. I don’t know how to hack a phone.”

Celia: “Mostly you press the buttons and hope they don’t have a lockout timer.”

GM: “Oh, that actually works well with superspeed,” he says thoughtfully. “I might have been able to brute force a phone like that too.”

Celia: “I’ve seen you brute force a phone, Rod, there’s a lot of broken glass involved.”

GM: “Ha ha. The other kind of brute force.”

Celia: “I know, I know, I’m just teasing.”

GM: “I’ll have to keep that in mind for security with the new place, though. Lockout delays.”

“Oh, when I was cleaning, I saw food in the fridge. I thought you didn’t share this place with your renfields?”

Celia: God damnit.

“Uh. I don’t.”

She can’t even think of a way to spin it.

She changes the subject instead.

“How would you improve security here, anyway?”

GM: “I’ve looked it over. There’s a couple ways. Why do you have a bunch of salad and casserole, though?”

Celia: “Oh. That. My mom. I forgot it was in there.”

“She made me eat with them last night. You know how she is about leftovers.”

GM: “Oh. That must be awkward.”

Celia: “It wasn’t pleasant. There was cake, too.”

GM: “I saw. And you can’t say no without being rude.”

Celia: “I could only come up with so many diet excuses. Emily finally called me on the bullshit.”

“So now I have to make sure I’m, uh, really full before I go over in case they decide they want to eat.”

GM: “Well, count yourself lucky. I’d love to still come over for dinner with my dad.”

Celia: Her face falls.

“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to complain. I’m lucky to have them.”

GM: “It’s okay. I still doubt it’s much fun, if it tastes as bad as they all say.”

Celia: “It’s worse on the way up.”

“If you really want to try it you can help yourself, though.”

“Hell, if we make this work you can come over for dinner.”

GM: “You don’t think your mom would mind, if I’m just going to throw it up?”

Celia: “She wouldn’t know. It’s not like I tell her what I do. She’d accuse me of bulimia or something. Then Emily would tell me how it rots my teeth and the stomach acid destroys my esophagus. Then she’d say something like, ‘if you destroy your gag reflex you’ll never be able to suck another dick,’ and then my mom will make a face at us. It’s a whole thing.”

GM: He smiles. “They sound like a great family.”

Celia: She arches her brows at him.

“That is not the response I expected.”

“But they are. I’ll hook you up with some prosthetics and you can come over.”

GM: “Prosthetics?”

Celia: “Like facial things. Inserts. Special effects makeup.”

GM: “Ah. That made me think of artificial limbs.”

“That would be nice, though. I spent a while wondering if Lucy was my daughter or not, so I feel… at least a little close to her, if that doesn’t sound weird.”

Celia: “It doesn’t. Makes me wonder sometimes, you know. What if you’d have approached me after your Embrace, before our release. How that would have gone. Finding out about each other like that, rather than… how we did.”

“I think you’ll like her, though.”

GM: “Who knows there. But she seemed like a pretty happy little toddler, last I looked in.”

“I wouldn’t mind getting to see your mom again, either. She was always so nice to me. Just a total 180 from your dad.”

“I had this fantasy a few times, you know, that if we’d gotten married, we could’ve set up our parents together.”

Celia: “…wouldn’t that make us stepsiblings, though.”

“Well, wait a minute. Hold on. Is your dad still available? Because Mom wants to get back with Maxen and I’m just… not about to let that happen.”

GM: Roderick frowns in thought.

“Well, my dad never remarried. He’s always been so busy with work. I think how bitter the divorce with my mom was just burned him out to the idea of marriage. Made him not want to put that effort into another one when it could go into his career.”

“I asked him about it, once, and he said he wasn’t really thinking of dating until Dani and I were out of the house. And maybe college.”

Celia: “So now’s the time.”

GM: Roderick looks thoughtful.

“He’s going to die alone, if Dani disappears and he doesn’t find someone else. I’ve thought about that.”

“How he’s going to think both his kids are dead.”

Celia: “Dani doesn’t need to disappear. She can stay here. In the Quarter.”

“And… there’s a rumor, you know, that… that Lucy is yours. I was with you and the timeline meshes, and maybe… I mean… a grandchild isn’t a replacement for a child, but maybe if he thought that, too…”

GM: Roderick seems to pause in further thought.

“Coco asked me, once, which I thought was more important. Truth or beauty.”

“I said truth. I know my dad would too.”

Celia: Celia had also asked him that. Right before he’d smashed her face in. But it doesn’t matter since she’s not Coco.

GM: “That’s a sweet thought, to give him a grandchild. But he’d rather have truth.”

“And your mom knows the truth. She knows he’s not the grandfather.”

Celia: “I know. Just…” she doesn’t sigh, but she looks like she wants to. “I just… feel terrible.”

GM: He strokes her cheek.

“I know there’s a lot. What about?”

Celia: “You. Becoming what you are. You dying. Your dad. Your sister, even. I know… I know Coco said I was overstating my own importance, but… I still feel responsible.”

GM: “You aren’t. Coco made the offer, and I said yes, because I saw a way to destroy the Mafia.”

Celia: “I want to help.”

GM: “I’d welcome that help. It’s funny how I just haven’t gotten around to it. Like you and your dad, I guess.”

“Right now, though, I think I want to keep my family safe and happy first. The Mafia will still be around after they’re gone.”

“I think my dad could really use someone. He took my death… he’s moved on, but it’s cast this eternal shadow over him.”

“I don’t know what losing Dani might do.”

Celia: “Then don’t make her leave, Roderick. Don’t do that to him. Let her stay here. If she’s a thin-blood… I mean, you know the rumors, that they don’t rage. It’s safer. And isn’t it better if she’s here, with someone who loves her?”

GM: The Brujah looks torn. He really does.

“But Savoy knows who she is. What she is. She’ll always be leverage over me.”

“If I thought he didn’t know, then no question, I’d want her to stay.”

Celia: Celia shakes her head.

“He’s known who my family is this whole time and he’s never done anything to them. He’s not like that.”

GM: “He’s an elder.”

Celia: “So is Coco.”

GM: “Celia, I get to listen to a roomful of them when they let down their hair. I’ve gotten to listen for years.”

“Dani is leverage to him. That’s just how their minds work. You would not believe how ruthless, cynical, and utterly without conscience they can be.”

Celia: She would, actually, but she doesn’t tell him that.

GM: “Henry Kissinger could take tips.”

Celia: He’s going to know she told. He’s going to know she told Roderick the truth about his family, and he’s going to… to be done with her. That’s it. Second chance. Gone. It’s like she can see her family dying in front of her eyes. Lucy, Emily, Diana. The only people she cares about anymore. Heads rolling. Worse.

She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t know what to say.

GM: “Coco cares about me. And she’s decent, for an elder. But when push comes to shove she can be ruthless too.”

“I told you all about those thin-bloods…”

He shakes his head.

Celia: “Then why would you side with the people who made that happen?”

“Yeah, Roderick, he’s an elder. He’s probably as ruthless as the rest of them. He wants what he wants. But he doesn’t butcher people because of an accident of Embrace. He doesn’t round people up and sell them out.”

“And if that Asian bitch hadn’t dragged Max out like you said, you think the Sanctified would have stopped at murdering the thin-bloods? No. They’d have taken down the rest of you because that’s the kind of rule Vidal has.”

GM: “I think there are a lot of ways that could’ve gone south for them. Sanctified casualties, Anarch survivors running to Savoy. They didn’t want a fight with us, even if they’d have won. Too much mess.”

Celia: “But they would have done it. They would have come after all of you. And that’s the difference.”

“You told me. You said he counted back from ten. Anyone inside would die with the rest of them. They don’t care. Vidal doesn’t care. You’re all expendable. And your own sire sold them out. She knew what she was doing. That she sent her people to die. That the other Anarchs who believed in her could die if they did what they normally do.”

GM: “I think it may have been a bluff. We outnumbered them. I don’t think we’d have won, but I think that’d have been an ugly enough fight they’d have tried to avoid it. You can’t try to butcher dozens of true-blooded Kindred without a really big mess that benefits Savoy. Again, Sanctified casualties, Anarch survivors all fleeing to Savoy, not to mention Coco and Opal for the sheriff trying to destroy their covenant.”

“What it ultimately comes down to is practicality, not morals. That’s why Coco and Opal were complicit. The Camarilla says the pogrom is over, Vidal is just a hardliner who refuses to get the message, and pushed my sire to go along. She cares about the thin-bloods as much as Savoy does. It will always be a question of expediency to them.”

Celia: “Do you hear yourself? You’re literally defending them.”

GM: “I’m not! What Coco did was wrong! But you’re kidding yourself too if you think Savoy will be a good faith actor, or that Dani won’t be a hostage he’ll use to control me with.”

Celia: “What do you think is going to happen when Vidal konks out?”

GM: “I don’t know what’ll happen. Maybe Vidal will try to take Savoy and the Baron our before he does.”

Celia: “And it’ll be my head if he doesn’t get to.”

GM: “You’re not one of Savoy’s inner circle. If there’s war, you can hide out, and I’ll do everything to keep you safe in the aftermath. They can’t execute every single Savoy partisan. You’ll probably lose your domain, but you could survive this.”

Celia: “I’m not talking about a war. I’m talking about the fact that I’m the only person who knows what and who Dani is. I’m talking about the fact that I was seen leaving the Quarter yesterday in a car that belongs to you. It doesn’t take a genius to put that together.”

GM: “I doubt Savoy keeps a database with my car make that his people have memorized. His people probably wouldn’t even give it a glance with you behind the wheel.”

Celia: “All it takes is a quick online search, or a whisper in the right ear. But it’s fine. I get it.”

Who cares about the girl you claim to love when your sister is in danger, right?

GM: “But you are right, it’s still a needless risk to keep using my car when we could just use another.”

“Look, tonight’s Elysium Primo. All of Savoy’s important people will be there. Maybe see what you can find out. If they know about you driving my car.”

Celia: “He knows I know, Roderick. He knows I know, and he knows what you are to me. He’s not stupid.”

GM: “He isn’t omniscient either.”

Celia: “Yeah, well, you can deliver the news to my mom if he puts me down for the betrayal.”

GM: “It isn’t a betrayal. You just failed to convince me to sign on. I doubt he’ll be happy with you, but I’d say that’s better than Dani being a hostage he could kill anytime I make him unhappy, wouldn’t you?”

Celia: “I don’t think he’s going to give me a third chance,” she says quietly. “I might as well just cut my losses and run.”

GM: “So because you’re not useful enough… he kills you? That really sounds more like Vidal.”

“But, look. If you’re really scared… you could come over with me. To the Anarchs.”

Celia: Celia turns away. She presses a hand against her face, wiping at her eyes. The scent of blood is unmistakable.

“It’s fine,” she says again. Her voice exudes a cheerfulness she clearly doesn’t feel. “It’s fine.”

GM: He wipes her eyes too.

“It’s not fine. You’re crying.”

Celia: “It doesn’t matter. Your mind is clearly made up. You’d rather support the butcher on the throne than take a chance and work for change. It’s easier that way, right? Just go with it. Let yourself get distracted playing Kindred politics, forget about what matters.” The Mafia. Cleaning up the city. The reason he’d agreed to Coco’s offer. Generations of Garrisons all fighting for the same thing, and him the only one left in any position to do something about it. The dream will die with his father.

“Any of those elders you regularly listen to will feel the same way, but fuck it, let’s get them in when Vidal kicks it.”

GM: “Vidal isn’t going to be around much longer. Whoever succeeds him won’t be able to govern the same way. And to hear the primogen talk about it, Savoy’s no better than any of them.”

Celia: She wonders if he even hears himself.

“Savoy wouldn’t throw out his own for the scourge and sheriff and hunters to exterminate. He wouldn’t sacrifice childer because it’s easier than trying to deal with an external threat. He wouldn’t make an example of thin-bloods by sending his lapdogs to slaughter them.”

GM: “I think he’d do all of those things if it was convenient. That’s how all the primogen talk about him.”

Celia: “You don’t even know him.”

GM: “I hear how other elders talk about him. He’s one of them. They all think so.”

“Hell, they want him on the primogen. Him and the Baron.”

Celia: “So you’re just going to take Dani out of the city because it’s a little bit dangerous. Send her to another place where she doesn’t know anyone, where she has no one to rely on if things get tough, where you can’t look after her. Where I can’t look after her.”

GM: “Do you hear yourself? It’s way more than a little dangerous. Savoy will kill her as soon as I step out of line.”

“Houston is a bad option, but at least there she won’t be an elder’s hostage. There are no good options here, just bad and worse.”

Celia: “Why,” she asks, “would he kill her? She’s not worth anything if she’s dead. If you were a ruthless elder, would you kill her?”

GM: “If I had no more use for Roderick anymore? Yeah, I might.”

Celia: “I wouldn’t. Death is very final. Life is full of possibilities. People are always useful, even if it isn’t readily apparent.”

GM: “Except to elders there’ll always be more people. Life is cheap. More always comes along. But loose ends can always pop back up to make trouble.”

Celia: “Sure. Your sire could find someone else. I mean, she let Micheal go, what’s another one, right?”

GM: “Don’t even start on Mike. He went out of his way to alienate her. And me. She did everything to be a good sire to him and he just threw it back in her face.”

“I think he never got over his stupid complex. He never went to school. He never read books. He’s everything that gives our clan a bad name as a bunch of angry thugs and punks instead of scholars and philosopher-kings.”

“Coco tried to teach him to be more. He has no idea what an incredible opportunity that was. She’s collected countless degrees from the city’s universities. She’s seen hundreds of years of history. She has a tested IQ over 150. And she was willing to be his personal tutor, for years. But he just pissed that opportunity completely away.”

“I don’t accept that not everyone can improve themselves, either. Coco used to be even less educated than Mike. She was illiterate until she was around 20 years old, did you know that? She hadn’t read a book or gone to school a day in her life, until my grandsire taught her. He’s at least as smart and well-read as she is, but she didn’t let her ego get in the way of bettering herself. She wanted to give Mike the same gift William gave her. She tried and tried and tried. And he just threw it back in her face. I don’t blame her for washing her hands of him, any more than I blame you for not wanting your dad back in your family’s lives. Some people—actually, probably most people—just do not ever fucking change.”

“Your dad was also half-right. You aren’t stupid, and you’re way smarter than he ever gave you credit for, but some people are stupid. Some people have no desire to better themselves, even if they get the opportunity. Unpopular opinion here, but one that a lot of well-read people secretly hold: we’re better than them. Mike realizes that, deep down, but he’s too lazy and egotistical to admit he could improve himself. So he chooses to be small and petty and stupid for eternity.”

“Coco didn’t let Mike go. She tried and tried and tried with him, and he cut her out. I don’t blame her one bit for that.”

Celia: Saying she’s smarter than her dad gave her credit for isn’t much of a compliment considering what her dad thought of her, but she doesn’t bother to point it out to him. He wouldn’t understand. After all, he’d almost said it to her—about her—last night. As if it means nothing. As if it didn’t take years to finally put it behind her.

She wonders if he’d feel the same way about Micheal if he knew what Veronica is doing to him. How she treats him. Night after night after night. But hey, Mike is stupid, right? He deserves it.

Her lips thin.

“I used to be jealous of you, you know. That Coco is your sire. That she keeps you busy with everything. Got you a spot as the scribe, protected when the sheriff comes calling, talks to you about history. Embraced you so you could realize your dream of taking down the Mafia.”

When he’s done playing lapdog to her, anyway.

But he’s a well-read, smart sort of guy. Better than other people, isn’t he? She doesn’t need to say it.

GM: He grasps her arms as it seems to click on his face.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not better than you.”

“I’m sorry. That was the wrong thing to say. I know that must be sensitive after how much your dad insulted and belittled you.”

Celia: “That and everything else,” she mutters.

All that book learning and he’s still ass at reading people.

“We have some time to kill before we need to leave. Why don’t we go upstairs and you can show me how to throw a punch without breaking my hand.”

Really knock her around since he’s so good at that.

GM: He glances at the time. It’s around 10 PM.

She really has been sleeping late.

“Tonight’s Elysium Primo is at midnight. You don’t have anything else on the docket until then?”

Celia: “Why, trying to go meet up with your other lovers? ‘Cause listen, I’ll fight them.” She holds up a fist. Or rather a poor interpretation of a fist: her thumb is tucked inside her fingers, popping out the knuckles on her first three digits.

It’s quite possibly the worst form anyone has ever seen. Easy way to break her thumb, her knuckles, even her wrist.

GM: Roderick smirks.

“If you know how to fight, like you said you did, you know what’s wrong with that. Or else it’s a good thing you didn’t use your fists against those hunters.”

“But okay, we can get in some practice,” he says, pulling off his nice Elysium clothes for a t-shirt and sweats. “We’ll try not to fuck each other’s brains out until the end, this time.”

Celia: There are too many things to say back to that: a reminder that she doesn’t need to fight because she’s so pretty no one would even think to swing on her so of course her form is wrong. An accusation of actually having other lovers since he hadn’t denied it (and when had that changed?). A scowl and reminder that she’s able to control herself and doesn’t need to fuck him, thank you very much.

The words die before they ever reach her lips, though, when he starts peeling off his clothes. Her eyes follow the movement of his shirt as he pulls it up over his head, revealing the unblemished, flat stomach, the muscles that play beneath the skin. So much more buff now than he was when they were together as mortals, and she gets to enjoy it. Forever. Now, even, all she has to do is reach out, and…

Celia blinks a few times and turns her face away, then finally gets up and moves across the room to distract herself so she doesn’t pounce on him while he’s half-naked. She opens the refrigerator in want of something else to do. His earlier question made her wary.

GM: Celia smells the coppery tang as soon as she opens the fridge. The grisly “food” is where she left it in the lower produce compartment: leakage is easier to clean up there. There isn’t much blood left at all in the plastic-wrapped body parts. Celia was very thorough. A human probably wouldn’t smell anything. But she isn’t human.

Celia: She shuts the door just as quickly.

How had he missed it? Or does he just not care that she’s got a fridge full of body parts?

That’s what love must be: finding a body in your girlfriend’s apartment and not asking questions.

GM: She finds Roderick on his phone wherever they’ve decided to practice. He sets it down and tosses her the best workout clothes he could find in her closet.

It’s not like they ever sweat. Or need to work out.

Celia: It took her all of two seconds to open and close the door, but she supposes that’s the problem with millennials. Can’t pry them away from their devices.

“Are you telling your other girlfriend you’re going to be late?” she asks as she strips and changes into the offered clothing. Yoga pants. T-shirt. It’s not like she only owns ball gowns.

GM: He watches her appreciatively at first, his fangs lengthening in his mouth, then turns away.

“What gave you the idea I had another girlfriend?” he asks with amusement.

Celia: “Cute guy like you?”

GM: “I’ve been with other girls. But not in a while. Plenty else to keep busy with.”

Celia: “I’d ask who, but then I’d have to beat them up, and apparently I don’t even know how to make a fist.” Celia sighs at him, hands on her hips.

GM: “I can see why. I already want to do you over the bed.”

“The way you move, the way you dress, the way you look… you make everything hot.”

Celia: Celia beams at him. She tosses her head, hair flipping over her shoulder.

“Maybe if you win I’ll even let you.” She watches him for a minute, then asks, “you’re not gonna lose it on me if we’re not really fighting but I hit you or something, are you? Because, just… I don’t know if I could actually take you like that…”

GM: “God, and your smile,” he smiles back. “I really just want to flip you over right n…”

He trails off at her question, but shakes his head. “Maybe if you were fighting with your claws out. Bare-handed shouldn’t be enough to seriously hurt me, though.”

Celia: “That’s why we never got anything done last time,” Celia reminds him, but she’s still grinning. She finds a tie for her hair and pulls it up so it’s out of her face, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet.

“This one of those things where I have to call you sensei? Teacher? Mister Roderick? I think I’ve got a plaid skirt somewhere…” she trails off, wiggling her brows at him.

GM: “It’s in the way you move, how you just make every little thing so sexy… you’re irresistible…” he murmurs, pulling her close. His hands start to explore her body as he nuzzles her neck.

Her next words only seem to make him more excited.

“Mmm, why don’t I help you change out of these clothes, first…”

Celia: She starts to tell him that they’re supposed to be doing something—she doesn’t get dressed like this for no reason—but it flies out of her mind the moment he pulls her in. Her resolve falters; why put in the effort of learning how to fight when the lick in front of her is so much sweeter?

They’d made it further than usual, at least. All the way into sweats.

GM: Before those come off.

---

Friday night, 11 March 2016, PM

GM: The lovers lie naked and spent in one another’s blood-streaked arms. Roderick chuckles.

“Shit.”

“You’re never going to learn to fight at this rate.”

Celia: “Probably not,” she agrees. She doesn’t look too put out about it though. “If someone comes after me I’ll just blind them with my dazzling smile.”

GM: “Could you make yourself look, maybe… uglier?”

He laughs again.

Celia: She gives him a flat look.

GM: “You’re really too sexy for your own good. It’s very distracting.”

Celia: “I could get a bag, maybe. Poke some eyeholes in it. Would that work for you?”

GM: He looks thoughtful.

Celia: “Oh my god. I was kidding.”

GM: He smirks and squeezes her against his chest. “I’m just worried it wouldn’t make you un-sexy enough.”

Celia: “You’re ridiculous,” she mutters. She leans into him all the same, a satisfied smile pulling at her lips. “I have a weird question for you.”

GM: “Can’t be weirder than my thinking you should wear a bag over your head,” he smiles back.

Celia: “I wonder if we can say it’s a new trend and convince the rats to try it.”

“But I was wondering… you don’t get off the same way I do. But you said earlier that you don’t mind it. So I’m just kind of curious what it feels like.”

GM: “It’s… it’s really not that bad, actually. It’s kind of like the first time I got off, where I felt so close, and didn’t have any idea when I would finally come. Part of me wanted to stop, but also keep going…”

If Celia didn’t know any better, she’d say he was enjoying himself.

Celia: “Hm.” She can’t relate. The first time she’d gotten off had been with him, and she hadn’t had much choice in the matter; it had kind of just snuck up on her all of a sudden without her doing much of anything. He’d taken care of all of that, the first time. “But you don’t mind it? Or you… like it?” She looks up at him.

GM: He seems to think for a moment.

“Uh… maybe?”

Celia: “I was just going to say if you’re not into it we don’t have to do it every time, is all.”

GM: “No, no, I think…”

He trails off, then smiles.

“Would you like to play with my dick? As an ‘experiment?’”

Celia: Celia doesn’t need further encouragement than that. She’s happy to lend a hand. Then her mouth. The rest of her, too, even if he doesn’t take her up on it yet, so she sticks to her mouth, with her fingers wrapped around the base. Just as she used to do for him, the way he showed her he liked all those years ago.

GM: He swiftly grows hard under her touch. Celia keeps going for a while. He breathes and pants (both needlessly, but perhaps a psychophysiological reflex). Towards what feels like the end, he tenses and breathes harder, but Celia doesn’t feel anything come out of his shaft.

“…huh.”

“That felt… good.”

Celia: She looks up at him from where she’s kneeling between his legs.

“Yeah? Like you, ah, got there good?” She’d almost thought there’d be blood. “Or like it was mildly enjoyable good?”

GM: “I’m pretty sure I got there…”

He smiles and puts his hands around her, just under her armpits, and lifts her into the air. He sets her down on the couch and pulls her against him. His arms encircle her belly.

“You make everything around you better. You know that? Everything you touch comes out with a coat of gold. The makeup is part of it. Making people look like their best selves. But that’s only part of what you do.”

“The way you gave Emily a family. The way you turned your mom’s life around. The way you brought, bring, so much happiness into mine. You’re like a fire. A sun. The closer someone gets to you, the more the more warmth and joy you bring into their life.”

Celia: Nestled against him, snug within the circle of his arms, she can almost believe him. That she makes things better. That she’s capable of being good.

But that’s not true, isn’t it? None of the planets closer to the sun than theirs can sustain life, and a fire eats up all the oxygen in the room. It’s like her. It just destroys. The pretty little flames melt the skin off anyone stupid enough to get too close.

Would he still think the same if he knew the truth? If he knew how monstrous her sire is, the terrible things that she has done, still does, plans to do? The lives—and unlives—she’ll destroy to claw her way to the top? Could he still care for her then?

Celia tucks her cheek against him. She’d asked herself two nights ago if she could be better for him. She can. She can try, at least. He’s worth that much, deserves that much from her.

“That was really beautiful, you know. You give me hope for the future. That it can be beautiful, even with this thing inside of us. That we can be good, do good things, be better than the rest of them, than what they think we have to be. You make me think it’s all possible.”

GM: His hand traces along her flank.

“That’s what Carthage was, you know. Maybe not literally. But as a story. An ideal. That a whole city of licks, just like us, could all decide to be better than what everyone thinks we have to be. To use their powers and immortality as a force for good. To live in harmony with mortals, to no longer need any lies between us, with both races using their abilities to build something together that they never could apart.”

“That’s what I see, too, when I look at you. A citizen of Carthage. The promise of something better.”

He hugs her close.

“I love you, Celia. I love you so much.”

“I don’t know how I was able to spend so much of my Requiem without you, or how I could’ve been so stupid as to throw you away, but I’m not ever going to make that mistake again.”

Celia: His words fill her with warmth. She’s safe here in his arms, pressed against his chest. Cheek on his shoulder, she breathes him in and closes her eyes, letting his love wash over her.

She’ll never tell him. Never tell him that she’s not what he thinks. Never give him a reason to look at her like she’s some sort of monster. She can protect him from that, from the worst of their kind. Maybe she’s not a fighter, but she can still be a shield of sorts.

“I love you too, Roderick. I missed you. Every night we weren’t together I missed you. So much.” She twists in his arms, turning to face him. She touches a hand to his cheek, trails kisses across the other side: brow, cheek, jaw, lips. “People say they have all the time in the world, you know, when they talk about the future. But it’s true for us in a way it isn’t for others. We have forever. Eternity. Together. We don’t need to be apart again. We never have to be apart again.”

It doesn’t feel like enough, not next to what he said to her. But it’s what she has, what she can give him.

GM: He kisses her forehead. Traces a hand along her hair as he stares up into her eyes.

“God, I don’t even want to go to Elysium tonight. Having to pretend as if we’re total strangers in public.”

GM: “Part of me wants to just spend more time with you. Actually get started teaching you to fight.”

Celia: She gives him a wistful smile.

“I wish. I’d love to tell those blowhards where to shove it. Tonight, though. Afterwards. I have a few things to take care of immediately after, but spend the day again. I feel safer when you’re here. And we can amuse ourselves until dawn however you want.”

She glances at the clock.

GM: There’s enough time to get ready and go to Elysium without rushing, but probably not an extended martial arts lesson.

“Okay,” he relents. “Are you going to talk to Dani tonight?”

Celia: She’s more concerned about the ghoul’s body she needs to put back together than the boxing.

“If I can find her.”

GM: He looks worried. “You can do that, can’t you? Or else how do we get her out?”

Celia: “Yes, Roderick. I’ll find her. Of course I can find her.”

She hesitates a beat. What if she can’t find her? What if she’s overly optimistic about this whole plan? She tries not to let him see it, the uncertainty. But she’s never been able to hide her emotions from him, has she? It’s there in her eyes, all he has to do is look into them. Belatedly, she averts her gaze.

GM: “Oh my god! Celia, we can’t just have her running around loose with no idea where she is!” he exclaims.

Celia: “And I can’t make contact and tip our hand until we’re ready to move her. It has to be one smooth operation, otherwise it’s going to get messy. Is that what you want?”

GM: “I want you to at least know where she is! How the hell are we going to move her without that?”

Celia: “I’ll find her,” Celia says again. “I just don’t think I should approach her yet.”

GM: “Okay, just… find her. We need to be ready to go, as soon as Ayame comes through.”

Celia: “Roderick… what if she doesn’t?”

GM: “We’ll deal with that then.”

Celia: She makes a noise that might be assent. She doesn’t say anything. Not for a long minute. She’s not particularly hopeful that everything will go off without a hitch.

She finally changes the subject.

“What do you know about Carolla? If we’re going to take down the Mafia we can start there.”

GM: “Brujah, like me. He’s showed up to the rants. I’ve slugged it out with him a few times.”

“Can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. Decent in a fight, though.”

“There was a stupid rumor going he’s Coco’s childe.”

Celia: “…oh?”

GM: Roderick actually looks a little angry at that.

“It’s pure bullshit. You’ve probably heard how coy he plays over his sire.”

Celia: Is it, though? She’s kept Roderick too busy to pick him off, anyway.

“Yeah.”

GM: “My guess would be it’s a nobody and this is how he builds up his rep.”

Celia: “Thought Brujah didn’t care about who their sires were, just their own merit.”

“Anyway, isn’t he First Estate? Kind of lame for a Brujah.”

GM: “We don’t, that’s the thing. He makes it a mystery and that gets people curious, anyway.”

Celia: “Ah. The game of rumors.”

GM: “Also, we might not, but the other clans do.”

“Sheriff spared me because of who my sire was, at the massacre. I’m not blind to that.”

“Or how being able to say I’m Roderick Durant, childe of Coco Duquette, childe of William Starkweather, childe of Eleanor de Valois, childe of Adana de Sforza, childe of Losario, childe of Troile, opens more doors with elders.”

Celia: “Do you think it matters, though? Who someone’s sire is?”

She doesn’t bother pointing out that the sheriff spared him because Coco set up the massacre. He has to know.

GM: “100% not. I’m not my sire. Or grandsire. Or so on and so on down the line. If you mean ‘matter’ in the sense of ‘should it entitle them to preferential treatment in Kindred society,’ at least. For good or ill, it definitely has consequences.”

Celia: “What about those people who have super fucked up sires. Like real monsters. You think they come out like that? Like how people turn into their parents?”

GM: “I’d say they can, but they don’t have to. Wright had a horrific sire and he’s turned out… mostly okay. But not everyone is that lucky or resilient, and I doubt things are perfect with him either. A horrible sire can fuck your Requiem up in all sorts of ways, just like a horrible breather parent can.”

“In a perfect world, either of those scenarios wouldn’t be a barrier to your future opportunities, but we don’t live in a perfect world.”

“I’m very lucky with who my sire was. Both that she descends from a fairly prestigious line, which opens more opportunities to me, and also because she treated me decently. Which also opens more opportunities, in other ways.”

Celia: “People think I’m a slut. Because of Veronica. And how she sleeps with everyone. They assume that I’m the same way. I’ve heard rumors…” Celia trails off, shaking her head. “The things they say about me are just… ugly. And I wonder, y’know, what it’d be like if she weren’t my sire. If it were even someone like Pietro, or if my grandsire had gotten to me instead. Same line, different reputation.”

“Anyway, sorry, we were talking about you. And beating up Carolla.”

GM: “You probably would have a different reputation,” Roderick says thoughtfully. “For good or ill, our sire colors everything about our Requiem. Some licks think that’s unfair and some think it’s right and proper, but there’s no avoiding it.”

Celia: “It’s the same as anything, really. Like you said. Being born to a different breather family would have made my life different, too.”

GM: “And even among the Brujah, we aren’t completely indifferent to it. Elders tend to put more stock in lineage than neonates. And if your sire was someone like Jeremy MacNeil… we might not think you’re better than another lick, but you’ll have people wondering what you did to impress such a badass sire.”

Celia: “I mean, aside from him just being an accident. But you think he’s making it up.”

GM: “I think he does it to get licks talking, which is exactly what we’re doing.”

Celia: “Maybe. I asked about him, you just brought up his sire,” Celia points out.

GM: “It’s the only noteworthy thing about him.”

Celia: “Because you’re mad that Coco might have Embraced him. Doesn’t his dad run the Mafia?”

GM: Roderick gives her a flat look. “Coco didn’t Embrace him.”

Celia: “I could find out. If you really want to know.”

GM: He looks angrier. “I just said she didn’t Embrace him!”

Celia: Celia holds up her hands, placating. “Sorry. I was kidding.”

GM: “I’ve seen no evidence. Absolutely none.”

Celia: “You mentioned him a while back. I remember because I made fun of his name. And you said there was something weird about him?”

“But then we got distracted.”

With sex, probably.

GM: “Sorry, don’t remember. That was a while ago.”

Celia: “You are dead to me,” Celia says with a sigh.

GM: “Oh, too bad. I was going to suggest we take a shower together before Elysium.”

“But since I’m dead…”

Celia: Celia considers him.

“I’m actually a necromancer, so… I guess I can bring you back.”

She presses the palm of her hand against his forehead.

“You’re healed.”

GM: He smirks, gets off the couch, and picks her up, positioning his arms under her knees as she holds onto his shoulders.

“Let’s see how healed…”

---

Friday night, 11 March 2016, PM

Celia: Their shower turned into another bout of sex, more enjoyable beneath the spray of the water as members of the undead than it had ever been while they were alive. She’d made him wash the blood off of her after that, scrubbing her back while she was awake to enjoy it, and she’d returned the favor once he was done with her.

It’s a feeling she can get used to, more showers with Roderick. Waking up with him. Spending her evenings with him. Already she’s looking forward to the end of Elysium so she can hit up the Evergreen, fix the ghoul, and jet back here to spend more time with him. Eternity, right? Somehow it doesn’t seem long enough.

He’d laughed at her when she had dithered over what to wear. He has it easy, she tells him, all he has to do is slap on a suit and tie and he looks presentable. Plus he’s an Anarch, it’s not like anyone is really judging him for what he wears. She walks a finer line. Not quite welcome in this domain because of who she serves, childe of a harpy, grandchilde and great-grandchilde of two primogen, hangs with the bitches who titter all night over a faux pas… it’s a lot to handle.

She’d changed twice before settling on the green gown. Seafoam or mint or shamrock or emerald, some such variant that means green without being so gauche as to actually say the word, because god-forbid licks like her stoop to such plebian descriptors. Mermaid cut, gauzy, with a tiny train and cutouts along the midriff and thighs that offer a peek at the delectable Kindred wrapped inside the ruched tulle.


Jewels glitter at ear and throat, though her neck is left bare, and, as always, she wears her fire opal ring on the middle finger of her left hand. A pair of black heels complete the look. None so tall as her sire glides around in—she’d be a fool to try to mimic Veronica’s footwear—but strappy all the same, with a delicate strap around her ankle.

She even finds an overcoat in case it rains, pulls her hair into an effortless up-do that leaves a few strands free to curl around her face, and swipes on a fresh coat of lipstick. She almost can’t pry her eyes from the mirror once she’s done, and she’s glad that she and Roderick had fucked themselves silly because she looks bangin’.

Celia winks at her reflection before she leaves.

GM: Roderick agrees. He runs his hands along her shoulders in shoulders in massage-like motions as she finishes up in the mirror.

“Keep that on,” he murmurs into her ear. “I’m going to fuck you in it later.”

Celia: Do they really need to go to Elysium?

She doesn’t think it’s possible for her stomach to flutter anymore. She’s dead. But it does anyway. A thrill runs through her at the words. She’s already wondering what part of her evening she can shift to tomorrow so she can get back here more quickly.

GM: Roderick’s hands move down from her shoulders. They squeeze her breasts and rub up and down the hips her gown’s mermaid cut makes so deliciously plain.

“Wrapped and dolled up just like a present…”

Celia: Celia only lets him touch her for a minute, only leans back against him and closes her eyes while he tells her the words she loves to hear for long enough to think that maybe they could just skip it…

No, no, no.

“Shhh,” Celia says, pulling his hands away, “if you don’t hush I’m going to jump you again, and then we’ll definitely never make it.”

GM: “Would that really be so bad?” he smiles. “I know you’re thinking it.”

Celia: “I am thinking it, that’s the worst part, that I just want to lock the two of us in here and let you ravish me.”

GM: “Sex with clothes on is messy. But we don’t even sweat…” he murmurs. His hands move back to her hips, then start appreciatively tracing her rump. “We could make it fast… I could do you right here on your vanity, arms around my neck, sexy dress on the whole time…”

Celia: “And show up smelling like sex and blood so everyone knows that we just fucked each other?” Celia gives him a look. It’s an appraising look, because she very, very much wants to do as he says. To hop up onto her vanity and let him slide the dress up her legs, to let him part her thighs with his hands or body and slip inside. To fuck. He doesn’t have to make it messy, she doesn’t have to make it messy, he’d said before that he just likes to drink blood, none of the kinky shit…

She shivers in his arms, clearly torn. She wants him. Wants him now, wants him later, wants him forever. He’s hers. His blood calls to her, and it’s so close, right beneath the surface, all she has to do is lean in and… bite.

Unless he means fuck like breathers.

Then there really is no mess. Nothing to clean up because he doesn’t actually…

She stops her thoughts from traveling further down that line. They don’t have time. It’s the blood, she knows, the collar they share, their prior history, his adoring words. It’s just like last time, when they’d never actually gotten to any of the rants because they’d been too busy bumping into cars and fucking on the roof to get anything done.

She’d never imagined there’d come a time when she wanted to turn down sex. Not with him. But she has things to do tonight. People to talk to.

Finally, she shakes her head, turning in his arms to press a kiss against the underside of his jaw.

“Later,” she whispers in his ear, “after you’ve been thinking about me all night, about the things we’re going to do together, after you’re so riled up and turned on that you can’t even think straight. Then…” she trails a hand down his chest, “then you can unwrap your present.”

GM: “Oh, I want to fuck my present with the wrapping still on, when she looks this delicious…” Roderick grins, his hands longingly kneading and squeezing her ass.

He relents after a moment, though, with a wistfully effected sigh.

“But I guess you’re right. Licks to see. Things to do, besides each other. And it does feel like a waste for you to get so dressed up without going out.”

He hefts her up, moving one arm under her legs and the other around her back.

“Carry you to your car, at least?” he smiles.

Celia: He spoils her, truly. It’s the sort of treatment she can get used to, the kind of thing she deserves, beautiful creature that she is. She shouldn’t have to walk, not when there’s a dashing Brujah here to do it for her, not when she fits so snugly against him. Cradled in his arms, head against his chest, her thoughts run as wild as the hands that roam his body. Teasing, gentle caresses, nipping at his neck, his ear, his lips. He reminds her to lock the door and she does it in a haze, back to him before she’s even finished putting the key back into her purse.

He fills her world. He is her world. Sire who? No one else matters, not when she has Roderick. Soul mates. There it is, the beautiful word that ties them together. Have to be, don’t they, because she can’t think of another place she’d rather be than right here nestled against him.

Her feet find the ground again, but Celia pays it no mind. He says something, his lips moving, but she doesn’t hear the words because she’s busy pulling him in, pressing her lips against his, her body against his, her arms around his neck, holding him close. A flash of fangs against his skin, not enough to cut, but to give it to him two ways, lick and human both.

She could drown in his love. She is drowning, spiraling down, further and further, and she doesn’t need the air to breathe so she doesn’t care, they can find the bottom of the abyss together, see how deep the trench goes.

But something else pulls at her too. Commitments. Things she said she’d do, people she needs to see. She claws her way back to the surface, fighting against the shackle that has her by the ankles, the anchor that wants to sink her. She fights against it, kicking and screaming to pull herself up, up, out. Her head breaks the surface and she can breathe again, but the waves keep rolling over her, crashing again and again, and she clings to him, her little place of safety in the turmoil.

She’ll see him again. Soon. That’s what makes her finally pull back, touch a hand to his cheek, look up into his eyes. Soon. Thirty minutes. He’ll be there, and they’ll pretend they don’t know each other, that they mean nothing to each other, but it’s just another game. Another game to keep them safe. Another game in a city of lies.

But tonight. Later. Errands, then him. All night, all day, the next night and day. Him.

“Temporary goodbyes shouldn’t hurt so much,” she whispers.

GM: Perhaps she notices how long it takes him to carry her to her car. More likely she doesn’t. It’s a nice feeling to not need to think about anything in the world, even walking, except the lover with his arms under her.

Her teasing touch when he finally (and so reluctantly) sets her down clear electrifies him. He pulls her close, her breasts pressing against his chest, his hands squeezing her rear, as he plants hungry kisses against her lips. His tongue explores her mouth, tracing against her fangs. She can feel how long and sharp his are, too. He runs his hands through her hair. He wraps his arms around her back and hugs her against him like he wants nothing more than to hold her in place there forever.

Some of it has to be the bond, this sheer intoxication with one another. But it’s real, too. She knows it is. It’s a rose planted in already fertile soil.

“It almost feels like a crime to set you down,” he whispers ruefully into her ear. “Those dainty little feet of yours shouldn’t ever have to touch the ground. You should have admirers to carry you everywhere.”

Celia: Her eyes all but shine as she looks up at him, cheeks flush with blood. She doesn’t care that it’s a conscious act to send it there, she wants him to see what he does to her, the effect that he has on her.

It’s real. It is. His sire has said it is rare, and their kind maybe don’t believe in it, but she knows the truth. They’re both capable of love, and they’ve found it in each other.

“How would they ever get close to me if you’re around to beat them off with a stick, hm?” Celia slides her hands up his chest, then around the back of his head to slide through his hair. “I don’t need any admirers but you.”

GM: “God…” he murmurs, his hands continuing to appreciatively trace up and down her backside.

“You’re too good for them, for Elysium. It’ll only seem fair if they declare you’re the exhibit. The center of the evening, for everyone else to gush about and admire.”

“They should put you on a throne. And all the other licks should have to beg just for a turn of getting to help carry it.”

Celia: “Everyone already knows that,” Celia tells him, smirking. It’s true, though. Jade’s face was designed to be the prettiest lick in the city, and anyone who says otherwise is simply lying to themselves. She’s not so gauche as to brag about it, though. She’s never even said as much out loud.

“A throne, hm? I’ve a crown somewhere, maybe I’ll put it on tonight and make you worship me.”

GM: He just presses her close. “Oh, I already worship you. When Elysium’s all over, and we’re back here, I’m going to carry you inside. I’m going to set you down over the sink, and hand-wash the bottoms of your shoes, so we don’t ever have to be reminded they touched the earth. Then I’m going to carry you to bed, and unwrap my present, just a little, when I crawl up between your legs, with your sexy dress still on. Then I’ll really worship you, to pay you back for that blowjob.”

Celia: “Now that,” she murmurs, pulling him down to press her lips against his once more, “sounds like a perfect end to the evening.” Her body responds to his words, nipples stiffening and moisture pooling between her thighs at the thought of him kneeling before her. Oh, yes, a wonderful evening indeed.

It’s difficult after that to extricate herself from him, but a glance at his watch tells her that if they don’t get going they’re both going to be late, and that will set all sorts of tongues wagging. Not in the good way, either. Not like he promises to do later.

“Four?” She turns it into a question. Four am. Enough time for her to complete her tasks and get back here so he can ravish her, provided Elysium doesn’t run long.

GM: “Four,” he repeats longingly. He opens her car door, then picks her up and sets her down in the driver’s seat, as if solely to enjoy having her in his arms again. He pulls up the hem of her dress, pulls down her panties, and runs his fingers along and inside her womanhood, getting as much of her dampness all over them he can.

“Have to keep you dry so your dress doesn’t stain,” he smiles.

It doesn’t help that she probably just gets wetter.

Celia: It doesn’t help at all. She almost yanks him into the car with her so that he can finish the job. She makes a noise, clearly discontent when he pulls away, her lips pulled back from her teeth to growl at him.

“Tease.”

GM: “Turnabout is fair play,” he smirks, though his eyes turn concerned after a moment. “I can grab you a towel from inside, though. You don’t want to have even a hair out of place around the harpies.”

“Maybe some new underwear too, if yours got wet. They might be able to smell it.”

Celia: Celia pats the purse, then makes a vague gesture to her glove compartment as well.

“I have wipes,” she tells him, “and I’ll simply remove my panties. Now you have to think about that while they drone on tonight.”

GM: “Oh, are you sure? You don’t want me rifling through your underwear drawer and picking out a sexy pair?”

Celia: “Oh, no, I’ll let you dress me for tomorrow, so that when I go to this tedious dinner function you’ll know I’m thinking about you.”

GM: “That does sound incredibly tedious without me there. But okay, if you’re not wearing panties tonight…”

Celia doesn’t see the lightning-fast Brujah do it, but she feels her suddenly close-together legs shoot up into the air. The she sees the panties dangling from his hand. He rubs his wet fingers against them to towel off.

“I think I’ll keep these inside my jacket as a good luck charm.”

Celia: “Then you’re going to smell like sex,” Celia points out, but she’s too busy giggling at the sight to put any heat into her words.

GM: He smiles back, ruefully. “You’re right. I suppose I’ll just have to keep them in my car, until I can get them framed or mounted to a plaque in my new haven.”

“Or maybe I should donate them to an art museum as a priceless piece of cultural heritage.”

Celia: “You could auction them off online. I think my panties might sell for a pretty penny, especially worn.”

GM: “But there’d be no one with enough money to buy them. It’d be like with the Cullinan, where all they could do was give it to the British monarchy.”

Celia: “I guess they’re yours forever then.” She tilts her head, considering. “I kind of like the idea of you carrying around a little piece of me.”

GM: “I like it a lot too.” He leans in to kiss her.

“All right. I love you. Make sure you get everything with the wipes.”

Celia: “I will. I love you too. I’ll see you soon. Or rather, I’ll studiously avoid looking at you soon and sneer at the mention of your name.”

GM: “You and me both,” he says with another rueful look. He closes the car door, waves, and heads off to his own car.

It feels like it’s going to be a very long Elysium.

---

Friday night, 11 March 2016, PM

GM: The Ogden Museum of Southern Art is located in the CBD next to Lee Circle, the traffic circle dedicated to the eponymous Confederate general. It’s a five or so minute drive.

The tall and looming building almost resembles a prison, with an impassive male face staring through a partial cage of iron bars. It’s a popular Elysium locale, and Celia has even been there a few times when she was alive with her parents. The Ogden’s collection, she knows, consists of work by artists from or associated with fifteen Southern states and the District of Columbia. Since its foundation by Roger H. Ogden, the museum’s collection of paintings, watercolors, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, wood and crafts has grown to include more than 4,000 works donated from individuals and collectors from across the US, and constitutes the largest and most comprehensive collection of Southern art in the world.


Celia: It’s a five-minute drive that turns into ten. Roderick’s words linger in her mind: make sure you get it all. She doesn’t need the harpies tittering over the state of her on top of whatever other perceived slight they’ll find to mock this evening. Even those inside the circle are torn viciously apart by their barbed tongues. So she uses a wipe between her legs before she even puts the car in gear, another at a red light—and wouldn’t that be a sight if someone happened to be around this hour of night, a woman with her dress hiked up around her waist and a hand between her legs—and a final time before she gets out. She smooths her dress back down prior to opening the car door. No need to flash anyone, at least not for free.

Legs lengthened by the heel on her shoes, Jade unfolds from the vehicle and glides towards the entrance of the museum.

GM: It’s too bad Randy isn’t here to drive her. She could get everything. While he watched.

Celia: She gets everything anyway, it just takes an extra minute.

GM: Maybe he’d make do with sniffing and licking the wipes while he rubbed one out, after she left.

Celia: That boy needs to get laid.

GM: She’s also late. There’s no way around it. Jade doesn’t see any other vampires entering the building, though maybe that’s just them being discrete.

There’s one Kindred, though, who’s seemingly waiting outside. Becky Lynne Adler stands near the museum’s front entrance, conversing with a ghoul while she taps into a phone. Embraced in the flower of late adolescence, she has delicate features, soft sun-blonde hair that falls slightly past her shoulders, and deep brown eyes. Jade knows her to smile easily and often, which together with her slight build and short height (she barely breaks 5’0"), give her a harmless appearance—the sort of girl who couldn’t intimidate a grade schooler. She wears a strapless white evening gown cinched at the waist with a pink bow and matching heels. Two diamonds glint from her ears, while a silver heart-shaped locket rests on a chain around her neck.


“Oh, hello, Miss Kalani,” the Ventrue smiles as Jade approaches. “I had a hunch you’d be here… what do you say we go in together, so there’s less stir with the harpies?”

Celia: Jade’s smile stretches across her face as the sight of the stiff waiting for her. Her eyes sweep the blonde’s form, taking in the dress—white? that’s brave—with the cutesy bow and heels, the jewelry at her ears and throat. Tasteful, as always. Effortless, or at least that’s what the Ventrue would have them believe. Just as she’d have Jade believe that she happened to be caught up outside. Had a hunch? Indeed.

She halts just before Becky Lynne, for once a giant among her peers. In height, at least. Heels may be the great equalizer, but someone as short as this one would need to don the platform pumps of Veronica to put her on even footing. Still, it would be a silly lick indeed who let her small stature fool them into thinking she’s harmless.

“Good evening, Lady Speaker.” Were they not on the grounds of Elysium they would both let their masks slip enough to refer to each other more familiarly as they often do but here, at least, they play their roles. “I am always happy to share your presence. Doubly so when it allows us to duck their ire.” Jade flashes her a conspiratorial grin.

“Shall we?”

GM: Becky Lynne smiles back. “My mama always liked to say—trouble’s gonna come after you at some point, so no sense in goin’ after it yourself. Same with harpies and their ire!”

She turns to her ghoul. “Peggy, can you be a dear and wait outside with the car, usual time?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the ghoul nods. She’s also short blonde, and comely enough, but pudgier of face and more plainly dressed than her mistress. Everything about her looks like a plainer version of her mistress. She inclines her head and moves off.

“Good thing we’re showing up without any ghouls, too,” Becky Lynne smiles again. “My brother was telling me about a Kindred who showed up to Elysium with half a dozen ghouls, once, and the harpies just never let it die down. Which makes sense enough—we all have them, so no sense in showin’ off that we do. Less there is more, I think.” She gives a light laugh. “Unless we’re able to make them into ensembles as stylish as Regent Harlequin’s, of course.”

She reminds Celia of her mom, in some ways.

Blonde cutsey Southerners eager to make nice.

Celia: Is she, though? Eager to make nice for niceties sake? Hardly. Even Diana has a purpose for being as sweet as she is, and she doubts that Becky Lynne’s motives are as altruistic as she would have people believe. A Southern woman grows up learning how to put poison into her smile.

Jade has never brought her ghouls to Elysium. It isn’t their place.

“Less is more with many things,” Jade readily agrees. “Easier to add something than to take it away once it’s in the pot, as they say.”

Still, the sweet-as-pie Becky Lynne is preferable to the caustic tongues of some others she could name. So long as she’s aware of what the girl is she’s hardly a knife in the dark. Jade even likes her for all that because she gets it. She does the same thing. So it’s not as if she needs to feign interest in the blonde or force a smile, and her company is hardly a chore. She appreciates the cover with the harpies; solidarity in numbers and all that.

Even if her brother is slumming it and her sire is the most hated lick in the city.

“I suppose it wouldn’t be in line with my clan to confess that I couldn’t think of a more aesthetically pleasing exhibit for ghouls than Regent Harlequin has. I hope you won’t tattle for my lack of artistic bodily expression.” The wink is implied. “Think we should make the rounds and pretend we were here the whole time or throw ourselves into the thick of it?”

GM: Alana had always wanted to go. On her hands and knees, wearing a collar and leash, for everyone to see how Jade owns her.

“Oh, I think bodily expression is exactly what the artist behind Flawless is known for,” Becky Lynne smiles back, then taps two thoughtful fingers against her chin.

“Hmm. Makin’ the rounds makes it easier to slip under the radar. A harpy who notices might think we’re trying to fool them, though, and nobody likes that.”

“Goin’ right into the thick of it is bold. That might mean something, but it’s also a lot more scrutiny, and it’s always easier to get bad attention than good.”

“What do you think we oughta do, Miss Kalani?”

She seems to think some more. “Hm, or actually… maybe the best trick is to distract them with something else. Something more worth talking about than the fact of our arrival.”

“I wonder what we could do there?”

Celia: Jade had been about to suggest that they cozy up to the most important lick in the room and simply pretend that their presence was so much more important than that of the tongue-wagging harpies. Someone like sheriff. Not that her eyes seek him out. Oh no, not even a little bit. Not even a glance.

Well, maybe a glance. Once around the space to see if he’s there.

Other targets, though. Any of the elders, really, what harpy could complain about that? McGinn or Marcel, Becky Lynne is friendly enough with both of them, isn’t she? And it would cut through trying to deal with Josua if the blonde could get her an audience.

But dangling something shiny in front of those wagging tongues is certainly just as appealing—more believable and spreads what needs spread.

“Well…” Jade trails off thoughtfully, as if she doesn’t know exactly what the girl is thinking, “I suppose we’d have to share something scandalous.” She waits a beat.

GM: The Ventrue draws in a little (and needless) breath, the tips of her fingers fluttering over her mouth as her eyes scan their surroundings. But there’s some amusement dancing in them, too.

“Oh? Did you have somethin’ in mind for us to share, Miss Kalani?”

Celia: About your brother’s affair? Maybe the prince’s unknown childe? Or his diet of neonates?

Not the sort of thing she’d like to speak aloud in a place like this. Especially to a stiff. Something less volatile, then.

GM: Smith spoke ideas like those aloud.

Vidal could only execute him once.

Celia: And Smith was a somebody. Relatively, Jade is a nobody. She can’t imagine that the prince would be any more lenient towards her. Would he execute her publicly, she wonders, or have her abducted in the middle of the night? Maybe she’d go the way of the rest of the Storyvilles and serve as his midnight snack.

She wonders if her sire would be stirred to action should his liege order her execution. Maybe he’d be sent to deal with her. He’d berate her for the clumsy handling of the information he wanted her to spread. Would he use the sword? That new gift she gave him? Simply rip her heart out of her chest, poetic justice at its finest? After all, it has always belonged to him.

The amount of times that she has pictured her death at his hands makes her stomach clench.

No, none of those will do. And the others… she can think of too many ways that the information would be more useful in the hands of someone wiser. If only Savoy had sought fit to see her prior to this evening to offer guidance; what a field day she’d have with it now.

Jade tucks a curl behind her ear and bites her lip. Finally, she lets out a breath as unnecessary as the Ventrue’s earlier gasp.

“Well,” she says slowly, “it’s about a neonate, and it’s a little gauche…”

Exactly the sort of thing they’d like to sink their teeth into.

GM: It does make her stomach clench.

But perhaps the danger is part of the appeal. She can’t picture Roderick ever doing something like that.

Except when he loses it and really manhandles her.

“Well now, it’s all in how one presents it, isn’t it?” Becky Lynne smiles.

Celia: The difference between Roderick and her sire is the systemic destruction versus mindless chaos. Roderick losing control is bedlam, a whirlwind of rage, literal frenzy. An inferno. He obliterates everything around him. With Roderick she can only attempt to throw herself from his warpath and hope he passes her harmlessly by, then console him when it is over.

Her sire is a different beast altogether. Beautiful. Meticulous. Frozen. Utterly lethal annihilation. He does not smash; he shatters. He lays ruin with exact precision, destroying only what he wishes to see ruined. A scalpel to Roderick’s hammer. The difference between fire and ice.

His is a controlled burn.

And it terrifies her, how close she seeks to put herself to that cold fire. That she would let it—him—consume her. Have it. Have it all. Keep it, if only he’ll keep her too.

The thought is disquieting. She does not let it linger. Her eyes seek those of her would-be conspirator.

“Then I suppose, Lady Speaker,” she says at last, “that we must dazzle them.”

Celia: She leans in, lowering her voice.

“Perhaps you can assist me with neatly packaging this: I found one of the Storyvilles on a cam site.”

GM: “Oh my goodness,” Becky Lynne murmurs, holding a hand to her mouth.

Celia: Gauche, as she said.

GM: “She might be very, very grateful if that were to remain between us three.”

Celia: Jade acknowledges the point with a dip of her head.

“She might be.”

If only she weren’t dead.

GM: Talking further, Beck Lynne (perhaps unsurprisingly) seems to think that she and Jade stand more to gain by helping Storyvilles save face than spreading rumors about them. She won’t stop Jade if she wants to do that, though—including to her as an apparent explanation for the Toreador’s tardiness.

Celia: Jade supposes that Becky Lynne is right. Or at least she supposes that she doesn’t care enough about the Storyvilles to save or ruin their reputation, and every moment she spends out here debating the merits of spreading a rumor versus not is another moment she could be doing… literally anything else. She’s unsurprised to learn Becky Lynne’s stance on the subject; apparently she only hangs around the harpies so she can listen to rumors and refrains from spreading any herself, angel that she is.

Deft maneuver, she can’t help but note. She gives in graciously—there are other stories she’d prefer to spread about the coterie anyway—and offers to let Becky Lynne lead the way.

GM: The two make their way inside. A crowd of Kindred is gathered around what looks like a central exhibit.


It sounds as if Celia and Becky Lynne have missed the opening prayer and whatever opening words Gus Elgin had to greet the attendees with. A glassy-eyed mortal man in fine eveningwear next to Gus Elgin sleepily recites,

“…the act of wrapping objects and binding things together is as ancient as mankind itself. Weaving is at least 12,000 years old (recent discoveries suggest possibly 27,000), and the world’s oldest sewing needle (made of bird bone possibly by Denisovans) dates back to approximately 50,000 years ago. While it is an ancient and very human act, perhaps the inspiration arose from observing nature. Spiders bind filaments together to form a web, and wrap their prey in silk. Vines wrap and cling for support and movement. Birds build nests and bagworms build homes through binding objects together. Each and every one of us begins life bound within the womb, one life entwined with another. Perhaps that is part of the primal urge to wrap objects: to protect them, hide them, contain them. Wrapping can be a preservative endeavor, like the mummy’s quest for immortality. It can be a violent act, like the coil of the snake or the chains of human bondage. It can be an act of solidarity and devotion, as with the hand-fasting rituals of marriage. Every wrapped package or bound bundle contains a secret—a hidden thing, the unknown—and activates the very human emotions of curiosity or fear.”

Music soothes the savage beast. Calm and reflective words seem to to have a similar enough effect upon the assembled predators, each one’s pale and motionless face concealing so very savage beast. One misspoken word, one shed drop of blood, and perhaps this hapless kine would lie screaming for his life as the city’s Kindred fell upon him like a pack of wolves, staining the hardwood floor red with his blood. For now, listen attentively, like civilized people who go to art museums do. But in each and every one of their breasts lurks a monster that couldn’t give two shits about the subtleties of object-wrapping next to the hot taste of blood.

“From Native American sacred medicine bundles to the Jewish laying of tefillin, wrapping and binding have been used as a symbolic device by humans throughout history. Both the ritual act and the act of creating art are ways of putting concrete reality to abstract ideas. Drawing inspiration from the traditions of various cultures—Haitian Voudou, Appalachian broom-making, Calabrian silk production, Peruvian rope coiling, Congo Nkisi—the contemporary artists in this exhibition engage wrapping and binding as both symbolic aesthetic device, and often as a ritual practice within their work.”

The children of the night have come out in all their pageantry. Philip Maldonato’s tall frame, garbed in archaic-looking Muslim robes, is immediately noticeable. Antoine Savoy wears an Enlightenment-era courtier’s outfit. Vidal and the Baron are not present, likely to the surprise of few. They rarely are.

Among the primogen, Jade espies Pearl Chastain in a hennin and medieval-era gown. Little interest passes over her face. Jade may wonder if she has anything better to do. Accou, unsurprisingly, remains close to his sire’s side in more recent but still centuries-dated finery. Coco opts for more modern garb in a black turtleneck and dress slacks. Roderick looks at Jade as she arrives, but moves away his gaze after a moment.

How much is he thinking about the things he’d like to do with her, once Elysium is finally over?

Von Steinhäuser stands present and impassive in an archaic Enlightenment-era gown of her own, as if to say everything is still normal for the Tremere. Miss Opal, alone among the primogen, is not present tonight.

But he is there.

He isn’t tall and dark. He’s dark and feels tall. He’s dressed in the same utilitarian black garb that could come from any number of decades. It reveals nothing of his origins—no more than his expressionless, marble-like face reveals of his feelings. He does not spare Jade a single look.

Celia: How fitting, the topic of the evening. Bindings. It has long been on her mind, the question of why he will not take her fully. Why he will not let her have that third sip from his wrist. She has her own private theories why he denies it, none of which give her comfort. She’s often wondered how angry it would make him if she were to take that step with someone else. What he’d do to her. To them. Or if he’d care at all.

Looking at him now, in his dark garb of no note with his eyes resolutely turned away, she doesn’t think that he would. A flicker of emotion passes through her, something like yearning. For him, even now, fresh from a tumble with someone else, late because she had fallen into the arms of another lover. What would it be like to be able to stand beside him in a place like this? What would it be like to be known as his childe, not the childe of the vicious slut? How might her Requiem have changed?

Not at all, she thinks. It isn’t as if he and Doriocourt canoodle in a corner. And she knows why he has done it. Why he ignores her. Why he sent her off with Savoy. She knows, or thinks she knows, and if it is a lie she tells herself then it is a beautiful lie and she clings to it with every bit of delusional strength she has. It is her light in the darkness, her secret fantasy, and she will not let it be snuffed out.

Jade does not let her gaze linger on the dark one. She sweeps it past Roderick, no flicker of emotion giving away the squirming of her insides. Not here. Here she beats it down. Roderick is nothing to Jade, no matter how Celia may want him.

Perhaps she should take some sort of public lover, someone to hide their dalliance from the rest of their kind. The art thief, maybe; she’s been seen arm and arm with him before, and it isn’t as if he expects monogamy. He might even find the whole thing amusing. Or Gui. Now that she’s had him she wants him again. Years of flirtation finally paid off, and what a delicious paring it was. And it would make sense, wouldn’t it, two young bloods from Savoy’s faction shacking up. More sense than the decades-older thief, anyway.

She can’t imagine it would go over well with Roderick. He, at least, is hot-blooded enough to get a rise out of. In a hundred years she wonders if that will still be the case, if he will still be the same man that she met in college. Do they change at all once they die, or is he stuck at 22 like she is stuck at 19? She’d like to think she has changed. Can change again, be the girl he wants her to be. But isn’t that the girl he knew back then, the sweet one who would do anything for her family, who died to save her mother, who made a devil’s bargain for the desperate chance to finally do something for once rather than continue to sit idly by?

Isn’t that still her? If she ignores the rot that has taken hold of her, the Beast inside her chest that eats away at her humanity bit by bit, she thinks it might be. Only he doesn’t know what she’d done the night she died, the way she had given in to the darkness, let it consume her. Only when her psyche had begun to shatter did she pull back.

She died broken. Perhaps that is who she will always be. Perhaps the girl he thinks he loves is what died that night, stripped away with the rest of her innocence.

Jade pulls her thoughts from that downward spiral. Pulls her gaze from the assembled primogen and sheriff—her thoughts flicker his way once more, wondering if he is wearing the gift beneath his clothing (and what else he’s hiding beneath that dark garb, and if he’ll ever—), but she does not let either linger overly long. She moves it across the room once more before finally settling on Savoy. She has so much to tell him. Already she’s looking forward to tomorrow when she can present him with everything, where he will tell her how smart and capable she is, pat his lap for her, let her curl up, whisper in her ear. She’ll convince him to get rid of Preston for an hour. Maybe they’ll soak in the hot tub once they’re done tearing each other apart, and he’ll tell her… tell her that he’s proud of her? No, she doesn’t think that’s what she wants to hear from him. That he’s pleased with her, maybe. Yes. Pleasure. That’s what she wants from him.

Perhaps she’ll take Mel up on her offer to come naked to a meeting and see how that plays out.

Two minutes in and she’s already lost sight of what she came here for. She looks for her pretend sire, or Marcel’s most recent fuck toy.

GM: She espies Veronica among the other harpies. The Toreador wears gold sandal heels and a black and brown dress that Jade doesn’t have to be an esthetician to identify as being made from human hair.


Perhaps, she may wonder as she looks upon her purported sire’s so-often sneering face, that’ll be her in a hundred years.

Perhaps a hundred years ago, Veronica was Celia Flores. A well-meaning girl in over her head and driven to darkness.

Celia: Veronica was never a girl like Celia.

GM: Maybe that’s what the neonates will say about Jade in a hundred years.

She was never a girl like them.

Celia: Then again, she’d just wondered why Veronica would wear a dress of human hair when it could be human skin, and she’s been dead less than a decade.

Perhaps she really will gift her “sire” something from her new line.

GM: Veronica’s bitch isn’t there. “Micheal,” if one were to be kind and use his name. Shep also seems to have skipped Elysium, but Pietro’s there next to her, along with the other harpies. Adelais and Sundown and Marguerite and Katherine and Harequin, and the rest of the in crowd, plus the hangers-on (like her) hoping to someday join their ranks. There are worse Kindred to be childe to than a harpy, than a primogen’s childe and a leader among her covenant, whatever her reputation.

Jade could have gotten saddled with someone like Isabel’s sire, and been a mere handful of steps away from Dani’s fate.

Or she could have been turned by whoever cursed Roderick’s sister with their feeble brand of dime store damnation.

Celia: There’s a thought. Celia the thin-blood. She doubts she’d even have to make a new name for herself if she were to have gone that route. Who cares about another half-breed mongrel, anyway? She’d have been slaughtered with the rest of her kind. Turn in by her boyfriend’s sire. Would he have protected her, she wonders, or just stood idly by while the murder brigade did their ghastly deed?

She couldn’t help but notice Opal’s absence this evening. Planning another massacre?

Jade is glad she doesn’t need to worry about such things, at least. And Pietro is a welcome sight at her sire’s side, in any case. These events are always brightened by his droll humor.

Her eyes and thoughts flit back to the speaker and the exhibit.

GM: “…each artist in this exhibition approaches the simple acts of wrapping and binding from a unique perspective. Some are involved in the haptic absorption of repetitive handwork—a sort of ritual meditation on texture and rhythm. Others are exploring the symbolic power of the physical act—weaving narratives through form, image and materials. This exhibition contains a feast of texture and a vast range of materials—clay, fabric, rope, egg tempera, driftwood, loofah, antler, bone, wire, coffee, ashes, teeth, yarn, wool, chalk and a plethora of found objects. Through wrapping, painting, weaving, coiling, drawing, or knotting, each artist binds their own unique and thoroughly contemporary vision to an ancient, universal and very human practice.”

Celia: If only the ancients among them would allow for the introduction of more contemporary visions.

GM: There’s a few final words before the assembled predators start to disperse into their own cliques and stroll down the museum’s empty halls. Perhaps this man has some inkling of how much safer he now is. Sundown starts off the conversation with a joke about spiders in the centers of their webs. Binding and weaving is an all-too familiar practice to the Kindred. Katherine Beaumont concurs and draws comparisons to the chains of blood that bind them to their clans and kin. The ties binding mortals to their lives and duties are weaker, Gus Elgin states: “Just as one must tie an object more securely to withstand a hurricane than a summer breeze, the ties that bind us to eternity must by necessity be stronger than the ties binding kine to mortality.”

Some of the present Kindred seem to be following along and considering the conversation. At least as many others are exploring the museum exhibits on their own, or in discussions with their other cliques.

But there are still plenty of cold eyes resting upon the tardy arrivals.

Celia: Bully for them and their cold eyes. Jade would roll her own if she were anywhere but here. She doesn’t bother to move closer to them to join their discussion, turning instead to begin her own with the Ventrue at her side.

“Interesting,” she remarks to Becky Lynne, her voice quiet so as not to compete with the others, “his comments on the mummies and their bindings. It isn’t why they wrapped their kin, but I suppose he couldn’t resist the tie-in.”

“It was actually,” she continues unprompted, “because of their obsession with order, and their desire to defeat chaos. As a concept.”

GM: Those cold eyes include her purported sire’s.

And the other harpies’.

And assorted other Kindred of greater standing than the neonate’s.

Celia: Ah, right. Fuck her for trying to engage with something other than vicious gossip. Cold stares and wagging tongues really makes her glad that she bothered to show up instead of turning around to find literally anything else to do when she realized she’d be five whole minutes late.

Personally, she thinks the discussion on Ancient Egypt is fascinating, but clearly the harpies never heard that “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people” quote.

Jade can dig into the mud with the best of them. She gives Becky Lynne an apologetic smile. For a moment longer she talks about Egypt and their burial customs, chaos, the historical idea of evil, and the afterlife. She manages to tie it together and swing it back around to something that someone as vapid as the harpies can understand in the end:

“…which is why I think that Storyville started on the cam site, you know, and there’s months of content. It’s tragic. You should see some of those videos…”

GM: Becky Lynne listens attentively to Jade’s initial explanation. There’s a lot more interest on her face than Roderick’s, but Jade supposes the Ventrue hadn’t just heard her sister was a thin-blood.

“Oh my goodness,” she repeats upon hearing the salacious rumor, covering her mouth with several fingers.

“Yeah, I don’t buy that,” says Duke Elmhearst. The Sanctified neonate has a face with eyes meaner than a gator’s and a sneer that could shame a rattlesnake, all framed by a shock of dirty blond hair. Jade has heard a few of Savoy’s people make fun of Duke’s face for “looking like an internet picture that gets you idly thinking of ways to murder him, ten minutes after you meet.”

But Vidal’s people probably don’t say anything nicer about Jade.

“Sin against God to endanger the Masquerade like that. That isn’t them.”

Amused eyes among onlookers flicker between the two neonates.

Celia: Duke looks like the kind of guy that might benefit from visiting a cam site himself. All that pent up male aggression, she bets he’d get off on telling some poor slut what to do. She’s not put out by his doubt, though. She glances at him and smiles. It’s a pretty smile, like the rest of her. Regardless of what Vidal’s people say about her, they can’t take that away. She waves him over.

She’s happy to discuss it with a doubter.

GM: He smirks and saunters over.

Celia: Jade smiles up at Duke. She hasn’t gotten to know him well, but she’d like to. She likes the cut of his jib. Likes his arrogance. Likes his swagger, even, in an “I’d like to punch him in the face” kind of way. But she’s enjoyed plenty of people like that. She stands close to him—really close, Jade likes that physical contact—and shows him the screenshot on her phone.

It’s a pretty standard-looking still from a cam site. A girl on her knees dressed in skimpy attire, bra and panties, black lace. It’s almost beautiful against her pale skin. But instead of a dick in her mouth it’s a long dildo, cheeks bulged out around it. The screenshot includes the chat telling her to suck it, the recent donation of $5. Jade swipes right and shows him the next one, where the girl in the picture puts the dildo—purple, huge, spiraled—into herself with her legs spread wide. Her eyes are closed and her mouth open, like she’s panting heavily. The donation line reads $15 this time, and the chat is wild with people telling her what to do, to fuck herself, to show her pussy, to spread herself wide, that they want her to bend over and take it like the slut she is.

Even with her eyes closed, Roxanne’s face is unmistakable.

Jade looks up at Duke, brows raised.

GM: Duke eyes the playing video. His face briefly catches.

It really does look exactly like Roxanne.

“That’s so fake,” says the Brujah. “It doesn’t even look like her.”

Celia: Her brows threaten to disappear into her hairline.

Jade swipes right once more. It’s another screenshot of Roxanne. Only this time she’s got a dude in the photo with her. Two dudes. It’s pretty clear what’s going on: one is fucking her from behind while the other cums on her face.

GM: Titters and knowing glances start to go up from the onlookers. Perhaps they can’t all see exactly what’s happening, from this distance.

But they can make out enough. They can read the two licks’ expressions.

And there are assuredly at least several Kindred here with very, very good eyesight.

Harlequin starts to laugh.

His four ghouls are with him tonight, like they are every night. Each one dressed in nothing except chain links over their naked bodies. Their faces are hidden beneath silver masks that resemble deformed infants with varying, eerily adult expressions of lust, contempt, horror, and despair.

As one, they clutch their hands to their masked faces. As one, laughter spills from their concealed lips.

Veronica starts to laugh, too. The other three harpies do not take overlong before joining in. Elyse Benson makes a remark disdaining the “imperfections” of such a lust-driven creature. Randolph Cartwright sneers how much she looks like she’s enjoying herself. Esther Sue Parker shakes her head disapprovingly. Speculation starts to go up about Roxanne being a pervert. If she actually enjoys doing it the breather way.

The Ventrue are the only ones not to laugh. They just don’t say anything.

Duke rolls his eyes. “I don’t know any blue blood who’d take money to do something like that. Ha ha at the fake video, I guess.”

He stalks off to salve his pride.

Just like that, Jade fees welcome in polite company again.

Celia: Jade slips the phone back into her pocket. She watches Duke disappear into the crowd, wondering if there’s something she can do there to soothe his wounded pride. He could have spun it another way, she thinks, laughed along with them, nudged her in the ribs, made it look like he only asked because he wanted to show the rest of them what a little whore Roxanne is. She’d have winked at him and played along and let him save face.

Ah, well, they can’t all be winners.

GM: Becky Lynne smiles and politely excuses herself. She’s played her part.

“I want to see this up close,” declares Veronica, striding up to Jade’s side. Pietro, Abraham Garcia, Andy Philips, Will Carolla, and Laura Ravenwood all seem to want a closer look too.

Celia: Jade is happy to show the harpy who claims to be her sire. She pulls her phone back out to show Veronica and the assorted others who crowd around her, scrolling through photos as needed. She’s pleased with the turnaround.

Pleased, too, that Carolla came to her and not the other way around. She hadn’t thought to approach him directly, but when he falls so perfectly into her lap… well, she’s never been one to pass up an opportunity. She catches his eye across the little circle.

GM: All of them. All of them laugh. All of them mock.

Where did Jade ever find these?

She doesn’t find it hard to catch the Brujah’s gaze. He’s a strong-jawed and thick-framed young man with brown hair dressed in a dark suit.

“I know some people who might pay big bucks for her as a prostitute, if she’s looking for work,” he remarks with amusement.

Celia: “Mmm, the whole thing was quite by accident, really. My ghoul, you know, he’s very into movies, so apparently when he’s not busy he likes to watch them online, only the thing he was trying to watch wasn’t available on his preferred platform in our country, so he got around that with a VPN, and I guess he forgot to switch it off when he went browsing further because there she was. So he calls over to me, ‘hey don’t you know her?’ and points her out. Naturally I did a little digging, and there it was: tons of past videos. Apparently if you pay enough you can get the models on these sites—yes, really, they call them ‘models’—to do anything, so I thought about what a lark it would be to tell her to fuck a dog, and, well…”

Jade trails off, lifting her shoulders in a shrug.

“I guess when you’re desperate for money you’ll let anyone put something inside of you.”

She smiles at the Brujah. She tells him that she’d love to get together some time to talk about it.

And other things, is the unsaid implication.

GM: Laughter goes up from the clique.

“I suppose she’d be in good company,” Pietro remarks with amusement.

“More like the dog would be in bad company,” sneers Veronica.

“Maybe the dog should get paid,” says Laura.

There’s more laughter.

Carolla remarks with some amusement that he should meet with Roxanne, if they’re talking about ‘work,’ but assents to see Celia later. He’ll have one of “his people” contact hers to schedule a time.

As far as her implication goes, the Brujah looks as if he wouldn’t mind fucking her.

Like almost everyone.

Celia: Almost? What. Who is holding out?

No one she cares about, surely.

She winks at the Brujah and says she’s looking forward to it.

GM: Well, probably Emily and Celia’s mother.

Celia: She hopes so.

Emil too, she bets.

He taught her about VPNs, so he’s on her mind.

GM: If Em were here, he’d probably say the only thing Emil wants to stick his cock inside is a computer port.

Celia: Too true.

She pushes the hacker from her mind, though. He has no bearing on this event. No bearing on the Brujah in front of her who is, decidedly, easy on the eyes. Maybe not the one she wants warming her bed, but she wouldn’t mind ‘getting to know him,’ or whatever the kids are saying these days. She lets her gaze sweep his form one last time, knows he’s doing the same to her. He’s not the only one, either.

Jade smirks up at Veronica, waiting until the harpy and her clique has had their fill to put her phone away.

GM: The others have their laughs and start to drift off into the museum.

“Clementine said you’d called about some filthy little idea running through your filthy little mind,” Veronica remarks.

Celia: “Mhm.” Jade nods once they’re relatively alone, watching the last of them disappear down the halls. Never truly alone, not in a place like this. Ears everywhere, she knows. She turns to regard Veronica with a sly smile.

“I did. I don’t know if it can top the filth that was just shared, though.” Privately, that means. Veronica is coy enough to get the message, she’s sure.

GM: She, Mélissaire, and Savoy had all instructed Jade in that much. Assume anything you say out loud in Elysium will be overheard.

“Probably not, unless you wanted to suck a cock right here.”

Celia: Oh, no, that’s for later.

She’d need a bucket of them, anyway, to outdo her sister.

She says something witty. Something clever. Something that lets her “sire” know, in no uncertain terms, how unlikely that is. It’s not as if she’s ever admitted her perversions to the harpy or engaged in that sort of sexual deviance in front of her. She’s not entirely sure why anyone would think she’d have done so, really. Hadn’t Roderick made that comment a few times, something about Veronica belittling her for it? As if she’d tell. It’s like everything else to do with the blood: she’s perfectly capable of controlling herself.

She doesn’t point out to Veronica that perhaps it’s her reputation that makes the city come down so hard on Jade when the only person Jade has ever admitted it to and engaged in it with is the same boy whose mind she plans on blowing later tonight. If Veronica weren’t such a voracious slut maybe they wouldn’t feel the need to up the ante with her childe.

But fuck her, right?

Regardless, if Veronica doesn’t want to bite then Jade is happy to end their conversation and seek out someone else with whom to spend her evening.

Maybe she’ll find a few cocks to suck while she’s at it. Since apparently that’s all she does.

GM: The harpy seems amenable enough, her caustic words notwithstanding. Both to conversing now and meeting in private later. She does seems amused, though, by her alleged progeny’s soreness.

Celia: The soreness that she didn’t let slip at all because she’s better bred than that, but sure. Veronica’s amused by everything, why not this too.

There’s a smile somewhere in her toolbelt. She reaches for it now. Lets it stretch across her face, lift her eyes, wipe whatever imagined emotions people think they see from her face.

She makes plans to meet with Veronica at a later time.

GM: Jade’s sire takes her leave. Meanwhile, the rest of the exhibition awaits.

---

---

GM: She spends a little time observing the exhibits before Laura Ravenwood circles back to her. The other vampire is a slender, pale-skinned woman in seemingly her early 20s with wavy auburn hair. She wears a shape-hugging black silk dress with heels and lipstick that are the same deep red hue as her nail polish.

It’s a comely enough package for the creoles to overlook the Caitiff’s clanless heritage. Enough, at least, to let her into Elysium.

“I heard you talking earlier about why the Egyptians wrapped their mummies, Miss Kalani. You’d said it was to defeat chaos?”

Celia: If Jade is bothered by the Caitiff’s origins it doesn’t show on her face. She offers the same smile she’d give to anyone with a real bloodline.

“Indeed, Miss Ravenwood. The concept of chaos, rather. Their whole society was based around the flooding of the Nile, you see. Every year it would flood at the same time and deliver the sediment and nutrients at the bottom of the river to fertilize their soil. If it were ever to flood too early, too late, or not at all, their whole society would be in shambles. They were obsessed with order. Maintaining things exactly as they are. We see this in their graves and their attitudes towards the afterlife. They thought that by preserving and wrapping their dead it would allow them some measure of control over the decay, which they viewed as another form of chaos.”

“They also,” she adds, “used to use green wrappings, which was symbolic of life to them.”

GM: “Oh, that makes perfect sense,” she nods at the explanation. “I didn’t know they used green wrappings. We think of mummies as having sand-colored ones.”

Celia: “It might have changed over time,” Jade admits, “but when they began the process it was green. Their maps were different back then. You know how kine say ‘up north’ even though north isn’t really up? Back then ‘up’ meant topological.” Which, she realizes, is off topic, and only on her mind because of the mention of maps. She reins it in before she hits lecture mode.

“But they used blue to color the Nile, and green for the fertile area around it, and brown for the area beyond that where there was no life. Green was life. So they used it to fight against death, which they viewed as chaotic.”

“If I’m not mistaken, theirs was among the first cultures to turn death into a business.”

“In that they sold things to help you get into the afterlife or serve you once you were there, I mean. And the things they sold, the things archaeologists found in their graves, suggests that their idea of order persists into the afterlife with them.”

“It was just another way for them to impose order on chaos. Another ritual to keep it at bay.” Much the same as their kind dress up and play this polite charade of art critics to stave off the snarling Beasts inside them all.

GM: “I once read a comic about a high priest who unwrapped a mummy, threw it out of the tomb, wrapped himself up in its bandages, and then killed himself, all so he’d be able to enjoy the same afterlife as his pharaoh.” The Caitiff smiles with amusement. “I doubt something like that actually happened, but when you say they turned the afterlife into a business… it’s only natural some people would want to steal the merchandise.”

“They thought you could take it with them, didn’t they, which was why they buried the pharaohs with so many treasures?”

“Well, entombed them.”

Celia: Jade’s lips twitch in amusement at the mention of the comic.

“It could have happened,” she allows with a grin. “Like stealing someone’s car to make off with whatever they’ve got inside. But yes, even tombs of normal people had things inside of them. Cosmetics, combs, tools, food… things that wouldn’t really help in the afterlife. It’s part of what made the archaeologists and anthropologists believe that their afterlife is exactly like the real world, but better. A step up. Everything tastes, smells, feels better. They thought they would need to take these things with them. They even had these little statues they would buy to serve them in the afterlife, so that they didn’t need to do work.”

GM: “I thought the Egyptians believed in reincarnation, too, after their hearts were judged and they didn’t get eaten? Was all of that essentially just temporary?”

Celia: “Sort of. Their whole view of what it took to get into the afterlife is pretty fascinating and there are a bunch of steps. First, you die. You lose all of your senses. Then there’s a ritual performed on you by Anubis, the opening of the mouth. You’re essentially ‘reborn’ and you regain all of your senses, which I believe is what you’re referring to. Their idea was that you are more ‘alive’ than you were back then. You can see more, hear more.” Sort of like their Kindred senses, she realizes.

“Then you go through 22 gates. Each of the gates is guarded by a god, and you’re asked by the god to give a negative confession. ‘I did not do this thing.’ Scholars aren’t sure if this meant that you needed to stick to a moral code or if you were fine as long as you confessed and repented, but this is one of the first examples of an afterlife we’ve seen where personal choice seems to matter. Between the gates were what is essentially chaos. Scorpions that multiply if you attack them. Beetles that are twenty feet tall. Things that are changed from the natural order. In order to get past these things the people would need spells from the book of the dead, which was just another way for them to make money through all the customization that they could do, to put things back to their natural order. Then the weighing of the hearts. Those who were balanced would move on to the Field of Reeds.”

GM: The more vivid senses bit does sound a lot like Kindred existence.

It seems like an open question, though, what’d happen to her if her heart got weighed.

Laura, though, listens to the impromptu mythology lecture with interest. So do a few other Kindred within nearby earshot.

“I knew the part about evil hearts getting devoured by a monster,” she says. “But good hearts, too? What happened to those?”

Celia: “Well, that’s when we kind of get into the idea of good versus evil. Their idea of evil wasn’t bad acts, it was chaos. So if your heart was balanced, it was ordered, which is good. You got to move on to the Field of Reeds.”

GM: “Oh, that makes sense. What would a person do that was chaotic versus how we’d define evil now, simply not follow cultural norms and keep faith in the gods?”

Celia: “Very similar to what we’d consider evil today, to be honest,” Jade admits. “Their scrolls—the book of the dead—they had these list of negative confessions that they would have to offer to the gods before the gates. If they wronged someone, false feelings, slept around, committed fraud. The basics.” She smiles. “They also apparently had a very dim view on liminal states.”

“That being said, their moral transgressions were not inalienable. Scholars have found tons of graves with these little sculptures, Heart Scarab Beetles, that had phrases carved into the bottom. The gist of it was, ‘heart don’t sell me out when you’re on the scale.’ And the confessions before the gods, the chaos that they fought between the gates, that all helped re-order their hearts.”

“Both of those things were purchases people could make. Their rituals of death became very economics-based.”

GM: “That sounds similar to papal indulgences,” remarks Abraham Garcia, a slender Hispanic man with deep brown eyes, thick black hair, and a large nose.


“Actually, it sounds exactly the same. There’s always plenty forgiveness to spare, so long as it makes somebody a buck.”

Celia: Jade inclines her head toward Garcia. The topic is something a little too hot-button for her to take up in Elysium, of all places—her own opinions smear the church and religion itself pretty hard for all that she’s a member of the Sanctified—but she gives him the benefit, at least, of agreeing.

“It’s a profitable business. Just look at what the kine have done with it. Funeral homes make tons of money for all that they’re selling a box to bury someone in. Even urns get costly.”

GM: “Well, at least those look pretty. People will always spend money on pretty, even if it’s pretty they won’t get to see. But with those scarabs the makers could sell people absolutely nothing at all.”

Celia: “They sold them the idea of eternity.”

“Which, in and of itself, is beautiful.”

GM: “I’m sure it seemed even more beautiful if you were in the scarab business. Who wouldn’t want to sell ideas, rather than material things?”

“The scarabs were material things,” says Laura.

“But only as a means to an idea. I’m sure they made them as cheap as they could.”

Celia: “Of course they did. That’s how a business operates. Is selling an idea any less viable than selling an experience?”

“They’re not tangible things that you can hold onto, experiences, but you can treasure them all the same.”

“So it goes with ideas. If I said to you that I could sell you something for a trivial amount that would assure you a happy unlife, would you not be tempted?”

GM: “There’s no one who wouldn’t be, unless the happiness was predicated on false premises. But I’d probably give you at least 50/50 odds of still getting customers then. People don’t care about truth next to feeling happy.”

Celia: “We do so love our beautiful lies. There are entire industries that have developed due to that intrinsic desire to feel happiness.” Jade offers him a smile. “But I would also concede that those 50/50 odds depend entirely on the speaker.”

GM: “I think it depends on your point of view,” says Laura. “Baudelaire said imagination is the queen of truth. Doesn’t that just seem so exciting, if you think about those words, for the possibilities they open up? Everyone can be a queen. Everyone can enrich the world through their truth.”

“But are you defining truth as an objective measure of reality, or simply what makes you feel satisfied?” asks Roderick Durant. He glances briefly at Jade. “Those are two different things. Everyone likes to throw around ‘truth’ as a rhetorical construct, but we shouldn’t lose sight of what the definition actually is. It’s the measure of reality, nothing more or less.”

“Well, that’s an unpopular view these days,” drawls Garcia. “People like the good Caitiff here are a lot more common. What is there in truth? Where’s the money, the feel-goods? People want whatever makes them feel good. And they feel even better about feeling good if they can find ways to philosophically justify it. To turn their feelings into validation that they’re right about the world. People love feeling right as much as they love feeling good.”

Laura seems to bristle a little, but doesn’t say anything.

Celia: If Jade is bothered by Durant’s sudden appearance it doesn’t show on her face. Her expression stays perfectly neutral at the interjection.

“I might have to say that I disagree with you, Mr. Durant. Truth can be entirely subjective. There are such things as symbolic truths. Shakespeare, for instance, wrote about the truth of family dynamics, war, and romance with Romeo and Juliet. Were they two real people? Is their story objectively true? No. But symbolically? That is truth.”

“And isn’t feeling good, feeling happy, someone’s truth?”

Religion is a symbolic truth. The Bible. Neither of which she will bring up here. Perhaps later they can have their own debate on things that would label her blasphemous.

“Such things would hardly hold up in court, I imagine,” she acknowledges with a smile.

Mr. Durant, though. She can’t think of the last time she called him that. It brings all sorts of things to mind that she shouldn’t dwell on: a wooden ruler, knee-high socks, the plaid skirt in her closet.

One of these nights, she thinks, she’ll learn that mind-to-mind communication trick so she can plague him with these images at times like this when she has to stand across from him and pretend they barely know each other.

GM: Perhaps he’d have his share to plague her back with.

Though maybe she’d win that round. Is her mind dirtier than his?

“Truth is the state of being in accordance with reality,” states Roderick. “Since ‘reality’ encompasses so many things, it’s important to exercise specificity in language. As a historical record, Romeo and Juliet isn’t in accordance with reality. As you say, the characters weren’t real people and the events described never happened. But it does accurately portray the culture and social environment its characters lived in, so by that metric Romeo and Juliet is true. It also contains moral lessons and insights into human nature, though the truth of those is more debatable.”

“But again, when we talk about truth, we have to be specific in our language. Saying ‘happiness is in accordance with reality, which we define as truth’ means absolutely nothing when you pause to deconstruct it. Mr. Garcia is, unfortunately, right that many people would rather feel better about themselves than know more of truth.”

“Well, you can’t blame them either,” says Garcia. “Everyone likes that metaphor of ‘truth as light,’ but it’s a damn painful light. Who wants to burn their eyes when it’s nice and cool in the dark?”

“If you’re blind either way, I’d rather be blinded by truth than lies,” says Roderick.

“Truth can be painful. But we can grow accustomed to pain, and to excessive light.”

“Ironic that all of us can see in the dark so well,” observes Laura with a faint smirk.

Garcia laughs. “It’s not ironic. God knows truth has even fewer adherents among us than among the kine.”

Celia: Jade tilts her head to one side. He’d said something similar to her once about preferring truth to beauty. Then he’d smashed her face in when she’d given it to him. He’s doing it again now with the wilful ignorance in which he regards his sire.

“I believe we’ve circled back to the preference of beautiful lies and ugly truths.”

Ah, truth to beauty, she gets it now. By attacking her he’d made his thoughts clear. He’d ruined her face and no more. The pretty thing about her.

“Though I suppose,” she says at length, “that the real determining factor is how much pain an individual will weather when their truthful light would ruin a beautiful lie.”

GM: “I imagine you’d suffer any amount of pain for the truth, isn’t that right, Mr. Durant?” asks Garcia. He isn’t quite leering, but there os a look approximating one on his face.

“That makes it sound more heroic than it is,” answers Roderick. "Lies are their own pain. "

“Only if you find out they’re lies,” observes Garcia.

“Truth always comes out.”

“Were you in the Boy Scouts?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Oh, no reason.” There’s a faint grin on Garcia’s face.

Celia: He knows something.

Jade doesn’t know what it is that he knows, but she’d like to find out. Her expression mirrors her clanmate’s, amusement tugging at her lips while she watches the exchange.

GM: “What about you, Mr. Garcia? How much pain would you suffer for truth?” asks Roderick.

“Miss Ravenwood and Miss Kalani, I think, would prefer beautiful lies. I may disagree with their values, but I can respect their consistency. I’m less certain where you fall.”

“Mm. I suppose it’d depend on the lie and how beautiful it was,” answers Garcia.

Celia: “I would ask that you not speak for me, Mr. Durant, as my preference depends entirely on the speaker and the situation.”

“Were it someone that I don’t care about or would never see again, then beauty would suffice. Were it someone I respected or felt some measure of affection for?”

“Truth, then. Always truth.”

GM: “I’d say that too,” agrees Laura. “Most of the time, I’d prefer beauty. But every time? Some lies can be too harmful, even if they’re beautiful.”

“Life is shades of grays, when it comes down to it. I don’t think any of us can say we’d always prefer truth or always prefer lies without being dishonest.”

Celia: “Those of us who do are simply lying to ourselves.”

GM: “Maybe so,” Roderick grants. “But there’s appeal in that sort of purity.”

Celia: “Is it appealing? There is a saying about trees that have learned how to bend so they do not break. Can the same not be said of us? After all, the plants that learn to flourish in various climates are those that would outlast the others.”

GM: “They might. But are those trees the tallest ones, that inspire so many others with their majesty?”

Celia: Her smile flickers, the retort dying on her tongue. To delve into this topic is too akin to bad-mouthing those mighty “trees” in public, and that is something she cannot do.

“I recall learning in grade school about the different levels of the rain forest. How each of them adapted to their position in certain ways. The flora at the bottom have giant leaves to soak up what little sunshine filters through. Is that not also majestic?”

GM: “I’d say it’s efficient and successful at adapting to its environment. But majestic? That word makes me think of soaring trees.”

Celia: Jade bites back the insult to his clan. She takes a moment to consider her response, eyes sweeping toward the floor before finding his face once more. She looks up at him through long, black lashes.

“Perhaps beauty is simply in the eye of the beholder, Mr. Durant. Personally I find it compelling when things can thrive in otherwise hostile or derelict environments.”

As much as Jade wouldn’t mind passing her evening engaged in debate with Roderick, she has other people with whom she needs to speak. This exchange of words is doing neither of them any good: not only are they unlikely to change their minds and must bandy their words with care, but they shouldn’t be so publicly amiable. She also fully intends to spend the remainder of her evening debating the merits of various surfaces in her haven with him. Wordlessly.

She inclines her head toward Roderick and Ravenwood, thanking the latter for the conversation with an invitation to continue their discussion of mythology at a future date, and the former for his lively debate. She turns to regard Garcia.

“Will you walk with me, Lord Garcia?”

She hopes that their shared covenant will prevent him from snubbing her.

GM: The other two Kindred exchange parting pleasantries and take their leaves.

“I’ll never say no to a sexy lady’s company, Miss Kalani,” her clanmate smirks. “I wonder what those pieces are, over there.” He points. “They look like… brooms?”

“Broom heads.”

Celia: It’s not that she goes out of her way to put a little extra sway in her step. She’s always sashayed like this. Really. It has nothing to do with Roderick watching her go, arm in arm with her clanmate.

Her eyes follow Garcia’s pointing, brows lifting at the sight of… broom heads. She lifts her brows.

“Perhaps there’s more to it than meets the eye from over here. Shall we?”

Jade leads or lets him lead the way, making idle commentary on the other pieces that they pass. Her eyes roam the halls even as she speaks, searching the faces of those licks who remain. She looks for her sire. Her true sire, not the woman whose blood she claims.

She turns the conversation around as they walk, spinning it back toward Durant and Ravenwood. More idle commentary on the art around them, though it relates back to the subjects they had just been speaking of. Finally, she says,

“I wasn’t aware you and he were well acquainted.” A question colors her voice despite the lack of upward inflection at the end of her sentence.

GM: “We aren’t, personally, but I still know him fairly well.”

There’s a sardonic leer.

“He’s an idealist.”

Celia: Jade’s lips curl, an amused smirk gliding across her face.

“And what are you?”

GM: “Someone with open eyes.”

Celia: They reach the things that look like brooms. Jade tilts her head in quiet examination, finally flicking her eyes back toward Garcia.

“What do you see?”

GM: He shrugs. “I’m a photographer. Broomheads against a wall. Good shot, though if it wasn’t a good shot in a museum, the people responsible should be fired.”

“Symbolically, a look up close at domestic labor.”

“The silent worth and dignity inherent to the work.”

“A look up close at daily existence for the migrant maids in our houses.”

“I don’t think that’s what it’s actually ‘supposed’ to be about, to the artist, but what fucking ever. Stick some broomheads on a wall and you’ll get different opinions.”

Celia: She manages to contain her peal of laughter. It isn’t hard, being dead, but she touches her fingers to her lips anyway as if it might be stolen from her.

GM: He smirks. “So what do you see?”

Celia: “Disillusion.”

GM: “You should forget being a makeup artist. Be a broom artist. Stick a plaque saying ‘Disillusion’ under those and they’ll still mean a million things to people.”

“But a different million.”

Celia: She wasn’t talking about the brooms. But she smiles all the same.

“That’s the appeal of art, I believe.”

“The fact that it is subjective.”

She thinks, though, that her own art is less subjective, and perhaps his as well.

“I have seen some of your work, you know. Pictures are a thousand words and all that…” she pauses, offering him a small, private smile. “Yours, though, perhaps more.”

Unlike the elders of their clan, she does think photography is a valid format.

GM: Garcia smiles back. “That’s why I prefer photography. There’s subjectivity, but it’s over something tangible. Look at the picture of the lonely pretty girl. Is she ‘sad’ lonely, is she ‘wants to fuck’ lonely, or is she not actually lonely. How does the shot composition change which she seems like.”

Celia: “That is the trouble with those who simply pick up a camera to point and click, is it not? They give no thought to composition, framing, or lighting.”

“So we are inundated with photos, particularly now with the move to digital media, that fail to tell a story or move its viewers.”

She lifts one shoulder, a half-shrug to go with her wry smile. Perhaps she is wrong. She is, after all, one of those would-be photographers who takes pictures of her face to plaster them across the Internet.

“Have you dabbled in film at all?”

GM: “Sure. Digital didn’t exist when I started out. Everyone shot with film. Lots of photographers these days are all saying how great it is and how people should at least try shooting both to get a complete picture of photography as a practice.”

Celia: “My apologies, I meant more film in line with movies.”

GM: “Nope. Photography and movies are as different as drawing and sculpture. One uses two dimensions. The other uses three.”

“But as far as Facebook pictures, I don’t see those being less intelligent as a problem.”

“Any more than you probably see non-professionals being able to use makeup in their own homes as a problem.”

Celia: “How selfish of me if I did.”

GM: “Sexy women are always a little selfish.”

“Or a lot.”

Celia: That earns a smile.

“I hope you won’t tell on me.”

GM: “I’d rather show.”

She feels a hand idly caress her rear.

“And see.”

Celia: Expected. But thrilling, isn’t it, to know she can wrap them so quickly around her fingers. All the same, she’s too aware of how public this scene is, too aware of her lover in the next room, to let this go any further than what could be perceived as an accidental touch. She takes a tiny step closer, putting her hand on his shoulder as if to steady herself.

It tugs at her. The bond she has recently renewed with Roderick. She hardly thinks that canoodling here with Garcia is going to do any favors for her in that regard, despite how it adds to their cover. This is who Jade is: flirty, sexy, social butterfly, flitting from group to group, chatting and laughing and touching. It’s who she has been for years. It’s who they expect to see.

Not monogamy. Does he expect it from her still? They hadn’t had that talk. She thinks that he does. She blames him, really, for this show here in the corner with Garcia. If he hadn’t approached, hadn’t spoken to her, she wouldn’t have had to move off with someone else. But people watching—people are always watching—will know that the Brujah means nothing to her. Safer that way, even if it threatens to pull apart that thing in the middle of her chest.

She could whisper the words that Garcia expects to hear. Agreement. Encouragement. They would fall from her lips like the well-practiced lies that they are. After all, she’s played this game for a long time. She knows what to say to get their blood pumping, even if it’s a forced gesture from their kind.

She could, but she doesn’t.

After a brief moment Jade extricates herself from Garcia, giggling about public spaces.

GM: “Hate to see you leave, but love to watch you go,” he smirks after her.

Jade leaves and goes to find her grandsire. She finds him conversing with Coco Duquette over a piece of art depicting a chained man struggling to burst the links of his fetters. The two elders’ faces are smiles (wider in Savoy’s case), but beneath the surface meanings and artistic critiques, one can see their debate over the meaning of the man’s struugle is a battle of words over whether Vidal’s reign can hope to endure. Whether its ‘chains’ will be shattered by time and struggle. Spectators from both sides of the political divide watch the debate avidly.

“With respect, my lord, this debate accomplishes little,” Preston interjects. “We hide behind nuances and doubletalk when we should simply say what we mean: the prince has slaughtered over a dozen Kindred on the last occasion he went out in public. How many more unlives will he destroy before torpor claims him?”

Scandalized looks and furtive whispers greet the Malkavian’s open declaration.

Savoy raises his eyebrows.

The French Quarter lord offers her several conversational outs to downplay the severity of her words. Preston ignores them all, stating, “We all know it. An archon was even here for several nights. The justicars sent North to evaluate the situation. Even they believe things have gotten out of hand under Prince Vidal’s rule. If we do not resolve the situation, a justicar may do it for us.”

Louder sounds of offense go up at the Malkavian’s words.

Pierpont McGinn raises his eyebrows and smirks at his lover Adelais.

Celia: Ballsy, some part of her thinks.

Suicidal, whispers another.

Amongst the crowd, Jade watches the play between Savoy and his steward, biting her tongue to keep from interjecting her unwanted neonate opinion into… into what, she’s not sure. A ploy to make Savoy look more moderate? A sacrificial offering of the Malkavian to the powers-that-be?

She doubts that this is anything but scripted.

GM: The scent of blood in the water, though, swiftly draws sharks. Marguerite and Veronica both appear alongside Adelais. Benson and Doriocourt bring up the rear guard. It’s just as two of the harpies begin to ‘converse’ with Preston that Savoy interjects, and calmly brings up how the Malkavian has some pressing civic affairs in the French Quarter to attend to—he supposes he’ll be joining her shortly as well.

Preston mutely inclines her head and departs the Elysium.

Whispers blossom up like weeds in her wake.

Celia: Her desires with the halls of Elysium suddenly seem less pressing than the bomb that Savoy and Preston just dropped upon the city’s Kindred.

And here she is with the detonator.

She watches Preston go, listening to the buzz of whispers around her, watching the faces of the Kindred in the crowd to find those who seem more receptive than derisive of the Malkavian’s bold words. It would be easy to titter with the others and make “she’s finally showing her crazy” jokes, but Jade has another play in mind.

At last she turns to the lick who stands beside her, one Reynaldo Gui, and says to him the words that are sure to have even more people talking.

“I hope he isn’t too harsh with her. When I met with Archon North he implied the same.” Quietly, but who is she kidding? This is Elysium. Everyone hears everything in Elysium.

GM: True to Jade’s expectation, quite a few Kindred are tittering and making “finally showing her crazy” jokes. Some are wittier than others. Adelais’ icy barbs and Marguerite’s droll observations both draw laughter. Elmhearst’s mean cracks draw less. Roderick rationally points out that Preston is as crazy as any other Malk. A few members of the Moon Clan seem indignant, but they’re mostly younger ones. Harlequin only titters and makes references as to Preston’s “enlightenment.” The older ones never see their crazy as a curse.

Gui raises an eyebrow. “Oh, you met the archon?”

Nearby Kindred talking amongst themselves make only the vaguest pretense of not listening in over that tidbit.

Celia: Jade doesn’t make a spectacle of nodding. The movement itself is tiny, as if she doesn’t realize that others are listening.

“I did. He asked to meet with me.” She’d positively preen if she weren’t in the middle of Elysium. As it is, she doesn’t even allow herself a satisfied smile. “We had a very illuminating discussion. We met in Faubourg Marigny, at the Carnival Club.” Sundown’s domain. Neutral territory. “Have you been there? It’s lovely.” Idle words, or a glowing recommendation.

GM: “I have. The Afterhours King knows how to throw a party.” The Ventrue smiles faintly. “You also thought the archon was there to evaluate the city’s situation for the Camarilla?”

Celia: Jade leans in, lowering her voice further.

“He mentioned that he was interested in taking action against a problem in the city.”

GM: That draws even more glances and whispers.

“He left pretty soon afterwards,” says Gui. “The Tremere seem like they have a lot on their minds these days, I suppose. Maybe there’ll be another archon.”

“Or maybe he addressed the problem already,” speculates Anthony Brodowski.

Celia: “Perhaps,” Jade says to Anthony. “Only, well… he was most eager to meet with Lord Savoy, and it was so soon before he left…”

It’s clear by her tone, though: whatever drew the Tremere archon away from the city, it wasn’t that the issue was dealt with.

GM: “So he wanted to meet with Lord Savoy. But I don’t think he met with the prince, did he?” asks Gui.

“It’s possible they did in private,” says Brodowski.

“That would be quite the snub if our prince didn’t,” says Gui.

“It’s also possible North isn’t an archon any longer. There’d be no snub then,” says Brodowski.

Celia: “I doubt the prince wanted to meet with him after how he greeted Lord Savoy.” Right in the center of Elysium, for the whole city to hear: Lord.

After all, if the prince let off a known headhunter simply because he was a clanmate and old friend and searches for any excuse to slaughter his enemies under the vaguest of pretenses, why would he care about offending an archon?

There’s a word for that. It starts with “tyrant.”

“Besides,” she continues, “he was looking for an assistant specifically within the city. I highly doubt that’s the sort of thing an ex-archon needs.”

What’s that called? Server? Servant?

Servire. That’s the one.

GM: “The prince still granted North permission to remain in the city on a provisional basis,” says Brodowski. “I don’t think he was happy over the breach in etiquette, but it was a more measured response than simply throwing him out. Or doing what the Southron Lords did and shipping pieces of him back to his justicar by railroad.”

“Mmm,” Gui agrees noncommittally. “A servire, though? That’s interesting. I wonder who he had his eye on.”

The Ventrue smiles like it’s not obvious. A few more Kindred talking among themselves try not to look equally obvious in their glances towards Jade.

Celia: She knew she liked the cowboy for a reason.

She smiles prettily for him, making the same sort of noncommittal sound at Anthony’s words.

GM: “I don’t envy them,” says Brodowski. “Tremere archons blood bond all of their servires.”

“Whoever they might serve before, they serve the Tremere clan after they swear their oath.”

Celia: Jade slides her tongue across the long fangs in her mouth, as if she doesn’t mind the thought of sinking them into the very, very handsome archon she’d took a spin on the dance floor with.

He’s reaching, anyway. The archons bond their ghouls. And the servires generally only serve for a specific instance.

But whatever makes the little boy happy, she supposes.

“I guess that prospect should make the most of their remaining time as a free agent.” Sarcasm? From Jade? Never.

Jade turns an appraising eye to Gui. She lifts a brow, head canting to one side. Her eyes flick toward the exit. “I suppose we’ll hear all about it tomorrow. But if you’re free this evening…”

Tomorrow. Lord Savoy’s Elysia. In case the licks behind any of those not-so-subtle looks directed her way want to swing by and see what passes for a fun time in the Quarter.

GM: It’s rare that Lord Savoy’s court fails to draw invitees, but perhaps tomorrow it will draw still more.

“I can always find time for a beautiful woman,” smiles Gui. He nods towards his clanmate. “Mr. Brodowski, a pleasure as always.”

“Likewise, Mr. Gui, Miss Kalani.”

Celia: “Good evening, Mr. Brodowski.” Jade inclines her head toward the Ventrue, a pleasant smile on her lips. It widens when she returns her gaze to Gui and the two of them start toward the door.

GM: She espies Roderick and Abraham Garcia engaged in a debate over an art piece as they leave. It sounds heated.

Onlookers watch with looks amusement and entertainment.

Celia: Interesting indeed.

Jade gives a gentle tug on Gui’s arm, nodding toward the bickering couple. She smirks at him, lifting her brows in amusement, and drifts that way.

GM: He looks equally amused and drifts over to watch. Roderick does not look happy at the mafioso’s presence, but doesn’t let it distract him from Garcia as the verbal arrows fly.

Things start to get personal when Roderick accuses the Toreador (in barely veiled terms) of being a sellout who’s compromised all his principles and Garcia accuses the Brujah of being a privileged elder’s pet.

Celia: She should have expected this.

Maybe she did expect this.

Because it’s not as if she doesn’t know what this is about: Garcia grabbing her ass. She’d wondered what would come of it. Had expected a private argument between the pair of them later this evening. Maybe a beating. But the way Roderick is going on… she sees the logical end result: challenging Garcia to a duel.

Over her.

Some part of her is flattered. Isn’t this every girl’s fantasy, a boy she likes challenging another boy over her? Her honor, or his honor, or someone’s honor.

In her dreams it had always been Roderick and her sire, and the winner would get to have her hand in marriage.

Her dreams are very sexist and archaic like that.

She supposes that Gui’s presence does little to calm the Brujah. She wishes he were anyone else. And that there weren’t any harpies around to watch this little tiff. But she does what she can, because she loves the poor sap arguing in front of her, and she’s not going to let him get humiliated if he loses to Garcia.

“I love their passion,” Jade murmurs to Gui. “What do you think has him all riled up? Do you think it’s a lover’s spat? Something like that I’d save for the bedroom, but… well, this is terribly amusing.”

She rakes her gaze down the Brujah’s form.

“I heard,” she continues to the Ventrue, “that he recently took out a whole cell of hunters by himself. Middle of the day and everything.”

That asshole Chris had been all but crowing about it to anyone that would listen.

Her tongue runs along the sharp points of her fangs. Maybe she’s thinking about asking him to show her what’s underneath that suit of his.

GM: She supposes her mom and dad would both approve of those dreams.

Well, her dad would probably still find something wrong with them.

Celia: That’s okay, Savoy walks her down the aisle and gives her away in those dreams.

GM: Laughter goes up from some nearby Kindred. Some eyes cut towards the present harpy, Katherine Beaumont.

“I didn’t figure them for an item,” Tina Baker remarks amusedly.

“Opposites attract,” says Frank Larsen.

“Oh, it’s true, he did,” remarks Amaryllis DeCuir, who was has not directly spoken to her pretend-sister since before the trial. “Whole cell of hunters. Jumped him in his haven and everything.”

“Did you, neonate? Tell us of this,” Katherine Beaumont requests.

“Yes, let’s hear it in Elysium if it’s already being told on the streets,” echoes Elyse Benson.

Roderick doesn’t look thrilled to be put on the spot, but goes on, “So it started when…”

Maxzille Babineaux approaches her sire and starts talking him with about other art. He takes the window to avoid a duel with the angry Brujah.

Gui smirks and heads off, clearly expecting Jade to follow if she’s already heard the story.

Elyse’s eyes briefly meet Jade’s before returning to Roderick’s.

Celia: She’d give a nod to Elyse on her way out, but the Malkavian has wanted to keep their association under the radar.

GM: She’d said the maintenance work on Lucy would be done soon.

Celia: Jade will need to pencil in a visit, then. She misses the doll something fierce.

Satisfied, Jade leaves Roderick to look like the hero while she slinks away, content with her role with… well, whatever this makes her.

GM: Perhaps a puppeteer. Someone who pulls strings from the shadows, where no one can see and no one can hurt her, because to do good is to look weak.

Perhaps that simply makes her another Kindred.

---

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