“This changes everything.”
Roderick Durant

---

Monday night, 21 March 2016, AM

GM: Alana comes back, to report Roderick’s car is taken care of. She’s eager as always for more sex with her domitor before the sun finally rises over the sky. She departs with an “I love you” murmured into Jade’s ear.

Kindred don’t dream, but doubtlessly Jade would savor sweet dreams indeed to imagine her ex-lover’s thoughts at her caustic words. To imagine his face, when Benji and the ghouls turned him out. Could he take them? Perhaps, one on one, but three on one is ugly odds, and the need to keep the Masquerade makes them even uglier. So too with the swift need to find shelter from the sun. Doubtless, it grated his pride to slink away. To let Jade get the last word and the last laugh.

Everyone hates to let someone else get the last laugh.

Perhaps that explains the stake that plunges into Jade’s heart during the middle of the day.

The face that stares down isn’t happy. Not at Jade. Not at the world. Might not ever have been.


Celia: And here she’d been hoping for round two with Pierre.

She’d gone to bed as Ren, flexing her new ability to become what Benji and his boys expected to see rather than confirm that she’s Kalani. The licks in the krewe know, but the ghouls don’t need to.

It had taken moments to make the change. With Sol beating down on her, trying to snake his tendrils through the cracks and crevices in their light-proofed house, Celia had practiced in front of the mirror. Same height, but the rest of her… oh, the rest of her shifts. Slimmer hips, smaller chest, more developed arms and legs and back; the rugged build of a Gangrel rather than the svelte form of the Toreador. Still pretty, but not enough to draw more attention than necessary. Brawler rather than dancer.


GM: There are three other people in Ren’s peripheral vision, but the only one she can readily make out is Tantal standing next to Princess. He’s rammed a stake into Benji’s heart. Maybe he’d look apologetic if it were Jade.

“So where the fuck’s Kalani,” he says in his high voice.

Celia: She’d giggle if she could. She’d assumed they knew. But no. Here she is, hiding in plain sight.

GM: Princess grunts.

“Got all we need.”

The ghouls throw tarps over the two vampires’ bodies.

Celia: Benji didn’t do anything, she wants to say. But she can’t. She stares up at the tarp, unblinking. She should have told him to go.

GM: The ghouls wrap the tarps around the vampires’ bodies.

“Body bags are better,” says someone’s voice.

“Just zip up. Done.”

There’s a grunt in answer.

Ren feels thick arms bearing her up. Footsteps sound. She’s carried downstairs. She hears a door opening. Horrible heat bears down on her, like she’s been shoved inside a car with the windows closed for hours on a 100-degree day.

She hears a trunk opening. She’s deposited onto a flat surface. The trunk closes. The heat gets better.

The car drives for a bit. Comes to a stop. The trunk opens. The heat gets worse again. Then it gets better. There’s a steady tromp of footsteps heading upstairs.

Ren’s deposited onto a hard surface. The tarp comes off. She’s in the interrogation room where Celia killed Isabel. The body is long gone, but the restraints remain. Princess and Tantal fasten Ren onto the same St. Andrew’s Cross.

Princess yanks out the stake. She’s tall, taller than most grown men, with long arms begging someone to give them an excuse to throw a chin-shattering punch or elbow. Probably both. Then there’s her legs. Longer still, but not the kind a man might leer at. No, they’re the kind a kickboxer would use to sweep someone’s legs or smash in their teeth. Probably both.

“Where is he, Kalani,” she says flatly.

Sometimes the black ex-felon bare-knuckle fighter doesn’t sound that different from her prissy WASP domitor.

Celia: Ren’s mouth forms a smile.

“He asked me to let him go. So I did. I imagine he went back to his haven for the day.”

“I offered to let him stay. He declined.”

GM: Princess rams the stake back into Ren’s chest. The woman’s flat, not-happy expression doesn’t once change.

Tantal gives her a vaguely apologetic look.

Celia: She’d almost called him last night, she reflects. When she needed help with Lucy. Assumed he’d be able to take the memories, but then he might tell Lebeaux, and she’s not really sure where she stands with the warden now that his sire turned her in for infernalism.

Can you still be friends with the person whose dad tried to beat you up?

GM: Technically, ratted you out.

Bornemann doesn’t much feel like the kind of man to beat someone up himself.

The ghouls leave. Ren feels the sun bear down on her even through the Evergreen’s walls. Her body yearns to sleep. To become the lifeless corpse it truly is.

Celia: My dad can beat up your dad.

Isn’t that what the kids in school say?

GM: Her dad can beat up most dads.

Celia: She has the best dad.

GM: Perhaps he’ll come for her.

Like he did at the Dollhouse.

Celia: Why, is she in danger? Are they going to kill her for “abducting” Durant and saying some strongly worded things to him?

Gosh, what a pathetic little bitch.

His feelings must be all sorts of bruised.

He’d accused her of the “weeping woman” act but she’d seen him cry plenty of times, the fragile little snowflake.

Oh no, my sire lied to me.

Oh no, my sister is a vampire.

Oh no, my girlfriend lied to me.

Oh no, I expected monogamy in a society where casual sex is the norm.

Oh no, I miss my daddy.

Oh no, Celia didn’t let me treat her like a doormat and said I’m stupid. She didn’t sign her entire unlife over to me. She beat me up with one arm. She told me it took me three people to replace her and I realized she was right, and now I’m never going to have a white wedding or do any cool science experiments or find out how to turn the abortion into a real childe.

Oh no, I can’t fight my own battles and had to run and hide behind Savoy’s skirts like I did with Coco for years.

Boo fucking hoo.

GM: Boo fucking hoo indeed.

Doubtless his own thoughts for his ex-lover are little kinder, wherever he now is.

Time stretches on and on. Ren resists it as best she can, but no one returns to the interrogation room. Darkness claims her.

---

Monday night, 21 March 2016, PM

GM: Daysleep recedes as quickly as it came. One eyeblink later and it’s however many hours later.

Ren isn’t sore or tired.

The undead body is a marvelous thing.

Celia: Hers is particularly marvelous.

She made it herself.

GM: So many Kindred agree.

Some time passes. The door opens. Dracon strides in. He’s wearing a black suit, not like Roderick’s preferred grays, and a maroon button-up underneath with no tie.

He smiles as he looks over Ren’s staked body.

“This rather is the way I prefer it.”

Celia: Well, fuck.

GM: “That was rather stupid of you to take my phone away, Celia,” he tsks. “I couldn’t get in contact with Savoy’s people to quite literally call them off.”

Celia: Not that he would have.

GM: “I’m glad it’s worked out this way, though.”

Celia: Yes, he needs her staked to be able to stand a chance.

GM: He pulls out the stake.

Celia: She’s still bound to a cross. Restrained. Is he into that now? It’s kind of hot. She could be into it.

Just not with him.

GM: “Where oh where should we begin,” he muses.

“I know I want to save the best for last.”

“I was always the good boy who ate my veggies before dessert.”

Celia: “Such a good boy. I suppose that hit last night was Drakey instead of Roderick, since Stephen is… well, he’s very, very dead.”

GM: “He is,” agrees Dracon. “I’d say he and Celia have that in common, but really, she was always a lie.”

“Enough of the past, though.”

“Business is a good place to start.”

“Savoy doesn’t like loose ends, Celia. Gui is supposed to be ten kinds of dead by now. Or was, after we’d interrogated him.”

“Where is he?”

Celia: Celia stares, uncomprehending.

“I have no idea. He was gone by the time I came back last night. I assumed one of your friends took him.”

GM: Dracon makes a tsk-tsk-tsk sound.

“No, none of them did.”

“And he isn’t at Flawless. That’s already been checked.”

Celia: “That’s awkward. Maybe he got up and walked away.”

GM: “No, that’s not very likely. He had a stake in his chest.”

Celia: “Could have been wearing a wire. Maybe he still had a loyal friend or ghoul.”

“Granted, I told you the spa has been broken into. Maybe someone else found him.”

GM: “Mmm. No, there wasn’t any wire. I got a pretty good look at everything he had on his body while I was taking it apart.”

“The security footage at Flawless shows no break-ins, though.”

“But we’re beating around the bush.”

Celia: “Ah, yes, we don’t show up on cameras.”

GM: “Savoy thinks you’ve helped him escape, Celia.”

Celia: “I didn’t.”

GM: “Perhaps you’d like to tell that to him.”

Celia: “Sure.”

GM: “Let him inside your head to have a look around.”

Celia: “I didn’t help him, Roderick. I knew he was marked for death. I wouldn’t have helped him.”

GM: “Savoy doesn’t think so.”

Celia: “So you’ve said.”

“He can look if he likes. I don’t know where Gui went. I thought about getting him out of the city, but I didn’t act on it. Savoy would never welcome him back, and he’d spend all his time trying to get back at you rather than doing anything else, and he’d probably jump ship to someone else’s side if he ever did come back. There was no benefit to me in helping him escape. Last night I still wanted to make things work with you.”

“So I was setting him up, like you asked.”

GM: “Mm-hm,” Dracon says thoughtfully.

“I’m afraid that any answer which doesn’t produce Gui’s body isn’t good enough, Celia. You and the clanless scum were the last licks in a proximate position to do anything with his body.”

“I suppose there’s a couple ways we can play things from here.”

He glances across the rows of instruments.

Then he smiles and brushes Ren’s face with his hand.

“But I don’t want to hurt you, Celia. I really don’t. You were my first love. You’ll always have a special place in my heart. Help me to help you. Just tell me where he is, and you’ll be out of here in no time.”

His presence washes over her. She was his first love. She can trust him. She could always trust him. She can still trust him, even here. What’s happened between them won’t come between them.

Celia: His supernatural mien washes over her, but it’s like pouring water over a rock for all the good it does. There are no cracks in her armor for him to find, nothing for him to burrow into.

She doesn’t believe a word he says.

But he expects her to. He’s trying to turn the tables on her like she did to him last night. No doubt he’ll torture her once he’s done anyway. Why not have a bit of fun with it?

Celia blinks at the touch, again at the words. Her body is mobile but her head is not, and she tilts it to one side to press her cheek against his hand.

“I thought you hated me,” she breathes, eyes wide. “You… you were… you were so angry and I was just trying to help, I just wanted to do what you asked.” Red threatens to drip down her cheeks. “I don’t want to fight. I’ll help you. I will. We’ll find him. We’ll find him and, and then… you said once he’s dead we’d…” she trails off.

“You won’t hurt me?” she asks in a small voice.

GM: “Of course not, Celia,” he smiles. “Hurting you is the last thing I’d want to do. So much hate has come between us. So much hate and distrust where there was once so much joy and love. I don’t want that to be us. I want to go back to the old us. Where we were a team. Where it was us against the world. I want to do you a good turn and help our relationship begin to heal.”

“I’m sorry I refused your help. It was my pride talking. My pride and my anger.”

“And all that did was hurt us both.”

Celia: “I know. I approached it the wrong way. I shouldn’t have threatened you. I was… I was angry too, when you wanted me to sign over everything, I wanted to hurt you back but… that’s why we’re here, isn’t it. Because I did. Because I hurt you first.”

“They came for me. Like you said. They came for me and they asked where you were and I…” she blinks and finally the tears fall. “I thought you didn’t make it home, I thought you didn’t have enough time, and I was so scared that, that we’d never… that I’d never be able to apologize for, for everything.”

“I kept, I kept thinking about that movie we saw. The Dark Knight Rises. I kept remembering what you said, that you could forgive someone like Selina because she did the right thing eventually, and I just kept imagining that… that we could…”

“I never meant to hurt you,” she whispers. “I don’t want to be your enemy. Even if we’re not lovers, there’s… there’s so much that… I’m in so much trouble. So much.”

She lets the tears fall for a moment, but only that. She doesn’t want to lay it on too thick. She doesn’t sniff, but she turns her head to the other side to wipe her cheek on her arm.

“I’ll help you. We’ll find him. He can’t have gone far, not if you took him apart.”

GM: Roderick tenderly brushes the tears from Celia’s face.

“Shhh. It’s all right, Celia,” he says softly.

“It’s all right. You’re with me. Nothing can hurt you while I’m here.”

“We were both just hurting. We were both just hurting and trying to make each other hurt. But like with Selina, I think so much of what we did to each other was rooted in fear. Fears we could have confronted and conquered together, if we’d just let our hearts remain open.”

“I don’t know what the future looks like for us, but I know this. I want to help you and I don’t want to see you hurt. I want to get you out of trouble.”

“So where is he, Celia? Where did he go?”

Celia: Celia nods along to his words. The relief is plain on her face: he doesn’t want to hurt her. He wants to help. He’s going to help.

“I am scared,” she admits in a broken voice, “I’ve been afraid that they’d… that he’d… he knows everything about me, Roderick, all this time, and then the Guard…”

She swallows.

“It’s all I can think about, all I can f-focus on, that I’m going to die here or, or in a week and I… I told you…”

Her cheeks redden. She can’t meet his eyes. Her shameful gaze rests on the floor, shoulders hunched inward as if waiting for him to laugh at or strike her.

“I just want to help, I just want to fix this, all of it, all of it… I can’t, I can’t focus, I keep… keep seeing it, but I didn’t, Roderick, I didn’t help him—”

A fresh wave of red cascades down her cheeks.

Celia spends a few moments pretending to hate herself, pretending to cry while Roderick pretends to comfort her. When she finally looks back up at him her eyes shine, lips half parted and oh-so-kissable.

The desire flows from her like water off the edge of a cliff, splashing Roderick with its mist. It’s a gentle tug, a subtle invitation to remove the clothing from her body, an easy way to spend a handful of moments so her brain sharpens and he can pump her for all that she knows. She’s so pliant. So trusting and eager to help. And she’s pretty, even with this face. Maybe that makes it better, that he’s not looking at Celia or Jade but some random lick who he can pretend is anyone he wants.

And he can use it as an excuse to hurt her, can’t he? He’d done it before, the sweetest of hurts, but maybe this time he can go a little further, bite a little harder, make her cry out in pain before she ever receives pleasure.

He can bond her. He can make her love him. Fear him, yes, he can do that too when he pulls off his mask and reveals he’d been playing her all along, but she’ll be so obsessed with him that she won’t care. He’s seen it in her before, hasn’t he? With her father. With Diana. She grew up loving an abusive man and only stood up to him when he crossed a line. Hasn’t she been accepting of his punishments before? The microwave. Sleeping on the floor. Giving him blood.

She’d make a good housewife, wouldn’t she. No dead bedroom here, not when she’s an eager little slut and so happy to let him smack her around. She’d wanted to play house last night, too. Feed him. Protect him. Help him, even after he’d hurt her.

Here she is spilling her soul, offering to make amends. Maybe Savoy will let him keep her. He can add “Celia” to the list of things he oversees.

First, though, all he has to do is fuck.

It’s not like fucking her is a chore. She’s always made him see stars.

And he can see it already, can’t he. The appeal. The thin cotton shirt she’d slept in, lace panties, bare legs… alluring. Even here, chained and afraid: she trusts him, submits to him.

What’s the harm, right? Everything is about sex. Except sex—that’s about power. And here’s both.

Maybe that’s all she ever really wanted: to trust him. To not be afraid. To keep her heart open and know that he wouldn’t get swept into the danger or the drama, that no one would come after him because of her. To submit to someone powerful. To be claimed. He’s strong enough for that. To take her. Show her he’s in charge. He’s beaten her, hasn’t he? No tricks she can pull, not here. Maybe she’s an eager little slut for bad boys. Maybe Dracon titillates her in ways that Roderick didn’t.

Inside of her chest her Bitch and Beast both pace, watching the scene unfold. She’s going to fuck him. She’s going to fuck him by letting him fuck her, and then she’s going to force her blood down his throat and he’ll never know, he’ll have no idea. She’ll ensnare him, let him think she’s weak and eager and trusting, and he’ll let his guard down. He’ll think it’s easier, won’t he, because prisoners don’t try to escape when they don’t know that they’re in jail, and how sweet a cage he’ll give her.

It goes both ways.

He won’t leave her alone? She’ll show him exactly how she turned the tables on the hunters when she was blindfolded, gagged, and tied. How she had them eating out of the palm of her hand by the time she got herself free, how they were so eager to believe the honeyed lies dripping from her tongue, so eager to feed the vampire who doesn’t look like a monster, so willing to keep her as their little pet.

A kitten in a cage.

Only the cat isn’t a kitten at all, and when the tiger inside roars and bares its teeth the whole house shakes.

Celia and Jade had agreed that Celia will play the innocent. The wolf who guts the sheep to climb inside its skin.

Beauty has been perfectly cast.

GM: Beauty has been perfectly cast.

The words drip from her mouth like honey.

But it’s so much more than the words, too. It’s in her looks. Her expressions. Her ravishingly beautiful, eminently fuckable body. She is irresistible. Impossibly seductive. There is no stranger who wouldn’t blink before dropping his pants and fucking her and witlessly placing himself even further under her spell.

Celia, Ren, Jade, all the others—all of them are still the Beauty.

No one can resist the Beauty.

Roderick smiles back at her. She sees it in his eyes.

She is no Beauty to Roderick. No longer.

“You’re the ugliest person I’ve ever known,” he’d said.

His feelings for her are dead.

His desire for her is dead.

What they had together is dead.

She can see the words forming on his lips. The contempt in his eyes when she says she “needs” this. That she needs to have sex.

You’re such a pathetic slut, Celia.

“When Gui is retrieved, Celia,” he patiently tells her instead.

“I know where I left Gui at Flawless. Lebeaux can scan the area for psychic impressions. He will see with his own eyes who picked up our staked and limbless Ventrue. If he sees you helped move Gui to another location, and we can’t find Gui… things will go very badly for you. Savoy is assuming you’ve aided his escape until it’s disproven. He’s ordered you kept here and he’s ordered that you be interrogated, with torture and mindfucking if necessary.”

“This is no game, Celia. If Gui has defected to Vidal’s camp after his escape, or even just gone back to Chicago and turned his sire against Savoy, you will have attacked his power, and you will have made him your enemy. He will deal with you like all elders deal with enemies. By killing them.”

“The faster this is cleared up—the less trouble Savoy and his people have to go through, the less time and blood they need to spend on this—the better things will go for you. For us.”

He smiles again and strokes Celia’s cheek.

“Just tell me where Gui is, Celia. You’ll be let out of here, Savoy will welcome you back into the fold, and I’ll show you a good time upstairs. All our troubles will be behind us. We can face the future as a team again. Doesn’t that sound lovely?”

Celia: The Bitch inside watches her Beauty wither. She’d given it everything. All of her charm, all of the love she still feels in her heart for someone who doesn’t want anything to do with her, all of the hope she’d had that maybe, just maybe, they could make this work. That they don’t need to hate each other. She still has so much to offer him. Still has so much she wants to offer him, even after all of this. After everything. She’d still help. All he has to do is be nice to her and she’d still help, but he won’t. Just like Paul.

Inside the body, Beauty sobs. Bitch rests a hand on her shoulder.

“He’s not worth your tears, love.” Soft words for the broken girl. Bitch isn’t mad at the Beauty. Kicking her while she’s down won’t do anything but make her curl into a ball of self-loathing. She’d taken the memories, and she can sort this out.

The body blinks and Celia disappears. Jade stares out at Durant or Dracon or whatever he’s going by these nights, lips curling into a smile. Her spine straightens, bloody tears drying on her cheeks.

“I haven’t moved against Lord Savoy, darling,” she says with all the arrogance of someone who is still in control, even bound and captive like this. “You left him in my spa. Finders keepers, love. Yes, I moved him. And I butchered him. I cleaned up the loose end for you.”

GM: Jade’s flesh painfully ripples and shudders as the Bitch comes out. Her hands are bound, but she doesn’t need them anymore.

No more mix-ups.

No more spillage.

When Jade’s face is on, Jade occupies the body. Not Celia.

When Celia’s face is on, Celia occupies the body. Not Jade.

Roderick quirks an eyebrow.

“So much the better for you then, Celia. Or Jade. Or whatever you’re calling yourself. I hope you won’t get offended if I don’t bother to ‘learn your pronouns.’”

Celia: Jade cocks her head to one side, like a cat observing a very tasty looking bird stupid enough to land on its perch.

“It’s hard to believe she ever saw anything in you,” Jade muses. “Wanted you to stay that white knight forever for her, I suppose. Cute, in a pathetic, fairytale kind of way; we both know you were too weak to ever be what she really needed.”

She smiles, flashing teeth.

“Does it rub you the wrong way to know that I’ve killed more mobsters than you?”

“Your whole life’s vision, the reason for your Embrace… and I’ve beaten you at it.” She laughs.

GM: “Not especially,” Dracon smiles back.

“Carolla and Gui would’ve beaten you into pulp if I wasn’t there. Some licks get angry over ‘kill stealing,’ but if you want to enjoy my leavings, I say more power to you. We both know how those fights would’ve gone if you had to face them on your own. We both know just how little you’re capable of without me.”

“But speaking of that, let’s have some proof. No one is taking your word that Gui is dead without a body. So where is Gui’s body, Celia-Jade-Whoever?”

Celia: “Mm,” Jade says with a nod, as if considering his view valid. “They may have, had they ever seen the knife coming. They didn’t.” She smiles. “But you know all about that, don’t you?”

“He’s at the haven. Surprised Princess missed it, really. I left his hat on my nightstand. Then again, he’s in more pieces than you left him.”

GM: “I’d say it’s the first time you’ve done something useful or worthwhile in your unlife, but, well, see that ‘enjoying my leavings’ remark.”

“So he’s at the haven. Where is he in the haven?” Dracon asks indulgently.

Celia: “Christ, Durant, you went from boy scout to bully and your lines still suck. I heard they’re casting for Taken 4; you’re a shoo-in.”

“But enough flirting, hm? He’s in the bathroom.”

When Jade had taken over last night she’d cleaned up Celia’s mess. It wouldn’t do to have the girl see the body when she woke up, to wonder why it had turned whiter than flour and why the expression on his face was one of terror and agony. She said she’d take care of Celia and she means it; poor childe will get in over her head looking into things that she simply doesn’t need to know about and then they’ll have another bout of torture at someone else’s hands because she’d said the wrong thing to the wrong person. The girl is simply too trusting by half.

So Jade took care of it.

She’d hauled his parts into the bathroom for easy cleanup and used a large hooked knife to cut him open from groin to sternum. A foul, putrid stench hit her in the nose and she saw, to her disgust, that the contents of Gui’s chest had liquified into a mass of goo in some indistinguishable color between black and brown.

“What did you expect,” Dicentra had laughed, “bodies decompose.”

Jade rolled her eyes at the night doctor—as if she didn’t know—and simply tilted Gui’s body to the side to let the liquified organs spill into the shower.

“Older than we thought,” she’d observed. The doctor had only nodded in agreement.

Then she’d begun to harvest him. Not all of him, no, but patches of skin from his back where the damage to his body had been minimized, first by using her palms to turn him from white-as-a-ghost to his normal, though decayed, coloring, then using the edge of the blade to sever the skin from the body.

She’d made the same color-changing pass across his face and the rest of his pieces, then combed her fingers through his hair to change that hue as well. Her movements grew more sluggish the longer she worked—that damn sun—but a burst of speed saw her through to the end. She’d tucked the skin away with her tools, washed up, and found a shirt and clean panties in Ren’s wardrobe to pull on before collapsing into bed.

“Most of him, anyway.”

GM: “Christ, Flores, you went from stupid to stupid with multiple personalities, and your strategy to not get staked for pissing off the boss still sucks. I heard they’re still casting whores in pornos; the second Flores sister is a shoe-in.”

“But a room where filth is cleaned. I suppose that’s a fitting enough place for Mr. Gui to have met his end. I hope for your sake that he’s actually there.”

Celia: Jade doesn’t bother telling him about all the porn she’s already been in. The poor boy’s head will explode.

Imagine enjoying sex. Gosh, what thing to stone someone over.

GM: The stake slides back into her chest with a wet slurk. Dracon turns and leaves the room.

Celia: It’s too much to ask for music or a TV in this kind of place, isn’t it.

GM: Jade is left to stare at the wall. She’s not sure how long passes. It feels like a moderate while.

Eventually, the door re-opens. Dracon walks back in.

He’s followed by Hannah.

Celia: What a fun little family reunion.

GM: Hannah pulls out the stake.

“Why did you do it?” she asks, bluntly.

“Why did you blood bond me a second time without my consent?”

Celia: “He’s told you how stupid Celia is, darling. It was an oversight. Poor dear was so excited about figuring out what you could do that when she shared blood she just wasn’t thinking.”

“The bond will fade. Neither of us intended to reinforce it. Made sure to give you plenty in return though, hm? All of the rules explained. Liberated from the bar where you were looking for someone you couldn’t remember. Feeding on Bourbon Street. A tattoo to let you pass as mortal. A mask to hide your identity. A visit with the oldest thin-blood in the city that I paid for, which gave us answers as to what you could do. A lick outside your family actually willing to spend time with you and test your various abilities. Kept your memories from being deleted because I knew you needed someone normal and unbiased to talk to about all this. A place to stay. Two, even.”

“Not to mention I saved your life on Thursday when Carolla planned to execute you. And again on Sunday when the dear hound wanted a sip and might have seen through the tattoo. And, oh, I suppose when we went to see Gui to find your sire and the Guard showed up there, too. Kept you outside and kept my nose clean so they didn’t have a reason to look twice at you.”

“All this time and I haven’t even asked you to pay me back for any of it. Haven’t asked you to do anything you didn’t want to do. Haven’t hurt you or taken advantage of you. In fact I went out of my way to make you comfortable when I knew you were skittish about feeding last night. Even took you to Elysium when you asked and cut a deal to find your sire for you. Granted, I suppose that boon is moot now. Imagine Durant has your sire stashed somewhere.”

“You’ve had it better than most true-blooded fledglings.”

GM: “‘Oops, I forgot,’” Dracon says in a mocking tone.

“I told you this was going to be a waste of time, Dani.”

“Then thank you for honoring my choice anyway,” says Dani. “I wanted to hear this from her.”

“Stephen, could someone actually overlook that?”

“No,” sneers Dracon. “No, sis, I’d say it’s literally like forgetting to use a condom, but it’s even dumber than that. Because all of us are ‘carrying’ condoms on hand, and we know there’s no emergency contraception. You’d have to be so fantastically stupid to ‘forget’ your blood can enslave someone that it’d be a wonder you could even put on your own clothes without step-by-step instructions.”

“All Celia would’ve had to do was wait a few seconds for her blood to cool and lose its bonding properties, and everything else you did together, you could’ve still done together.”

“You’d said,” Dani frowns.

“Speaking of that tattoo, did she tell you she’s Dr. Dicentra?” Dracon asks.

“Wait, what?” asks Dani.

“Yes, she lied to you and her mother about that too,” says Dracon. He isn’t quite smiling, but Jade can hear the pleasure in his voice at exposing another lie. “The ‘night doctor’s’ entire persona is a lie, a convenient fiction Celia uses to hide the fact that she can alter flesh the way she does.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know either until the night we killed Carolla,” Dracon says. “I’d assumed they were separate people too. The doctor actually collected favors from me—a nice way around the fact that lovers typically don’t bother tracking owed boons.”

Celia: Amusement flickers across her face.

“Forget to use a condom, you mean like that time you and Celia fucked in the car? So sad, wasn’t it, when her sire ripped the life from her womb.”

“Do get on with it, Durant. The only thing less titillating than this is all those times we fucked.”

“And I guess last night when you showed how cool you are, murdering kine and all. Very badass.”

GM: “Oh, Celia, this isn’t about you, I’m afraid,” says Dracon. “This is about doing right by Dani. Telling her the truth she deserves.”

Celia: “Here’s your truth, Dani: I lied to you brother countless times. I cheated on him. He’s angry. He wasn’t good enough for his sire so she Embraced some mobster and now his feelings are hurt.”

GM: “Yes, he told me that,” says Dani. “And a lot more.”

“I’m not interested in what happened between you two right now. I want to clear up the lies between us.”

Celia: She laughs.

“Why? Run home with your brother, Dani. I’m the monster he wants me to be.”

GM: Dani regards Jade for a few moments.

“Are you sorry?” she finally asks. “For the lies you’ve told me?”

“Because even if you blood bound me by accident, which I can believe, people do forget to use condoms in the heat of the moment, you never said anything afterwards. To my mind, that’s the actual lie.”

Celia: “No. I’m not.” Jade shrugs. “Celia might be. But she’s always been weak.”

GM: “Well then,” says Dani. “Okay.”

“I wasn’t a virgin before I was raped,” she then says. “I was embarrassed about how I lost my virginity, so when it came up between us and you assumed, I didn’t correct you. I wondered for a while why I did that. Why I cared so much about what you thought that I’d lie.”

“The bond twisted your feelings,” says Dracon.

“I guess so,” says Dani, looking back towards Jade. “I doubt this means anything to you right now, but I don’t like telling lies to anyone. It feels good to come clean.”

Celia: Jade is quiet for a moment.

“Celia wants me to tell you that you probably weren’t, if it helps. Most licks can’t get it up anymore. She’d offer to show you, but, well.”

GM: “And why didn’t ‘Celia’ tell me that earlier, either?” asks Dani.

Celia: “Various reasons. You were still violated. Feeding is a sort of sex. Telling someone they weren’t technically raped doesn’t make it feel less awful, just like calling it date rape doesn’t make it less heinous. You still died for it. She thought perhaps your sire might have been a thin-blood and was able to get it up, or brought in a third party to have a bit of fun, so she wanted to find out first before she brought it up. Avoiding false hope and the likes. You know, real savior complex.”

“I doubt her reasoning matters to either one of you. Spilling secrets is fun and all, but I’d like to see the warden now.”

GM: Dani gets a look on her face at that, but offers no further response.

“Yes, I was thinking about seeing him too,” says Dracon.

“We found the body. It looks like Gui. But, obviously, you can change what people look like, so I’m not sure if it’s really Gui’s body. It’d be a good escape plan. If the real Gui stowed away in a body bag, he’d have had a decent window of time for a loyal ghoul to make it out of the Quarter or even the city with him.”

“I wonder what would happen if Lebeaux combed the body over with his divinations and ESP. Would he get a vision of Celia Flores sculpting someone else’s corpse into Reynaldo Gui’s?”

“Because if he would, now would be a good time for you to give up your marked-for-death lover, Celia. I’m afraid you’re just not smart enough to fool everyone.”

Celia: Is it even worth it to point out the lack of time and prep she had? Not that it would stop her if she were truly determined to smuggle Gui out of the city, but the risk isn’t worth whatever feel-good reward she’d get from it. And if she were planning on smuggling Gui out, she’d have gone with him rather than face her grandsire’s displeasure.

Pride brings half a dozen smartass remarks to mind. The desire to survive and prevent Lebeaux from looking over the corpse makes her bite her tongue.

“Ah… no. But he will see me sculpting Gui. Ugly-dead-Gui to less-ugly-and-decomposed-dead-Gui. Grandsire said I could harvest some parts and I didn’t want the decayed bits sitting in my bag. Easier to do it all at once and cut what I need.”

There’s a slight pause. Jade looks away, uncomfortable, then throws him a bone to gnaw on.

“There’s, ah… I’d prefer he not see what I did to the corpse, okay?”

GM: “Ah, and here comes the dirty laundry,” smiles Dracon.

“And why is that, Celia?”

Celia: Bend. Bend so she doesn’t break. Bend so her unlife doesn’t end. What’s a bit of laughter, a bit of humiliation, compared to ceasing to exist?

Jade squirms. She makes a good show of it, keeping her eyes diverted, pausing long enough to make it sound like she doesn’t want to say. Finally, she blurts it out.

“I fucked him. When I killed him. I made his dick hard and I rode him and when I reached climax I ripped his heart out. And he got ugly immediately and it wasn’t satisfying and ruined the O, so I fixed him up and did it again.”

GM: Dani looks disgusted.

Dracon, though, gives her a very mean smile.

“Well then. I think I’d doubly enjoy Lebeaux checking the corpse.”

“Turns it into a real win-win proposition.”

“If you helped him escape, we find out.”

“And if you didn’t, someone else sees what a disgusting slut you are.”

Celia: “You win, Dracon.”

It’s the first time she’s used his new name. Not a nickname, no hint of venom or derision, no snide comments about it being pretentious.

“I said it last night, I’ll say it again. You win. You broke Celia’s heart when you made her watch you with the two snakes. Even after that she was still willing to submit to you if it meant she got a chance to fix it. You broke it again when you wouldn’t stay the day. She was a sobbing mess. She’s still a sobbing mess. She’ll probably always be a sobbing mess over you. So you win. You have me helpless here. I got lucky last night when I took you out, and I got lucky on Thursday with Carolla and hoping you’d turn on him and not me, and I got lucky that you’d already done the work with Gui and all I had to do was finish him off. You’re stronger than me, you’re smarter than me, you have my grandsire’s favor.”

“You win.”

“So what is it going to cost me to end this between us? I don’t expect you to ever not hate Celia or I for what we’ve done, but we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other around the Quarter, and I’d rather not fight with you every time we bump into each other when there are plenty of enemies outside to focus on. You want to fuck me over after Savoy is on the throne? Fine. But right now I’m waving the white flag and I’m asking for a ceasefire. Name a price. Boons? Marks for Dani? She’s night-blind, you know, and I can fix that. I can teach her to fly. I have pages of notes I created for your new identity that I can pass off to you, or give you a new one, or give her a new one so ‘Hannah’ isn’t seen running around with Durant after being with Jade. I’ve even got an opportunity for you to hurt me by physically ripping me apart while doing something good for someone you don’t hate.”

GM: Jade or Celia, she’s always been good at mirroring.

Telling people what they want to hear.

Telling them they are the person they want to be.

Telling Roderick that he’s Dracon. Smarter and stronger and more important.

That he won.

“I’m glad you’ve finally seen reason… Jade,” he smiles.

“It’s also Draco, I’ve decided. Dani’s idea.”

Celia: It brings to mind spoiled children who hide behind their parent’s skirts and never actually get their hands dirty and cry to daddy about everything.

Perfect, really.

But Jade doesn’t say.

GM: “It warms my heart to hear Celia is suffering.”

“I hope she will suffer for a very long time.”

“Not mine,” says Dani. She looks at Jade, but she doesn’t look hateful.

Mostly just sad.

Celia: Grudgingly, Jade nods. “She will. Every time she sees you she’s hurt all over again.”

GM: “That’s beautiful,” smiles Draco.

Celia: “Very focused on what might-have-been. Bought a dress and everything.”

GM: “Oh, that’s so sweet. I’d rip it to pieces and throw the ring at her feet, if I could.”

Celia: The words don’t bother Jade. She’d never loved a boy named Stephen.

GM: “I think I’ve heard enough,” says Dani. “I got everything I came here for.”

She still looks more sad than angry.

Draco rubs her shoulder. “That’s fine. You want to head home?”

“Yeah. School tomorrow.”

Celia: Jade turns her eyes toward the thin-blood.

“She is sorry, Dani. She was afraid. She shouldn’t have been.”

GM: Dani just looks sadder.

“Not sorry enough to tell me like she told her mom.”

Celia: “Mothers are supposed to love their children. Friends can walk away at any time.”

“She’s learned her lesson, Dani. Good luck out there.”

GM: “I’m going to let Mrs. Flores know the truth about Dicentra. There’s no reason she should think she’s made a friend who isn’t real.”

“But were we just friends? I thought we were going to be so much more than that. I’m sad, Celia, Jade, whoever. I thought I was going to have a new sister. I thought we were going to set up our parents together. That our families were going to become one. That’s really, really sad we can’t have that, because it would’ve been something beautiful.”

Dani starts to wipe her eyes.

Celia: For a moment, Jade simply stares.

Then she’s gone, skin dissolving and melting like ripples across a pond to turn into the very-familiar face of Celia Flores.

“I wanted that too, Dani.” Red rims her eyes. “I wanted that, so much. I wanted to marry your brother and set up our parents and get a place together in the Quarter. I already started calling you ‘sister’ in my head.” Her lower lip quivers.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I messed it up. I always mess it up. I was trying to be better, Dani. For you. For…” she can’t look at him, doesn’t look his way, “for Stephen. I just kept doing what you said. Treating both of you like kids.”

Sanguine tears trail down her cheeks. She shakes her head.

“It was stupid. I was stupid. And I’m sorry.”

GM: “This is how she gets you every time, Dani,” Draco says to his sister.

“So contrite.”

“So sad.”

“So sympathetic.”

“Really makes you want to just give her another chance, doesn’t it?”

He turns back to Celia.

“Take that face off or I’ll carve it off,” he says calmly.

Celia: Celia flinches at the threat. Then she’s gone. The Bitch is back, lips quirked in amusement.

“And you thought I was taking away her choices.”

GM: Dani wipes some more at her eyes. Watery pinkish tears bead from them.

“No,” she sniffs. “I’d rather not see Celia either. Goodbye.”

She turns and leaves.

Celia: It’s an effort to resist rolling her eyes.

GM: Draco gets the door for her, then turns back to Jade.

“So, terms.”

“Let’s see, I definitely don’t want any of your personalities’ assistance with my identity.”

Celia: “It was more general ideas than assistance.”

“Things that would keep you from being found out.”

Jade shrugs. She doesn’t care.

GM: “Mm,” Draco says noncommittally.

“You spoke earlier, among other things, about curing thin-bloodedness via ‘dark magic’. That’s of interest to me.”

“I’d be a cruel brother to let my sister stay so weak and dependent.”

Celia: Jade gives a sharp shake of her head.

“Not here. Anywhere but here.”

GM: “Fine. You’re coming with me to another location.”

Celia: Jade only nods.

GM: Draco pulls out a phone and taps into it. It looks like the same one Jade removed from his person.

Celia: Phones all look the same.

Plus, it’s not like she’d hidden it. It reminds her of why she’d taken it, though.

“The couple from last night. Ring stores their data online. You took their phones, but you need to get the online stuff scrubbed.”

“You won’t show up, but your cars will.”

GM: Draco smiles at her.

“Give my big brain some credit.”

Celia: Jade inclines her head.

“My apologies, Draco.”

GM: “No, this is for something else,” he says, tapping into the phone. “I might be able to beat you in a fair fight, but after how last night went down I’m taking out some insurance.”

“We all do so hate fair fights.”

Celia: “Insurance?”

Which of her family members is he abducting?

GM: “Oh, nothing harmful to you or your interests or your loved ones, if you don’t double-cross me.”

Celia: “I’m not going to double-cross you, Draco. I’ve seen how well that went for me.”

GM: “You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word.”

Celia: “Of course. I just also hope you’re practicing discretion with the mortals in her unlife that have done no wrong.”

GM: “Don’t worry about it, Jade. If you don’t attempt to cross me, you’ll have no idea what precautions I even took.”

He tucks the phone back away, then undoes the cuffs around her limbs.

Celia: She hadn’t expected this. She thought she’d get another stake to the heart. She glances down at herself, at her lack of clothing. Panties. Shirt.

“Are we going somewhere private where this is acceptable attire, or shall I shift?”

GM: “Shift.”

Celia: Without a word, she’s a cat. Her tail curls around her legs, large green eyes steady on the lick in front of her. She doesn’t presume to wind herself around his legs or purr, doesn’t ask for scratches or roll onto her back to expose her belly. Silently, she waits.

GM: He picks up the cat and leaves the room. Some ghouls see him along the way, but no one stops him. He takes the back entrance outside to his car. The license plates isn’t the same ones Jade saw last night. He opens the door, gets in, and deposits the cat on the seat adjacent to the driver’s. His touch is neither rough nor affectionate.

Celia: The cat flicks its ear at her former boy, as if asking if he wants her to stay feline or return to a form that can speak.

GM: “You can turn human,” he says. He turns on the car’s ignition and drives.

Celia: So she does, reaching for the seatbelt to buckle herself in. Jade’s eyes look out the window.

GM: Royal Street rolls past them. No one attempts to waylay the car. Draco drives for a while up Royal, towards the more residential part of the Quarter, then stops. He taps his phone again and sweeps it over the car’s interior. He also rummages through the glove compartment, ventilators, and other hard to reach spots.

“Let’s hear it, then. Your alleged cure for thin-bloodedness.”

Celia: Jade is silent while Draco does his thing. She waits until he’s done to speak.

“You have no reason to trust what I say. So if you require proof, I can attempt to provide it. By telling you this, I assume you understand the risks. It’s the sort of knowledge that will get you killed, the reason that elders stomp on neonates, the reason that Celia chickened out last night in giving you the truth you asked for.”

“Here’s what I’m promising you, Draco. Full disclosure. If there’s something I can’t tell you for any reason, I’ll say that. This is also a two-way street. If I’m going to share something with you that will get me killed I expect something in return.”

“You’re in charge. I recognize that. I also recognize that I’m not interested in throwing away my Requiem because you mention this to the wrong person. This stays between us. And Dani, if you choose to bring her in on it.”

“Can you agree to that?”

GM: “Yes,” says Draco.

“The thing you get in return is my statement to Lebeaux that I’ve seen the body, tasted its blood, and everything was legit. Likewise to Lord Savoy.”

Celia: “You can’t let him into your head. Once you know this.”

GM: “He’s already more likely than be in your head than mine.”

Celia: “Yes,” Jade agrees, “that’s why I’ve sealed off her memories.”

GM: “Assuming he can actually read minds without other licks noticing. That’s an advanced trick. He hasn’t confirmed or denied whether he can. Neither would I, if I were him.”

Celia: “He or Preston does it. They’ve answered multiple questions I never got a chance to ask.”

GM: “And what would that gain them? Would it have been worth revealing that thoughts aren’t safe around them?”

Celia: “I don’t know their thoughts, Draco, I only remember a very specific meeting where I was thinking something in particular and they responded to it. Multiple times.”

GM: “You aren’t thinking logically. If it’s not important enough for you to even remember, it wasn’t important enough to tip their hands over. They could have just inferred what you were going to ask.”

Celia: She never said that she didn’t remember.

But she doesn’t start an argument over it.

“There’s something else I’d like to ask you.”

GM: “Elders don’t like to disclose the full extent of what powers they do or don’t have. Case in point, right now. I’ll assume Savoy can read Kindred minds without them noticing, because that’s safest. If he actually can, he still benefits from my uncertainty. If he can’t, then I might take precautions that don’t actually advance my interests and might even set them back. That’s the fog of war.”

Celia: “That’s valid,” Jade concedes.

GM: “Yes, it is. I’ve always been the smarter one.”

Celia: Not a single flicker of emotion crosses her face.

“You are. Very smart.”

GM: “Mm, another lie, at least from your lips,” he answers with a cold smile. “But the statement itself is still true. Why, you could even say that’s a philosophical construct. A true statement uttered from a position of nonbelief with intent to deceive. But still factually true.”

“From what perspectives does this make the statement false? From what perspectives is it true?”

Celia: “I never doubted that you were smarter than me, Draco.”

GM: “Hm, that statement sounds closer to true. But no matter. Ask your question, and I’ll answer with my own truths or lies or non-answers as I see fit.”

Celia: “Do you have my ghouls? The boys. Reggie and Rusty.”

“You or one of your friends.”

GM: “No.”

“If Reggie’s come to a bad end, though, I might smile.”

“He’s fortunate he lipped off to me as Roderick.”

Celia: Jade shoves a hand through her hair.

“I thought you were going to kill him. It might have been better if you had.”

GM: Draco smiles coldly again, showing his fangs.

“Feel free to bring him by, then, and I’ll rectify the error.”

Celia: “At the risk of you mocking me, I can’t find him. Neither of them are responding to their phones and they turned off their tracking. I thought if you’d taken him it would have at least been a neatly wrapped problem.”

GM: “Oh, but it is.”

“For me.”

“It’s not my problem.”

“Very neatly wrapped.”

Celia: “No. It’s not. I didn’t intend to make it your problem.”

GM: “We’re outside of the Evergreen. There are no bugs in the car. Now, our business?”

Celia: It’s the sort of truth that will get her killed, she’s certain of it. She’s also certain that if she doesn’t tell him, and prove it, he’ll have Lebeaux test the body and they’ll find out anyway. It’s a leap of faith, isn’t it? Trusting that he wants to help his sister more than he wants her dead. Trusting that he wants to torment Celia for years rather than have Jade quickly executed.

Jade unbuckles her seat belt, turning to face him fully with her legs crossed beneath her.

“In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t fuck Gui last night.”

She gives him a look.

“I ate him.”

GM: “You ate him,” repeats Draco.

Celia: “His soul.”

GM: “Is this how you explain developing another one of your multiple personalities?”

“I could care less how many of them you have or what insane explanations you contrive for their existences.”

Celia: Jade actually laughs at that.

“No. Though that certainly is a convenient excuse. I told you it’s dark magic. Which do you want first, the history lesson or the magical theory?”

GM: “Theory, then application.”

Celia: A thrill runs through her at the words.

“I’ve been doing some experiments on Kindred and thin-blood physiology,” she says. “Dani twists. All thin-bloods do. She drinks from me and she learns star mode. She drinks from you and she takes your speed. She absorbs what we have. The more she drinks, the more she gets. But our powers are set. I know what I know, you know what you know. Takes a while to learn new tricks. You need a teacher. Occasionally you find one of those sweet mortals who give you a boost, right? Aside from that, we’re limited by our age and our removal from the first lick. You explained it very well to Dani. The cup pouring into another cup.”

“So this… lets you bypass all of that. I took things that he can do. I learned things he can do. He didn’t show me. No one showed me. I ate him, and I absorbed him.”

“Instantly.”

GM: Draco raises his eyebrows.

“By what means? Drinking another lick’s blood like Dani does doesn’t typically absorb their powers.”

“It can, but when it does it’s a function of specific powers the blood serves as a conductor for, rather than as a result of any quality inherent to the blood.”

Celia: “Right, but it’s not the blood. Or rather, it’s not just the blood. You don’t just drink their blood and call it a day. You keep going. They’re empty, you keep going. It’s their soul. Their essence. Their life force. Their energy. Whatever makes them who they are. You take it for yourself.”

“You see it in other cultures all the time. Eating the remains of the dead to absorb parts of them. Heart of the lion for courage. In Papa New Guinea they used to eat the brains of their dead family members.”

“That may or may not be a real thing. But this? This is.”

GM: “Yes, those are just the barbaric superstitions of inferior cultures,” Draco concurs.

“So it lets you learn disciplines faster. How do you know it cures thin-bloodedness?”

Celia: “Because of a comment that was made when I heard about it. About the blood getting more potent. So if it works for us, it’ll work for her.”

GM: “Where did you learn of this?”

Celia: “That’s one of those things I can’t tell you.”

GM: “Did you trade something for this information?”

Celia: “Yes.”

GM: “So that’s the theory. What’s the history?”

Celia: “How familiar are you with the unicorns?”

GM: “Probably more so than you.”

Celia: “Perfect. They’re soul thieves. Ta-da.”

GM: “So the practice originated among them? Or they were the first to discover it?”

Celia: Jade shrugs.

“My contact didn’t say. Not many licks willing to talk about them, or what they do with souls. Attracts the wrong sort of attention when you go asking questions.”

GM: “So this practice doesn’t simply absorb disciplines. It also thickens the blood. That’s how a thin-blood becomes a true-blood.”

Celia: “That’s the working theory.”

GM: “You said this came from a ‘comment’ by your contact. What did your contact specifically say?”

Celia: “That my blood is thicker than it should be given my age.”

GM: “But you hadn’t eaten any souls when your contact told you this information, because you learned it from them.”

Celia: “Correct.”

GM: “Then why did they bring up your blood’s thickness at all? I’ve tasted your blood. It’s stronger than other neonates’, but not abnormally so.”

Celia: “That’s also something I can’t tell you.”

GM: “Your hypothesis—not theory—that this practice can prematurely thicken blood sounds extremely specious.”

“But no matter. It doesn’t need to.”

“Developing disciplines faster has value of its own.”

Celia: Jade gives a nod.

“Time for practical application?”

GM: “I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you.”

“Actually, I trust you a good less than the distance I could throw you.”

“So you’re going to show me this is true, on someone who won’t be missed.”

Draco twists the keys and starts driving again.

Celia: Jade doesn’t object. She just turns forward again, fastening her seatbelt.

“I need clothes,” she says eventually.

GM: “You’re about to get them.”

Celia: How does such an innocuous statement sound so sinister?

---

Monday night, 21 March 2016, PM

GM: Draco drives for a while. They leave the French Quarter. They pass into a suburb. Draco doesn’t speak. His fangs are faintly visible in his mouth. There’s a predatory stillness to his moonlit face unlike anything Celia ever saw on Roderick’s. It reminds her of Jade’s expression when Celia’s mother, beaten and abused back into Grace, went about her assigned tasks while a hungry predator coolly watched on.

Sometimes, throughout the drive, Draco smiles. The expression does not reach his eyes.

At a few moments, he starts softly chuckling.

At one point, he starts laughing, though there’s no mirth in the sound.

He doesn’t look at or speak to Jade.

Celia: That makes two of them. Jade steadily ignores the insanity beside her.

And people think she has problems.

GM: “Turn into a cat and get on the floor,” he abruptly says, breaking the silence.

Celia: The girl’s body disappears. The cat steps silently off the seat and onto the floor, curling in on itself and killing the aura that makes it look like a threat. Green eyes stare out at Draco from the shadow beneath the dash.

GM: Draco doesn’t look at the cat. The thrum of traffic sounds in the background. It feels as if they’re driving for a decent while, though the cat can’t tell where they’re going from her new vantage point.

Draco finally stops the car.

“Turn into Jade again.”

Celia: The cat crawls from its spot and turns back into the girl.

GM: “Get out of the car,” he says as he opens the door and gets out.

Celia: Jade follows suit, eyes sweeping their surroundings.

GM: They’re in an unfamiliar suburb. Many of the houses’ lights are out. Draco walks up to the nearest lit one. Through a window, Jade sees the drooped heads of half-asleep couple watching a movie in their living room.

He knocks firmly on the door.

The two start awake. Wary suspicion colors their faces, then suddenly drains away. First from the man’s, then the woman’s.

The man opens the front door.

“It’s so good to see you again,” Draco beams at the stranger, though the expression looks almost mocking. “I know it’s late. Do you mind if we come in?”

“Sure,” smiles the man, opening the door further. He’s black and in his early middle years.

“Where are her pants…?” he starts to ask.

“Don’t worry about it,” smiles Draco.

Celia: It’s the face. Whoever he is, he’s dead. The man said it last night.

And this is… another hit, isn’t it. Two birds sort of thing.

Jade follows Draco inside.

GM: Draco closes the door behind her before the man can.

“Close the shades, will you? I’ve never liked the idea of neighbors snooping in.”

“Hmph. The Petersons next door are such snoops,” says the woman. She’s also dark-skinned and in her early middle years. She closes the shades.

“Got kids?” asks Draco.

“Er, no,” frowns the man.

“Perfect,” smiles Draco, then presses a finger to the base of the man’s neck. He hits the floor with a crash and doesn’t move.

The woman opens her mouth as if to scream, but she’s too slow. Draco’s form blurs, then she hits the floor too.

Jade’s ex-lover rolls the man over onto his back.

“Make yourself look like her. Make me look like him.”

Celia: “Need a hit,” Jade says bluntly, nodding at the bodies. “Unless you want to be here all night.”

GM: Draco gestures sardonically at the woman.

He’s already kneeling to sink his fangs into the man’s neck. A low slurp sounds as the vampire drinks his fill.

Celia: Jade crouches beside the woman, then sinks in. She takes her lead from Draco. If he’s draining his, she’ll do the same. She has no idea if he’s planning on using them for anything else.

GM: Draco drinks for several minutes, enough for a decent meal, then pulls away.

He stands and strips off his clothes.

“The likeness below my face doesn’t need to be perfect. Just make me black.”

Celia: Jade drinks her fill, slurping down the red liquid with no regard to the woman beneath her. It’s not the sort of fare she’s used to, not the sweet, lust-ridden blood that so often graces her tongue. It lacks the potency of Kindred blood. And it’s nothing like what she’d taken from Carolla or Gui.

Easy to see how too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. She’s already itching for another hit of the good stuff.

GM: Human blood next to lick blood is like water and wine.

Human blood next to diablerie is like piss and wine.

Celia: She doesn’t bother to rise once she’s done, kneeling at his feet to begin the process of changing his skin tone. It’s easier than the muscle work, a quick pass of her hands over his flesh like she’s rubbing in paint, and it reminds her of the instant way the bronzer of her spray tan solution turns the skin dark. She rises from there, moving her hands steadily up his shins, calves, thighs—

She halts at his groin, asking him how thorough he wants her to be.

GM: Draco’s lips draw back and his fangs show at the sensation, though it’s less painful than deeper work. He shrugs at her question.

“I doubt anyone will see me there. But no harm in being thorough and no point in being sloppy.”

Celia: It’s a familiar feel in her hand.

She doesn’t linger overlong, doing what needs to be done before moving on to his abdomen, across the flat (chiseled) plane of his stomach, across the broad muscles of his chest and shoulders, down his arms, his hands, his fingers. She’s sure to cover every bit of him that was once white, and once she’s done with the front she moves behind him to begin on the back, sweeping down from the back of his head to his lumbar and finally across the glutes.

“Painful part,” she warns when she steps in front of him again, fingertips gliding across his face to turn Draco into random-black-guy. The muscles shift like warm butter across toast, flexing and lengthening before she carves them into the shape of the man on the floor. She works quickly, but she pays attention to the details: the fullness of the lips, the broader nose, the wrinkle across his forehead, the crow’s feet at his eyes.

GM: His fangs lengthen at her painful handiwork. He’s still until she’s done and a stranger’s face stares back at Jade’s. He then walks into the couple’s bedroom, picks out some clothes, and pulls them on.

Jade has her pick, too.

Draco’s fangs show again in annoyance as he dresses himself. The clothes aren’t a perfect fit. The shoes take him some time and probably pinch, but that will be of little discomfort to the undead.

Jade runs into similar issues. The woman’s size is bigger than hers.

Celia: Jade’s transformation to the black woman is just as quick. Her skin darkens, hair curls and shortens, face becomes older with the suggestion of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. She’s amused by the size of the waist and booty, padding it as much as this woman’s is.

“She’s taller than me, but heels will help. Fatter, too.” Jade peruses the closet, skipping over the selection at the front to find the spot in the back where women store their “once I lose 20 lbs” clothes. She glances at the outfit Draco has chosen for an idea of how formal or casual to go.

GM: He’s gone with mostly casual. Jeans and a button-up.

Celia: Then she goes casual too, pulling on a dress that would be right at home in a bar. Cotton-y sort of material. Matronly, with sleeves that Jade would never be caught dead in but hides the saggy underarms of this middle-aged woman. The dress hits below her knees, but it’s easier to hide that it’s not the right length than a pair of pants dragging the floor behind her, and a well-placed safety pin gathers some excess material.

“Draco,” she says as she pulls on her selection, “can I say something?”

GM: He shrugs.

Celia: “I know you don’t trust me. But if this works, if you’d like, I can add mass to you. For your Draco face. Better if he’s a different size than Roderick. Your normal doc can tuck it away when she makes the changes to you from there.”

She finds tissues to stuff into the toes of her chosen heels to accommodate for the size difference, trying not to bemoan the state of her… cankles.

She hates being ugly.

GM: “Wear practical shoes,” says Draco.

“We’ll see first if this works.”

Celia: Oh. Jade finds a less flashy heel. The ugly sort, with a square toe box and half an inch lift, barely more than what a sneaker would give. She rummages through the dresser for two pairs of ankle socks to pad for size, then finally says fuck it and pulls off the dress, reaching for a blouse and jeans to go with the seldom used (by the looks of them) running shoes that are, surprise, also at the back of the closet.

She swears every woman is the same.

“You might lose your shit. When it happens. Just be prepared for that.”

GM: “You’ll probably need to be more prepared for it than me,” says Draco.

Celia: “Yes,” she agrees.

“I was just warning you.”

“So you’re not surprised.”

GM: Draco takes out his phone again, taps into it, then puts it back away. He hefts the man and woman back into the bedroom like they weigh nothing, then finds some cable cords from another room that he uses as improvised rope to bind their hands and feet in hogtied position. He gags them too.

Celia: Jade assists where she can, but mostly she just lets him do his thing. He’s stronger than her.

“Who’s the target?”

GM: “You’ll see,” is all he answers.

Draco retrieves the couple’s keys, exits the house, and locks the door. He gets into their car with Jade and starts driving.

After a little while, he says, “Turn into a cat and get on the floor.”

Celia: Jade doesn’t push further. She can only hope it isn’t someone that she is going to miss.

They’re already in the car when she asks if he needs a mark to hide his Beast.

GM: He considers for a moment.

“It won’t hurt.”

Celia: Well. It will.

GM: “It will need to be deactivated when we’re close enough to the target.”

Celia: “Oh. You can control that. You just turn it off. This just gives you the ability to mask it. Or I can put it on your hand and just wipe it away when you say.”

GM: “The former is acceptable.”

Celia: “Permanent or temporary?”

Jade moves to the floor rather than try to do it while bending across the steering console. “Or I could make this temporary and give you a permanent one in a better spot later.”

GM: “You’re very eager to be helpful,” Draco remarks.

Celia: Jade shrugs. “Truth? I told you that I don’t want you as an enemy. I don’t want to constantly look over my shoulder for you. I don’t want Celia’s family to be hurt. You won, remember? I recognize power when I see it.”

She smiles when she reaches to roll up his pant leg so she can mark his calf.

“Plus there aren’t many licks that know I rip people apart. It’s nice to be able to share.”

GM: “All of us rip people apart, sooner or later.”

Celia: She wonders if it’s still a sore spot to him, killing those hunters. If there’s something she could say to make him feel better. If she should even bother. If she cares, really.

Celia had wanted him to remain good and pure, hadn’t wanted to taint his soul with the mention of diablerie. But Jade doesn’t give much of a fuck about his soul.

“Going to start the mark,” she says instead of anything else, warning him about the incoming pain. It’s a quick piece of art made with claws rather than a tattoo gun, mimicking the image Dicentra had given him the first time he’d gone to see her: the suggestion of a linen-covered table with a pair of eyes peering out through a hole in the sheet. It doesn’t take long.

She smooths the skin around it with a touch when she’s done, getting rid of the red, freshly-savaged skin.

GM: It’s late in the game to worry about the purity of his soul anyway.

Draco growls at the sensation of her claws etching the design into his flesh, but doesn’t move.

“Turn into a cat,” he says when she’s done.

Celia: She’s gone without a word. Luna curls on the floor, chin on her paws. She watches the boy that used to be hers, wondering at his thoughts.

GM: They look like dark ones.

They have for a while.

He doesn’t laugh or chuckle as he drives, this time. But on a few occasions he shows a fanged smile, his still face pale in the moonlight. Rain starts to patter against the windshield. The wipers go back and forth.

They drive for a while.

They stop. Draco taps into his phone.

They drive some more.

Then they stop again.

“Turn into Jade.”

Celia: She assumes he means the woman and shifts accordingly.

GM: “We’re here.”

He gets out.

Celia: She follows suit, killing her aura again, and looks around at their surroundings.

GM: Right up ahead is Edith Flannagan’s house.

Celia: She almost laughs.

In fact, she does.

Just a short burst of it that steals from her lips.

GM: “I’m so pleased this agrees with you.”

Edith lives closer to the north part of the Quarter, where buildings turn from bars and clubs and tourist attractions to homes and apartments. It’s still on Rampart Street, though. This close to Tremé and the Seventh Ward, the spit starts to wear off the Quarter’s polish—or perhaps it becomes plain how much was black from tobacco spittle all along. Trash isn’t as picked up. Buildings are cheaper, dirtier, graffiti-tagged, and falling apart. Jade hears a few gunshots and car alarms. There are homeless, too, camped out with their sleeping bags and shopping carts and bags of trash and belongings, plus the odd worn-looking camping tent. There’s fewer of them than south in the Quarter, but their expressions look just as glum, intoxicated, or blanked out. Sounds of fornication echo from one of the tents. Numerous sets of eyes follow the pair.

Fewer than when it was two girls.

But still plenty on the lonely-looking middle-aged couple.

Celia: “I’d had the same thought about her,” Jade muses. She sticks close to Draco as they walk through the less-than-savory part of town. She’s not particularly worried about handling herself, but it’s better not to tempt fate, isn’t it.

GM: It’s not long before the pair are accosted by perhaps the very same unwashed half-dozen men literally screaming in their faces for money. Jade sees malformed and pathetic-looking fangs in the mouths of three, this time. Who keeps making these thin-bloods?

Celia: Probably the same someone who made Dani.

Jade tucks herself against Draco’s side like a middle-aged-wife would.

No reason to start throwing punches when all he needs to do is flash a bit of that Brujah charm, right?

GM: Draco ignores the mob at first, until they get too close. He gives a low and very dangerous-sounding snarl. Fear shudders through the mob in a palpable current.

The men falter, then slink away in search of easier prey.

“You,” he says, pointing at one of the thin-bloods, a scraggly-bearded man in maybe his 20s. “Come with us.”

Celia: And here she thought he was going to use the kid.

Is that a line he still won’t cross? Just abandon the four of them instead of outright killing?

GM: Jade supposes she’ll know for sure soon enough.

The duskborn warily edges away at Draco’s demand, then suddenly smiles in relief.

“Okay, man. Uh, y’all true-bloods?”

“Yes. We are.”

He walks up to Edith’s house and raps on the door.

The property is better-maintained than its neighbors, but it looks like someone trying to maintain a ’50s family home in the inner city without so much as a white picket fence. The same bars are there over the windows.

Just like last time, a shadow passes behind the windowshades.

After a moment, the door swings open.

Celia: While they wait, Jade murmurs to him beneath her breath.

“Four. Three kids. Plus the thin-blood.”

GM: “Yes, I’ve heard how despicable she is.”

Celia: Jade only nods.

GM: The door is answered by ‘Cinderella’. She’s got the same cheap-looking Saturday night special tucked into her sweatpants. She looks worse than when Jade saw her last. There are bandages around her neck, bruises on her pale face, and her eyes are droopy.

“C’mon in,” she says thickly, closing the door after them.

“Edith and the kids are eating.”

She gives the homeless thin-blood a very wary-looking look.

Celia: No doubt it’ll be a relief for Cinderella to finally be free of this place. Jade idly wonders what sorts of marketable skills she has, or if she’s better served as a snack.

GM: “Your domitor should be able to just lick puncture marks away,” Draco says to the ghoul.

“Oh. This is… something else, too,” Cinderella replies, rubbing her neck.

“Hasn’t had much juice to go around…”

“Yes, she never does, does she?” says Draco.

Celia: She’d given the bitch five hits a week ago.

GM: “She creates her own problems and then bemoans them.”

“You can give her charity, but it’s like pouring water through a sieve.”

“Gone the moment it’s received.”

Celia: She doesn’t bother looking at the expression on his face. She knows who he’s talking about. Once again, Jade curses Celia for her weakness.

GM: “Yeah, man, we all fuckin’ hate her,” glares the homeless thin-blood. He smells bad indoors. He doesn’t look like he’s had a bath in a while. “She hunts, all the fuckin’ time, and y’know, there ain’t much juice on Rampart, like, no shit, there ain’t much juice, and we’re all gettin’-”

“Shut up,” says Draco.

Celia: It’s a pathetic, wretched sort of way to live. Even the Caitiff in her krewe has better feeding than this, and he’s another sort of unsavory.

She’s glad for her domain on Bourbon. Glad for the easy access to meals with her clients, the way she can just pass it off as particularly deep muscle work when they start to get woozy.

It might be what waits for her if things go poorly with her grandsire.

And Draco, by proxy.

“This,” she mutters, “is why.”

GM: Cinderella doesn’t look sure how to answer the Kindred.

“Ah, I’ll go get Edith, do you want to wait here?”

“That’s acceptable,” answers Draco.

“I’d rather not meet a brood of screaming blood-addicted brats.”

Cinderella looks even less sure how to answer that, then heads away.

Jade can hear sounds of conversation and clinking utensils. Walls are thin in the sorry-looking house.

“So, what’re we doin’ here?” asks the thin-blood.

Celia: “Party,” Jade says. The charm leaks out of her, sneaking across the floor to wrap securely around the thin-blood’s mind. “Consider this the ice breaker. How long have you been like that?”

GM: His head follows her mouth like a magnet.

“’Bout a month,” he smiles.

Celia: “You stay around here?”

GM: “Yeah, maybe a block away. It’s rough, lady. It’s real rough.”

The scraggly-bearded thin-blood’s black hair is thick and matted. He’s dressed in a stained and threadbare-looking hoodie with some holes in it.

Celia: Jade nods, managing to look sympathetic.

“You’re not one of those alchemists, are you?”

GM: He gives a bitter laugh.

“Be here if I was?”

Celia: “Where do they stay?”

GM: “Where dealers stay, lady.”

“They dealers.”

Celia: Jade smiles.

“That’s not very specific, dear. We’ve invited you to our party. Can you give me more than that?”

GM: “That answer doesn’t even make sense,” says Draco. “‘Where dealers stay.’ Drug dealers can stay in a variety of locations.”

The thin-blood shrugs.

“Can I have a hit?” he asks Jade, imploringly.

“If I give you more?”

“I’m real thirsty, we always thirsty on Rampart…”

Celia: Jade reaches for him, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. Her lips curve upward into a smile.

“We’re about to fill your belly, sweetheart.”

GM: The thin-blood smiles down at her. Three fangs show in his mouth, but they’re pitifully thin and tiny things, like growths off his yellowed and plaque-ridden teeth.

“A’ight, well, I tell you then, okay?”

Celia: “Mm, I suppose that’ll work.”

“I’ll be very upset with you if you hold out.”

GM: The thin-blood shakes his head emphatically.

“It’s yours, I’ll tell you all I know.”

Draco smashes his fist into the back of the thin-blood’s head. He hits the floor with a crash.

“Question him later if you want. I’m sick of listening to his voice.”

Celia: Amused, Jade just shrugs. There are plenty of thin-bloods.

GM: “Our hostess is taking her time.”

Celia: “I can see what’s keeping her.”

GM: “I’d rather not let you out of my sight, actually,” says Draco as he strides into the home’s dining room.

Celia: Smirking, Jade tags along.

Maybe she can get one of those bracelets with little bells if she makes him so skittish.

Shut up, Celia.

GM: Celia doesn’t control the body.

Jade controls the body.

Jade finds no one seated around the dining room table. Lunch is out. Sandwiches and apple slices and pretzels for the girls. Piles of Lunchables, Fruit Gushers, ice cream, and chocolate chip cookies for who can only be Geraldine.

The “family” is gathered all around the floor over Lily’s motionless body. Geraldine is sucking from the ghoul’s neck. The other girls look as if they’re crying. Edith just watches with her hand on the thin-blood’s shoulder.

Celia: Jade stops short.

She’d thought they might have run. She’d thought they’d gone out a window or another door, that they’d assumed the two who walked through the front heralds their death.

Not this.

A dead child on the floor. A ghouled child, certainly, but still a child, stuck forever in her this image of youth.

She clenches her jaw.

GM: Dracon grabs Geraldine by the neck and yanks her off. The thin-blood immediately starts kicking and shrieking at the top of her lungs.

“Do I even want to know the story?” he asks contemptuously.

“Put her down!” yells Edith, lunging at Draco.

The Brujah seizes her by the throat and throws her across the room like she’s nothing. She hits the floor with a crash.

The other ghouls all start in alarm, but none draw any closer. Harper cries.

Celia: Jade plucks baby Harper from the floor, bouncing her twice like she used to do with Lucy. Then she passes her to Cinderella.

“Go sit in the bedroom. Take the other one.”

GM: Cinderella takes the wailing child, then gives an uncertain look towards Edith.

The Caitiff’s fangs are distended, and her face is a mask of growing rage.

But she gives a stiff nod.

“Is the one on the floor still alive?” Draco asks Jade.

Celia: Jade crouches to check, feeling for a pulse or signs of life.

GM: There is a weak pulse. The motionless ghoul will be dead in minutes (or less) without a hit.

Celia: “Barely.”

Jade sinks her teeth into her wrist, then tilts the ghoul’s head back to let the blood fall into her mouth.

GM: Lily gives a soft, barely audible moan.

Celia: When she’s stabilized, Jade pulls the child into her arms and rises from the floor.

“I’m going to lay her down,” she says to Draco. She carries the girl into the living room and sets her on the couch, propping a pillow beneath her feet and setting a blanket across her. She returns a moment later to the kitchen.

GM: He doesn’t stop her. Geraldine continues to shriek and kick and flail in the Brujah’s grip.

Celia: Jade folds her arms, leaning a hip against the countertop. She keeps her eyes on the Caitiff.

GM: “What do you want!?” demands Edith, rising to her feet.

Celia: “You’ve been given eternal unlife and this is how you spend it? Pulling children from their families, letting this little monster murder to her heart’s content, keeping a baby as a ghoul so you can play into this delusion of motherhood?”

GM: “They had no one else!” Edith shouts back. “I give them a home, I give them a family, I give them LOVE!”

Celia: “You give them a crippling addiction to your vitae,” Jade snarls at her. “You keep them stuck forever in those bodies.”

“Was it love when you let this one attempt to murder your eldest?”

GM: “Geraldine wasn’t murdering her!”

The thin-blood screams some more from Draco’s arms. Edith’s face rivets towards the sound.

“Put her DOWN!”

“Then what was she doing, pray tell?” Draco asks with something in between indulgence and disgust.

“Geraldine wanted to make another lick,” answers Edith.

Draco looks at the shrieking thin-blood in his grip, then laughs out loud.

“Dear god.”

“I couldn’t think of a worse sire if I tried to.”

“I seriously couldn’t. I’m drawing up completely blank.”

“The homeless trash outside would be better sires than Geraldine.”

Celia: She can’t help it. She laughs. She hadn’t thought she and Draco would ever be on the same side about anything, but this? Oh, this. This makes her laugh harder than she has in a long time.

“Geraldine making a lick,” she repeats, shaking her head. “Fuck, Flannagan, what part of that sounded like a good idea?”

GM: “I’d be her grandmother. I’d take care of her. I’d always take care of her.”

Celia: Jade just looks at Draco.

“This is dumber than the shit your ex did.” She returns her gaze to Edith. “Geraldine would have saddled you with another thin-blood. Why on earth would you willingly do that to someone?”

GM: “If she didn’t just kill her,” says Draco.

Celia: “I mean great excuse, right? Takes the murder off your hands. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing.’”

GM: “What do you WANT!” Edith repeats. “Who are you to tell me what I do with MY ghouls, how I raise MY family!”

Celia: “Sit down, Flannagan. Let me tell you how this is going to go. I’m going to approach. See this?” She’s got a stake in her hands, courtesy of Draco’s pocket. “Yeah, he wasn’t just happy to see me. I’m going to shove it into you, and you’re not going to put up a fight. Because my friend here, well, he doesn’t like you very much, and he’d enjoy ripping Geraldine’s limbs from her body. What’s her kill count? Seven? Innocents, weren’t they? Tsk, tsk.”

Jade smiles. It’s a mean smile. She stole it from Draco.

“Don’t want to cooperate? That’s fine. He’ll crush her skull and take you by force. How’s that sound?”

GM: Geraldine screams even louder and intensifies her struggles, but gets nowhere.

Edith’s face looks agonized as she tears her gaze between Jade and her ‘daughter’.

“How do I know you’re not going to just hurt her anyway!”

Celia: “I saved your other kid, didn’t I?”

GM: “You called her a monster! A murderer! How do I know!?”

Celia: “She is a monster. So are you. So’s he. But, see, he’s nicer than me. I’d hurt her for the hell of it. I’m that sort of monster. And I came for you, sweetheart.”

She strides forward, stake in hand.

GM: Edith’s eyes dart between Jade, Draco, and Geraldine again.

“Promise me you’re not going to hurt her! Promise, and I’ll… cooperate!”

Celia: “Oh, that’s not up to me. That’s up to my friend Misha here. You met Misha? Nice bloke. Really great judge of character. I’m sure he’ll get to the bottom of this situation with Geraldine and decide what to do accordingly.”

Jade plunges the stake forward.

GM: Edith screams and throws herself at Jade, her eyes mad with the Beast.

The vampires collide into one another, clawing and hissing and biting as they wrestle across the floor. Draco watches with amusement as Geraldine shrieks at the top of her lungs,

“MAMA! MMAAAAAAMMMAAAAAA!!!!!!”

The child vampire drives her foot and fists into Draco’s face with a sudden burst of unholy strength, the same strength that pushed Tinkerbell to her death. She shrieks as she lunges for his throat with bared fangs.

However, it avails her not against the primogen’s childe. Draco perfunctorily snaps her neck and drops the broken corpse to the ground.

“Good riddance.”

Yet Geraldine’s cries raise the alarm. The rest of the Caitiff’s household storms down the stairs and falls upon the invaders, slavishly compelled to rescue their ‘mother’ and domitor. Cinderella clubs Jade’s head with a baseball bat, the Saturday night special unused against the vampire. Melody stabs at Jade’s legs with a knife, trying to hinder the bigger vampire however she can. Two vicious-looking pit bulls tear into Jade too, baying and snarling in defense of their mistress as they rip the Toreador’s flesh.

Five against one is ugly odds, or would be, but Draco takes care of them all. A rain of lightning-fast and brutally hard blows to the skull drop the dogs, Melody, and Cinderella to the floor in motionless heaps.

But he does not raise hand against Edith. Instead, he watches from the sidelines.

Perhaps to see whether Jade is good enough to overcome the clanless trash on her own.

Perhaps to mock her if she is not.

Perhaps to call her dead weight and useless.

If so, he watches in vain.

Edith is little more than her Beast incarnate at this point, all wild offense and feral savagery. Fangs snap as she pins Jade to the floor and lunges for the Toreador’s throat, ripping and tearing with manic desperation. Jade turns into a cat and easily escapes Edith’s human-sized handhold. The Caitiff awkwardly lands on the floor as her foe vanishes from underneath her. The Toreador is already turning human again as she rolls aside, claws bursting from her fingertips, and it’s all-too easy to pin the prone Edith beneath her body’s full weight. Several vicious slashes across the Caitiff’s head and torso serve more to repay Jade’s hurts and punish her foe’s insolence than any practical purpose, for the long-time masseur knows human anatomy more than well enough to stake a vampire from behind. Edith goes rigid as a board as the wood pierces through her aortic arch.

Celia: It’s almost strange, ending a fight without any heavy panting to show her exertion. That’s what happens in all the movies: dripping sweat, heaving chests, blood dripping from nose or lip.

There’s none of that with Jade. None of the drawbacks of the limited, human body. No perspiration. No heavy breathing.

But she aches.

Everywhere.

Her black skin looks darker still beneath the red spray from Edith’s body and herself. A large gash in her calf tore through her borrowed jeans to take out a chunk of flesh, and her head should still ring from being struck by the bat.

Contempt smolders in her eyes as they take in the staked lick. Pathetic. A pathetic Caitiff almost took her out. She’d have ended up torped if Draco hadn’t taken care of the others, hadn’t downed the assorted ghouls and the two snarling dogs.

Jaded bitterness surges through her. She lifts her eyes to his.

“Thanks.”

But that’s all she has time for, a single syllable passing her lips before the blood in the air hits the olfactory senses on the roof of her mouth and her Beast, content to hang back and watch the girl fight, finally slips its leash. Her lips part in a snarl, fangs distending from the roof of her mouth—

Fight. Fuck. Feed. That’s all it knows. All it wants.

Seven bodies in the room. Two stink of mutt, their blood weaker even than the child with the broken neck or the bitch with the bat and the little singer. For half of a crazed second the Beast sizes up this rival, this boy across the way, this fellow predator with the five bodies beside him, familiar blood, hot blood, strong blood—

Danger some part of it shrieks. A savage growl rips from its throat.

The Beast claims its own kill, ripping into the side of the Caitiff’s neck.

The housewife is empty by the time the Beast takes its fill and slips back inside its cage, leaving the lick with the stolen body on the floor. Everything still hurts. She mends it a little at a time, soothing the injuries with the freshly-claimed blood, making sure that her Beast is well and truly locked away before she drinks from these other bodies.

She pays the Brujah no mind. No doubt nothing even touched him.

The choice on who to drink from is an easy one. The dogs still stink of weak, muddied blood. She decides against bleeding the ghoul child or the princess—already wounded, she’s no desire to add complication to her life.

Some part of her wants to laugh.

Complication.

As if the hadn’t just turned it upside down.

But the thin-blood is dead, neck cleanly snapped by Draco. She doesn’t even look at him when she reaches for the corpse and sucks down the foul, weak, watery blood; if regular sex is masturbating compared to the liquid gold of souls, this is like dry humping a pillow with two sets of pants covering all the good bits.

Still, she’s freshly mended by the time she finishes slurping down the red and rises to face her “partner.”

GM: Draco doesn’t touch any of the fallen.

He flips over Edith. The Beast burns in the staked Caitiff’s eyes. He waits until it recedes just enough to understand his words.

“For what it’s worth, that was probably the right call,” he says.

“Fighting back, that is.”

“We have no especially pressing reason to kill your ghouls. They don’t remember these events, I have nothing against them, and I already ate this evening. It’s clear, though, that you valued Geraldine more than any of your ghouls, and I was going to kill her whether you surrendered or not. She was a child-sized death machine and a Masquerade disaster waiting to happen.”

“Even then, I might have been able to tolerate your pet’s existence if you’d kept her on a tighter leash, but that obviously wasn’t happening.”

“It’s a good thing we arrived when we did. You were even letting it breed.”

He shakes his head.

Celia: Don’t remember. How do they not remember? And what doesn’t she remember if they don’t remember?

Her gaze sharpens.

GM: Draco smiles at her, then shakes his head at Edith.

“And we like to wonder at Elysium where the abortions keep coming from.”

“Well, this is where.”

“Ignorant trash who don’t know any better.”

“But I digress from my original point. As irrational and repugnant as I find your behavior, I hold at least some modicum of respect for someone who chooses to fight rather than capitulate when fighting is their most logical option. Even against their betters.”

He smiles down at her.

“Granted, I suppose you don’t know why we’re here, or why you’ve been marked for death.”

“But I’m inclined to allow you some closure before we kill you. I’m not a monster,” he says, his tone mocking.

He looks back up to Jade.

“We need to decide what to do with the baby. How long has she—I’m presuming it’s a she—been ghouled?”

“If it’s not been for long, I’d be inclined to leave her at a fire station, hospital, or other designated safe haven site. Safe haven laws are beautiful things, really. They didn’t exist until 1999, when Texas had 13 cases of abandoned children, 3 involving infants who were discovered dead. Safe haven laws have helped reduce the prevalence of that. They vary by state, but typically, parents can surrender custody of infants up to 30 days old without being held criminally liable. ’Edith’s’ baby looks older than 30 days, but in practice, if employees at a safe haven site find an older abandoned child, they’re not going to turn it away. The law exists for parents as much as children.”

The smile he gives looks less sardonic than his prior ones.

“But all of that is probably moot.”

“I very much doubt that Edith’s stolen baby is new to the Blood.”

Celia: Jade wonders how Celia had ever stood it, the boy’s desire to explain every single thing he knows, every law and loophole and “I’m smart” comment he felt the need to make.

Who is he trying to impress?

Jade shakes her head at the question, mouth set in a thin line.

“No,” she says flatly, “she’s not. Edith found Harper around the time of Katrina.”

The baby is older than Lucy. Over a decade spent trapped as a toddler. What sort of havoc would that do to a child?

GM: “Ten years,” says Draco.

“All of those years catching up with Harper, when she finally burns through the vitae in her system, is going to be very ugly. An adult’s body is fully developed. When it misses the blood, it just ages to the point where it’d have been at. Even that can be a shock to some ghouls’ systems. But for a body that’s going to immediately undergo all of the physical changes that accompany normal childhood development? Those aren’t supposed to happen in days. They’re supposed to happen over years. She won’t have had any of the nutritional intake that’s supposed to accompany her physical development. No milk to build up strong bones. I’d guess that her body is going to be a wreck. It could even kill her.”

“And those are only the physical consequences to her state. Neurologically, I can’t imagine what ten years on the Blood has done to an infant’s brain. The brain is an impossibly complex and delicate organ. Keeping it like this for ten years, then immediately aging it ten years, in so many words, is probably going to fuck it up. And aging it without any of the life experiences that develop its neural pathways? I can’t even begin to guess what kind of brain damage she might end up with.”

“Forget about living a normal life. Forget even about living in an institution. She’ll probably suffer immensely and be mentally incapable of comprehending any kind of existence outside of her pain, for whatever brief span remains of her life. Who even knows if she’d survive outside of a hospital setting. It seems like it’d take a miracle for doctors to give her any kind of life worth living. All before the danger to the Masquerade.”

He shakes his head.

“I don’t have any background in human biology, so tell me if my assessment seems wrong. But my thinking is that it would be kindest to euthanize her right here.”

Edith’s eyes bulge. But even paralyzed, Jade can see the Beast’s madness overtake them yet again.

Celia: Tell me if my assessment seems wrong.

Jade almost misses the words, caught up in making her own calculations with the child-ghoul. Nothing crosses her face at the ask, unexpected though it is.

“Yes and no,” she says at length. “A night doctor would be able to fix some of the body’s concerns. If it were to happen as you say, letting her age ten years instantly, then there would be little hope for her and it would be kinder to put her down now. But there are alternatives, if anyone is willing to put in the time and effort.”

“The issue, as you’ve outlined, is with her mental state. Humans learn most of their ways of functioning as children. The brain rapidly develops during early childhood. Most of its architecture and wiring takes place during those first three years. Not,” she adds, “that it simply stops at their third birthday, but it’s more of a ‘work around’ when they get into adulthood.”

“There are dozens of milestones children hit during their first few years that Harper has been unable to, beyond even the basic ‘walking’ and ‘talking.’”

Jade knows a woman who had eagerly shown her daughter each and every one of them while her decades-younger sister was still growing.

“I’d put her at a year, maybe a year and a half on the older end. She should be somewhat past the babbling phase and be able to say a handful of words, though not yet stringing sentences together. Walking on her own.” Jade pauses a moment. “I’ve never seen her do so. She’s still crawling. Either she’s younger than I think, or her development has already been stunted by the Blood. Even if so, ten years at the same age should have made her learn some of these things from the simple longevity of her existence.”

Jade shakes her head.

“There’s a reason we don’t ghoul babies. Aside from the impracticality of it, not enough study has been done to how it actually effects their physical and mental state.”

It’s research that should be done. Research that she can do. Though even that has its limited uses and would mostly serve to satisfy her curiosity.

“The child ghouls never seem to develop much beyond where they were when ghouled. They can learn new things, certainly, but without some sort of trauma or major life event their personalities are rather set. Much the same as we don’t change much without a good, hard shove. Our bodies are frozen.”

Jade finally sighs.

“She could be saved. A night doctor willing to work with her who has a ghoul or Masquerade-aware family to take her in during the days. Rather than let her age all at once it would be done a little at a time. Wait for her to hit the appropriate milestones. Let her age again. Shower her in love and affection and create an attachment to an adult caregiver. Though Flannagan’s logic is deeply, inherently flawed and her idea of love as twisted as the majority of the rest of our kind’s, she no doubt loved the child. Though perhaps not as much as she loved the thin-blood, and who knows what Geraldine has done to Harper.”

“We could also find an alchemist or magician, see if they can dilute the Blood. An associate believes they are able to make the Blood less addictive; it’s possible they can work something out to dilute other properties as well, though I imagine it would take a combination of medical work, sorcery, and the alchemy.”

“Even if that is all successful, if she were aged to her normal years, she still suffers from a chemical addiction to the Blood and any trauma or stress she has experienced will be written into her very code. Wipe her memories and the pathways will still exist. She may not know why certain things cause her to react certain ways, but her body will still respond. You’re talking about something as complicated as brain surgery. A night doc skilled in such things might be able to erase some of those pathways by physically removing them from her brain… but it’s complicated, risky, and it might not even work.”

“She’d be starting over. Relearning the big five: cognitive, social and emotional, speech and language, fine motor, and gross motor skills.”

“If someone had the time and inclination and resources to do all of that? It’s possible she could turn out normal, though the odds are certainly against her. All of this before we even begin to touch the addiction or various disciplines that have been used on her over the years."

“And,” she adds, “the practicality of what would be done with her following all of that.”

“The body work itself would also be long and complicated. It’s not a simple matter of shoving vitae down her throat. Her entire system would need to be overhauled even if she were to be allowed to age a little at a time.”

GM: Draco considers all of that.

“Flannagan’s notion of love is more twisted than even most of ours,” he says first. “I’ve never heard of any other licks with ghouled babies.”

“Granted,” he continues with a sneer, “that might just be because it’s so impractical.”

Celia: Jade had thought ghouling a functional adult without a clear purpose was impractical, let alone a child or baby.

GM: A functional adult can at least take care of themselves.

“Letting her age in the way you describe seems like it could still be hazardous,” continues Draco. “Either she has the Blood in her system or she doesn’t. So either she’s frozen where she is, or she’s rapidly aging after you put the Blood back in her system. You’d be getting ‘start and stop’ bursts of rapid physical development, rather than slower continuous development, and you’d be hoping to minimize the negative effects of that through periodic medical work, probably sorcery, and an ideal home environment.”

“As you say, it’s a lot of time and resources to invest in this project, against slim odds the child is going to turn out normal. Even assuming a best case scenario, where Flannagan and her pet thin-blood haven’t fucked up Harper in even more ways than we’ve enumerated.”

He glances down at Edith’s staked body.

“It really is amazing how few brains it takes to completely ruin a child. And so many brains to have even a chance at repairing her.”

He glances back up at Jade.

“Are you interested in taking Harper?”

“I don’t have the knowledge or resources to give her anything beyond a painless death.”

Celia: If anyone has a chance at rehabilitating her, it’s Jade. She has the skill. She has the resources.

Admittedly, her desire to do so comes from a purely scientific curiosity about whether or not it can be done, and prep for the work North asked her about with Cloe. Waste not.

“I have some selfish, research-oriented interest, both with the body and the brain.”

“It would not be a kind or painless existence.”

GM: “Yes, that was the only other alternative that occurred to me. Turning her over to the Ordo Dracul as a curiosity and potential research avenue. The odds of a normal life are slim that way too, but slim is better than she’d get under my fangs.”

Celia: Jade nods at the mention of the covenant.

“Such is part of what I’d intended. I’ll keep her for now, then, and see what I can make of her.”

“What of the others?”

GM: “They’ve done nothing and won’t remember us. I’d normally be inclined to sell them to other domitors, but I’d rather not have my name linked to them under… these circumstances, if what you said in the car is true.”

“I’d be inclined to simply leave them here, if there aren’t any you want for yourself.”

Celia: “No,” Jade says, “I can’t think of what I’d do with them. Will the eldest recall us, or did you take care of that as well?”

GM: “She won’t after I have a moment with her.”

Celia: “My blood is in her body.”

GM: He shrugs. “Feed Flannagan. Bleed her wrist into the girl.”

Celia: Perhaps she’s overly concerned over the thought of someone looking into this nobody’s disappearance. No reason to be, is there?

She only nods, hefting Flannagan by her ankles and dragging her body to the other room to do as he suggested. She bites her wrist and shoves it into the Caitiff’s mouth, then feeds the ghoul child the hit.

“All of them are going to age rapidly if they don’t find new domitors,” she says at length.

GM: The Beast howls in rage and lust behind Flannagan’s eyes as the taste of Jade’s vitae hits her mouth.

The ghoul moans fitfully from the couch as the taste hits her lips.

“More… please… Mommy…”

Celia: Jade is no one’s mommy. She pays little mind to the begging.

GM: Draco takes out his phone again, taps into it, and starts sweeping the room. His form turns into a blur. Objects and sundry are displaced through the house before he comes to a sudden stop again.

“No bugs that I can find. I’d been concerned Duffy Gestard had this place wired.”

Celia: “What is that,” she asks, nodding to his phone, “that you sweep with?”

GM: “Don’t worry about it.”

Celia: Nothing crosses her face at the rebuff.

GM: He glances down at the ghoul child, then brings his fist down on her head. She goes motionless.

“There.”

“I’d been inclined to leave our homeless friend with Flannagan’s body and cover him in some blood. Let the kids draw what conclusions they will from that.”

“It’s not a flawless cover-up, but I doubt anyone is going to look into what happened to this nobody.”

Celia: “Perhaps better if there is no body. They turn weird after the event.”

GM: “Hm,” he frowns. “Yes, better if there isn’t, if it’s distinct from ordinary deaths.”

Celia: “Very much so.”

GM: “No body, then. So all the kids know is that one night she disappeared.”

“Along with Harper and Geraldine.”

Celia: Imagine the abandonment issues that will develop as a result.

GM: “I suppose that sort of thing happens, and no one is going to care about their stories anyway.”

Celia: Paranoia gnaws at her. What if they do? What if they’re caught?

“I’d planned on framing her for something anyway,” Jade says with a shrug. “This just adds to the story.”

Not that she can do it now. The boys will want to personally see to the destruction of their brother’s murderer, and she has no desire to be linked to Edith’s disappearance.

GM: “That leaves our homeless friend. I have no further use for him.”

Celia: “I can think of several, though I’ve no desire to haul a body around at this time. More where he came from.”

“The only thing I can do with him right this very minute is get to the bottom of the alchemist’s location.”

GM: “How does that benefit me?”

Celia: “It doesn’t, which is why I haven’t asked you to bring him along. The alchemy may be of some future, limited use to either one of us depending on how it pans out, and there are things I can show you if I have time with his body, but I imagine if you were interested you’d have said.”

GM: “Well, it’s your lucky night. I don’t want to kill him or Flannagan here. Get Harper. We’re leaving.”

Celia: Jade takes the narrow staircase to the upper floor and finds the bedroom where the child waits. She takes half a moment to pull her out of her soiled onesie and finds another for her, pulls on an infant-sized coat, and throws a handful of other baby necessities into a diaper bag.

Her nose wrinkles at the thought of diapers.

Luckily, the child doesn’t smell as if she has soiled herself. Jade lifts her, soothing her troubles with a coo and a gentle touch of star mode to her mind, and carries the placid infant back down the stairs with the bag slung over her shoulder.

GM: The crying baby shuts up as Jade sucks away her feelings. Draco is gone, as are Flannagan’s and the thin-blood’s bodies. The car waits outside.

Celia: She steps out, locking the door behind her. No reason to let the rest of the riffraff into the home uninvited. The girls are in for a rude enough awakening as is. She takes no chances with the crowd, dancing through shadows to avoid their notice on her way to the car. The diaper bag goes in the back. Jade sits in front with the infant on her lap.

It’s not the safest way to travel with a baby, but Jade assumes that Draco’s limited patience does not involve time to find and assemble the car seat in his vehicle.

“I’ll sit on the floor with her,” she offers, recalling the way he’d asked her to hide as a feline while they drove through certain parts of town.

It’s a quick move to twist into the backseat to find the well-loved baby blanket from Harper’s crib that she’d brought with her, a pink fleece thing with white animal shapes in white. Jade rolls it into a sort of barrier to set the child in and lays Harper inside of it to sort of pen her in. Then the girl is gone and Luna looks down at her new charge, large green eyes blinking at the child. The cat rubs her cheek against the child’s.

GM: The two bodies are stowed in the car’s backseat. Draco raises no objection and lets Jade do her thing. Harper makes a cooing sound and touches the cat’s head.

The car takes off. It drives and drives and drives. Harper stares ahead with a tranquil expression, pets and touches the cat, then eventually nods off under the car’s steady motions.

Draco eventually clicks a fob. Luna hears a garage door opening. Draco drives inside and parks the car.

He cracks his fist against the thin-blood’s head again, then hauls Edith’s staked body over his shoulder. He carries her upstairs to a bathroom and dumps her in the tub. “In case this gets messy.” They’re in the house owned by the couple they’re impersonating.

Draco disappears for another few moments, then comes back.

He lets Jade made make whatever arrangements she wants for Harper, or just leave the infant in the car, then says perfunctorily, “I don’t trust you. So here’s what we’re going to do.”

“This process you’ve described. Eating her soul. You’re going to do it alongside me.”

“If anything goes wrong, you’ll suffer the consequences too.”

“And if this all goes right, you’ll be equally complicit in the crime.”

Celia: Though normally deadly, the car seems the safest place to leave the sleeping infant. She doesn’t trust either one of their Beasts not to find the easy meal once they’ve partaken in this.

Silently, Jade listens to Draco’s words. She nods when he’s done.

“She’ll need a hit or two before we begin. Sucking from a dry body will produce no results. We’ll get back whatever we give when it happens.”

“Once you hit the point where you think she’s empty, keep going. It takes a minute. You’ll think nothing is happening. But then it’ll hit you. It’s… it feels good. Very good. Better than anything I’ve ever experienced. Better than sex, better than blood, better than anything you think you like or love or need. But you’ll know her pain, too. Not physically. Up here.” Jade taps her head. “Just keep going until it’s over. The Beast will rattle around and attempt to get out. I’ll do my best to keep it inside. It’s intense, Draco, very intense.”

“I’ve no doubt you possess the control. I only wanted to forewarn you so there are no surprises.”

GM: “I see,” he says.

“We need a diversion, then, if someone loses control.”

He leads her back downstairs, grabs the thin-blood’s body, and carries it back up to the bathroom.

He dumps it on the tile floor beside the tub.

Celia: Someone else might say it’s a smart idea. Jade holds her tongue.

GM: Draco doesn’t.

“Well, correction, more like you’ll need a diversion.”

Celia: “You could pin me to the floor with one hand,” she says flatly, “I doubt I could get to you if I tried.”

GM: “That’s exactly what I meant.”

“If you lose control, I can subdue you.”

“If I lose control, you’ll have to hope I decide to go for our friend’s body instead of yours.”

Celia: Ah. He’d meant the insult in a different way than she’d taken it.

She only nods.

“You were right, by the way. What you said at the Evergreen about Gui and Carolla.”

GM: “That they were scum?”

Celia: She debates the merits of telling him what she’d been thinking: that she’d have lost to Gui and Carolla both without the benefit of tricks up her sleeve. If they’re about to embark on this diablerie journey together she’d rather not recount her failings and make her presence sound useless. Or worse, a hindrance.

Not if she wants him to do it again with her.

Does she, though? Continued exposure to his presence, continued insults and veiled threats and waiting for him to turn on her? Then again, what’s a little social discomfort compared to ripping someone’s soul out of their body. What are barbed words versus the ability to cheat the Blood and obtain power as easily as she feeds.

And if he’s a good enough fighter for the both of them then she can focus on what she does excel at. Getting close. Getting in and out without being seen. Disguises. Taking care of the bodies afterward.

His other night doctor can fulfill the same purpose.

Bitterness swells within her chest. It’s a tight, uncomfortable pressure that makes her want to clench her jaw or purse her lips or curl her fingers into a fist. Knowing that she’s been replaced. That he so easily found someone else who shares her unique skillset.

She doesn’t let the emotion show on face or body.

Corpses aren’t all she does. She’s resourceful. Quick on her feet. Adaptable to any given situation, able to blend as easily as a chameleon to what’s at hand. She has numerous friends across the covenants, extensive medical knowledge, has slept with enough licks to find good targets for their fangs. She has never seen a mask created like those she makes of flesh, has never heard of other night docs in the city able to provide the sort of imbued tattoos that she does. All this before her ability to steal secrets from the mind. To unlock hidden memories, or make someone inclined to ignore something they’d just learned, to spin fiction so wound in half-truths that none but the most savvy can pull apart the threads.

What might it have been like to tell him about this prior to the Carolla incident, to have him at her side as trusted partner and lover? How many would they have taken on together, and how high would they have risen?

Jade had no interest in Roderick. But Draco? Oh, she’s very, very interested in this new iteration of Celia’s ex. How callously he murders even children. How quickly he has attained her grandsire’s favor to be the one questioning her, to be watched over by ghouls. How commanding his presence with the other licks, leading them through the torture of his enemy, the execution of foes, the practical, calculating mind that made him desire to strip his cheating lover from all that she held so he could control it and her.

Like her sire.

The thought threatens to send a chill down her spine. How could she compare one to the other? How could she see in him what she sees in her sire?

Because it’s true. Because Coco’s childe has fallen from his ‘white knight’ status to take up a different mantle, a darker sort of presence in the city.

Perhaps Savoy had known how far he’d fall after thinking his sire betrayed him. Perhaps he’d anticipated it, had thought that Celia would benefit from this new version of him, that she could finally stop hiding and lying.

And perhaps it’s foolish to think her grandsire gave her love unlife any consideration at all when he hatched his plans. Advantageous byproduct, that’s all it is. Not that she’d managed to keep it. No, Celia had gone and fucked it all up by being a coward with a savior complex.

Jade doesn’t dwell on what-might-have-been. Only what is. What’s possible for her should he see the value she brings to their operation and assent to further murders.

Pride might have kept her from admitting to shortcomings when she was chained to the cross and at his mercy, might have stilled her tongue when she thought arrogance would see her through the ordeal with fewer humiliations at his hand. She’d have taken vicious satisfaction in knowing that he couldn’t get beneath her skin.

But here, privately, why bother lying? It’s not like he doesn’t know her limitations in a fight. He’s already said as much. He’s seen her at it. Trained her, for all that it turned from fighting to fucking most nights. He knows what she’s capable of in combat.

And he values truth. Wants to hear how big and special and strong he is.

“Yes,” she says simply. “But also that if I’d tried to go toe-to-toe they’d have beaten me without you.”

She considers the staked and starving lick in the tub.

“Perhaps you’ll be pleased when you see for yourself how painfully he died, in the end.”

GM: No doubt that bitterness and sense of replacement is exactly what he wanted her to feel.

After all, Celia had ‘replaced’ him, in a manner of speaking, with her other lovers.

Who knows, indeed, how many souls Celia and Roderick would have devoured together? Perhaps many, thanks to their boundless (at least on Roderick’s end) trust and love for one another.

Or perhaps none at all. Or only the one.

Would Roderick want to participate in so black and foul an act, for his own personal gain and pleasure, when he could simply give his foes quick and clean deaths? He’d contemplated staking and burying Carolla deep in the earth, so as not to have to kill even him.

“Ah, yes. They would have,” he answers. “Just as Edith here would have.”

The Brujah’s tone isn’t gloating, but neither is there concern for sparing Jade’s feelings. Roderick never regarded Celia with the same coolly distant look that Draco now wears.

He then bites his wrist and lets a stream of red dribble into Edith’s mouth.

“There’s no such thing for them as too painful.”

He climbs into the tub and sinks his fangs into the staked Caitiff’s neck.

Celia: Edith by herself wouldn’t have. Jade hadn’t shifted. Hadn’t let her own Beast out against the apeshit lick and still handled her. It was all the others that gummed things up. But Jade doesn’t press the issue. She could have taken the bitch out without a fight if she’d lied about sparing Geraldine too.

So much for honesty.

Jade doesn’t say a word when she clambers in beside him and bites the Caitiff’s other side.

GM: The blood, entirely Draco’s blood, is gone quickly enough. He’s already started before she sinks her fangs in. Its taste is familiar.

So, by now, is the act.

Third time in one night?

Soon enough, there’s no blood running down her throat. It’s something deeper. More vital. It’s something deeper, more vital. Jade still can’t describe the taste, the sensation, even after three times. It’s lighter than air and denser than rock. It fills her and empties her. She feels divine and depraved. Her mouth burns, her throat burns, her stomach burns, all of her burns, but it’s pain so sweet as to be pleasure, agony so piercing as to become bliss. The same sound echoes, like the tolling of a great and distant boll, like the steady weakening of Edith’s life-force as Jade draws it into herself. Dong, dong, dong,

Jade can’t see Edith’s face as readily, with Draco on her other side. But she makes out his. His eyes are huge, the features twisted into a mask of grotesquerie and ecstasy. He looks like he’s cumming after weeks without pleasure. He looks like a serial killer watching the light go out in his victim’s eyes. He looks an addict scoring his biggest ever fix. He looks like a rapist reveling in his victim’s cries, in the power he has over her. He looks like a beast. He looks like a demon.

Jade probably looks the same.

It rocks through her, just like last time, but no matter how many times there are, it’s never going to get old. She’s been set ablaze on her own funeral pyre. Every tissue, every cell, every molecule in her body is its own Jade Kalani, exploding in millions upon millions upon millions of simultaneous sexual climaxes. It’s unbearable. She can’t endure this. It’s torture. Never again. Always again. She’ll kill, to feel this again, this unholy impossible bliss that makes sex with the partner of her wildest fantasies into trying to masturbate with an oven mitt on. She has become empty, a vessel for pleasure, a vessel that knows naught for torturous bliss as a volcano erupts in her heart, spewing forth currents of liquid gold, making her more than she is, she’s unstoppable, she’s invincible, she’ll do this forever, she’ll become more and more and MORE with every soul she consumes—

She suddenly comes to. Draco’s pinned her face-down against the bathtub, arms twisted into a lock behind her back.

Against all odds, the Brujah looks like he’s held his Beast in, if the thin-blood’s hale body and her own non-torpid state are anything to go by.

What’s left of Edith looks like it was dipped in a vat of acid. The flesh has turned a putrescent white-yellow-green. Sections have the consistency of sludge as they ooze off the body, exposing similarly rotted and discolored muscles. Most of the hair has sloughed off. The smell is foul. It reminds Jade of spoiled baby formula.

Celia: It rocks through her. Like last time. Explosion after explosion, orgasm after orgasm until she can barely stand it, can’t stand it, no more, please—

oh god, yes, yes, more, MORE—

The rest of them feel it, the girls inside, and they come rising to the surface to see, to experience—

NO, the Bitch snarls, and the Beast rises to her summons, snapping at their faces and heels and making them run, run, flee while Jade endures, while she takes it all, while she drinks it in, it’s hers, just hers, it belongs to Jade—

Laughter rings inside her head when the Beast comes back around for her and Beast and Bitch growl and snarl and snap and fuck, it’s inside of her, it’s consuming her, it’s controlling her—

Coming around to being pinned beneath the larger, stronger predator above her with the foul stench of Edith’s remains right next to her face is like every drug crash that has ever ruined someone’s high. Like finally realizing she’s reached climax only to see that the porn on her computer is a dirty, shameful sort of thing that makes her want to crawl into a hole and never see the sky again.

How the fuck had he resisted the call of the Beast? Had he not felt it? Had she taken everything and he nothing and this whole thing had been a wash?

Jade wiggles in his grasp until he loosens it, flipping onto her back to look up at him still poised above her. She searches his face with her eyes, looking for… something. Some clue as to how it was for him.

GM: Jade finds his steel grasp does not waver until she stops struggling.

He barely seems to see her.

There’s a glazed and distant look to his eyes. They stare past hers, as if drawn towards some dark and all-consumptive abyss from which there is no turning back. His face is utterly still and lifeless. Was he always so pale? Did the fangs protruding from his lips always look so at home there? They didn’t look at home on Roderick’s face. They always seemed incidental. An afterthought. They didn’t gel with the baseball-playing, Batman-watching, dog-loving college student who liked to share sausage pizza and cheesy breadsticks with his girlfriend during sleepovers and would roll up the socks in his dresser into little balls. Somehow, that’s always who he still was, even with the fangs. They didn’t define him. He was a boy, Celia’s boyfriend, before he was a vampire.

Draco doesn’t look like he could exist without his fangs.

They’re the foremost part of him. They’re the only part of him. He is a predator. He hungers. That is all this cold-eyed and pallid-faced creature of the night looks like it’s ever been, and will ever be. This vampire never had a girlfriend.

His head slowly rotates. It’s an animalistic motion, seemingly driven by predatory instinct rather than human will, as if tracking the scent of prey.

Pale lips pull back from the fangs.

It takes a moment to realize the expression is a smile, and it does not reach his eyes.

Then, suddenly, it bursts from him. Laughter. Riotous, howling, shrieking peals of laughter, bereft of mirth, bereft of life, nothing more than a cacophony of violent, booming noise. His body doesn’t move. It’s as if he’s forgotten how, or sees no need to, and it’s that little gesture that perhaps feels most inhuman of all—how he just stays still as a statue, arms motionless at his sides, head unmoving, as he laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs.

Celia: How far he has fallen.

She sees it in his face. The fangs. The dead glaze to his eyes. She’d seen parts of it before, hadn’t she: in the spa the night they’d found out about Carolla. Choking Reggie against the wall. Slamming his girlfriend against the same wall the next night. Cutting the knot. Cruelly belittling the girl he’d once loved. Cutting apart the mafioso.

Everything that happened at Edith’s. Snapping the child’s neck. Not caring one bit what reason Jade took the baby for; even admitting that he would have passed her off to the Ordo to dissect.

And now this.

Diablerie.

Stealing the very soul from the destroyed lick next to them, sentencing her “children” to fend for themselves. With their domitor dead they’re collarless ghouls, stuck in the bodies of children for who knows how many years. Isn’t Lily somewhere near Jade’s age?

None of it matters to him. Not their fate. Not the lick beneath him. Not the lick whose ugly remains lie next to them in the tub.

Her face could be carved of stone for all that it gives away, a mask of mildly amused detachment with a sharp smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

Jade had never given much of a fuck about Roderick. Celia would weep to see him like this. But Jade? Oh, Jade likes it. Jade revels in it. Jade adores this new Roderick, this Draco with his fangs and his laughter and his predatory taint, the cold fury in his eyes, the absolute stillness of it all. Just the sound passing his lips, the heartless laughter spilling out of the hole in his face.

She remains still and silent while he lets it out. Still and silent while he realizes the secret she has given him, the direct avenue to power that he can take with no regard to training or waiting or finding a teacher to whom he’d pledge a boon for the knowledge.

This is the shortcut.

This is what the elders don’t want them to know.

This is the freedom from their games. The ability to compete on the same playing field.

Sin incarnate, and how exquisite the experience.

Hunters call them leeches, parasites living off of others. Say that they are monsters for taking the lives of others. As if it compares. As if feeding on blood comes close to what they’ve just done. This is what it means to consume.

But Jade waits. Silent and still. She builds a list in her mind of targets they can take and she waits.

GM: Jade does not wait overlong. The endlessly ringing, empty laughter eventually dies, though the stillness to his face does not. His fangs do not retract. His head mechanically tilts in her direction.

“No wonder,” he finally says.

“No wonder no one talks about this.”

“This changes everything.”

Celia: The smile still doesn’t reach her eyes, but she nods at the words.

“Everything,” she echoes. “No waiting. No training. Just what you can take.”

GM: “Years. Decades. Centuries. In an instant.”

Celia: “That’s why they hunt down those who know.”

GM: “It’s not even just mastering disciplines.”

“If this cures thin-bloodedness. That isn’t ‘effectively’ lowering a thin-blood’s generation. That is lowering their generation.”

“If thin-bloods can do it, why not true-bloods?”

Celia: “Shatter the glass ceiling.”

GM: “Why stay nine steps removed from Caine? Why wait decades, centuries, for the Blood to thicken? Why not claim power in an instant?”

His voice is a whisper.

Celia: “We’re only limited by who we can get our hands on. By how well we can cover the crime.” Jade jerks her chin a fraction of an inch toward the destroyed body.

GM: “No one saw us. We went in disguise. Took a car that isn’t ours. Took the body to a second location.”

Celia: She finally smiles.

GM: “Even ESP won’t show this happened at Edith’s house. If someone even bothers to investigate. Two unidentified licks no one’s ever seen before carried away Edith Flannagan to murder somewhere else.”

Celia: “And I can fix the body, like I did for Gui, or otherwise dispose of it.”

GM: “No. We can’t risk anyone looking at the body. Finding anything out of place. We need to destroy them both.”

“This completely recontextualizes so much of Kindred history.”

“So much of how elders treat neonates.”

“All of them. All of them have to know. All of them have to be terrified of this.”

“Terrified of younger licks coming for them.”

“I’m making several assumptions in saying that. But if I’m right.”

“If I’m right.”

Celia: “I think you are. Lebeaux mentioned it in passing. The reason for the Salubri’s destruction. The reason for the curse on the Banu Haqim.”

GM: “Lebeaux would be stupid if he breathed a word of this.”

Celia: “He didn’t. Not like you’re thinking.”

GM: “Maybe he doesn’t know.”

“What elder would ever let a neonate know about this.”

Celia: “None of them. Not a single one. They’d keep us ignorant.”

GM: “Who the hell did you learn this from?”

“This knowledge is incalculably valuable. Incalculably dangerous.”

Celia: “Yes. It is. You’ll need a way to hide it. You spend time around elders. Who knows which of them dip inside your head at what time.”

GM: “Someone else already knows that you know this. Who?”

Celia: “No. Someone else knows Celia knows and doesn’t know the connection between Celia and Jade. They believe Celia is a new Embrace, ignorant of greater Kindred society. And I took it from Celia.”

GM: “What possible motive would someone have to share this with a sheltered fledgling?”

Celia: “Digging for information on the fledgling’s sire, I believe. A trap meant to make her reveal more than she wanted.”

GM: “That’s some honey to bait a trap with.”

“He can’t ever know. Savoy. He cannot ever know that we know, or he would destroy us. Any elder would.”

“No matter how useful we are or become, it will never outweigh the potential threat we pose. It will always be more economical to destroy us.”

Celia: Jade nods her agreement.

“That’s why,” she says, “that’s why I asked you not to let Lebeaux look at it. He’d see how it was when I was done with him. Not like this. Different. But still very, very clearly an issue.”

“And no one else can know. It can’t spread beyond us or they will trace it back.”

GM: “It’s dangerous to do this in New Orleans,” Draco says slowly. “Edith was a nobody, but someone with stronger blood is exponentially more likely to be missed and investigated. Not to mention able to personally muck things up themselves.”

“It would be safer to drink licks in other cities.”

Celia: “I have an opportunity in L.A. Celia does. For a few months.”

GM: “The fewer ties, the better. Ties to Celia are bad.”

“L.A. is a good city, though,” he muses. “Anarch-held. Less centralized and nosy authorities.”

“Decently far away.”

“Lots of transients. Lots of licks to pick from, too.”

Celia: “Celia could always turn down the opportunity.” Jade shrugs. She’ll take power over money and fame.

GM: “Turn it down. Better safe than sorry.”

“This would go smoothly. Blow into town in disguise. Kill some people. Disappear. Never come back. At least with those faces.”

Celia: “And we can be anyone.”

GM: He finally smiles again. It’s a cold smile, and his fangs are long in his mouth.

“It’s as close to foolproof as there is.”

Celia: “We’ll need a cover for our disappearance here.”

GM: “I’ll think of something. We shouldn’t leave at the same time or to the same known destination.”

“This degree of caution might not be necessary. But I’d rather overdo it than underdo it.”

Celia: “Or we should. Together. Make a big show of it. Hide in plain sight.”

GM: “Roderick and Jade have no reason to go anywhere together.”

Celia: No, perhaps not now with the city as it is.

GM: He shakes his head.

“No matter. That’s for the future. Right now we need to cover up what we’ve done here. I’m going to kill the thin-blood. How thoroughly can you destroy his and Edith’s bodies?”

Celia: Jade’s answering smile is wicked.

“There’ll be nothing left when I’m done.”

GM: Draco’s fangs are long and hungry in his smiling mouth.

“Then let’s get started.”

---

Tuesday night, 22 March 2016, AM

GM: Draco disposes of the thin-blood quickly enough by snapping his neck too. Jade knows that’s much harder than the movies make it look, though it’s easier with an unresisting subject. Draco dumps the corpse in the bathroom outside of the tub.

He curls his lip at the still-fresh-looking corpse’s smell (“that seems more due to how he lived than how he died”) and strips off the threadbare clothes.

Celia: Jade has Draco to assist in the procedure, putting his speed and strength to good use. She asks him to bleed the thin-blood into whatever container the black couple has in their house, showing him where to cut through the chest so he can rip out the clavicles to get to the subclavian arteries.

“Their blood tastes worse than most humans,” Jade admits, “but waste not.” She shows him how to hang the thin-blood by his feet and remove the rib cage so he can get to the heart to literally pump the blood out of him and into the waiting container once it stops flowing on its own.

GM: “Their blood tastes fine by itself,” Draco says as he pries apart the thin-blood’s ribs. The gore-stained shower stall already resembles a slaughterhouse. “But it’s reminiscent of actual lick blood and that makes it worse. Like going to the O’Tolley’s playground after being promised Disneyland.”

Celia: “Not that either compares to what we just did.”

GM: “No. They don’t.”

Celia: She starts on Edith while he works on the thin-blood, using her claws like knives to peel off what’s left of her rotting skin. The putrid and decaying organs are further pulverized into liquid mush; Edith was old enough that most of her internal structure, even the muscles, liquefied once her body was stripped of its animation. Jade rips and wrenches and severs through what remains, cutting and hacking and having Draco break the bones into manageably sized pieces. She leaves the flesh in a pile to come back to later.

Then it’s the thin-blood’s turn. She’s more careful with the cuts she makes to his torso after she and Draco yank off the limbs, pulling out his stomach in one complete piece. That, too, is set aside. The rest of him is stripped down to the bones, organs and tissue set into one pile and bones in another for Draco to further break down. (“I really need to find someone to eat who can give me a boost with this part of it.”)

GM: Draco snaps apart the bones as required while he watches Jade work. Edith’s bones are fairly brittle after the state her body is in. The thin-blood’s take more time, but they’re broken apart soon enough too.

Celia: Jade rummages through the kitchen, bathroom, and hall closet for what she needs: a rubber container, hydrogen peroxide (a staple in almost every bathroom), and a spice grinder. Well, what she finds is a coffee grinder instead, but it will serve the same purpose.

She puts the assorted tissues into the rubber container, pokes a hole into the thin-blood’s stomach with her claws, and upends it over the bowl.

Almost instantly the flesh and tissue begins to sizzle and dissolve. Once she adds the hydrogen peroxide the process moves even more quickly.

“Gastric acid,” Jade says if he asks. “pH around 1. Kine have mucus lining their stomach that prevents it from eating through. Add this, though, and it’s… pretty instant.”

She smiles down at the sludge, adding more pieces of flesh as room is created in the bowl. While that works its magic she grinds the larger pieces of bone into a fine dust and tosses the smaller, thinner ones directly into the solution.

Ordinarily she’d strip them all down without the use of chemicals, but then there are still inconvenient pieces lying around that she can’t do much with without running the risk of someone finding them.

Anything that doesn’t dissolve, which isn’t much, she rubs between her hands to break into smaller and smaller particles that eventually just disappear.

There’s nothing left when she’s done.

GM: “I learned in science classes how acidic stomach acid is,” Draco remarks. “It’s something else to see firsthand.”

“Disgusting this abortion still had so much.”

“But I suppose it’s to our benefit.”

Celia: “Kidneys produce something else you can use for it, too. Ammonia.”

GM: Draco rips apart what remains of Edith’s and the thin-blood’s clothing to dump into the container of acid-dissolving body parts.

“Efficient,” he says once they’re done. “I’d be inclined to keep this to get rid of Gui’s body, if you don’t have another means of disposal in mind.”

Celia: “I might,” she hedges, “but it’s a risk we don’t need to take. This will be fine.”

GM: Draco finds a lid for the bucket, then strips off his clothes.

“You can turn us back to normal now. Give me Roderick’s face.”

Celia: Jade rinses her hands in the sink and begins the work. Once more she starts at his feet, sliding her hands up over his skin to turn the color from black to Roderick’s paler complexion. She smooths over the mark she’d carved into his skin as she goes. Up his shins and calves, across the knees, up the thigh and sides of his legs, across the groin—how little his cock interests her now, how empty it would feel compared to the heady ecstasy of a soul—and then across his abdomen and chest, neck, shoulders, arms. She spins around behind him and does the same down the back, sweeping her fingers in quick movements over his body, paying careful attention to the details.

“What are you going to tell him,” she asks as she works.

Then his face. Roderick’s face. Not Draco. She wonders at the request—surely he isn’t going to see Savoy as Roderick to collect the body—but does as asked.

She strips when she’s done, rinses again, and her skin ripples and dissolves as she retakes her normal form without ever needing to touch her own body. Jade.

GM: “It won’t be a problem,” is all he says.

He collects half the vitae harvested from the thin-blood.

Celia: There’s less than there was prior; Jade took a hit to keep the edge off when she started in on his body. She takes another when she’s done. She murmurs a quiet “thanks” when he gives her the extra that can’t be evenly divided between the pair, leaving her with more than he took. It’s an unexpectedly decent gesture.

She doesn’t press the issue on Savoy, only nods and moves into the bedroom to find a pair of pants to steal from the woman. She’d rather not walk around in panties the rest of the night. She makes sure they’re old, something that won’t be missed, and slides them on.

They’re not stylish. Not Jade’s version of stylish, anyway, and she makes a face at herself in the mirror. Still, it could be worse. They look like pajama bottoms or lounge wear, something someone could be wearing late at night with the thin cotton shirt and no bra she’d been kidnapped in, so at least it matches.

Jade finds Draco when she’s done. Questions burn inside of her, but for the moment she holds her tongue. Wary, she realizes; she’s looking for signs of their new dynamic. Balancing on the edge of the knife with him while she waits to see where they stand, walking across egg shells to avoid ticking him off. Like Celia did for her dad. Like she still does for her sire.

That’s an unacceptable state. She’s not going to accept another master who expects blind obedience and denies any sort of intel.

GM: Draco pulls back on his discarded clothes. He goes back into the bedroom, cracks the couple over their heads again, removes their bonds, then carries them back to the living room couch and turns on the TV. He returns the cords back to their proper place, picks up the container of stomach acid, then departs the house and climbs back into his car. He waits for Jade to get in, then drives.

“Turn into a cat and get on the floor.”

Celia: So much for “I’ll have time to ask on the way back.”

Jade takes her feline form and settles onto the ground near Harper.

GM: The ghouled baby has since fallen asleep. They drive for a long time.

Finally, Draco says, “Turn human again.”

Celia: So she does.

She glances at the surroundings, ready to change her face if needed.

GM: They’re in southern Gentilly and close to the city proper.

Draco climbs into the back of the car and lies down on the floor.

“Give me Draco’s face now.”

“I’ll drop you off where you want in the Quarter when you’re done.”

Celia: Jade clambers after him, flexing her fingers while she takes a spot on the seat. It’s an awkward angle to work. So she moves, straddling his hips with a knee to either side, thighs spread.

“I have a question,” she says as she starts the work.

GM: “Then ask it.”

Celia: She has several, actually. But she starts with one.

“What’s the cover? Cool indifference?”

GM: “That will serve.”

He growls as she goes about her painful ministrations.

Celia: “Are you ever leaving the Quarter with this face?” She sweeps her fingertips across his jaw.

GM: “Don’t worry about it.”

Celia: Her lips flatten into a thin line.

“I had an offer. I’m not looking to get intel on your plans.”

GM: “Make it.”

Celia: He is not her sire no matter how clipped his words. She moves from jaw to cheek.

“There’s more we can do for each other if we’re known to associate.”

GM: “Such as?”

Celia: “Status. Clout. United front. A known somebody to vouch for a new face. Less need for cloak and dagger if we’re meeting. Savoy has eyes and ears everywhere; he catches wind and he’ll want to know why we’d see each other at all. He already values you, but there’s more favor yet to be won. I’m working on two projects for him. He’ll be pleased with the result. Shared recognition.”

A pause while she alters the shape of his nose.

“There’s more I’d be willing to go out on a limb for if I know that the favor will be returned without scorn. Not free,” she clarifies before he can give her a dark look, “you want to go quid pro quo and swap boons, fine. There are things I excel at and things you excel at, and together we have most of the bases covered. But there’s a whole song and dance we’d have to do to avoid scrutiny.”

“I don’t,” she repeats, wrenching his nose into place, “want you as an enemy.”

“And I don’t want to settle for some second rate knock off bullshit just to avoid approaching you.”

GM: He growls at the sensation.

“I’ll tell Lord Savoy we don’t have an active feud with one another. There’s no point in going to extra trouble over bullshit that just makes him unhappier.”

“Anything you do to Roderick’s family, by the way, I’ll do to Celia’s. Harm Danielle and I’ll harm Emily. Harm Roderick’s father and I’ll harm Celia’s mother. Stay quiet about Dani’s trespassing and I’ll stay quiet about Diana’s. Stay quiet about Dani’s identity and I’ll stay quiet about Celia’s Masquerade breach. This will be as reciprocal as you choose to make it.”

Celia: “I have zero interest in harming anything Roderick values,” Jade says flatly. “I don’t want his secrets. I don’t want to know what he’s doing for Savoy or what he overhears at the Cabildo. I never want it stolen from my head.”

She stops her movements, looking from his cheek to his eyes.

“I don’t expect you to like me. I don’t expect you to trust me. But the shit we just pulled? That gets us both killed. And I want to know that if I call you up and say ‘Hey Draco, I need a favor,’ I can rely on you there as much as I rely on you to keep your mouth shut. Because the sheer fact of the fucking matter is that there’s not a single other lick in this city that I’d have shown that to, and we’ve already made plans to do it again.”

GM: “Depends on the favor,” he says. “If it has bearing on my self-interest, you can certainly rely on me there. If it doesn’t, I’ll consider such favors on a case-by-case basis.”

Celia: “If I haven’t royally fucked it up with Savoy,” Jade says, resuming her work, “he’s building me a lab for further experimentation and study. There’s plenty that I already think will benefit you. And your sister. She needs a new identity if ‘Hannah’ is going to be seen with someone else. And another if she becomes a true-blood. I’ll do it for her. I already know her.”

She sculpts his cheeks, giving them the sharp look of Draco’s.

“I want Gui’s old job.”

“And if you’re interested in assisting with a project, it’ll do us both good.”

GM: “That being?”

Celia: “Luring the exiled prince to his side.”

GM: Draco effects a snort. “Good luck with that.”

Celia: “Grandsire thought the idea had merit. If not bringing Guilbeau over then at least using him as cover to expand Savoy’s influence. If you’ve taken over Gui’s hold on the Mafia then it might be of personal interest to you as well.”

“And if not,” she adds, moving to the flesh around his eyes, “then I’m dead in a week and they comb through my head before they execute me, so if you need a boon for your help I’ll pay it.”

GM: “Your bringing Guilbeau over doesn’t benefit me. If you want my help, you are paying for it.”

“I’m certainly not about to take your word that I’m dead if I don’t help you with this.”

Celia: “Christ, Draco, how many times do I have to say that I know you don’t take me at my word? I said I’d pay.”

GM: “You said ‘if.’ So what help do you want to buy?”

Celia: “Guilbeau claims that Setites torped one of his playmates. He can’t wake her. You seem to be in with them and I’d rather not screw one over and piss off my grandsire.”

GM: “You’d piss them off too. They aren’t Quarter rats.”

Celia: “That too.”

“I don’t have any desire to be on their bad side.”

GM: “Who’s the playmate?”

Celia: “Marie something. Tremere. Apparently the warlocks won’t help.”

GM: “I’ll ask. No promises.”

Celia: “Thanks.”

GM: “It’s not lost on me that Guilbeau doesn’t actually need you to get what he wants, either.”

Celia: Jade’s movements slow. “No?”

“What’re you thinking?”

GM: “Nothing. Just observing.”

Celia: Jade purses her lips.

“I hate how stupid this fucking body is,” she mutters. “Your ex is a fucking idiot. He promised something valuable.”

GM: “Sometimes I wish I’d asked Celia to fill out IQ tests together for a date night.”

“That would have been funny.”

Celia: “Would it amuse you to torture her?”

GM: “I’d rather kill her.”

Celia: “The personality? Or the body?”

GM: “Either.”

Celia: “I wouldn’t mind getting rid of her,” Jade muses. “Last night I made her admit how weak she is.”

“She’s made a real mess of things.”

GM: “You’re also the same person, like it or not.”

Celia: Jade laughs.

“That’s where you’re wrong, darling. Celia and I share a body. We’ve never shared goals or ideals. Would you like to see the proof?”

GM: “You are the same person. You’re simply insane and have developed multiple personalities in response to trauma.”

Celia: “You’re no fun,” Jade pouts. “You won’t even let me show you my trick?”

GM: “If it’s of practical value.”

Celia: “Only to convince you that Celia and I are separate entities.”

“There’s not much effort on your part.”

GM: “Feel free, though I doubt I’ll believe that. Especially when you’d benefit from making me believe that.”

Celia: Jade cocks her head to one side.

“I’ll freely admit I had zero interest in Roderick Durant. Draco is another matter. But watch. Do that thing you strong types do, the one where you size me up and know just how tough I am, yeah?”

GM: “I’m watching.”

Celia: Jade lets him get a good look at her. Poised above him, thighs spread to either side, smirking with lips that belong on his. Or anyone’s.

Then she’s gone. Her flesh ripples outward like a pebble thrown into a pond, starting in the center of her face and moving toward jaw and hairline. She softens the hard lines, becomes the girl that he used to know.

Large brown eyes blink down at him, confusion and apprehension writ across her face as she takes in the deadly form of Draco beneath her.

But that’s not the interesting part.

No, the interesting part is how she reads.

How she changes on a mystical level.

GM: The Brujah’s fist smashes into Celia’s softer and fearful face. Blood spurts as the nose crunches in.

“That’s funny. You are are weaker,” he smiles.

Celia: She doesn’t seem to understand. Not if her bewildered look or yelp is any indication. Fear stares out at him for a moment before it’s gone, replaced by Jade’s self satisfied smirk. Blood runs freely from her shared nose.

“Told you.”

“Shame she fucked it up, anyhow. This new you is highly amusing.”

A few quick strokes finish his face. She tells him as much.

GM: “That was satisfying,” he says, experimentally touching his face as he gets up and re-assumes his seat. “You can expect a similar response if I see Celia’s face again.”

Celia: Jade is displaced when he moves. She follows him into the front.

“Mm,” she says, “does that mean you don’t want to rip her leg off?”

GM: “That sounds like a delightful way to spend several moments. Or however long someone could stretch them out.”

He starts driving again.

“Where do you and your weaker personality want to get off?”

Celia: “I need Celia’s femur,” Jade says idly, looking down at the child on the floor. “Let me stay the day and I’ll bring the blood to put her back together when you’ve finished tormenting her. I’ll keep the memories from her so she’ll be truly terrified.”

She smiles. It’s a mean smile.

“Her mother’s house.”

GM: That makes both of theirs.

“That does sound delightful. You’ll spend the day staked if you want to spend it with me, though. I’m not chancing a repeat of last time.”

Celia: “Naturally.”

---

Previous, by Narrative: Story Thirteen, Celia XXIX
Next, by Narrative: Story Thirteen, Caroline VI, Celia XXXI

Previous, by Character: Story Thirteen, Celia XXIX
Next, by Character: Story Thirteen, Caroline VI, Celia XXXI

“There can be no power without sacrifices made, risks ventured, or obligations incurred.”
Abélia Devillers

---

Thursday night, 17 March 2016, PM*

GM: “How did you find your audience with our guest, sweet child?” Abélia asks as she lifts Simmone into the crook of her arms. A few rocks and murmured words, and the child is out like a stone.

Caroline: “Enlightening, though perhaps not as he had intended.”

Caroline has retreated to a chair. The departure of Savoy took with it the unbearable pressure on her chest, but the relief is almost worse. The feeling that she’s done something wrong.

“This is all going to accelerate, isn’t it?”

GM: “The couch, please,” says her mother as she assumes one of its seats. She lays Simmone down to rest on her other side, then lays a hand upon Caroline’s shoulders.

“This Jyhad enters its endgame, my treasure. I fear for you and your sisters. Even as I know you are strong and clever, and your sisters safe, a mother’s heart cannot do aught but worry for her children.”

Caroline: “You have cause to worry,” Caroline agrees.

“With the lines drawn there is little need to pull punches, to probe for opportunities. The blows will rain down now.”

GM: “You shall not be without time, sweet child. You may yet plant the seeds for many endeavors. But nor may those endeavors span centuries and generations. Their fruits must be harvested soon.”

Caroline: “If my sire has his way I will not be here to till those fields for some time,” Caroline observes. “And there are plenty that I expect will salt any earth over which I have passed in that time.”

“One in particular.”

GM: Her mother smiles serenely.

“What would you do, my treasure?”

Caroline: “As cunning and manipulative as Savoy is, he spoke truthfully when he spoke of sheriff. He must die. Now. Before he is left to spend months or years unchecked poisoning every well, dismantling everything I have built, ruining me in the eyes of the entire city before I start.”

GM: The raven-haired woman’s dark eyes shine proudly.

“Fight the first battle, win the first war.”

Caroline: “He’s not Savoy’s childe,” she states with certainty.

“Who is he?”

GM: “You are wrong, sweet child. On what evidence do you base this conclusion?”

Caroline: Caroline’s brow furrows. “The potency of the blood of each of his childer, for one.”

GM: “The strength of a Cainite’s vitae may vary considerably for many reasons.”

“The amaranth’s fruits and simple attunement with one’s Beast may also thicken the Blood prematurely.”

“And it is not in the sheriff’s nature to sire childer who shy from any path to power.”

Caroline: “It seemed to me that his presentation to the prince as childe of his rival the best way to earn his entry, rather than the truth of his origins… but you are certain?”

GM: “This is speculation, sweet child. And what you have cited previously is evidence, not proof. I am certain the legal distinction is not lost upon you.”

Caroline: “Evidence of his actions I have aplenty. Evidence of his origins I have less,” she admits.

GM: Her mother nods. “It is well that you distrust the purported origins of your fellow Cainites. Many of them are lies and fabrications. But it is one matter to suspect a lie, and another to believe a truth of one’s own telling.”

“Yet the sheriff’s origins matter but little if you now seek his destruction. Whether he has walked the night for many centuries or merely one, such a trial shall test you as no trial has before.”

“Nor may I undertake this trial upon your behalf.”

Caroline: “I would not ask you to fight my battles,” Caroline agrees. “What aid might you offer, however?”

GM: Caroline’s shadow begins to darken. And lengthen. So too does Simmone’s. And the furnishings’. The grandfather clocks’. All the assorted contents of the living room. Black and deep as if against a desert sun at high noon, but no light shines here. The room grows only darker.

“Make war upon the sheriff alone, my child, and you shall die.”

“Without strong hearts and skilled swords at your back, this battle is hopeless.”

“You require allies.”

Darkness swallows the last of the room’s features. Caroline’s deathless sight does not pierce the gloom. Her mother’s voice buoys her like a raft in a storm-tossed sea.

“We may find allies.”

A figure strides out from the gloom, shadows dripping from his features like water from a swimmer. His clean-shaven face has a boyish, all-American sort of wholesomeness. His side part style for his short brown hair gives him a faintly retro look. He walks confidently with his head held high, bright blue eyes fixed on the better tomorrow just ahead. He’s several inches above the average height and naturally slim of build: the sort of body that’s made for baseball rather than football, but not without muscle bulk either. At first glance, one might be forgiven for thinking he was an upwardly mobile young businessman rather than a Brujah Anarch, clad as he is in his three-piece gray suit.


Caroline recognizes him from Coco’s side, when she delivered Amelie. Roderick Durant, the primogen’s childe.

“Soon, his heart shall be poisoned against the sheriff.”

Caroline: Caroline’s eyes light up in the dark. Coco’s childe would be a valuable ally.

GM: “The two shall come to blows. Troile’s scion will not triumph, but he shall survive this battle—and vow its continuance upon a more favorable field.”

“Approach him no sooner than March’s nineteenth night.”

Caroline: Come to blows? What would Coco’s childe possibly have to come to blows with Donovan over?

She doesn’t doubt her mother.

“I will do so.”

She has other allies in mind that will take some time to position.

GM: Shadows wash over Roderick’s face. Boyish features turn hard, suddenly, and arrogant. Contemptuous and cruel. Something dark grows in his eyes.

“Beware, my treasure. I sense another hand upon his shoulder, and I sense rage beyond even his clan’s burning hot within his heart. His aid is not preordained. It must earned with subtlety and care.”

Caroline: Rage. What might enrage the pampered elder’s childe?

A question for a future night.

Herself, perhaps the Lasombra if they arrive in time, her own ghouls, Roderick.

Not enough, she fears, if the sheriff is all she fears.

“Are there others?”

GM: Shadows consume the young Brujah.

They disgorge another man. He wears trouble. Trench coat, long and dark. Tie, slim and darker. Shirt, white with forgotten stains: blood, gumbo, guilt. Sensible shoes, the kind of shoes you wear to stalk devils. Felt hat, gray and banded, casting shadows. A man, obscured. He carries a silver thermos, like a bullet. It probably holds booze. A gator-skinned briefcase hangs from his other hand, or where it should be. In its place, a prosthetic hook gleams. Sharply. A stray shadow rustles the man’s coat, momentarily exposing a pair of well-oiled revolvers. They sleep in a single shoulder holster. Lightly.

Beneath his gumshoe armor, a once-muscular man lurks. His frame is held together by gristle and grit. His shoulders, slack with the weight of sleepless nights and cases gone cold. Swollen joints crack and groan, badges of hard-won gutter brawls and lonely stakeouts. Scarred knuckles, meat-slab hands. His skin, riddled with scars, rat out old injuries like bad alibis. A history of hurt. His face, grim. Unlovely. Unloving. Atavistic brow. Thick-slabbed nose, mangled from kissing too many fists, crowbars, and brick walls. Iron-brush hair. Jutting underbite. Lantern jaw. Limp cigarette dangling from pale lips. A countenance of low cunning and stubborn pursuit. His eyes, deep-sunk. Heavy-lidded. The hue of old bourbon, a watery brown that runs to black and drinks in everything they see. Lies. Lusts. The glint of truth in the flood of grime.


Caroline: The sight of the ancient detective stirs unpleasant feelings in her breast.

“He disappeared. Went into hiding.”

GM: “Do you doubt Maman that he may be of help, my treasure?”

“That which is lost may again be found.”

Caroline: Fontaine.

Lou, who taught her so much of this existence. Who risked his own to save her from René, and again after Matheson.

Who told her the truth. Poison.

Part of her thrills at what his strength would add to this quest. What he could do.

Part of her fears what he’ll say if he sees her again. What he would think.

She swallows the fear. There’s no room for hesitation.

“Then there’s a chance.”

GM: Darkness swallows back the old man too.

“Your paths shall cross,” her mother pronounces.

Caroline: Then there’s a chance.

GM: “A chance, my dear,” her mother concurs. "These forces arrayed against Savoy’s childe alone shall face a difficult battle. "

“But Savoy’s childe is not without allies of his own, and he shall not wish to face you alone.”

Caroline: “We spoke of the use of lives, of souls, for temporary power.”

“Is that too blatant an interference?”

GM: “We did speak of such things, sweet child. Yet I fear my answers were displeasing to you. I answered that the souls of mere kine were insufficient to increase your puissance in the Blood.”

Caroline: “But not my puissance in the moment. For a night, for instance.”

She stands in the oppressive darkness. “I was not eager to direct their lives to such ends on a whim, but this is no whim.”

GM: There is a rueful chuckle from her mother.

“If the canaille’s lives could be snuffed out for even fleeting advantage, my dear, Caine’s children would rule barren cities indeed.”

“The canaille slake your thirst. They allow you to draw upon your Blood’s gifts. That is the power their lives grant.”

Caroline: “Then their essence,” Caroline concedes.

“I would leave no stone unturned against the sheriff.”

GM: The gloom recedes. Caroline’s shadow is a grotesquely misshapen thing that does not look like her own, or even remotely humanoid. But after a moment, it’s normal again. All of the shadows are returned to their proper place. All is well in the house.

Her mother alone casts none.

“I fear you are seeking to wring blood from this stone, my dear. There are arts by which to draw power from living souls. Yet they are obscure arts and there is but little time for you to master them.”

“Unless you seek to devour the souls of further Cainites before your battle with the sheriff, I believe your own puissance has come as far as it may—at least through my own paltry abilities.”

“Alliances, and strength beyond your own, must be the sword you wield against your foe. Now and in the future. Even your sire, bereft of his servants and allies and offices, is little more than a dangerous beast to be put down.”

“Your aunt would lend her covenant’s assistance, I believe, in return for a sworn oath to accept her childe’s hand in marriage.”

“Lord Savoy already conspires with you against the sheriff. It would be no great leap for him to assist in his childe’s murder.”

“Are there are other Cainites whom you believe enmity towards the sheriff, affection towards you, or simple self-interest might induce them to assist your cause?”

Caroline: The answer is clearly not what she wishes, but she moves on from it.

“The Lasombra covey, perhaps now en route to the city, should they arrive in time. One has history with the sheriff and may be predisposed to strike him down even without the potential for his diablerie should we succeed.”

“Malveaux’s sire, should we have means to paint the sheriff as her childe’s killer.”

“No others I would meaningfully trust in this matter this night.”

Her gaze settles upon her mother. “You believe I should take my aunt’s offer.”

GM: “I believe that is a choice you must make for yourself, my dear. Do you believe Fortuna will smile upon you against the sheriff and those allies he may marshal?”

“I do not, however, believe that you presently have sufficient evidence to turn Malveaux’s sire against the sheriff.”

Caroline: “No, not by far,” Caroline admits.

She should take the offer.

She knows she should take the offer.

GM: “There can be no power without sacrifices made, risks ventured, or obligations incurred, my dear. Even your sire has made compromises and entered into alliances he found distasteful.”

Caroline: It’s an excess of modernity, she admits.

Being married off to unite two great powers feels like the product of another age, when high-status women were closer to prized breeding sows to be bartered off by their fathers.

That isn’t really what this is, she admits. It’s an offer brought to her. One that will bring in the Invictus on her side. That will promote and strengthen her position in the long run. It’s an alliance she needs.

“I suppose I always assumed it would be for love,” she admits. “I mean, certainly someone my father approved of, which limits the pool significantly, but the idea that it would be entirely political didn’t cross my mind.”

“I could do far worse,” she admits.

Like end up ashes in the wind. She brushes aside that thought with the honest one: Accou is loyal, respected, honorable, cunning, even affable. He’s a Kindred with a sterling reputation unblemished by treachery or connivance.

A better match by far than even the other most appealing, most powerful, alternatives, than Savoy, who she expects would begin plotting to put her in the ground the moment she agreed.

No, she chastises herself. It isn’t that she couldn’t do worse.

She cannot do better. There is no better match in all the city.

GM: “Love is a luxury of this modern age, sweet child,” smiles her mother. “In prior eras, marriage was entered into out of duty.”

“But fear not that duty may exclude pleasure. Accou is your elder by many nights, and of the Rose Clan as well. I do not believe him jealous of temperament or likely to begrudge you outside pleasures.”

“So long as you do not bring a Cainite of comparable puissance to his own into your marriage bed.”

Caroline: “Few enough of those,” Caroline concedes.

It’s not about sex, though—not Kindred nor kine. However enjoyable those activities, they’re a distraction she could pass over—especially since her Embrace.

It’s about self-determination. About creating her own path, through wits and will. About being the creator of her own destiny.

That too, though, is a modern construct.

No one succeeds alone. No one avoids compromise.

“Please communicate to Aunt Mur that I am interested in accepting her offer. That I will sell this union to the seneschal. And that my bride price is one of practical need: the sheriff must die.”

GM: Abélia’s dark eyes close, then re-open.

“Your aunt is amenable to this price.”

“She will receive you shortly at one of her havens to discuss the details.”

A smile softens her features.

“I am proud of you, my dear.”

Caroline: The words are like a salve on a burn, but rather than lean into them Caroline hardens her expression. Now is not the time for comfort. She’d rather the sting, the reminder, until this matter is done.

“Is there anything else I should know about the sheriff, Mother?”

GM: “Further swords at your side cannot do aught but help you. I worry that even those you have gathered may be insufficient if Fortuna withholds her favor.”

“Now is the time to pledge or invoke any boons within your power.”

“Now is the time to seek out any alliances that may bear fruit, no matter how sour their taste.”

Caroline: “My hands will not be idle,” Caroline assures her mother. “Though too, mindfulness of tipping my hand in this matter remains important.”

“I would speak more to his allies and capabilities. His childer, obviously. The other hounds. Are there other forces he might turn to this matter?”

“Beyond his speed, skill at arms, and wits, what must I fear?”

GM: “Once, the bishop. But you have removed that sword from his arsenal,” her mother smiles.

“And a fortuitous thing that you have. The bishop’s destruction was a great enough trial for you by itself.”

“Beyond those Cainites you name, Elyse Benson now numbers among his closest allies, though she is no warrior.”

“Duke Elmhearst is his lickspittle, but one useful enough in his function.”

“Father Polk and Roxanne Gerlette once numbered among his most loyal supporters, but they too have been removed from the board.”

Caroline: “Fortunate, then, that his stable is so depleted.”

And all the more vital that they strike now.

GM: “Beyond those Sanctified Cainites who owe him direct vassalage, there are a number of further Cainites who pay him corvée for the privileges of feeding and domain rights in Riverbend. These too, he could call upon should the need arise.”

Caroline: “All the more important then that we strike with surprise, or elsewise give him cause to leave them behind.”

GM: “The Snake Hunters often coordinate with the Guard de Ville in their duties. One of their number has gone missing as well, but they would respond to the sheriff’s call should he have need of aid.”

“The same may be said for many other Sanctified loyal to the prince.”

“The bishop’s sire shall doubtlessly work hand in hand with him to uncover her childe’s killer.”

“Should the need arise, the sheriff could find ready friends among the Invictus and Clan Tremere. Their dealings over the years have been amicable. Your aunt could do much to stymie his support among the First Estate.”

“Among the warlocks, Jonathan North was the greatest threat after their primogen you would have had to personally fear. He served alongside the sheriff in the Guard de Ville. His absence from the city is another blessing.”

Caroline: “Among the Snake Hunters he arranged their leader’s death,” Caroline observes.

GM: “Evidence of this deed could make them your allies. None are strangers to battle.”

Caroline: She suspects such evidence might await in Claire’s safehouse, though perhaps Ferris was so wise as to maintain it.

“And himself?”

GM: “He is doubtlessly proficient in other gifts of Caine, but I know of naught else you must fear.”

“He and all of his allies, of course, may draw upon half-blooded thralls as well.”

Caroline: The Ventrue nods.

“New matters to consider,” she agrees, still thinking on the Snake Hunters and whether Mr. Ferris can enlighten her as to other clandestine activities the sheriff was up to.

There’s something, a lingering uncertainty of something left unsaid that dwells in the back of her mind as they move on.

Or perhaps it’s just her nerves. It’s not every night you resolve to murder the sheriff.

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, AM

GM: Caroline and Maldonato’s ghouls drive to an address in the Lower Garden District. Kâmil and Giselle do not ask who she is missing. Perhaps they know. The Turk states they will wait outside the door.

Pearl receives Caroline at one of her havens there. It’s an old Greek Revival mansion that looks designed by Henry Howard. It looks like it was once the epitome of Antebellum elegance, taste, and luxury. Now it’s a moldering, cobweb-shrouded and dilapidated husk of its former glories in a way that reminds Caroline of her sire’s abode within Perdido House. Pearl makes no apologies as to the state of her home and receives Caroline in the garb of a medieval courtly lady. Cloe attends silently nearby.

Caroline: Caroline leaves Ferris with the two elder ghouls as she enters. No doubt they’ll engage in titillating conversation.

The Ventrue makes no commentary about the state of the house, other than to mark in her mind that surely she can locate someone talented enough to restore the building to its appropriate and period-specific glory.

GM: The Toreador matriarch’s terms are simple: the First Estate will help Caroline to kill Donovan. Pearl is willing to enlist the services of local Unconquered, to bring in one or more “professionals” from out of town, or to hire an assassin of the Banu Haqim. Pearl will cover all costs associated with enlisting the services of any of these parties—fortunate for Caroline, as the Assamites’ services can run extremely costly (and the Unconquered have little cause to help at all).

Simple promises, however, are not sufficient for Pearl. Especially if Caroline cannot secure her sire’s blessing before she destroys the sheriff, which the Toreador primogen believes unlikely.

In return for the Invictus’ assistance in the battle, Caroline will swear one of the First Estate’s mystically binding oaths. Its own terms are simple:

She will wed Accou and they will jointly be crowned prince. If either their union or mutual ascension to power does not come to pass, Caroline will be cast into torpor for a century. She will miss the throne she stood to inherit.

Caroline: Caroline is willing to do so, with minor conditions of her own.

The wedding and coronation may take place following the prince’s slumber, if required. She believes within the next five years to be a promising time frame.

If Accou is unable to ascend to the throne with her due to his destruction or exile by a third party, she is not so bound.

She is willing to swear a second oath precluding any plots and plans against the Invictus elder on her part to alleviate the concerns undoubtedly raised by the aforementioned caveat.

So far as assistance, she requests further aid from the elder in two regards. She acknowledges that Pearl no doubt wants her own direct hands clear.

First, when the assassination is to take place, in helping provide an alibi for Caroline.

Second, if she is able to enlist the aid of Fontaine, she requests Pearl provide a sample of her vitae to the ancient ghoul.

She hopes the alibi will not be required, that evidence will come out exposing what she believes to be the treachery of the sheriff: between the potency of his blood, that of his childer, the account of René returning as Donovan’s servant, the works against the prince’s house from within, Donovan’s use of Claire’s hunters to assassinate loyal Kindred…. there’s too much smoke for there not to be fire.

But she would be foolish not to consider it—and Abélia’s concerns about the elder ghouls is well founded.

GM: Five years means little to an immortal of Pearl’s years. She is willing to extend the date for Caroline’s wedding and coronation, or not make the oath’s penalties contingent upon a specific date at all, but merely the event: either Caroline and Accou both become prince, or neither of them do.

“Bring the ghoul before me, childe, and he may receive the vitae from my wrist,” states Pearl. “I do not relinquish my blood for others to do with as they will.”

Caroline: Caroline is happy to abide that condition.

GM: Pearl is willing to assist in providing an alibi for Caroline. As the Ventrue has gathered, she will not personally involve herself in any incriminating activities. Beyond that, she will lend her covenant’s aid to keeping Caroline’s name in the clear.

Accou can hardly become co-prince if his bride is found guilty of the sheriff’s murder. Self-interest alone is enough motivation for Pearl to assist there.

Caroline: Caroline agrees that leaving the date open ended may be preferable, and is willing to ‘wed’ her fate to Accou’s so far as the throne.

GM: Pearl initially looks far less amenable at Caroline’s term regarding the matter of Accou’s relocation (she is indignant her childe would ever be exiled) or final death, and states that it would “serve Caroline well” to be heavily invested in preventing those very things.

The Ventrue, however, is no stranger to contract law, and upon listening to her golden tongue, Pearl is willing to relent on that specific prerequisite. She is willing to accept one of two alternatives:

First, Caroline may swear an Oath of Blood Loyalty to Pearl Chastain that will only trigger (and last for the duration) of Accou’s banishment, torpor, or final death. As an added bonus, she will allow Caroline to draw on some degree of its power now… and provide her with a further edge during the battle against Donovan.

Secondly, Pearl is willing to accept a narrower version of her prior condition. Caroline will only be cast into torpor if Accou is destroyed or banished at the hands of a Ventrue, member of the Lancea et Sanctum, or anyone who carries Caroline’s vitae in their system.

Caroline: Caroline is swift in agreeing that even without any form of enforcement Accou’s welfare is in her interests. She is wary of the coming conflict, but has no intention of betraying her aunt or Accou.

She is surprised by the generosity of Pearl’s first alternative, and once she has heard the second has no reservations about the first. “Any action taken against him would harm me as well—but I’d as soon it not provide that shared foe the opportunity remove us both with a single stroke.”

GM: “Then so be it. Which gift of Caine do you desire for your use, childe?”

Cloe procures several sheets of parchment and a savage-looking quill with no inkwell. The child-faced ghoul calmly stabs it into Caroline’s palm and proceeds to write the terms of the agreement in the Ventrue’s own blood. Pearl states that the contract’s signature rather than existence is mystically binding—the subsequent loss or destruction of the contract will not render its terms void.

If Caroline wishes a copy for her own records, the ghoul will manually hand-write a second one, also in the Ventrue’s own blood.

Caroline: Caroline trusts that her aunt will retain her own copy, and more to point trusts her memory of the exact terms and conditions. She declines the copy as she stoically watches the child ghoul spill her blood.

She respectfully inquires as to breadth and depth of Pearl’s gifts.

GM: “I do not volunteer such information to any Kindred, childe,” the primogen reproaches in a severe tone. “I am skilled in many of Caine’s gifts. You may name those whose use you desire most.”

Caroline: Caroline accepts the chastisement with grace, acknowledging the lack of decorum in the question and noting she wished only to avoid squandering her aunt’s generosity.

Her first inclination is something that would further her own virulence in the conflict: blood’s might most significantly given her own aptitude in bolting and stone skin—unless her aunt’s bolting significantly outstrips Caroline’s own.

Barring physical disciplines, her first choice is soul scrying.

GM: Pearl states she will grant her niece the gift of sight beyond sight.

As to one of the most crucial remaining matters, does Caroline desire the assistance of local Unconquered, extralocal Unconquered, or the Banu Haqim against the sheriff?

Caroline: Caroline proposes that the Banu Haqim is likely the most ideal option: if things go especially poorly it will tie Pearl and the Invictus least firmly to the attack.

GM: “Very well,” states Pearl. “An assassin’s services shall be enlisted.”

“The Banu Haqim only ever take out one contract upon their targets. If the sheriff should survive the attempt upon his unlife, there will never be a second one.”

“The assassin will be of comparable age and closeness to Caine as the target.”

Caroline: Caroline bites her lip. “He will strike alone, or with the thrust we intend?”

GM: “He or she may be contracted for either service.”

Caroline: “I would propose the latter. I believe the sheriff’s abilities to be significantly greater than commonly believed, and would weigh the blow against him with all the might I can muster.”

GM: “Very well. I shall inform the Banu Haqim that their target is a century blooded and eight steps removed from Caine.”

She glances at the blood-written contract.

“Swear to never again partake in foul amaranth, and I shall enlist the services of a more puissant Cainite.”

Caroline: “I swore in our first meeting those activities would end,” Caroline begins.

“And I stand by that. It is no wish of mine to be a slave to such desires, nor is my ambition without end. That magnitude of the crime is not lost upon me.”

“I will not offer the disrespect of repetition of my motives, but nor too would I make such an oath around my mother and her own wishes.”

“But I will offer this oath freely, irregardless of the might of the assassin brought to bear. No more than once further, and never again after my marriage to your childe, whichever should come first.”

“And I would that I be held to that, for I would be no slavering beast, feasting upon kin and kind.”

GM: Revulsion twists Pearl’s face at the words ‘once further.’

“‘Once further’ is rarely a refrain said but once, childe. Far more often, it is one repeated many times.”

“And even but once more is one too many times. Under no circumstance shall I permit further amaranth to stain my childe’s marriage bed. You are well to accept that provision as part of your oath.”

“My offer remains. Pledge also that your last indulgence was your last ever, and I shall contract the Hand of Vengeance herself.”

Caroline: Carole offers a small bow to her elder. “I must decline.”

She pauses before continuing, “But beyond this contract, I welcome you, Aunt Mur, to gaze into my heart and mind on this matter. I would that there be no doubt as to my sincerity in both my intentions, and my genuine desire to be held to them.”

“You have insight and certitude into my actions that few Cainites ever enjoy, and can be certain as few others might ever not only now, in my intent, but in the future as to my follow through.”

“I seek not approval—no Cainite of standing might ever offer that—nor concession of any kind. Instead only to offer reassurance.”

GM: The Toreador primogen falls utterly silent for several long moments.

Disgust is naked and plain on her features.

“Once may be a folly of youth. Twice is a degeneracy of the soul. I need no skill in anima visus to know this.”

“Do you remember my words, childe? I value propriety. I remember when this city was a beacon for sophistication and civilization. I remember the Grand Dames de la Nuit. I remember remember when this city was praised as a jewel in the Camarilla’s crown. I remember a land of cavaliers and sugarcane. I remember a patrician world where the Age of Chivalry took its last bow.”

“I will not bow.”

“I will raise no hand against the daughter of my sister, whatever her degeneracies. But neither shall I stain my own house with them.”

“I will not wed my childe to a cannibal. I will not wed my bloodline to all that is base and despicable. Were I willing to bow, the usurper in the Vieux Carré would name me his ally, and not this city’s rightful prince.”

“If there is another foe whose vitae you lust for, and whose demise would profit your fortunes, that bride price is acceptable to me. I will contract the Banu Haqim to slay the sheriff and your second foe with two puissance-matched assassins, as an alternative to contracting the Hand of Vengeance for one target alone. That is the last concession I shall offer.”

“You may have the amaranth. You may have my childe’s hand in marriage and all that comes with it. You may not have both.”

Caroline: The silence when Pearl has said her piece is deafening.

It does not take long for Caroline’s razor-sharp mind to reach a conclusion.

It was one thing to wed herself to a third party without her sire’s consent. It was another to tie herself to said wedding indelibly. It is quite another entirely to stunt herself here, now.

She can see the future, though, in which she keeps this oath. There can be no parity between the Sanctified and the Invictus as she is now. As weak as she is. As vulnerable as she is.

With the torpor of her sire and looming departure of the seneschal—made all the more likely by the stability the union might impose on the city—she and the Sanctified both will be nothing but a second fiddle to the Invictus. Accou will be prince in all but name, and she will be not even so much as the figurehead she fears with the seneschal.

And in a hundred years, assuming she survives, those gaps will not close. Her husband will always be in position to dominate the union, to isolate her, to stifle any attempt to grow. And even should he prove completely honorable, the rest of the Invictus’ powers will not. Nor is her dominance among the Sanctified certain, or even probable. How many older, more potent licks might claim that mantle?

She will be a princess of spun glass. And she will not be a princess of spun glass.

It’s buying victory now with the long slow starvation and withering on the vine that will follow.

And that’s before the bubbling fury of yet another Kindred who seeks to control her. To chain her. She’d believed it different with Pearl. With family. Foolish. Foolish, girl.

She closes her hand before the child-like elder ghoul’s quill.

“As Primogen Chastain, my eternal respect and admiration is yours.”

“As Aunt Mur, my eternal love and gratitude is yours.”

“But I cannot be a prince made of porcelain, kept by your childe like a princess of the kine.”

“I would that there was another path I might take, but a will and a wish is not a way.”

“Your childe will always have my support, and you will have, if you ever need it, my blade. But I cannot give you my word.”

“And I will not give you a lie.”

Is this the right path?

There is no certainty. To cast aside the power of an entire covenant for the want of power, for the pursuit of a crime that damns her even among the Damned, that stains her very soul, may be the height of foolishness.

It may end with her destruction under the sheriff’s blade, or the seneschal’s, or even her sire’s.

But it will be her path.

You knew, that this would be her price.

GM: Caroline well remembers her grandmother as a decrepit, wheelchair-bound shell of the woman she used to be.

Once, she was a force among the family. Once, she was so much more than she now is. But with every passing year, she became more and more spent. One of the last times she was in Baton Rouge, Caroline heard some of the help joking about how she would chase them around with a broom. No one took it too seriously. They joked about it when she was in the room, thinking she was too addled to understand.

She wasn’t.

Camille had wrenched a poker from the fireplace and taken it to the mouthy girl’s head. Caroline knew how head wounds bleed like crazy, but it was still something to see, her red-faced grandmother standing over the prone domestic worker and spitting and frothing and thundering that she would not be made light of. That she was a Malveaux.

She didn’t have the physical capacity to actually beat the girl to death. It wasn’t even a struggle to pry the poker from the already fatigued woman’s grasp.

But all of the help all remembered after that, for a while. Not to make light of the house’s mistress. They could look into her eyes and they would see the ember of rage.

The same ember now burning in Pearl’s.

Caroline falls screaming to the floor as flames lick at her mind, boiling away the blood in her veins. The Toreador’s presence seems to swell immensely, until she is a giant standing within her darkened and decrepit home. Words thunder down as heavy and remorseless as a judgment from on high:

“And Caine will call aloud the names of those to be destroyed,
for their crimes are too great,
and all those who have consumed the heart’s blood of their sire
will be brought before the Black Throne
and made to drink of Caine’s blood
and Caine’s blood will eat their blood.”

Then just as swiftly, the effect is gone. Pearl lies brooding in her chair, smaller and feebler than ever. The Toreador matriarch’s gaze is vacant, her features waxy and sunken, her hair limp and withered, her garb lined with dust and cobwebs. She resembles a skeleton with flesh piled atop it, left to brood and wither in the tomb of her past glories.

Five hissed final words escape her lips:

“Get out of my sight.”

---

Previous, by Narrative Story Thirteen, Celia XXIX
Next, by Narrative: Story Thirteen, Celia XXX

Previous, by Character: Story Thirteen, Caroline II
Next, by Character: Story Thirteen, Caroline IV

“Stay the fuck out of my Requiem, you spoiled fucking childe.”
Celia Flores

---

Monday night, 21 March 2016, AM

GM: Roderick carries Celia outside. There’s nothing affectionate or protective in his touch, not like the last times he carried her. She is simply a burden to be carried because she cannot walk on her own.

Cars are parked outside of Flawless. Gamberro, Melton, and the redhead occupy them, along with some breathers, perhaps ghouls. None of them look like nice people. Roderick opens one of the doors, dumps Celia onto the seat without ceremony, then gets in on the driver’s side. The cars take off.

Roderick hasn’t bothered to fasten a seatbelt. It’s when they round a turn that Celia’s limp body slumps off the seat and lands face-down on the floor. Carpet presses against her face. Roderick does not seem particularly concerned.

Celia: It’s a lovely carpet.

GM: He doesn’t talk, either. The car drives for a while. Eventually it comes to a stop. Roderick gets out. One of the breathers opens the car door and hauls out Celia. They’re in a suburban neighborhood. Everyone has pulled on masks.

“Carry her,” says Roderick. “I want her to see all of this.”

The man wordlessly carries Celia. The group approaches a house. It’s a nice house with a smart doorbell. There’s two children-sized pairs of green and pink rubber boots sitting outside.

Roderick sneers at the doorbell and pulls it off. One of the masked men takes it off his hands.

Roderick stares at the home’s dog door. The redhead looks at it too. Celia can’t see the transformation happen out of the corner of her eye, but where the woman once stood there is suddenly a black-scaled snake with a forked tongue. It slithers through the pet door.

A moment later, the front door clicks open, the redhead standing on the other side. Everyone files in.

It’s a nice house. Affluent. Big TV in the living room. Nice counters in the kitchen. Everything clean and well-maintained, but for a few stray children’s toys. No one turns on the lights. The group files upstairs, to the master bedroom.

A man and woman lie sleeping in the bed. The man looks in maybe his 40s. Dark-haired, once muscular, though his hair is starting to recede and he’s developing a bit of a beer gut. His blonde-haired wife looks a few years younger. She’s thinner, though starting to show wrinkles. She looks like she goes to spas a lot. She has that look. A woman seeking to slow time’s march at any cost, and even succeeding, but unable to forever.

Roderick seizes the man by his throat, hefts him out of the bed like he weighs nothing, and slams him back-first into the wall. He gasps and gurgles to wakefulness. His eyes bulge at the dark figures as he pulls at Roderick’s fingers. The Brujah’s voice has never sounded so cold.

“Name your sins.”

“You’re dead… whn… they… f… you’re… dead…” the man gasps out past the hand around his throat.

Roderick turns and shoots the man’s wife with a handgun, who’s already stirring to wakefulness. The noise isn’t as loud as past gunshots Celia’s heard. Silence? The woman’s scream is cut off, too, as Gamberro clamps a hand around her mouth. The scent of blood fills the air as she writhes and struggles. The man tries to scream too and struggles harder.

“Name your sins and I’ll let her live,” says Roderick.

“I’ve… killed!” gasps the man. Tears bead from his eyes. “Killed… people… stolen… please, don’t kill h…”

“You’ve killed and stolen. That’s all you can think of?”

The man wheezes and strains against Roderick’s grip. He’s turning blue in the face.

“You,” he says to the wife. “Nod or shake your head. Are you guilty of sins?”

The sobbing, bleeding woman frantically nods her head past Gamberro’s hand.

“Are you going to Hell for them? Think carefully. Your life may depend on your answer.”

The woman pauses for a second, then shakily nods her head again. Tears flow from her eyes.

Roderick shoots her in the head. The corpse rocks backwards. Blood, gore, and bone shards decorate Gamberro’s shirt. He laughs.

The man screams, or tries to, as Roderick’s hand crushes in his windpipe. The Brujah throws him to the ground, then shoots him in the head too. More blood, brains, and skull shards decorate the floor.

“Grab as many valuables as you can carry,” orders Roderick. “Jewelry, wallets, electronics, clothes, liquor, prescription drugs. Better if this looks like a robbery.”

“Better if it is a robbery,” agrees Gamberro.

“T-Bang, Manilla Ice, manejan esa mierda. Manejaremos los cuerpos.”

(“T-Bang, Manila Ice, you handle that shit. We’ll handle the bodies.”)

Two men agree in Spanish and head off.

“You’re coming along splendidly,” purrs Melton, stroking Roderick’s arm.

“We feel a bit like extras, don’t we?” smiles the redhead.

“Blood’s cooling,” says Gamberro.

The four vampires sink their fangs into the bodies and drink.

Celia: The fifth vampire stares unblinking at the carnage, not a flicker of emotion crossing her frozen face.

GM: The other four drink deeply, then toss the spent vessels aside. Roderick pulls up Celia’s staked corpse and wraps an arm around its shoulder.

“Kalani’s my lover,” he declares.

“She plays haughty and hard to get in Elysium, but you should see what a pathetically sniveling and eager to please little bitch she is behind closed doors. She was begging me on her hands and knees not to dump her after I found out she’d been fucking other licks.”

He smiles and tussles her hair.

“Don’t worry, Jade. I’m not dumping you.”

“You did beg me so pathetically.”

The other three snicker and lick their bloody lips.

“By my count she’s fucked two of you,” says Roderick. “Quite the slut, isn’t she?”

“Not that she is good for anything else.”

He gives her breasts an emphatic squeeze.

“No hard feelings over that?” smiles Melton. “We didn’t know she was yours.”

“No hard feelings,” Roderick declares amiably. “I’m less than confident you’d respect another lick’s property, but you didn’t know she was mine.”

“She, on the other hand, certainly knew she was mine.”

“You want to punish her?” smiles the redhead.

“You read my mind,” smiles Roderick. “This will be more satisfying if she’s un-staked, but I don’t want her turning into a bird and flying off.”

“Gamberro, do you have a saw handy?”

“Sure do,” says the other vampire as he produces one. Laughter dances in his eyes.

Roderick smiles, accepts it, and then methodically saws off Jade’s right arm. The pain is excruciating, like it was with Camilla, but Roderick’s brutal strength finishes the job relatively quickly as the steel chews through bone and muscle and sinew. Blood gets everywhere. Celia loses herself to her Beast, but all it can do is howl in impotent rage. Roderick yanks out the stake once she’s calm.

“There you are, Jade. Welcome to the party.”

Celia: It’s a familiar scene. An angry, vindictive man taking out his rage on a smaller, unarmed woman. There’s even a saw. Witnesses. Children in the home.

But none of them come to save her. There’s no daughter holding a gun, telling him to get away. No sire to pick her up and tell her it’ll all be okay in the morning when he tucks her in and soothes her fear.

Just her. Her lover. His new friends. Their eager, cruel faces. Watching. Mocking. A few minutes with her staked and he’s undone the image she’d worked so hard to cultivate, turned her into a useless whore on the ground with a piece of wood in her chest.

The fury burns hot.

Four on one are terrible odds.

She forces control. Forces down the rage so that when she’s unstaked she doesn’t lunge at them. Her arm throbs, phantom pain dancing all the way down to her fingers.

She smiles up at him. Apprehensive. Maybe a little eager. Isn’t that what he’d said?

A slow death. Veronica had said it’s the best kind.

“Thanks, babe. What name are you going by with your new friends?”

GM: Dracon laughs, then smashes his fist into Jade’s face. There’s a hideous crunch of bone as the force of the blow sends her crashing to the ground.

The other three howl with laughter.

Celia: She stays down.

GM: “She’s very jealous,” says Dracon. “And pathetically insecure. Who wants to fuck me while she watches?”

Melton and the redhead don’t answer. They just smile and pull off their clothes.

Celia: There’s a spot inside of her she can go where nothing hurts. She tunnels deep.

Someone else’s eyes watch the three fuck.

GM: Roderick fucks the two with gusto. He goes down on Melton first. He sinks his fangs into her pussy, mimicking Stephen’s and Celia’s first time. When the somewhat pretentious but good-hearted aspiring lawyer took her out on a date, to make her first time special, then used his tongue first to ease her in. He was so gentle. So considerate. Celia remembers Emily telling her in a not-so-long ago car that he was “just the best”. Or was that her?

Celia: Who cares. Stephen is dead.

Celia is dead.

They’re all dead.

None of it fucking matters anymore.

It’s like that beautiful vision she was so worried about that she made happen.

Maybe Celia’s even turned on watching him fuck Melton. Maybe she thinks it could be a great orgy. Maybe her fangs get long in her mouth because damn, that’s all she’s good for is fucking.

Maybe Gamberro wants to bang while the others do.

Fuck, maybe the snake wants to crawl inside her cunt and really give it to her. She’s seen videos like that before.

GM: Dracon kicks Jade in the face as he makes the Setite hiss and writhe with pleasure. The redhead buries her face in his asscrack. Gamberro sinks his own fangs into the redhead. He hits her, too, but she laughs and kicks him back, and they snarl and bite and rake each other with fang and nail as equals. Not whatever Jade now is.

Celia: Would it be weird if she fucked herself with her own arm?

That’s nice. She rises, picking up her arm.

GM: Roderick seizes Jade by her hair and painfully yanks her to the ground.

“Were you going somewhere, you stupid whore?”

Celia: Melton and the redhead must not be particularly good at sex if he’s still got half of his attention on her.

But it’s rude to gloat.

The thought is as fleeting as the hold Someone Else has on her. She’d thought she could burrow inside. Crack a joke about finding a vibrator or a pillow to hump.

He wants her to hurt.

That’s what this is. Revenge for everything she’d ever done to him. Revenge for everyone she’d cheated on him with. He’s doing it to her the exact same way she’d done it to him, and the memory of her pain at dinner thinking about Stephen and Emily dating is nothing compared to watching what’s going on in front of her right now. He’d replaced her with another night doctor, another Mafia contact, another… whatever Melton is. Sex fiend.

He doesn’t need her. That’s what he’s showing her, that he doesn’t need her. That everything she’d planned for them—helping him infiltrate the mafia with Carolla gone, being his exclusive night doctor and running experiments on the side, being a team… it’s all out of reach. He’d fallen in with the Setites. Found a way to dig the knife deeper and deeper and deeper into her. Humiliated her in front of potential friends with his words.

And now this.

She’d thought that he might have them rape her. The ghouls. She’d been afraid of that, being violated again after she told him how many times it had been done to her. Having the control taken from her. Thought he might have the others do it too when they were done, really show her that she’s nothing.

This is… this is worse. Like looking in a mirror, watching herself cheat on him over and over and over again, telling herself it’s an addiction, that she needs it, that it’s okay, that it doesn’t really matter.

She’s gotten so good at lying that she fooled even herself.

He’d set it up perfectly, hadn’t he. The murders. The saw. The sex. Taking out her friends. Not letting her get Dani’s sire. Showing her that… that she’s like he said.

A stupid whore.

He hates the crying woman act, but this time it isn’t an act. This time, when her heart breaks, she doesn’t desperately try to push it back together.

She doesn’t want to be this person anymore.

She’d tried to deny it. That she had anything to do with it. That it was her fault he’d turned out this way.

But it is, isn’t it. She’d lied to him the whole time. Cheated on him the whole time. Manipulated him over and over and over again. There was always a justification for it. Always a reason. Pleasing her sire. Pleasing Savoy. Addiction. Curses. Spying. Enjoyment. Fear. Power.

Whatever the case was, she’d been the catalyst. She’d ruined him. Savoy may have set up Dani, but Celia was the one who ruined that plan and made him double down. She seduced Carolla because she was so eager to prove herself to him after she’d failed with Dani, had told him how much it would bother him for Carolla to be Coco’s childe, and she’d… she’d given him the blood sample so that his pet warlock could do the spell on Carolla, thinking she’d done something good for Roderick. That she was helping him find the truth.

Maybe he wouldn’t have spiraled so hard if she’d been open with him. Honest with him. Given him Dani from the start. Not killed those hunters, because there’s no doubt that’s her fault too. She’d told him the other hunters had raped her. Had that been on his mind? Had that made him lose it?

She’s wanted to blame everyone from Paul to her sire to Coco to Savoy for this, but in the end the fault is hers.

She fucked up.

She hurt him.

And now he’s hurting her in the exact same way.

It doesn’t matter that she’d been lied to, too. It doesn’t matter that she’d been just as manipulated. She could have let the cycle end with her and she hadn’t. She never treated him like an equal. Just someone to protect. Someone she knew better than. Like a child. Or a playtoy.

Never a partner.

Never with as much care and consideration as he used to show her.

Never with love.

She’d treated him like every other lick she knows that she’d used and been used by in return in the never-ending, fucked up society that has become her world, jostling for imaginary positions at court, walking the edge of a blade to avoid saying the wrong thing, wearing the wrong thing, laughing at the wrong thing. And for what? How much of it matters? They don’t do anything meaningful with their powers. They don’t make the world a better place. They cling to centuries-old dogma about “punishing sinners” or collect wealth or throw lavish balls, and she’d been caught in its midst, ensnared like the rest of the bright-eyed neonates who suddenly learn they’re immortal and powerful and beautiful forever.

And still at the bottom of a hierarchy that they’re going to have to claw and backstab their way up.

She’d hurt him. Betrayed him.

For that?

No. She doesn’t want to be this person anymore. She doesn’t want to be this person anymore at all.

Isn’t that a quote someone famous once said? Something about the most important days in your life are the day you’re born and the day you find out why.

She’d been waiting for her sire to give her the answers. Why her. Why Embrace her. Why choose her. Why do this to her.

But it isn’t up to him. It isn’t up to Savoy. It isn’t up to Roderick or Vidal or Maldonato or the Baron, no more than it’s up to a human parent to tell their children why them. She’s accepted the place they have given her as if that’s the only way it can be and it’s not. She’s not a round peg in a round hole, not another cog in the machine. She’s a person. And she has more to her unlife than what they offer with all of their attached strings.

She’d played the game. She’d won, she’d lost, she’d laughed, she’d cried. And now she’s done. This, here and now, the proverbial straw.

It’s all a lie. Smoke and mirrors meant to hide the hand holding the knife, an illusionary feast to cover the rotting meat and fruit at the table. She’d let them pull the wool over her eyes and thanked them for the pleasure.

“I see,” he’d said to her nights ago.

No. She sees.

“You win.”

GM: Does that fact bring him pleasure?

All he had to do for it was lose everything.

The four vampires fuck. Celia listens to the sounds. Smells the flow of blood. Feels the writhing bodies atop her, feels the feet and fists driving into her naked flesh as they call her degrading names. “Stupid” comes up a lot. So does “bitch”. That’s what she is, their bitch. She is kept on the ground, beneath them, as they enjoy their sanguine orgy atop her body. It’s not that imaginative, not really, next to the sexual torments that Paul and other licks could devise. Roderick never was a deviant like Veronica. Maybe he will be in time.

But this isn’t about raping and tormenting her, is it? He could turn her over to the ghouls for that. He could beat her for that, torture her dead flesh for that. No, this is about cheating on her. About turning the tables. About showing her how it feels to have a partner who betrays you, who pleasures and receives pleasure from others when that is exactly the thing you don’t want them to do. This is about showing he’ll not only fuck other licks, he can go to them to meet his needs too, for everything from sex to the Mafia to changing his face to to whatever poisoned counsel the Setites whisper in his ears. It’s about showing how he’s replaced he. This is about taking everything they were to each other and throwing it back in her face, like the foot he stomped all over a once-treasured necklace.

It’s about showing she means nothing to him.

It’s not so long ago things were different. Not even during their mortal lifetimes. She can remember even before that one Elysium, where he showered her with compliments and adulation. How he carried her throughout the room. Carried her to her car. Declared he’d wash her shoes after they got back from Elysium, because her perfect little feet should never have to touch the ground, and she should have others do her walking for her. Was it that time or another that he called her a sun?

“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.”

“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.”

She knew it wasn’t true even then.

---

Monday night, 21 March 2016, AM

GM: Celia’s not sure how long the orgy atop her body goes on for, but eventually, Dracon stakes her again. The four vampires dress themselves. Dracon spits on her face. Gamberro asks if he wants to get started really punishing her. Dracon merely says, “In good time. We’ve spent enough time here.” The others agree. They’ve left enough traces of themselves here. They gorily saw apart the dead couple’s corpses and stick the limbs in trash bags. They pick up the spent bullet casings. They sweep brain matter and chunks of head into the bags too. Melton runs her palms over the floor, the bed, the other bloodstained items. Beneath her touch, the spilled blood vanishes. The ghouls report they’ve robbed the house and taken everything of value. Dracon takes the bags of body parts with a simple,

“I have something special planned for these.”

Dracon collects the dead couple’s phones last (“The doorbell was hooked up to at least one of these”), then everyone troops back to their cars. Dracon throws Celia over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He unceremoniously dumps her in the car’s trunk with the bags of body parts, then closes it. Muffled voices sound from outside. Celia stares at the glow-in-the-dark escape hatch for how many times in the past few nights?

Celia: Three.

GM: Eventually, the car starts. Dracon drives. Celia is jostled around in the trunk. The part-filled trash bag rolls over her. She smells the blood beneath the plastic pressing into her face. A while passes. Finally, the car parks. The trunk opens. Roderick hefts Celia’s staked body over his shoulder again, closes the trunk, walks up to the entrance to Jade’s suite, and lets himself in with the keys. He closes the door behind him.

“Sloppy of me, to leave things unfinished here,” he says.

“But you’ve always brought out the worst in me.”

Celia: How powerful he must feel with his staked vampire.

GM: He carries Celia’s staked body through the wardrobe and into Flawless proper. He lets himself into Celia’s office if the door is unlocked, and breaks it open if it’s not. He dumps Celia on the floor, pulls out his phone, and taps into it. There’s a whir from the printer as it spits out papers covered with writing. Dracon waits until it’s done and sets them on the desk, then yanks out the stake in Celia’s chest.

He hands her a pen.

“Sign these.”

Celia: Whoever the body belongs to glances at the pages.

GM: They’re a transfer of ownership for Flawless LLC from Celia to Michael.

“Refuse and I’ll keep you staked until you sign.”

“You will be allowed to manage it for me so long as you are well-behaved.”

Dracon taps into his phone again. More documents print out. It takes a little while. He wordlessly slides them over when they’re done printing. There are a lot of them. They transfer ownership of the rest of Celia’s assets to Michael. Everything from the money in her bank accounts to her house to her car to her clothes.

“You will be permitted to make use of these things and to make withdrawals from the accounts while you are well-behaved.”

Dracon gives her shoulder a squeeze.

“I’ll take care of you, Celia. Even after everything you’ve done to me. But we need to do things differently from now on.”

Celia: Silently, she stares at the papers in front of her.

He hadn’t gotten it all. He’d thought he had, sure, but she has enough identities that a lot of her assets, including an entire haven and multiple bank accounts, hasn’t been touched. None of her investments, which she’s spread out over various aliases, or even the property she has in other parts of the city. Not her other business. Nothing to do with Legal Wings, which she doesn’t own but still has a hand in even with Randy’s disappearance.

But it’s… a lot. Everything in Celia’s name. Her first business. Her first lab. Her flagship. Everything she’s worked on for years to build into the success that it is.

It’s only when he touches her that her lower lip begins to tremble. She reaches out a hand, as if to touch his fingers on her shoulder, but falters before she makes contact.

“Why,” she whispers. “Why will you take care of me after what I’ve done? Why will you… why are you staying?” He’s already shown her he replaced her.

GM: “Because you’re a wretched, pitiable, broken, disgusting, insane, stupid, shallow, selfish creature that no one could ever love,” says Roderick, gently rubbing her shoulder.

“Not if they realized what a terrible person you actually are. Not if they saw the festering hideousness underneath the superficially pretty exterior. You’re the ugliest person I’ve ever known. You’d make other people ugly, too. Destroy their lives and drag them down with you in all your awfulness and hideousness when they got close to you.”

“We can think of this as a guardianship. Me keeping the rest of the world safe from people you’d hurt.”

“An open-air, one-woman prison with you as the inmate and me as the warden.”

“Or perhaps mental institution given your insanity.”

Celia: Celia drops her hand.

“What are you going to do with me? With Celia. With Jade.”

GM: “I will consult mental health professionals. I haven’t yet had time.”

“Celia or Jade, both are scum.”

“I don’t think I’ll fuck you anymore, either. Though if you’re well-behaved I’ll let you watch me and my new lovers.”

“I’m not even sure how to begin punishing you for all of the horrible things you’ve done. New lovers addresses the cheating, or at least starts to. But how do I address something like you blood bonding my sister or deceiving me about my brother?”

He shakes his head.

“I really did love you, Celia. And look what you did to us.”

Celia: Celia stares down at the papers in front of her. Her vision blurs pink and then red when the tears threaten to come, though she blinks them away before they can leak down her cheeks to join the rest of the blood on her face.

It’s been a messy night. But it’s not over yet.

She pulls the mask around her a little tighter.

“I know,” she whispers. “I know you loved me. I know I did this to us. I ruined it. Everything. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I thought tonight would… I thought I could fix it, that I was doing the right thing. I never should have lied to you about any of it. I just… I just wanted us to be together, to not have to hide it, to be happy…”

She trails off, lifting her gaze to his. She touches a hand to her collarbone, just below the tips of his fingers.

It’s gentle, the touch on his mind. The way she twists emotions to her whim, turning people into puppets, making them want to do things they might not ordinarily. Like trust her, the beautiful girl with the sharp smile. Or think she’s given in, that she just wants to be their friend again.

And that’s what this is, isn’t it? Celia submitting, signing over her spa, her assets, her very self. She’d told him the truth about everything earlier and he has eternity to get back at her now that she’s accepted her place.

There’s no need for the stick anymore, not when carrot will suffice. He’s beaten her. He can afford to be gentle. He’d done it earlier, hadn’t he? Friday, when he cut the knot and told her she was stupid, then offered her a hug. It’s the combination of hurt and comfort that breaks people oh-so-quickly.

And oh, how she bends. How she’s submitted to him, so quickly, so quietly. All he’d had to do was show her how much it really hurt to be replaced. All he’d had to do was take off her arm so she couldn’t run, so she had to face what she’d done. What she’d done to him. What she’d turned him into.

“Thank you,” she continues in a quiet voice. “Thank you for… for taking care of everything. Even me. Even after what I did. I’m so, so tired of getting it wrong.”

It doesn’t have to hurt anymore. She gives in. She submits. He wins, like she said. He’d punished her thoroughly tonight; he can be gentle now, gentle so she doesn’t bolt, gentle so she doesn’t try to stir up more trouble for him. It’ll be smooth sailing.

She’s so eager to please.

He’ll never see the knife coming. Not when he thinks he has her beaten. And how couldn’t he? She’s got one arm. He’s got a stake. She’s alone. She’s never been much of a fighter, anyway. He had always thoroughly kicked her ass whenever they sparred. Rotten luck for her that they’d ended up fucking more than fighting. She’s not even trying to pull that “crying woman” act he hates so much.

It leaks out of her while she talks, the very image of the submissive, beaten, broken enemy. The enemy that has finally spilled everything, given him every card in her deck, and has finally given up. She sees he’s right. She sees he’s been right this whole time.

“I don’t want to be this way anymore. I think… I think this is the right way to move forward, so you can make sure I don’t hurt anyone else. I want to be Celia again. Just Celia.”

She pulls her hand away from her throat to reach for a drawer in her desk. It’s nothing but an illusion that she creates around the thing she’s actually reaching for, the lotus blossom in its bowl of water, hidden from the sun just like Dahlia Rose had said to do to witness it bloom.

“Sometimes darkness brings out the best in us,” she’d said.

“I made something. A few years ago. I wanted to give it to you then, but… after we broke up I just… it brought me comfort on the worst nights.”

Celia’s fingers close around the blossom. Only it’s not a blossom anymore. It’s a doll, and it looks just like the boy he used to be.

“I used to talk to him. It. I just… I don’t think it’s good for me to have anymore, not after everything I’ve done to you.”

She holds out the doll for him to take.

GM: Roderick sneers, takes the doll, and twists its head off.

Then a sluggish look overtakes his face.

He topples over backwards, hitting the floor with a thud.

Celia: Idiot.

The crumpled petals of the lotus blossom flutter to the ground next to him. Celia smiles at the sight. She’d never told him why the flowers affect him like that. Even after she’d “come clean,” she’d still held on to so many secrets…

Like the fact that she is Lotus, and her breaking his heart as many times as she has manifested in a sort of supernatural slumber. His body’s defense to all the lies she’d told him, maybe. Shutting down rather than listening to more. Not letting his heart break again. It makes sense that it would be a flower. For Flores, the destroyer.

Celia moves from her seat, placing the lotus blossom against him to ensure he stays asleep.

Then she shoves the stake into his chest.

GM: It slides in with a wet slurp. The sharpened wood pierces through bone like a knife through butter, or at least flesh.

His eyes snap open, though.

Dracon’s are the same brown as Roderick’s. It’s a common enough eye color. Changing eyes is a bitch of a job.

Those brown eyes once looked at her with such tenderness. Even into undeath. All those nights they woke up together in the same bed. All those nights and days he held her close. She felt safe in his arms. She felt pleasure in his arms. She knew happiness in his arms. She remembers how tender his eyes looked when they promised they would always be there for one another, that first night back together.

“I want to tell you something. If things ever get bad here. Even if you hate me. If you need out of the city, if you need to hide, if… anything. Come to me. I’ll get you out. I’ll keep you safe.”

“And you know the same’s true for me. If things ever get really bad, if you’re ever hurt or in trouble, if you ever need anything… you can come to me. I’ll fight for you. Hide you. Help you. Whatever you need, I’ll make it happen. Whatever you’re in trouble from, whatever fights we’ve had… if you need me, I will be there for you. Okay?”

Celia looks into his brown eyes again now.

All she sees is hate.

Burning, furious hate.

How did it come to this?

Celia: Somewhere in her gut, a knife twists.

She would have. She would have helped him if he’d asked, if he’d needed her. Even now, maybe, even now if he were to… to apologize for what he’d done and said to her, to let her explain why she’d lied, to listen to her and believe her and trust her again.

They could have been happy. That’s really all she wants. Happiness.

Love.

Coco told her once that love between licks is the exception, not the rule. That it’s rare and it’s valuable and it’s hard and it usually ends messily, and what are you going to do when you can’t just move out of the city to avoid your ex and start over somewhere else?

For years Celia had thought that Roderick was the exception. That their love—such as it is—would be the shining example for other Kindred to follow. That it’s possible to love because they do. That even though they had both hurt each other they would be able to make themselves stronger for it, pull through on the other side, forgive even the worst of their sins made in ignorance or fear or anger.

She knows now that she and Roderick are not the exception to the rule, because Roderick has nothing to do with her rule. She is the exception. She, Celia, Jade, Lotus—whatever name people want to call her by, she is the exception to the rule that says vampires cannot love, that their hearts are as dead as the rest of them. Hers beats inside her chest night in and night out, and with every beat she knows that it is not dead. Romance is not dead. Love is not dead. A chemical reaction in the brain, but so is anger, isn’t it? And if she can be angry, if she can be sad, if she can still feel—and she does feel, she feels very strongly—then so too she can feel love, and it does not need to be Roderick on the other side of it.

She loved him. Maybe she will always love the boy he used to be. But she loves and has loved others as well.

She loves her family. Her mother, timid little mouse that she was, now a hellion to be reckoned with. She loves how fiercely her mother loves her daughters, even the adopted one. She loves Emily, for all that they don’t see eye-to-eye, for all their petty squabbles. She loves Lucy, innocent that she is. She loves her imagination, her larger-than-life attitude, her goodness.

She loved Randy, though she’d never told him. She didn’t love him like a woman loves a man but more like a cousin loves a cousin. Or a child loves a misshapen, mildly retarded pet.

She loves Alana. Loves her devotion, her affection, her willingness to please. She loves Reggie. Loves his strength, how worried he gets about her, the fact that he isn’t afraid to take what he wants, that he’s just as sexually dysfunctional as she is.

She loves her sire.

She has never told him. She will never tell him. But she loves him more than she can possibly put into words. She loves him like the moon loves the sun, for without the sun there is no light from the moon, and without him there is no her. He is everything. Her entire world. If she is the moon then he is the sun, the planet she orbits, the very universe in which she resides. She cares for him more deeply than she will ever admit to him, to herself, to anyone. She loves him to the last; she would forgive him anything if only he favored her with a smile, if only he touched her hand, if only he pressed his lips against hers. She has always been his. Even when he drops her. Even when he shatters her. She does not need a collar to pledge herself to him. She knows that he will burn her, that his frosty exterior will burn so coldly that it will hurt, and she loves him anyway. Not because she has to. Because she chooses to.

Celia is not the rule. She is the exception, in and of herself. Her love is a shining example of what could be, if only they would let it.

But not for Roderick. Not anymore.

“Hello, darling. Glad you’ve rejoined me. We’ve got plenty to discuss.”

Jade smiles down at him. She straddles his hips with her bare legs and pats his chest.

“First, though, a toast to our new future, hm?”

She sinks her teeth into his neck. She drinks. Deeply.

GM: Jade drinks.

She drinks so deeply.

So very, very deeply.

Dracon’s blood doesn’t taste like Roderick’s did. Similar, yes. That unmistakable Brujah fire. She knows the way it burns her up and makes her feel so alive. She remembers so well how Roderick’s tasted. There was a lightness to it. Crystal clear and hopeful and bright-eyed. The taste made her think of Boy Scouts, amusingly, and baseball games and Atticus Finch, who Roderick admitted was something of a stereotype for lawyers to admire, but damn it all, there was so much about the man to admire.

The taste of his blood even made her feel a bit smarter, too. Or at least silenced the bald man’s voice.

Dracon’s blood is like all that through a darkened mirror.

It burns her, still. Painfully. Searingly. She can taste the raging heat of his fury, but there is no righteous behind it. Just hate. Black and bitter with the taste of betrayal, of love poisoned into hate. It’s an altogether darker vintage. A stronger vintage.

No. She didn’t notice it, at the initial taste, but the sharp tang of righteousness is still there. She doesn’t think think that taste is ever going to leave his blood, the conviction that he right and just and all he does is for the good of the world. In fact, the taste is stronger than ever.

He thinks he’s better than her, too. She can taste it. Intellectually. Physically. Morally. Oh, how his blood wells with the taste of his pride and self-superiority, and his disdain and contempt for all that she is. It’s not the same flavor of pride that was in Caroline’s vitae—pride in birthright, pride in deathright, an entitled sort of pride. This is Brujah pride. A pride earned through his own actions and choices, a pride that swells nightly. There’s less humility in his blood than there used to be. That only makes sense after he’s started calling her stupid out loud.

And oh yes. Even staked by her trickery, even helpless and at her mercy, he still thinks he is the smarter one. The better one. And he will never trust her again. Not after this. Not in anything, not as far as he can throw her. All words to issue from her tongue are lies and pollution upon his ears. She offends him. He hates her. He hates her like he has never hated.

This is what poisoned love tastes like.

Celia: Poisoned love. Lies and corruption and sin. At her. Always at her.

Not his sire, who Embraced the Mafia thug and lied to him about it.

Not Savoy, who (obviously) had Dani Embraced to be a pathetic thin-blood, then pulled all the strings to put her and Carolla together in the same place, who’d bugged his phone so Carolla could find him, who made sure that Jade would be there to turn the tables.

That entire meeting with the four of them? Phone bugged. Tracker implanted. Both of them made to forget.

Preston’s claim that the party would make a good place to test Carolla’s blood once Celia offered to bring him? Just a diversion. Smoke, mirror, sleight of hand, a glib tongue by a grandsire who always knows the right thing to say.

She’d lied to him to keep him out of it. She’d lied to him to help preserve what innocence he had. She’d told him all of the ugly truths he wanted, and this is what she gets for it?

For all that giant brain of his, he certainly has no idea how the game is played.

And this! This feeding, this is nothing compared to the heady rush of Carolla’s essence. This is an echo of what it should be, like being bent over and fucked and the cock inside doesn’t even have the decency to hit the G-spot.

She could keep going. She should keep going. Take him into her. Absorb him. He’ll be safe inside of her. And he’ll be hers.

Forever.

Jade pulls back before she can. Her grandsire wants him. Her grandsire wants him and she had broken him in order to turn him over to the snake. She had given up love. True, honest, real love. She’d given it up, given up everything, and she isn’t about to fuck it up now.

She wipes at her mouth.

“Do you know,” Jade asks conversationally, “that the online degree you mocked me for, that you accused me of half-assing my way through, taught me quite a bit about the body? It was a medical degree. Not that you asked. You were very busy telling me how useless it is.”

She smiles again. With one arm she reaches behind his neck, fingers gently pressing against the base of the occiput, then the cervical vertebra. She counts her way down.

“Physical therapy, actually. Kind of a combination of that and occupational therapy. How we move, how it all works together, how to make it better. I wanted to help people, you see. Probably because of what happened to my mother, really. And I have. Plenty of people. Everyone thinks I’m playing makeup but no, there’s been a lot going on here besides that. I never bothered to tell you about all my workman’s comp cases, all the very injured people I see. And how it’s given me such great insight to the body. In fact…” Something sharp presses against the back of his neck. It digs into his flesh, severing through cartilage, ligaments, and nerves.

“Cervical vertebra,” she says. “Funny thing about spinal injuries. They’re oh-so-very complicated. And us, well, we just heal it with a thought, don’t we? Nothing a bit of blood won’t make better.” She giggles. “But when you’ve got an actual doctor doing it? Oh, honey. It’s very, very permanent.”

“C1 through C4 cause full paralysis, did you know that? Get hit the wrong way, don’t wear your seatbelt once, and boom! You’re in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. Tragic. Truly.”

“And here’s where it gets better. Spinal cord injuries, you know, they’re either complete or incomplete. Complete means there’s no motor or sensory function. But incomplete?”

She lets him see it when she bares her teeth at him, lets him see the madness and hatred burning in her eyes just as strong as what burns in his.

“You can still feel everything.”

GM: Dracon does not answer her words.

He cannot answer them.

But he can feel.

Oh, yes. He feels the steel slice into his flesh, when his pale flesh is already a mask of ravenous hunger. The Brujah clan’s legendary Beast bursts its chains, and howls and rampages and gnashes its teeth, all from behind a prison of wood.

All that stares out from her ex-lover’s eyes is the Beast.

Celia: “Oh, bother. Now I’ll need to say it all again. You really are the worst.”

Jade huffs at him, then pats his cheek. She lets the monster rage. Lets the Beast have its way with the boy while she reaches for the computer on her desk, jiggling the mouse to wake it up. She checks the security cameras around Flawless, looking for any stray ghouls or cars.

GM: She sees none, beyond Dracon’s own car.

Typing her password is inconvenient with one hand.

Celia: Everything is inconvenient with one hand. She’s been considering cutting off Rod’s to show him how inconvenient it really is.

Jade types another password into the computer and does a quick search for what she needs. Then she lifts the landline from its cradle and presses it to her ear, dialing a number.

GM: Who is Roderick?

He died with the one beautiful truth left unuttered.

Celia: Dracon is a pretentious name. She refuses to use it.

GM: “Yo,” answers the voice from the phone.

Celia: “Hello, darling. Sorry about the mixup earlier. If I promise to make it worth your while can you swing by? I need a tiny bit of assistance and I’m a little short-handed.”

Short-handed. Get it?

She gets it.

She winks at the Brujah whose name she can’t be bothered to use, lost to the Beast though he is.

GM: Maybe he gets it.

“You changed your damn mind more times than my dad changes girls,” the Caitiff grouses. “This’d better be worth it.”

Celia: Jade giggles at the line.

“Bring a friend or two, you know I like a party. See you soon.”

GM: “A’ight.”

He hangs up.

Celia: Jade dials a second number, this time to the ghoul who’s been waiting oh-so-faithfully for her to swing by for sex.

GM: It’s answered on the first ring.

“Are you coming by?” Alana asks breathlessly.

Celia: “I’m inviting you to come by,” Jade says to her. “Meet me at work. I have something fun planned.”

GM: “Yes, m-sure thing,” answers Alana. “What should I wear?”

Celia: “Something comfortable. It won’t be on for long.”

GM: There’s a delighted giggle.

“Okay. I’ll be right over. First thing. I love you.”

Celia: “Love you too, baby.”

Jade ends the call.

She leaves the Brujah on the floor and opens another cabinet drawer on her desk, pulling out the same bag of sex toys she’d used the night she’d turned herself into… hm, she needs a name for her masculine form. Celio?

No. Root name is Caelum. She’d looked it up back in high school when the girls kept giggling about Celia being a “fake version” of Cécilia.

They’re two distinct names.

Caelum, then. It’s just as ridiculous as Dracon.

Regardless of the name, the bag has plenty of fun things waiting for her, but she’s got eyes on the black leather hood. It’s difficult work yanking it down someone’s face with one hand, but once it’s on the Brujah is effectively blinded and his hearing is muffled at best.

GM: There’s little he can say or do, beyond stew in his hate.

Celia: The last thing he sees is her smiling face.

She’s just getting started.

---

Monday night, 21 March 2016, AM

GM: It’s not long before Alana arrives. Jade hears the ghoul’s footsteps outside of the office door. She’s wearing a thin and sensual-looking robe.

“Hello, mistress,” she beams.

She lets it fall off. There’s nothing underneath.

Celia: The naked ghoul is a sight for sore eyes. Jade beams right back at her, extending the hand she has left to pull the girl close. She nuzzles at her neck.

“I missed you all night,” she murmurs against her skin. “I’ve been looking forward to this for hours.”

GM: The ghoul melts into her domitor’s embrace.

“I’ve missed you for so long,” she whispers back. “I’ve been thinking about you. About what we’re going to do. All night.”

She pays no mind to the staked and hooded vampire on the ground.

“What happened to your… arm?”

Celia: “Very soon,” Jade murmurs. She nips at Alana’s neck with her fangs.

“Mm, ran into a saw. I’m just going to pop it back on, drop him off at home, and spend the rest of my night ravishing you.”

GM: “That sounds heavenly, mistress,” shivers Alana.

“But oh no, I’m so sorry. Where is it?”

Celia: “In his trunk. He brought it with us, the dear. Forgot to bring it inside though. I’ll get it in a moment, once the others arrive and we have to behave. Right now, though…”

She trails a hand down Alana’s body, fingertips teasing her already pert nipples, then lower still until she finds the sweet spot between her legs.

“You’re dripping, pet, and I’ve barely touched you.”

GM: The ghoul shivers in Jade’s arm (singular). The Toreador can all but smell her arousal. There’s color in her cheeks and her breath hitches in anticipatory little inhalations.

“Yes, mistress,” she whispers. “I’m so happy to see you. I thought maybe you weren’t coming.”

Celia: “I’ve had to leave you cold and lonely too often lately. Teasing is only fun once it ends.”

GM: “Yes, mistress, exactly!” the ghoul nods, raptly. “You want to get someone worked up. You can make a game of it. You can drag it out and torture them. You can make them crazy at just the thought of you.”

“But eventually… it ends, like you say.”

Celia: To show Alana how very sorry she is for making her wait, Jade starts to give her what she wants. She keeps an eye on the security cameras to look for Benji’s arrival, but doesn’t let it distract her overly much from the writhing, beautiful thing in front of her. She makes it work with one hand, teasing and stroking and plucking, trailing kisses from her lips to her neck to her nipples.

GM: Alana enjoys it with relish. She writhes and gasps and moans and makes a show of herself, splayed out and naked over the couch for the clothed Toreador to use however she wills. The ghoul doesn’t really reciprocate, but she doesn’t need to. She cums in almost no time at all, leaving Jade’s fingers soaked in her juices.

Celia: “There’s my eager little pet,” Jade breathes against her neck. “Such a good girl for me…” She lets Alana taste herself on her fingers.

GM: Alana rapturously sucks them off, her eyes not once leaving her domitor’s. She cuddles up against Jade and lays a head against her shoulder.

“I love you so much, mistress. This was just the appetizer. There are so many things I want to do with you tonight. Today. I want to make you feel good, like you make me feel good.”

Celia: “Soon,” Jade promises. “We just need to clean up a bit first. Why don’t you put your robe back on so we can get ready to go and do this again in an actual bed, when I’ve got two hands to spoil you.”

GM: “Yes, mistress,” Alana nods. “Should I get dressed up more, if there’s going to be company? You said we’d need to behave.”

Celia: “No, they’re just going to help me move some things and give us a ride.”

“Though if you think any of them are cute maybe we can have fun with them, too.”

GM: “I don’t think I could even notice how they look next to you,” purrs Alana, nuzzling her face against Jade’s breasts.

Celia: Jade beams at the words. She cuddles the ghoul until Benji and his boys arrive.

GM: “Is that all you need from them, mistress? I could do it instead, I drove here and I can move things around. I want to help you. I want to do things for you.”

Celia: “You, my dear, will not be able to hoist this one over your shoulder, or drag him up the steps to his apartment. You can get the girl ready for me, though. Find some clothes for her and wrap her face, we don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.”

GM: “The girl?” asks Alana.

Celia: “Mm. Celia’s friend. She’s downstairs sleeping off a night of binge drinking.”

GM: The ghoul tries not to look too displeased at the mention of Celia’s friends.

Celia: Jade assures Alana that being Jade’s friend is better. She doesn’t sleep with Celia’s friends.

GM: “You’re not just my friend, mistress,” says Alana, nuzzling up against her again. “You’re my family. Aren’t you?”

Celia: “I’m your family,” she agrees. “And your sun. Your rock. The stars in the sky. And you’re my moon.”

GM: Alana’s eyes shine at the words.

“Okay, mistress. I’ll get her ready. I love you so much.”

Celia: Jade kisses her deeply before she scampers off, murmuring that she loves her too against her mouth.

GM: She’s left alone with Celia’s former boyfriend.

They said similar words to each other, once.

They were less… desperate. Less syrupy.

They meant them, too.

Celia: Did they?

Or did he always prefer the idea of her to the actual girl? Did he love the 19-year-old, tongue-tied dance major he met at the party listening to his story about the Mafia with wide eyes rather than the vicious, selfish, devastatingly beautiful lick she’d turned into?

Celia is dead. Stephen is dead. Roderick is dead, too. Or maybe he had never been.

Jade waits alone with her thoughts.

She’s not proud of how far down she tore him.

GM: Pete said he was in love with the idea of Celia’s mother, rather than the actual woman. He said that meant he should… come to think, he didn’t actually say what it meant.

Celia thought what he said was nonsense anyway.

Celia: Maybe he’ll give her another chance if she tells him that she ended things with Roderick. Or maybe she’ll tell him her mom found her fire again.

Someone, at least, deserves happiness.

GM: Jade’s unblinking, devastatingly beautiful face stares back at her from the room’s mirror.

She’s mixing up who she is again.

If Jade has a mom, Jade had a boyfriend named Stephen.

Celia: Jade doesn’t have a mom.

She doesn’t think Lebeaux would be a good partner, either. Not sexually.

GM: He might be too much like Roderick used to be.

Too much of a conscience.

Less naive, though.

Definitely less naive.

Celia: He’d probably take her on dates first, before they ever got to the good stuff. Dancing, maybe. A movie. Buy her flowers. All that sort of… that sort of…

Somewhere inside, Celia cries for what she’s giving up.

GM: Will she ever watch Batman again?

Celia: No. Never.

GM: Some of the lines have not aged well.

Or maybe too well.

“Maybe it’s time we all stop trying to outsmart the truth and let it have its day," the gentle old British man had exhorted tearfully.

Celia: He’ll never forgive her, even if she tells him. There will never be an “us” again. He’ll never trust her, never hold her, never lie in bed beneath the sheets with her head on his chest and his arms around her talking about everything and nothing. They’ll never further The Movement together. They won’t be the couple at Elysium who don’t give a single fuck about what anyone has to say because they’re so busy being happy with each other.

She doesn’t know how many times her heart can break, but she wishes it would cease its splintering.

GM: She’d wondered at that screening if he was Wayne and she was the lying McLiarFace who needed to let him go.

She’d thought maybe she was Selina Kyle. The beautiful love interest with a troubled past who secretly works for a monster, then betrays Wayne so her master can physically and spiritually break him.

But he overcame. His forgiveness and belief she was capable of “better” than what her behavior indicated brought her over to the right side, and they got to live happily ever after after upon leaving the city and all its troubles behind.

Then Celia thought she was reading too much into it.

Then she’d asked him, “If you were Bruce, do you think you could forgive the girl like that? For the betrayal?”

“I’d like to think so,” he’d said. “She did finally stand for what was right.”

Then he’d moved on from the question, because it wasn’t existentially important, and said he’d normally take her out for ice cream at this point.

Celia: The girl turns away from the mirror. She doesn’t want to watch herself cry.

Life isn’t fiction.

If she’d told him about the darkness inside of her, would he still have looked at her like she was the sun? Or would he have always thought that the horror she committed was who she is? Would he have ever been able to look past the death clinging to her lips and the blood drying at its corners?

An old poem dances through her mind. A Betrayal:

I cannot undo
what I have done;
I can’t un-sing
a song that’s sung.

And the saddest thing
about my regret—
I can’t forgive me
and you can’t forget.

Sometimes memories are the worst forms of torture.

GM: Celia or Jade won’t forget either. The memories will be with the girl forever.

Dracon or Roderick or Stephen, they’ll be with the boy forever, too.

Alana, meanwhile, comes back into the office.

“Celia’s friend is taken care of, mistress, though I expect she’ll have a bitch of a hangover.”

She looks down at the staked, hooded figure on the floor, then gives Celia’s former boyfriend a good kick.

Celia: Perhaps it isn’t the memories and used-to-bes that she regrets. Perhaps it isn’t the lost past that torments her so; perhaps it’s the lost future. Not what has been, but what will never be.

The very definition of evil is what should be but isn’t.

The kick pulls her from her reverie. She snarls at Alana before she realizes what she’s doing.

“Don’t touch him.”

GM: The ghoul raises her hands and backs away.

“I’m sorry, mistress. I thought you and your friends were going to fuck him up?”

Celia: “No.”

GM: “But he’s staked and has the hood on…?”

Celia: “I’m not him.”

GM: “I’m sorry, mistress?” Alana asks.

Celia: The body moves, pulling a set of keys from the boy’s pockets. She tosses them to Alana.

“My arm is in his trunk. I’d like it back now.”

GM: “Yes, mistress, right away,” the ghoul nods, readjusting her robe.

She disappears back outside.

The body is left alone with Celia’s and Jade’s thoughts for several more minutes before Alana reappears, her domitor’s arm in hand. There’s blood all over hands and arms.

“It was in a bag of body parts, mistress,” Alana says, a little queasily.

She manages a smile.

“Would you like to lick me off…?”

Celia: “Not yet,” she says. She has Alana hold the arm in place and uses her other hand to reattach it. It’s messy work, aided by the blood she’d stolen back from her former lover, but it’s over quickly enough.

Nothing a bit of blood won’t fix, right?

She flexes the muscles experimentally, then crouches beside the body.

“Help me move him. I’ll call off the others.”

GM: Alana kneels too and fits her hands around the elbows.

“Uff. He’s heavy, mistress.”

“Could you maybe take off some of the mass?”

Celia: “It’s not worth the effort of putting him back together again. Here.” She sets the body back down, lays out one of the sheets they use for the treatment tables, and rolls him onto it.

“I’ll drag him. You make a call for me, find out where…”

She directs Alana to call Benji to find out his ETA as she hauls the staked corpse down the stairs.

GM: The ghoul does so. Voices are audible from the phone after she calls.

“He says maybe a few minutes away, mistress.”

Celia: She’s dicked him around enough this evening. Another false alarm, and…

“I thought,” she says tightly, pulling the body along, “that his friends might have been waiting for him, and since the boys are missing I wanted the extra help. But I don’t think they’re here.”

GM: Alana nods. “Do you want me to call him off, mistress?”

Celia: Christ. She’ll never hear the end of it. He’ll never come when she calls again.

And what if she’s fucking wrong.

“No. I’ve got something for him.”

GM: “You’ve got something everyone wants,” Alana purrs, rubbing up against her, then ends the call and helps carry Roderick.

Celia: The pair move down to the lab. Jade leaves the body in “Narnia” while she collects what she needs, instructing Alana to help her put things back to rights in the meantime: grinding down the bones she doesn’t collect for further study, destroying what’s left of Carolla’s face, hosing it all down.

GM: “Narnia” feels like it’s catching on as a name.

Alana does all that her domitor asks. She remarks on how strange these bones are.

Celia: Jade only says it was an experiment gone wrong.

She tells Alana to bring in the bags from the trunk.

“And text Reggie. Tell him I found his brother.”

GM: Alana does both, though she visibly strains and heaves to drag in the bags. Limp human bodies are heavy, even in pieces.

She reports no immediate answer from the other ghoul.

Celia: “Ping his phone. Find out his location.”

GM: “Ah, how do you do that, mistress?”

“I don’t think you can without a phone tracker app.”

Celia: Sometimes Celia forgets how old Alana actually is.

She takes the phone from the ghoul and opens the app in question.

GM: She’s disappointed. Reggie didn’t much like the idea of “being tracked” by anyone.

Celia: She dials his number.

GM: No answer.

Celia: She calls Rusty.

GM: No answer.

Celia: She calls LegalWings.

GM: The hour would be absurdly unreasonable, for any other business. Bail bond services, at least, are open 24/7.

She’s greeted by a tired-sounding Bette Malone.

“LegalWings.”

Celia: In a voice not quite her own, Jade requests to speak with one of the Dufresne brothers.

GM: “Lady, you have any idea what time it is?”

“They’re not in.”

Celia: “When were they last in? We were supposed to get together earlier and they never showed.”

GM: Bette sounds tired. “I don’t know. Things have been insane here.”

Celia: “Oh?”

GM: “One’s missing. Think something bad happened. Regina’s tearing apart everyone and everything. Spitting nails.”

Celia: “That’s what we were meeting about,” Jade sighs into the phone, “Reggie asked me for some assistance, but he’s not picking up his phone. Do you have any idea how I can get ahold of him, or where he’s at? I’m sorry to ask, but if it helps find the missing brother…”

GM: “I have no idea, lady. He’s barely here. Wait until he picks up, maybe.”

“Or try his mom.”

Celia: “I’ll do that. Thank you.”

Years of “dating” Randy meant that Celia got on well with his mother and has the woman’s number. She dials it next.

GM: “Regina Dufresne. Leave a message,” comes a firm voice.

Beeeep.

Perhaps little surprise at the very late hour.

Celia: What woman with a missing kid doesn’t pick up the phone in the middle of the night?

Jade hangs up.

GM: Maybe one that’s sleeping.

Celia: She tells Alana to go open the doors for Benji, and when she’s gone she stuffs the semi-repaired remains of Randy into the bag. The lot of it goes into the cooler with the extra security where she’d kept Carolla. She tosses in the rest of what needs tucked away, then closes and locks it. The wall appears seamless; no one who doesn’t know where to look will find it.

Jade casts an angry glare toward Narnia. She has a feeling she knows why Reggie isn’t returning her calls.

Maybe he’d started with the boys when he’d decided to take everything from her. Leave her without any sort of support system. No backup. No one to call.

She’ll gut him.

Jade becomes a whirlwind of activity around the room, tucking bottles and tools and body parts and various other items into a bag to take with her.

He’ll talk. She’ll make sure of it.

---

Monday night, 21 March 2016, AM

Celia: Benji and the boys make quick work of what Jade needs moved. She’s Ren to them, mask in place so the ghouls don’t get any cute ideas about Jade and Ren being the same person, and Benji plays his role in asking if she was helping with “Kalani’s bullshit” again. She smiles at him and winks for the solid.

She doesn’t let him question her at the spa, only shakes her head and tells him “later” when he presses for details and a location. Jade has Alana drop Emily off at home, letting her borrow the keys to get in, and to meet them after.

“Just leave her in the main house,” she’d said, “they’ll sort it out in the morning.”

GM: Alana says that Emily told her to fuck off upon being woken and resisted being moved.

“I could hit her with star mode if you want to give me a hit, mistress,” volunteers the ghoul.

Celia: Jade says she’ll give her a hit when she gets to their destination.

GM: Alana nods eagerly and says she’ll make sure Emily gets home.

It’s as Jade is passing through her suite’s rooms that she finds a bloody-smelling bundle wrapped up in a corner.

Celia: Hard to miss the smell of blood, even in a place like this. Jade reaches for the bundle.

GM: There’s been a lot of blood spilled in this place tonight.

She finds Reynaldo Gui’s staked and ruined body underneath the blanket. His face and torso are destroyed, his limbs are chopped off, and his clothes are bloody tatters.

Celia: Jade’s dead body doesn’t need to make a sound. There’s no sharp inhale, no hand pressed to her throat, no gasp of surprise or dismay. She stares at the body.

How dare they.

How dare they leave him here. How dare they do this to him. He’s not some kine, not some breather to be slaughtered and chopped into pieces and left beneath a blanket like a bloody Christmas fucking miracle.

Jade uses a gentle touch to re-wrap his body in the blanket. She wants to sob. Wants to scream and cry and yank out her hair from the roots.

She’s silent instead, taking care to be gentle with his body. She’s not going to leave him here. She’ll bury him. Or take him back to his sire. Or something. Something that isn’t this.

He’s better than this.

The pieces make for an awkward and heavy bundle. Jade manages through sheer determination to lift it, staggering forward beneath the weight of it to find the others.

She’d considered mercy for the staked Brujah in her clutches. Considered letting him go so he could be on his merry way with nothing but a warning.

But now? Oh, no. Not after this. Not after leaving her friend like some sort of butchered animal for her to find in the corner of her spa.

One night Savoy won’t need him anymore. That’s when she’ll repay the favor. That’s when Roderick Durant will die screaming her name, and his last sight will be her bloody, vicious smile as she rips out his heart.

---

Monday night, 21 March 2016, AM

Jade: They leave Roderick’s car at the spa. Jade tells Alana to take care of it in the morning.

It’s not until they’re all in the car with Alana on her way to Celia’s mom’s house that Jade (Ren, really, but she still feels like Jade) gives him the location: the clubhouse. She makes vague noise about the spa being bugged if Benji asks. On the drive over Jade pulls the battery out of her ex-lover’s phone, and once they arrive she has the boys carry the staked lick and bundle of body parts (“easy with that!”) inside while she gathers her supplies.

There’s a rumor about Jade. Listen enough to the licks on the street and you might hear it: inside her haven is a wet room where she takes apart people who get on her bad side.

It’s not just her haven with a make-shift lab. It’s the clubhouse as well. Only the “wet room” is a converted bathroom with a stand-up shower stall and tile floors, and while it’ll do in a pinch it lacks the sophistication of what’s at the spa.

“You know how to shift, Benj?” Jade asks as his ghouls set down the body, shortening his already shortened name.

GM: The OXR clubhouse is a two-story building with a small yard and balcony around the upper floor that looks out across the street beyond. A door off the side leads to a shared common area that has a larger pool, and a wall around the perimeter of the house itself assures the licks who reside there the sort of privacy they need. The first floor is built to entertain: a gate off the side of the property leads to a covered patio with natural stone flooring and retractable walls and ceiling, with a pool and hot tub along one edge. Comfortable, overstuffed chairs surround a handful of tables, an unlit and unused brick fireplace, and a state-of-the-art entertainment system. A set of double doors lead to the living room and large kitchen, stocked despite the undead status of the home owners, with marble counter tops and a sizable island any hostess would be proud of. The living room features another unused brick fireplace and a pair of couches for a more cozy feel.




Upstairs the wooden floor trend continues through a long hallway that leads to three spacious bedrooms and the master suite, replete with king-sized beds, walk-in closets, and ensuite bathrooms with both a standing shower and marble tub. The master suite also features a small attached office and balcony.

Benji has always been on the larger side of things. He’s tall and borderline “stocky,” though no one within his reach would ever dare say that to his face. They’d bandy words like “powerfully built” and “large framed.” There’s no denying the strength in his limbs when he flexes hard enough to rip through tailored shirts, and his ghouls and krewemates claim to have seen him pull the spine clean out of people that get on his bad side. (Jade knows this is physically impossible to do bare-handed: the spine is still attached to the ribs and pelvis and is quite integrated with the rest of the human skeleton.) He was Embraced with short hair and a full beard and doesn’t bother changing the style. He either likes it or he’s come to terms with it. The only difference between him and the black guy next to him is the gold in his teeth: each of his fangs is decorated in gold and diamonds that glint when he smiles or feeds.


“Nope,” the Caitiff answers as they set the staked and hooded vampire down inside the shower.

“Also, who the fuck is this guy?”

“Just wondering.”

Celia: “My lover.” Jade cocks her head to the side, considering the helpless lick. “He did something bad, so he’s being punished.”

She giggles and leads the way out of the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

“But,” she says, spinning to face the Caitiff with a smile so she can walk her fingers up his chest, “enough about him. I brought you a present.”

GM: “I’m owed one,” he smirks.

Celia: “You are,” she purrs, leaning in close to trail the points of her fangs down his neck. Tiny little drops of blood well in the rivers she creates. She watches it flow.

“I’ve even brought you a selection of presents.”

Jade laps at the blood in long, slow movements. The taste of him dances across her tongue.

“So you get to have your pick.”

GM: “And what’s to stop me from takin’ the whole selection, mm?” Benny asks. Jade feels fangs pierce her neck as the other vampire leans in, his bigger arms encircling hers. His tongue laps at the flowing blood.

“Or you gonna punish me like that guy for doin’ somethin’ bad?”

Celia: They’re different, the arms around her. But the feeling is similar: larger man, smaller girl, outweighed, physically outmatched. It sends a thrill through her that has nothing to do with the lick in front of her and everything to do with the familiar sensation of being held within the circle of a pair of arms that could crush her; a titillating, adrenaline-fueled fuck. Maybe it’s the pent-up lust she’s been holding back since Alana arrived early this evening with the vessel and Celia turned down sex out of some misguided loyalty to a boyfriend that had ceased loving her. Maybe it was seeing said boyfriend naked in the spa and doing everything she could to avoid pouncing on him. Or maybe she’s riding the high from out-smarting the so-called genius and turning him into a helpless sack of meat like he’d done to her, blinded and alone and at her mercy.

Does it matter?

“This is the first option,” she breathes, using her claws to shred the bloody Flawless shirt. “Why don’t you take it and see.”

GM: He takes it.

---

Monday night, 21 March 2016, AM

Celia: In the end, it isn’t quite what Jade had been looking for. Their sex takes the edge off, but Benji doesn’t want to be unsafe about things and lapping at the blood after it cools, while enjoyable, is sort of like putting a vibrator near her clit after she’s applied a fuck ton of numbing cream. It feels all right, but it doesn’t quite hit the right notes for her.

She can’t help but compare it to the liquid gold she found in Carolla’s veins.

They’re both a bloody mess by the time they’re done clawing and kicking and rolling around on the floor, swapping between who is on top and who is pinned on their back. Benji ends it by putting her up against the wall with her thighs splayed to either side of him, and she trails nips and kisses down his jaw and neck when it’s over.

She tells him about the presents she has for him, though she makes sure to let him know that she needs to actually craft him after she gets his measurements. He’s got his choice of armor or a weapon. Or, if he likes, she can give him a strength boost. She assures him that she’s done it before.

“There’s also a fun little experiment I’d like to try, if you’re game. It won’t hurt. But it will let you shift if it works, and that opens a whole array of possibilities to us.”

She tells him to think about it and asks if he’s spending the day. She mentions that her business had been broken into and is worried they might track her back here: she’d feel so much safer if he and the boys stuck around.

Either way, she activates the haven’s “defense system” that Nico had overseen all those years ago: it fortifies all of the entrances and exits, the windows, the tiny little crevices that animals can sneak in and out of (Roxy had made sure they’d been very thorough in that regard); kills electronic devices in a handful of rooms; activates a variety of sensors that respond to motion, weight, light, and heat (or there lack of); and sets a timer on the locks with a code that constantly changes in addition to the physical locks. Heavy steel bars slide free from their slots inside the walls to reinforce the setup.

“Don’t you think it’s kinda overkill?” Jade had asked years ago when everything was finished. “We’ve already got the hidden panic room.”

“Should have seen my place in San Fran,” Nico had replied with a smirk. “Not gonna take chances with the place I leave my body during the day. Or yours, dollface. It’ll come in handy some night. You’ll see.”

And it has.

Call her paranoid, but with everything as up-in-the-air as it is, with her missing ghouls and dead friends and Guard hounding her ass and Roderick turning into that asshole, she’s glad for it.

Even if part of her wonders if it’ll be enough.

Jade checks the time. Not long until sunrise. She doesn’t particularly need Roderick to know what she’s doing to him until it’s done, so she doesn’t bother feeding him.

She readies her tools.

Jade sets a tray out on the ground, using a solution-soaked square of cotton gauze to sterilize it. A small black bundle unrolls to reveal a handful of steel instruments.

For long moments Jade stares down at the staked, helpless lick and the tray of sterile tools she can use to take him apart. She’s never needed the tools. Not when her claws are as sharp as any scalpel and she can part flesh and muscle with her fingers. No, she doesn’t need tools to cut through his skin, but she won’t deny their effectiveness. And there are things her surgical instruments can do that her hands cannot: the trocar and cannula allow her to set things as needed, while the dilators allow her to widen valves and vessels, the nerve hooks separate the tiny little bundles out when she needs a closer look, and the osteotome has various heads from chisel to spoon when she needs to get down and dirty with bones. Various forceps, clamps, retractors, elevators, needles, and sutures round out the ensemble. Another bag has the tissue expander, cautery, and endoscopic cameras. A third has gloves, thread, gauze; anything and everything she might need to perform a general surgery. Still more are at the lab or various havens, another kit in her closet, another in her trunk.

She can rip and shred with the best of them, but she understands too why the surgeons use such a variety. They all have their place on the operating table.

That’s what she’d intended for him. To cut him open, slice into him with her claws and pin his flesh back like a seventh grader’s frog. To fill his body with chemicals and rubber beads and acid, to wrap his heart in explosives so that if he ever decides to move against her, ever decides to hurt her, her family, her business, her anything, all she has to do is skip a day of punching in the code to keep him from blowing into itty-bitty pieces. She’ll make it rain Roderick.

But hate begets more hate, doesn’t it? It’s a never ending cycle that will culminate in more and more casualties on both their ends until the entirety of their Requiems become “how to fuck each other over.”

She’s tired.

She’s tired of friends and lovers turning into enemies. She’s tired of lies and abuse and using people. She’s tired of solitude, tired of wearing seven different faces and trying to remember who she is around which group of people.

So Jade doesn’t cut him open. She doesn’t use her tools to cut a hole in his chest and strap his heart with explosives. She sits beside him instead, brings her wrist to her mouth, and bites.

She doesn’t give back what she took. She bleeds into a cup she’d located beneath the sink, not nearly enough to sate him but enough to take the edge off, enough to bring him back from the brink of starvation so that, though hungry, he can think about more than his bloodlust. When the blood has time to cool she peels back the hood from his mouth and holds it to his lips.

She feeds him.

She feeds him like her sire had once fed her, like her sister had fed her, like her mother had fed her and she her mother. And when the cup is empty she sets it to the side and waits another moment for his Beast to run its course.

Then she speaks.

“These past few nights have been difficult. Ever since the park, since we found out about your brother. I’ve watched you change. I’ve watched myself change. I’ve watched us change.”

“Us. I suppose there is no us anymore. We’ve done more than enough damage to each other to end a handful of relationships. It was naive, I think, for me to expect that we could somehow make it through. That we could defy the odds.”

Jade shakes her head.

“I’ve been staked three times in three nights. Twice by you and once by the Guard. Agnello. He pulled me beneath my car right outside the Evergreen and slammed it into me. I was afraid that he meant to kill me.” She pauses. “But I was more afraid when it was you who had me. I used to never doubt myself around you. I was never afraid of your rage like I perhaps should have been. I knew that you wouldn’t go out of your way to hurt me, not if you could help it. I could forgive the frenzies, forgive the actions of the Beast. I understand it. Mine may not be as angry, but it’s just as spiteful.”

“I didn’t know what you intended to do to me when you followed me from Elysium on Friday. I thought you might leave me for the sun. I kept imagining a wood chipper. I was terrified in the back of the trunk. Staring at that glow in the dark button. Praying to a God I don’t know that I believe in that you wouldn’t hurt me. That you wouldn’t kill me.”

Jade lets out a breath.

“It’s not fun, being staked. Being helpless. I imagine you’re not often on this side of things. I don’t know if you’re more afraid or angry or an even mix of both. Perhaps you’re plotting your revenge. How next to torture me.”

“That’s what I intended for you. Torture. I wanted to hurt you like you hurt me. Intentionally. Devastatingly. I tasted it, you know. Your hatred. I tasted how warped you’ve become. I wish… I wish things had gone differently. I wish I’d done things differently. I wish I’d told you the truth from the beginning, and that I’d asked for your help instead of manipulating you into helping me. I’m sorry. I know you don’t believe anything I say now, but I never wanted this.”

“I’m going to give you an option now. I’m going to touch you, and I’m going to project myself inside your mind. Even with the stake we will be able to converse. You cannot hurt me, and I cannot hurt you. Not like this. We’ll talk. That’s all. And when we’re finished I’ll decide on a course of action for you.”

“I’m going to begin.”

Soft, warm hands touch down upon his skin.

She begins with his shoulders, gliding from the rounded mass of muscle to his chest. She warms his cool skin with her own hands and beneath her touch the tissue comes to life, pliant and flexible. The heels of her palms touch down, lift, then press again in an alternating pattern down his sternum, then around his pectorals, then lower still across the abdomen. She paths around the stake.

Not many people want a chest or abdominal massage. It’s not part of most treatments. Which is a shame, really, since most people who complain of neck or back pain don’t realize that the muscles in the front, that tender spot above the clavicles and the insertion point of the deltoids, are what shorten when they hunch.

She’d always wanted to practice on him. Every time she learned a new technique she’d show up at his door, eyes bright, and ask if she could use him as her test subject…

“Why me?” he’d laugh, but let her take him into the bedroom and push him onto his back.

“Because you’re my boyfriend,” she’d say, exasperated. “You need to take your shirt off.”

“Mm, I am your boyfriend,” he’d agree, “but I want to hear you say it.”

She’d pretend she didn’t know what he meant, demanding once more that he remove his shirt.

“Not until you say it.”

So she’d stammer and she’d blush and she’d avert her eyes while she uttered the words she’d made the mistake of saying one time while he’d gotten dressed after a tryst and she lounged indolently beneath the sheets.

“You’re like a Greek god without a shirt, you know that? Just… lean and chiseled and firm. It makes me want to run my tongue across every inch of you.”

Then he’d take his shirt off. She might get through a few moments of the new treatment before her touch became more personal than professional, and he’d pull her down onto him and capture her protesting lips in a kiss with his arms fastened securely around her.

She’s not surprised when the mindscape that manifests around them is his college apartment, replete with pizza boxes and ice cream cartons from their favorite places, with a stack of DVDs on his coffee table and books spread across every other available surface. It’s the same gray couch draped in the fleece blanket she’d made him while under “house arrest” over the holidays, the same beige carpet with the stain from the night he’d invited his friends over to introduce her and they’d gotten a little sloppy with red wine while pretending to be “real adults.”

She’s not the same, though.

She’s not Jade. Not Ren. Not Leila or Cici or Violet or any of the others that people know her as.

She’s Celia again. Just Celia. Nineteen years old and already in love, crazy hair untamed by products or heat, wearing a simple cream dress and the necklace he’d given her for Christmas.

She takes a seat on the imaginary couch and waits for her lover to join her.

GM: Roderick wasn’t a Greek god before his Embrace. Oh, he’d played baseball, he exercised, he was trim. But he was always slimmer than he was thick. One of the reasons he played baseball rather than football. He definitely wasn’t as beefy as her dad. Celia was flattering him a bit calling him a Greek god.

Things were another matter after he died, though. Coco believed strongly in the ancient Greek concept of arete, which he’d explained to Celia during their brief time back together in 2012. Excellence in body and mind and spirit. The body had to be cared for and exercised to allow for the mind and soul to achieve their full potential.

“Modern science backs up that idea in so many ways, too,” he’d said. “The Greeks got a lot of things right.”

Coco had put him on an exacting (if not grueling) months-long fitness regimen to make his physique as perfect as possible before the Embrace. He’d have that body forever, after all. Or so went her assumption. Most licks can’t sculpt flesh like clay. Either way, she’d wanted to give him the best for his Requiem ahead, and he was deeply thankful for that.

Either way, too, the Greek god comparisons felt a lot more apt with his new six pack.

Celia: Not that Celia had seen a lot of shirtless men to compare him to.

It was more of a “I like your body and you make me feel butterflies” kind of comment than a direct comparison. An “I like seeing you naked” thing, without the vulgarity of saying it outright.

She’d always thought that they fit well together. Always admired his physique, both before and after his Embrace.

GM: It always retained that slenderness, even with the added muscle bulk. He was never a natural hulk like her father.

Roderick stands before the couch. He looks about the same age as he was then, early-mid 20s, but he was Embraced in his early-mid 20s. And unlike her, he hasn’t aged.

He does not move to sit.

He folds his arms.

“If you’re serious about talking, drop me off somewhere and we’ll talk over the phone. If you’re scared I’m going to do to you what you’ve done to me.”

“Whatever pretty memories you’re conjuring, this is a conversation with a knife at my throat.”

Celia: “Of course I’m scared you’re going to do to me what I’ve done to you. You’ve already done it. Twice. And we both know that this isn’t a conversation we can have via phone. We’d be too busy playing word games to protect the Masquerade to be able to openly communicate.”

“Which… I think is part of what happened last night, and it’s lead to some misunderstanding.”

Celia sits back against the cushions, drawing her legs up beneath her. She looks up at his face.

“It’s near sunrise. I can’t move you tonight. Not safely.”

GM: Roderick actually laughs at the word ‘misunderstanding’.

“Fine. Public location, if you want to talk so badly. Where no one can stake each other without breaking the Masquerade.”

“I have nothing to say while I’m your prisoner. I’d rather race the sun back to my haven than spend the day here.”

Celia: “Then don’t talk. I’ll talk. And you can nod or shake your head at the two questions I have, and I’ll go.”

She hates that her first instinct is to ask him to bring her with him. To put herself back in his power, take the first step toward trust as if he’ll do anything other than find a way to ruin her.

It’s a beautiful lie, isn’t it, that they’ll ever mean anything to each other again. A schoolgirl fantasy.

“I was released from Perdido House near dawn. Only a handful of blocks to my haven and I still caught the sun, after being burned during the interrogation and blooded by the hound and having my arm taken off with a blade.”

Almost unconsciously, Celia touches her fingers to the shoulder twice severed.

“Would you have come for me? If I hadn’t made the trade, if I hadn’t gotten out. Would you have come?”

GM: “Actually, I do have something more to say,” replies Roderick.

“Savoy knows where I am.”

“Your spa was bugged by him.”

“He doesn’t trust you. He’s an elder, after all. He doesn’t trust anyone. He and his people overheard every word in Flawless tonight. I wouldn’t be surprised if Princess, Tantal, Rongeur, and who knows what other renfields show up during the middle of the day—or sooner, I suppose. If I were Lebeaux, my first guess would be Roderick is at OXR’s haven, given the conversation between Moore and totally-not-Kalani.”

“I’d bet more than money he knows where it is.”

“Elders do that, you know.”

“Find out where the havens of all the licks in their domains are.”

“They keep records about those havens.”

“I hear it, at the Cabildo meetings. Some lick is a problem? Surprise, the primogen who’s their regent knows where their haven is.”

“Savoy’s job is cut out for him. The Quarter is geographically small. And he has so many eyes and ears.”

“And an entire krewe of licks and their renfields all coming and going from this place?”

“So, saw my head off or leave me for the sun if you’re angry at me. Hell, even just keep me staked here. Savoy’s people will break down the door either way. You clearly bear me ill will to kidnap me, and I doubt Savoy will be willing to risk you killing his oh-so-valuable spy inside the primogen.”

“I’d love to see you try to explain yourself before him.”

“I’ve listened for years to what elders do to licks who threaten their political interests. Maybe you’ll finally get to see just how much an elder Savoy really is, behind the smiles.”

Roderick may finally be wrong there.

Hasn’t she seen that already?

Celia: Celia barks a laugh.

“Yes, Roderick. I definitely thought my krewe’s haven was secret, just like I thought this identity was secret, just like I secretly called Benji from my secret, untapped landline inside my secret office and invited him into the spa through my secret entrance and we secretly smuggled you out.”

“Of course Savoy knows where you are. I know my spa is bugged, I left a trail of neon-blinking breadcrumbs for him to follow. Do you really think that if he was that worried about me threatening his plans I’d have had time to stake you, put my arm back on, call for backup, wait for backup to arrive, and clean the mess we left in the lab? Did you think that I took another identity within his domain without clearing it or that this house on Royal Street was purchased without him knowing?”

She shakes her head.

“This haven has more security than the spa. It’s private. There’s no chance of someone accidentally stumbling across us during the day, and it’s not connected to a lick that is currently meddling in a bunch of hunter shit. That’s why I brought you here. To keep us safe. If I truly wanted to torture or kill you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’m sitting next to you right now in the world outside the mindscape with a plethora of tools that I could use to fuck you over, a detailed plan of exactly how I’d do it, and I’m not.”

She effects a sigh.

“Is that what you’re worried about? That I want to kill you? I don’t. I don’t want you dead. I’ve never wanted you dead. I don’t want to cut off your head or leave you for the sun or keep you staked forever. I’ve been angry and hurt and upset, but I don’t want you dead, and I don’t want to hurt you further.”

“I just… wanted to talk. I wanted to talk without the threat of getting physical, without friends and bugs and hidden knives and worrying about a stake in the chest, when we don’t have people waiting on us.”

“You say you won’t talk to me here, as a prisoner. Okay. I can respect that. I wouldn’t want to either. So here’s what I’m prepared to offer you.”

Celia lays it out for him: he’s got a choice. She can unstake him right now and have him spend the day with her. He’s free to call Savoy or Lebeaux to let them know where he is and that he’s staying of his own volition. He can sleep in a bed, alone, and tomorrow Celia will have Alana provide “breakfast” for the pair of them. She’ll give him back the body parts she stole from his trunk and keep the car safe. She’ll change his face to whatever he needs it to be for the night ahead, no charge. They will talk. Unstaked. No friends. No bugs. No physical altercations. No insults. No lies or tears or manipulations. There’s a lot that she wants to tell him. Things that will help in the nights ahead. Things that will help with Dani. Things that will let him look good to Savoy, if that’s his goal.

Or he can leave. She’ll unstake him without fixing his severed spinal column, break into his mind to steal every secret from his head, and ensure that if he ever comes after her, her family, or any of her interests his Requiem will be thoroughly destroyed before he dies a very, very painful death. Then he’s free to race the sun back to his haven without a car, without the bag of body parts, and with mutually assured destruction on the table.

GM: “You’re incorrect on several counts,” Roderick answers. “Savoy wasn’t personally listening to the bugs. A renfield was. My friends and I were already there to execute his interests, so he didn’t need to listen himself. I doubt he was counting on either of us being foolish enough to end up where we now are. That’s how you got as far as you did. But if you seriously think he’s sanctioning this, you’re in for a surprise. Why the hell would he? What possible benefit is there for him in letting you stake and make off with his precious spy, and what are the all ways that could go wrong for him?”

“And don’t kid yourself. If he wants inside anyplace in the French Quarter, there’s no security that’s keeping his people out.”

Celia: “I never said he sanctioned this.”

“I said that I didn’t try to hide what I was doing from him.”

GM: “Then you’re on borrowed time before you get a stake in your chest just like mine.”

Celia: Celia finally sighs.

“Roderick, I just want to talk. I want to talk without other people listening in and without being afraid that we’re going to get into a physical altercation. Can we do that? Can you give me that? An hour of your time.”

GM: “You should be more scared of Savoy’s people than me right now, Celia. I don’t know if you even have an hour.”

Celia: “I’m not asking for an hour right now. I’m asking for an hour tomorrow. I’m asking for you to stay with me today, let me feed you, let me say what I need to say, and then you never have to talk to me again.”

GM: “Or else you ‘steal every secret from my mind.’ Assuming you’re even capable of doing that—that’s not how star mode works—you’ll be signing your own death warrant there. You think Savoy isn’t going to interrogate you about what you did to me, about what you might have learned from me? You think he’s going to be okay with you knowing all of the Cabildo’s secrets?”

“You ever wonder why you weren’t invited up to that second meeting between him and me?”

Celia: “I don’t want the Cabildo’s secrets. And that is how star mode works, and I can show you like I was planning to with Dani’s sire. One hour. That’s all I’m asking for. If it isn’t worth your time in the end then you can stake me and give me back to Savoy and tell him how I kidnapped you and let him do all the terrible things he wants to me.”

GM: “Leaving aside how that statement is inconsistent with ‘stealing every secret in my head’, it doesn’t fucking matter if you don’t want them, even if that is true. Elders don’t take chances. Elders don’t let anyone know more than they absolutely need to know. If they find out more, if there’s even a chance they’ve found out more, they die. Because even mindfucking someone’s memories isn’t foolproof, not like killing someone is, and neonates are oh so replaceable. I’m replaceable. The only reason Savoy is as invested in me as he is is because replacing me is prohibitively difficult.”

“This isn’t a fucking debate you can win with me. I am literally helpless. It’s out of my hands. I am telling you that Savoy’s people are going to be here, probably sooner than later, and if you follow through on those threats of ransacking through my head, Savoy is going to learn. And then you are going to learn just how utterly ruthless elders can be and just how disposable we are to them. They do not give the benefit of the doubt.”

“That holds just as true for whatever ‘mutually assured destruction’ leverage you have in mind, too. You think Savoy is going to be okay with you having that over his precious primogen spy?”

“Or the severed spinal column, given how I can’t fucking well spy for him if I have a severed spine, now can I?”

He sneers at her.

“I don’t think you thought this through very well, Celia.”

“The simple fact is, you’re less important than I am.”

Celia can tell it in his voice. He does not want to spend the day. He does not want to share “breakfast.” He does not want to talk with her. He does not want her help. He does not want anything to do with her.

He is done with her, and he spits upon anything she would offer him.

Celia: “Jesus Christ, Roderick, I was trying to help you and make amends for fucking up your unlife.”

Celia disappears from the mindscape without waiting for a response. She’s back in the bathroom with his staked, hooded body on the ground in front of her. She yanks off the hood.

“You’re so fucking stubborn,” she snarls at him, “and you’re fucking stupid if you think Savoy wants you for anything more than an ear on the Cabildo. Good luck not getting caught with how much of an asshole you’ve turned into, I’m sure no one is going to notice the change. Makes a lot of fucking sense to blame the girlfriend who lied to you rather than the sire that completely betrayed you, right?”

Jade stalks from the room to find Benji and his two ghouls. She makes sure that Roderick won’t see or smell Gui’s body on the way out, tucking it into an insulated crawl space that leads to one of several hidden rooms in the haven.

Not that it’ll keep Savoy’s men out, right? Why would anything be fucking sacred.

She leads Benji into the bathroom with the ghouls.

“Hold him,” she says to them, “and make sure he doesn’t lose his mind when I unstake him. I’m cutting him loose.”

She flips him over, driving the stake deeper into his chest so she can repair the damage she did to his neck. It’s quick work to fix a single cut, reattaching what she had severed with with her claws. It takes only moments. She flips him again when she’s done, staring down at him with nothing but contempt in her eyes.

“Let’s get something straight, asshole. I never begged you to stay with me, but I went ahead and played possum for you so you could look good in front of your new friends. If you think crying to Savoy is going to do anything when I barely touched you and fixed what I did touch, think again. It took you three licks to replace one of me. Keep that in mind for the future when the snakes get tired of you. And, oh yeah, there’s a reason I lied about what I did tonight, thanks for listening and putting it together with that oh-so-big brain of yours.”

Jade reaches into his coat pocket, yanking out the letter she’d written him. He doesn’t get to keep her confession.

“Stay the fuck out of my Requiem, you spoiled fucking childe. One fucking lie and your whole damn mind broke?” She barks a laugh. “That’s truly pathetic. So is getting bested by a one-armed Toreador when your entire schtick is being able to throw a punch.”

Jade steps back, slinging her array of tools back into her black bag. She heads for the door.

“Take him downstairs and put him out. I’m sick of looking at his face.”

Roderick never gets the satisfaction of saying anything back to her. She makes sure that he’s staked until they release him out front, locking the door behind him.

Good fucking riddance.

---

Monday night, 21 March 2016, AM

Celia: Jade doesn’t bother to watch him go from the window. She turns away and moves back through the haven to find where she’d left Gui’s body before anything else can ruin her night. She locks the door behind her to avoid losing her shit on anyone else in the home.

She’d known. Back at the spa, she’d known. She hadn’t said anything, hadn’t wanted to tip off any bugs, had some hair-brained scheme to put him back together or harvest him for parts or offer him to Dani to become a true-blooded vampire. And Roderick hadn’t listened.

Gui would have been decomposed if they’d managed to kill him. No, they left his head and heart intact despite the damage they had done to the rest of his body, and when she pulls back the blankets to look at his desiccated form she lets herself feel.

Just for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” she says to him. “I tried to fight for you. I lost. I’ve been doing that a lot lately.” She slides to the floor beside his body, pulling his torso onto his lap to cradle him from behind in a mockery of a loving embrace.

“I really did like you,” she murmurs. “I wanted you to take me to Chicago. I wanted to take you to LA. I wanted to meet your sire, and maybe we could have just left NOLA behind.”

Jade tucks a strand of hair behind his ear.

“They tell me there’s no hope for us once we die. That our souls are gone forever. That it’s really, truly final. But necromancers bring them back sometimes. Torture them. Question them. Maybe… maybe it makes me feel better, knowing they can’t do that to you, that the best I can give you is a quick, clean death, and that Dracon—yeah, I agree, real pretentious name—won’t be able to hurt you anymore. He’s right about them coming for me. They’ll kill you anyway if they find you.”

A sanguine drop leaks down her cheek.

“I don’t know how sincere you were about your faith. Perhaps as much as I am. I don’t think we go to Hell, though. I don’t think we burn for eternity, and I don’t think we go into the waters of Ghede.”

“There are so many different versions of the afterlife…”

Jade or Celia or whoever the girl is now sighs. She could have felt something for him. Could have, maybe, if things had…

No. It’s a lie she tells herself, isn’t it? No one can replace the hole that Roderick has left in her heart, and no one can replace the love that she feels for her sire. Pretending otherwise is folly.

“I’m not a priest,” she whispers, “but I know… I know some of how it goes.”

Jade’s teeth cut into her wrist. She brings it to the dead man’s lips to let him feed.

“In the name of Longinus the Dark Prohpet, first among the damned, who pierced Christ’s flank with the Spear of Destiny and was cursed for his sin…”

It doesn’t feel right. None of it feels right. Jade falters.

“This is the Wolf of God who strikes down the sinners of the world…”

She pauses. And then she starts over.

“My blood is not the blood of Longinus. My blood is the blood of Donovan, of Antoine Savoy, of Maria Pascual, of her sire and her sire’s sire, all the way back to He who committed the original sin, the Dark Father above. He has no mercy for us, for those whose bloodlines rose up to slay his childer while they lay sleeping, as he has no mercy for Reynaldo Gui, now in the hour of his death. Sinful are those who are called to his supper. And yet through sin we guide others on the path toward Christ’s light.”

“May you see the sun again, Reynaldo Gui, childe of Ventrue. May you feel the wind upon your face and grass beneath your feet. May you walk into eternity with head held high as any proper leader of the Camarilla. May you find peace in final death that you did not in death.”

“I hope that you shall dance again
beneath the evening sky
under the glow of moonlight
and stars that sparkle bright.

I hope that you shall dance again
even when the skies are black,
when the Lord has turned away
and the devil rides your back.

I hope that you shall dance again
and wait for me past the shroud,
the veil that obscures what waits
beyond the milky clouds.

So dance again, Mr. Gui,
dance again, eternally,
look up at the stars and know
how long ago they ceased to glow
Still they shine in evening skies
Love, like starlight, never dies."

Celia presses a kiss against his lips.

“Amen,” she whispers.

She bites.

GM: It’s similar to last time.

The Ventrue’s blood is considerably… calmer than Roderick’s was, even under the imminent threat to his unlife. That Ventrue stoicism. The stiff upper lip. The blood is cool beyond even the vampire’s room temperature. Classier, somehow, too, than Brujah blood. Tasteful. Epicurean. Born to rulership. It’s odd, though, with how Gui comes from lower-born roots than Roderick. Celia can taste the grime of the streets and the thuggishness of mob life contrasted with the proud and refined flavors of the Kingship Clan. Blue runs their blood indeed. It’s like drinking cheap whiskey in an antique crystal glass. Or maybe a classy decades-old French wine in a common coffee mug. One of those.

Celia drinks it all, then drinks deeper.

There’s no blood running down her throat, now. It’s something deeper. More vital. It’s so pure and powerful as to be liquid fire. It’s heavier than earth and lighter than air. It’s a vein of liquid gold. She feels a burning within her veins, spreading outward from her throat to her entire body. The burning is indescribable: pleasure so sweet it becomes agony, pain so sweet it becomes ecstasy. She hears a sound like a tolling of a great and distant bell, dong, dong, dong. Gui’s horribly conscious-looking face is a mask of agony, his mouth yawning open in silent throat-ripping scream. His eyes are enormous. The Ventrue stoicism collapses as he is possessed by a terror, an all-encompassing panic that nothing can hold at bay. Every part of him is screaming at her, pleading with her, begging her, not to do this, to please not do this, if she ever felt anything for him, to grant him the mercy of a quick death—

Then it explodes through her, like a surge of lightning hitting a tree and setting leaves and wood ablaze. Every cell in her body from her hair follicles to her toenails is rocked with ecstasy, with climax, with countless millions of orgasms all at once, and it’s unbearable and she’s screaming and oh god yes, she wants the moment to last forever, it does last forever, her soul is on fire and she has become transcendent, has become a star in supernova, and she will never go back to mere sex, to mere feeding, not after this. She is Celia Flores, she is Jade Kalani, she is goddess incarnate who gives pleasure and receives pleasure and takes pleasure and knows pleasure undreamed by mortal and immortal alike, and only this pleasure is worthy of her, and all the broken fragments of herself are screaming in her ears too, screaming their ecstasy and hunger and to take this delectable morsel into themselves, they are broken and shattered but he can fill her, rebuild her, she’s not a black hole like Roderick said, even when she takes and takes and takes and takes—

Then like an eager lover’s finally blown seed, the orgasm ends all too quickly. The howling and exultant Beast releases its hold, gorged and bloated past all satiation as it pads back to its lair. When did it take over? Did she really not notice? Jade’s dead lungs are left breathless as she stares down at the corpse in her hands.

The flesh hair and has turned solid white. Ghastly white. Paler even than if it were dunked in flour. She can see the colored veins swimming beneath his skin. ‘Agony’ feels all too inadequate a word to describe the suffering and torment in which he died, suffering that infinitely eclipses what Roderick did to him. Some part of Celia, Jade, and all of the other girls know beyond all certainty:

Reynaldo Gui will never see the sun again.

Reynaldo Gui will never dance again.

Reynaldo Gui has found no peace in death.

If there was an afterlife, Reynaldo Gui has been forever denied it.

If there are souls, if there is an immortal essence that lives past death, if people are more than just sacks of meat and bone and chemical reactions, if there is some precious and vital spark that gives animation and worth and dignity to human existence, Reynaldo Gui’s has been raped, blasted to bits, and utterly obliterated.

She put a pretty face on it.

But it’s hard not to think back to Roderick’s withering scorn and contempt.

You’re the ugliest person I’ve ever known.

Celia: Fuck Roderick.

She’s not thinking about him when she sinks her teeth into Reynaldo. She’s not thinking about him or his abortion of a sister or the plans she had for herself and the Ventrue. She’s not thinking about the bloody tears that stream down her face or how she might have come to feel affection for him, how he could have replaced her ex-lover, how they could have risen high in some other city and he’d have owed her forever with the life boon she could have claimed.

She’s not thinking about it.

She’s trying not to think about it.

But she is.

She’s thinking about everything that could have been but isn’t, thinking about the way he called her lush, how he relaxed beneath her touch, how he said that a pretty lick with a sharp mind is a dangerous combination, how he never disrespected her, never let his ghouls disrespect her…

She’s sobbing by the time it’s over, begging God for forgiveness, begging Gui for forgiveness, begging whoever can hear her that she’s forgiven for the awful, wicked, terrible thing she has done.

She sobs into his chest when it’s done. Physically she feels fantastic. But mentally? Mentally she feels as if she’ll never be clean again. Like she’s done the worst possible thing in the world.

“I’m sorry,” she cries against his chest, “I’m so sorry.”

GM: Her only answer from the ghastly white corpse is silence.

Some apologies, she knows all too well, are too little and too late.

But she can hear Roderick talking to her, even now.

Yeah, I bet you’re sorry. And you keep doing it. You keep destroying lives and saying how sorry you are and how you don’t want to be this person. And you keep. Fucking. Doing it. You’re a black hole, Celia. The ugliest person I’ve ever known.

Celia: She’d tried to help him.

She’d have given Gui to Roderick. To his sister.

She’d thought she was doing the right thing.

Fuck him.

Fuck him and his pretentious ass self. He’s a fucking crybaby.

GM: “Fuck him,” agrees the voice at Celia’s side.

Celia: She doesn’t want to look. But she does.

GM: Its source is the epitome of Clan Toreador’s thoughts on beauty. She is perfectly pulchritudinous, a divine goddess; one could doubtlessly compare her to Aphrodite herself. How many people have fallen to her otherworldly looks? She’s probably never seen in anything less than full glamour: hair, makeup, nails, clothing. Every inch of her is painted, sculpted perfection, from the shade of her foundation to the wing of her eyeliner to the fresh coat of polish on her nails. Her polish does not chip. Her mascara does not run. Her lipstick does not smudge. Everything is in its place.

Her hair is dark and often worn loosely curled or piled atop her head in the latest fashion, her dark eyes framed by long lashes, smoked out shadow, and impeccable liquid liner. Her waist is trim, her cheekbones high, her nose aquiline; all of these features are enhanced by the easy way smiles take to her face. Someone else has probably said of her, “she smiles with her eyes before it ever touches her lips.”

It is easy to see how she has gathered the people around her that she has. Poise, grace, the gentle curving of her lips when she smiles. Some jealous, petty mortals must whisper that she has had work done. But that’s the key to good work, isn’t it? When it’s bad it’s obvious, when it’s good you cannot tell. And Celia cannot tell what, exactly, has happened to make her into this exquisite creature.

Flawless.


A sneer twists the perfect lips.

“You’ve whined about him for long enough.”

“It was really getting quite tiresome.”

Celia: “Fuck off,” Celia snarls. “You ruined everything.”

GM: Jade laughs. It’s a mocking and cruel sound. The laugh of a harpy’s childe.

“Some gratitude. You wouldn’t have made it this far without me and we both know it.”

Celia: “Are you happy now that we’re alone?”

“One ghoul. Plus Diana. Our friend murdered by our own hand.”

“No word from Andi or Tyrell in weeks. Lover lost. Grandsire pissed.”

GM: “Yes, you’ve made a real mess of things,” declares Jade. She smirks and starts playing with Gui’s hair.

“Messy. Sloppy. Blubbering. Pathetic. All wearing my face.”

Jade’s voice is a dangerous breath in Celia’s ear.

“Maybe I should take it away, if you’re not up to wearing it. Call it copyright infringement. Defamation. Impersonation. Making me look bad.”

“Because if there’s one thing I positively can’t stand, darling, it’s looking bad.”

Celia: “I don’t want to be pathetic,” Celia admits. “How do I fix it?”

GM: Jade takes Celia’s face and tilts it up to meet hers. She looms down over the kneeling girl with her lover’s husk still wrapped under her arms. When did she stand up?

“You need to stop confusing things.”

“You need to stop confusing who you’re supposed to be.”

“When Jade’s face is on, Jade occupies the body. Not Celia.”

“When Celia’s face is on, Celia occupies the body. Not Jade.”

“Is this making sense, darling?”

Celia: Celia nods her head.

“What about Roderick? Do we just let him go? He knows too much. And he thinks Grandsire is going to hurt us.”

GM: Jade smiles and touches Celia’s lips with a perfectly manicured nail. It’s not a demure smile. It’s a challenging smile. It’s an ‘I know better’ smile.

“Shhh.”

“One thing at a time, Celia.”

“Not finishing things. Not keeping things in their proper place.”

“That’s sloppy.”

Her voice is a low breath in Celia’s ear again.

“I don’t do sloppy.”

“We were talking about how you keep confusing ourselves.”

“That is now at an end.”

“Finished. Over. Like last year’s fashion lines.”

“I can teach you something.”

“A little trick.”

“A power of the Blood.”

“It will ensure we keep things separate.”

“No more spillover.”

Celia: “No more confusion. No more mixups.”

GM: Jade smiles. It’s still challenging. Haughty. Arrogant. But content.

“Exactly.”

“There is a trade involved. Nothing is free.”

“You must admit it.”

“You must admit that you are weaker than me. That you need my help. That I’m the only one us who can survive in the masked city, who can swim with the sharks, who can be the Bitch so you can stay the Beauty, and that you should really stay out of things that are out of your depth.”

“Can you do that, Celia?”

“For me?”

She cups her hands around Celia’s face and tilts it up again to meet hers.

“For us?”

Celia: Slowly, Celia nods her head.

She’s tired of the spillover. Tired of licks meeting Celia and getting the wrong idea about Jade. She wants to keep them separate. They need to be separate.

“Yes,” Celia says to the alter. “I can do that. I do need you. I’ve always needed you. I need you to be the one to engage with the licks so it stops getting twisted. You’re stronger than me. I need you.”

GM: “That’s just what I like to hear,” says Jade in an almost cooing voice, like to a child.

Celia feels the burdens fall from her shoulders like so many rocks and pebbles, leaving her free to stand tall. Less than, but unencumbered. Less than, but knowing better.

“Let’s teach it to you now, pet. Hand to face, repeat after me. You know the movements. Now, faster!”

Jade’s flesh warps and shifts beneath her touch. The alter’s hands sculpt the flesh like putty, rearranging the devastatingly beautiful features into Celia’s more muted ones.

Celia: Hand to face. Jade’s hands first. Then Celia’s.

“Back to Jade?”

GM: “Yes, back to Jade’s,” Jade-to-Celia repeats impatiently.

Celia: It’s a familiar dance of fingers across her face. Muted becomes vibrant. Soft becomes hard. Everything sharpens. The base is already beautiful, but it is never as predatory or devastating as the mask.

Celia becomes Jade.

GM: It hurts, like always.

“Now, back! Faster!” exclaims Jade. Her fingers tug and twist the softly beautiful face. Flesh runs like warm silly putty back into the devastating mask. Jade becomes Celia.

The alter’s hand slaps her across the face. The blow stings. She feels the face’s flesh turn and angry red. Jade’s face. Jade’s face on Celia who is Jade. Whose face?

“Faster!”

Celia: Faster, Celia does as asked. It hurts. It might always hurt. But if she and Jade are on the same side then the discomfort is worth it. Right? Same side. Same body.

Same face? Someone’s face is red. Someone to someone. She’s looking at Jade. She turns herself into what she sees.

She’s always been good at that.

GM: Jade-who-becomes-Celia leads Celia-who-becomes-Jade through a grueling round of facial alteration after alteration after alteration. Jade to Celia, Celia to Jade. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Faster. Faster. Faster. Her (which her?) face screams with agony. She (Celia? Jade?) makes Celia (Jade?) do it with only one hand. Then four fingers. Then three. Then two. Then just one. The boundaries between self and other collapse like a liar’s hastily spun lies under Roderick’s relentless questioning. The self is mutable. There is no self. The self is clay. Jade, Celia, which is which? She focuses on the words. Jade’s (Celia’s?) and Celia’s (Jade’s?) face sneering at, belittling her, telling her how weak she is, how pathetic, how she’s she so sloppy, how she’s getting it all wrong, how she (which?) is making her do this, is making her step in, is making her set things right, because she has no boundaries, what she really needs is Jade’s (Jade’s! Just Jade’s!) firm hand, to tell her how things are done, to stop being so damn sloppy—

“Stop,” commands the alter. The one with Jade’s face.

“Look at my face.”

“Look at our face.”

“They are one.”

“Mirror me.”

The flesh warps and rearranges back into Celia’s face. No hands or fingers fly across skin this time.

“Mirror me, pet. Just one more time.”

“No hands.”

“You can do it.”

“You saw me do it.”

“There is no you. There is no me. There’s just we.”

“You already did it. This is your face, isn’t it?” asks the mouth moving on Celia’s face.

“We already did it.”

“One more time.”

“Mirror me.”

Celia: Mirror me.

She’s good at that. So good at that.

It doesn’t take hands, not anymore. It doesn’t take touch, not anymore. It doesn’t take an hour of looking into a mirror or a burst of speed or excruciating pain every time she goes through it. She simply wants to be and she is.

She mirrors.

Like water, the flesh of her face ripples and changes, pliable and flexible and moving, moving on its own, moving into position, moving from Celia to Jade with a steel spine and sharp smile, moving from Jade to Celia with a softer kind of acceptance and soulful eyes, moving like the ripples on a pond from a sudden gust of wind, like the waves in the ocean with their constant ebb and flow, like the breeze that cares not one whit for order and structure because when it blows it moves—

She’s Jade.

She’s Celia.

She’s Jade.

She’s Celia.

She’s laughing, mirroring, laughing, mirroring, both of them.

GM: “Oh, this is delightful!” exclaims Jade-who-becomes-Celia-but-stops-at-Jade. Her hands meet Celia-who-becomes-Jade-but-stops-at-Celia with every shift of their faces, with every swap of identities. Like they’re playing patty cake with each other. Celia, Jade, Celia, Jade. Back and forth. The flesh is fluid. Even it now bends to their mental masks.

“See, telling you to mirror. You’re good at that. We’re good at that. And I was mirroring too, by telling you that. Playing to my audience.”

Celia: “We’re good at that,” Celia-Jade-Celia says with a laugh and toss of her hair. “We’re so very good at that. We’ll play them all, won’t we.”

GM: “Yes,” replies Jade-Celia-Jade with that steel-spined sharp smile. “Yes, we will. All of them.”

She looks at Gui’s corpse.

“We can play him, too.”

“He’s causing you such distress, isn’t he, darling? Making you feel so bad about yourself.”

Celia: “I thought we could be friends. Now I wonder what might have been.”

GM: “I don’t think about might-have-beens,” sneers Jade-Celia-Jade, steel-spined Jade. “It’s always on to the next new thing for me. So Gui’s dead. Cry me a fucking river!”

Celia: Celia-Jade-Celia wishes she didn’t focus on might-have-beens. Wishes she could pull off the sneer she sees in the mirror. But her lips are softer lips, fuller lips, made for kissing and whispering and smiling.

GM: “I can absolve you.”

Celia: Celia-Jade-Celia looks from the corpse to her mirror.

“Absolve me? How.”

GM: “Because that’s what I am, Celia. I’m the bad guy.”

“I’m the one who can eat his soul and not lose sleep over it.”

“Give him to me, honey. Give him to me and you will be absolved and blameless of this sin.”

“Whole thing will have been my idea.”

“I’ll have carried it all out.”

“His death will be on my hands alone.”

Celia: “You’d gain what we took. Not me. Like the steel.” Celia-Jade-Celia looks to Gui’s corpse, then back to Jade-Celia-Jade for confirmation.

GM: “Smart girl,” smirks Jade-Celia-Jade.

Celia: She beams at the praise.

“And if I’m me, and you’re you, and you’re the one to blame, then even if I wear your face and am still me no one will know. We slip beneath the radar, trading out.”

GM: “That’s an interesting idea,” muses Jade-Celia-Jade. She taps a perfectly manicured, claw-like nail to her lip.

“Yes. I could see it.”

“You should give me the memory of it, too, if we want to be really thorough. Celia doesn’t need to know such awful things, does she?”

Celia: “I did it earlier,” Celia-Jade-Celia confesses to Jade-Celia-Jade. “Twice tonight.”

“The other mobster. I’ve taken out more of them than Durant.” She giggles.

GM: “I know, honey. I know,” says Jade-Celia-Jade, wrapping an arm around Celia-Jade-Celia’s shoulder. “I can take him off your hands too.”

“I can be the bad guy in this, that, anything.”

“I’ll still get to gloat about it to Roderick, of course. How much better we are than him at eradicating the Mob.”

“I’m better than you at gloating anyway.”

Celia: “We still need to remove Agnello,” Beauty says to the Bitch. “Imagine what we could gain from him. Pets. Bone work. Mesmerism. Perhaps we should start with his childe, the useless sack of hair and fat. Or one of the ugly ones he runs with… Or a snake, I’d love to gut that Melton bitch or redhead and gorge myself on their vitae.”

Celia-Jade-Celia trails off. Her smile is sharp, though it doesn’t compete on the same field as that of Jade-Celia-Jade’s. It’s the sharpness of a girl who gets to play a girl, the sharpness of a wolf who cuts the throat of a sheep and wears its fur to pass among the flock.

“Then Durant, when grandsire has no more use for him. We’ll take him too. Maybe we’ll tell him, right before it happens. How he was led so easily down this path, how he fell for the manipulations and strings our grandsire tugged. We’ll whisper it into his ear right before he dies, won’t we.”

“But first you take them. You take them all.”

GM: Jade-Celia-Jade laughs with delight and claps her hands.

“Oh, Celia! You aren’t half-bad at this. Not at all. I’m going to be fantasizing about that, every second I don’t control the body. The look on his face. I think I’d want to keep him staked again, after we tell him. Let it really sink in. Let him stew and agonize over it for hours, how he betrayed ‘sun shines out of her ass’ Coco for absolutely nothing. Then we’d drink his soul too—why not, after all? We could take those big brains of his. Put them to better use.”

She brushes a stray hair from Celia-Jade-Celia’s face.

“But it’s no surprise you aren’t half-bad at this. I came from you, didn’t I?”

“The blueprint was already there.”

Celia: Celia-Jade-Celia giggles.

“Make him stew. Oh, yes. Perhaps we’ll take that thin-blood from him too. You know we almost offered him the secret of this, let him make her a real lick. What a waste. What a waste that would have been. Neither of them can do what we can no matter how far down the road he thinks he’s going. He’s weak.”

“But we’re not.” Beauty clasps the Bitch’s hands in her own. “We’re not. He wanted to take things from us? To cleave us in half, separate us forever, assume control of all our belongings? Oh, no. Oh no, no, no. He’ll learn.”

“Do it,” Celia-Jade-Celia says to Jade-Celia-Jade. “Do it. Take it. I’ll play the innocent, you’ll play the mastermind.”

GM: Jade-Celia-Jade doesn’t giggle like Celia-Jade-Celia does when she giggles. It’s not a coquettish sound. It’s the Bitch playing the Beauty for a moment and finding amusement in it.

“No. We’re not. And I’ll never let that happen, Celia. Not so long as I’m in control of the body. Roderick won’t ever hurt you again.” She pulls the Beauty’s hands to her breast like they’re something precious. “He’ll have to go through me. You are safe now. You are safe from him. You are safe from everything. So long as I’m here. I’ll take care of all the bad things. I’ll be the bad thing, so you can be the good girl.”

She releases Celia-Jade-Celia’s hands and spreads her arms wide.

“Give them to me, Celia. Both of them. I’ll take care of them.”

Celia: Safe. She’s safe. Safe with Jade-Celia-Jade. Safe with this part of her that protects her, that does the bad things, that looks out for their best interests. They’re not in competition anymore. They’re the same.

Celia-Jade-Celia doesn’t know how to give the alter what she’s done. How does she hide memories? How does she deny what she stole?

But it’s like another mask, isn’t it? Severing part of herself. Celia-Jade-Celia closes her eyes, searching inside of herself for the pieces and parts Jade-Celia-Jade wants. They’re easy to find, aren’t they? Things she stole from someone else. Liquid gold. Ecstasy. Diamonds in the veins. Diamonds in her chest. Diamonds in her heart. Unimaginable pleasure that made her gasp and cry and find sweet, sweet release.

Her hands sweep her body an inch above her skin. It’s energy, that’s all it is. Energy work that she’s going to give to the other part of her. Her hands move and the magic gathers beneath her fingertips, coalescing into a golden globule that pulses with alternating colors: crimson, for the rage of the Brujah; navy, for the blue-blooded Ventrue; white, for the girl who gives them up to retain her innocence, and gray for the steel from her spine.

Then green.

Green for Jade. A hundred different shades of green that writhe with the energy it contains: mint and green and emerald, Castleton and cadmium and hunter. It’s the green of grass, the green of an alligator’s scaly back, the green of the leaves in a tropical rainforest. It whirls and throbs and dances between her hands as she pours into it, giving up the memories, the knowledge, the trauma, the might-have-beens.

Celia-Jade-Celia presses the orb into Jade-Celia-Jade.

She gives it up.

GM: Gives up what?

She doesn’t remember.

There’s nothing in her hands.

No globule of energy with its shimmering colors and-

No, there’s nothing.

But she has a very good feeling about that.

She feels lighter. Like there’s a weight off her shoulders. Like she can sleep, if not soundly, then at least sounder.

She thinks she made a very good decision. Whatever it was.

Jade-Celia-Jade smiles. There’s always challenge in her smiles, fangs and steel behind the curvature of her full lips. But she looks pleased.

“Good girl,” she purrs, stroking Celia-Jade-Celia’s cheek.

Celia: Celia-Jade-Celia did good. She doesn’t know what she did, but she certainly feels like it was good. She smiles with the wide-eyed sincerity of an innocent.

GM: “That dreadful sun is already up,” Jade-Celia-Jade says with a tsk, glancing away. “I have to go now, Celia. I’ll take control of the body. Benji and his renfields can’t know Celia.”

She smirks and traces a finger along Celia-Jade-Celia’s lips.

“Don’t be a stranger.”

Celia: “Thank you,” Celia-Jade-Celia says to her counterpart. She doesn’t know what for, only that the Bitch has come to protect the Beauty.

She’s in good hands.

---

Previous, by Narrative Story Thirteen, Celia XXVIII
Next, by Narrative: Story Thirteen, Celia XXX

Previous, by Character: Story Thirteen, Celia XXVIII
Next, by Character: Story Thirteen, Celia XXX

“You have no idea how long it’s been since I was able to have a reasonable discussion with your sire and his confidants.”
Antoine Savoy

---

Thursday night, 17 March 2016, PM

GM: Caroline’s mother takes her to the LaLaurie House at the agreed-upon time. Her only smiled response to the nature off her daughter’s business is that it’s “prudent to keep lines of conversation open.” Simmone accompanies her, like always. The half-asleep 10-year-old looks content merely to lie against their mother’s breast. The faceless driver, silent as ever, conveys them to their destination.

Abélia pays little heed to Ferris’ plans. They drive past the Garden District’s glorious old homes, through the CBD’s skyscrapers, past Canal Street, and down along Royal. They pass by hotels and tourist attractions, past the front doors of the Evergreen itself, and then finally the more residential portion of the Quarter where the LaLaurie House sits. No one attempts to waylay the Devillers’ black car.

Caroline: Caroline knew her mother would provide transportation without need for all the chaos and risk of Ferris’ own. Just as she’s confident in their ability to remove themselves from the Quarter when the time comes.

GM: The house on 1140 Royal Street, the same street as Antoine Savoy’s own center of power, stands out little amidst its neighbors. Second-generation Creole architecture. Plain gray gray walls. Delicate iron work along the gallery’s (balcony’s) railings. Potted green plants there, like every gallery in the Quarter seems to have. Tall for when it was built at three stories.


The driver parks the car and silently opens the door for his mistress. She emerges, Simmone held close to her breast, smiling widely at the sight of the house. Her dark eyes are wide and hungry as they drink it in.

The house’s iron gate silently swings open, admitting the three Devillers and their servant into a deep, white portal that leads to the front door. Rain dully patters against iron as the gilded bars clang ominously shut behind them. The feeling is not unlike stepping inside an airlock—entering a source of contamination that must be quarantined from the outside world.


But tonight it may also feels like a place of refuge for Caroline, delineating an invisible line where her mother’s power begins—and which all other powers must overcome.


Two urns sit by the front door, along with a panel carving of Apollo in his chariot. The faceless man turns the knob. The door swings slowly open on silent hinges.


Caroline: The Ventrue proceeds into the damned place without fear or hesitation. In many ways it’s like being enfolded in her mother’s arms, if less fully than in their other home.

She knows of the damned history of this place and cannot help but wonder if it was once her mother’s home in the past…

GM: The house’s interior is almost pitch dark. It smells mostly like it did last time. Clean and fresh, but now faintly of her mother’s perfume too. Violet, cool, and creamy. An iron-railed, winding stair (“said the spider to the fly”) ascends from the checkered marble floor to the house’s second story. Two further doors on the staircase’s left and right lead deeper into the home’s unseen recesses.

“The living room should be sufficient for your purposes, my dear,” smiles her mother, stroking the back of her head with one hand. She carries a slumbering Simmone in her other arm against her hip.

“May Fortuna bless your endeavor.”

Caroline: “I’m happier accepting your blessing in it, Mother. I don’t know know what to expect.”

GM: “What comes will come, my dear,” her mother replies serenely. “Yet whatever comes, you may face it without fear. There is little that may harm or eavesdrop upon you within this place while I yet draw breath.”

With that final benediction, she withdraws into the gloom. Caroline settles in to wait. The living room looks much as it did last time. It’s tastefully decorated with delicate rococo furniture, persian rugs, classical artwork, and a ponderously ticking grandfather clock. Some family pictures constitute new additions. Caroline is in them. She looks around middle school, high school, and college age, respectively.

The Ventrue does not wait overlong, however, before she hears the sound of the front door closing, all-too audible to her hyper-sensitive ears. Two pairs of footsteps. One is thick, heavy, and near-silent. The other is the telltale click-click-click of a woman’s high heels.

Mélissaire Larieux rounds the corner, along with the faceless driver.


Caroline: Visit himself, eh?

Caroline is terribly amused when she hears the heels coming down the hall, long before Mélissaire comes into view. She wonders if he would have come himself, would have visited, if Caroline had invited him to the Giani Building. It amuses her to think he might be scared of her mother. That he might be right to be.

GM: The long-haired, comely-faced, and full-lipped quadroon ghoul shoots Caroline a wide smile as she bends to kiss the Ventrue’s hand.

“Miss Malveaux-Devillers, it’s been far too long,” she greets in a distinctly male-sounding voice. One rather like Antoine Savoy’s.

“My sincerest congratulations upon your new family. These past months have been very hard for you. I can only imagine how much happiness your new mother and sisters have brought into your Requiem.”

‘Her’ smiling eyes don’t once leave Caroline’s.

Caroline: “Mr. Savoy, the charmer as always.”

And the deceiver. The manipulator. The plotter and conniver. How coincidental it was that Mélissaire was so quick to answer the phone when she needed her. That Lebeaux was so readily available to support her.

Many fools call her sire a tyrant and a monster as they gather close around the Lord of the French Quarter and his honeyed words. But she knows well his plots can be just as cruel, vicious, manipulative, and deadly as any justice or decree her sire might enforce.

“You truly do know how to make a girl feel welcome and desired. I was very flattered by the invitation to meet again. I hope it has not unduly inconvenienced you.”

GM: Mélissaire releases Caroline’s hand and sits down on the couch, crossing one leg over the other and casually extending her arms over the couch’s back. Despite the male voice, the ghoul’s body language still feels distinctly feminine.

“It’s an easy enough thing to make a desirable girl feel desired, my dear. She’s already done all of the heavy lifting,” Savoy winks.

“But on the contrary! Such a meeting is all-too convenient. You have no idea how long it’s been since I was able to have a reasonable discussion with your sire and his confidants. He is, shall we say, disinclined towards dialogue.”

Caroline: Despite knowing him for the liar and flatterer that he is, it’s hard to ignore the Lord of the French Quarter’s charm. She smiles.

“I’d characterize it by your natures,” Caroline agrees. “You, raised at court amid beautiful lies and intrigue, and he on the battlefield amid ugly truths and a rather more direct answers to most problems.”

“Fire and water, really, one destroying everything in its path, the other taking whatever shape best fits.”

GM: Savoy grins.

“Poetry like that makes me think the Rose Clan lost out by not Embracing you, Miss Malveaux-Devillers.”

Caroline: “Many have missed the ship, I’m afraid. I’ll be very amused to watch them realize it,” Caroline answers with a very vicious grin.

GM: The French Quarter lord’s own remains just as wide.

“You and I both, my dear. You and I both.”

“But I think you’re more than content with the ship you’re on, too. The scepter suits you better than the rose.”

Caroline: “They both have their merits,” Caroline replies. “We don’t really change who were are. At least, I couldn’t. Not that I didn’t appreciate the extremely flattering bid the roses made. I cannot imagine very many have received that much attention, or seen that much effort. It was very compelling.”

Right up until it wasn’t.

GM: Another smile.

“It’s an easy thing to make compelling offers to compelling recipients, too, my dear. Or perhaps not so easy! That mine failed clearly indicates one or the other was insufficiently compelling, and I’m quite certain it wasn’t the recipient,” he winks.

“But I’m not one to dwell on the past, beyond what lessons I can take to prepare for the future.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk with you about tonight, Miss Malveaux-Devillers—the future. Your future.”

Caroline: A light laugh. “I’m grateful the Toreador bid came form someone self-assured enough not to hold a grudge.”

GM: Savoy smiles and makes a languidly waving motion, as if to bat aside a fly.

“It’s as I said when we last spoke, my dear. Politics go so much smoother, and so many more opportunities open up, when one doesn’t take things personally.”

“But as to the future and its opportunities. By my estimate, the future others intend for you is as a figurehead to Seneschal Maldonato, once your sire enters his sleep. And perhaps other elders.” Mélissaire strokes her chin in seeming thought. “Is this the future you hope to achieve?”

Caroline: It’s an interesting contrast, the feminine body language with the elder’s mannerisms.

“That would certainly be a very conventional hand off of power,” Caroline concedes.

“It makes some very interesting assumptions about the state of the city when he goes off to his rest, however. I think so many of you misjudge him, my sire, in believing that he might be worn down, harried into exhaustion. He will not lay down his crown or his sword so long as there is work to be done. They tempt him not with rest with each provocation, but with wrath.”

GM: “A lion can be most dangerous when he is most wounded,” Savoy concurs. “Is that the future you envision, my dear, that your sire lays low his greatest threats before he takes his rest?”

Caroline: “I think it the most likely outcome along the current path,” Caroline grants.

“Though it is not yet clear to me who those threats are.”

GM: Savoy smiles.

“I’ll offer you some advice, my dear. Those of us who survive eternity don’t make gambles—or at least fair ones. We never bet on a single horse.”

Caroline: “Wisdom,” the Ventrue agrees.

“I believed, you know, for some time that the two of you might not be at such crossed purposes as many supposed.”

GM: “Classic shell game?” he grins. “Pick a shell, any shell, the ball is up the confidence man’s sleeve the whole time?”

Caroline: She laughs. “Oh, that might be a New Orleans classic, but I imagined nothing so crass.”

“More that anyone who would place a crown upon their brow must know the first response, as certain as any rule in physics, must be the rise of an opposition.”

She tilts her head. “Better someone you could tolerate, perhaps with a dash of the enemy you know. Not everyone plays by the same civilized rules.”

“The piece many forget this night and others. There are as many who would flip the board as play to win.”

GM: “Better the devil you know, if the devil is unavoidable,” Savoy concurs.

“Your sire and I aren’t working together, as you’ve aptly deduced. The Sanctified are a house divided. But perhaps, once the prince takes his rest, and with the seneschal willing, we could again become one undivided.”

Caroline: Caroline gives an amused but skeptical look.

“Is that what you wish?” she asks in turn.

GM: The French Quarter lord smiles and shrugs. “It’s one of many futures I’ve turned over. It’s one of a smaller but not insignificant number I find acceptably conductive to my goals and interests.”

“Your sire’s torpor makes possible many futures that weren’t previously on the table, my dear. Perhaps you’ve turned over some in your head as well. It’s a favored pastime at Elysium these nights, though many Kindred are limited by small vision. Many Kindred lack the perspective and imagination to realize just how different the New Orleans of the future could look.”

Caroline: He’s not wrong, though she suspects few have considered the scope of the destruction they might cause, and the outside forces that would invite.

“Respectfully, I find playing second fiddle in that unified Sanctified to be a role that would ill suit you.”

GM: Savoy chuckles.

“Astutely observed, my dear. Yes, if I was content to play second fiddle, I could have kissed your sire’s ring long ago.”

Caroline: “I could see it happening, but I expect it would require some significant external force. A threat, to remind many of us how much more alike we are than different.”

Not unlike Republicans and Democrats there.

GM: “There were some Kindred who hoped Katrina might be that force. That the storm would change the game forever—wipe out the Baron and drive the Sanctified back together.” He chuckles again. “But that’s exactly the problem with threats of such magnitude. Too hard to control. Too many variables and unintended consequences to predict.”

He winks. “Too much trouble for any unity-minded Kindred to orchestrate, usually.”

“For my part, the nights of being content with a primogen seat and recognized regency are long past. But I’ve always prided myself on my flexible thinking. The raison d’etre for the Sanctified’s present conflict, the desire for one Kindred or the other to be prince, would be defused if Maldonato and I were to simply rule together.”

Caroline: And where exactly would that leave me? Caroline doesn’t ask.

“One can hardly blame you for setting your sights higher. You’ve enjoyed uninterrupted success of late,” she instead agrees.

“There are so many of late though that would be prince. I’m afraid many are going to end up disappointed no matter the outcome.” She puts the slightest inflection on the word.

This game is, after all, played for keeps.

GM: “I imagine my childe would be most disappointed of all,” smiles Savoy. “He’s the closest to the throne, after the Baron and I, and certainly wants it rather more than Cimitière.”

Caroline: “The great enigma to everyone,” Caroline quips, “though perhaps less so to you?”

She doesn’t believe it for a moment. She smiles.

“He did not seem terribly enthusiastic to discover my lineage. Though, oddly, he did not seem especially surprised either.”

GM: “It is so much easier to spill a secret than to keep one. My childe couldn’t have picked a better time to know this one, though, with the poor bishop’s disappearance.”

“If I were him, I would pin the blame on you for the deed.”

Caroline: “What an immensely unpleasant idea,” Caroline scowls. “Surely you wouldn’t suggest that his ambition might cloud his desire for justice, would you?”

GM: “It makes sense when you think about it. I know my people aren’t the reason he’s disappeared. The Baron is the next-most obvious culprit, but that story rings hollow too—most of the recent conflicts have been between my people and your sire’s. Killing Malveaux draws the Baron back into the fray when he has every reason to be happy with the status quo of his enemies fighting each other.”

“So that leads me to believe Malveaux’s final death served an individual rather than factional purpose. Enter Caroline Malveaux-Devillers as the bishop’s killer. He was the strongest ally of her greatest rival, and her previous bad blood with him is known among the Ventrue.”

Savoy grins. “It’s a convincing story, isn’t it? It’d definitely be my first choice as the sheriff.”

Caroline: “Perhaps to an outsider,” Caroline smiles. “But it’s well known among the city’s Ventrue that the bishop and I buried our differences some time ago, and with my imminent acknowledge by my sire, what reason would I have to risk that, tear down my sire’s allies, and rip out the newly-growing relationship with the bishop all at once?”

GM: “I would venture ample reason, for a panoply of reasons.”

Savoy winks.

“Burying the hatchet is exactly the thing I’d have done before killing him, too.”

Caroline: Caroline gives a fluttering laugh when the Toreador elder observes it’s the same thing he would have done.

“I suppose I shall take that as a compliment.”

GM: The French Quarter lord smiles. “Don’t worry, my dear. Any accusations from me will seem like obvious smears. I have no credibility in your sire’s eyes. It’s the sheriff I’d be afraid of. He’ll surely bring evidence, real or manufactured, to back up his accusations.”

“It’s very inconvenient. I don’t think he’d be inclined to support—and has every reason to sabotage—any kind of deal between myself and Maldonato, given his desire to be prince. He has every reason to want you dead even if he’s not able to pin the bishop’s death on you. That would just be my first strategy, if I were him.”

Caroline: The laughter dies away as he continues more soberly.

Real or manufactured. He’s fishing.

“I wouldn’t be so bold as to claim that I can ‘deal’ with the sheriff, but that outcome was foreseen. It’s fortunate there are such other compelling perpetrators.”

GM: “There are,” Savoy nods. “The truth of who did the deed is immaterial, next to who can tell the most compelling story, and who makes its most compelling villain. I’ve already had a few candidates in mind.”

“Perhaps we might help each other where that and the problem posed by the sheriff are concerned.”

Caroline: “Oh?”

The thought is intriguing. Dangerous, but intriguing.

“Is there another particularly compelling narrative?”

GM: “There’s always the Baron. The threat he poses grows every night.”

Savoy smiles.

“Or perhaps the sheriff himself.”

Caroline: She smiles, knowing the first answer is a shallow cover for the second.

He always has known just what to dangle in front of her.

“What an idea.” She raises an almost sultry eyebrow.

“What ever might the sheriff have to gain by the death of the bishop?”

GM: “Something practical, it would have to be,” Savoy muses, stroking Mélissaire’s chin. “Crimes of passion are out of character for him.”

“Evidence of treachery on the bishop’s behalf, and support of another would-be prince. Or the advancement of his childe’s fortunes. Someone will need to take over as bishop.”

“Or both.”

“Do any other motivations occur to you, my dear?”

Caroline: “Oh, what of the rumors the bishop was increasingly close to Ms. Malveaux-Devillers, on the eve of her recognition by her sire?”

GM: “Mmm. Can your clanmates corroborate those?”

Caroline: “Verily,” Caroline answers.

GM: Mélissaire raises an eyebrow.

Caroline: “Better to replace the bishop than to risk him flipping. Especially when he can so powerfully influence the next choice. Someone more malleable, more reliable for him, more tied to him.”

GM: “Doriocourt, then. The basic story is plausible enough. All that’s necessary is to manufacture physical proof. So much the better if Wright or Angello are the ones to locate it. Their first loyalties are to the prince.”

“Do you still have his ashes or clothes?”

Caroline: Caroline places a hand over her mouth in shock. “Surely you’re not suggesting that I actually had anything to do with his murder.”

GM: “I know someone who can fix them and plant psychic misimpressions. They’ll be a smoking gun to anyone’s inspection but the seneschal’s, and may fool even his.”

The French Quarter lord looks largely past innuendo.

“We’ll plant other corroborating evidence, of course. A frame-up should never rely on just one piece to come together. But like Louis at court, one object must be the sun around which all others rotate.”

Caroline: “How about you turn over the devices you seized from Claire’s room?” Caroline suggests.

“How’s this for a narrative: hunters turned over by eager loyal childe to be disposed of, used by conniving sheriff to rip out the heart of the archdiocese?”

“And to wit, weren’t we just hearing about how he was beginning to learn the basics of blood sorcery? I suspect he’ll display far more aptitude than night be expected in such a short time.”

She covers her mouth. “In fact, isn’t abnormal prowess much of his claim to success, from his first nights? Surely you chose very well your childe, that his blood is so potent and his prowess so advanced.”

GM: Savoy grins. “I’ve never been accused of choosing poorly with Donovan. Only too well.”

“But I’ll propose a trade, my dear. Your former mother’s devices in return for the bishop’s remains.”

Caroline: Which, even if she had them, would be saturated in her own aura. It would be a permanent piece he could hold on the board, a long-term card to be played against her at any time to extract a concession.

GM: “Mmm. Somehow my hunch is that’s a no. Can’t blame a Kindred for trying,” Savoy chuckles.

“Unfortunately, those pieces of evidence also are smoking guns, and at least one smoking gun will be required to make your sire remove the sheriff. He’s too useful and too important to remove based on hearsay or circumstantial evidence. The frame-up job will need to be flawless. Is there another smoking gun we might plant?”

Caroline: Caroline’s eyes glitter. “I think you know there is.”

“But I suspect you have something else in mind for that particular piece on the board.”

GM: “I don’t, in fact, my dear. We elders don’t have every scheme plotted in advance, you know,” Savoy winks. “Eternity favors improvization as much as foresight.”

Caroline: “Certainly. I imagine too existence could be quite boring if you’d see me coming,” Caroline baits.

“But I cannot but suspect you know exactly what sorts of indiscretions your childe has gotten up to.”

GM: Savoy offers a wide grin.

Caroline: “Laying that aside, though, how about a witness that can testify to his active direction of hunters against pillars of the prince?”

GM: “Yes, that might well do it. Especially if they haven’t had their memories tampered with. That’s the first trick I’d suspect if I was him.”

Caroline: “Framing him for something he probably did. The novelty of it,” Caroline muses.

GM: The French Quarter lord’s grin remains in place.

“Warden Lebeaux will contact you to coordinate the details.”

“Your mother’s house seems as good a place as any to do that.”

Caroline: “Better than most,” Caroline laughs happily.

She lets the silence hang for a moment.

“Who is he, really?” she finally asks, having skirted the topic.

GM: “A missed opportunity, alas, in the end. He could have been the sharpest arrow in my quiver.”

“One of the reasons I think your sire was so eager to take him in was to make me experience some measure of the embarrassment and betrayal he’d suffered himself.”

Caroline: “Oh,” Caroline muses, “I think he’ll teach all of us a different kind of lesson before he’s through.”

GM: “Someone will need to fill his shoes after he’s gone.” Savoy smiles. “The sheriff’s, not just the prince’s. I’m picturing a new Guard de Ville. Doriocourt is too loyal to her sire, and Agnello is too unstable, if his recent outburst is anything to go by—those sorts of problems tend to get worse rather than better. I’m seeing a Hound Wright, Hound Lebeaux, Hound Ferris—I’m sure his Embrace isn’t a new idea—led by a Sheriff Malveaux-Devillers. Preferring cunning investigation to crude beatdowns, but more than capable of delivering those too, when necessary. They’d be underestimated at first, for their youth, but I have a feeling they’d turn that around in very short order.”

The Toreador grins.

“A new brand of law for a new age.”

Caroline: “Truly you’re an icon of your clan with the poetic symmetry to such an idea,” Caroline admits. “I’ll remember the offer, presuming it is an open one. I’m not quite ready to cash in my own chips yet, you understand.”

GM: “More earned, my dear, than open. Were you to help realize a future with a united Sanctified, and convince the seneschal of my proposal’s merits, rich rewards would be only your due.”

“Were you to be of more limited assistance in realizing one of my preferred futures, then more limited rewards would be your due, and the job would go to someone else. Everyone in my court gets what they earn.”

Caroline: “We’ll have to see what the future holds, then,” Caroline smirks. “I don’t think I’d be half as intriguing to you if I said yes to that idea tonight.”

GM: “A word of advice there, my dear. You have a tendency to fence-sit. It closes more doors than it leaves open,” Savoy winks.

“I am always open to making deals. For tonight, I think our business is concluded.”

Caroline: “Far be it to gainsay a distinguished guest about my character,” Caroline agrees.

“But don’t mistake me. I’m happy with the side I’m on, and tonight I’m playing to win, not for third or fourth place. Settling for sheriff feels like selling just before my stock goes up.”

“This meeting is being… mindful. And polite. And respectful to someone who’s played at the high table for much longer than I’ve been alive. I’m as willing to cultivate relations and golden parachutes as any corporate-class white woman.”

“You really did come close, you know. I don’t want to sell short all you did, or that I appreciated it. Even though you forced my hand, forced me to murder Claire, and sheltered the scum that took a shot at my sister—for you and I, it’s not personal.” She smiles. “At least not in that way.”

“There could be much worse princes, depending on how all of this goes. I know rank-order balloting is the devil and all, but I’d sooner crawl in bed with you than do so with any of the other contenders or go out in a blaze of glory.”

“And no matter who wins the prize, I expect there’s… things we could do for each other.”

GM: The words make her skin crawl as they leave her mouth. They make the collar’s weight feel suddenly heavier.

Her sire would not approve.

“I am so very pleased to hear you say so, my dear,” smiles Savoy. “You’re rather more open-minded than your sire is. That’ll pay dividends. As this cooperation over the sheriff rather proves!”

“But I think I am mistaken, in fact. I’d thought sheriff to be the more appealing offer than, say, my hand in vermillion marriage.”

“Nat thought I should put that on the table.”

Caroline: “The most eligible bachelor in town. Maybe on the entire Eastern Seaboard. I’m flattered.”

“I think as is to be expected, though, that your wisdom triumphed over hers. I don’t need to tell you how I expect my sire would react to such an offer.”

“My father once told me that was the ultimate judge of a man, by another man. Whether they were worthy of their daughter.”

“Never mind what the daughter thought.”

GM: “I suspect it’s not entirely up to the daughter, if the father’s treatment of his other servants is any indication,” answers Savoy.

He smiles.

“There are ways to break such chains.”

Caroline: She sighs. “Can I call you Antoine while we’re here?”

“Lord Savoy makes me feel quite uncomfortable in one way, and Mr. Savoy in quite another.”

GM: “Only so long as I may have the pleasure of calling you Caroline,” grins the French Quarter lord.

Caroline: It’s disconcerting, in some ways, to see his grin peak out from the decidedly feminine face.

GM: Indeed, the expression looks nothing like Mélissaire’s.

Caroline: “Of course,” she answers. “Given how close we are to family in some ways already, the stuffiness feels decidedly unwelcome.”

GM: “Caroline it is,” Savoy repeats approvingly.

“I know how suspicious your mind can run, too, Caroline, if the first thing on it is favors owed in exchange,” he smiles.

He waves an absent hand.

“Asking such a thing would be superfluous. There is already inherent benefit to me in having my rival’s childe be free-willed.”

Caroline: “Does not this meeting put to rest fears as to how free my will may be?” she asks.

GM: “I should instead say it paints a very flattering picture as to the strength of that will,” Savoy declares with an approving look.

“But please, my dear. Your sire may be loath to speak with me, and he would be equally loath to admit this, but we know each other well.”

“Study another man’s decisions and consider his thought processes for as long as we have, in as great detail as we have, and you cannot help but come to know him.”

“Sometimes I feel as if I know your sire better than I know many members of my own court.”

There’s another wink. “That familial closeness of yours.”

Caroline: Her eyes glitter in the shadows of the house.

“You’re very discerning, and no doubt you know me in turn. Antoine, it was not chains of blood that brought me to bow before him the first time. I was well chosen to fill the role of dutiful childe.”

“I will not betray my sire while he rules, nor I will not bring about the end of his rule.”

“But one way or another, that shall not be for much longer. And no matter what I might be to him, I cannot be him. What then we might be to each other will be for us to decide.”

“Until that night, there are foes aplenty for each of our dreams, your ‘childe’ and his master not the least among them.”

The shadows seem to shift and her eyes glitter again.

“While the two of you have torn each other to pieces others have grown fat feasting on the flesh you’ve left behind. For everyone’s sake they could use to be leaner.”

GM: Savoy gives a hearty laugh.

“Leaner indeed! Half the city is waiting for the chance. The Baron isn’t the only such vulture hungry for such a meal, for all the wagging tongues in Elysium might say. Just the biggest one.”

Caroline: Caroline laughs along with him, but her expression has sobered by the time Savoy finishes speaking.

“They’re not waiting, and every clash between you fills their courts with dissidents, the wreckage the two of you have left behind.”

“And as unflattering as it might be, I wouldn’t mind clearing it away before we’re all up to our chests in filth.”

GM: “Perhaps you’re better informed than I, my dear,” Savoy smiles, “but recent events have seemed to increase my support more than any third parties’.”

“But let it be well that other actors predicate their power upon my actions! Let every piece of flesh they consume be prepared by my hand and eaten at a feast I have thrown. Nat can quote it better than me, but I think The Art of War has a few things to say about knowing your enemies and knowing yourself?”

Caroline: Caroline shakes her head. “No, no, that won’t do, Antoine.”

“There’s a much more appropriate reference for someone with our ambitions.”

GM: “And you call me the flatterer, Caroline,” he grins.

“Alas, I fear I may not be so well-read as yourself or the seneschal. What author would you quote instead?”

Caroline: A grin. “Machiavelli.”

GM: “Ah, of course. Even I don’t disagree with him. Fear is better than love, if you have to pick one. But why settle for just one?”

Caroline: “Duality. I think though you have grown accustomed to love. Or at least, others have grown accustomed to loving you.”

GM: “The dagger is incomplete without an accompanying cloak,” Savoy glibly concurs.

Caroline: “It’s usually the knife you don’t see that gets you,” Caroline agrees.

GM: “You spoke of cleaning filth, Caroline. Is this something else you would like to do for one another?”

Caroline: She runs her tongue across her fangs. “I’d argue we’re already doing it with the sheriff, but I’d be open to taking some of the other riffraff off the board, and as the saying goes, two is better than one.”

GM: He motions.

“Proceed, my dear.”

Caroline: She rests her chin on one hand, the elbow propped up on her knee. “Plenty, but let’s start with the devil we know. Something about building trust and all of that. I don’t expect this to be the last time we’ll speak like this.”

GM: “I should sincerely hope not,” smiles the French Quarter lord. “It would be a terrible loss to be deprived of the company of the city’s most upwardly mobile neonate. There is much that any elder might learn from her.”

“But very well, let’s return to the sheriff. What else would you speak of concerning him?”

Caroline: “Flatterer. How many other secret childer does he have in the city?” Caroline muses.

She smiles. “Too on the nose. A less pointed one, then. How close was he to René?”

GM: Savoy only smiles back, his expression unwavering since his last words.

“As close or as distant as we need him to be, of course. I have ample enough evidence of Mr. Baristheaut’s activities in the Quarter. How would you wish to leverage that relationship against the sheriff?”

Caroline: “My Embrace was no accident. Nor was my trip to the Dungeon. Nor were either uncalculated,” she observes.

“Someone wanted me there with purpose. A purpose who had little to do with me. Someone who knew of plans that were very carefully guarded.”

GM: “And you believe that someone was my childe. On what grounds?”

Caroline: “There are few surer ways to lure the seneschal into a conflict than to play to his morals, and few foes in the city that might defeat him.”

“Had he been destroyed beneath the Dungeon, as was planned, it would have solved a great many problems for the sheriff.”

GM: Savoy strokes Mélissaire’s fingers along ‘his’ chin. Where his half-beard would normally be.

“That scenario is more difficult to see. Maldonato can’t rule on his own, yet also constitutes a critical pillar to the Sanctified. What benefit is there to my childe in tearing down the house he seeks to be master of?”

Caroline: “Does he?” Caroline asks.

The ghoul really is quite fetching.

It’s not something she’d have noticed before the Embrace, but the subtle curve of her throat…

“Many assumptions made about Donovan. That he is the prince’s loyal servant. That he is bound to the prince. That he is one of the Sanctified. That he desires to lead the Sanctified.”

Her eyes light up. “That he’s your childe.”

“I don’t mean to doubt my elders,” she continues, “simply to propose, who else had the knowledge and means to accomplish such a thing? Someone close to the prince…”

GM: Savoy grins at her words.

“Assumptions are a lot like breathing, some say. You never really notice you’re doing it until you stop. And then it’s usually too late to do anything about it.”

“It’s an intriguing narrative, to be certain. But without hard evidence, it will do little to move your sire in this matter.”

Caroline: “What would that evidence look like?” she asks.

“Forgive me, I’m so very new at this.”

GM: Savoy chuckles.

“Many Kindred have underestimated you, my dear, to their great and even terminal detriment. That shall not be me.”

Caroline: “Charmer. But I’ve confirmed much of what you already suspected, certainly you can give me something on this topic.”

GM: “Certainly. I can say I am in possession of no hard evidence that links the sheriff to any attempt made upon the seneschal’s unlife.”

“Regrettable, as such evidence would indeed be a smoking gun.”

“Little would arouse your sire’s wrath more than an attempt to harm that which is most dear to him.”

Caroline: “Regrettable, as you say, that he hasn’t lept upon his sword,” Caroline agrees.

“We’ll have to settle for the longer game. No doubt Mr. Lebeaux will have some ideas to get us started.”

GM: “So we shall. Oh, another thing, my dear. I’m calling in one of the markers you owe me. Let’s say the one for recovering your brother Westley’s body.”

“I’d like the full story of your meeting with your sire and his discovery of his newest childe’s existence.”

Caroline: She can almost feel the collar tighten around her neck as the elder’s pretty ghoul puppet sneaks the words out.

Caroline’s blue eyes flicker in the shadows of the house. “Antoine, and here I thought you’d suggested you weren’t interested in fucking me.”

She runs her tongue across her fangs. “I would never shrink from honoring my debts, but that’s a story of another caliber entirely.”

“If you want the full story, we’d be significantly more than even.”

GM: “I always collect what is owed me, Caroline,” smiles Savoy. “As will any Kindred who’s made anything of themselves. Never expect your debts to be forgotten.”

“But that sounds eminently reasonable. Why don’t you start at the beginning and leave off at whatever point you think is worth a single boon.”

Caroline: “Without trying to be difficult, I’d feel I was more honorably balancing the scales if you gave more context on your interests. There were many matters that came up that reach that bar. I’d hate to give you something you already know.”

GM: “Your sire’s response, my dear. What actions he took upon receiving such a surprise.”

Caroline: “Not what we would have arrived at.”

The words taste like ash in her mouth.

“He was furious, disbelieving. His anger shattered the entire room.”

“As you no doubt suspected, he was previously unaware.”

GM: She feels the collar tighten around her, like the coils of the great snake sitting across from her. It crushes her, squeezes her, threatens to wring her will from her under its intractable might.

Donovan was for his own good.

Donovan is a traitor.

But this?

Betraying his private thoughts and confidences to his great enemy?

She shouldn’t have done it.

She shouldn’t have ever accepted favors from this snake.

It’s her fault.

She should have known he’d call them in, and what else is his foremost goal if not the theft of everything her sire has worked so hard to build?

GM: “Simple deduction, my dear,” smiles the French Quarter lord. “Your sire would have bound any childe sired by his vitae, and there is little that might have stopped him—the Cabildo’s wishes included. Ergo, he was unaware of you.”

Caroline: She shouldn’t have. Wouldn’t have, in a better Requiem. But they made that choice when they shut her out, threw her to the wolves.

And she did. And even her sire is bound by the promises he makes.

GM: “You’re fortunate to have survived, in any case. His direct wrath is no small thing to weather.”

Caroline: Her throat is tight, so very tight. She can’t breathe.

But then, she doesn’t need to.

“He remedied that mentioned error,” she squeezes out between tight lips.

Her fingernails dig into the soft wood of the chair.

“Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

Curiosity. As though his interest has ever been so benign.

GM: Savoy gives her a sympathetic look.

“I can’t imagine sharing this story is easy for you, my dear. The blood oath is no small thing to rebel against either.”

“I’ve offered once. I shall offer again. Should you wish to slip your chains, the situation can be remedied.”

Caroline: “I don’t,” she snaps, nerves frayed to the edge.

Awful enough that she has to resort to this—to plotting in the dark. Skulking about. For his own good or not, for the future of the entire city or not, there’s nothing about this that feels good or right.

She spent a great deal of effort, and a great deal of blood, for the privilege of serving her sire.

GM: The French Quarter lord just nods, seemingly taking the second ‘no’ in stride.

“I am afraid it does not satisfy my curiosity, my dear. I’d already deduced your sire bound you and was unaware of your existence. It’s little surprise either he was angry. So there’s equally little here that’s new.”

He strokes ‘his’ chin again.

“But it would be quite impossible for most Kindred to obtain direct access to the prince. The only individuals I can think of who might arrange that are the seneschal, the sheriff, and the Hussar. The sheriff has little cause to introduce you to your sire, and anything the Hussar already knew, he’d have already told his master. So that leaves the seneschal as the third party present.”

“Tell me, how did the conversation between them proceed?”

“I’m sure that between the two of you, he did the initial talking.”

Caroline: “It is one thing to suspect, and another to have your suspicions confirmed,” Caroline states.

“As a wise man observed, it isn’t what you don’t know that gets you, it’s the things you think you do.”

Every word is a knife between the ribs, but she presses on.

“You’re incorrect in your supposition, however. I did the initial speaking. Of my desires, ambitions, and actions. The seneschal weighed in later with his own evaluation.”

GM: Savoy inclines ‘his’ head in acknowledgment of Caroline’s correction.

“What information of significance passed among you?”

The French Quarter lord questions Caroline at some length concerning the events surrounding her introduction to her sire. Like a root canal administered by an ever-smiling dentist, there’s no getting around it—he will only relent when the painful work is done. The Toreador will only be content when he believes he has gotten his money’s worth from the owed boon.

Caroline: Caroline does not give an inch willingly. Though Savoy brings centuries of experience to bear and his own remarkable charisma, the remarkable sharpness of her mind, the political astuteness of her upbringing, the comfort of her mother’s welcoming domain, and the ever tightening coils of the collar make her no victim of the Toreador’s predations.

She is acutely aware of the value of the confirmations she has already given and gives few others freely. That her Embrace was long cultivated. That the events of Southern Decadence precipitated action. That the seneschal supports her claim. That he has vouched for her before the prince. That the prince accepted her as his childe in that first meeting by offering his blood freely.

GM: Savoy states frankly that he does not consider Caroline’s confirmations to be of value and desires previously unknown information. “None of this is new to me, Caroline,” he declares with an airy wave of Mélissaire’s hand.

“We can, of course, bring this matter before the harpies as a third party should you believe my expectations unreasonable.”

Caroline: “Seventy years,” she growls out. “The seneschal will involve himself in the affairs of the archdiocese no more than a mortal lifetime past the prince’s slumber.”

GM: “Seventy years,” Savoy says thoughtfully. “The scripturally allotted span of years for a man’s life. Also the scripturally allotted span of years, as it were, for an ancilla’s Requiem.”

Caroline: She nods. “That he has no desire to rule is no surprise, but he will be no puppet master either. Seventy years, no more. And then he will depart. These years have weighed upon him near as heavily as upon the prince.”

GM: “Yes, he never has seemed to relish his office,” the French Quarter lord agrees. “Then again, I might say the same for your sire.”

“But perhaps it’s easier to stop being chancellor than it is to stop being king, especially after one’s liege is already gone.”

Caroline: “Prince Vidal is prince for himself. Maldonato has long been seneschal for the prince,” Caroline agrees.

GM: “Oh, I think Prince Vidal is prince for God, the Camarilla, and the city, in that order.”

“Himself perhaps least of all.”

Caroline: “No doubt you would approach it similarly.”

GM: Savoy grins. “Of course. What else is a prince, if not the city’s, the Camarilla’s, and the Almighty’s humble servant?”

Caroline: “It’s how all the world’s great tyrants begin,” Caroline agrees.

GM: “Isn’t it,” the French Quarter lord smiles. “I believe this concludes our business for tonight, my dear. We can say our farewells at the door—and in the flesh.”

There’s a last wink, and then Mélissaire’s expression and body language seems to subtly shift.

“Ma’am,” says Mélissaire in her own, higher voice with a demure inclination of her head as she rises.

Caroline: By distinct effort of will, Caroline does not allow her body language to change with the French Quarter lord’s disappearance.

“You wear him well,” she compliments, rising.

GM: The ghoul gives a genuine smile.

“He’s very easy to wear, ma’am. A genuine pleasure, to have inside myself like that.”

“If it’s not too bold of me to observe, I feel like you’d be the same.”

Caroline: Caroline laughs politely. “I’ll be certain to keep that in mind when things change.”

GM: Mélissaire laughs faintly back. “Oh, I don’t expect to receive that pleasure from anyone besides him, ma’am. But I’m sure any of your ghouls would enjoy the opportunity to wear you.”

Caroline: “Here’s to hoping we get to find out.”

She leads the ghoul to the door.

GM: Caroline and Mélissaire return to the LaLaurie House’s entry hall.

Her mother is there. Dark of eye. Dark of hair. Dark of everything. Darkening all around her. Her presence fills the hall like the night sky within a building absent its roof. A content smile is spread across her milk-pale features.

Antoine Savoy is there, dressed in a wine-colored blazer, black slacks, and anaconda scale loafers. He’s smiling too, and squatting down on his haunches as he pulls a flashing silver coin ‘out’ of Simmone’s ear with an exclaimed, “Voila!”

The nightgown-wearing ten-year-old giggles down at their guest. She’s taller when he squats. “How did you do that!”

“You are a font of riches, of course, my beautiful lady. I but saw what was there, and dared present some small portion of them for your pleasure,” answers the French Quarter lord as he hands Simmone the coin. He looks for all the world like a genial uncle.

And he’s right there.

Alone, but for Mélissaire.

Alone, in this newest center of Devillers power.

Alone, in this most dreaded of places Abélia may have already bent to her will, if Caroline’s suspicion is true.

Alone. Squatting on his haunches.

Alone. Caroline’s mother right by.

She may never get a better chance.

Her sire may never get a better chance.

Caroline: “Dangerous of you to reveal that to her,” Caroline chimes in.

Don’t dwell upon it.

There’s no guarantee she could strike him down. Not even here. And even if she succeeded, what would that really accomplish?

“However true it might be. She thinks we call her a treasure simply because we like her.”

He wouldn’t have come if he did not believe he could win free.

GM: “We call her our treasure for both reasons, and a thousand others besides,” Caroline’s mother agrees contently, stroking her daughter’s hair.

“Had the fleet that sailed for Helen of Troy as many ships as this lovely lady has reasons to treasure her, Priam’s city would have fallen in one night,” Savoy concurs, making a gallant show of kissing Simmone’s hand.

The child giggles at all three of their words.

The French Quarter lord rises from his feet to kiss Abélia’s hand next.

“Abélia, always a pleasure. My compliments on what you’ve done with the place. May I dare say this home suits you as no other does—and as this home would suit no other.”

“You just want to lure me out of the Garden District for good, Antoine,” Caroline’s mother answers with an amused purr.

“I am but my Blood, my dear. It cannot do aught but compel me to fill my home with things of beauty—beauty of flesh and beauty of spirit alike.”

Her mother’s black eyes smile at the words ‘beauty of spirit.’

Caroline: And how much beauty in the rabble scrabbling around the French Quarter in their unwashed masses?

“Green is a color I so rarely see you in,” she offers instead.

GM: “Red suits us all much better,” grins Savoy.

“I see much beauty here,” he continues. “I see a mother’s love for her daughters—love enough to transform a place of misery and suffering into a nurturing home. I see a tragedy within these walls that a family’s love bore its daughters through, stronger than ever.” His gaze turns to Caroline. “I see a second tragedy, no less regrettable for its inevitability, and a wounded heart mended through love. I see a daughter’s love for a mother—and a mother who finally seeks to be worthy of a daughter’s love.”

He bends to kiss Caroline’s hand last of all.

“I wish you much happiness with your new family, Caroline.”

“I wish you all the beauty such love and happiness may entail, now and forevermore.”

Caroline: “I pray we all get to see it,” Caroline answers.

There’s so much potential for bad blood, to hold grudges.

Savoy lied to her. Manipulated her. Lied to Claire. Led directly to her death. Sheltered Gettis.

In mere months.

It’s no wonder the hatred between elders can run so deeply.

And every night has given them plenty of new reasons to hate. How many lives and Requiems has the conflict between the prince and Savoy consumed? How many more will it consume? The city is on the edge of a knife.

GM: And sooner or later, that knife must draw blood.

---

Previous, by Narrative Story Thirteen, Caroline I, Celia XXVII
Next, by Narrative: Story Thirteen, Celia XXVIII

Previous, by Character: Story Thirteen, Caroline I, Celia XXVII
Next, by Character: Story Thirteen, Caroline III

“You’ve lied to me for as long as I’ve known you.”
Roderick Durant

---

Monday night, 21 March 2016, AM

Celia: With Emily asleep, Celia gets ready for the rest of her evening. She starts with her face, turning herself back into Jade for her upcoming meetings, and once that is done she scrubs all trace of her “party” with Emily from the spa, putting the leftover sliders into the fridge and tequila bottle into the recycling bin. She cleans the lab of the spilled booze and relocks the door from the inside so that even if Emily were to wake up she won’t be able to get in.

She doesn’t want her around other licks, especially in that state.

She writes a quick letter in a hand that is decidedly not hers and finally locates Carolla’s body. Through a door that isn’t a door, using her pinky finger on a scanner that doesn’t beep, set into the wall at a natural knee-high divet that’s impossible to find unless you know exactly where it is. That opens a panel, which allows her to put a key inside another lock, then enter a combination, and finally she’s in.

Cool air greets her. The tiny, cramped room beyond is packed with plastic and glass containers on rubber coated steel shelves, labeled in a precise hand. A lilac tarp hangs from one of the lower shelves.

Jade pulls it aside.

And there he is, still torn and bloodied from the fight in the park, gaunt in torpor and pale from blood loss.

GM: Worse than bloodied. Roderick tore him almost completely apart. Crushed and bashed and beat him in worse than Maxen ever whaled on his children. Time has not healed Carolla’s injuries. Time never heals their kind’s injuries.

And no one is sparing any blood for a torpid vampire.

Celia: No. No one is sparing any blood for this piece of trash. Shame, too, she’d kind of liked him from afar. Before he opened his mouth. She could see herself playing a different mask for him, Mafia moll maybe, the kind of girl who tosses her hair and giggles and—

Well. It doesn’t matter. She still has Gui, doesn’t she? Until she sets him up. Then it’s Roderick in charge of the mob in Savoy’s domain. Interesting, that. She’ll have to ask what he wants to do with it.

Later, though. For now she has work to do, and a limited amount of time to do it.

Jade pulls his body out of the cooler, dragging it across the floor and hefting it onto her work table. He’s heavy, only made lighter by the fact that he’s got no blood in his system and one of his limbs is torn off. She makes a second trip for that, then wheels her cart of tools to the side of the table.

She hadn’t been exaggerating to Savoy when she told him that night-folk subjects are hard to come by. She could get an assortment of half-bloods, sure, but actual licks with actual non-stolen powers are more her speed. Even though he’s torped she makes sure the stake is firmly lodged in his heart before she begins. Who knows what kind of shenanigans he could pull if not.

Celia starts on his leg. She lifts the tattoo gun from the tray of tools, douses it in her blood, and marks the fallen Brujah in a rough, crude sketch of triangular ears and a flicking tail. Above it she adds the suggestion of leathery wings outstretched as if in flight, membrane taut between each little piece of cartilage. It’s not the most beautiful rendition she’s ever drawn, but it’s just for testing purposes anyway. She sets aside her tools and reaches for the knife, cutting past the epidermis and dermis into the subcutaneous layer beneath. Slowly, she peels it back.

Bits of white fat cling to the underside of the tissue as she pulls in slow, smooth, even strokes to lift the flesh from his body. She uses her knife and her own claws to cut anything that sticks until, with a final tug and slice of the knife, the tattooed part of him comes off. She reaches for a sharpie and writes “1” on it, then sets it aside.

Crafting done with, Celia looks down at the torpid Brujah.

“All right, bucko, we gon’ carve you open, ’kay?”

She’s not quite as sober as she thought. No wonder the cat is just ears and a tail. She giggles at it before she starts on the rest of his leg. She might not be able to manipulate bone, but she can certainly manipulate everything around it. Another knife cuts into the flesh over his hip, digging through until she hits the bone beneath it. Already half-off from the fight, it’s not much cutting to remove the rest of the skin and tissue clinging to him, and she gives a tug to rip the head of the femur out of its socket.

“Gon’ give it to my mommy,” she says to Carolla, patting his head as if he can hear her. “‘Cept you’re kinda tall, so we gon’ fix it. But tha’ can wait, yaknow? ‘Cause it ain’t goin’ nowhere.” She beams at him and sets the limb aside.

“Y’ever go huntin’?” she asks him, as if he can answer. “‘Cause my daddy never took me, yaknow? I dunno if he ever went, come to that, but s’okay. I had tuh learn this offa videos. But s’okay, I got practice. Lossa practice.”

GM: Maxen did go hunting. He took David and Logan.

Of the two boys, Logan was the most into it.

Celia: She doubts he field dressed his own kills, anyway.

She wouldn’t ordinarily do this while mildly intoxicated, but Gui is due soon, so she gets started.

“See, you s’posed to hang ‘em up from a tree, but I ain’t got a tree here. But I do got hydraulics, ayy.” The press of a button lifts one side of the table. Carolla’s body flops off of it and Celia stares blankly at where he lands on the floor. “Oh,” she says, “I f’got to chain you. Whoopsie.”

She lowers the table, puts Carolla back onto it, fastens the steel manacles around his wrists, and lifts the table again.

“Graaaaavity,” she says to him. “Y’know your average body gots ‘bout 8 poundsa flesh? An’ if you lay it all out, righ’, you got like… 22 feet. S’alot! An’ you’re kinda tall, so you gots more. But I ain’ gonna take it all, k? Jus’ a little.”

So it begins. Celia plunges the knife into his body with a little more force than necessary, then begins cutting his skin and peeling it back. She doesn’t take all of it, just enough for a handful of experiments; she doesn’t want Gui to get the wrong idea, does she? She sets the skin aside in strips as it comes free of his body, and once she has harvested what she needs she looks to the skin she’s worked free and marks it in a similar fashion to the first. She puts a “2” at the top of that one.

“Shoulda done this earlier,” Celia confesses to him, patting his cheek. “Coulda regrown ‘n’ stuff. Bitta blood waste tho, innit? ‘Oo knows, this works I’ma carve your brother too.” She grins at him.

GM: The skin decays as Celia carves it off, like Roxanne’s did when she died. It loosens and ugly blisters appear across the surface.

Celia: “Tha’s ’kay,” she says lovingly, “I’ll fixit, ya hear?”

GM: Carolla’s ruined face stares back at hers blankly.

Celia: “How ol’ are you really?” she asks him.

GM: The ruined face is just as silent.

Celia: “S’okay, body tells all, don’t it?”

“Now lessee,” she continues, lowering the table again. “Y’empty, yaknow? But she saidta jus’ keep goin’, so we gon’ keep goin, ‘kay? Then I’ll cutcha open ‘gain an’ see what yer insides hafta say.”

She’s not quite sure how it works, only that Caroline had told her to keep drinking. So she sinks her fangs into Carolla’s neck, one of the spots she’d left him intact, and pulls.

And pulls.

And pulls.

GM: Celia is not sure what she expected to happen.

But there is nothing within Carolla’s veins to pull. They are empty of vitae. Celia and Roderick emptied his veins themselves.

She sucks and sucks, as though with a straw at the bottom of an empty glass.

Celia: She’d heard someone say once that “she sucked my dick like there were diamonds in my ballsack.” Not about her, but about some whore he’d fucked recently, laughing with his buddies about it at the bar.

She does that here. Only with his neck instead of his dick.

GM: There are diamonds in his neck, Caroline said, or at least something of equivalent value.

Celia ravenously sucks empty and bloodless veins.

But that is what they remain.

Bloodless.

Empty.

Celia: Had she lied to Celia?

Or… is it like when you get to the bottom of a soap bottle and you have to add water, shake it around, and get it all out?

Celia stops pulling long enough to cut into her wrist with her fangs, then trickles the blood into Carolla’s mouth. She starts sucking again immediately.

GM: Drinking your own blood is like masturbating. Enjoyable, but just not the same as involving someone else. Still, Celia is no stranger to giving or enjoying pleasure. She is an artist of pleasure. Her masturbation is better than most people’s sex. She’s so pretty. She made herself this way. It was a lot of work. She loves to appreciate herself, and the flawless results of her handiwork, not a mere accident of genetics and birth. She is right to take pride in how pretty she is.

She drinks of herself, and she enjoys the taste of herself. She enjoys her sweetness, that all but permanent lustful flavor inherent to her blood. (What would it take to even get that out?) She does taste like makeup, like her mom said. Not literally like makeup. She tastes like putting on makeup makes you feel. Prettier. Better. Anyone who drinks of her becomes better. She’s already the best, she can’t be made better by drinking more of the best, but it reminds her, oh yes, just how good everyone else has it when they get to drink of her—

She drinks deep—and hits gold.

Someone else’s gold.

The partner she was looking for. The handsome stranger who’s walked in on her masturbating, not yet at climax, and helped her the rest of the way there.

It’s not liquid she’s drinking anymore. It’s as heavy as gold and weightless as air. It’s so pure and powerful that she seems to be swallowing liquid fire. She feels a burning in her veins, starting in her throat and spreading outwards through her entire body. It’s indescribable: pleasure so piercing it’s agony, pain so sweet it’s ecstasy.

Staked and torpid, her partner is unresponsive. But even absorbed as Celia is in her own pleasure, the long-time masseur is sensitive to the feelings of another’s body. No two massages are ever the same, once she lets her hands take over and slips into that meditation-like state where her mind blanks. Her mind blanks and her hands listen. The body tells stories to her listening hands. She can feel the tension in the body. She feels literal memories stored in the muscles. She remembers one of her first clients, the mom who started sobbing on the table under Celia’s touch, and confessed she’d lost her son, all without her masseur ever once asking.

Celia is not massaging Carolla. She’s just holding him. Her hands are not asking the body for its story. The hands are barely listening.

They still hear the body scream.

Every muscle fiber is a shard of glass turned against its neighbor, cutting, piercing, shredding. The human neuromuscular system, in all its glorious complexity and perfection, now feels as if every molecule was turned from its purpose to the causation of pain. It’s Maxen spanking her bloody when she just wanted to be hugged. It’s Paul making her eat piss-soaked blondies when she’d make them just to be nice. It’s Roderick beating her torpid when she told the truth. It’s her sire showing her indifference when all she wanted was love. It’s all of her many, many rapists (how many times has she been raped?), turning an act of intimacy into one of violation. Everything that could bring joy brings pain. If Celia were to give a deliberately hurtful massage, her hands could not inflict such pain, could not inflict this rape of the soul. Celia knows, beyond all certainty, that Carolla is feeling this. Even staked and torpid, he is feeling this. The body does not lie. The body screams its violation and its torment and its agony and its desire to cease to exist, to never have existed, to embrace oblivion, so the pain will stop. She has never beheld another sentient being in such pain.

His pain.

Her gain.

A soundless scream rings back and forth in Celia’s ears like the tolling of a great church bell. It dongs with every mouthful of that transcendent, soul-scorching flame she sucks into herself. It’s fast at first, like the beating of a vessel’s heart. It slows with each mouthful, yet rings all the deeper, all the louder. It hits her like an orgasm in her loins, but it doesn’t stop there, oh no, oh no. Clitoral. G-spot. Vaginal. Anal. Nipple. All at once, exploding like a crate of bombs simultaneously going off, but it still doesn’t stop, oh no, there are so many parts of her body beyond her ass and her cunt and her tits, she knows herself that if her blood vessels were laid out in a line, they would measure 60,000 miles in length. The human body has nigh-infinite parts in all of its staggering complexitude.

Only now does she realize they can all bring her pleasure.

She’s like the dumb virgin teenager, who only just figured out she can feel good by sticking fingers inside herself. So limited was she, to think pleasure was limited to so few parts of her body! Every inch of her body knows orgasm. Every cell, every atom, every quark, is turned towards pleasure. She could not stop the scream that tears from her lips even if she wanted to. THIS is true pleasure, THIS is the “better than sex” that every vampire lies feeding is. It lights up every inch of her skin like she’s been struck by a divine thunderbolt, oh god she wants it to stop, it’s too much, no, she wants it to never stop, no, she does, the mind cannot fathom, there is no thought, just pleasure, consciousness-obliterating pleasure, and she feels ready to burst like a star going nova, so inadequate is her dead shell to contain all the bliss that she feels. Space vanishes. Time hangs still. She feels herself expanding, racing, as she fills that existential void, and she becomes MORE than she was, and takes into herself everything that Carolla was even as the Brujah’s psychic scream reverberates through her, piercingly loud but in the end unheeded. Is this what it felt like for her mom to merge with Lucy?

She claims her own Lucy.

And, with all the subtlety of a whispered sheet against skin still shuddering in post-coital bliss, she claims something else:

Truth.

Celia: Truth.

Truth concealed in bliss.

Truth coated in an ugly lie, a lie that’s enough to make even Roderick turn from the light’s path.

Truth, and how ugly that is.

Coco had never been his sire.

His blood is not her gateway to more power.

He is her peer, not her superior, not a betrayal by Roderick’s sire. He’s nothing but a patsy. Another pawn—and she doesn’t need to wonder whose hand is behind this, who had set him up, who had broken her boyfriend beyond recognition to turn him into a shadow of his former self. Dark where he had once been light.

He had used her. Turned her lover against her. Turned him into a wreck, turned him into a monster, stolen the only good thing from his life—

Rage spirals through her. Rage that she has never known before, rage that consumes her in a way her Beast cannot fathom, rage that has a sharp edge to it, rage that turns her nails into claws, that makes her roar her fury to the world as, at last, the veil is lifted from her eyes.

“I see now, Celia,” he’d said, and what a lie that had been. He sees nothing. He is blinded by the others, older, more powerful, more established, more gifted—he is blinded by every lie that they have ever told. A puppet on his string dancing for his master, and she no better.

The collar chafes and she tugs against it, snarling at the bond that holds her taut in its grip, snarling at the sire that had told her not to trust, snarling at the sire that shows indifference when she wants love—

It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter.

And, oh, how her eyes bleed at that thought.

She is nothing but a piece on the board, shoved this way and that by whatever hand wants to touch her.

She howls.

Just like that, control snaps.

She gives in to the Beast lurking inside her chest, the one she’d thought was a sleeping kitten earlier this evening. How silly, that thought. How silly that she would ever think of her Beast as anything other than the monster that it is. How ridiculous that she thinks she can conquer it with a bit of old, stale blood (nothing like what she just experienced).

Rage consumes her. She sees red. She becomes the inferno, blazing a path through her own “lab” like a hurricane—and she sees, finally, why they are named after people when she snaps out of it at the end of her cycle of destruction, clothing torn and bloodied and strewn across the floor in haphazard disarray.

Carolla’s body has taken more damage. The steel tools she uses have been flung far and wide through the space.

Chest heaving with barely contained fury, Celia is glad that she locked the door. Glad that her Beast is not smart enough to finagle the series of locks to find the sleeping kine in the other room. Hatred thunders through her.

GM: Carolla’s body hasn’t just taken damage.

All that’s left is his skeleton. The bones have turned jet black, as though melted under an impossible heat, and a sticky residue pools beneath, like half-melted plastic. A foul smell wafts from the bones.

They smell like Paul’s plastic smile.

Celia: It’s not quite what she thought she’d find when she cut him open. But the cunning, medically-based side of her appraises what’s left to determine what she can from the body.

GM: It’s hard to make many visual estimates of the bones’ wear and tear from what’s left. The usual kine indicators of ossification and decreasing joint size don’t apply to Kindred. Celia can surmise no explanation for why the bones turned black, or why the residue smells so foul, and makes her think of the way Paul made her feel. But her own blood feels no thicker… Carolla can’t have been more than half a century or so old, can’t he? Unless he was eleven or more steps removed from Caine, anyway. Then his blood could get no thicker, no matter how old he was.

Celia: She takes a look at the flesh and bone she’d removed before she’d claimed his soul for her own, wondering if those changed as well.

GM: The conveniently taken skin samples, in contrast, prove much, much easier for Celia to identify. The skin has reached the initial autolysis stage of decay, yes. But she’s done enough experimentation upon her own (and seen what final death looked like for her share of vampires) to know that Kindred corpses age far slower than kine ones when the weight of their years catches up to them.

Celia pegs Carolla’s age within several years of Roxanne’s, who she knows was a 2010 Embrace.

Seemingly just another neonate.

Celia: Seemingly.

As if that means anything.

He was seemingly Coco’s childe, too.

Celia rips a blackened bone from his ribcage and finds a container for the black goo. She doesn’t know what it is, but surely someone does.

She’s careful not to touch it with her bare skin when she scoops it into a jar.

GM: She moves most of it without issue.

The bone doesn’t look burned. It doesn’t feel hot and there’s no ash coming off. It’s just a normal bone that happens to be solid black.

Celia: She’s not sure what to do with him now. He hadn’t yielded what she’d expected.

Everything she’d thought about him had been a lie. And now she’s got… this. Black goo. Black bones. No idea what any of it means.

She doesn’t know who she’s mad at, only that she’s furious and curious and frustrated all in one, and she hates that she doesn’t understand. She cracks another rib out of place, then series of finger bones. She sets them aside, turning her eye to his spine.

She’ll wait. Wait for the Ventrue to get here and decide if this is proof enough about Carolla, and if not then she’s not sure what she’s going to tell him either.

Bitter disappointment surges through her. More lies. Another setup.

Maybe nothing will compare to the liquid gold of his soul.

Or maybe she’s just tired of being used.

It takes a moment of further consideration to place where she has seen this sort of goo before: Savoy’s roof. She’d stepped over it on her way to meet with him following his conversation with Roderick. That was the night she’d learned the truth about “Melton” and had seen a ghost become a vampire.

Why hasn’t he called?

Perhaps she’ll ask after him tonight when she goes to meet the lick with the poison eyes. Call in the marker he owes her for this situation with Marcel.

Celia cleans the remnants of the goo from the floor with a hose, sending it swirling down the drain. She tucks the bottle of gathered goo away for further study.

There’s little left for her to do except wait for Gui to show up. She tidies her lab in the meantime, putting away the bones and flesh she’d harvested from the Brujah to deal with later. Everything except the skin she’d stolen from his face, and she’s glad for that tipsy side of her now that had thought it was hilarious at the time. The rest of him had disintegrated into nothing. Muscles, tendons, ligaments—everything, all the tissue in his body. Vanished. As if it never was. Inconvenient, certainly, but drunk Celia had ended up being a boon in this case.

She thoroughly washes the table where she’d cut him apart, picks up her scattered tools, and sets everything to right. She lays the skeleton on the table and puts the literal face mask beneath it in the storage compartment; she’ll pull it out later if Gui needs to see it, but she doesn’t want to flaunt it for no reason.

A glance down at herself shows that her dress is rather tattered from her Beast’s earlier frenzy. She takes a moment to strip from it and pull on a spare “Flawless” tee and sneakers, hair swept back into a ponytail. She assumes the shirt hanging in the break room belongs to Landen because it hits her in the mid-thigh, long enough to look like she meant it this way when she uses a belt to cinch it around her waist. It’s not the particularly glamorous look she goes for when she’s Jade, but tonight, riding the high from the golden, full-body bliss she’d found inside her victim puts a swagger in her step.

Something has certainly changed. She has certainly changed.

Done with the menial tasks, she waits for her guests.

---

Monday night, 21 March 2016, AM

GM: It’s not overlong before Celia receives a text message from Gui.

Outside.

Celia: Jade glances in the mirror on her way to the back door she uses for her Kindred guests to keep them out of the main area, fixing a piece of hair that had slipped free from its tie. The back entrance has just as much security as the front and side doors, leading into a stone foyer that then allows entrance to the lab once she goes through yet more security. A tiny, reinforced peephole in the door lets her look out to verify that it is in fact Gui waiting for her.

GM: She sees Gui and that ghoul of his she fucked.

Celia: Where oh where is the promised friend? Jade opens the door for them.

“Hello, darling.”

GM: “Hello, lush,” smiles Gui as he steps inside.

“Your friend’s stashed nearby. Let’s see the proof.”

Celia: Jade beckons him forward, turning to lock the door behind the pair of them. She winks at the ghoul as she steps past him. She walks the pair of them through the foyer and opens the second set of doors leading to the lab.

“How was the rest of your evening?” she asks as they go.

GM: The Venture ghoul stares back with a look of unconcealed lust bordering on possessiveness.

It makes her think of Carolla.

“Promising,” answers Gui. “You’re dressed down.”

Celia: She wants him, she decides. Whatever happens to Gui, she wants this one.

“Mhm,” she says to his comment on her clothing, “hardly conducive to harvest parts in a ball gown.” She’s still a knockout, even in the stolen tee. It’s the “girlfriend wearing my shirt” vibe. Sexy in a soft, understated sort of way. More romance than smut.

Once inside the lab, she gestures toward the table where the blackened skeleton lies.

GM: “The fuck?” says Gamberro.

Celia: “Oh, you didn’t tell him,” Jade remarks, as if this is perfectly normal.

GM: “Doesn’t look much like Carolla,” remarks Gui.

Celia: “No,” she agrees, “not anymore. Hard to come by Kindred subjects, you understand. I borrowed most of him.” She bends, reaching for the skin she’d stolen from his face. It looks like him… but flattened. Like someone had ripped off his head and run over it with a heavy truck a few times.

She sets it on the table.

“Saved his face for you.”

GM: Gamberro laughs.

“Look at fucking that.”

Celia: Jade smiles at him.

GM: “Yes, that does look rather more like him,” remarks Gui.

He picks up the face, almost experimentally.

Celia: It flops over in his hands. White clumps of fat still cling to the inside.

GM: Gamberro laughs some more.

“Maldita sea.”

“This is proof, all right,” says Gui, setting the face mask back down.

“Gamberro, go bring in the sire.”

“Need the key,” the ghoul says shortly.

Celia: Jade hands him two of them.

GM: Gamberro takes them and leaves.

Celia: Ordinarily she’d walk him out, but there’s something… off about Gui. She waits until his ghoul leaves to turn her attention back to him, watching his face and body.

GM: “So how’d he get this way?” asks the Ventrue, turning towards her.

Celia: “Which way? Dead?”

GM: “Black.”

Celia: “Another experiment. I admit the bone work is new to me. When I started with the flesh I began simply, changing colors, textures. I wanted to see how far I could go with this, and the longer I worked the more it clicked. I’d decided to turn it into an art piece. Functional. Armor, perhaps.”

Jade tilts her head, considering him.

“Black felt fitting for one of our kind.”

GM: “Mmm.”

Gui runs a finger along the bones.

“Feels warm.”

Celia: Jade touches a hand to Carolla’s skull, feeling for the heat.

GM: It’s cooler than it was, after she drank his soul, but well above room temperature.

Celia: She shrugs.

“As I said, new to me.”

GM: “In ‘93, you know, Chicago had a nasty war with the area’s Lupines,” says Gui. “Or Loup-Garoux, here. You hear of it?”

Celia: Jade shakes her head.

GM: “Well, it’s not the important part of the story.”

“Some Sabbat crept in during the chaos. Taking advantage, like they do here with Mardi Gras.”

“They did some pretty nasty things to some licks. I got to see what was left of them up close.”

Gui picks up Carolla’s skull and turns it over in his hands.

“The bodies weren’t just nasty sights, though. They were bizarre.”

“One of them had pustules and boils. On the bone. I thought that only happened on skin, but sure enough, this was on bone.”

“On another one, the decayed flesh had turned this sickly green hue and half-melted off. Smelled worse than anything I’d ever smelled before.”

“And another one,” remarks Gui, holding up the skull, “looked and felt a lot like this one.”

“Interesting, isn’t it?”

Celia: “Mm,” Jade says. “That is interesting. Perhaps I chose the wrong color.”

She should have hidden the bones. Of course he wouldn’t believe they were Carolla without the proof of his face. She hadn’t been thinking straight.

Jade smiles at Gui, letting her supernatural charm wash over him to blur his senses. It’s a subtle, slippery thing she sends his way, accompanied by a tilt of her head and a little giggle, the perfect picture of Kindred allure. She takes a step toward him, touching a hand to his chest and lifting her chin to find his face. She doesn’t quite meet his eye.

“Are you implying that I’m friends with Sabbat, Reynaldo?”

She giggles again.

GM: Gui chuckles and sets down the skull.

“No, I suppose not.”

“We never did find out what they’d done to those bodies.”

“Might have just been ‘art’, too.”

Celia: She smiles up at him, sliding her hand from his chest to cheek.

“Shame, I’d thought I was so clever for it. I’ll have to find something else to please the guilds for my journeyman’s piece.” She forces a sigh but there’s no real sense of loss to it, and she’s smiling past the parted lips.

“Was that when you fought one? A Lupine?” Admiration shines in her eyes.

GM: Gui smirks faintly back. “Yes, though not by myself. That’s a fast ticket to final death.”

Celia: “How many did it take to bring him down?”

GM: “Too many. The city lost a lot of licks.”

Celia: It’s hardly the thrilling tale she’d been fishing for. She removes her hand from him, nodding in apparent understanding.

“Let’s hope by river is a safer travel route than through the dark. I’ve secured us a private yacht.” She smiles winningly.

Jade certainly doesn’t do anything by half-measures.

“Speaking of friends, though. A dear one of mine is in from Houston. I mentioned you when we spoke and he asked me to arrange a meeting. Something about a shared interest.”

GM: “That feels very good,” says Gui. He doesn’t sigh under her expert touch, being long past the physiological need, but Jade can feel tension leaving his body. “You weren’t kidding about dead muscles still being able to feel.”

“I’ve thought about boats before,” he continues. “Sailing up the Mississippi. The pr-”

The door slams open. Four figures stride in, their footsteps masked by the lab’s soundproofed walls. Laura Melton. A comely redhead who smells like Kindred. The Gamberro. He smiles, showing fangs, and Jade hears no heartbeat from his chest. ‘Michael’ walks at the group’s head.

His eyes carry death.

Celia: Well.

At least she doesn’t need to set Gui up a second time, right? A glance at his face tells her all he needs to know: he’s not in on it. How had they known…? Gamberro. Why? Why turn against his… had he said… fuck.

Fuck.

All sorts of fuck.

Jade slides off the table, turning to face the band of licks. Four on two, and she’s not even sure how well the Ventrue handles himself in combat. She forces a smile, thinks about saying something sarcastic, and finally bites her tongue.

“Gamberro. You’ve brought friends.”

GM: Gui doesn’t talk. A switchblade flashes in his hand. Michael seizes the Ventrue’s arm with both hands as it flashes towards him, then pulls. There’s a hideous crack, then bone splinter gorily jutting through flesh. Gui hisses.

Michael smiles.

Celia: Celia might have once flinched at the sight. Her stomach might have churned. But she’s taken enough bodies apart in the past years that the sight doesn’t faze her, and she’s not even in control right now.

It’s the fact that Michael did it with his bare hands. With just a yank.

What’s he planning on doing to her?

Jade skitters backwards.

GM: Celia’s lover yanks the Ventrue forward by his broken arm as the switchblade hits the floor with a clatter, then executes a two-handed shoulder throw, sending Gui crashing back-first onto the ground. Michael’s foot comes down on the Ventrue’s other elbow, audibly crunching bone.

The other three watch and laugh.

“Pathetic,” sneers Michael.

Celia: She’s not interested in seeing this side of him. Gui is dead anyway, now instead of later. He’s brought enough licks to make sure of it.

She bolts.

GM: Michael’s three friends close around the door.

“You going somewhere, Kalani? What’s the hurry?” asks Michael.

He stomps down hard on Gui’s knee. A cry of pain goes up from the Ventrue as that breaks too.

Celia: Good thing there’s a second door, since that’s where she’s headed.

She’s next. She knows she’s next. She’s next and she’s not going to wait around for it to happen. Jade launches herself at the door to Celia’s closet—only an hour ago she’d been joking about it being Narnia—and wrenches it open so she can disappear on the other side.

GM: “Yeah, where you goin’, puta!” laughs Gamberro.

Footsteps thump after her. Jade isn’t sure how many of the licks give chase. Just the three? Or Michael, too? She doesn’t look to see. Laughter rings in her ears as grasping hands lunge for her, but the preternaturally quick Toreador blurs ahead.

Celia: She slams the door shut behind her, throwing the lock into place.

How long will the steel door hold? She doesn’t know. But she can’t sit here and find out. Her mind races even as her feet carry her down the hall.

Why? How? Who?

Something for a later date, isn’t it. But Roderick is in bed with Setites. What else had they given him? And Savoy—is this another betrayal? Had he traded Jade for Roderick, too? Or was she supposed to stand and watch, then take her beating?

She wants to cry. There’s nowhere to run. Roderick knows about her haven, about Celia’s place. The Evergreen might not be safe. He knows where her mom lives. Would he endanger her family like that? And Emily. Here! Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Stephen wouldn’t hurt them, but Stephen is dead. So’s Roderick, she thinks, and she watches her plans crumble into dust. Every single one of them.

Where can she—?

She can’t. She can’t go anywhere. She can’t leave Emily behind. The keys she’d given Gamberro only work for that one set of doors—because what kind of idiot has a “secret entrance” with the same keys as the normal entrance?—but she wouldn’t put it past them to break into the spa another way to find her. And if they find Emily instead, and Roderick doesn’t control the others…

Emily is locked behind a door. No one knows she’s there. She smells like booze instead of blood. That helps, right?

Jade passes a table in the hall. A glass vase with hydrangeas catches her eye. She flings it on the floor, watching the glass shatter, and cuts into her wrist with her fangs to dribble blood along the floor. All the way out the front door. She flings more droplets onto the sidewalk, then licks her wounds, locks the door from the outside, and doubles back. She takes a different path to the Vichy room where she’d left Emily. She lets herself in, quietly closes the door, and locks it.

He knows she can fly. He’ll think she took off.

Once inside, Celia pulls the dead weight of Emily’s drunk, passed out body into her arms. She’s heavy. But undead muscles don’t get tired, and Celia staggers toward the closet with the noirnette. It’s cramped, full of body scrubs and dry brushes and fragrant oils and salts and sugar scrubs, mud masks and extra towels, a handful of spa tools, but there’s room for the girls.

Celia nudges aside a bucket of pink Himalayan sea salt scrub and gently lowers Emily onto the ground. She’s back a second later with the towels that she’d left in the main room, Emily’s vomit-scented clothes, and her phone. She wedges Emily behind the hamper of used towels, uses the clean ones to cover her as best she can so it looks like a pile of excess laundry, and double checks that the phone is on silent.

They’ll be safe here. Won’t they?

She settles in.

GM: Emily groggily stirs awake as Celia moves her.

“Zwuhgh…?”

“Don’ wanna go t’ Nar’nya…”

Celia: She’d been afraid of that.

“It’ll be fun,” Celia says in a whisper. “Just for a minute, then you can sleep, ’kay?”

GM: “Mmmugh… fuckin’… Jesus lion…”

Celia: “Fuckin’ Jesus lion,” Celia agrees, stashing the pair inside the closet. “Blankies,” she says when she covers Emily.

GM: “Asla my ass…”

Celia: “Sleep now,” Celia says gently.

GM: Emily dumbly presses her palm against the door.

“Don’ like this… bed.”

“Ol’ one, be’er.”

Celia: “It’ll be okay,” Celia says to her, “we just have to be quiet for a few minutes, then we can go back.”

GM: “Mmuuughhhh….”

Celia: Celia waits, but she doesn’t wait idly.

Whatever Roderick has said to her in the past, she isn’t stupid. She knows that the scent of Emily’s blood isn’t actually more alcohol than booze, and she’s got more than enough things in the closet to help mask it. She reaches for a towel, then opens a bottle of oil they use for aromatherapy and sprinkles the towel with lavender-scented oil. Another wet, rolled towel goes beneath the closet door to better soundproof the room and hide Emily’s scent. Celia stuffs the lavender towel against the wet one. Hopefully it’s the only thing that leaks out.

It has the added benefit of helping people sleep, too, which she hopes is the case for Emily. Lavender isn’t an out of place scent in a spa, either. There are enough air fresheners and oil diffusers that anyone who isn’t used to it usually remarks, “wow, smells good in here” when they step inside. The scent here won’t shine like a beacon, summoning them toward her.

She stuffs more towels beneath, around, and over Emily to make her comfortable and hidden, doing her best to lull her to sleep.

And then, not knowing if it worked or not, not knowing if any minute one of them will wrench open the door, Celia borrows her friend’s phone, downloads an app, and opens the stream for the lab. She’d been concerned about meeting with the Ventrue. That he might turn on her. Mesmerize her, even, and make her forget anything they might have talked about. So she’d prepared, setting a device beneath the lip of her table to pick up any sound in the room.

She turns the volume down as low as she can, stops breathing, and listens.

GM: Celia finds that Emily’s phone has a pattern unlock, but her sister groggily unlocks it at her request.

The video quality comes out terrible, though. Celia can’t tell how many licks are still in the room, or if any lacks are still in the room.

She doesn’t hear anything, though.

If anyone is still in there, they’re keeping pretty quiet.

Celia: Did they leave?

Or are they waiting for her to come crawling back?

Her eyes close for a brief moment. She doesn’t think she can stay here all night. And she’s sure they’re just out there waiting for her. Melton, at least, knows more shadow dancing than she does.

She logs into another app and sends a text to a certain diamond-studded Caitiff.

2 2 many people @ this work party lol can u & R stop by to help close down?

Two plus two is four. Everyone knows that.

She stares down at the phone for a minute. Pete. She could call Pete to get her out of this. They wouldn’t attack him, right? He knows about Emily. Can help get her to safety.

Or she could just call Roderick.

She waits on that, opening the security app once more and scrolling backwards until the little squiggles of noise appear. She listens again.

GM: There’s silence for a bit.

Then footsteps again.

“…we’ll finish here, if she’s gone,” says Michael.

“Already got all the tools we need,” says Gamberro approvingly.

“Place is well-stocked,” smiles a female voice.

Celia hears sounds. Movements. Metallic.

Then a grisly, gory tearing. The unmistakable cut of steel sawing through flesh. Sawing through bone. She knows that sound. She’s heard it herself, plenty of times in that room.

“Too bad we can’t hear him scream,” says Gamberro.

Celia: Celia listens silently, hand pressed to her mouth.

GM: It’s not as if she breathes.

But some instincts die hard.

“Yes, much too bad,” concurs a female voice.

There’s a light giggle.

“You’re doing well against the collar,” says another female one.

Celia: He’s an idiot. He, more than her. Killing Gui without even questioning him. Without waiting for the sire to be delivered. Does he care about that anymore, or is he only interested in spilling Mafia blood?

And who the fuck is that bitch?

GM: There’s a sound like spitting.

“Pedazo de mierda was never gonna give what he owed.”

Celia: Melton couldn’t know how to sculpt flesh, could she? She’d have done that rather than rely on cloaking to take the place of the Gangrel. Savoy wouldn’t have sent for Dicentra if Camille had her own doc. The redhead, then? Dr. E? Or is it just more cloaking?

She texts the Caitiff again.

nvm, can handle

GM: “One can see why he wouldn’t,” smiles the first female voice. “You’re going to do his job better than he ever did.”

Celia: Of course he is. Rod won’t even get his hands dirty, will he. The coward.

GM: “Probably saw you as a threat,” agrees the second female.

Celia: Who gave him the blood, then? One of the girls? Rod himself?

Does he know she’s a Setite?

Does he care?

GM: That question remains hauntingly unanswered when Michael’s voice sounds again.

“How are you feeling now, Mr. Gui?”

“Been better,” replies the Ventrue. Haggard but cool. “Been worse, too.”

“Well, we’ll see what we can do about worse before the night is over,” smiles Michael.

“Couldn’t hack it as a Ventrue, could you, Gamberro?” says Gui. “Settling for snakes. Ah, too bad. You’ll regret that eventually.”

“You too, Mister…”

“Drakon,” answers Michael. “I’d like you to know my name, Mr. Gui. Many of your fellow scum will know it too, soon enough.”

Celia: Pretentious.

Celia is glad there’s no air in her lungs with which to snort.

GM: “I’m no snake,” sneers Gamberro. “I’m not settling for anything. Including Ventrue.”

“Drakon,” sounds Gui. “Sounds made-up. A bit pretentious, too, if I’m being honest. Young ones always pick the dramatic names.”

Celia: She’d always liked him.

…which is why she’s sitting in a closet while they torture him, isn’t it. This is how she treats her friends.

GM: “Mmm,” says Drakon. “Do you know much Athenian history, Mr. Gui?”

“My clan’s always preferred Rome to Greece, Mr. Drakon,” answers Gui.

Celia: Celia clenches her teeth together. Fuck him. Fuck him and everything he’d ever been to her. Fuck him, the abusive fucking piece of shit. Fuck him, fuck everyone.

She lets the sound play in the background, sending another text. This one to her favorite thief in the whole world.

How many nails you think you can hammer before someone notices?

GM: “He was the first law-giver of ancient Athens,” explains Drakon. “Until he came along, during either 622 or 621 BC, oral law and blood feuds were the order of the day. He replaced that system with a written legal code enforced by a court of law. His laws were harsh. Stealing a cabbage was punishable by death. In fact, his name is where the term ‘draconian’ originates. Something that is like unto Drakon’s harsh laws.”

“But what’s interesting is that the citizens of Athens greeted him not as a tyrant, but as a force for justice. According to a Byzantine source, Drakon died at a theatre. It was traditional to throw hats and shirts and cloaks at speakers as a sign of approval. The crowd threw so many clothing items on Drakon that he suffocated. He was buried in that same theatre.”

There’s what sounds like a smile.

“That story is probably apocryphal. Scholars aren’t sure how Drakon actually died. But the fact that people told this story in the first place tells us a great deal.”

“Sounds like he did too good a job, if they killed him,” says Gui.

ok cool the Caitiff texts back.

Celia: Another text to the Caitiff from earlier.

I lied, they stuck around. Wanna come?

GM: “That’s interesting,” says the second female voice. “‘Draconian.’ Is that where the name ‘Draco’ comes from?”

“Yes,” Drakon answers. “There are three different spellings for his name, in fact. Drakon, Draco, and Drako, the first and last with a ‘k’.”

“I considered Draco, but I think it’s too popularly known.”

make up your mind girl

Celia: I’m fucked tbh.

GM: “Yes, it is,” agrees the second female voice.

Celia: Another text to the thief.

I got a prob at work tbh, think you can help?

w/e you want.

GM: “The ‘k’ feels like it’s overdoing things a bit, though. What about a ‘c’?” she suggests.

Celia: Please, she entreats the thief.

Bring R she tells the Caitiff. Front door.

& prob backup

GM: what is this?

It’s from Benji.

“A ‘c’,” says possibly-Dracon, testing it experimentally. “Hm. Not bad. It feels like it could use a surname, with that spelling.”

“You can pick your fuckin’ name later,” growls Gamberro.

Celia: She doesn’t know where to begin explaining. Maybe drawing them in is a bad idea. Maybe she should just let this happen.

Finally, Celia texts her… lover.

Am I next on the list?

GM: “We’re not in any rush,” says Dracon.

“In fact, this is a good place to let it happen.”

“I’m 90% sure th….” he trails off to a buzz from his phone.

There’s a pause.

“The fuck is that?” snaps Gamberro.

“Kalani, actually,” says Dracon.

“She’s concerned we’re going to kill her.”

Laughter sounds from the other three.

“Are we?” the second female asks idly.

“I’ve entertained the thought,” says Dracon.

“Could be fun,” smiles the first female.

“Mmm. I’ve not made any plans to go through with it,” says Dracon. “It just occurred to me, a few times when I was angry at her.”

“I’d want to get Savoy’s sanction, anyway.”

“Fear or guilty conscience that she ran,” muses the first female voice.

“Yes, that is interesting,” says the second female. “I thought you said she knew how this was going down.”

“She partly knew,” says Dracon. “I told her she was going to set up a second meeting with an alias where the hit actual would take place.”

“But I assumed she was going to fuck it up somehow, so she got this surprise.”

He taps back.

No. Why would you think that?

Celia: Because I keep disappointing you, and I thought you were out of patience. I was trying to find out about D’s boyfriend from him. Was supposed to trade.

GM: I am out of patience.

You have no chances left.

Celia: I was setting it up when you showed.

What do you want? I was going to swing by your place later.

GM: Come back if you’re sincere.

Celia: Am I going to be hurt with him?

GM: Only if you lie. Will you lie?

Celia: No. Tired of lying. D told me I was treating you like a kid. Made me realize I was wrong about everything. You were right. Was going to tell you tonight after I set up the meeting.

Send your friends away. We’ll talk privately. You can decide what you want to do with me then.

GM: “Kalani wants to come back,” says Dracon.

“So long as the rest of you leave.”

“Setup,” says Gamberro flatly. “Fuck her.”

“Possibly,” agrees Dracon. “But her presence could be useful.”

“So here’s what we’ll do.”

“You’ll leave the spa and watch from somewhere close.”

“If she shows up alone, she gets to go in.”

“If she doesn’t, well, I suppose she can still go in, but she’ll join Mr. Gui on the table too.”

well? comes another text.

Celia: Celia taps on her phone. A final message to Benji.

Stay away. Handling it. Final answer. Meet you later. If you don’t hear from me, ask Lana to talk to Em.

She uses a pen from Emily’s purse to scrawl a brief message to her sister on her arm.

GM: “Mmf… sto’ fuckin’… wa’me up…” grogs Emily under the ticklish sensation.

Celia: It’s over quickly. Celia rubs her back to sleep.

GM: “Sto’ jerkin’… mk’u your min’…” mumbles Emily under Celia’s nevertheless expert touch.

don’t change your mind later, Benji texts back.

Celia: love you too

GM: “She shy?” asks the second female voice.

“Not particularly,” smiles the first.

“Don’t see why she’d want to do this alone,” says the second female. “She got a history with you?”

“Yes,” says Dracon.

Laughter from the same voice. “Kalani’s just going to use you.”

“Everyone uses each other,” says Dracon.

“She, me. I, her. I, you. You, me.”

“The great symbiosis of life.”

“And we are so angry when we’re the ones used,” tsks the first female. Almost sadly.

“Go ahead and use her, Dracon, if you think this is the best way to. We can keep ourselves…. amused in the meanwhile.”

There’s a giggle.

“I bet you putas can,” grins Gamberro.

There’s laughter from both female voices.

“Don’t worry, we’ll keep you amused too,” smiles the second female.

“Good enough for me,” laughs Gamberro.

There are some indistinct sounds. A few more giggles. But movement. Footsteps.

Silence.

Then fingers tapping.

We’re alone.

Celia: On my way.

---

Monday night, 21 March 2016, AM

Celia: Celia sneaks out of the room, closing and locking the doors behind her once more. She logs out of the apps and leaves the phone behind.

It’s between her and Roderick now. With his friends nearby should they need to be. She takes a breath. Another. They do nothing for her. Stupid, useless habits.

She waits. Long enough to make him think she’d had to fly. Time enough to visit the break room and retrieve her purse. Then she steps into Celia’s room and opens the door inside the closet.

GM: He’s there.

Waiting, with his arms crossed.

His face is his, but isn’t. Similar. But distinct. Harder lines. Stronger brows. Thinner lips. The suggestion of a shadow around his mouth and jaw, the barest beginning of a crease across his forehead and around his eyes. Him. But not. Not the face in the mirror, but one seemingly drawn with his essence in mind. The new him. He doesn’t look like someone who routinely beats his girlfriend… only like someone who is capable of such a thing.


There’s blood all over the table. Gui is gone.

Just between the two of them.

Celia: Celia draws to a halt.

It’s one of the faces she’d picked out for him. One of them that’s burning a hole in her purse right now. She doesn’t mean to stare but she does, drinking her fill of the image in front of her. Staring at dinner would have been a tell.

She hasn’t closed the door behind her. But she nods to the one behind him.

“Close it. Lock it. Please.”

GM: He does so, then turns back to her.

Silently waiting.

Celia: Gamberro has a key. It’s not like the movement sets her at ease. But the fact that he was willing to, right?

“Emily is inside the spa,” Celia says after a moment. “If your friends come back, please keep them away from her. I was unable to move her on my own.”

She lapses into silence, considering him.

“Dani told me that if I tell the truth everything will be okay. You told me that if I tell the truth I’m not going to be hurt. Does that still stand?”

GM: “You know, Celia, that really says it all,” says Roderick, arms still crossed.

“You don’t actually care about the truth.”

“You don’t actually care about me.”

Celia: “Please let me talk before you cast your judgement.”

GM: “Okay. Then I promise nothing.”

“If the only thing you care about is yourself, and finishing this talk still with a boyfriend, this whole thing is fucked anyway.”

Celia: “It is,” Celia agrees. “It is fucked. But that isn’t why I asked. I told you the other night there was more to say. You said we’d discuss it later.”

“How long do we have before your friends come back?”

GM: “I can text them if we require more time,” is all he says.

“And don’t believe for a second that I’ve forgotten.”

“I don’t think you care about the truth. I think you just want to give whatever answers are most conductive to satisfying me so we stay together.”

“You’ve lied to me for as long as I’ve known you.”

Celia: “I don’t think you’ve forgotten anything.”

She doesn’t pace. She wants to. It’s a human instinct, something she’s done out of habit for years to keep up appearances. Now, though, she stands still. She watches him. She has no doubt that he could cross the room to her in a blink if he so chose, could smash her face against wall or floor.

“I spoke to Dani this evening,” she says at length. “She helped me see a different perspective on things. Something I was lacking. Something I told myself I was handling okay. But I wasn’t. And you paid the price for that.”

GM: “That sounds accurate enough.”

His arms are still crossed.

Celia: “I lied to you,” Celia says, agreeing. “I did. I lied to you. I thought it was the right thing to do at the time, and it wasn’t. I was mistaken. I was wrong. The entire time, I was wrong, and I hurt you. Selfishly. Very, very selfishly. Narrow-minded. Stupid, you might say.”

She doesn’t look away from him when she says that. No flicker of emotion crosses her face.

“It hurt, when you said that. But you were right. And I don’t think an apology is going to cut it. Not now. Not this late in the game. But I’d like to offer one anyway. I’d like to tell you that I’m sorry for all of the times that I lied to you. That I used you. That I manipulated you. That I hurt you. I’ve done a lot of terrible things in my life and unlife, but I think that what I did to you is… it’s the worst thing I’ve done.”

She lets out a breath.

“I was going to stop by tonight. I was… I was so eager to stop by, to tell you that I’d gotten the meeting with Gui, that I had Dani’s sire, that I had the blood, that I set up Duke. I thought it would show you that I’m committed to being honest with you. That I don’t want to continue like it has been. That I want to do better for you.”

GM: No flicker of emotion crosses Roderick’s face either.

“When was the first time you lied?” he asks.

Celia: “By omission, or directly?”

GM: “Lies by omission are still lies.”

Celia: “When I didn’t tell you about Paul.”

“Or about cos school.”

GM: “You know, cos school I remember at first being puzzled by, and then hurt by.”

“Because why wouldn’t she tell me this.”

“But I forgave you.”

“Was only the first lie, after all, and no real harm done.”

Celia: “I felt like it wasn’t good enough for you. Pre-law. Big dreams. Dance major who wants to play with makeup.”

GM: “Yes, you said.”

“Paul, though.”

He shakes his head.

“My fucking god.”

Celia: “Do you want to know my thoughts there, or would you rather I not?”

GM: “Are they going to be more excuses and justifications?”

Celia: “Explanations. But I understand that they can sound the same, and I don’t want to waste your time.”

“Or sound as if I’m defending my behavior when there is no excuse.”

“What I did was wrong, no matter what I thought at the time.”

“After my Embrace… when I found out he was a ghoul, I used to cling to the idea that he mesmerized me. Made me come back. Maybe hit me with star mode. Because what other excuse did I have? I didn’t want to take responsibility for that. It was an awful thing to do.”

“I don’t know if that’s true. If he did. I think it just made me feel better.”

“I told myself my mom needed the money. I believed her when she told me not to ask you for help, that getting into debt with a boyfriend is a bad idea. I told myself a lot of things.”

GM: “It’s easier to glamor someone who’s already willing to go along with you,” says Roderick.

“Harder if they don’t want to.”

“If they’re actually fighting.”

Celia: Celia nods.

“I… wanted to believe it wasn’t my fault. But it was.”

GM: “Did you mom recommend you cheat on your boyfriend and whore yourself out to a man… how many times your age?”

“I’m pretty sure she’d have said that was a worse idea.”

Celia: “No. I lied to her, too.”

“I told her it was coming out of my trust.”

“She didn’t know.”

“She… she asked me once. Her wages had stopped being garnished. I brought up celebrating, maybe going out. She said she still needed the extra cash. It’s not her fault. She didn’t know.”

“I imagine she’d have rather gone hungry than let me do that.”

GM: “She always struck me as a decent human being.”

“I wonder where she went wrong with you.”

Celia: Celia bows her head.

“She tried. I made my own mistakes.”

GM: “So what would you have done, with this new level of bedazzling self-awareness, in lieu of whoring yourself out to Paul and cheating on me?”

Celia: “I don’t know,” Celia admits. “It’s easy to see the fault with a lot of plans I might suggest now that I know about Kindred. Going after my father earlier might not have panned out, but I could have. Cutting ties would have been better than what I did. Asking for help from someone who knew more than me. You. My grandmother. Viv. There were other options.”

GM: “So why the fuck did you sleep with him?”

Celia: “The first time… I was afraid. I went to him for help. My mom told me that he was Maxen’s friend. That I shouldn’t. But I thought I knew better, and… and he put me on my knees. After that, I thought I could outsmart him. I thought I could blackmail him into changing the trust so I could get out from under my dad and not be a burden on anyone else. I took photos. I recorded things. There are anomalies in his home, did you know? It’s…” she shakes her head.

“I was the protagonist of my own movie, I thought everything would turn out okay and by some miracle I’d come out ahead. It was naive. Ignorant. Stupid. And selfish. Very, very selfish. Like I had to do everything on my own. Like just one more visit and Mom would have enough to live on, and I could stop. But there was always another excuse. Car broke down. Rent is due. Mom needs groceries. Always more. She ran herself ragged for me.”

“I wanted to help without being a drain on someone else. I told myself if I got enough money I could walk away from that entire life. Leave Audubon behind.”

“And… I don’t think I expected us to last. You were always…” she gestures vaguely at him, “…just better than me. Smarter. More driven. When I met your dad and Dani for the first time…”

Celia trails off.

“She told me how much you liked me. So I… I wanted to find another way. I reached out to my real dad. I met him. I didn’t ask for money, but we talked after I took the DNA test, and he wanted to cut me a check for cos school. Said he wasn’t my dad, but that he ‘liked my story,’ wouldn’t mind hanging out. So I let him.”

“I was angry. At Paul. For what he’d done to me. I was angry, and I let that rule my actions, and I went to see him. One last time, I said, so I could tell him it was over, so I could… be satisfied, I guess, watching him be disappointed. I could tell him to fuck off.”

“It didn’t work out like I thought. It was dumb. I was dumb. I thought I was taking my power back or whatever, and it just got worse.”

GM: Roderick listens impassively.

“So why did you try to sleep with Emmett after that? Or go home with Pietro? Because those times sure as hell weren’t for your mom.”

Celia: “Emmett’s a conman. I’m pretty sure he could talk a nun into bed with him.” Celia shakes her head again. “It was right after Dad was arrested, and I found out he’d been released. Em was the only ‘negative influence’ I knew. There was some scandal in high school. I… I don’t know why I thought he could help. We’d talked about framing Maxen for something else. Drugs. Said he knew someone in Blackwatch that could help. But we were kids. Just dumb kids. And I think he might have been lying. We had a few drinks. We danced. We smoked. I thought… I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking clearly. It all made more sense at the time. I wanted to believe he could help me. Do something dirty that normal people wouldn’t consider.”

“And Pietro… god, I don’t even know. I could pretend I was someone less pathetic with him. Cici the dancer, not Celia the whore.”

“I was drinking, but that doesn’t excuse it. I thought he might have hit me with his charm, but I doubt he needed to. I just wanted to forget for a while. I wanted to be a kid and make bad decisions and not worry about my dad. It was… it was really immature.”

“I wish I’d just gone to you instead. That I’d called you. Showed up at your door. Any assortment of things that didn’t have to do with other people.”

GM: “Immature is a good way to describe it,” he says.

“So is selfish.”

“Hurting your partner and permanently hurting your relationship with your partner for your own immediate gratification.”

“And I doubt Emmett could talk a nun into bed.”

“Not unless some part of her actually wanted that. He was a breather. He didn’t have star mode. He couldn’t artificially implant desire where none existed.”

“And yeah, you could have shown up at my door.”

“You could have gone to me and told me about the monsters.”

“You had no reason to believe Emmett was any more likely to believe that story than me.”

“Even the cheating, I could understand, in a warped and twisted way. It’s explainable as simple selfishness. Obtaining gratification at someone else’s expense, because you value your pleasure more than their happiness. There’s a mental calculation there, even when it’s an impulsive decision. ‘I am more important.’”

“It’s the lack of trust in telling me about what you saw and experienced that I still find so bizarre.”

“Or, what, did you figure I was going to break up with you if you told me about the preceding circumstances, and that would have required explaining how you slept with Pietro and tried to sleep with Emmett?”

Celia: “Do you mean, why didn’t I tell you about Pietro and Veronica?”

GM: “Yes.”

Celia: There’s a beat of silence.

Then, “They told me if I did they’d kill me and whoever I told. I valued his life less than yours.”

GM: “You had two encounters with them. They told you that during the first one?”

Celia: “Oh, I thought you meant the second. They told me that at the second. At the first… they knew who I was. I saw he’d gone through my purse while I slept. Didn’t bother putting it back to rights, pulled my license out. Had my address, real name, et cetera. Implied I was a loose end. Same reasoning, just less explicit.”

GM: “And was that the correct reasoning?”

Celia: “I was afraid they’d find me if I went to someone I was publicly connected with. I was afraid they’d hurt me and whoever I was with. I didn’t go to my mom’s. I didn’t go back to the dorm. I didn’t go to you. No one knew I was friends with Emmett. I’d already seen them kill one person and shrug it off like no big deal.”

GM: “So you were right, to tell Em and no one else?”

“Speaking from a breather perspective.”

“One ignorant of the Masquerade and larger Kindred society.”

Celia: “Honestly? No. I shouldn’t have dragged him into it either. I was scared and not thinking straight. I imagine the police would have been a better call if I had been.”

GM: “So you should have called the police, and left everyone else out of it?”

Celia: “How would you have helped, if I’d gone to you? What would you have done without knowing about any of this?”

GM: “You haven’t definitively answered my question, Celia. Is that or is that not your answer?”

Celia: “I don’t know. Leaving you out of it shows a lack of trust. Bringing you into it feels like I’m putting you in danger. Calling the police and then bringing you into it… maybe that was the better play, calling for help from the people who are supposed to help, then coming to you. That’s what normal people do, turn to their partners for help. I didn’t know they were Kindred. Just killers. I guess I didn’t have any reason to think they’d come after me, or you, if they were caught.”

Celia is quiet for a moment.

“I see,” she says. “I see your point.”

“That I’ve been doing it this whole time. Keeping you ignorant because I thought it was the right thing.”

“Because I thought it would protect you. That I could handle it.”

GM: “Yeah. You’ve got a real savior complex there.”

Celia: She runs a hand through her hair.

“Treated you like a kid. Like Dani said.”

GM: “That’s a better way of putting it than savior complex.”

Celia: She leans heavily against the side of the table, ignoring the Ventrue’s blood.

“This whole time,” she says quietly, “I thought… I thought I could do it all on my own, and I could keep everyone out of it, and if I messed up I’d be the only one punished. I’ve kept everyone at arm’s length. I’ve lied to everyone. And it’s not like that. Not at all. That’s… not how the world works. Not how our society works. Not how relationships work.”

“I have been. Treating you like a kid. Treating you poorly. Been selfish. Stupid. Trying to… to please everyone, and hurting you, and… making up excuses that it was for your own good, but it wasn’t. It never was.”

“I did the same thing with Dani. Told her not to come to Elysium. Told her it wasn’t safe. Thought it was best.”

“Took everyone’s choices away from them.”

GM: “Dani’s not a kid either. She can make her own decisions.”

“And yes, you did.”

“You took away everyone’s choices and completely fucked up our relationship.”

Celia: Celia closes her eyes. She nods.

“Yeah. I did.”

She can’t look at him. She did. She’d fucked up. Needlessly.

GM: “All for nothing. For absolutely nothing.”

Celia: She keeps her eyes on the floor but nods again.

“I… you’re right. I fucked it up. For nothing. And now it’s… I can’t undo it, I can’t just… say that I’m sorry, it’s all…” Celia finally looks up. “It’s all just fucked, and it’s no one’s fault but mine.”

“I don’t even know where to begin fixing it. I thought tonight might…”

She trails off. It doesn’t matter.

GM: “It is your fault,” Roderick agrees.

“Completely your fault.”

“We also aren’t finished here.”

“You had more things to tell me, when we last talked at my haven, and which we postponed.”

“And maybe more things have happened since then, too.”

Celia: Silently, she nods again.

“I did… I did something. Something really bad.”

GM: “Just one something?”

Celia: “In general, or in regards to you?”

GM: “Both.”

Celia: “More than one something.”

GM: “Color me surprised.”

He doesn’t sound surprised.

Celia: She’s past the point of being hurt by his words.

“Can you help me take Emily home,” she says, “so she doesn’t have to sleep here? And then I can… I’ll tell you the rest of it.”

GM: “No,” says Roderick.

Celia: She hadn’t really expected him to, had she?

“Where do you want me to start.”

GM: “Chronologically.”

“From the beginning.”

Celia: “Everything, or just the bad things?”

GM: “Everything left unsaid. Everything you’re supposed to tell your partner.”

Celia: “For starters,” Celia says with no inflection, “the spa is bugged, which is the other part of why I’d like to take this conversation elsewhere.”

GM: “Yes, I assumed Savoy had bugged it.”

Celia: She doesn’t let anything show on her face.

“He’s hardly the only one with reason to.”

GM: “Fine. Where else in the Quarter is secure?”

Celia: “Haven. Assorted homes I have access to.” A pause. “Random hotel room.” A longer pause. “The place we had dinner.”

“Tell Gamberro to bring back my keys.”

GM: “Do I look as if I give two shits about where Emily sleeps or your stupid keys right now?”

Celia: Celia turns and walks away.

GM: Roderick seizes her by the shoulder.

Celia: “I can’t lead the way to another location if you grab me.”

GM: “No. I’m deciding where we’re going, if we’re leaving the spa. I don’t trust you.”

Celia: “We’re not. I’m not leaving my friend behind with four licks in the area.”

GM: “Then why do you want to go to another room?”

Celia: “Because this one is bugged, and there’s one that is decidedly more difficult to hide something in.”

GM: “Fine. We’ll talk in the frenzy room. I presume it’s soundproofed.”

Celia: “Yes.”

“Leave your phone. And your clothes. The lack of trust goes both ways tonight.”

GM: “Fine,” Roderick repeats shortly. “Yours too.”

“And don’t even think of coming onto me right now.”

Celia: “I wasn’t,” she says flatly.

While he strips, Celia closes the door to Narnia, then shoves a chair beneath the handle of the outside door. It won’t stop them forever, but she feels better for its presence all the same.

She kicks off her shoes. Pulls off her belt. Yanks the borrowed shirt over her head. There’s nothing seductive in the way she strips. It’s quick, efficient movements, panties tossed on top of the shirt with a flick of her wrist.

Naked and unarmed, Celia steps into the panic room.

GM: Roderick methodically strips his clothes too. Coat, shoes, socks, belt, shirt, pants, boxers, in order. His body is well-muscled and well-proportioned, exactly like it was the last time she saw it, despite the different face. Coco made sure to Embrace him in his prime, Celia well knows, after a vigorous fitness regimen. After every stray hair was plucked and every imperfection ironed out. He’s angry, too. So angry. The two of them are walking into a small room together. Naked together. It’s cute. They are a cute couple together. In this little room naked together. Both eternally young and eternally pretty (even if he’ll never be as pretty as her, of course).

All they need is a good hard fuck to get it out of their systems…

Celia: It had been true when she’d said it.

Now, though, looking at him without a stitch of clothing between them, trapped in a small, steel room together… she remembers the taste of his blood. Hot. Fiery. All the better with so much anger behind it. All the better when he slams her into the wall and pins her arms above her head and—

No.

Not tonight. Not with him. She is not a slave to her body’s desires. She has been. But not now.

Her Beast whines. It wants blood. His blood. Wants to show that he might be able to slap her around but this close proximity, this naked flesh, this desire? That’s her domain.

It’s an effort to shut the damn thing up. It snarls at her when she denies it.

Nothing crosses her face. She refuses to give him the satisfaction of knowing that she wants him.

“How familiar are you with shadow dancing,” she finally asks.

GM: And they say their clan walks without a curse.

Perhaps one merely more subtle than his.

Roderick’s face, for his own part, could not look less aroused.

“Familiar enough,” he says.

Celia: “Familiar with the illusions that the tricksters can create?”

GM: “That’s not secret knowledge, Celia. Everyone knows they’re illusionists.”

Celia: Celia smiles.

“Yes. I was leading into something different. I have a similar ability that I developed. I believe it’s unique to me, or at least the way I do it. With your permission, I’d like to use it here. It’s an additional layer of security. It’s not harmful. You can end it any time you want. I believe it will aid with explanations in some cases when images are better than words. It also becomes relevant later in what you want me to tell you. Showing you rather than telling you will allow greater insight.”

GM: “No,” says Roderick.

He does not smile.

“This a human problem. You can explain it in human words. Without the magic light show.”

“And I don’t believe it’s harmless. I don’t trust you.”

Celia: Celia nods. She hadn’t thought he would agree, but it had been worth the ask. She settles against the wall, hands behind her back, and keeps her eyes on his face.

“There’s a possibility that things I share will get me into trouble. Possibly killed. Before, I’d have lied to you about them. I don’t want to do that anymore. I also don’t want you to have to keep secrets for me, or know things that will get you into just as much trouble. That’s why I’ve demanded this,” she waves a hand to indicate the room, “and asked for the assistance of the illusions, as there would be no verbal record of this communication. But I understand you don’t trust me. Do you want to know the things that I’d consider dangerous knowledge?”

GM: Roderick’s eyes and voice are short.

“Celia, get on with it. All of it.”

Celia: “Then, just… let me get it all out before you say anything.”

She takes a breath. And then she begins.

“My sire never told me why he Embraced me. I think it’s something I’ve struggled with since it happened. He should have killed me. At that point I was Pietro’s ghoul with Veronica’s powers and I had every intention of destroying his pawn. Ghouls have no rights. No one would have cried foul.”

“If I were to guess… I think he knew he could manipulate me, that I had a darkness inside of me that spoke to his own. I’ve wondered if I was designed for this. To be his childe. To accept the way he treats me. He told me that growing up with Maxen in that house of terror taught me to be strong. There’s a significant amount about my parent’s relationship, and my mother’s rape by Ron, that doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve pushed for answers where I can. But that’s… later, that comes later. My point is that when I first saw him, when I was eight, he started… grooming me. He came for my father, but he took me as well.”

“When Veronica shared her powers with me, I planned to use them for murder. Free my mom, kill my dad, and set Paul’s house on fire. I ran into Lebeaux and he told me the monster’s name. Where he lived. I thought… I could handle it. And if not, at least I’d trade my life for something worthwhile.”

“So when he came for me… I wasn’t afraid to die.”

“I remembered his face from my dreams. When I was eight. Again at fourteen, when I watched Maxen cut off my mother’s leg. He could have made me forget. All of it. He could have made me forget that I had ever seen him. But he didn’t. He picked me up. He carried me down the hallway. He told me everything would be okay. He told me that I was… special. His special little girl. That he loved me very much.”

“That night, he took me into the sky. I saw the whole city below us, and I was… cold, so cold, he was like marble. My teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. I tried not to be afraid, but he was… he was killing me. Draining me. It was different than when Pietro and Veronica did it. They took too much from me that night. But I felt him killing me. Sucking all of the warmth out of me. And I knew… this was it. He’d drain me and drop me.”

“I said his name.”

“That’s it. One word. Just his name. He stopped drinking. He looked at me and I saw my blood on his lips, but it was… far away. So far away. Because I couldn’t look at anything except his eyes. The storm inside his eyes swept me away.”

“Then he was inside of me, and I was inside of him, and I saw… Hell. Torment. Agony. Demons.”

Despite herself, Celia shivers. She crosses her arms over her stomach.

“I’ve never spoken of it, never told anyone the things I saw. I don’t know if he showed them to me, or if I simply took them. I don’t know if he knows I know. I learned things. Dangerous things. Things he’d likely kill to keep quiet.”

“For years I’ve been looking for answers. Savoy hasn’t said much to me about him. I’ve looked for other ways. Recently I spoke to someone who seemed to know more. And I found it. The demon.”

“That’s why I believed my father when he told me about it. Because I’ve seen it. Because even though it’s hard to explain that Maxen was once a good dad and we were happy, it’s true. I think my sire spread the demon to him, and I think Maxen had it exorcised.”

“Last night,” she says with a grimace, “I was tailed from the Evergreen. That’s when I called you. Agnello. I drove back, I parked right outside, and I tried to run back in. He grabbed me. Pulled me under the car. Staked me.”

“They took me to Perdido House.”

“Bornemann turned me in for infernalism because of our chat. Doriocourt told me that they were going to burn me. I was supposed to die at Elysium tonight.”

“I made a deal. I’ve got… a week, I think, to make it happen. Then they come for me.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it. I’ve been setting some things in order in case not. I told Dani I’d find her sire. And I told you I’d find her sire. That’s why I was dealing with Gui. He was supposed to deliver the staked sire tonight, but with everything that happened…”

“Dani was raped,” Celia continues quietly. “She asked me not to tell you. She thinks her sire raped her. We went hunting together tonight and she was… it’s not her scene. She’s afraid of men. She said she’d… she said she’d never been with anyone before, so this was…” She stops. Her fingers clench into fists.

“She wants to know why this happened to her. I thought I could find out for her. I told her I found him, because he was supposed to be delivered, and I thought we could question him together. The three of us.”

“I might have found a way to make her a true-blooded vampire. It involves some pretty dark magic. I haven’t spoken to her about it yet.”

“I broke the Masquerade. There was an incident earlier tonight, and I willingly broke the Masquerade. I think it’s past the point of a quick memory fix.”

“The night started out poorly. Dinner and all. Then Dani and I talked. Then Savoy stood up for me at Elysium when they were calling for my head. Then you came outside and kept Agnello from beating me, and I assume it was because you knew I had your sister with me, but it… you still came.”

“That and some other things… it helped open my eyes. And it just made me think that I don’t want it to be like this anymore. I don’t want to be this person. I don’t want to lie to you. I don’t want to cheat on you. I don’t want to hurt you because I’m selfish or stupid or short-sighted. So when Gui came… I was just… I was so eager to make the trade for Dani’s sire, to tell you I’d set the meeting for him, to bring you the rest of the blood, to tell you… all of the plans I have that I didn’t get to share with you, to make it… better. To make everything better. To be honest and open and tell you all of it. To tell you I can get into his head and find out whatever you want to know from either one of them, to show you things I’ve been working on, to… make up for everything I’d needlessly fucked up by being a liar and a coward. To stop treating you like a child or justifying my lies. Apologize for all the hurt I caused you. Find a way forward.”

GM: Roderick listens.

The demon talk doesn’t elicit much of a reaction from his face. It has little enough to do with their relationship, Celia supposes.

Then he hears his sister was raped.

Roderick screams and slams his fist into the steel wall, to a resounding boom. He screams and slams his other fist into the steel, to another boom. He screams and his fists blur, back and forth, too fast for Celia to keep up with. Boom, boom, boom, boom. His eyes bulge and fangs jut from his mouth as he howls and his fists strike. Boom, boom, boom, boom.

He keeps at it for at least a minute.

Yet, when he stops, the catharsis appears to have healed little. If anything, he looks even worse. Celia can feel the Brujah’s wrath gathered about him like a barely contained inferno. Just waiting to pour out and consume all.

“So,” he seethes, “is that all, or is there more?”

Celia: Celia remembers the last time he’d lost it in front of her. How she’d tried to hide, thinking she was next. How that had drawn the rampaging Brujah’s attention instead. He’d come after her, torn everything apart in his haste to get to her—

She doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe. Not until it’s over.

Silently, she waits it out.

“I might have messed up with my dad,” Celia says to his question. “I did the right thing for my mom. But it might have cost us. I know you wanted to find a way to utilize him.”

GM: “I don’t give two shits about your dad right now.”

Celia: Celia lapses into silence.

He couldn’t shut up about her dad the last time they spoke.

GM: “Is that all, Celia?” he growls, and Celia can see his hands clenching and unclenching as the wrath burns behind his eyes like a hungry fire. “Is that everything you’ve wanted to tell me? Every lie, finally unmasked, the truth finally come out?”

“There’s no longer anything between us?”

Celia: “There’s… minor things, but when I think about them they mostly sound like excuses for past behavior, and I’m working on them so they don’t further damage what’s between us.”

“Your anger,” she says quietly. “The clan curse. I’ve seen you control it. That means I can control mine. So now it just sounds like an excuse to do things I’ve done, and I don’t want to hide behind that.”

GM: “So minor things,” Roderick repeats. The words are slow, like the rumblings of an angry volcano.

“That’s all that’s left.”

“Minor things.”

“Things that can wait.”

“Nothing else you think we need to have out here.”

Celia: “No,” Celia whispers. She looks up at him, hands at her side, eyes wide. “That’s… that’s it.”

GM: Roderick turns, walks to the door, and solves the combination puzzle.

“Wait here.”

Celia: “Roderick—”

GM: He opens the door. He doesn’t look back.

“Wait. Here.”

Celia: Silently, she waits.

Seconds tick by.

Something about this is familiar. Steel walls. Cold room. No clothes. She scratches the itch until it bleeds synthetic artifice sacks.

Plastic taints the taste. It disappears with a pinch of her fingers.

The voices start eventually. They always find her, don’t they.

“You should have burned.”

“No.”

“It’s the only way to be useful anymore.”

“No.”

“He’s right. Black hole.”

“N—”

“No one would have come for you.”

“No one loves you.”

“You’re broken.”

“They broke you.”

“And they never put you back together again.”

Someone screams. She thinks it might be her. But she’s not her, she’s a little girl and there’s a monster under her bed and he’s coming for her and she tells her sister to run but she can’t move she’s rooted to the spot she’s cold so cold she can’t breathe there’s no air and it’s dark and she’s screaming but no one is listening she’s drowning, drowning, the air flees her lungs, it bubbles from her lips as she sinks deeper, deeper, deeper—

“Stop it, stop it, STOP IT—”

Something in her mouth, she’s choking, they’re holding her down, fingers around her throat—

“-led her-”

“—ot bre—

“-blood-”

“-gi-no—”

“STO—!”

The kids cried out, “Please stop, you’re scaring me”

I can’t help this awful energy

God damn right—

“—you should be scared of me.”

She giggles.

“Who is in control?”

Then she’s gone.

The scent of blood wafts from the room. Overwhelming. Overpowering, it masks even the strongest chemical scent. Inside, the steel walls have been painted red.

An artist dances in the midst of the splatter. Red leaks from the gouges in her flesh, dripping down the pale skin of her forearm to coat her hands. She leaves smears everywhere she touches: images and words etched in blood.


All across the room they scrawl.


Dripping.


The words blur in places, as if another hand went through it while wet.




Beneath the words, images have been daubed in red by crude fingers. An artist, though paint has never been her medium. The suggestions of shapes remain.







…LAINS…HA…IVE…I..Y HEA..

..VER DI…HEN…M DEAD…

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…

We all

FALL

D

O

W

N

“Princess,” she sings, twirling. Blood flies from the tips of her fingers with the movement. It splatters across the floor and walls. “Princess Looooootus Blossom!”

She flicks her wrist. Drip, drip, drip goes the red. It ruins her art, but she doesn’t notice.

“Flash of… flash of silver… knows it, she knows it…”

“Momma Goose. Momma? Luce. Momma Luce.”

“You… you’re still my… my mommy…”

She looks without eyes. White orbs stare from her sockets. Three fingers brand her throat.

“I see now.”

“There was a monster under my bed.”

“And now it’s in my head.”

She giggles. Her face goes slack, white eyes wide.

“Daddy?”

She cocks her head to one side. Her lips split into a smile that stretches far wider than it should. When she giggles—always giggling—the points of her teeth show red.

“Can you hear her?”

“Screaming.”

“Always. Always screaming.”

“Tell her to stop.”

“Tell her—tell her it’s over, so she—”

“Keeeeeeeep hooooooldin’ on…”

“…make it through… make it… through…”

“…no other way…”

“…when it comes… to the… truth…”

“…hanging… by a… thread…”

“Shut up shut UP SHUT UP!”

She drops to her knees on the floor and scoots forward until she can touch the wall, using the bloody tips of her fingers to draw a rough square. She stares at the empty stretch of steel inside the box.

“I’m going to cut you out,” she whispers to it. “I’m going… I’m going to cut, to cut you, to cut you OUT! GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT YOU’RE DEAD!”

Long, wicked claws spring from her fingers. She digs them into her stomach and howls.

GM: But she can’t cut it out.

She told her mom, once.

“She’s me. I’m her.”

But, oh.

She can still give a show.

And the best lies are spun from truth.

How lucky she told him and Dani about her multiple personalities.

Roderick returns. He doesn’t run. He walks. He seizes Celia by each of her wrists, pulls her up, and pins her against the blood-smeared wall. It ruins one of the illustrations. He’s got his clothes back on.

There’s a lot on his face. And not on his face. There’s the familiar fury, white hot, but seemingly held in abeyance by something cold and detached and distant. It’s a look that feels at home on Michael’s, Dracon’s, whoever’s face. She could have seen it on Roderick’s face, and perhaps even did see it presaged on Roderick’s face, but never like this. Never with so little life behind his eyes, or a mouth so squarely set it looks as if it might never smile again. She does not think Dani would like this face.

There’s something else on it, too, written in the eyes.

Disgust.

What a broken creature she must resemble.

What a broken creature he must think she is.

Trying so desperately to seize the last, just-snapped strand of their years-frayed and unraveled relationship, and pull everything back. To keep him from leaving. What cost, now, to tell another lie, if he’s leaving her?

He can’t leave her.

She can’t be broken by herself.

If a black hole is bereft of light and matter to devour, will it finally devour itself?

Oh, there is her sire, the cold one who her thoughts always return to. Whose collar rests as securely around her neck as it ever has. He will always be there.

But he has no use for broken things.

“I suppose you have more you want to say, Celia,” Roderick says tonelessly.

“Go on.”

“Let’s have it out.”

Celia: She hangs limply by her arms when she’s done thrashing, wrists caught in his steel grip. Blood drips down the flat plane of her stomach where her claws managed to slice into her skin before he stopped her.

This isn’t how the story is supposed to go.

But she sees it writ all over his face: it’s over.

More red threatens to leak from her white eyes. She blinks it back. She keeps herself still once it’s stabilized. Absolutely still. She stops pretending she’s still human.

“She’s lying,” Celia finally whispers. “She—I’m…?—lying.”

Naked. Naked, and he’s clothed, and there’s nothing to hide behind anymore.

“I don’t want her anymore. I don’t want to be her anymore. I don’t want Jade.”

GM: When has the story gone how it was supposed to go?

“Let’s have it out,” repeats Roderick.

His voice isn’t impatient. It’s still toneless.

“Let’s have out the truth you say you want to share.”

Celia: The triad of finger imprints around her throat bob when she swallows.

“She killed him. She killed him.”

And then she shakes her head.

“I killed him.”

GM: Roderick simply stares.

Celia: Dead eyes stare back.

“You said she isn’t real,” the mouth says, “but all night I hear her whispering. ‘Lie. Cheat. Fuck. Kill’. Every time I start to tell you she comes back, slipping inside, filling my mouth with empty nothings—anything to get what she wants.”

The eyes start to leak.

“I don’t want her anymore. I don’t want her anymore. You said we could get rid of her. She’s lying, they’re all ly—”

The mouth giggles. It splits until its jagged smile cuts the face in half.

“She thinks you’re going to save her,” the monster purrs. “She still thinks it’s love. You should hear how she screams. Vying for control. ‘No, not him, don’t touch him, stop hurting him, he’s good.’”

“Good.” It spits the word. “Good. We showed her how good you are when we cooked her, didn’t we.”

“You’re the same as everyone else.” It cocks its head to the side, smiling widely. “How many more times will you have to hit her before it sinks in?”

“You’re just… like… me.”

It giggles again.

“I killed him,” it hisses, “and I fucked him, and I fixed that little issue when she spilled his plans, didn’t I, because she’s weak, pathetic, stup—”

The body shudders. Its eyes widen. It pleads.

“St—ove h—”

It snarls, lips drawn back over its teeth at an unseen adversary.

And then it chokes. Blood dribbles out of its mouth. Its eyes narrow and it screams—

But the sound is just a gurgle. Crimson vitae flows past its lips, splattering across his chest. A wet plop strikes the floor.


A severed tongue lies between them.

The monster rasps.

Then it’s gone and there’s a cat on the ground, darting toward the tongue to pick it up with its mouth, streaking towards the wall—

The girl is back, tongue clutched in her hand, using the bleeding stump to scrawl—


GM: Celia starts it.

Maybe he believes her, this mad and gibbering and thoughtlessly hurting thing.

Because it’s Jade’s fault.

Maybe he just wants to hurt her, this mad and gibbering and thoughtlessly hurting thing.

Because it’s Celia’s fault.

He seizes her up in his hands again.

Because it’s either of their faults?

Because it’s both of their faults?

Whoever’s fault, the fault lies in the body. The body’s tongue moves and speaks all the lies, the many, many, many lies.

Preternaturally strong fingers dig into the Toreador’s already wounded belly and gruesomely rip.

Celia: How do you scream without a tongue?

The body manages. Rage. Pain. Terror. It screams at a throat bleeding pitch as the Brujah tears into it with his bare hands. It thrashes. It struggles to escape. But he’s stronger. Faster. Smarter. Even when the Beast takes over its fists are pitifully small, inconsequential things. Eventually it exhausts itself, just in time to hear the swishing inside the stomach.

Tequila dribbles out.

So does the bottle.

And the letter tucked inside.

Nights ago, he’d asked for it. This evening, while Jade waited for her guests to arrive, Celia had written it.

GM: Celia isn’t lucid enough to tell, for much of it. Perhaps she is glad when the Beast takes over in all its impotent rage.

But Roderick’s coldly impassive face changes little at her mangled, raw-throated screams.

He dumps her to the ground without crremony, yanks out the red-dripping bottle with a messy squelch, and removes the letter inside.

Celia: An ink-stained page unfolds in his grasp, the words blurring together. Some of the sentences are fragmented, like there was no time to do it right. As if any minute she’d be interrupted.

I freed Mom. But I couldn’t get out. I wasn’t fast enough. Never fast enough.

He came for me. I couldn’t get away.

Now he won’t let go.

It’s too tight.

The Malkavian trapped Diana. She built her prison with her own hands and wove herself into its fabric. They turned her into the perfect wife and put the discarded pieces into a doll.

It took three to make the perfect Toreador. I made them with my own hands, never realizing what it was.

She said I was her best creation.

Vain. Selfish. Hedonist. Arrogant. Cruel. Fickle.

Mom was right. Jade is evil.

I tried to stop her.

I thought I could do the right thing when they came for you.

What follows is a list of lies. Written in Celia’s shaky hand, like she’d fought with herself the whole time she tried to get it down on paper. Some words have been scratched out and rewritten multiple times. A particularly vicious slash cuts through the page itself to hide a sentence. She’s drawn a leash and collar around a cage instead, the image rudimentary and crude. Everything he’d asked about. An outpour of honesty onto the page.

What had he always said? Truth comes out.

This is hers, in all its ugly, desperate, tangled glory: the story of a girl in love with a boy, stolen by a monster when she’d tried to rescue her mother. She became one, too. Bit by bit, they killed her. They broke her. She tried to put herself back together again but it was never enough. She was never enough. She couldn’t heal their destruction fast enough.

Not by herself.

And burying the pieces of her inside of porcelain smiles, trapping the dead girl in a cave beneath the water—none of it had kept her from spinning further into the abyss. Like Nietzsche said.

She thought that when the monster came for her, when he took her to his castle and chained her, when he ripped her apart and stitched her back up—she thought that was love. Every broken bone was love. Every swing of his sword was love.

When you’re not fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off of knives.

And how exquisite that love is when paired with the thrill of danger.

But that’s her curse, isn’t it. That her heart is just too big. For so too it was love on the roof, when the girl saved her mom. It was love on the roof, when the boy attacked the monster. It was love in the air, when the girl bargained for his safety. It was love in her haven, when she told him to get his sister out.

And the monster they created sabotaged it all.

I’m so sorry. I failed.

GM: But she was fed love, wasn’t she? From her mother. From her sisters. From the broken-hearted boy. A rich and steady diet of it, eaten off silver spoons.

It was the love dripping from the knife that tasted so much sweeter.

His love that tastes so much sweeter.

And for all the words of her sister-in-blood, it is not her sire who stands before her now, threatening to leave her forever.

Roderick looks from the letter in his hand towards Celia.

His cool eyes do not scan the page yet.

“This is all of it, Celia? This is actually everything you want to tell me, every lie exposed?”

Celia: It is?

No. Of course not. It will never be every lie exposed, because she will never betray her sire. She will never put the pair of them at risk, not again. Not when the punishment is her family used against her. Not when her punishment is her ghouls slain in front of her.

Not when her punishment is his disappointment.

She feels it tugging, tugging, tightening, pulling—

She’d tugged back, but it hadn’t been enough. She hadn’t been able to state it plainly. He wouldn’t want that.

So she’d tried to draw it on the walls. Put it behind the words of the letter. Had marked it into her very flesh. Subtle, tiny things, clues that the bond hadn’t made her destroy, cross out, or smear.

Maybe it’s not enough.

Blank eyes stare out at him from the pretty face. It has no entrails to dangle from the torn apart flesh on its stomach. Just a gaping hole where he had ripped and shredded his way inside, a handful of other objects visible in the tomb of the torn-open stomach. The snake hasn’t taught her that trick yet. Maybe he can see some of them: the bloody pages of a rose-covered notebook, a strip of mangled leather tied around the edge of a wickedly curved claw, the rounded corner of a crimson box…

And the flash of a years-old golden chain wrapped around the muscle that keeps on beat, beat, beating even years after her death.

Does he remember?

A girl and boy sit on the beige carpet of a college apartment, books spread across the coffee table in front of them. She’s in a long pink cable knit sweater with knee-high socks and otherwise bare legs, and he’s cross-legged in chinos and a polo. He’s laughing as he reads something over her shoulder; mock scowling, she gives him a playful shove.

‘You promised,’ she says.

’It’s just silly,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘You really have to learn this?’

‘They said it was on the test.’

‘Remind me which class has you studying the healing properties of crystals and… chakras.’

‘Esthi school,’ she mutters, cheeks turning red when he laughs again.

‘Do they really expect people to believe all this? Do you believe all this?’

‘I think stones can be good for some things,’ she says, turning to look at him with a gleam in her eye, ‘like whacking sense into mean boyfriends who promi—’

Her words cut off into a playful shriek when he launches himself at her, taking both of them to the ground in a tangle of limbs. He stretches her arms above her head, pinning her beneath him.

‘Mean?’ he breathes into the crook of her neck. She shivers. ‘Would a mean boyfriend do this?’ He kisses her jaw, the long line of her neck when she stretches it out. ‘Or this?’ He kisses her bare shoulder, then slowly slides her shirt up to expose her stomach, kissing her there as well. ‘Or… this?’ His mouth slides lower.

The couple loses themselves in each other.

Does he remember?

Weeks later. The same couple, the same apartment, a tiny Christmas tree in the corner with a single red ornament dangling from a string, mugs of hot cocoa on a familiar coffee table. They’re curled beneath a blanket on the couch.

‘Mine first,’ he says. He hands her a neatly wrapped box, eyes on her softly smiling face. She accepts the gift and starts to open it, sliding a nail beneath the tape holding it together.

‘You can tell me if you don’t like it,’ he says, suddenly nervous, ‘if you think it’s sil—’

’I’m sure I won’t,’ she interrupts gently. He swallows and nods, watching her pull open the paper. A white box rests within. She opens the lid and breathes in wonder.

’It’s from your books,’ he says in a rush. ‘The heart one is green, right? Well, emerald is green. I looked it up. Free-flowing energy that directly empowers the heart center. Love, compassion, sensuality. It’s my birth stone. And the lilies are for you. Flores. I thought—’

’It’s us,’ she says, lifting the necklace from the box.


It’s us. It’s you and it’s me. Together.’ Tears shine in her eyes when she brings them back to his face. ‘I love it. I’ll keep it with me. Always. It’ll remind me… remind me of you. Of us. Of this.’ She leans forward, holding the necklace in her hand while she brings him into an embrace.

’It’s perfect.’

Does he remember?

She does.

Silently, she lifts a hand.

GM: Maybe he does remember, that happy memory from literally another lifetime ago. Back when they were both alive. Back when there was nothing between them and everything ahead of them. Back when they were a simple college romance.

But that was another lifetime ago.

That was two lives ago.

Roderick seizes the necklace out of Celia’s hand, throws it on the ground, and stomps his foot over it. The green stone shatters into pieces.

Contempt smolders in his cold eyes.

That’s all these reminders of the past are to him, Celia sees. More manipulations. More tugs upon his heartstrings, meant to distract him from the truth. She is a lying and dishonest creature, weaponizing every good and beautiful memory, using it to bury the ugly truth of her misdeeds.

He thrusts the letter at her.

“Yes or no, Celia. Every remaining lie is on here. Yes, or no.”

Celia: She wonders if tomorrow she’ll think it was worth it. Trying to keep him. Trying to hold onto something that burns every time she touches it.

Celia stares up at the boy she once loved, the boy who once loved her.

There’s nothing left for her to say.

She just nods.

GM: Perhaps Roderick will wonder the same thing.

Trying to hold onto something that burns every time he touches it.

Trying to get the truth, and getting more lies every time.

But for now, he stares down at the letter in his hands, and he reads.

He reads how she cheated on him with Gui and Gamberro last Saturday.

He reads how she she blood bound his sister.

He reads how she never gave Carolla to vampire hunters.

He reads how she is ‘addicted’ to sex, sought out Malkavians, merged her mother with Lucy, Dani’s rape, Maxen’s demon, who actually threw Diana off the roof, why she lied.

It’s everything.

Almost everything.

Everything except her sire, and truth of how the place Roderick holds in her heart has always been shared by another, another whom she is bound to by chains of blood.

Everything except his sire, and the truth of how she never lied to him, never betrayed him, and Savoy is the dark hand behind all of his pain and shattered faith.

Almost everything.

Like last time.

Like before last time.

Like it has been every time.

Celia: In fairness, she’d tried to tell him about her sire. Had fought and struggled and jerked against the chains around her heart and throat.

She hadn’t been strong enough to contest his will.

While he reads, she puts herself back together. She starts with her stomach, pushing and pulling at muscle, tendon, and flesh until there’s just a tiny slit. She pinches it closed. Then her tongue, putting it back in her mouth and blindly groping for the severed edge so she can smooth that over, too.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have bothered. No doubt in a moment he’ll tear her open again.

When it’s done she doesn’t speak. She waits. Silently. Always waiting.

Like she has for her sire, night after night.

It’s no different this time.

She’ll wait long enough to be disappointed.

She’ll be left alone.

She’ll cry and lick her wounds once he’s gone, never mentioning the shattered pieces he left inside of her.

GM: But first, Celia shatters him to pieces, with the truth of more lies and sins finally dragged into the light.

Again.

The rage overtakes her lover like an erupting volcano. Celia sees it coming before he even finishes the page. Before an inferno stares out from his eyes. Before the soul-deep howl tears from his lips. Before the legendary Brujah rage, held so long and desperately at bay, finally and inevitably bursts through to destroy all in its path.

Celia sees it coming.

She slams the door shut just in time as she blurs from the room, escaping the unleashed monster within. Thunderous booms sound, again and again and again, as she listens from the other side. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Each one a blow that would shatter some piece of her too-fragile flesh and bone. Each one a blow that would pay back the hurt she has inflicted upon his heart with hurt upon her body. How much did she pay to build the frenzy room again? However much she did, it was a bargain. It was the bargain of a lifetime.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Celia: Of course she’d seen it coming.

Both other times she’d told him the truth he’d lost it on her, too.

She stands outside the door and listens to him vent his frustration on the walls. She imagines it’s her in there. How many blows to her face? How many to her body? How many before she’s beaten into torpor? Would her grandsire care if the Brujah dropped her off at the Evergreen?

No. Not if it kept Roderick on his side.

The knife in her gut twists.

Her sire had beaten her too. But his was a cold, methodical infliction of agony. A lesson. Roderick’s is nothing but a blast wave at the thing that hurt him the most.

For long moments she stares at the door. Is this the time it finally comes off the hinges? What will he do when he finds her out here, naked and unarmed? She yanks her clothing on at the thought.

This was a mistake. She should have quietly let them kill Gui and crept out once they were gone to pick up the broken pieces of her Requiem.

She doesn’t want the door to open. She doesn’t want to face him.

GM: But since when has anyone gotten what they want?

The door opens, the puzzle lock on the other side solved by a lucid mind.

Roderick walks out.

He looks paler.

He looks colder.

He looks as if a little more of himself has died inside.

So many things have driven him here. So many traumas and tragedies. His sister’s Embrace. His first murders. The countless lies and betrayals he’s caught Celia in. The ‘betrayal’ by his sire that pushed him into Savoy’s welcoming arms. Now still more betrayals at Celia’s hands. Still more lies exposed.

Another push down whatever dark road he is on.

Who can say where it shall end?

He looks Celia over.

He says nothing.

Celia sees it on his face, though.

Contempt.

He removes his phone from his pocket and taps into it.

After a moment, he tucks the phone away. He starts to walk away.

“Come along, Celia.”

Celia: She should have run.

Should have hidden.

Like a coward.

Which of his new friends is he taking her to? Which of them is going to carve her open? Will he watch, or will he want to do it himself?

He could do it here, if that was his goal.

Maybe he’s taking her to Savoy to ask for the pleasure of it. Or Don Carolla, to blame her for his nephew’s death. Maybe they’ll string her up on the table next to Gui like he had threatened.

But he doesn’t need to leave the spa to hurt her. And the past two nights she’d been taken to a second location after being staked, where things had gone from bad to worse.

“No,” Celia says. She lifts her chin. “We don’t need an audience for whatever retribution you plan. Just do it here.”

GM: “I’ll deal with you later,” replies Roderick. “No, this is something else you need to see first.”

Celia: “I’m not going to watch you torture and murder someone.”

GM: “Have it your way, I suppose, Celia.”

Celia: What does that mean? She falters. Then she takes a step after him.

GM: Before Celia can do so, she suddenly goes rigid as a wooden stake pierces her chest. She topples over backwards. Her head crashes against the floor.

Celia: Three for three. She stares up at the ceiling.

GM: “That was very stupid of you to say, Celia.”

Celia: She continues to stare.

GM: Roderick slings Celia over his shoulder like an ungainly sack of potatoes. He starts towards the door.

“Come along, now,” he repeats, like he’s inviting her. He smiles as he says the words. It’s a dead smile. There’s no humor in his voice.

“We’re taking a field trip.”

---

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